Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [317]
“But you do not know all,” he whispered. “As we lay together—never, never had anything so—so—” He swallowed and fumbled to put into words what Morgaine could not bear to hear. “I—I touched Arthur—I touched him. I love her, oh, God, I love her, mistake me not, but had she not been Arthur’s wife, had it not been for—I doubt even she—” He choked and could not finish his sentence, while Morgaine stood utterly still, appalled beyond speech. Was this then the revenge of the Goddess—that she who loved this man without hope, should become the confidante of both him and the woman he loved, that she should be the repository of all the secret fears he could speak to no one else, the incomprehensible passions within his soul?
“Lancelet, you should not say these things to me, not to me. Some man—Taliesin—a priest—”
“What can a priest know of this?” he demanded in despair. “No man, I think, has ever felt such—God knows I hear enough of what men desire, they talk of nothing else, and now and then some man reveals something strange he may desire, but never, never, nothing so strange and evil as this! I am damned,” he cried out. “This is my punishment for desiring the wife of my king, that I should be held in this terrible bondage—even Arthur, if he knew, would hate and despise me. He knows I love Gwenhwyfar, but this not even he could forgive, and Gwenhwyfar—who knows if she, even she, would not hate and despise me—” His voice choked into silence.
Morgaine could only say the words she had been taught in Avalon. “The Goddess knows what is in the hearts of men, Lancelet. She will comfort you.”
“But this is to spurn the Goddess,” Lancelet whispered, in frozen horror. “And what of the man who sees that same Goddess in the face of the mother who bore him . . . I cannot turn to her. . . . Almost I am tempted to go and throw myself at the feet of the Christ. His priests say he can forgive any sin, however damnable, as he spoke words of forgiveness to those who crucified him. . . .”
Morgaine said sharply that she had never seen any sign that his priests were so tender and forgiving with sinners.
“Aye, no doubt you are right,” said Lancelet, staring bleakly at the flagstones. “There is no help anywhere, till I am slain in battle or ride forth from here to throw myself in the path of a dragon. . . .” He poked with his shoe at a little clump of grass that was growing up through the stones in the courtyard. “And no doubt sin and good and evil are all lies told by priests and men, and the truth is only that we grow and die and wither even as this grass here.” He turned on his heel. “Well, I will go and share Gareth’s vigil, as I promised him . . . he at least loves me in all innocence, like a younger brother or my son. I should fear to kneel before that altar, if I believed one word of what their priests say, damned as I am. And yet—how I wish there were such a God as could forgive me and let me know myself forgiven. . . .”
He turned to go, but Morgaine caught at the embroidered sleeve of the festival gown he had put on. “Wait. What is this of a vigil in the church? I knew not that Arthur’s Companions had grown so pious.”
“Arthur thinks often of his kingmaking on Dragon Island,” said Lancelet, “and he said once that the Romans with their many Gods, and the old pagan folk, had something which was needed in life, that when men took on some great obligation, they should do it prayerfully, and be in mind of its great meaning and dedication. And so he spoke with the priests, and they have made it so in ritual, that when any new Companion, not seasoned by battle—where he is tried by the very confrontation with death—when an unblooded man joins with the Companions, there is this special testing, that he shall watch and pray all night by his arms, and in the morning confess all his sins and be shriven, and then be made knight.”
“Why, then, it is a kind of initiation into the Mysteries that he would give them. But he is no maker of Mysteries, he has no right to confer the Mysteries on another or give initiation, and all