Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [357]
“Can you swear that this was not your doing, Morgaine?”
I looked her straight in the eye.
“Do you begrudge your kinswoman a husband of her own, as you have one?”
She could not face me at that. And again I told myself, fiercely: Had she and Lancelet been honest with Arthur, had they fled from the court together, to live beyond Arthur’s kingdom, so that Arthur could have taken him another wife to get an heir for the kingdom, then I would not have meddled.
But from that day, Gwenhwyfar hated me; and that I regretted most, for in a strange way I had loved her. Gwenhwyfar never seemed to hate her kinswoman; she sent Elaine a rich gift and a silver cup when her son was born, and when Elaine had the boy christened Galahad, for his father, she named herself his godmother and swore that he should be heir to the kingdom if she did not give Arthur a son. Sometime that year she indeed announced she was pregnant, but nothing came of it, and I think, indeed, it was only her desire for a child, and her fancy.
The marriage was no worse than most. That year Arthur had to face war on the northern coast, and Lancelet spent little time at home. Like many husbands, he spent his time at war, coming home two or three times a year to see to their lands—Pellinore had given them a castle near his own—to receive the new cloaks and shirts Elaine wove and embroidered for him—after he married Elaine, Lancelet always dressed as fine as the King himself—to kiss his son, and later his daughters, to sleep with his wife once, or maybe twice, and then he was off again.
Elaine always seemed happy. I do not know whether she was truly happy, being one of those women who can find their best happiness in home and babes, or whether she longed for more than this and yet abode bravely by the bargain she had made.
As for me, I dwelt at court for two more years. And then, at Pentecost of the second year, when Elaine was pregnant with her second child, Gwenhwyfar had her revenge.
7
As with every year, the day of Pentecost was Arthur’s high festival. Gwenhwyfar had been awake since earliest daylight. On this day, all of those Companions who had fought at Arthur’s side should be at court, and this year Lancelet would be here too . . .
. . . last year he had not come. Word had been sent that he was in Less Britain, answering a call from his father, King Ban, who sought to settle trouble in his kingdom; but Gwenhwyfar knew in her heart why Lancelet had not come, why he had chosen to stay apart.
It was not that she could not forgive his marriage to Elaine. Morgaine and her spite had brought that about—Morgaine, who would have had Lancelet for herself and would stop at nothing to part him from the one he truly loved. Rather than see him in Gwenhwyfar’s arms, Gwenhwyfar supposed, Morgaine would have seen him in hell, or in his grave.
Arthur, too, missed Lancelet sorely, that she had seen. Although he sat in his high seat at Camelot, and dealt justice to all manner of men—he was loved, loved far more than any king Gwenhwyfar had heard tell of before this—she could see that always he looked back to the days of battle and conquest; she supposed all men were like that. Arthur would bear to his grave the scars of the wounds he had taken in his great battles. When they had fought year after year to bring peace to the land, he had spoken as if he wished for nothing more than leisure to sit at home in Camelot and enjoy his castle. Now he was never so happy as when he could get some of his old Companions about him, and fall to talking of those old evil days when there were Saxons and Jutes and wild Northmen on every hand.
She looked at Arthur where he lay sleeping. Yes, and he was still the handsomest and goodliest of all his old Companions; at times she thought he was fairer of face and better to look at even than Lancelet, though it was unfair to compare them, one so dark, one so blond. And after all they were cousins, they were of one blood . . . how, she wondered, had Morgaine come into that kindred? Perhaps indeed she was a changeling, nothing human at