Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [390]
“Uriens?” Niniane laughed, a scoffing laugh. “He is older than those same hills, Kevin! What can he do for those folk?”
“Nor did I speak of Uriens,” said Kevin. “Had you forgotten? Morgaine is there, and the Old People have accepted her as their queen. She will protect them, even against Uriens, while she lives. Had you forgotten that the son of Uriens had teaching here, and wears the serpents about his wrists?”
Niniane was silent for a moment, motionless. At last she said, “I had forgotten that. He was not the elder son, so I thought he would never reign—”
“The elder son is a fool,” said Kevin, “though the priests think him a good successor to his father, and from their view, he is so—pious and simple and he will not interfere with their church. The priests trust not the second son—Accolon—because he wears the serpents. And, since Morgaine has come there, he has remembered it, and serves her as his queen. And for the folk of the hills she is queen, too, whoever may sit on the throne in the Roman fashion. For them, the king is he who dies yearly among the deer, but the queen is eternal. And it may be that in the end Morgaine will do what Viviane left undone.”
Niniane could hear, with a detached surprise, the bitterness in her own voice. “Kevin, not for one day since Viviane died and they came to set me here, have I been allowed to forget that I am not Viviane, that after Viviane I am nothing. Even Raven follows me with her great silent eyes that say always, You are not Viviane, you cannot do the work Viviane spent her life to do. I know it well—that I was chosen only because I am the last of Taliesin’s blood and there was no other, that I am not of the royal line of the Queen of Avalon! No, I am not Viviane, and I am not Morgaine, but I have served faithfully here in this place when I sought it never and when it was thrust upon me because of Taliesin’s blood. I have been faithful to my vows—is this nothing to anyone?”
“Lady,” said Kevin gently, “Viviane was such a priestess as comes not into this world more than once in many hundreds of years, even in Avalon. And her reign was long—she ruled here for nine-and-thirty years, and very few of us can remember before her time. Any priestess who must follow in her steps would feel herself less in comparison. There is nothing for which you must reproach yourself. You have been faithful to your vows.”
“As Morgaine was not,” said Niniane.
“True. But she is of the blood royal of Avalon, and she bore the heir to the King Stag. It is not for us to judge her.”
“You defend her because you were her lover—” Niniane flared, and Kevin raised his head. She had not realized; set within the dark and twisted face, his eyes were blue, like the very center of flame. He said quietly, “Would you try to pick a quarrel with me, Lady? That is over and gone years since, and when last I saw Morgaine, she called me traitor and worse, and drove me from her presence with harsh words such as no man with blood in his veins could forgive. Do you think I love her too well? But it is not my place to judge her, nor yours. You are the Lady of the Lake. Morgaine is my queen, and Queen of Avalon. She does her work in the world as you do yours here—and I where the Gods lead me. And they led me this spring into the fen country, where, at the court of a Saxon who calls himself king under Arthur, I saw Gwydion.”
Niniane had been schooled in her long training to keep her face impassive; but she knew that Kevin, who had had the same teaching, could see that she must do so with an effort, and felt that somehow those sharp eyes could read within her. She wanted to ask news of him, but instead she said only, “Morgause told me that he has some knowledge of strategy and is no coward in battle. How fared he, then, among those barbarians who would rather batter out brains with their great clubs than make use of them at their courts? I knew he went south to the Saxon kingdoms because one of them wished for a Druid at court who could read and write and knew something