Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [68]
She said to Isotta, “Bring food and some beer to the soldiers here in the hall, and to the Lord Merlin. Bring them water for washing, and all they desire. I will speak with my lord in our chambers. Have food and wine sent there at once.”
The servants went scurrying in all directions to do her will. The Merlin let a man take his cloak, and set his harp carefully on one of the benches. Morgause came into the doorway, peering boldly at the soldiers. Her eyes fell on Uther’s tall form, and she dropped a curtsey.
“My lord Gorlois! Welcome, dear brother!” she said, and started toward him. Uther made a slight forbidding movement and Igraine stepped quickly in front of him. She thought, frowning, This is ridiculous; even cloaked, Uther looks no more like Gorlois than do I!
She said sharply, “My lord is weary, Morgause, and in no mood for the chatter of children. Take Morgaine to your chamber and keep her; she will sleep there with you this night.”
Frowning, sullen, Morgause picked up Morgaine and carried her away up the stairs. Keeping well behind them, Igraine reached for Uther’s hand and held it as they climbed. What manner of trickery was this, and why? Her heart was pounding until she thought she would faint away as she led him into the chamber she had shared with Gorlois and shut the door.
Inside, his arms were stretched to sweep her into his embrace; he shoved back the hood and stood there, his hair and beard wet with fog, holding out his arms, but she did not move toward him.
“My lord King! What is this, why do they think you are Gorlois?”
“A small magic of the Merlin,” Uther said, “mostly a matter of a cloak and a ring, but a small glamour too; nothing that would hold if they should see me in full light, or uncloaked. I see that you were not deceived; I had not expected it. It is a seeming, not a Sending. I swore I would come to you, Igraine, at Midwinter, and I have kept my vow. Do I not even get a kiss for all my travail?”
She came and took the cloak from him, but she evaded his touch.
“My lord King, how came you by Gorlois’s ring?”
His face hardened. “That? I cut it from his hand in battle, but the oathbreaker turned tail and fled. Mistake me not, Igraine, I come here by right, not as a thief in the night; the glamour is to save your reputation in the eyes of the world, no more. I would not have my promised wife branded adulteress. But I come here by right; the life of Gorlois is forfeit to me. He held Tintagel as the sworn vassal of Ambrosius Aurelianus; that oath he renewed to me, and now that, too, is forfeit. Surely you understand this, Lady Igraine? No king can stand if his sworn men may break oath with impunity and stand under arms against their king.”
She bowed her head in acknowledgment.
“Already he has cost me the wreck of a year’s work against the Saxon. When he left Londinium with his men I could not stand against them, and I had to step aside, flee, and let them pillage the town. My people, whom I am sworn to defend.” His face was bitter. “Lot, I can forgive; he refused to take the oath. A score I have to settle with Lot, indeed—he will make peace with me or I will see him off his throne and hanged—but he is not oathbreaker or betrayer. Gorlois I trusted; he took oath and forswore it, and so I am left in the wreck of the work Ambrosius spent his life to accomplish, with all of it to do again. Gorlois cost me that, and I am come to have Tintagel at his hands. And I will have his life, too, and he knows it.”
His face was like stone.
Igraine swallowed hard. “And you will have his lady, too—by conquest and by right, as you have Tintagel?”
“Ah, Igraine,” he said, drawing her to him with his two hands, “I know well what choice you made, when I saw you the night of the great storm. If you had not warned me, I would have lost my best men, and, no doubt, my life as well. Thanks to you, when Gorlois came against me, I was ready for him. It was then I took the ring from his finger, and would have taken the hand, and the head too, but he escaped me.”
“I know well you had no