Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [97]
“Your mother told me you were already a warrior,” Morgaine said, forgetting to pitch her voice low, and he smiled again at her.
“And now I know your voice, Morgaine of the Fairies . . . how dare you come upon me as a priestess, kinswoman? Well, I suppose it is the Lady’s will. But I like you better like this than solemn as a Goddess,” he said, with the familiar mischief, as if they had parted but the day before.
Clasping at shreds of her dignity, Morgaine said, “Yes, the Lady awaits us, and we must not keep her waiting.”
“Oh yes,” he mocked, “always we must scurry to do her will. . . . I suppose you are one of those who hurry to fetch and carry, and hang trembling on her every word.”
For that Morgaine found no answer except to say, “Come this way.”
“I remember the way,” he said, and walked quietly at her side instead of following behind with proper respect. “I too used to run to her and wait upon her will and tremble at her frown, until I found she was not just my mother, but thought herself greater than any queen.”
“And so she is,” Morgaine said sharply.
“No doubt, but I have lived in a world where men do not come and go at a woman’s beckoning.” She saw that his jaw was set and that the mischief was gone from his eyes. “I would rather have a loving mother than a stern Goddess whose every breath bids men live and die at her will.”
To that Morgaine found nothing whatever to say. She set a swift pace that meant he must scurry at her heels to keep up.
Raven, still silent—for she had bound herself by vows of perpetual silence, save when she spoke tranced as a prophetess—let them into the dwelling with an inclination of the head. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Morgaine saw that Viviane, seated by the fire, had chosen to greet her son not in the ordinary dark dress and deerskin tunic of a priestess, but had put on a dress of crimson and done her hair high on her forehead with gems glittering there. Even Morgaine, who knew the tricks of glamour for herself, gasped at the magnificence of Viviane. She was like the Goddess welcoming a petitioner to her underworld shrine.
Morgaine could see that Galahad’s chin was set and that the cords in his knuckles stood out, white, against his dark fists. She could hear him breathing, and guessed at the effort with which he steadied his voice, as he rose from his bow.
“My lady and mother, I give you greeting.”
“Galahad,” she said. “Come, sit here beside me.”
He took a seat across from her instead. Morgaine hovered near the door and Viviane beckoned her to come and seat herself too.
“I waited to breakfast with you both. Here, join me.”
There was fresh-cooked fish from the Lake, scented with herbs and dripping butter; there was hot, fresh barley bread, and fresh fruit, such food as Morgaine seldom tasted in the austere dwelling of the priestesses. She, and Viviane too, ate sparingly, but Galahad helped himself to everything with the healthy hunger of a youth still growing. “Why, you have set a meal fit for a king, Mother.”
“How does your father, and how does Brittany?”
“Well enough, though I have not spent much time there in the last year. He sent me on a far journey, to learn for his court about the new cavalry of the Scythian peoples. I do not think even the soldiers of Rome, such as they are, have any such horsemen now. We have herds of Iberian horses—but you are not interested in the doings of the stud farms. Now I have come to bring word to the Pendragon’s court of a new massing of Saxon armies; I doubt not they will strike in full force before Midsummer. Would that I had time and enough gold to train a legion of these horsemen!”
“You love horses,” Viviane said in surprise.
“Does that surprise you, madam? With beasts you always know precisely what they think, for they cannot lie, nor pretend to be other than they are,” he said.
“The ways of nature will all be open to you,” Viviane said, “when you return to Avalon in the life of a Druid.”
He said, “Still the same old song, Lady? I thought I gave