Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [550]
“God knows, I have no right to complain, who could not give him a son, so he must make do with Morgaine’s—”
“Still, he should have warned you,” Lancelet said. It was the first time, Gwenhwyfar thought distantly, that he had ever, even for a moment, seemed to criticize Arthur. He raised her hand gently to his lips, then let it go as Arthur approached them with Gwydion. Stewards were bringing smoking platters of meat, trays of fresh fruits and hot breads, setting sweetmeats every few places along the table. Gwenhwyfar let her steward help her to some meat and fruits, but she barely touched her plate. She saw, with a smile, that it had been arranged that she shared her plate with Lancelet, as so often she had done at other Pentecost feasts; and that Niniane, on Arthur’s other side, was eating from his dish. Once he called her daughter, which relieved Gwenhwyfar’s mind somewhat—perhaps he accepted her already as his son’s potential wife. To her surprise Lancelet seemed to follow her thought.
“Will the next festival at court be a wedding? I would have thought the kinship too close—”
“Would that matter in Avalon?” Gwenhwyfar asked, her voice harsher than she intended; the old pain was still there.
Lancelet shrugged. “I know not—in Avalon as a boy I heard of a country far to the south of here, where the royal house married always their own sister and brother that the royal blood might not be diluted by that of the common people, and that dynasty lasted for a thousand years.”
“Heathen men,” said Gwenhwyfar. “They knew nothing of God, and knew not that they sinned. . . .”
Yet Gwydion seemed not to have suffered from the sin of his mother and his father; why should he, Taliesin’s grandson—no, his great-grandson—hesitate to wed with Taliesin’s daughter?
God will punish Camelot for that sin, she thought suddenly. For Arthur’s sin and for mine . . . and Lancelet’s . . .
Beyond her she heard Arthur say to Gwydion, “You said once in my hearing that Galahad looked not like one who would live to his crowning.”
“And you remember too, my father and my lord,” said Gwydion quietly, “that I swore to you I would have no part in his death, but that he would die honorably for the cross he worshipped, and it was so.”
“What more do you foresee, my son?”
“Ask me not, lord Arthur. The Gods are kind when they say that no man may know his own end. Even if I knew—and I say not that I know—I would tell you nothing.”
Perhaps, thought Gwenhwyfar, with a sudden shiver, God has punished us enough for our sin when he sent us this Mordred . . . and then, looking at the young man, she was dismayed. How can I think so of the one who has been to Arthur as a son indeed? He is not to blame for his fathering!
She said to Lancelet, “Arthur should not have done this before Galahad was cold in his grave!”
“Not so, my lady. Arthur knows well the duties of a king. Do you think it would matter to Galahad, where he has gone, who sits on the throne he never wished for? I would have done better to make my son a priest, Gwenhwyfar.”
She looked at Lancelet, brooding, a thousand leagues away from her, gone into himself where she could never follow, and she said, awkwardly, reaching for him in the best way she could, “And did you, then, fail to find the Grail?”
She saw him come slowly back through the long distance. “I came—nearer than any sinful man can come and live. But I was spared, to tell the men at Arthur’s court that the Grail has gone forever beyond this world.” Again he fell silent, then said across that vast distance, “I would have followed it beyond the world, but I was given no choice.”
She wondered, Did you not, then, wish to return to court for my sake? And it seemed clear to her that Lancelet was more like Arthur than she had ever known, and that she had never been anything more, to either of them, than a diversion between war and quest; that the real life of a man was lived in a world where love meant nothing. All his life he had devoted