Excruciating pain stabbed through Morgaine's whole body; she doubled up with the weight of it. ...
"Morgaine!" said Morgause sharply, with a catch of breath; then called out, "Queen Morgaine is ill-come tend to her!"
"Morgaine!" Gwenhwyfar cried out. "What is it?"
The vision was gone. However she tried, she could not see the two men, nor which had prevailed, whether one of them lay dead-it was as if a great dark curtain had closed over them, with the ringing of church bells -in the last instant of the vision she had seen two litters carrying the wounded men into the abbey at Glastonbury, where she could not follow ... . She clung to the edges of her chair as Gwenhwyfar came, with one of her ladies, who knelt to raise Morgaine's head.
"Ah, look, your gown is soaked with blood-this is not any ordinary bleeding."
Morgaine, her mouth dry with the sickness, whispered, "No-I was with child and I am miscarrying-Uriens will be angry with me-"
One of the women, a plump jolly one about her own age, said, "Tsk! Tsk! For shame! So His Lordship of Wales will be angry, will he? Well, well, well, and who chose him for God? You should have kept the old billy goat out of your bed, lady, it is dangerous for a woman to miscarry at your age! Shame on the old lecher to put you so at risk! So he will be angry, will he?"
Gwenhwyfar, her hostility forgotten, walked beside Morgaine as they carried her, rubbing her hands, all sympathy.
"Oh, poor Morgaine, what a sad thing, when you had hoped all over again. I know all too well how terrible it must be for you, my poor sister ..." she repeated, holding Morgaine's cold hands, cradling her shaking head when she vomited in the ghastly sickness that overcame her. "I have sent for Broca, she is the most skilled of the court midwives, she will look after you, poor dear ... ."
It seemed that Gwenhwyfar's sympathy would choke her. Racked by repeated, agonizing pains, she felt as if a sword had thrust through her vitals, but even so, even so, it was not so bad as Gwydion's birth had been, and she had lived through that ... shaking, retching, she tried to cling to consciousness, to be aware of what was going on around her. Maybe she had been ready to miscarry anyhow-it was surely too quick for the drug to have worked. Broca came, examined her, smelled at the vomited stuff, and raised her eyebrows knowingly. She said in an undertone to Morgaine, "Lady, you should have taken more care-those drugs can poison you. I have a brew which would have done what you wanted more quickly and with less sickness. Don't worry, I won't speak to Uriens-if he has no more sense than to let a woman of your years try to bear him a child, then what he does not know will do him no harm."
Morgaine let the sickness take her. She knew, after a time, that she was more gravely ill than they had thought ... Gwenhwyfar was asking if at last she wanted to see a priest; she shook her head and closed her eyes, lying silent and rebellious, not caring now whether she lived or died. Since Accolon or Arthur must die, she too would go into that shadow ... why could she not see them, where they lay within Glastonbury, which of them would come forth? Surely the priests would tend Arthur, their own Christian king, but would they leave Accolon to die?
If Accolon must go into the shades, let him go with the spirit of his son to attend him, she thought, and lay with tears sliding down her face, hearing in some distant place the voice of the old midwife Broca. "Yes, it's over. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but you know as well as I that she is too old to bear children. Yes, my lord, come and see-" The voice was harsh with asperity. "Men never think of what they do, and all the bloody mess women have for men's pleasure! No, it was all too soon to tell whether it would have been a boy or not, but she had had one fine son, I doubt not she would have borne you another, had she been strong enough and young enough to carry it!"
"Morgaine-dearest, look at me," Uriens pleaded. "I am so sorry, so sorry you are ill, but don't grieve, my darling, I still have two sons, I don't blame you-"
"Oh, you don't, do you?" said the old midwife, still truculent. "You had better not speak one word of blame to her, Your Majesty, she is still very weak and sick. We will have another bed put in here so that she may sleep in peace till she is quite well again. Here-" and Morgaine felt a comforting woman's arm under her head; something warm and comforting held to her lips. "Come, dear, drink this now, it has honey in it, and medicines to keep you from bleeding anymore-I know you are sick, but try to drink it anyhow, there's a good girl-"
Morgaine swallowed the bittersweet drink, tears blurring her vision. For a moment it seemed that she was a child, that Igraine held her and comforted her in some childish sickness. "Mother-" she said, and even as she spoke knew it was delirium, that Igraine had been dead for half a lifetime, that she was no child or maiden, but old, old, too old to lie here in this ugly way and so near death ... .
"No, Your Majesty, she doesn't know what she's saying-there, there, dear, you just lie still and try to sleep, we've got hot bricks on your feet and you'll be warm in a minute-"
Soothed, Morgaine floated away into dream. Now it seemed to her that she was a child again in Avalon, in the House of Maidens, and that Viviane was speaking to her, telling her something she could not quite remember, something of how the Goddess spun the lives of men, and she handed Morgaine a spindle and bade her spin, but the thread would not come smooth, but tangled and knotted and at last Viviane, angry with her, said, "Here, give it to me ... " and she handed over the broken threads and the spindle; only it was not Viviane, either, but the face of the Goddess, threatening, and she was very small, very small ... spinning and spinning with fingers too small to hold the distaff, and the Goddess bore the face of Igraine ... .
She came to awareness a day or two later, cool-headed, but with a vast and empty ache in her body. She laid her hands over the soreness, and thought, grimly, / might have saved myself some pain; I should have known that I was ready to miscarry anyway. Well, done is done, and now I must ready myself to hear that Arthur is dead, I must think what I will do when Accolon returns -Gwenhwyfar shall go into a nunnery, or if she wishes to go beyond the seas to Less Britain with Lancelet, I will not stop them ... . She rose and dressed herself, made herself beautiful.
"You should keep your bed, Morgaine, you are still so pale," said Uriens.
"No. There are strange tidings coming, my husband, and we must be ready for them," she said, and went on braiding her hair with scarlet ribbons and gems. Uriens stood at the window and said, "Look, the Companions are practicing their military games-Uwaine, I think, is the best rider. Come, my dear, does he not ride as well as Gawaine? And that is Galahad at his side. Morgaine, don't grieve for the child you lost. Uwaine will always think of you as his mother. I told you when we were wedded, I would never reproach you for barrenness. I would have welcomed another child, but since it was not to be, well, we have nothing to grieve for. And," he said shyly, taking her hand, "perhaps it is better so-I did not realize how near I had come to losing you."
She stood at the window, his arm about her waist, feeling at one and the same time a feeling of revulsion and a gratitude for his kindness. He need never know, she thought, that it had been Accolon's son. Let him take pride that in his old age he could father a child.
"Look," said Uriens, craning his neck to see further, "what is that, coming through the gate?"
A rider, together with a monk in dark habit on a mule, and a horse bearing a body-"Come," she said, pulling at his hand, "we must go down now." Pale and silent, she moved at his side into the courtyard, feeling herself tall and commanding as befitted a queen.