Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [503]
“Keep quiet, old gossip,” said the first speaker. “Just let one of the chamberlains hear you say that aloud, and you’ll be ducked in the pond for a scold! I say Galahad’s a good knight and he’ll make a good king, long live King Arthur! And who cares who his mother is? I think meself he’s one of Arthur’s by-blows—he’s fair like him. And look yonder at sir Mordred—everybody knows he’s the King’s bastard son by some harlot or other.”
“I heard worse than that,” said one of the women. “I heard Mordred’s the son of one of the fairy witches and Arthur took him to court in pawn for his soul, to live a hundred years—you’ll see, he’ll not age, sir Mordred there. Just look at Arthur, he must be past fifty and he could be a man in his thirties!”
Another old woman spoke a barnyard obscenity. “What’s it to me, all of that? If the Devil were about business like that, he could have made yonder Mordred in Arthur’s own image so anyone could accept him as Arthur’s son! Arthur’s mother was of the old blood of Avalon—did you never see the lady Morgaine? She was dark too, and Lancelet, who’s his kin, was like that. . . . I’d rather believe what they said before, that Mordred is Lancelet’s bastard son by the lady Morgaine! You’ve only got to look at them—and the lady Morgaine pretty enough in her way, little and dark as she was.”
“She’s not among the ladies,” one of the women remarked, and the woman who had known a kitchen woman at court said authoritatively, “Why, she quarreled with Arthur and went away to the land of Fairy, but everybody knows that on All Hallows Night she flies round the castle on a hazel twig and anyone who catches sight of her will be struck blind.”
Morgaine buried her face in her ragged cloak to smother a giggle. Raven, hearing, turned an indignant face to Morgaine, but Morgaine shook her head; they must keep still and not be noticed.
The knights were seating themselves in their accustomed places. Lancelet, as he took his seat, raised his head, looking sharply round the hall, and for a moment it seemed to Morgaine that he sought her out where she stood, that his eyes met hers—shivering, she ducked her head. Chamberlains were moving at both ends of the hall, pouring wine for the Companions and their ladies, pouring good brown beer from great leather jacks down among the peasants crowded in at the lower end. Morgaine held out her cup and Raven’s, and when Raven refused, she said in a harsh whisper, “Drink it! You look like death, and you must be strong enough for whatever is coming.” Raven put the wooden cup to her lips and sipped, but she could hardly swallow. The woman who had said that the lady Morgaine was pretty enough in her way asked, “Is she sick, your sister?”
Morgaine said, “She is frightened, she has never seen the court before.”
“Fine, aren’t they, the lords and ladies? What a spectacle! And we’ll get a good dinner soon,” said the woman to Raven. “Hey, doesn’t she hear?”
“She is not deaf, but dumb,” Morgaine said again. “I think maybe she understands a little of what I say to her, but no one else.”
“Now you come to speak of it, she does look simpleminded, at that,” said the other woman, and patted Raven on the head like a dog. “Has she always been like that? What a pity, and you have to look after her. You’re a good woman. Sometimes when children are like that, their folks tie them to a tree like a stray dog, and here you take her to court and all. Look at the priest in his gold robes! That’s the bishop Patricius, they say he drove all the snakes out of his own country . . . think of that! Do you think he fought them with sticks?”
“It’s a way of saying he drove out all the Druids—they are called serpents of wisdom,” Morgaine said.
“How’d the likes of you know a thing like that?” Morgaine