Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Lancelet smiled. It seemed that smile stretched a string somewhere deep inside her, that she felt her own mouth moving with it. How could she feel so much a part of him? Her whole life seemed to have filtered down into the touch of his lips on her fingers. She swallowed, and suddenly she knew what it was she felt. In spite of her dutiful messages of love and obedience to Arthur, it seemed that she would sell her soul if time would only turn back and she could tell her father that she would marry no man but Lancelet. That was something as real as the sun around her and the grass under her feet, as real-she swallowed again-as real as Arthur, now being readied for the wedding, for which she must go to Holy Mass to prepare herself. Is it one of God's cruel jokes that I did not know this was what I felt until it was too late? Or is this some wicked trick of the fend, to seduce me from my duty to my father and to my husband? She did not hear what Lancelet said; she was only conscious that his hand had released hers and that he had turned his back and was walking away. She hardly heard the polite words of those two foster-brothers, Balin and Balan-which of them was the son of the priestess of the Lake, then? Balan; Lancelet's brother, but no more like him than a raven is like a great eagle.

She became aware that Igraine was speaking to her. "I leave you to the Companions, my dear. I wish to speak with the Merlin before the mass."

Belatedly, it occurred to Gwenhwyfar that Igraine was awaiting her permission to go. Already her rank as High Queen was a reality. She hardly heard her own words to Igraine as the older woman withdrew.

Igraine crossed the courtyard, murmuring excuses to the people she jostled, trying to reach Taliesin through the crowd. Everyone was clad in bright festival clothing, but he wore his usual somber grey robes. "Father-"

"Igraine, child." Taliesin looked down at her, and Igraine found it obscurely comforting that the old Druid spoke to her as he would have spoken to her when she was fourteen. "I had thought you would be in attendance upon our bride. How beautiful she is! Arthur has found himself a treasure. I have heard that she is clever, too, and learned, and also that she is pious, which will please the bishop."

"Father," Igraine appealed, lowering her voice so that no one in the crowd would hear, "I must ask you this-is there any honorable way for Arthur to avoid this marriage?"

Taliesin blinked in consternation. "No, I do not think so. Not when all is readied to join them together after the mass. God help us, have we all been deceived, is she barren, or unchaste, or-" The Merlin shook his head in dismay. "Unless she were secretly a leper, or actually with child by another man, there could be no way at all to stop it; and even then, no way without scandal or offense, or making an enemy of Leodegranz. Why do you ask, Igraine?"

"I believe her virtuous. But I have seen the way she looks at Lancelet and he at her. Can anything come of it but misery, when the bride is besotted with another, and that other the groom's dearest friend?"

The Merlin looked at her sharply; his old eyes were as seeing as ever. "Oh, it is like that, is it? I have always thought our Lancelet had too much good looks and charm for his own welfare. Yet he is an honorable lad, after all; it may be nothing but youthful fancies, and when the bridal pair are wedded and bedded, they will forget it, or think of it only with a little sadness, as something that might have been."

"In nine cases out of ten, I would say you were right," Igraine said, "but you have not seen them, and I have."

The Merlin sighed again. "Igraine, Igraine, I do not say you are wrong, but when all's done, what can we do about it? Leodegranz would find it such an insult that he would go to war against Arthur, and Arthur has already enough to challenge his kingship-or have you not heard of yonder northern king who sent word to Arthur that he had skinned the beards of eleven kings to make himself a cloak, and Arthur should send him tribute or he would come and take Arthur's beard too?"

"What did Arthur do?"

The Merlin said, "Why, he sent the older king word that as for his beard, it was scarce grown yet, and it would do him no good for his cloak; but that if he wanted it, he could come and try to take it, if he could find his way through the bodies of dead Saxons. And he sent him the head of one of the Saxons-he had just come back from a raiding party-and said its beard was better for lining a cloak than the beard of a friend at whose side he would rather be fighting. And finally he said he would send a fellow king a present, but he exacted no tribute from his friends, and paid none. So that all came to nothing; but as you can see, Arthur cannot afford more enemies, and Leodegranz would be a bad one. He'd better marry the girl, and I think I would say the same even if he'd found her in bed with Lancelet -which he hasn't and isn't likely to."

Igraine discovered that she was twisting her hands together. "What shall we do?"

The Merlin touched her cheek, very lightly. "We will do what we have always done, Igraine-what we must, what the Gods order. We will do the best we can. We are none of us embarked on this course for our own happiness, my child. You, who were reared in Avalon, you know that. Whatever we may do to try and shape our destiny, the end is with the Gods -or, as the bishop would no doubt prefer me to say, with God. The older I grow, the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths."

"The Lady would not be pleased to hear you speak such words," said a dark, thin-faced man behind him, in dark robes which could have been those of a priest or a Druid. Taliesin turned half round and smiled.

"Nevertheless, Viviane knows they are true, as I do ... . Igraine, I do not think you know our newest of chief bards-I have brought him hither to sing and play for Arthur's wedding. Kevin, madam."

Kevin bowed low. Igraine noticed that he walked leaning on a carven stick; his harp in its case was carried by a boy of twelve or thirteen. Many bards or harpers who were not Druids were blind or lamed-it was rare that any ablebodied lad would be given time and leisure to learn such arts, in these days of war-but usually the Druids chose among those who were sound of body as well as being keen of mind. It was rare for a man with any deformity to be allowed into the Druid teachings-it was felt that the Gods marked inner faults in this way. But it would have been inexcusably rude to speak of this; she could only imagine that his gifts were so great that he had been accepted in despite of all else.

He had diverted her mind from her purpose, but when she thought back, Taliesin was right. There was no way to stop this wedding without scandal and probably war. Inside the wattle-and-daub building that was the church, lights blazed and the bell had begun to ring. Igraine walked into the church. Taliesin knelt stiffly down; so did the boy carrying Kevin's harp, but Kevin himself did not kneel-for a moment Igraine wondered if, not being a Christian, he was defying the services, as Uther had once seemed to do. Then she decided, seeing the awkwardness of his gait, that he probably had a stiff leg and could not bend the knee at all. She saw the bishop look his way, frowning.

"Listen to the words of Jesus Christ our Lord," the bishop began. "Behold, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I among ye, and whatsoever thing ye ask in my name, so it shall be done ... ."

Igraine knelt, drawing her veil around her face, but she was conscious, nevertheless, of Arthur, who had come into the church with Cai and Lancelet and Gawaine, wearing a fine white tunic and a blue cloak, with no ornament but the slender golden coronet of his crowning, and the crimson and jewels in the scabbard of his great sword. It seemed as if, without eyes, she could see Gwenhwyfar, in her fragile white gown, like Arthur all white and gold, kneeling between Balin and Balan. Lot, greying and thin, knelt between Morgause and one of his younger sons; and behind him-it was as if a harp had sounded some high, forbidden note through the chanting of the priest. She raised her head, cautiously, and tried to see, knowing who knelt there. The face and form of Morgaine were hidden behind Morgause.