Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [346]
“I said, no, I do not want any wine, I am weary of wine for breakfast,” Gwenhwyfar remarked. “Perhaps Elaine could find some new milk in the kitchens—Morgaine? Have you gone into a swoon?”
Morgaine blinked and stared at Gwenhwyfar. Slowly she came back, trying to focus her eyes. None of it was true, she was not riding madly along the shores of a lake with the scabbard in her hand . . . yet all this place had the look of the fairy world, as if she saw everything through rippling water, and it was somehow like a dream she had had once, if she could only remember . . . and even while she assured the other women that she was quite all right, promising to go herself to the dairy for fresh milk if there was none in the kitchen, still her mind led her through the labyrinths of the dream . . . if she could only remember what it was that she had dreamed, all would be well. . . .
But as she went down into the fresh air, cool even in summer, she felt no longer as if this world might melt at any moment into the world of fairy. Her head ached as if it had been split asunder, and all that day she was held captive by the strange spell of her waking dream. If only she could remember . . . she had flung Excalibur into the Lake, that was it, so that the fairy queen might not have it . . . no, that was not it, either . . . and her mind would begin again to try and unreel the strange obsessive path of her dream.
But past noon, when the sun was falling toward evening, she heard the horns announcing Arthur’s arrival, and felt the stir which ran all through Camelot. With the other women she ran out to the earthworks at the edge of the heights and watched the royal party riding toward them, banners flying. Gwenhwyfar was trembling at her side. She was taller than Morgaine, but somehow, with her slender pale hands and the fragility of her narrow shoulders, it seemed to Morgaine that Gwenhwyfar was only a child, a tall, lanky child, nervous at some imaginary mischief which must be punished. She touched Morgaine’s sleeve with her trembling hand.
“Sister—must my lord know? It is done and Meleagrant is dead. There is no reason for Arthur to make war on anyone. Why should he not think that my lord Lancelet reached me in time—in time to prevent—” Her voice was only a thin treble, like a little girl’s, and she could not speak the words.
“Sister,” said Morgaine, “it is for you to tell or not.”
“But—if he heard it elsewhere—”
Morgaine sighed; could not Gwenhwyfar have said for once what she meant? “If Arthur hears aught to distress him, he will not hear it from me, and there is no other has the right to speak. But he cannot lay it to your charge that you were trapped and beaten into submission.”
And then she knew, as if she had heard it, the voice of a priest speaking to the trembling Gwenhwyfar—was it now or when Gwenhwyfar was a child?—saying that no woman was ever ravished save she had tempted some man to it, as Eve led our first father Adam into sin; that the Holy Virgin martyrs of Rome had willingly died rather than lay down their chastity . . . it was this made Gwenhwyfar tremble. Somewhere in her mind, dismiss it how she might or try to smother the knowledge in Lancelet’s arms, she truly believed it was her fault, that she merited death for the sin of having lived to be ravaged. And since she had not died first, Arthur had the right to kill her for it . . . no reassurances would ever quiet that voice in Gwenhwyfar’s mind.
She feels this guilt over Meleagrant so that she need feel none for what she has done with Lancelet. . . .
Gwenhwyfar was shivering at her side, despite the warm sun.