Morgaine shook her head, biting back tears again. She wondered if he knew she had been given to Arthur in the kingmaking. She could not accept his pity. “Nothing, lord Druid. Perhaps I share your fears for this marriage made in a waning moon. I am concerned for my brother, no more. And I do pity the woman he has wedded.” And as she spoke the words she knew they were true; for all her fear of Gwenhwyfar, not unmixed with hatred, she knew that she did pity her—marrying a man who did not love her, loving a man she could not wed.
If I take Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, then I do my brother a service, and his wife as well, for if I take him away she will forget him. She had been trained to examine her own motives in Avalon, and now she cringed inwardly; she was not being honest with herself. If she took Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, it would not be for her brother’s sake nor for the sake of the kingdom, but purely and solely because she desired Lancelet herself.
Not for yourself. For the sake of another you could use your magic; but you must not deceive yourself. She knew love charms enough. It would be for Arthur’s good! It would work to the advantage of the kingdom, she told herself repeatedly, if she took Lancelet from her brother’s wife; but the unsparing conscience of a priestess kept saying: This you may not. It is forbidden to use your magic to make the universe do your will.
So, still, she would try; but she must do it unassisted, with no more than her own woman’s wiles. She told herself fiercely that Lancelet had desired her once, without the aid of magic; she could certainly make him desire her again!
Gwenhwyfar was weary of the feasting. She had eaten more than she wanted, and although she had sipped only one glass of wine, she felt overly hot, and slid her veil back, fanning herself. Arthur had gone to speak to many of his guests, moving slowly toward the table where she sat with the ladies, and finally reaching her; with him, Lancelet and Gawaine. The women slid along the benches, making room, and Arthur sat beside her.
“It is the first moment I have really had to speak to you, my wife.”
She held out her small hand to him. “I understand. This is more like a council than a wedding feast, my husband and my lord.”
He laughed, somewhat ruefully. “All events in my life now seem to become so. A king does nothing in private. Well,” he amended, smiling, seeing the flush that spread over her face, “almost nothing—I think there will be a few exceptions, my wife. The law requires that they must see us put to bed together, but what happens after that need concern no one but ourselves, I trust.”
She lowered her eyes, knowing that he had seen her blush. Once again, with the flood of shame, she realized that she had forgotten him again, that she had been watching Lancelet and thinking, with the drowsy sweetness of a dream, how very much she wished it had been to him she had been joined in marriage this day—what damnable fate had made her a High Queen? His eyes fell on her with that hungry look, and she dared not look up at him. She saw him turn his eyes from her even before the shadow fell over them and the lady Morgaine stood there; Arthur made room for her at his side.
“Come and sit with us, my sister, there is always room for you here,” he said, his voice so languorous that Gwenhwyfar wondered for a moment how much he had drunk. “When the feast has worn away a little, see, we have prepared something more for entertainment, perhaps something more stirring than the bard’s music, beautiful though it is. I did not know you were a singer, my sister. I knew you were an enchantress, but not that you were a musician as well. Have you enchanted us all?”
“I hope not,” Morgaine said, laughing, “else I would never dare sing again—what is that old saga, about the bard who sang the evil giants into a circle of ring stones, and there they stand, cold and stone to this day?”
“That one I have never heard,” said Gwenhwyfar, “though in my convent there was a tale that these were evil folk who mocked the Christ on his way to his cross, and a saint raised his hand and turned them into crows who fly over the world crying out wailing jests forever . . . and another tale of a saint who transformed a circle of sorceresses, at their evil rites, into a circle of stones.”
Lancelet said lazily, “If I had leisure to study philosophy instead of being warrior or councillor or horseman, I think I would try to find who built the ring stones and why.”
Morgaine laughed. “That is known in Avalon. Viviane could tell you if she would.”
“But,” said Lancelet, “what the priestesses and the Druids say may be no more truth than your pious nun’s fables, Gwenhwyfar—forgive me, I should say, my lady and queen. Arthur, forgive me, I meant no disrespect to your lady, but I called her by her name when she was younger and not yet a queen—” but Morgaine knew that he was simply seeking an excuse to speak her name aloud.
Arthur yawned. “My dear friend, I do not mind if my lady does not. God forbid I should be the kind of husband who wishes to keep his wife locked away in a cage from all other human beings. A husband who cannot keep his wife’s kind regards and faithfulness probably does not deserve them.” He leaned over and took Gwenhwyfar’s hand in his own. “I think this feasting long. Lancelet, how long before the riders are ready?”
“I think they will be ready soon,” Lancelet said, deliberately looking away from Gwenhwyfar. “Does my lord and king wish me to go and see?”
Morgaine thought, He is torturing himself, he cannot bear to look on Gwenhwyfar with Arthur, he cannot bear to leave her alone with him. She said, deliberately making a joke of a truth, “I think, Lancelet, our bridal couple wishes to have a few moments to talk together alone. Why do we not leave them here and go down and see ourselves whether the riders are ready.”
Lancelet said, “My lord—” and as Gwenhwyfar opened her mouth to protest, he said roughly, “Give me leave to go.”
Arthur nodded permission, and Morgaine took his hand. He let her draw him along, but she saw him turn his head halfway, as if he could not take his eyes from Gwenhwyfar. Her heart was wrung; at one and the same time it seemed that she could not bear his pain, and that she would do anything to get him away so that she need not see him look at Gwenhwyfar. Behind her she heard Arthur say, “Until yesterday evening I had no idea that the fates, in sending me a bride, had sent me a beautiful one,” and Gwenhwyfar answer, “But it was not the fates, my lord, it was my father.” Before Morgaine could hear what Arthur answered, they were out of earshot.
