Igraine raised her face to him in anger. "Gorlois, I have not deserved this of you! What have I ever done that you should cast such an accusation at me in a public place?" For indeed heads were turning now, hearing angry words spoken.

"Then why, lady, do you weep, if he has said nothing unseemly to you?" His hand, gripping her wrist, felt as if he would crush it.

"As for that," Uther said, "you must ask the lady why she weeps, for I do not know. But loose her arm, or I will make you. Husband or no, no one shall handle any woman roughly in my house."

Gorlois let go of Igraine's arm. She could see the marks of his fingers already reddening into dark bruises; she rubbed the marks, tears streaming down her face. Before the many faces surrounding them she was appalled, as if she had been taken and shamed; she covered her face with her veil and wept harder than ever. Gorlois pushed her before him. She did not hear what he said to Uther; only when they were outside in the street did she stare at him, amazed.

He said in a rage, "I will not accuse you before all men, Igraine, but God is my witness I should be justified in doing so. Uther looked at you just now as a man looks at a woman he has known as no Christian man has a right to know any other man's wife!"

Igraine, feeling her heart pounding in her breast, knew it was true, and felt confusion and despair. In spite of the fact that she had seen Uther only four times, and dreamed twice of him, she knew that they had looked at each other and spoken to each other as if they had been lovers for many years, knowing all and more than all about each other, body and mind and heart. She recalled her dream, where it seemed that they had been bound for many years by a tie which, if it was not marriage, might as well have been so. Lovers, partners, priest to priestess-whatever it was called. How could she tell Gorlois that she had known Uther only in a dream, but that she had begun to think of him as the man she had loved so long ago that Igraine herself was not yet born, was a shadow; that the essence within her was one and the same with that woman who had loved that strange man who bore the serpents on his arms in gold ... . How could she say this to Gorlois, who knew, and wished to know, nothing of the Mysteries?

He pushed her ahead of him into their lodging. He was ready, she knew, to strike her if she had spoken; but her silence frustrated him even more. He shouted, "Have you nothing to say to me, my wife?" and gripped her already bruised arm so strongly that she cried out anew with the pain of his hand. "Did you think I did not see how you looked at your paramour?"

She wrenched her arm away from him, feeling as if he would actually tear it out of the socket. "If you saw that, then you saw me turn away from him when he would have had no more than a kiss! And did you not hear him say to me that you were his loyal supporter and he would not take the wife of his friend-"

"If I was ever his friend, I am so no more!" Gorlois said, his face dark with fury. "Do you truly think I shall support a man who would take my wife from me, in a public place, shaming me before all his assembled chiefs?"

"He did not!" Igraine cried out, weeping. "I have never so much as touched his lips!" It seemed all the more vicious since she had indeed desired Uther but had kept herself scrupulously away from him. Why, if I am to be accused of guilt when I am innocent of any wrongdoing even as he would call it so, why should I not have done what Uther wished?

"I saw how you looked at him! And you have kept apart from my bed since first you set eyes on Uther, you faithless whore!"

"How do you dare!" she gasped, raging, and caught up the silver mirror he had given her, flinging it at his head. "Take back that word, or I swear I will throw myself into the river before ever you touch me again! You lie, and you know you lie!"

Gorlois ducked his head and the mirror crashed against the wall. Igraine snatched off her amber necklace-another new gift from her husband-and flung it after the mirror; with hasty fingers tore off the fine new gown and hurled it at his head. "How dare you call me such names, who have loaded me with gifts as if I were one of your camp followers and fancy women? If you think me a whore, where are the gifts I have received from my lovers? All the gifts I have are given me by my husband, the whoreson foul-mouthed cullion who tries to buy my goodwill for his own lusts because the priests have made him half a eunuch! From now on I will wear the weaving of my own fingers, not your disgusting gifts, you knave whose mouth and mind are as foul as your filthy kisses!"

"Be silent, you evil-minded scold!" Gorlois shouted, striking her so hard that she fell to the ground. "Now get up and cover yourself decently as a Christian woman should, not tearing off your clothes so that I will go mad with looking at you like that! Is that how you seduced my king into your arms?"

She scrambled to her feet, kicking the ruins of the gown as far as she could, and rushed at him, striking his face again and again. He grabbed her, trying to hold her motionless; crushed her into his arms. Igraine was strong, but Gorlois was a big man and a warrior, and after a moment her struggles subsided, knowing they were useless.

He whispered, pushing her toward the bed, "I will teach you better than to look at any man that way except your rightful husband!"

She flung her head back in contempt and said, "Do you think I would ever look at you again except with the loathing I would feel for a snake? Oh, yes, you can take me to bed and force me to do your will, your Christian piety permits you to ravish your own wife! I do not care what you say to me, Gorlois, because I know in my own heart that I am innocent! Until this very moment I felt guilty that some witchcraft or spell had made me love Uther. Now I wish I had done what he begged of me, if only because you were as ready to believe lies of my guilt as the truth about my innocence, and while I was anxious for my own honor and yours, you were prepared to believe I would fling mine to the winds!"

The contempt in her voice made Gorlois drop his arms and stare at her. He said, his voice husky, "Do you mean that, Igraine? Are you truly innocent of wrongdoing?"

"Do you think I would stoop to lie about it? To you?"

"Igraine, Igraine," he said humbly, "I know well I am too old for you, that you were given to me without love and without your will, but I thought, perhaps, in these days, you have come to think a little better of me, and when I saw you weeping before Uther-" His voice choked. "I could not bear it, that you should look like that at that lustful and vicious man, and look on me only with duty and resignation-forgive me, forgive me, I do beg it of you-if indeed I wronged you-"

"You wronged me," she said, her voice stinging with ice, "and you do well to beg my pardon, which you shall not have until the hells rise and the Earth sinks beneath the western ocean! Better you should go and make your peace with Uther-do you truly think you can stand against the wrath of the High King of Britain? Or will you end by buying his favor as you sought to buy mine?"

"Be still!" Gorlois said angrily, his face flushing; he had humbled himself before her, and she knew he would never forgive her for that either. "Cover yourself!"

Igraine realized that she was still bare to the waist. She went to the bed where her old gown was lying and pulled it leisurely over her head, doing up the laces. He gathered up her amber necklace from the floor, and the silver mirror, and held them out to her, but she turned her eyes away and ignored them and after a while he laid them on the bed, where she let them lie without looking at them.

He stared at her for a moment, then pushed the door and went out.

Left alone, Igraine began to put her things into her saddlebags. She did not know what she meant to do; perhaps she would go and find the Merlin, take him into her confidence. It was he who had begun this train of events that had put her and Gorlois at such odds. At least she knew she would no longer dwell with complacency under Gorlois's roof. A pain struck at her heart: they had been wedded under Roman law and by that law Gorlois had absolute power over their daughter, Morgaine. Somehow she must contrive to dissemble until she could get Morgaine away to a place of safety! She could perhaps send her to Viviane, at the Holy Isle, for fostering.