Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [42]
Igraine put on her new gown and brushed her hair until it shone like fine copper; and when she looked at herself in the silver mirror—Gorlois had sent to the market for it, after all, and had it brought to her—she wondered with a sudden fit of despondency whether Uther would even notice her. She was beautiful, yes, but there were other women, beautiful as she was, and younger, not married women who had borne children—why should he want her, old and used as she was?
All through the long ceremonies in the church, she watched intently as Uther was sworn and anointed by their bishop. For once the psalms were not doleful hymns of God’s wrath and punishment, but joyful songs, praising and offering thanks, and the bells sounded joyous instead of wrathful. Afterward in the house which had been Ambrosius’ headquarters, there were delicacies and wine and much ceremony, as one by one, Ambrosius’ war chiefs swore allegiance to Uther.
Long before it was over, Igraine grew weary. But at last it was done, and while the chiefs and their ladies congregated around the wine and the food, she moved a little away, watching the bright gathering. And there, at last, as she had been half aware that he would, Uther found her.
“My lady of Cornwall.”
She made a deep curtsey. “My lord Pendragon, my king.”
He said roughly, “There is no need for such formalities between us now, lady,” and caught her shoulders, so much as he had done in her dream that she stared, half expecting that she would see on his arms the golden serpent torques.
But he only said, “You are not now wearing the moonstone. It was so strange, that stone. When first I saw you wearing it, it was like to a dream I had. . . . I had fever, last spring, and the Merlin attended me, and I had a strange dream, and I know now it was in that dream I first beheld you, long before ever I laid eyes on your face. I must have stared like a country lout, Lady Igraine, for I found myself struggling again and again to remember my dream, and what part you played in that dream, and the moonstone at your throat.”
She said, “I have been told that one of the virtues of the jewel, moonstone, is to awaken the true memories of the soul. I too have dreamed. . . .”
He laid a light hand on her arm. “I cannot remember. Why is it that I seem to see you wearing something gold about your wrists, Igraine? Have you a golden bracelet in the form of—of a dragon, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “Not now,” she said, paralyzed at the awareness that he had, somehow and without her full knowledge, shared that strange memory and dream.
“You will be thinking me a boor and beyond all courtesy, my lady of Cornwall. May I offer you some wine?”
Silently she shook her head. She knew that if she tried to take a cup in her hand she would shake and spill it all over herself.
“I do not know what is happening to me,” Uther said violently. “All that has happened in these days—the death of my father and king, the strife of all these kings, their choosing me for High King—it seems unreal, and you, Igraine, are the most unreal of all! Have you been to the West, where the great ring of stones stands on the plain? They say that in olden time it was a Druid temple, but the Merlin says not, it was built long before the Druids came to these lands. Have you been there?”
“Not in this life, my lord.”
“I wish I could show it to you, for I dreamed once I was there with you—oh, don’t think me a madman, Igraine, chattering always of dreams and prophecy,” he said with that sudden, boyish smile. “Let us talk very sedately of ordinary things. I am a poor Northern chief who has suddenly wakened to find himself High King of Britain, and perhaps I am