Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [402]
Morgaine shook her head. “Is Kevin to play at this feast?”
“I have not seen him,” Lancelet said. “The Queen likes him not—the court is grown too Christian for that, though Arthur values him as a councillor and for his music as well.”
She asked him bluntly, “Are you grown a Christian too?”
“I could wish I were,” he said, sighing from the bottom of his heart. “That faith seems too simple to me—the idea that we have only to believe that Christ died for our sins once and for all. But I know too much of the truth . . . of the way life works, with life after life in which we ourselves, and only we, can work out the causes we have set in motion and make amends for the harm we have done. It stands not in the realm of reason that one man, however holy and blessed, could atone for all the sins of all men, done in all lifetimes. What else could explain why some men have all things, and others so little? No, that is a cruel trick of the priests, I think, to coax men into thinking that they have the ear of God and can forgive sins in his name—ah, I wish it were true indeed. And some of their priests are fine and sincere men.”
“I never met with one who was half so learned or so good as Taliesin,” said Morgaine.
“Taliesin was a great soul,” Lancelet said. “Perhaps one lifetime of service to the Gods cannot create so much wisdom, and he is one of the great ones who has served them for hundreds of years. Next to him, Kevin seems no more fit to be the Lord Merlin than my little son to sit on Arthur’s throne and lead his troops into battle. And Taliesin was big enough to make no quarrel with the priests, knowing they served their God as best they could, and perhaps after many lives they would learn that their God was bigger than they thought him. And I know he respected their strength to live chastely.”
“That seems to me blasphemy and a denial of life,” said Morgaine, “and I know Viviane would have thought it so.” Why, she wondered, do I stand here arguing religion with Lancelet, of all men?
“Viviane, like Taliesin, came from another world and another time,” said Lancelet. “They were giants in those days, and now we must make do with such as we have. You are so like her, Morgaine.” He smiled, a rueful half-smile, and it wrenched her heart; she remembered that he had said something like this to her . . . nay, she had dreamed it too, but she could not remember all . . . but he went on, “I see you here with your husband and your fine stepson—a credit he will be to the Companions. I always wished you happiness, Morgaine, and for so many years you seemed so unhappy, but now you are queen in your own country, and you have a good son. . . .”
Surely, she thought, what more could any woman want . . . ?
“But now I must go and pay my respects to the Queen—”
“Yes,” she said, and could not keep the bitterness from her voice. “You would be eager to do that.”
“Oh, Morgaine,” he said, dismayed, “we have known each other so long, we are all kin, cannot we let the past die? Do you despise me so much, do you still hate her as much as that?”
Morgaine shook her head. “I don’t hate either of you,” she said. “Why should I? But I thought, now you were wedded—and Gwenhwyfar too deserves to be left in peace.”
“You have never understood her,” said Lancelet hotly. “I well believe you have disliked her since you were both young girls! It is not well done of you, Morgaine! She has repented her sin, and I—well, I am wedded, as you say, to another. But I will not shun her as if she were a leper. If she wants my friendship as her husband’s kinsman, it is hers!”
Morgaine knew he spoke sincerely; well, it was nothing to her. She had now from Accolon what she had so long desired from him . . . and strangely