Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [414]
Again Morgaine said, “You have sworn it.”
“And if I refuse?” Elaine looked like a spitting cat ready to defend her kittens against a large and angry dog.
“If you refuse,” Morgaine’s voice was as quiet as ever, “when Lancelet comes home, he shall hear from me how this marriage was made, how you wept and begged me to put a spell on him so that he would turn from Gwenhwyfar to you. He thinks you the innocent victim of my magic, Elaine, and blames me, not you. Shall he know the truth?”
“You would not!” Elaine was white with horror.
“Try me,” Morgaine said. “I know not how Christians regard an oath, but I assure you, among those who worship the Goddess, it is taken in all seriousness. And so I took yours. I waited till you had another daughter, but Nimue is mine by your pledged word.”
“But—but what of her? She is a Christian child—how can I send her from her mother into—into a world of pagan sorceries . . . ?”
“I am, after all, her kinswoman,” Morgaine said gently. “How long have you known me, Elaine? Have you ever known me do anything so dishonorable or wicked that you would hesitate to entrust a child to me? I do not, after all, want her for feeding to a dragon, and the days are long, long past when even criminals were burnt on altars of sacrifice.”
“What will befall her, then, in Avalon?” asked Elaine, so fearfully that Morgaine wondered if Elaine, after all, had harbored some such notions.
“She will be a priestess, trained in all the wisdom of Avalon,” said Morgaine. “One day she will read the stars and know all the wisdom of the world and the heavens.” She found herself smiling. “Galahad told me that she wished to learn to read and write and to play the harp—and in Avalon no one will forbid her this. Her life will be less harsh than if you had put her to school in some nunnery. We will surely ask less of her in the way of fasting and penance before she is grown.”
“But—but what shall I say to Lancelet?” wavered Elaine.
“What you will,” said Morgaine. “It would be best to tell him the truth, that you sent her to fosterage in Avalon, that she might fill the place left empty there. But I care not whether you perjure yourself to him—you may tell him that she was drowned in the lake or taken by the ghost of old Pellinore’s dragon, for all care.”
“And what of the priest? When Father Griffin hears that I have sent my daughter to become a sorceress in the heathen lands—”
“I care even less what you tell him,” Morgaine said. “If you choose to tell him that you put your soul in pawn for my sorceries to win yourself a husband, and pledged your first daughter in return—no? I thought not.”
“You are hard, Morgaine,” said Elaine, tears falling from her eyes. “Cannot I have a few days to prepare her to go from me, to pack such things as she will need—”
“She needs not much,” said Morgaine. “A change of shift if you will, and warm things for riding, a thick cloak and stout shoes, no more than that. In Avalon they will give her the dress of a novice priestess. Believe me,” she added kindly, “she will be treated with love and reverence as the granddaughter of the greatest of priestesses. And they will—what is it your priests say—they will temper the wind to the shorn lamb. She will not be forced to austerities until she is of an age to endure them. I think she will be happy there.”
“Happy? In that place of evil sorcery?”
Morgaine said, and the utter conviction of her words struck Elaine’s heart, “I vow to you—I was happy in Avalon, and every day since I left, I have longed, early and late, to return thither. Have you ever heard me lie? Come—let me see the child.”
“I bade her stay in her room and spin in solitude till sunset. She was rude to the priest and is being punished,” said Elaine.
“But I remit the punishment,” said Morgaine. “I am now her guardian and foster-mother, and there is no longer any reason to show courtesy to that priest. Take me to her.”
They rode forth the next day at dawn. Nimue