Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Igraine looked troubled. "Well, it shall be as you wish. Perhaps you could be lodged with my sister, the Queen of Orkney. Do you remember Morgause?"

"I will be glad to have my kinswoman Morgaine," said a soft voice, and Morgaine looked up to see the very image of her own mother as she remembered her from her own childhood: stately, robed richly in bright silks, with jewels and hair braided into a bright coronal on her brow. "Why, you were such a little girl, and now you are grown, and a priestess!" Morgaine was folded into a warm and scented embrace. "Welcome, kinswoman, come here and sit by me. How does our sister Viviane? We hear great things of her, that she is the moving force behind all the great events which have brought Igraine's son to the throne. Even Lot could not stand against one backed by the Merlin and the fairy folk and all the Tribes and all the Romans. And so your little brother is to be king! Will you come to court, Morgaine, and advise him, as Uther would have been well advised to have the Lady of Avalon do?"

Morgaine laughed, relaxing into Morgause's embrace. "A king will do as seems good to him, that is the first lesson which all who come near him must know. I suppose Arthur is like enough to Uther to learn that without much lessoning."

"Aye, there is not much doubt who had his fathering now, for all the talk there was about it then," Morgause said, and drew breath in swift compunction. "No, Igraine, you must not weep again-it should be joy to you, not sorrow, that your son is so much like his father, and accepted everywhere in all of Britain because he has pledged himself to rule all the lands and peoples."

Igraine blinked; she had, Morgaine thought, been doing overmuch weeping in the last days. She said, "I am happy for Arthur-" but her voice choked and she could not speak again. Morgaine stroked her mother's arm, but she felt impatient; always, always, ever since she could remember, her mother had had no thought for her children, only for Uther, Uther ... . Even now when he was dead and lay in his grave, her mother would push her and Arthur aside for the memory of the man she had loved enough to make her forget everything else. With relief she turned back to Morgause.

"Viviane said you had sons-"

"True," Morgause said, "though most of them are still young enough to be here among the women. But the oldest is here to pledge loyalty to his king. Should Arthur die in battle-and not even Uther was immune to that fate-my Gawaine is his nearest kinsman, unless you already have a son, Morgaine-no? Have the priestesses of Avalon embraced chastity like nuns, then, that at your age you have given the Goddess neither son nor daughter? Or have you shared your mother's fate and lost many children at birth? Forgive me, Igraine-I did not mean to remind you-"

Igraine blinked back tears. "I should not weep against God's will; I have more than many women. I have a daughter who serves the Goddess to whom I was reared, and a son who will tomorrow be crowned with his father's crown. My other children are- in the bosom of Christ."

Name of the Goddess, thought Morgaine, what a way to think of a God, with all the generations of the dead dinging to him! She knew it was only a way of speaking, a comfort to a sorrowing mother, yet the blasphemy of the idea troubled her. She remembered that Morgause had asked her a question and shook her head.

"No, I have borne no children, Morgause-until this year at Beltane I was kept virgin for the Goddess." She stopped abruptly; she should say no more. Igraine, who was more Christian than Morgaine could have believed, would have been horrified at the thought of the rite in which she had played the part of the Goddess for her own brother.

And then a second horror swept over her, worse than the first, so that she felt a wave of sickness follow in its wake. It had come about at full moon, and though the moon had waned and filled and waned again, her moon-dark bleeding had not yet come upon her, nor showed any sign it was about to do so. She had been relieved that she would not have this nuisance at the crowning, and had thought it was reaction to the great magic; no other explanation had suggested itself to her until this moment.

A rite for the renewal and fertility of crops and land, and of the wombs of the women of the tribe. She had known that. Yet such had been her blindness and her pride, she had thought that perhaps the priestess, the Goddess, would be exempted from the purpose of this ritual. Yet she had seen other young priestesses sicken and grow pale after these rites, until they began to bloom with their own ripening fruit; she had seen the children born, had brought some of them to birth with her own trained priestess-hands. Yet never once, in her stupid blindness, had it entered her mind that she too might come away from the ritual with a womb grown heavy.

She saw Morgause's sharp eyes on her, and deliberately drew a long breath and yawned to cover her silence. "I have been travelling since daybreak," she said, "and have not breakfasted; I am hungry." And Igraine apologized and sent her women for bread and barley beer which Morgaine forced herself to eat, though the food made her feel faintly sick and now she knew why.

Goddess! Mother Goddess! Viviane knew this might come about, yet she did not spare me! She knew what must be done, and done as quickly as possible; yet it could not be done in the three days of Arthur's crowning, for she had no access to the roots and herbs she could find in Avalon, and furthermore she dared not be sick now. She felt herself shrinking from the violence and sickness, yet it must be done, and done without delay, or in Midwinter she would bear a son to her own mother's son. Furthermore, Igraine must know nothing of it-the thought would strike her as evil beyond imagining. Morgaine forced herself to eat, and to talk of small things, and gossip like any woman.

But her mind did not rest as she talked. Yes, the fine linen she wore had been woven in Avalon, there was no linen anywhere like it, perhaps it was the flax of the Lake, which grew stronger, longer fibers, and whiter than anywhere else. But in her heart she was thinking, Arthur, he must never know, he has enough to weigh his heart at this crowning. If I can bear this burden and keep silence to give his heart ease, I will do so. Yes, she had been taught to play the harp-why, how foolish, Mother, to think it was wrong for a woman to make music. Even if one of the Scriptures did say that women were to keep silence in the church, it was shocking to think that the ears of God could be offended with the voice of a woman singing his praises; had not his own Mother lifted up her voice to sing praises when she knew she was to bear a child by the Holy Spirit? Then, when Morgaine took the harp in her hands and sang for her mother, beneath the refrain lay despair, for she knew as well as Viviane that she was to be the next Lady of Avalon, and she owed the Goddess a daughter at least. It was impious to cast out a child conceived under the Great Marriage. But how could she do anything else? The Mother of the Christian God had rejoiced in the God that had given her a child, but Morgaine could only rage in silent bitterness against the God who had taken the form of her unknown brother ... . She was used to living her life on two levels at once, but even so the effort made her lips pale and her voice strained, and she was glad when Morgause cut her short.

"Morgaine, your voice is lovely, I hope to hear it at my own court. And Igraine, I hope to see you many times before the crowning feast is ended, but I must return and see how my babe is cared for. I have no love for convent bells and much praying, either, and Morgaine looks weary with travelling. I think I shall take her away to my tents and make her lie down, so she will be fresh in the morning to see Arthur crowned."