Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Igraine protested. "You are hurting him!"

"No," Viviane said, "I am trying to find out if he will live or die. Believe me, he will live." She slapped his cheek gently and he opened his eyes for a moment.

"Bring me the candle," Viviane said, and moved it slowly across his field of vision. He followed it for a moment before his eyes fell shut again, with a whimper of pain.

Viviane rose from his side. "Make sure he's kept quiet, and nothing but water or soup, nothing solid to eat for a day or two. And don't sop his bread in wine; only in soup or milk. He'll be running all over the place in three days."

"How do you know?" demanded the priest.

"Because I am trained in healing, how do you think?"

"Are you not a sorceress from the Island of Witches?"

Viviane laughed softly. "By no means, Father. I am a woman who, like yourself, has spent her life in the study of holy things, and God has seen fit to give me skill at healing." She could, she reflected, turn their own jargon against them; she knew, if he did not, that the God they both worshipped was greater and less bigoted than any priesthood.

"Igraine, I must talk to you. Come away-"

"I must be here when he wakes again, he will want me-"

"Nonsense; send his nurse to him. This is a matter of importance!"

Igraine glared at her. "Bring Isotta to sit beside him," she said to one of the women, with an angry look, and followed Viviane into the hall.

"Igraine, how did this happen?"

"I am not sure-some tale about riding his father's stallion-I am confused. I only know that they carried him in like one dead-"

"And it was only your good fortune that he was not dead," Viviane said bluntly. "Is it thus that Uther safeguards the life of his only son?"

"Viviane, don't reproach me-I have tried to give him others," Igraine said, and her voice shook. "But I think I am being punished for my adultery, that I can give Uther no other son-"

"Are you mad, Igraine?" Viviane burst out, then stopped herself. It was not fair to upbraid her sister when she was distracted from watching at the bedside of her sick child. "I came because I foresaw some danger to you or the child. But we can talk of that later. Call your women, put on fresh clothing-and when did you last eat anything?" she asked shrewdly.

"I can't remember-I think I had a little bread and wine last night-"

"Then call your women, and break your fast," Viviane said impatiently. "I am still dusty from riding. Let me go and wash off the dirt of travel, and clothe myself as is seemly for a lady inside the walls, and then we will talk."

"Are you angry with me, Viviane?"

Viviane patted her on the shoulder. "I am angry, if it is anger, only at the way fate seems to fall, and that is foolish of me. Go and dress, Igraine, and eat something. The child's come to no harm this time."

Inside her room a fire had been built, and on a small stool before it, she saw an undersized female, dressed in a robe so dark and plain that for a moment Viviane thought it was one of the serving wenches. Then, she saw that the simple gown was of the finest stuff, the headcloth embroidered linen, and she recognized Igraine's daughter.

"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 implications of this. Watching her, Viviane said, "Think. Has he had any other narrow escapes from death, Morgaine?"

Morgaine said, hesitating, "He had the summer fever-but then, all the children had that last year. Uther said he should not have been allowed to play with the shepherd's boys. He caught the fever from them, I think -four of them died. But there was the time when he was poisoned-"

"Poisoned?"

"Isotta-and I would trust her with my life, Lady-swears that she put only wholesome herbs into his soup. Yet he was as sick as if a death-cup mushroom had found its way into his porridge. And yet how could that be? She knows wholesome ones from the poisonous, and she is not yet old and her eyesight is good." Again Morgaine's eyes widened. "Lady Viviane, do you think there are people plotting against my brother's life?"