She put her hands to his bent head and said, "Be thou blessed."
13
Queen Morgause had long ceased to repine that she had not the Sight. Yet twice, in the last days of falling leaves, when the red larch trees stood bare in the icy wind that blew over Lothian, she dreamed of her foster-son Gwydion; and she was not at all surprised when one of her servant folk told her that a rider was on the road.
Gwydion wore a strangely colored cloak, coarse and with a clasp of bone such as she had never seen, and when she would have wrapped him in her arms, he shrank away, wincing.
"No, Mother-" He put his free arm around her and explained, "I caught a sword cut there in Brittany-no, it is not serious," he reassured her. "It did not fester and perhaps I shall not even have a scar, but when it is touched it cries out to me!"
"You have been fighting in Brittany, then? I thought you safe in Avalon," she remonstrated, as she led him within and set him by the fire. "I have no southern wine for you-"
He laughed. "I am weary of it-barley beer is enough for me, or some of the firewater if you have it... with hot water and honey if there is any. I am stiff with riding." He let one of the women draw off his boots and hang his cloak to dry, leaning back at ease.
"So good it is to be here, Mother-" He set the steaming cup to his lips and drank with pleasure.
"And you came so far, riding in the cold with a wound? Was there some great tidings that needed to tell?"
He shook his head. "None-I was homesick, no more," he said. "It's all so green and lush and damp there, with fog and church bells ... I longed for the clean air of the fells, and the gulls' cry, and your face, Mother ... " He reached out for the cup he had set down, and she saw the serpents about his wrists. She was not greatly versed in the lore of Avalon, but she knew they were the sign of the highest rank of the priesthood. He saw her glance and nodded, but said nothing.
"Was it in Brittany you got you that ugly cloak, so coarse-woven and low, fit only for a serving-man?"
He chuckled. "It kept the rain from me. I took it from a great chief of the foreign lands, who fought under the legions of that man who called himself Emperor Lucius. Arthur's men made short work of that one, believe me, and there was plunder for all-I have a silver cup and a golden ring in my packs for you, Mother."
"You fought in the armies of Arthur?" Morgause asked. She had never thought he would do this; he saw the surprise in her face and laughed again.
"Yes, I fought under that great King who fathered me," he said, with a grin of contempt. "Oh, fear not, I had my orders from Avalon. I took care to fight among the warriors of Ceardig, the Saxon chief of the treaty men who loves me well, and to come not under Arthur's eyes. Gawaine knew me not, and I was careful not to let Gareth see me except when I was shrouded in a cloak like that-I lost my own cloak in battle, and feared if I was wearing a cloak of Lothian, Gareth would come to look on a wounded countryman, so I got this one ... ."
"Gareth would have known you anywhere," said Morgause, "and I hope you do not think your foster-brother would ever betray you."
Gwydion smiled, and Morgause thought that he looked very like the little boy who had once sat in her lap. He said, "I longed to make myself known to Gareth, and when I lay wounded and weak, I came near to doing so. But Gareth is Arthur's man, and he loves his king, I could see that, and I would not put that burden on my best of brothers," he said. "Gareth- Gareth is the only one-"
He did not finish the sentence, but Morgause knew what he would have said; stranger as he was everywhere, Gareth was his brother and his beloved friend. Abruptly he grinned, chasing away the remote smile that made him look so young. "All through the Saxon armies, Mother, I was asked again and again if I was Lancelet's son! I cannot see the resemblance so much myself, but then I am not really familiar with my own face ... I look into a mirror only when I shave myself!"
"Still," said Morgause, "anyone who had seen Lancelet, especially anyone who knew him in youth, could not look on you without knowing you his kinsman."
"Some such thing as that I said-I put on a Breton accent, sometimes, and said I too was kinsman to old King Ban," Gwydion said. "Yet I would think our Lancelet, with the face which makes him a magnet to all maids, would have fathered enough bastards that it would not be such a marvel to all men that one should go about wearing his face! Not so? I wondered," he said, "but all I heard of Lancelet was that it might be that he had fathered a son on the Queen and the child was spirited away somewhere to be fostered by that kinswoman of hers whom they married off to Lancelet ... . Tales of Lancelet and the Queen are many, each wilder than the next, but all agree that for every other woman the Gods made, he has nothing but courtesy and fair words. There were even women who flung themselves at me, saying that if they could not have Lancelet, they would have his son...." He grinned again. "It must have been hard for the gallant Lancelet. I have eye enough for a fair woman, but when they push themselves on me so, well ... " He shrugged, comically. Morgause laughed.
"Then the Druids have not robbed you of that, my son?"
"By no means," he said. "But most women are fools, so that I prefer not to trouble myself making play with those who expect me to treat them as something very special, or to pay heed to what they say. You have spoilt me for foolish women, Mother."
"Pity the same could not have been said of Lancelet," said Morgause, "for never did anyone think Gwenhwyfar had more wits than she needed to keep her girdle tied, and where Lancelet was concerned, I doubt she had that much," and she thought, You have Lancelet's face, my boy, but you have your mother's wit!
As if he had heard her thoughts, he set down the empty cup, and waved away a serving-girl who would have scurried to refill it. "No more, I am so weary that I will be drunk at another taste! Supper I would have. I have had enough of hunter's fortune, I am sick of meat, and long for home food -porridge and bannock ... . Mother, I looked on the lady Morgaine at Avalon before I left for Brittany."
Now why, Morgause wondered, does he say this to me? It could not be looked for that he should have much love for his mother, and then she felt sudden guilt. I made sure he should not love any but me. Well, she had done what she must, and she did not regret it.
"How looks my kinswoman?"
"She looks not young," said Gwydion, "it seemed to me that she was older than you, Mother."
"No," Morgause said, "Morgaine is younger than I by ten years."
"Still, she looks worn and old, and you ... " He smiled at her, and Morgause felt the flood of sudden happiness. She thought, None of my own sons have I loved as this one. Morgaine did well to leave him to my care.
"Oh," she said, "I grow old too, my lad ... I had a grown son when you were born!"
"Then you are twice the sorceress she is," said Gwydion, "for one could swear you had dwelt long in the fairy country with time never touching you ... you look to me as you did the day I rode away for Avalon, Mother mine." He reached out his hand to hers and brought it to his lips and kissed it, and she came and put her arm round him, careful to avoid his wound. She stroked the dark hair. "So Morgaine is queen now in Wales."
"True," Gwydion said, "and high, I hear, in favor with the King ... Arthur has made her stepson Uwaine a member of his own personal bodyguard, next to Gawaine, and he and Gawaine are close friends. Uwaine's not a bad fellow-not unlike Gawaine, I'd say-tough and staunch, both of them, and devoted to Arthur as if the sun rose and set where he pissed ..." and Morgause noted the wry smile. "But then it's a fault many men have-and I came here to speak of this to you, Mother," he said. "Know you anything of Avalon's plan?"