Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [504]
“Very likely,” said Morgaine, not wanting to draw further attention to herself, her eyes going to Bishop Patricius. Behind him there was someone in the robes of a monk—a hunched figure, bent over and moving with difficulty—now what was the Merlin doing in the bishop’s train? She said, her need to know overcoming the risk of attracting attention, “What’s going to happen? I thought surely they would have heard their mass in the chapel this morning, all the lords and ladies—”
“I heard,” said one of the women, “that since the chapel would hold so few, there would be a special mass here today for all the folk before meat—see, the bishop’s men carrying in that altar with the white cloth and all. Sssshh—listen!”
Morgaine felt that she would go mad with rage and despair. Were they going to profane the Holy Regalia beyond any possibility of cleansing, by using it to serve a Christian mass?
“Draw near, all ye people,” the bishop was atoning, “for today the old order giveth way to the new. Christ has triumphed over all the old and pretended Gods who shall now be subservient to his name. For the True Christ said unto mankind, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. Also he said, No man may come to the Father except he come in my name, for there is no other name under Heaven in which you may be saved. And by that token, then, all those things which once were devoted to false Gods before mankind had knowledge of the truth, now shall be devoted to Christ and newly dedicated in service to the True God. . . .”
But Morgaine heard no more; suddenly she knew what they were planning to do—No! I am sworn to the Goddess. I must not allow this blasphemy! She turned and touched Raven’s arm; even here, in the midst of this crowded hall, they were open one to the other. They would use the Holy Regalia of the Goddess to summon the Presence . . . which is One . . . but they would do it in the narrow name of that Christ who calls all Gods demons, unless they invoke in his name!
The cup the Christians use in their mass is the invocation of water, even as the plate whereon they lay their holy bread is the sacred dish of the element of earth. Now, using the ancient things of the Goddess, they would invoke their own narrow God; yet instead of the pure water of the holy earth, coming from the clear crystal spring of the Goddess, they have defiled her chalice with wine!
In the cup of the Goddess, O Mother, is the cauldron of Ceridwen, wherein all men are nourished and from which all men have all the good things of this world. You have called upon the Goddess, O ye willful priests, but will you dare her presence if she should come? Morgaine clasped her hands in the most fervent invocation of her life. I am thy priestess, O Mother! Use me, I pray, as you will!
She felt the rushing downward of power, felt herself standing taller, taller, as the power flooded through her body and soul and filled her; she was no longer conscious of Raven’s hands holding her upright, filling her like the chalice with the sacred wine of the holy presence. . . .
She moved forward and saw Patricius, stunned, draw back before her. She had no fear, and though she knew it was death to touch the Holy Regalia unprepared—how, she wondered in a remote corner of her waking mind, did Kevin manage to prepare the bishop? Had he betrayed that secret too? She knew with certainty that all her life had been preparation for this moment when, as the Goddess herself, she raised the cup between her hands.
Afterward, she heard, some said that they saw the Holy Chalice borne round the room by a maiden clothed in shimmering white; others said that they heard a great rushing wind fill the hall, and a sound of many harps. Morgaine knew only that she lifted the cup between her hands, seeing it glow like a great sparkling jewel, a ruby, a living, beating heart pulsing between her hands . . . she moved toward the bishop and he fell to his knees