The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [90]
"There could hardly be a better preceptress."
"I agree. But Guenever has gentleness, and she is full of laughter, too. I am glad," he finished, simply.
We spoke of Morgan then, and the other marriage.
"Let us hope it suits as well," I said. "It's certainly what Arthur wants. And Morgan? She seems willing, even happy about it."
"Oh, yes," he said, and then, with a smiling shrug, "you'd think it was a love-match, and that all the business with Lot had never been. You always say, Merlin, that you know nothing of women, and can't even guess at what moves them. Well, no more can I, and I'm not a born hermit, like you. I've known plenty, and now I've spent a month or so in daily attendance on them -- and I still don't begin to understand them. They crave for marriage, which for them is a kind of slavery -- and dangerous at that. You could understand it with those who have nothing of their own; but here's Morgan: she has wealth and position, and the freedom they give her, and she has the protection of the High King. Yet she would have gone to Lot, whose reputation you know, and now goes, eagerly, to Urbgen of Rheged, who is more than three times her age, and whom she has hardly seen. Why?"
"I suspect because of Morgause."
He shot me a look. "That's possible. I spoke to Guenever about it. She says that since news came of Morgause's latest lying-in, and her letters about the state she keeps -- "
"In Orkney?"
"She says so. It does seem true that she rules the kingdom. Who else? Lot has been with Arthur...Well, Guenever told me that lately Morgan's temper had been growing sharp, and she had begun to speak of Morgause with hatred. Also, she had begun to practise what the Queen called her 'dark arts' again. Guenever seems afraid of them." He hesitated. "They speak of it as magic, Merlin, but it is nothing like your power. It is something smoky, in a closed room."
"If Morgause taught her, then it must be dark indeed. Well, so the sooner Morgan is a queen in Rheged, with a family of her own, the better. And what of yourself, Bedwyr? Have you had thoughts of marriage?"
"None, yet," he said cheerfully. "I have no time."
On which we laughed, and went our ways.
***
So the next day, with a fine sun blazing, and all the pomp and music and revelry that a joyous crowd could conjure up, Arthur married Guenever. And after the feasting, when torches had burned low, and men and women had eaten and laughed and drunk deep, the bride was led away; and later, escorted by his companion knights, the bridegroom went to her.
That night I dreamed a dream. It was brief and cloudy, a glimmer only of something that might be true vision. There were curtains drawn and blowing, and a place full of cold shadows, and a woman lying in bed. I could not see her clearly, or tell who she was. I thought at first that it was Ygraine, then, with a shift of the blowing light, it might have been Guenever. And she lay as if she were dead, or as if she were sleeping soundly after a night of love.
5
So once again I headed northward, keeping this time to the west road all the way to Luguvallium. It was truly a wedding journey. The good weather held all through that month, the lovely September month of gold that is best for travellers, since Hermes, the god of going, claims it for his own.
His hand was over us through all that journey. The road, Arthur's main way up the west, was repaired and sound, and even on the moors the land was dry, so that we did not need to time our journey to seek for stopping-places to suit the women. If, at sunset, no town or village was near, we made camp