Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [331]
His rich, caressing, musical voice was so eloquent that I hesitated for a moment. Viviane was gone; it was only those same Christians who made much of consecrated or unconsecrated ground, as if all the earth which is the breast of the Mother was not holy. I wanted to fall into his arms and weep there for the only mother I had ever known, for the wreck of my own hopes that I might return to Avalon at her side, weep for all I had cast away and the breaking of my own life. . . .
But what he said then made me start away in horror.
“Viviane was old,” he said, “and she had dwelt in Avalon, sheltered from the real world. I have had to live, with Arthur, in the world where battles are won and real decisions made. Morgaine, my dearest, listen to me. It is too late to demand that Arthur keep his pledge to Avalon in that same form he gave it. Time passes, the sound of church bells covers this land, and the people are content to have it so. Who are we to say that this is not the will of the Gods that lie behind the Gods? Whether we wish it or no, my dearest love, this is a Christian land, and we who honor Viviane’s memory will do her no good by making it known to all men that she came hither to make impossible demands of the King.”
“Impossible demands?” I wrenched my hands away. “How dare you?”
“Morgaine, listen to reason—”
“Not reason but treason! If Taliesin heard this—”
“I speak as I have heard Taliesin himself speak,” he said gently. “Viviane did not live in order to undo what she has done, to create a land at peace—whether it is called Christian or Druid does not matter; the will of the Goddess will be done over all, whatever name men may call her. Who are you to say that it was not the will of the Goddess that Viviane was struck down before she could spread strife again in a land that has come to peace and successful compromise? I tell you, it shall not be torn again by strife, and if Viviane had not been struck down by Balin, I would myself have spoken against what she asked—and I think Taliesin would have said as much.”
“How dare you speak for Taliesin?”
“Taliesin himself named me the Merlin of Britain,” said Kevin, “and he must therefore have trusted me to act for him when he could not speak for himself.”
“Next you will say you have become a Christian! Why wear you not beads and a crucifix?”
He said, in such a gentle voice that I could have wept, “Do you truly think it would make such a great difference, Morgaine, if I did so?”
I knelt before him, as I had done a year ago, pressed his broken hand to my breast. “Kevin, I have loved you. For that I beg you—be faithful now to Avalon and to Viviane’s memory! Come with me now, tonight. Do not this travesty, but accompany me to Avalon, where the Lady of the Lake shall lie with the other priestesses of the Goddess. . . .”
He bent over me; I could feel the anguished tenderness in his misshapen hands. “Morgaine, I cannot. My dearest, will you not be calm and listen to the voice of reason in what I am saying?”
I stood up, flinging off his weak grip, and raising my arms, summoned the power of the Goddess. I heard my voice thrumming with the power of a priestess. “Kevin! In her name who came to you, in the name of the manhood she has given you, I lay obedience on you! Your allegiance is not to Arthur nor to Britain, but only to the Goddess and to your vows! Come now, leave this place! Come with me to Avalon, bearing her body!”
I could see in the shadows the very glow of the Goddess around me; for a moment Kevin knelt shuddering, and I know that in another moment he would have obeyed. And then, I know not what happened—perhaps it crossed my mind, No, I am not worthy, I have no right . . . I have forsaken Avalon, I cast it away, by what right then do I command the Merlin of Britain? The spell broke; Kevin made