Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [424]
“My parents gave me their best gift,” Gwydion said, “the royal blood of Avalon. And one more thing I ask of you, lady Morgaine.” Irrationally she wished he had called her, just once, by the name of Mother.
“Ask, and if I can give, it is yours.”
Gwydion said, “It is not a great gift. Surely not more than five years hence, Queen Morgaine, you will lead me to look on Arthur and let him know that I am his son. I am aware"—a quick, disturbing smile—"that he cannot acknowledge me as his heir. But I wish him to look on the face of his son. I ask no more than that.”
She bent her head. “Surely I owe you that much, Gwydion.”
Gwenhwyfar might think what she liked—Arthur had already done penance for this. No man could be other than proud of this grave and priestly young Druid. Nor should she . . . after all these years, she knew it . . . feel shame for what had been, as now she knew she had felt it all these years since she fled from Avalon. Now that she saw her son grown, she bowed before the inevitability of Viviane’s Sight.
She said, “I vow to you that day will come, I swear it by the Sacred Well.” Her eyes blurred, and angrily she blinked back the rebellious tears. This was not her son; Uwaine, perhaps, was her son, but not Gwydion. This dark, handsome young man so like the Lancelet she had loved as a girl, he was not her son looking for the first time on the mother who had abandoned him before he was weaned; he was priest and she priestess of the Great Goddess, and if they were no more to each other than that, at least they were no less.
She put her hands to his bent head and said, “Be thou blessed.”
13
Queen Morgause had long ceased to repine that she had not the Sight. Yet twice, in the last days of falling leaves, when the red larch trees stood bare in the icy wind that blew over Lothian, she dreamed of her foster-son Gwydion; and she was not at all surprised when one of her servant folk told her that a rider was on the road.
Gwydion wore a strangely colored cloak, coarse and with a clasp of bone such as she had never seen, and when she would have wrapped him in her arms, he shrank away, wincing.
“No, Mother—” He put his free arm around her and explained, “I caught a sword cut there in Brittany—no, it is not serious,” he reassured her. “It did not fester and perhaps I shall not even have a scar, but when it is touched it cries out to me!”
“You have been fighting in Brittany, then? I thought you safe in Avalon,” she remonstrated, as she led him within and set him by the fire. “I have no southern wine for you—”
He laughed. “I am weary of it—barley beer is enough for me, or some of the firewater if you have it . . . with hot water and honey if there is any. I am stiff with riding.” He let one of the women draw off his boots and hang his cloak to dry, leaning back at ease.
“So good it is to be here, Mother—” He set the steaming cup to his lips and drank with pleasure.
“And you came so far, riding in the cold with a wound? Was there some great tidings that needed to tell?”
He shook his head. “None—I was homesick, no more,” he said. “It’s all so green and lush and damp there, with fog and church bells . . . I longed for the clean air of the fells, and the gulls’ cry, and your face, Mother . . .” He reached out for the cup he had set down, and she saw the serpents about his wrists. She was not greatly versed in the lore of Avalon, but she knew they were the sign of the highest rank of the priesthood. He saw her glance and nodded, but said nothing.
“Was it in Brittany you got that ugly cloak, so coarse-woven and low, fit only for a serving-man?”
He chuckled. “It kept the rain from me. I took it from a great chief of the foreign lands, who fought under the legions of that man who called himself Emperor Lucius. Arthur’s men made short work of that one, believe me, and there was plunder for all—I have a silver cup and a golden ring in my packs for you, Mother.”
“You fought in the armies of Arthur?” Morgause asked. She had never thought he would do this; he saw the surprise in