“I remember,” Morgaine said, “once, years ago, at Avalon, you spoke of cavalry as the key to victory over the Saxons—that and a disciplined army, like to the Romans. I suppose that is what you plan for these horsemen.”
“It is true that I have been training them. I had not imagined that a woman would remember a point of military strategy, cousin.”
Morgaine laughed. “I live under fear of the Saxons, like every other woman in these islands. I passed through a village once where a band of them had passed over, and every woman from little girls of five years old to old grandmothers in their nineties with no teeth and no hair had been raped. Whatever offers hope to rid us of them once and for all is meaningful to me, perhaps more than to men and soldiers, who need to fear only death.”
“I had not thought of that,” Lancelet said soberly. “Uther Pendragon’s troops were not above scouring the countryside for willing women—nor are Arthur’s—but in general, there is no rape. And I had forgotten, Morgaine, you were trained at Avalon and you think often on things which mean little or nothing to other women.” He looked up and clasped her hand in his. “I had forgotten the harps of Avalon. I thought I hated the place, that I never wished to go back. And yet—sometimes—some little thing will take me back there. The sound of a harp. Sunlight on ring stones. The scent of apples and the sound of bees in the sun. Fish splashing in the lake, and the cries of water birds at sunset—”
“Do you remember,” she asked softly, “the day we climbed the Tor?”
“I remember.” With sudden bitterness he said, “I would to God you had not been sworn to the Goddess, that day.”
; She said in a low voice, “I have wished it almost as long as I can remember.” Her voice suddenly broke, and Lancelet looked with apprehension into her eyes.
“Morgaine, Morgaine—kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.”
“Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman’s tears?”
He shook his head, and his arm went around her shoulders. “No,” he confessed in a low voice, “it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable—women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do. I was always afraid of—Viviane.” She sensed that he had been about to say my mother, and had shrunk from the words.
They were passing under the low lintel of the stables; the long line of horses, tied there, shadowed the day. There was a pleasant smell of hay and straw. Outside, she saw men moving back and forth, erecting piles of hay, standing up mannikins of stuffed leather, and men were coming in and out, saddling their horses.
Someone caught sight of Lancelet and shouted, “Will the High King and their lordships be ready for us soon, sir? We don’t want to bring the horses out and keep them standing to get restless.”
“Soon,” Lancelet called back.
The soldier behind the horse resolved himself into Gawaine. “Ah, cousin,” he said to Morgaine. “Lance, don’t bring her in here, it’s no place for a lady, a few of these damned beasts are still unbroken. Are you still resolved to take out that white stallion?”
“I’m resolved to have him ready for Arthur to ride into battle next time, if I break my own neck for it!”
“Don’t jest about things like that,” Gawaine said.
“Who says I am jesting? If Arthur can’t ride him, I’ll ride him myself in battle, and I’ll show him this afternoon in honor of the Queen!”
“Lancelet,” Morgaine said, “don’t risk your neck for that. Gwenhwyfar doesn’t know one horse from another, she’d be as impressed if you rode a hobbyhorse from one end of the yard to another as by the feats of the centaur himself!”
The look he gave her was, for a moment, almost contemptuous, but she could read it clearly: How could she understand his need to show himself undamaged by this day?
“Go and get saddled, Gawaine, and give the word on the field, we’ll be ready in half an hour,” said Lancelet, “and ask Cai if he wants to start.”
“Don’t tell me Cai’s going to ride, wi’ that crippled leg o’ his?” demanded one of the men who spoke in a strange accent. Gawaine turned on the stranger and said fiercely, “Would you grudge him that—the one military exercise where that leg makes no difference and he’s not tied to the kitchens and the ladies’ bowers?”
“Na, na, I see what ye mean,” said the strange soldier, and turned to saddling his own horse. Morgaine touched Lancelet’s hand; he looked down at her, the mischief back in his eyes. Here, she thought, arranging something, risking his neck, doing something for Arthur, he has forgotten about love, he is happy again. If he could only keep himself busy here, he would not need to moon after Gwenhwyfar or any other woman.
She said, “Show me this dangerous horse you are going to ride.”
He led her down between the rows of tied steeds. She saw the pale silvery nose, the long mane like linen floss—a big horse, tall as Lancelet himself across the shoulders. The creature tossed his head, and the snort was like a dream of dragons breathing fire.
“Oh, you beauty,” said Lancelet, laying his hand alongside the horse’s nose; he sidled and stepped away. He said to Morgaine, “This one I trained with my own hands to bit and stirrup—it was my wedding present to Arthur, who has no leisure to break a horse for his own use. I swore it would be ready on his wedding day, for him to ride, and gentle as a house pet.”
“A thoughtful gift,” said Morgaine.
“No, the only thing I could give,” Lancelet said. “I am not rich. And anyway, he has no need of jewels or gold, he is showered with those things. This was a gift only I could give him.”
“A gift of yourself,” said Morgaine, and thought, How he loves Arthur; this is why he is so tormented. It is not that he desires Gwenhwyfar that tortures him; it is that he loves Arthur no less. If he were simply a wencher like Gawaine I would not even pity him; Gwenhwyfar is virtuous, and I could take pleasure in seeing her turn him away.
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 reputatio
n? 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—”