Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [446]
She smiled back and said, “So the King begs of a subject, rather than the other way around?”
“There must be a balance in all things,” he said. “It is one of the things I have learned in my rule—in some matters, a king cannot command but must sue. Perhaps that was why the Caesars fell, because they fell into what my tutor used to call hubris, thinking they could command outside the legitimate sphere of a king. . . . Well, my lady, our guests are waiting. Are you sufficiently beautiful?”
She said, “You are making fun of me again. You know how old I am.”
“You are scarcely older than I,” said Arthur, “and my chamberlain tells me I am a handsome man still.”
“Oh, but that is different. Men do not age as women do.” She looked at his face, which was only faintly lined with the years—a man in the prime of his life.
He said, taking her hand, “It would little beseem me to have a maiden at my side for my queen. You are suited to me.” They moved toward the door; the chamberlain approached and spoke in a low voice, and Arthur turned to Gwenhwyfar. “There will be other guests at our table. Gawaine sent word that his mother has come, and so we cannot but invite Lamorak as well, since he is her consort and travelling companion,” said Arthur. “I have not seen Morgause in many years, God knows, but she is my kinswoman too. And King Uriens and Morgaine with their sons . . .”
“Then it will be a family party indeed.”
“Yes, with Gareth and Gawaine—Gaheris is in Cornwall and Agravaine could not leave Lothian,” said Arthur, and Gwenhwyfar felt pricked with an old grievance . . . Lot of Lothian had so many sons. “Well, my dear, our guests are assembled in the little hall. Shall we go down to them?”
The great hall of the Round Table was Arthur’s domain—a man’s place, where warriors and kings met. But the little hall with the hangings she had ordered from Gaul and the trestle tables and benches—that was where Gwenhwyfar felt most a queen. She was growing daily more shortsighted; at first, though there was still plenty of light, she saw only stripes of color from the ladies’ gowns and the brilliant indoor robes worn by the men. That huge figure there, well over six feet with a great shock of sandy hair, that was Gawaine—he came to bow before the King and then, rising, to embrace his cousin in a great bear hug. Gareth followed him, more modestly, and Cai came to clap Gareth on the shoulder, to call him Handsome in the old way, and to ask after his brood of children, still too young to come to court—the lady Lionors was, he said, still abed after their latest, and had stayed in their castle northward by the Roman wall. Was that eight now, or nine? Gwenhwyfar had seen the lady Lionors only twice, because always, according to Gareth, she was breeding or lying-in or still suckling her latest. Gareth was no longer pretty-faced, but good-looking as ever, and as Arthur and Gawaine and Gareth grew older, the resemblance between them all grew ever stronger. Now Gareth was being embraced by a slender man with dark curling hair streaked with grey, and Gwenhwyfar bit her lip; Lancelet changed not at all with the years, save to grow yet more handsome.
Uriens had none of that magical immunity to time. He looked at last really old, though he was still upright and strong. His hair was all white, and she heard him explaining to Arthur that he had but recently recovered from the lung fever, and had that spring buried his oldest son, savaged by a wild pig.
Arthur said, “So you will be King of North Wales one day, sir Accolon? Well, so it shall be—God giveth and taketh, so it says in Holy Writ.”
Uriens would have bent to kiss Gwenhwyfar’s hand, but she leaned instead to kiss the old man on the cheek. He was foppishly dressed in green, with a handsome cloak of green and brown.
“Our queen grows ever younger,” he said, smiling with good humor. “One would think you had dwelled in the fairy country, kinswoman.”
Gwenhwyfar laughed. “Perhaps