And at this all Igraine's rage and rebelliousness exploded. Father Columba had advanced toward Morgaine, who stood without flinching. Igraine stepped between them. "If you lay a hand on my daughter, priest," she said, "I will kill you where you stand. My husband brought you here, and I cannot send you away, but on the day you come into my presence again, I will spit on you. Get out of my sight!"
He stood his ground. "My lord Gorlois entrusted me with the spiritual well-being of this entire household, my lady, and I am not given to pride, so I will forgive what you have said."
"I care as little for your forgiveness as for that of the billy goat! Get out of my sight or I will call my serving-women and have you put out. Unless you want to be carried out of here, old man, get from here and do not presume to come into my presence until I send for you-and that will be when the sun rises over western Ireland! Go!"
The priest stared at her blazing eyes, at her uplifted hand, and scuttled out of the room.
Now that she had committed an act of open rebellion, she was paralyzed at her own temerity. But at least it had freed her from the priest, and freed Morgaine, too. She would not have her daughter brought up to feel shame at her own womanhood.
Morgause came back late that night from the fair, having chosen all her purchases carefully-Igraine knew she could not have done better herself-with a lump of loaf sugar for Morgaine to suck, which she had bought with her own pocket money, and full of tales from the marketplace. The sisters sat until midnight in Igraine's room, talking long after Morgaine had fallen asleep, sucking on her sugar candy, her small face sticky and her hands still clutching it. Igraine took it away and wrapped it for her, and came back to ask further news of Morgause.
This is ignoble, that I must hear news from the marketplace about the doings of my own husband!
"There is a great gathering in the Summer Country," Morgause said. "They say that the Merlin has made peace between Lot and Uther. They say, too, that Ban of Less Britain has allied with them, and is sending them horses brought from Spain-" She stumbled a little over the name. "Where is that, Igraine? Is it in Rome?"
"No, but it is far in the south, nearer than we to Rome by many, many leagues," Igraine told her.
"There was a battle with the Saxons, and Uther was there with the dragon banner," Morgause told her. "I heard a harper telling it like a ballad, how the Duke of Cornwall had imprisoned his lady in Tintagel-" In the darkness Igraine could see that the girl's eyes were wide, her lips parted. "Igraine, tell me true, was Uther your lover?"
"He was not," Igraine said, "but Gorlois believed he was, and that is why he quarreled with Uther. He did not believe me when I told him the truth." Her throat choked tight with tears. "I wish now that it had been the truth."
"They say King Lot is handsomer than Uther," Morgause said, "and that he is seeking a wife, and it is whispered in gossip that he would challenge Uther to be High King, if he thought he could do so safely. Is he handsomer than Uther? Is Uther as godlike as they say, Igraine?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, Morgause."
"Why, they say he was your lover-"
"I do not care what they say," Igraine interrupted her, "but as for that, I suppose as the world reckons such things, both of them are fine-looking men, Lot dark, and Uther blond like a Northman. But it was not for his fair face that I thought Uther the better man."
"What was it then?" asked Morgause, bright and inquisitive, and Igraine sighed, knowing the young girl would not understand. But the hunger to share at least a little of what she felt, and could never say to anyone, drove her to say, "Why-I hardly know. Only-it was as if I had known him from the beginning of the world, as if he could never be strange to me, whatever he did or whatever befell between us."
"But if he never so much as kissed you ... "
"It does not matter," Igraine said wearily, and then at last, weeping, said what she had known for a long time now, and had been unwilling to admit. "Even should I never again look upon his face in this life, I am bound to him and I shall be so bound until I die. And I cannot believe the Goddess would have wrought this upheaval in my life, if I was meant never again to see him."
By the dim light she could see that Morgause was looking at her with awe and a measure of envy, as if in the younger girl's eyes Igraine had suddenly become the heroine of some old romantic tale. She wanted to say to her, no, it is not like that, it is not romantic at all, it is simply what has happened, but she knew there was no way to say that, for Morgause had not the experience to tell romance from this sort of ultimate reality, rock-hard at the bottom of imagination or fantasy. Let her think it romance, then, if it pleases her, Igraine thought, and realized that this kind of reality would never come to Morgause: it was a different world she lived in.
Now she had taken the step of alienating the priest who was Gorlois's man, and another step in confessing to Morgause that she loved Uther. Viviane had said something of worlds drawing apart one from the other, and it seemed to Igraine as if she had begun to dwell on some world apart from the ordinary one in which Gorlois perhaps had a right to expect that she be his faithful chattel, servant, slave-his wife. Only Morgaine now bound her to that world. She looked at the sticky-handed, sleeping child, her dark hair scattered wildly around her, and at her wide-eyed younger sister, and wondered if, at the call of this thing that had happened to her, she would abandon even these last hostages which held her to the real world.
The thought gave great pain, but inside herself she whispered, "Yes. Even that."
AND SO THE NEXT STEP, which she had feared so greatly, became simple to her.
She lay awake that night between Morgause and her child, trying to decide what she must do. Should she run away and trust to Uther's part in the vision to find her? Almost at once she rejected that thought. Should she send Morgause, with secret instructions to flee to Avalon and bear a message that she was imprisoned? No; if it was common talk-a ballad in the marketplace-that she was imprisoned, her sister would have come to her if she thought that it would help. And ever at her heart gnawed the silent voice of doubt and despair. Her vision had been a false one ... or perhaps, when she had not flung all aside for Uther, they had abandoned the plan, found another woman for Uther, and the saving of Britain, as, should the high priestess be ill for the great Celebration, they would choose another for her part.
Toward morning, as the sky was already paling, she fell into a dazed sleep. And there, when she had ceased to hope for it, she found guidance. Just as she woke, it was as if a voice said inside her mind, Rid yourself for this one day of the child, and the maiden, and you will know what to do.
The day dawned clear and shining, and as they broke their fast on goat's cheese and new-baked bread, Morgause looked at the shining sea and said, "I am so weary of staying withindoors-I did not know till yesterday at the market how weary I am grown of this house!"
"Take Morgaine, then, and go out for the day with the shepherd women," Igraine suggested. "She too would like to go abroad, I imagine."
She wrapped up slices of meat and bread for them; to Morgaine it was like a festival. Igraine saw them go, hoping now for some way to evade the watchful eyes of Father Columba, for, although he followed her will and had not spoken to her, his eyes followed her everywhere. But at midmoming, as she sat weaving, he came into her presence and said, "Lady-"
She did not look up at him. "I bade you stay away from me, priest. Complain of me to Gorlois when he comes home if you will, but do not speak to me."