Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [67]
Dusk had fallen, and Igraine was speaking in the kitchen house to her women, when she heard a commotion at the end of the causeway and the sound of riders, then a cry in the courtyard. She flung her hood over her shoulders and ran out, Morgause behind her. At the gateway were men in Roman cloaks such as Gorlois wore, but the guards were barring their way with the long spears they carried.
“My lord Gorlois left orders; no one but the Duke himself to go inside in his absence.”
One of the men at the center of the group of newcomers drew himself up, immensely tall.
“I am the Merlin of Britain,” he said, his resounding voice ringing through the dusk and fog. “Stand back, man, will you deny passage to me?”
The guardsman drew back in instinctive deference, but Father Columba stepped forward, with an imperative gesture of refusal.
“I will deny you. My lord the Duke of Cornwall has said particularly that you, old sorcerer, are to have no entrance here at any time.” The soldiers gaped, and Igraine, despite her anger—stupid, meddlesome priest!—had to admire his courage. It was not an easy thing to defy the Merlin of all Britain.
Father Columba held up the big wooden cross at his belt. “In the name of the Christ, I bid you begone! In God’s name, return to the realms of darkness whence you came!”
The Merlin’s ringing laugh raised echoes from the looming walls. “Good brother in Christ,” he said, “your God and my God are one and the same. Do you really think I will vanish away at your exorcism? Or do you think I am some foul fiend from the darkness? No, not unless you call the falling of God’s night the coming of darkness! I come from a land no darker than the Summer Country, and look, these men with me bear the ring of his lordship the Duke of Cornwall himself. Look.” The torchlight flashed as one of the cloaked men thrust out a bare hand. On the first finger glinted Gorlois’s ring.
“Now let us in, Father, for we are not fiends, but mortal men who are cold and weary, and we have ridden for a long way. Or must we cross ourselves and repeat a prayer to prove that to you?”
Igraine came forward, wetting her lips with nervousness. What was happening here? How did they come to bear Gorlois’s ring, unless they were his messengers? Certainly one of them would have appealed to her. She saw no one she recognized, nor would Gorlois have chosen the Merlin for his messenger. Was Gorlois dead then, and was it news of his death being brought to her in this fashion? She said abruptly, her voice sounding harsh, “Let me see the ring. Is this truly his token or a forgery?”
“It is truly his ring, Lady Igraine,” said a voice she knew, and Igraine, bending her eyes to see the ring in the torchlight, saw familiar hands, big, broad and callused; and above them, what she had seen only in vision. Around Uther’s hairy arms, tattooed there in blue woad, writhed two serpents, one on either wrist. She thought that her knees would give way and that she would sink down on the stones of the courtyard.
He had sworn it: I will come to you at Midwinter. And he had come, wearing Gorlois’s ring!
“My lord Duke!” said Father Columba impulsively, stepping forward, but the Merlin raised a hand to forbid the words.
“Hush! The messenger is secret,” he said. “Speak no word.” And the priest fell back, thinking the cloaked man was Gorlois, puzzled but obedient.
Igraine dropped a curtsey, still struggling against disbelief and dismay. She said, “My lord, come in,” and Uther, still concealing his face beneath the cloak, reached out with the ringed hand and gripped her fingers. Her own felt like ice beneath them, but his hand was warm and firm and steadied her as they stepped into the hall.
She took refuge in banalities. “Shall I fetch some wine, my lord, or send for food?”
He murmured close to her ear, “In God’s name, Igraine, find some way we can be alone. The priest has sharp eyes, even in the dark, and I want it thought it is Gorlois,