Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [445]
“You are distressed,” said Arthur, watching her face as she set the coronet about her hair. “I am sorry, Gwenhwyfar—I thought it would be the way to get to know the lad, as I must if he is to have my throne. Shall I tell them that you are ill? You need not appear—you can meet him at some other time.”
Gwenhwyfar tightened her mouth. “As well now as later.”
He took her hand. “I do not see Lancelet very often anymore—it will be good to speak with him again.”
Her mouth moved in something she knew was not the smile she had intended. “I wonder you will have it so—do you not hate him?”
Arthur smiled uneasily. “We were all so much younger then. It seems as if it all was in another world, and Lance no more than my dearest and oldest friend, almost my brother, as much as Cai.”
“Cai is your brother too,” said Gwenhwyfar, “and his son Arthur is one of your most loyal knights. It seems to me that he would make a better heir than Galahad. . . .”
“Young Arthur is a good man and a trusty Companion. But Cai’s blood is not royal. God knows, in all these years I have wished often enough that Ectorius had in truth been my own father . . . but he was not, and there’s an end of it, Gwen.” After a moment, hesitant—he had never spoken of this, not since that other dreadful Pentecost—he said, “I have heard that—the other lad, Morgaine’s son—is in Avalon.”
Gwenhwyfar put out a hand as if to avoid a blow. “No—!”
“I will arrange it so that you need never meet him,” he said, not looking at her, “but royal blood is royal blood and something must be done for him. He cannot have my throne, the priests would not have it—”
“Oh,” said Gwenhwyfar, “and if the priests would have it, I suppose you would proclaim Morgaine’s son your heir—”
“There will be those who wonder that he is not,” said Arthur. “Would you have me try to explain it to them?”
“Then you should keep him far from the court,” said Gwenhwyfar, thinking, I did not know my voice was so harsh when I was angry. “What place at this court has one who has been reared in Avalon as a Druid?”
He said dryly, “The Merlin of Britain is one of my councillors and has always been so, Gwen. Those who look to Avalon are always my subjects too. It is written: Other sheep have I which are not of this fold. . . .”
“A blasphemous jest,” Gwenhwyfar observed, making her voice gentler, “and hardly suitable for the eve of Pentecost—”
Arthur said, “Before Pentecost there was always Midsummer, my love. At least, now there are no Midsummer fires lighted, not even on Dragon Island, or, so far as I know, anywhere within three days’ ride of Camelot—except on Avalon itself.”
“The priests have set wards on Glastonbury Island, I am sure,” said Gwenhwyfar, “so that there shall be no coming and going from that land. . . .”
“It would be a sad day if it should be lost forever,” Arthur said. “As it is sad for the peasant folk to lose their own festivals . . . town folk, perhaps, have no need of the old rites. Oh yes, I know, there is only one name under Heaven by which we may be saved, but perhaps those who live in such close kinship with the earth need something more than salvation. . . .”
Gwenhwyfar started to speak, then held her peace. Kevin was no more than a misshapen old cripple, and a Druid, and the day of the Druids now seemed to her as far away as the time of the Romans. And even Kevin was less known at court as the Merlin of Britain than as a superb harper. The priests did not hold him in reverence as a good and kindly man, as once with Taliesin; Kevin’s tongue was quick and ungentle in debate. Yet Kevin’s knowledge of all the old ways and the common law was greater even than Arthur’s, and Arthur had come into the way of turning to him when it was a question of old law and custom which could not be set aside.
“If this were not so strictly a family party, I would command that the Merlin perform for us tonight.”
Arthur smiled and said, “I can send to ask of him, if you will, but