I never knew, she thought, I have never known what it was to be only a woman. I have borne a child and I have been married for fourteen years and I have had lovers ... but I knew nothing, nothing ... .
She felt a sudden rough hand on her arm. Avalloch's hoarse voice said, "What are you doing sneaking around the house at this hour, girl?"
He had evidently mistaken her for one of the servant-women; some of them were small and dark with the blood of the Old Ones.
"Let me go, Avalloch," she said, looking at the dimly seen face of her older stepson. He was heavy and soft, his jowls blurred with fat, his eyes small and set close. Accolon and Uwaine were handsome men, and one could see that once Uriens had been good-looking in his own way. But not Avalloch.
"Well, my lady mother!" he said, stepping back and giving her an exaggerated bow. "I repeat, what were you doing at this hour?"
His hand remained on her arm; she picked it off as if it were a crawling bug. "Must I account for my movements to you? It is my house and I move in it as I will and that is my only answer." He dislikes me, she thought, almost as much as I dislike him.
"Don't play games with me, madam," said Avalloch. "Do you think I do not know in whose arms you spent the night?"
She said, contemptuously, "Now is it you who play with sorcery and the Sight?"
His voice dropped and took on a cozening sound. "Of course it must be dull for you, wed to a man old enough to be your father-but I would not hurt my father's feelings by telling him where his wife spends her nights, provided"-he put his arm round her and by main force drew her close to him. He bent his head and nibbled on her neck, his unshaven cheek scratching her-"provided you come and spend some of them with me."
She pulled away from him and tried to make her voice jocular. "Come now, Avalloch, why should you pursue your old stepmother when the Spring Maiden is yours, and all the pretty young maidens in the village-"
"But I have always looked on you as a beautiful woman," he said, and his hand stole out to caress her shoulder, sliding under the half-fastened front of her robe. She pulled away again and his face twisted into a snarl. "Why play the modest maiden with me? Was it Accolon or Uwaine, or both at once?"
She stared at him. "Uwaine is my son! I am the only mother he can remember!"
"Am I to think that would stop you, lady Morgaine? It was common talk at Arthur's court that you were Lancelet's paramour and tried to lure him from the Queen, and that you shared the Merlin's bed-that you had not stopped at making unlawful love to your own brother, and that was why the King sent you from court, that you might tempt him no more from Christian ways-why should you stop at your stepson? Does Uriens know what kind of incestuous harlot he took for his wife, madam?"
"Uriens knows everything about me that he has any need to know," said Morgaine, surprised that her voice was so steady. "As for the Merlin, we were then both unwed and neither of us cares anything for the laws of a Christian court. Your father knew and absolved me of that. None but he has any right to complain of my conduct since then, and when he does so I will answer to him, as I need not answer to you, sir Avalloch. And now I will go to my own room, and I bid you do the same."
"So you throw the pagan laws of Avalon at me," Avalloch said, his voice a sneering growl. "Harlot, how dare you claim you are so good-" He grabbed her; his mouth crushed hers. Morgaine stabbed her stiffened fingers into his belly; he grunted and let her go with a curse. She said angrily, "I claim nothing. I need not answer to you for my conduct, and if you speak to Uriens, I will tell him that you laid hands on me in a fashion unseemly for your father's wife, and we will see whom he will believe."
Avalloch snarled, "Let me tell you, lady, you may cozen my father as you will, but he is old, and on the day I am made king in this land, be sure there will be no more grace extended to those who have lived on because my father cannot forget that once he wore the serpents!"
"Oh, rare," said Morgaine scornfully. "First you make advances to your fadier's wife, and then you boast of how good a Christian you will be when your father's land is yours!"
"You first bewitched me-harlot!"
Morgaine could not keep back her laughter. "Bewitch you? And why? Avalloch, if all men save you vanished from the earth, I would sooner share my bed with one of the puppies! Your father may be old enough to be my grandsire, but I would sooner lie with him than you! Do you think I am jealous of Maline, when every time you go down to the village at harvest or spring-plowing festival she sings? If I made such an enchantment, it would not be to enjoy your manhood but to wither it! Now get your hands off me, and go back to whoever will have you, for if you touch me again with one fingertip I swear I will blast your manhood!"
He believed she could do it; that was clear from the way he shrank from her. But Father Eian would hear of this, and then he would question her, and he would question Accolon, and he would question the servants, and then he would be at Uriens again to cut down the sacred grove and put down the old worship. Avalloch would not stop until he had set this whole court by the ears.
I hate Avalloch! Morgaine was surprised that her rage was physical, a scalding pain beneath her breastbone, a shaking through her whole body. Once I was proud; a priestess ofAvalon does not lie. And now there is something about which I must auoid the truth. Even Uriens would see me as a treacherous wife, creeping in secret to Accolon's bed for her own lusts ... . She was weeping with rage, feeling Avalloch's hot hands again on her arm and her breast. Now, soon or late, she would be accused, and even if Uriens trusted her, she would be watched. Ah, I was happy for the first time in many years and now it is all spoilt ... .
Well, the sun was rising, soon the housefolk would be waking, and she must make arrangements for the work of the day. Had he been only guessing? Uriens must keep his bed, certainly Avalloch would not disturb his father this day. She must brew some more of the herb medicine for Uwaine's face wound, and the roots of one of his broken teeth must be dug out, too.
Uwaine loved her-surely he would not listen to any accusation Avalloch might make. And at that, she felt the flooding, surging fury again, remembering Avalloch's words: Was it Accolon or Uwaine, or both at once.... I am as much Uwaine's mother as if I had borne him! What kind of woman does he think me? But was that rumor indeed in Arthur's court, that she had committed incest with Arthur, himself? How, then, in the face of that, can I bring Arthur to acknowledge Gwydion his son? Galahad is Arthur's heir, but my son must be acknowledged, and the royal line of Avalon. But there must be no further scandal about me, certainly not any hint that I have committed incest with my stepson ... .
And she wondered a little at herself. She had flown into a desperate rage when she knew she was to bear Arthur's son and now it seemed trivial to her; after all, she and Arthur had not even known themselves brother and sister. But Uwaine-no blood kin to her-was far more her son than Gwydion; she had mothered Uwaine ... .
Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. Morgaine went to the kitchen and heard the cook complain that all the bacon was gone, and the storerooms were near enough empty to make it hard to feed all these homecomers.
"Well, we must send Avalloch to hunt today," said Morgaine, and stopped Maline on the stairs as she carried up her husband's morning drink of hot wine.
Maline said, "I saw you talking with Avalloch-what did he have to say to you?" She frowned a little, and Morgaine, reading her thoughts as it was easy to do with a woman as stupid as Maline, realized that her daughter-in-law feared and resented her; thought it unfair that Morgaine should still be slim-bodied and hard when she, Maline, was heavy and worn with childbearing, that Morgaine should have glossy dark hair when Maline herself, busied with babies, never had time to comb and plait her own, and make it shine.