Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [323]
“All the people of the court are at the games. Morgause’s youngest son was made knight and Companion this morning,” she said. “I think I must have known that you were coming—” and then she recalled the moment of the Sight, last night; indeed, she had known. “Why have you come here, Mother?”
“I thought you had heard how Arthur betrayed Avalon,” Viviane said. “Kevin has spoken to him in my name, but without avail. So I have come to stand here before his throne and demand justice. In Arthur’s name the lesser kings are forbidding the old worship, sacred groves have been despoiled, even on the land where Arthur’s queen rules by inheritance, and Arthur has done nothing—”
“Gwenhwyfar is overpious,” Morgaine murmured, and felt her lip cruel in disdain; so pious, yet taking her husband’s cousin and champion to her bed, with the sanction of that too-pious King! But a priestess of Avalon did not babble the secrets of the bedchamber if they came into her keeping.
It seemed that Viviane read her thoughts, for she said, “Nay, Morgaine, but a time might come when some secret knowledge might give me a weapon to force Arthur to his sworn duty. One hold, indeed, I have over him, though for your sake, child, I would not use it before his court. Tell me—” She glanced around. “No, not here. Take me where we may talk together in secret, and let me refresh myself and make myself seemly to stand before Arthur at his great feast.”
Morgaine took her to the room she shared with Gwenhwyfar’s ladies, who were all at the games; the servants were gone too, so she herself fetched Viviane water for washing, and wine to drink, and helped her to change her dusty, travel-worn clothing.
“I met with your son in Lothian,” Viviane said.
“Kevin told me.” The old pain clutched at her heart—so Viviane had gotten what she wanted of her, after all: a son of the doubled royal lines, for Avalon. “Will you make him a Druid, then, for Avalon?”
“It is too soon to know what stuff he has in him,” said Viviane. “Too long, I fear, was he left in Morgause’s keeping. But whether or no, he must be reared in Avalon, and loyal to the old Gods, so that if Arthur is false to his oath, we may remind him that there is a son of the Pendragon’s blood to take his place—we will have no king turned apostate and tyrant, forcing that god of slaves and sin and shame down the throats of our people! We set him on Uther’s throne, we can bring him down if we must, and all the more readily if there is one of the old royal line of Avalon, a son of the Goddess, to take his place. Arthur is a good king, I would be reluctant to make such threats; but if I must, I will—the Goddess orders my actions.”
Morgaine shuddered; would her child be the instrument of his father’s death? She turned her face resolutely from the Sight. “I do not think Arthur will be this false to Avalon.”
“The Goddess grant he may not,” Viviane said, “but even so, the Christians would not accept a son gotten in that rite. We must keep a place near the throne for Gwydion, so that he may be his father’s heir, and one day we will have a king born of Avalon again. The Christians, mark you, Morgaine, would think your son born out of sin; but before the Goddess he is of the purest royalty of all, mother and father born of her lineage—sacred, not evil. And he must come to think himself so, not be contaminated by priests who would tell him his begetting and birth were shameful.” She looked Morgaine straight in the eye. “You still think it shameful?”
Morgaine lowered her head. “Always you could read my heart, kinswoman.”
“Igraine’s is the fault,” said Viviane, “and mine, that I left you at Uther’s court seven years. The day I knew you priestess-born, I should have had you from there. You are priestess of Avalon, darling child, why came you never back?” She turned, the comb in her hand, her long faded hair falling along her face.
Morgaine whispered, tears forcing themselves through the barrier