Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [37]
She whispered, “Do you truly think Lot will try and kill Uther?”
“Well, he’s no match for Uther in a fight. A knife in the back, that would be Lot’s way. I’m as well pleased he’s not one of us, though it would ease my mind if Lot were sworn to keep the peace. An oath on some holy relic he dare not flout—and even then I’d watch him,” Gorlois said.
When they were in bed he turned to her, but she shook her head and pushed him away. “Yet another day,” she said, and, sighing, he turned away and fell almost instantly asleep. She could not, she thought, put him off much longer; yet a horror had come upon her, now that she saw again the doom-fetch hanging over him. She told herself that, whatever came, she should remain a dutiful wife to this honorable man who had been kind to her. And that brought back memory of the room where Viviane and the Merlin had shattered her security and all her peace. She felt tears surging up inside her, but tried to quiet her sobs, not wanting to wake Gorlois.
The Merlin had said that he would send her a dream to cure her misery, and yet all this had begun with a dream. She was afraid to sleep, fearing another dream would come to shatter such little peace as she had found. For she knew that this thing would shatter her life, if she allowed it; lay her promised word in shreds. And, although she was not herself a Christian, she had listened enough to their preaching to know that this was, by their standards, grave sin.
If Gorlois were dead . . . Igraine caught her breath in a spasm of terror; for the first time, now, she had allowed herself to form that thought. How could she wish him dead—her husband, the father of her daughter? How could she know that, even if Gorlois were no longer standing between them, Uther would want her? How could she lie at one man’s side and long for another?
Viviane spoke as if this kind of thing happens often . . . am I simply childish and naïve, not to know?
I will not sleep lest I dream. . . .
If she went on tossing about like this, Igraine thought, Gorlois would wake. If she wept, he would wish to know why. And what could she tell him? Silently Igraine slid from the bed, wrapped her long cloak about her naked body, and went to sit by the remnants of the dying fire. Why, she wondered, staring into the flames, should the Merlin of Britain, Druid priest, adviser of kings, Messenger of the Gods, meddle this way in the affairs of a young woman’s life? For that matter, what was a Druid priest doing as king’s councillor at a court supposedly Christian?
If I think the Merlin so wise, why am I not willing to do his will?
After a long time she felt her eyes tiring as she stared at the dying fire, and wondered if she should go back and lie down at Gorlois’s side, or if she should get up and walk about, lest she sleep and risk the Merlin’s promised dream.
She rose and walked silently across the room to the house door. In her present mood she was not altogether surprised to look back and see that her body still sat, cloak-wrapped, before the fire; she did not trouble to unbolt the door of the room, nor, later, the great front door of the house, but slipped through them both like a wraith.
And yet, outside, the courtyard of the house of Gorlois’s friend was gone. She stood on a great plain, where a ring of stones stood in a great circle, just touched by the rising light of dawn . . . no; that light was not the sun, it was a great fire to the west, so that the sky stood all on fire.
To the west, where