Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [421]
When she woke she was alone. Opening her eyes into the sunlight of Avalon, weeping with joy, she wondered for a moment if she had dreamed. Yet over her heart was a small stain of dried blood; and on the pillow beside her lay the silver crescent, the ritual jewel of a priestess, which she had left when she fled from Avalon. Yet surely Raven had bound it about her throat. . . .
Morgaine tied it around her neck on its slender thong. It would never leave her again; like Viviane, she would be buried with this about her neck. Her fingers shook as she knotted the leather, knowing this was a reconsecration. There was something else on the pillow, and for a moment it shifted and changed, an unopened rosebud, a blown rose, and when Morgaine took it into her hand, it was the rose-hip berry, full and round and crimson, pulsing with the tart life of the rose. As she watched, it shrank, withered, lay dried in her hand; and Morgaine suddenly understood.
Flower and even fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.
With a long sigh, Morgaine tied the seed into a scrap of silk, knowing that she must go forth again from Avalon. Her work was not completed, and she had chosen the place of her work and her testing when she fled forth from Avalon. One day, perhaps, she might return, but that time had not yet come.
And what I am must be hidden, as the rose lies hidden within the seed. She rose then and put on the garments of the queen. The robe of a priestess should be hers again one day, but she had yet to earn again the right to wear it. Then she sat and waited for Niniane to summon her.
When she came into the central room where she had faced Viviane so often, time swooped and circled and turned on itself so that for a moment it seemed to Morgaine that she must see Viviane sitting where she had so often sat, dwarfed by the high seat and yet impressive, filling the whole room . . . then she blinked, and it was Niniane there, tall and slight and fair; it seemed to Morgaine that Niniane was no more than a child, sitting in play in the high seat.
And then what Viviane had said to her when she stood before her, so many years ago, suddenly rushed over her: you have reached a stage where obedience may be tempered with your own judgment . . . and for a moment it seemed to her that her best judgment was to turn aside now, to say to Niniane only such words as might reassure her. And then the surge of resentment came over her at the thought that this child, this foolish and ordinary girl in the dress of a priestess, was presuming to sit where Viviane had sat and to give orders in the name of Avalon. She had been chosen only because she was of the blood of Taliesin. . . . How does she dare sit here and presume to give orders to me . . . ?
She looked down at the girl, knowing, without being certain how, that she had taken upon herself the old glamour and majesty, and then, with a sudden surge of the Sight, it seemed to her that she read Niniane’s thoughts.
She should be here in my place, Niniane was thinking, how can I speak with authority to Queen Morgaine of the Fairies . . . and the thought was blurred, half with awe of the strange and powerful priestess before her, and half with simple resentment, if she had not fled from us and forsworn her duty, I would not now be struggling to fill a place for which we both know I am not fit.
Morgaine came and took her hands, and Niniane was surprised at her gentle voice.
“I am sorry, my poor girl, I would give my very life to return here and take the burden from you. But I cannot, I dare not. I cannot hide here and shirk my given task because I long for my home.” It was no longer arrogance, nor contempt for the girl who had been thrust, unwilling, into