Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [343]
Elaine said, surprising herself with her outburst, “Gwenhwyfar has a husband, she is wife to the High King, and her husband is the most honorable and kindly king ever to rule these lands! She has no need to look elsewhere for love! Yet how can Lancelet turn away to seek any other lady, if the Queen stretches out her hand?”
“Well,” said Morgaine, “perhaps now she and Lancelet will go forth from this court. Lancelet has lands in Less Britain, and they have loved one another long, though I think that till this mishap, they had lived as Christian man and woman.” Silently she absolved herself for the lie; what Lancelet had told her in his agony was to be held forever in the depths of her heart.
“But then would Arthur be the laughingstock of every Christian king in these islands,” said Elaine shrewdly. “If his queen should flee out of his lands with his best friend and his captain of horse, they would call him cuckold or worse.”
“I do not think Arthur will care what they say of him,” Morgaine began, but Elaine shook her head.
“No, Morgaine, but he must care. The lesser kings must respect him so that they will rally to his standard when there is need. How can they do so when he allows his wife to live in open sin with Lancelet? Yes, I know you speak of these few days. But can we be certain it will stop at that? My father is Arthur’s friend and vassal, but I think even he would mock at a king who could not rule his wife, and wonder how such a one could rule a kingdom.”
Morgaine shrugged and said, “What can we do, short of murdering the guilty pair?”
“What talk!” said Elaine with a shudder. “No, but Lancelet must leave the court. You are his kinswoman, cannot you make him see that?”
“Alas,” said Morgaine, “I fear I have but little influence with my kinsman in that way.” And inside it was as if some cold thing seized her with its teeth.
“If Lancelet were married,” said Elaine, and suddenly it seemed as if she wrenched at her own courage. “If he were married to me! Morgaine, you are wise in charms and spells, cannot you give me a charm which will turn Lancelet’s eyes from Gwenhwyfar to me? I am a king’s daughter too, and I am certainly as beautiful as Gwenhwyfar—and I at least have no husband!”
Morgaine laughed bitterly. “My spells, Elaine, can be worse than useless—ask Gwenhwyfar one day how such a spell rebounded upon her! But Elaine,” she said, suddenly serious, “would you truly travel that road?”
“I think that if he married me,” Elaine said, “he would come to see that I am no less worthy of love than Gwenhwyfar.”
Morgaine put her hand under the young woman’s chin and turned up her face. “Listen, my child,” she began, and Elaine felt that the dark eyes of the sorceress were searching into her very soul. “Elaine, this would not be easy. You have said you love him, but love when a maiden speaks so is no more than a fancy. Do you truly know what kind of a man he is? Is this a fancy which could endure for all the years of a marriage? If you wanted only to lie with him—that I could arrange easily enough. But when the glamour of the spell had worn off, he might well hate you because you had tricked him. And what then?”
Elaine said, stammering, “Even that . . . even that I will risk. Morgaine, my father has offered me to other men, but he has promised me that he will never force my will. I tell you, if I cannot marry Lancelet, I shall go behind convent walls for all of my life, I swear it. . . .” The girl’s whole body trembled, but she did not weep. “But why should I turn to you, Morgaine? Like all of us, like Gwenhwyfar herself, you would have Lancelet, whether as husband or paramour, and the King’s sister may choose for herself. . . .”
Then, for a moment, Elaine thought her eyes tricked her, for in the cold eyes of the sorceress it seemed that tears gathered. Something in her voice made Elaine’s eyes sting too. “Ah, no, child, Lancelet would not have me, even if Arthur bade him. Believe me, Elaine, you would have small happiness with Lancelet.”
Elaine said, “I do not think women have ever much happiness in marriage