Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [354]
She poured the spiced wine into a flask and put it aside. Then she heard a cry, and Elaine rushed into her room.
“Oh, Morgaine, come at once, we need your work with simples—Father and Lancelet have slain the dragon, but they are both burned. . . .”
“Burned? What nonsense is this? Do you believe truly that dragons fly and belch fire?”
“No, no,” Elaine said impatiently, “but the creature spat some slime at them and it burns like fire—you must come and dress their wounds. . . .”
Disbelieving, Morgaine glanced at the sky outside. The sun was hovering, a bare hand span above the western horizon; she had sat here most of the day. She went quickly, calling to the maids for bandage linen.
Pellinore had a great burn along one arm—yes, it looked very much like a burn; the fabric of his tunic was eaten away by it, and he roared with anguish as she poured healing salve on it. Lancelet’s side was burned slightly, and on one leg the stuff had eaten through his boots, leaving the leather only a thin jellylike substance covering his leg. He said, “I should clean my sword well. If it can do that to the leather of a boot, think what it would have done to my leg . . .” and shuddered.
“So much for all those who thought my dragon only a fantasy,” said Pellinore, raising his head and sipping the wine his daughter gave him. “And thanks be to God that I had the wit to bathe my arm in the lake, or the slime would have eaten my arm as it dissolved my poor dog—did you see the corpse, Lancelet?”
“The dog? Yes,” said Lancelet, “and hope never to see that kind of death again. . . . But you can confound them all when you hang the dragon’s head over your gate—”
“I cannot,” said Pellinore, crossing himself. “There was no proper bone to it at all, it was all soft like a grub or an earthworm . . . and it has already withered away to slime. I tried to cut the head and the very air seemed to eat away at it. . . . I do not think it was a proper beast at all, but something straight from hell!”
“Still it is dead,” Elaine said, “and you have done what the King bade you, made an end once and for all of my father’s dragon.” She kissed her father, saying with tender apology, “Forgive me, sir, I thought, too, that your dragon was all fancy—”
“Would to God it had been,” Pellinore said, crossing himself yet again. “I would rather be a mockery from here to Camelot than face any such thing again! I wish I thought there were no more such beasts . . . Gawaine has told tales of what lives in the lochs yonder.” He signalled to the potboy for more wine. “I think it would be well to get drunk this night, or I shall see that beast in nightmares for the next month!”
Would that be best? Morgaine wondered. No, if all about the castle were drunk, it would not fit her plans at all. She said, “You must listen to what I say, if I am to care for your wounds, sir Pellinore. You must drink no more, and you must let Elaine take you to bed with hot bricks at your feet. You have lost some blood, and you must have hot soup and possets, but no more wine.”
He grumbled but he listened to her, and when Elaine had taken him away, with his body servants, Morgaine was left alone with Lancelet.
“So,” she said, “how would you best celebrate your killing of your first dragon?”
He lifted his cup and said, “By praying that it will be my last. I truly thought my hour had come. I would rather face a whole horde of Saxons with no more than my axe!”
“The Goddess grant you have no more such encounters, indeed,” Morgaine said, and filled his cup with the spiced wine. “I have made this for you, it is medicinal and will soothe your hurts. I must go and see that Elaine has Pellinore safely tucked away for the night—”
“But you will come back, kinswoman?” he said, holding her lightly by one wrist; she saw the wine beginning to burn in him. And more than the wine, she thought; an encounter with death sends a man ready for rutting. . . .
“I will come back,