Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [420]
The priestesses of Avalon drink only water from the Sacred Well. . . . Again she was the young Morgaine, sleeping within the walls of her own place. She went to bed and slept like a child.
She never knew what woke her. There was a step in the room, and silence. By the last flicker of the dying firelight and the flooding light of the moon through the shutters, she saw a veiled form, and for a moment she thought that Niniane had come to speak with her; but the hair that flowed over the shoulders was long and dark and the dark face beautiful and still. On one hand she could see the darkened, thickened patch of an ancient scar . . . Raven! She sat up and said, “Raven! Is it you?”
Raven’s fingers covered her lips, in the old gesture of silence; she came to Morgaine’s side, bent over her and kissed her. Without a word, she threw off her long cloak and lay down at Morgaine’s side, taking her in her arms. In the dimness Morgaine could see the rest of the scars running up along the arm and across the pale heavy breast . . . neither of them spoke a word, then, nor in the time that followed. It seemed that the real world and Avalon had both slipped away, and again she was in the shadows of the fairy country, held close in the arms of the lady. . . . Morgaine heard in her mind the words of the ancient blessing of Avalon, as Raven touched her slowly, with ritual silence and significance, and the sound seemed to shiver around her in the silence. Blessed be the feet that have brought you to this place . . . blessed the knees that shall bend before her altar . . . blessed be the gate of Life. . . .
And then the world began to flow and change and move around her, and for a moment it was not Raven in the silence, but a form edged in light, whom she had seen once, years before, at the time when she crossed the great silence . . . and Morgaine knew that she too was glowing in light . . . still the deep flowing silence. And then it was only Raven again, lying close to her with her hair perfumed with the herbs they used in the rites, one arm flung over her, her silent lips just touching Morgaine’s cheek. Morgaine could see that there were long pale streaks of white in the dark hair.
Raven stirred and raised herself up. Still she did not speak, but she took from somewhere a silver crescent, the ritual ornament of a priestess. Morgaine knew, with a catch of breath, that it was the one she had left on her bed in the House of Maidens on that day when she had fled forth from Avalon with Arthur’s child in her womb . . . silent, after a gasp of half-voiced protest, she let Raven bind it about her neck; but Raven showed her briefly, by the last glint of the setting moon, the flash of a knife blade bound about her own waist. Morgaine nodded, knowing that Viviane’s ritual knife would never again while she lived leave her side; she was content that Raven should bear the one she herself had abandoned until one day she saw it bound about Nimue’s waist.
Raven took the little razor-sharp knife, and Morgaine watched, stilled into a dream, as she raised it; so be it, even if she wishes here to shed my blood before the Goddess I tried to flee . . . but Raven turned the knife toward her own throat; from the breastbone she pricked a single drop of blood, and Morgaine, bowing her head, took the knife and made a slight cut over her heart.
We are old, Raven and I, we shed blood no longer from the womb but from the heart . . . and wondered afterward what she had meant. Raven bent to her and licked the blood away from the small cut; Morgaine bent and touched her lips to the small, welling stain at Raven’s breast, knowing that this was a sealing long past the vows she had taken when she came to womanhood. Then Raven drew her again into her arms.
I gave up my maidenhood to the Horned One. I bore a child to the God. I burned with passion for Lancelet,