Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [441]
At last he asked, “Is it exacted of me, then, lady, that I must die? I had thought—if blood sacrifice is demanded—then, when Avalloch fell prey to her . . .” and she saw the muscles in his face move; he tightened his jaw and swallowed hard. Still she said nothing, though her heart ached in pity. For some reason she heard Viviane’s voice in her mind, a time will come when you will hate me as much as you love me now . . . and felt again the surge of love and pain. Still she hardened her heart; Accolon was older than Arthur had been when he faced his kingmaking. And while Avalloch had indeed been blood sacrifice, spilled to the Goddess, still another’s blood could not redeem any other, nor could Avalloch’s death free his brother of the obligation to face his own.
At last his breath went out in a harsh sigh. “So be it—I have faced death in battle often enough. I swore unto her, even to death, and I shall not be forsworn. Tell me her will, lady.”
Then at last she stretched out her hand and clasped his. “I do not think it is death that will be demanded of you, and certainly not the altar of sacrifice. Still, testing is needed; and death lies always near to the doors of such testing. Would it reassure you to know that I too have faced death this way? Yet I am here at your side. Tell me: are you sworn, man to man, to Arthur?”
“I am not one of his Companions,” Accolon said. “Uwaine you have seen sworn to him, but not I, though I have fought willingly enough among his men.”
Morgaine was glad, though she knew that she would even have used the oath of a Companion against Arthur now. “Listen to me, my dear,” she said. “Arthur has twice betrayed Avalon; and only from Avalon can a king reign over all this land. I have sought, again and again, to call to Arthur’s mind that oath he gave. But he will not hear me, and he holds still, in his pride, the holy sword of Excalibur, the sword of the Sacred Regalia, and with it the magical scabbard I fashioned for him.”
She saw his face turn pale. “You mean it truly—that you will bring Arthur down?”
“Not so, not unless he refuses still to bring his oath to completion,” Morgaine said. “I shall give him, still, every opportunity to become what he has sworn to be. And Arthur’s son is not yet ripe to the challenge. You are no boy, Accolon, and you are trained to kingcraft, not Druid-craft, in spite of these—” and she laid a slender fingertip on the serpents encircling his wrist. “Say then, Accolon of Wales, if all other shifts fail, will you be champion of Avalon, and challenge the betrayer for that sword he holds by betrayal?”
Accolon drew a long breath. “To challenge Arthur? Fitly did you ask, Morgaine, if I am ready to die,” he said. “And you speak to me in riddles. I knew not that Arthur had a son.”
“His son is son to Avalon and to the spring fires,” said Morgaine. She thought she had long outgrown shame for this—I am priestess, I need make no accounting to any man for what I must do—but she could not force herself to meet Accolon’s eyes. “Listen, and I will tell you all.”
He sat silent as she told him of the kingmaking on Dragon Island, and what had befallen after; but when she told how she had fled from Avalon and of Gwydion’s birth, he put out his hand and encircled her small fingers in his own.
“He has passed his own testing,” said Morgaine, “but he is young and untried: none thought that Arthur would betray his oath. Arthur was young too, but he came to his kingmaking when Uther was old