Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [469]
“But it is not your sword!” Morgaine retorted, at white heat. “It is the sword of Avalon! And if you bear it not as you have sworn, then shall it be given into the hands of one who will be true to his oath—”
“Sword of Avalon it may have been a generation ago,” said Arthur, who was now as angry as Morgaine; he clenched his hand over the hilt of Excalibur, as if someone would take it from him that very moment. “A sword is his who uses it, and I have won the right to call it mine by driving forth all enemies from this land! I bore it in battle, and I won this land at Mount Badon—”
“And you have tried to subject it to the service of the Christian God,” Morgaine retorted. “Now in the name of the Goddess I demand of you that it be returned to the shrine of the Lake!”
Arthur drew a long breath. Then he said in a voice of studied calm, “I refuse. If the Goddess wants this sword returned, then she herself will have to take it from my hands.” Then his voice softened. “My dear sister, I beg of you, do not quarrel with me about the name by which we call our Gods. You yourself have said to me that all the Gods are the One God.”
And he will never see why what he has said is wrong, Morgaine thought in despair. Yet he has called on the Goddess, if she wants his sword to come and take it. Be it so, then; Lady, may I be your hand. She bowed her head for a moment and said, “To the Goddess, then, I leave the disposal of her sword.” And when she has done with you, Arthur, you will wish you had chosen to deal with me instead. . . . And she went to sit beside Gwenhwyfar. Arthur beckoned to Gwydion.
“Sir Mordred,” he said, “I would have made you one of my Companions at any time you asked it of me. I would have done so for Morgaine’s sake and for my own—you needed not to force knighthood from me by a trick.”
“I thought if you made me knight without some good excuse such as this,” Gwydion said, “there might be talk of a kind you did not wish. Will you forgive me the trick, then, sir?”
“If Lancelet has forgiven you, I have no reason to bear you any grudge,” said Arthur, “and since he has gifted you richly, it would seem he cherishes no wrath. I wish it lay in my power to acknowledge you my son, Mordred. Until a few years ago, I knew not that you existed—Morgaine told me not what came of that kingmaking. You do know, I suppose, that to the priests and bishops, your very existence is sign of something unholy.”
“Do you believe that, sir?”
Arthur looked his son directly in the eye. “Oh—times I believe one thing, times another, like all men. It does not matter what I believe. The facts are thus—I cannot acknowledge you before all men, though you are such a son as any man, let alone a childless king, would be glad and proud to own. Galahad must inherit my throne.”
“If he lives,” said Gwydion, and at Arthur’s shocked look, added quietly, “No, sir, I am not making a threat to his life. I will swear any oath you will, by cross or oak, by the Sacred Well or by these serpents I bear"—he thrust out his wrists—"which you bore before me: may the Goddess send living serpents like these to take my life if ever I raise a hand against my cousin Galahad. But I have seen it—he will die, honorably, for the cross he worships.”
“God save us from evil!” cried out Gwenhwyfar.
“Indeed, lady. But if he does not live to ascend your throne—my father and my king, he is a warrior and a knight, and no more than mortal, and you may live to be older than King Uriens. What then?”
“Should Galahad die before he comes to my throne—God stand between him and harm—” said Arthur, “I will have no choice. Royal blood is royal blood, and yours is royal, from the Pendragon and from Avalon. Should such an evil day come, I suppose even the bishops would rather see you on the throne than leave this land to such chaos as they feared when Uther died.”
He rose and stood with his two hands on his son’s shoulders, looking into his eyes. “Would that I could say more, my son. But done is done. I will say only that—I wish with all my heart that you had been