Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

She said, "I would like to ride him. There is no horse I fear." He laughed. "Morgaine, you fear nothing, do you?"

"Oh, no, my kinsman," she said, suddenly sober, "I fear many things."

"Well, I am not as fearless even as you, I am afraid of battle and I fear the Saxons and I fear I will be killed before I have tasted all there is to life," he said. "And so I never dare shrink from any challenge ... . And I fear lest both Avalon and the Christians are wrong, and there should be no Gods and no Heaven and no afterlife, so that when I die I will perish forever. So I fear to die before I have savored my fill of life."

"It does not seem to me you have left much untasted," Morgaine said.

"Ah, but I have, Morgaine, there are so many things I long for, and whenever I pass one by I regret it so bitterly, and wonder what weakness or folly prevents me from doing what I will ... " he said, and suddenly he turned in the horse lanes and put his arms hungrily round her, pulling her close.

Desperation, she thought bitterly; it is not me he wants, it is a moment of forgetfulness of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar in one another's arms this night. His hands moved, with a detached, practiced deftness, over her breasts; he pressed his lips to hers, and she could feel the whole hard length of his body pushing against her. She stood in his arms, motionless, feeling languor and a rising hunger that was like pain; she was hardly conscious of her small movements, to fit her body against his. Her mouth opened under his lips, his hands were over her. But when he moved with her toward one of the piles of hay, she roused to a dim protest.

"My dear, you are mad, there are half a hundred of Arthur's soldiers and riders swarming in this stable-"

"Do you mind," he whispered, and she murmured, shaking with excitement, "No. No!" She let him push her down. Through the back of her mind, in bitterness, was the thought, a princess, Duchess of Cornwall, a priestess of Avalon, tumbled in the stables like some dairymaid, without even the excuse of the Beltane fires. But she closed it away from her mind and let his hands move on her as they would, unresisting. Better this than break Arthur's heart. She did not know whether it was her own thought or that of the man whose body was somehow all over hers, whose fierce furious hands were bruising her; his kisses were almost savage, driving into her mouth in a rage. She felt him pull at her dress and moved to loosen it for him.

And then there were voices, clamoring, shouting, a noise like hammering, a frightened scream, and suddenly a dozen voices were all yelling. "Captain! Lord Lancelet! Where is he? Captain!

"Down here, I thought-" One of the younger soldiers ran down between the horse lines. Swearing savagely under his breath, Lancelet thrust his body between Morgaine and the young soldier, while she buried her face in her veil and hunched herself, half-naked already, into the straw so that she would not be seen.

"Damnation! Can't I be out of the way for a moment-" "Oh, sir, come quickly, one of the strange horses-there was a mare in season, and two of the stallions began fighting, and I think one of them's broken a leg-"

"Hell and furies!" Lancelet was swiftly tucking garments into place, rising and towering over the lad who had interrupted them. "I'll come-"

The young man had caught sight of Morgaine; she hoped in a moment of horror that he had not recognized her-that would be a fine juicy morsel of gossip for the court indeed. Not as bad as what they do not know ... that I bore my brother's child.

"Did I interrupt anything, sir?" the young man said, trying to peer around Lancelet, almost sniggering. Morgaine wondered disconsolate, What will this do to his reputation? Or is it to a man's credit to be caught in the hay? Lancelet did not even answer; he shoved the youngster along before him, so that he almost fell. "Go and find Cai, and the farrier, get along with you." He came swiftly back, a whirlwind, kissed Morgaine who had staggered somehow to her feet. "Gods! Of all the damnable-" He pressed her hard against him, with hungry fingers, kissed her so hard that she felt the brand of it was scalding red on her face. "Gods! Tonight-swear it! Swear!"

She couldn't speak. She could only nod, dazed, numb, her whole body screaming for the interrupted fulfillment, as she saw him rush away. A minute or two later a young man came up to her deferentially and bowed, while soldiers began rushing back and forth and somewhere there was the terrible, almost human scream of a dying animal.

"Lady Morgaine? I am Griflet. The lord Lancelet sent me to escort you to the pavilions. He told me he had brought you down here to see the horse he is training for my lord the king, but that you had slipped and fallen in the hay, and that he was trying to see if you had hurt yourself when they began shrieking for him-when this fight broke out with King Pellinore's horse. And he begs you to excuse him and return to the castle-"

Well, she thought, at least it explained her kirtle crushed and stained with hay and her hair and headcloth filled with hayseed. She need not go before Gwenhwyfar and her mother looking like the woman in Scriptures, the one taken in adultery; young Griflet held out his arm and she leaned on it heavily, saying, "I think my ankle is twisted," and limped all the way up to the castle. It would explain the hay, if she had had a hurt and fallen hard. One part of her was glad of Lancelet's quick thinking; the other, desolate, cried out for him to acknowledge and shelter her.

Arthur had gone off with Cai to the stables, distressed at the accident to the horses. She let Gwenhwyfar fuss over her and Igraine send for cold water and linen strips to bandage her ankle, and she accepted a place at Igraine's side, in the shade, when horses and men rode out to display their exercises. Arthur made a little speech about the new legion of Caerleon which would revive the glories of the days of Rome, and save the countryside. His foster-father, Ectorius, was beaming. Then a dozen riders rode out, displaying the new skills with which the horses could stop in mid gallop, pull up, wheel, move together.

"After this," Arthur declared grandly, "no one will ever again say that horses are fit for nothing but to move wagons!" He smiled at Gwenhwyfar. "How do you like my knights, my lady? I have called them after the old Roman equites-noblemen who could own and fit out their own horse."

"Cai rides as well as a centaur," Igraine said to Ectorius, and the old man smiled with pleasure. "Arthur, you never did a kinder thing than when you gave Cai one of the best of the horses."

"Cai is too good a soldier, and too good a friend, to wither in the house," said Arthur decisively.

Gwenhwyfar said, "Is he not your foster-brother?"

"True. He was wounded in his first battle, and feared he would skulk at home with the women forever after that," said Arthur. "A frightful fate for a soldier. But on horseback he fights as well as any."

"Look," exclaimed Igraine, "the legion has smashed down that whole series of targets-I have never seen such riding!"

"I don't think anything could stand against that attack," said King Pellinore. "What a pity Uther Pendragon could not live to see this, my boy -excuse me-my lord and king-"

Arthur said warmly, "My father's friend may call me whatever he wishes, dear Pellinore! But the credit must go to my friend and captain, Lancelet."

Morgause's son Gaheris bobbed in a bow to Arthur. "My lord, may I go down to the stables and see them unsaddled?" He was a bright, merry-looking boy of fourteen or so.

"You may," said Arthur. "When will he come to join Gawaine and Agravaine at our side, Aunt?"

"This year, perhaps, if his brothers can teach him soldierly arts and keep him close," Morgause said, then raised her voice: "No! Not you, Gareth!" and made a snatch at the chubby six-year-old. "Gaheris! Bring him back here!"