Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [332]
“Woman, you do not command me! You who have renounced Avalon, by what right do you presume to give orders to the Merlin? Rather should you kneel before me!” He thrust me away with both hands. “Tempt me no more!”
He turned his back and limped away, the shadows making wavering misshapen movements on the wall as he moved from the room; I watched him go, too stricken even to weep.
And four days later Viviane was buried, with all the rites of the church, on the Holy Isle in Glastonbury. But I did not go thither.
Never, I swore, should I step foot upon that Isle of the Priests.
Arthur mourned her sincerely, and built for her a great tomb and a cairn, swearing that one day he and Gwenhwyfar should lie there at her side.
As for Balin, the Archbishop Patricius laid it upon him that he should make a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Lands; but before he could go into exile, Balan heard the tale from Lancelet and hunted him down, and the foster-brothers fought, one with another, and Balin was killed at once with a single stroke; but Balan took cold in his wounds and did not survive him a whole day. So Viviane—so they said when a song was made of it—was avenged; but what of that, when she lay in a Christian tomb?
And I . . . I did not even know whom they had chosen as Lady of the Lake in her place, for I could not return to Avalon.
. . . I was not worthy of Lancelet, I was not worthy even of Kevin . . . I could not tempt him to do his true duty to Avalon. . . .
. . . I should have gone to Taliesin and begged him, even on my knees, to take me back to Avalon, that I might atone for all my faults and return again to the shrine of the Goddess. . . .
But before the summer was ended, Taliesin was gone too; I think he never knew for certain that Viviane was dead, because even after she was buried, he spoke as if she would come soon and return with him to Avalon; and he spoke of my mother, too, as if she lived and was a little girl in the House of Maidens. And at summer’s end he died peacefully and was buried at Camelot, and even the bishop mourned him as a wise and learned man.
And in the winter after that, we heard that Meleagrant had set himself up to rule as king in the Summer Country. But when spring came, Arthur was away on a mission to the South, and Lancelet too had ridden out to see to the King’s castle at Caerleon, when Meleagrant sent a messenger under a flag of truce, begging that his sister Gwenhwyfar should come and speak with him about the rule of that country over which they both had a claim.
4
I would feel safer, and I think my lord the king would like it better, if Lancelet were here to ride with you,” Cai said soberly. “At Pentecost yonder fellow would have drawn steel in this hall before his king, and he would not await the King’s justice. Brother of yours or no, I like it not that you ride alone with only your lady and your chamberlain.”
“He is not my brother,” Gwenhwyfar said. “His mother was the king’s mistress for a time, but he put her away because he found her with another man. She claimed, and perhaps told her son, that Leodegranz was his father. The king never acknowledged it. If he were an honorable man, and such as my lord would trust, perhaps he could be regent for me as well as any other. But I will not allow him to profit by such a lie.”
“Will you trust yourself then in his hands, Gwenhwyfar?” asked Morgaine quietly.
Gwenhwyfar looked at Cai and Morgaine, shaking her head. Why did Morgaine look so calm and unafraid? Was Morgaine never afraid of anything, never touched by any emotion behind that cool, unreadable face? Rationally she knew that Morgaine, like all mortal flesh, must sometimes suffer from pain, fear, grief, anger—yet only twice had she actually seen emotion in Morgaine, and that long ago; once when Morgaine had fallen into trance and dreamed of blood on the hearth—then she had cried out in fear—and once when Viviane was slain here before her eyes and she had sunk down fainting.
Gwenhwyfar said, “I trust him not at all,