Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [467]
“Then you should be glad for peace,” Arthur said. “I have worked all my lifetime, it seems, since I was old enough to hold a sword, to end the wars with the Saxons. At that time I believed the war would be ended by driving them back over the seas whence they came. But peace is peace, and if it comes by making treaty with them, let it be so. There are more ways to deal with a bull than roasting him for dinner. It is equally effective to geld him and make him pull your plow.”
“Or save him to serve your cows at stud? Will you ask your subject kings to marry their daughters to Saxons, Arthur?”
“That too, perhaps,” said Arthur. “Saxons are no more than men—do you call to mind that song Lancelet sang? They have the same longings for peace—they too have lived on lands ravaged and burned again and again. Will you say I should have fought on till the last of them was dead or driven out? I thought women longed for peace.”
“I too long for peace, and welcome it, even with Saxons,” Morgaine said, “but have you made them give up their Gods too, and accept your own, that you made them swear to you on the cross?”
Gwenhwyfar had been listening intently. “There are no other Gods, Morgaine. They have agreed to put aside the devils they worshipped and called Gods, that is all. Now they worship the one true God and the Christ sent in his name to save mankind.”
Gwydion said, “If you truly believe that, my lady and queen, then for you it is truth—all the Gods are One God and all the Goddesses one Goddess. But would you presume to declare one truth for all of mankind throughout the world?”
“Call you that presumption? It is the one truth,” Gwenhwyfar said, “and a day must come when all men everywhere will acknowledge it.”
“I tremble for my people that you say so,” said King Uriens. “I have pledged myself to protect the sacred groves, and my son after me.”
“Why, I thought you a Christian, my lord of North Wales—”
“And so I am,” said Uriens, “but I will not speak ill of another’s God.”
“But there are no such Gods,” Gwenhwyfar began.
Morgaine opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur said, “Enough of this, enough—I did not bid you here to discuss theology! If you have the stomach for that, there are priests enough who will listen and argue. Go you and convert them if you must! What did you come here to say, Morgaine? Only that you are wary of the good faith of the Saxons, oaths on the cross or no?”
“No,” Morgaine said, and as she spoke, she noted that Kevin was in the room, sitting in the shadows with his harp. Good; the Merlin of Britain could witness this protest in the name of Avalon! “I call the Merlin to witness, you had them swear an oath on the cross—and you transformed the holy sword of Avalon, Excalibur, the very sword of the Holy Regalia, into your cross for the oath! Lord Merlin, is this not blasphemy?”
Arthur said quickly, “It was only a gesture, to catch the imagination of everyone, Morgaine—such as the gesture Viviane made, when she bade me fight for peace in the name of Avalon with that selfsame sword.”
The Merlin said in his rich low voice, “Morgaine, my dear, the cross is a symbol older than Christ and venerated before ever there were followers of the Nazarene. In Avalon there are priests brought here by the patriarch Joseph of Arimathea, who worship at the side of the Druids. . . .”
“But they were priests who did not try to say that their God is the only God,” Morgaine said angrily, “and I doubt not that Bishop Patricius would silence them if he could, and preach only his own brand of bigotry!”
“Bishop Patricius and his beliefs are not at issue here, Morgaine,” said Kevin. “Let the uninitiated think that the Saxons swore on the cross of Christ’s sacrifice and death. We too have a sacrificed God, whether we see him in the cross, or in the sheaf of barley which must die to the earth and be raised again from the dead—”
Gwenhwyfar said, “Your sacrificed Gods, Lord Merlin, were sent only that mankind might be ready when the Christ