Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [94]
“It is a family mission,” Viviane said, “for it is my son who is approaching the island, and I thought it well to send a kinswoman to welcome him here.”
Morgaine smiled. “Balan?” she said. “Will his foster-brother Balin not fear for his soul if he goes beyond the sound of church bells?”
A glint of humor lighted Viviane’s eyes, and she said, “Both of them are proud men and dedicated warriors, and they live blameless lives, even by the standards of the Druids, harming none and oppressing none, and ever seeking to right a wrong when they find it. I doubt not that the Saxons find them four times as fearsome when they fight side by side. In fact, they are afraid of nothing, except the evil magic of that wicked sorceress who is mother to one of them . . .” and she giggled like a young woman, and Morgaine giggled with her.
Then, sobering, she said, “Well, I do not regret sending Balan to fosterage in the outer world. He had no call to become a Druid, and he would have made a very bad one, and if he is lost to the Goddess, no doubt she will watch over him in her own way, even if he prays to her with beads and calls upon her as Mary the Virgin. No, Balan is away on the coast, fighting against the Saxons at Uther’s side, and I am content to have it so. It is of my younger son I spoke.”
“I thought Galahad still in Brittany.”
“So did I, but last night with the Sight I saw him . . . he is here. When last I saw him, he was but twelve years old. He is grown considerably, I should say; he must now be sixteen or more, and ready for his arms, but I do not know for certain that he is to bear arms at all.”
Morgaine smiled, and Viviane remembered that when Morgaine had first come here, a lonely child, she had sometimes been allowed to spend her free time with the only other child fostered here, Galahad.
“Ban of Benwick must be old now,” Morgaine remarked.
“Old, yes; and he has many sons, so that my son, among them, is just one more of the king’s unregarded bastards. But his half-brothers fear him and would rather he went elsewhere, and a child of the Great Marriage cannot be treated like any other bastard.” Viviane answered the unspoken question. “His father would give him land and estates in Brittany, but I saw to it before he was six years old that Galahad’s heart would always be here, at the Lake.” She saw the glint in Morgaine’s eyes and answered, again, the unspoken.
“Cruel, to make him ever discontent? Perhaps. It was not I that was cruel, but the Goddess. His destiny lies in Avalon, and I have seen him with the Sight, kneeling before the Holy Chalice. . . .”
Again, with an ironic inflection, Morgaine made the little gesture of assent with which a priestess under vows of silence would have acquiesced to a command.
Suddenly Viviane was angry with herself. I sit here justifying what I have done with my life, and the lives of my sons, to a chit of a girl! I owe her no explanations! She said, and her voice was chilled with sudden distance, “Go with the barge, Morgaine, and bring him to me.”
A third time the silent gesture of assent and Morgaine turned to go.
“One moment,” Viviane said. “You will break your fast here with us when you bring him back to me; he is your cousin and kinsman too.”
When Morgaine smiled again, Viviane realized that she had been trying to make the girl smile, and was surprised at herself.
Morgaine went down along the path toward the edge of the Lake. Her heart was still beating faster than usual; often, these days, when she spoke with the Lady, anger was mixed with affection, to neither of which she was allowed to give voice, and this did strange things to her mind. She wondered at herself, because she had been taught to control her emotions as she controlled her words and even her thoughts.
Galahad she remembered from her first years in Avalon—a scrawny, dark, intense boy. She had not liked him much, but because her heart hungered for her own small brother, she had let