Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [430]
If you do, I shall do murder, Morgaine thought, but schooled her voice to gentleness and reason. “That would be wrong. The oaks give pig food and food for the country people—even here we have had to use acorn flour in a bad season. And the grove has been there for hundreds of years—the trees are sacred—”
“You sound too much a pagan yourself, Morgaine.”
“Can you say the oak grove is not the work of God?” she retorted. “Why should we punish the harmless trees because foolish men make a use of them that Father Eian does not like? I thought you loved your land.”
“Well, and so I do,” said Uriens fretfully, “but Avalloch, too, says I should cut it down, so that the pagans should have no place of resort. We might build a church or chapel there.”
“But the Old Ones are your subjects too,” Morgaine said, “and in your youth you made the Great Marriage with the land. Would you deprive the Old People of the grove that is their food and shelter, and their own chapel built by the very hands of God and not of man? Would you then condemn them to die or starve as they have done in some of the cleared lands?”
Uriens looked down at his gnarled old wrists. The blue tattoos there had almost faded and were no more than pale stains. “Well are you called Morgaine of the Fairies—the Old People could have no better advocate. Since you plead for their shelter, my lady, I will spare the grove while I live, but after me, Avalloch must do as he will. Will you fetch me my shoes and robe, so that I may dine in hall like a king, and not an old dodderer in bedgown and slippers?”
“To be sure,” said Morgaine, “but I cannot lift you now. Huw will have to dress you.”
But when the man had finished his work, she combed Uriens’ hair and summoned the other man-at-arms who awaited the king’s call. The two men lifted him, making a chair between their arms, and carried him into the hall, where Morgaine placed cushions about his high seat and watched as the thin old body was deposited there.
By that time she could hear servants bustling about, and riders in the courtyard . . . Uwaine, she thought, hardly raising her eyes as the young man was escorted into the hall.
It was hard to bear in mind that this tall young knight, with broad shoulders and a battle scar along one cheek, was the scrawny little boy who had come to her, like a wild animal tamed, in her first lonely, desperate year at Uriens’ court. Uwaine kissed his father’s hand, then bent before Morgaine.
“My father. Dear mother—”
“It’s good to see you home again, lad,” said Uriens, but Morgaine’s eyes were on the other man who followed him into the hall. For a moment she did not believe it, it was like seeing a ghost—surely if he were really here I would have seen him with the Sight . . . and then she understood. I have been trying so hard not to think of Accolon, lest I go mad . . .
Accolon was slenderer than his brother, and not quite so tall. His eyes darted to Morgaine, one swift furtive look as he knelt before his father, but his voice was wholly correct when he turned to her. “It is good to be home again, lady—”
“It is good to have you here,” she said steadily, “both of you. Uwaine, tell us how you got that dreadful scar on your cheek. Since the defeat of Emperor Lucius, I thought all men had pledged to Arthur to make no further trouble!”
“The usual,” said Uwaine lightly. “Some bandit who moved into a deserted fort and amused himself by preying on the countryside and calling himself a king. Lot’s son Gawaine went with me and we made short work of him, and Gawaine got himself a wife out of it—the lady is a widow with rich lands. As for this—” He touched the scar lightly. “While Gawaine fought the master I took the man—an ugly bastard who fought left-handed and got through my guard. Clumsy, too—I’d rather fight a good swordsman than a bad, any day! If you’d been there, Mother, I