Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [379]
“And under the Roman law,” said Uriens, “I suppose, as your husband, my dear, I am Duke of Cornwall.”
Again Morgaine felt the surge of violent anger. Only when I am dead and buried, she thought. Uriens cares nothing for Cornwall, only that Tintagel, like myself, is his property, bearing the mark of his ownership! Would that I could go there, live there alone as Morgause at Lothian, my own mistress with none to command me. . . . A picture came in her mind, the queen’s chamber at Tintagel, and she seemed very small, she was playing with an old spindle on the floor. . . . If Uriens dares to lay claim to an acre of Cornwall, I will give him six feet of it, and dirt between his teeth!
“Tell me now your news of this country,” said Accolon. “The spring was late—I see the plowmen are just getting into the fields.”
“But they have nearly done with plowing,” said Maline, “and Sunday they will go to bless the fields—”
“And they are choosing the Spring Maiden,” said Uwaine. “I was down in the village, and I saw them choosing among all the pretty girls . . . you were not here last year, Mother,” he said to Morgaine. “They choose the prettiest of all for the Spring Maiden, and she walks in the procession around the fields when the priest comes to bless it . . . and there are dancers who dance round the fields . . . and they carry an image made from the last harvest, made from the barley straw. Father Eian does not like that,” he said, “but I don’t know why not, it is so pretty. . . .”
The priest coughed and said self-consciously, “The blessing of the church should be enough—why should we need more than the word of God to make the fields grow and blossom? The straw image they carry is a memory of the bad old days when men and animals were burned alive so that their lives should make the fields fertile, and the Spring Maiden a memory of—well, I will not speak before children of that evil and idolatrous custom!”
“There was a day,” said Accolon, speaking directly to Morgaine, “when the queen of the land was the Spring Maiden, and the Harvest Lady as well, and she did that office in the fields, that the fields might have life and fertility.” Morgaine saw at his wrists the faint blue shadow of the serpents of Avalon.
Maline made the sign of the cross and said primly, “God be thanked that we live among civilized men.”
Accolon said, “I doubt you would be asked to do that office, sister-in-law.”
“No,” said Uwaine, tactless as any boy, “she is not pretty enough. But our mother is, isn’t she, Accolon?”
“I am glad you think my queen is handsome,” said Uriens hastily, “but the past is past—we do not burn cats and sheep alive in the fields, nor kill the king’s scapegoat to scatter his blood there, and it is no longer needful that the queen should bless the fields in that way.”
No, thought Morgaine. Now all is sterile, now we have priests with their crosses, forbidding the lighting of the fires of fertility—it is a miracle the Lady does not blight the fields of grain, since she is angry at being denied her due. . . .
Soon after, the household went to rest; Morgaine, the last to rise from her seat, went to supervise the locks and bars, and then went, with a small lamp in her hand, to make sure Accolon had been given a good bed—Uwaine and his foster-brothers were now occupying the room that had been his when he lived here as a boy.
“Is all well with you here?”
“Everything I could desire,” said Accolon, “except a lady to grace my chamber. My father is a fortunate man, lady. And you well deserve to be the wife of a king, not of a king’s younger son.”
“Must you always taunt me?” she burst out. “I have told you; I was given