Read Online The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

some spell had been at work. I believe I thought hazily of dragged wine, Circe's cup, and men turned into rutting swine. It was not until some time later, when the man reached a hand from the bed-covers and turned up the wick of the lamp, and the woman, dazed with sex and sleep, sat up smiling against the crimson pillows and drew the furs up to cover herself, that I began to suspect the truth. He padded across the floor, through the fallen wreck of his own clothes, poured another cupful of wine, drained it, then refilled it and took it back to Morgause. Then he heaved himself back into the bed beside her, sat back himself against the bed-head, and began to talk. She, half sitting, half lying against him, nodded and answered, seriously and at length. As they talked, his hand slid down to fondle her breasts; he did it half absently, as was natural enough in a man likeLot , who was used to women. But Morgause, the maiden with the unbound hair and demure little voice? Morgause noticed the gesture no more than the man. Only then, with a jar like an arrow thudding deep into a shield, did I see the truth. They had been here before. They were familiar. Even before she had lain with Arthur,Lot had had her, and many times.
    They were so used to one another that they could lie twined naked on a bed and, busily and earnestly, talk...About what?
    Treachery. That was, naturally, my first thought. Treachery against the High King, whom both, for differing reasons, had cause to hate. Morgause, long jealous of the half-sister who must always take precedence of her, had laid siege toLot and taken him to her bed. There had, it was to be supposed, been other lovers, too. Then cameLot 's bid for power at Luguvallium. It failed, and Morgause, not guessing at the strength and clemency that would make Arthur accept him back among his allies, turned to Arthur himself in her own desperate play for power.
    And now? She had magic of a kind. It was possible that she knew, as I knew, that in that night's incest with Arthur she had conceived. A husband she must have, and who better thanLot ? If he could be persuaded that the child was his, she might cheat the hated young sister of marriage and kingdom, and build a nest where the cuckoo could hatch out in safety.
    It looked as if she would succeed. When next I saw through the dream-smoke they were laughing together, and she had freed her body of the covers and was seated high on the furs against the crimson curtains of the bedhead, with the rose-gold hair streaming down behind her shoulders like a mantle of silk. The front of her body was bare, and on her head wasLot 's royal circlet of white gold, glimmering with citrines and the milk-blue pearls of the northern rivers. Her eyes shone bright and narrow as a purring cat's, and the man was laughing with her as he lifted the cup and drank what looked like a toast to her. As he lifted it the cup rocked, and wine slopped over the brim to spill down her breasts like blood.
    She smiled, not stirring, and the king leaned forward, laughing, and sucked it off.
    The smoke thickened. I could smell it, as if I was there in the room, close by the brazier. Then mercifully I was awake in the cool and tranquil night, but with the nightmare still crawling like sweat on the skin.
    To anyone but me, knowing them as I knew them, the scene would have offered no offense. The girl was lovely, and the man fine enough, and if they were lovers, why, then, she had the right to look toward his crown. There should have been nothing to flinch at in the scene, any more than in a dozen such that one sees on any summer evening along the hedgerows, or in the midnight hall. But about a crown, even such a one asLot 's, there is something sacred: it is a symbol of that mystery, the link between god and king, king and people. So to see the crown on that wanton head, with the king's own head, bared of its royalty, bent below it like a beast's pasturing, was profanity, like spittle on an altar.
    So