Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [91]
“That is true, but it was not a matter of blood alone. Rather that I had inherited her gift of the Sight, and vowed myself to the Goddess of my free will. The Goddess did not call your mother, nor Morgause. So I sent Igraine to be married to your father and then to Uther, and Morgause to be married as the King should decree. Igraine’s marriage served the Goddess; over Morgause, she had no power and no call.”
“Are the priestesses called by the Goddess never married then?”
“Usually not. They do not vow themselves to any man, except for the Great Marriage, where priest and priestess join in symbol of God and Goddess, and children so born are children to no mortal man, but to the Goddess. This is a Mystery, and you will learn it at the proper time. I was so born, and have no earthly father. . . .”
Morgaine stared at her and whispered, “Do you mean that—that your mother lay with a God?”
“No, of course not. Only a priest, overshadowed by the power of the God; probably a priest whose name she never knew, because at that moment or in that time, the God came into him and possessed him so that the man was forgotten and unknown.” Her face was distant, remembering strange things; Morgaine could see them moving across her brow. It seemed that the fire made pictures in the room, a great figure of a Horned One. . . . She shivered suddenly and pulled her cloak about her.
“Are you weary, child? You should sleep—”
But Morgaine was curious again. “Were you born in Avalon?”
“Yes, though I was fostered on the Druid Isle, far to the north, in the Islands. And when I was grown to womanhood, the Goddess set her hand upon me—the blood of the priestess-born ran true in me, as I think it does in you, my child.” Her voice was distant; she rose and stood looking into the fire.
“I am trying to remember how many years ago it was that I came here with the old woman . . . the moon was farther south then, for it was harvesttime, and the dark days of Samhain coming on, in the dying of the year. It was a bitter winter, even at Avalon; we heard wolves in the night, and snow lay deep, and we hungered here, for no one could make the passage through the storms, and some of the little children at the breast died when milk failed. . . . Then the Lake froze, and they brought us food on sledges. I was a maiden then, my breasts had not grown, and now I am old, an old woman, a crone . . . so many years, child.”
Morgaine could feel the older woman’s hand trembling; she held it hard in her own. After a moment Viviane drew the girl to her side and stood, her arm around her waist.
“So many moons, so many Midsummers . . . and now it seems that Samhain follows hard upon Beltane-eve more swiftly than the moon waxed from maiden to full when I was young. And you too will stand here before the fire, and grow old as I have grown old, unless the Mother has other tasks for you . . . ah, Morgaine, Morgaine, little one, I should have left you in your mother’s house. . . .”
Morgaine flung her arms fiercely around the priestess. “I could not stay there! I would rather have died. . . .”
“I knew that,” Viviane said, sighing. “I think the Mother has laid her hand on you too, child. But you have come from a life of ease into a hard life and a bitter one, Morgaine, and it may be that I will have tasks for you as cruel as those the Great Mother has laid on me. Now you think only of learning to use the Sight, and of living in the beautiful land of Avalon, but it is no easy thing to serve the will of Ceridwen, my daughter; she is not only the Great Mother of Love and Birth, she is also the Lady of Darkness and Death.” Sighing, she stroked the girl’s soft hair. “She is also the Morrigán, the messenger of strife, the Great Raven . . . oh, Morgaine, Morgaine, I would you had been my own child, but even so I could not spare you, I must use you for her purposes as I was myself used.” She bowed her head, laid it for a moment on the young girl’s shoulder. “Believe that I love you, Morgaine, for a time will come when you will hate me as much