Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [359]
“Truly?” Gwenhwyfar said, a hint of scorn in her voice. “Yet I was only something my father gave you with a hundred horsemen, just a part of the bargain—and you took me dutifully to get the horses—but I was a bad bargain—”
He raised his eyes and stared at her with a blue incredulous gaze. “Have you been thinking of that and holding it against me all these years, my Gwen? But surely you must know that since the first moment that I looked on your face, no one could be dearer to me than you!” he said and wound his arms around her. She was rigid, blinking back tears, and he kissed her at the corner of her eye. “Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar, could you think—you are my wife, beloved, my own dear wife, and nothing on earth could part us. If I wanted only a brood mare to get me sons, God knows I could have had enough of them!”
“But you have not,” she said, still stiff and cold in his arms. “I would willingly take your son to foster, and bring him up as your heir. But you thought me not worthy to foster your son . . . and it was you who pushed me into Lancelet’s arms—”
“Oh, my Gwen,” he said, and his face was rueful like a punished child. “Do you hold it against me, that old madness? I was drunk, and it seemed to me that you loved Lancelet well . . . I thought to give you pleasure, and if it might truly be so, that it was my fault you did not bear, then you could have a child by one so close to me that I could in good conscience call whatever child came of that night, my own heir. But mostly it was that I was drunk—”
“At times,” she said, her face set like stone, “it has seemed to me that you loved Lancelet more than me. Can you say in truth that it was to give me pleasure, or was it for the pleasure of him you loved best of all—?”
He dropped his arm from her neck as if he were stung. “Is it a sin, then, to love my kinsman and think, too, of his pleasure? It is true, I love you both—”
“In Holy Writ it speaks of that city that was destroyed for such sins,” said Gwenhwyfar.
Arthur was as white as his shirt. “I love my kinsman Lancelet with all honor, Gwen; King David himself wrote of his cousin and kinsman Jonathan, Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman, and God smote him not. It is so with comrades in battle. Dare you to say that such a love is a sin, Gwenhwyfar? I will avow it before the throne of God—” He stopped, unable to force further sound through his dry throat.
Gwenhwyfar heard her own voice cracking with hysteria.
“Can you swear that when you brought him to our bed . . . I saw it then, you touched him with more love than ever you have given the woman my father forced on you—when you led me into this sin, can you swear it was not your own sin, and all your fine talk no more than a cover for that very sin that brought down fire from Heaven on the city of Sodom?”
He stared at her, still deathly white. “You are certainly mad, my lady. On that night you speak of—I was drunk, I know not what you may have thought you saw. It was Beltane, and the force of the Goddess was with us all. I think all your prayers and thoughts of sin have turned your mind, my Gwen.”
“No Christian man would say so!”
“And that is one reason why I like not to call myself a Christian!” he shouted back at her, losing patience at last. “I am tired of all this talk of sin! If I had put you away from me—aye, and I was counselled to do so, and would not because I loved you too well—and taken another woman—”
“No! Rather would you share me with Lancelet, and have him too—”
“Say that again,” he said very low, “and wife or no, love or no, I will kill you, my Gwenhwyfar!”
But she was sobbing hysterically now and could not stop herself. “You say you wished for a son, and so you led me into such sin as God cannot pardon—if I have sinned, and God has punished me with barrenness, was it not you who led me into that sin? And even now, it is Lancelet’s son is your heir. Can you dare say it is not Lancelet you love best, when you make his son your heir and not your own son, when you will not give me your son to foster for you—”
“Let me call your