Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [81]
“Morgaine,” she said, and kissed her. The girl was almost as tall now as Viviane herself. “Why, I think of you as a child, but you are almost a woman. . . .”
“I heard you had come, Aunt, and came to welcome you, but they told me you had gone at once to my brother’s bedside. How does he, Lady?”
“He’s badly bruised and banged about, but he’ll be well again with no treatment but rest,” Viviane said. “When he wakes, I must somehow convince Igraine and Uther to keep the physicians and their stupid potions away from him; if they make him vomit, he’ll be worse. I got nothing from your mother but weeping and wailing. Can you tell me how this came to happen? Is there no one here who can guard a child properly?”
Morgaine twisted her small fingers together. “I am not sure how it happened. My brother’s a brave child and always wants to ride horses which are too fast and too strong for him, but Uther has given orders that he’s only to ride with a groom. His pony was lame that day, and he asked for another horse, but how he came to take out Uther’s stallion, no one knows; all the grooms know that he’s never allowed to go near Thunder, and everyone denied seeing him. Uther swore he’d hang the groom who allowed it, but that groom has put the river between Uther and himself by now, I should imagine. Still, they say Gwydion stuck on Thunder’s back like a sheep in a thorn thicket until someone loosed a breeding mare in the stallion’s path, and we cannot find out who loosed the mare, either. So of course the stallion was off after the mare, and my brother was off the stallion, in the blink of an eyelash!” Her face, small and dark and plain, quivered. “He’s really going to live?”
“He’s really going to live.”
“Has anyone yet sent word to Uther? Mother and the priest said he could do no good in the sickroom—”
“No doubt Igraine will attend to that.”
“No doubt,” Morgaine said, and Viviane surprised a cynical smile on her face. Morgaine, evidently, bore no love to Uther, and thought no more of her mother for her love to her husband. Yet she had been conscientious enough to remember that Uther should be sent word about his son’s life. This was no ordinary young girl.
“How old are you now, Morgaine? The years go by so fast, I no longer remember, as I grow old.”
“I shall be eleven at Midsummer.”
Old enough, Viviane thought, to be trained as a priestess. She looked down and realized she was still wearing her travel-stained clothing. “Morgaine, will you have the serving-women bring me some water for washing, and send someone to help me robe myself properly to appear before the King and Queen?”
“Water I have sent for; it is there, in the cauldron by the fire,” Morgaine said, and then hesitated and added shyly, “I would be honored to attend on you myself, Lady.”
“If you wish.” Viviane let Morgaine help her remove her outer garments and wash off the dust of travel. Her saddlebags had been sent up too, and she put on a green gown; Morgaine touched the cloth with admiring fingers.
“This is a fine green dye. Our women can make no green as fine as this. Tell me, what do you use to make it?”
“Woad, no more.”
“I thought that made only blue dyes.”
“No. This is prepared differently, boiled and fixed—I will talk of dyes with you later, if you are interested in herb lore,” Viviane said. “Now we have other matters on our mind. Tell me, is your brother given to escapades like this?”
“Not really. He is strong and hardy, but he’s usually biddable enough,” Morgaine said. “Once someone taunted him about riding so small a pony, and he said that he was to be a warrior and a soldier’s first duty is to obey orders, and that his father had forbidden him to ride a horse beyond his strength. So I can’t imagine how he came to ride Thunder. But still, he wouldn’t have been hurt unless . . .”
Viviane nodded. “I would like to know who loosed that mare, and why.”
Morgaine’s eyes widened as she took in the