Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [347]
“They would find you too big and tough a mouthful, I am afraid, sister,” Morgaine said amiably.
Servants were heaving at the great gates, opening them for the royal party to ride through. Sir Ectorius still limped heavily from the night he had spent imprisoned in the cold, but he came forward at Cai’s side, and Cai, as keeper of his castle, bowed before Arthur.
“Welcome home, my lord and king.”
Arthur dismounted and came to embrace Cai.
“This is an overly formal welcome to my home, Cai, you rascal—is all well here?”
“All is well here now, my lord,” said Ectorius, “but once again you have cause to be grateful to your captain.”
“True,” said Gwenhwyfar, coming forward, her hand laid lightly in Lancelet’s. “My lord and king, Lancelet saved me from a trap laid by a traitor, saved me from such a fate as no Christian woman should suffer.”
Arthur laid one hand in his queen’s and the other in that of his captain of horse. “I am, as always, grateful to you, my dear friend, and so is my wife. Come, we shall speak about this in private.” And, moving between the two of them, he went up the steps into the castle.
“I wonder what manner of lies they will hurry to pour into his ears, that chaste queen and her finest of knights?” Morgaine heard the words, spoken low and very clear, from somewhere in the crowd; but she could not tell from where they came. She thought, Perhaps peace is not an unmixed blessing: without a war, there is nothing for them to do at court, with their usual occupation gone, but pass on every rumor and bit of scandal.
But if Lancelet were gone from the court, then would the scandal be quieted. And she resolved that whatever she could do to accomplish that end, would be done at once.
That night at supper Arthur asked Morgaine to bring her harp and sing to them. “It seems long since I heard your music, sister,” he said, and drew her close and kissed her. He had not done this in a long time.
“I will sing gladly,” she said, “but when will Kevin return to court?” She thought with bitterness of their quarrel; never, never should she forgive him his treason to Avalon! Yet, against her will, she missed him and thought regretfully of the time when they had been lovers.
I am weary of lying alone, that is all. . . .
But this made her think of Arthur, and her son at Avalon . . . if Gwenhwyfar should leave this court, then surely Arthur would marry again; but it looked not like that at this moment. And should Gwenhwyfar never bear a son, then should not their son be acknowledged as his father’s heir? He was doubly of royal blood, the blood of the Pendragon and of Avalon . . . Igraine was dead and the scandal could not harm her.
She sat on a carven and gilded stool near the throne, her harp on the floor at her feet; Arthur and Gwenhwyfar sat close together, hand in hand. Lancelet sprawled on the floor at Morgaine’s side, watching the harp, but now and again she saw his eyes move to Gwenhwyfar and she quailed at the terrible longing there; how could he show his heart like this to any onlooker? And then Morgaine knew that only she could see his heart—to all other eyes he was only a courtier looking respectfully at his queen, laughing and jesting with her as a privileged friend of her husband.
And as her hands moved on the strings, the world again seemed to fall into the distance, very small and far and at the same time huge and strange, things losing their shapes so that her harp seemed at once a child’s toy and something monstrous, a huge formless thing smothering her, and she was high on a throne somewhere peering through wandering shadows, looking down at a young man with dark hair, a narrow coronet around his brow, and as she looked on him, the sharp pain of desire ran down her body, she met his eyes and it was as if a hand touched her in her most private part, rousing her to hunger and longing. . . . She felt her fingers falter on the strings,