Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [434]
“Don’t play games with me, madam,” said Avalloch. “Do you think I do not know in whose arms you spent the night?”
She said, contemptuously, “Now is it you who play with sorcery and the Sight?”
His voice dropped and took on a cozening sound. “Of course it must be dull for you, wed to a man old enough to be your father—but I would not hurt my father’s feelings by telling him where his wife spends her nights, provided"—he put his arm round her and by main force drew her close to him. He bent his head and nibbled on her neck, his unshaven cheek scratching her—"provided you come and spend some of them with me.”
She pulled away from him and tried to make her voice jocular. “Come now, Avalloch, why should you pursue your old stepmother when the Spring Maiden is yours, and all the pretty young maidens in the village—”
“But I have always looked on you as a beautiful woman,” he said, and his hand stole out to caress her shoulder, sliding under the half-fastened front of her robe. She pulled away again and his face twisted into a snarl. “Why play the modest maiden with me? Was it Accolon or Uwaine, or both at once?”
She stared at him. “Uwaine is my son! I am the only mother he can remember!”
“Am I to think that would stop you, lady Morgaine? It was common talk at Arthur’s court that you were Lancelet’s paramour and tried to lure him from the Queen, and that you shared the Merlin’s bed—that you had not stopped at making unlawful love to your own brother, and that was why the King sent you from court, that you might tempt him no more from Christian ways—why should you stop at your stepson? Does Uriens know what kind of incestuous harlot he took for his wife, madam?”
“Uriens knows everything about me that he has any need to know,” said Morgaine, surprised that her voice was so steady. “As for the Merlin, we were then both unwed and neither of us cares anything for the laws of a Christian court. Your father knew and absolved me of that. None but he has any right to complain of my conduct since then, and when he does so I will answer to him, as I need not answer to you, sir Avalloch. And now I will go to my own room, and I bid you do the same.”
“So you throw the pagan laws of Avalon at me,” Avalloch said, his voice a sneering growl. “Harlot, how dare you claim you are so good—” He grabbed her; his mouth crushed hers. Morgaine stabbed her stiffened fingers into his belly; he grunted and let her go with a curse. She said angrily, “I claim nothing. I need not answer to you for my conduct, and if you speak to Uriens, I will tell him that you laid hands on me in a fashion unseemly for your father’s wife, and we will see whom he will believe.”
Avalloch snarled, “Let me tell you, lady, you may cozen my father as you will, but he is old, and on the day I am made king in this land, be sure there will be no more grace extended to those who have lived on because my father cannot forget that once he wore the serpents!”
“Oh, rare,” said Morgaine scornfully. “First you make advances to your father’s wife, and then you boast of how good a Christian you will be when your father’s land is yours!”
“You first bewitched me—harlot!”
Morgaine could not keep back her laughter. “Bewitch you? And why? Avalloch, if all men save you vanished from the earth, I would sooner share my bed with one of the puppies! Your father may be old enough to be my grandsire, but I would sooner lie with him than you! Do you think I am jealous of Maline, when every time you go down to the village at harvest or spring-plowing festival she sings? If I made such an enchantment, it would not be to enjoy your manhood but to wither it! Now get your hands off me, and go back to whoever will have you, for if you touch me again with one fingertip I swear I will blast your manhood!”
He believed she could do it; that was clear from the way he shrank from her. But Father Eian would hear of this, and then he would question