Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [476]
Morgaine’s voice had trembled. “What of the King Stag when the young stag is grown? It must be with Arthur as the fates decree. And you will have his sword.”
Treachery, she thought, and her heart pounded as they rode through the dismal grey morning. Thin fog was rising from the Lake. I love Arthur. I would not betray him, but he first betrayed the oath he swore to Avalon.
She still felt queasy, the motion of the horse making it worse. She could not remember that she had been sick as this when she carried Gwydion—Mordred, she reminded herself. Yet it might be, when he came to the throne, that he would choose to rule in his own name, the name that had been Arthur’s and bore no taint of Christian rule. And when Kevin saw the thing already accomplished, no doubt he too would choose to support the new King of Avalon.
The fog was thickening, making Morgaine’s plan even simpler to follow. She shivered, pulling her cloak tight around her. It must be done now, or, as they skirted the Lake, they would turn southward to Cornwall. The fog was so thick already that she could hardly make out the forms of the three men-at-arms who rode ahead of them; twisting in her saddle, she saw that the three men behind were almost equally dim. But the ground for a little way before and behind them was clear, though overhead the fog was like a thick white curtain with no hint of sun or daylight.
She stretched out her hands, raising herself high in her saddle, whispering the words of the spell she had never dared use before. She felt a moment of pure terror—she knew it was only the coldness that came from power draining out of her body—and Uriens, shivering, raised his head and said peevishly, “Such fog as this I have never seen—we will surely be lost and have to spend the night on the shores of the Lake! Perhaps we should seek shelter at the abbey in Glastonbury—”
“We are not lost,” said Morgaine, the fog so thick that she could barely see the ground under her horse’s hooves. Oh, as a maiden in Avalon I was so proud that I spoke only truth! Is it queencraft, then, to lie, that I may serve the Goddess? “I know every step of the way we are going—we can shelter this night in a place I know near the shores, and ride on in the morning.”
“We cannot have come so far as that,” said Arthur, “for I heard the bells in Glastonbury ring the Angelus—”
“Sounds carry a long way in the fog,” Morgaine said, “and in fog such as this they carry further still. Trust me, Arthur.”
He smiled lovingly at her. “I have always trusted you, dear sister.”
Oh, yes; he had always trusted her, since that day when Igraine had placed him in Morgaine’s arms. At first she had hated the squalling thing, and then she had come to know that Igraine had abandoned and betrayed them both, and she must care for him, and had wiped away his tears . . . impatient, Morgaine hardened her heart. That had been a lifetime ago. Since then Arthur had made the Great Marriage with the land and had betrayed it, giving the land he had sworn to protect into the hands of priests who would drive out the very Gods that fed the land and made it fertile. Avalon had set him on his throne, through her hand as priestess, and now . . . Avalon, through her hand, would bring him down.
I will not hurt him, Mother . . . yes, I will take from him the sword of the Holy Regalia and give it into the hands of one who will bear it for the Goddess, but I will never lay hand on him. . . .
But what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?
That was the way of nature and could not be amended for the sake of her sentiment. Arthur would meet his fate unprotected by the spells he bore, by the scabbard she herself had made for him after she had gone to him in the Great Marriage, when she bore, still not knowing it, his child within her body. She had often heard his knights speak of his charmed life, of how he could take the worst of wounds and not lose blood enough to kill. She would not lay a hand upon her mother’s son and the father of her child. But the spell she had put upon him in the