4

Gwenhwyfar felt the familiar nausea gripping the pit of her stomach; she began to wonder if before they set forth she would have to run at once to the privy. What would she do if the need came on her after she had mounted and ridden out? She looked at Igraine, who stood tall and composed, rather like the Mother Superior of her old convent. Igraine had seemed kind and motherly on that first visit, a year ago, when the marriage had been arranged. Now, come to escort Gwenhwyfar to her bridal, she seemed stern and demanding, with no trace of the terror that gripped at Gwenhwyfar. How could she be so calm? Gwenhwyfar ventured, in a small voice, peering at the waiting horses and litter, “Aren’t you afraid? It’s so far—“

“Afraid? Why, no,” said Igraine, “I have been to Caerleon many times, and it’s not likely the Saxons are on the road to war this time. Travelling in winter is troublesome, with mud and rain, but better that than fall into the hands of the barbarians.”

Gwenhwyfar felt the shock and shame gripping her, and clenched her fists, looking down at her sturdy, ugly travelling shoes.

Igraine reached out and took her hand, smoothing the small fingers. “I had forgotten, you have never been from home before, except to and from your convent. You were in Glastonbury, were you not?”

Gwenhwyfar nodded. “I wish I were going back there—“

She felt Igraine’s sharp eyes on her for a moment, and quailed; perhaps the lady would know she was unhappy at marrying her son, and come to dislike her  ...  but Igraine only said, holding her hand firmly, “I was not happy when I went first to be wedded to the Duke of Cornwall, I was not happy until I held my daughter in my arms. But I had scarce completed my fifteenth year; you are almost eighteen, are you not?”

Clinging to Igraine’s hand, Gwenhwyfar felt a little less panic; but even so, as she stepped outside the gate, it seemed that the sky overhead was a vast menace, threatening, low, filled with rainclouds. The path before the house was a sea of mud where the horses had been trampling. Now they were being drawn up into riding order with more men, it seemed to Gwenhwyfar, than she had ever seen together in her life, shouting and calling to each other, the horses neighing and the yard full of confusion. But Igraine held her hand tightly and Gwenhwyfar, shrinking, followed her.

“I am grateful that you came to escort me, lady—“

Igraine smiled. “I am all too worldly—I like a chance to travel beyond convent walls.” She made a long step to avoid a pile of horse dung which steamed in the mud. “Mind your step, there, child—look, your father has set aside these two fine ponies for us. Do you like riding?”

Gwenhwyfar shook her head, and whispered, “I thought I could ride in a litter—“

“Why, so you can, if you wish,” Igraine said, looking at her wonderingly, “but you will grow very weary of it, I should think. When my sister Viviane went on her travels, she used to wear men’s breeches. I should have found you a pair, though at my age it would hardly be seemly.”

Gwenhwyfar blushed scarlet. “I couldn’t,” she said, shaking, “it’s forbidden for a woman to put on the clothes of a man, so it says in Holy Writ—“

Igraine chuckled. “The Apostle seemed to know little of the North country. It is hot where he lived,” she said, “and I have heard that the men in that country where our Lord lived knew nothing of breeches, but wore long gowns as some Roman men did and do still. I think it meant only that women were not to wear the garb of some particular man, not that they were not to wear clothing fashioned in a man’s style. And certainly my sister Viviane is the most modest of women; she is a priestess of Avalon.” Gwenhwyfar’s eyes were wide. “Is she a witch, madam?”

“No, no, she is a wise-woman, learned in herbs and medicines, and having the Sight, but she has sworn a vow never to hurt man nor beast. She does not even eat flesh food,” Igraine said. “She lives as austerely as any abbess. Look,” she said, and pointed, “there is Lancelet, Arthur’s chief Companion. He has come to escort us, and to bring back the horses and men—“ Gwenhwyfar smiled, feeling a blush spread to her cheeks. She said, “I know Lancelet, he came to show my father what he could do with the horses.”

Igraine said, “Aye; he rides like one of those centaurs the ancients used to speak of, half horse and half man!”

Lancelet swung down from his horse. His cheeks were as crimson with the cold as the Roman cloak he wore; the collar was turned high around his face. He bowed to the ladies.

“Madam,” he said to Igraine, “are you ready to ride?”

“I think so. The princess’s luggage is already loaded on that cart, I think,” Igraine said, looking at the bulky wagon loaded high and covered with skins: a bed frame and furnishings, a great carved chest, a large and a small loom, pots and kettles.

“Aye. I hope it does not get mired in all this mud,” Lancelet said, looking at the yoke of oxen hauling it. “It is not that wagon I am worried about, but the other—the king’s wedding gift to Arthur,” he added, without enthusiasm, looking at the second, much larger cart. “I would have thought it better to have a table built for the King’s house in Caerleon, if Uther had not left tables and furniture enough—not that I begrudge my lady her bride furniture,” he added, with a quick smile at Gwenhwyfar that made her cheeks glow, “but a table, as if my Lord Arthur had not enough furniture for his hall?”

“Ah, but that table is one of my father’s treasures,” said Gwenhwyfar. “It was a prize of war from one of the kings of Tara, where my grandsire fought him and carried off his best mead-hall table ... it is round, you see, so a bard can sit at the center to sing to them, or the servants pass round to pour wine or beer. And when he entertained his fellow kings he need not set one higher than another ... so my father thought it fitting for a High King, who must also seat his well-born Companions without preferring one above the other.”

“It is truly a king’s gift,” Lancelet said politely, “but it takes three yoke of oxen to haul it, lady, and God alone knows how many joiners and carpenters to put it together again when we have come there, so that instead of travelling at the pace of a company of horse we must plod along at the pace of the slowest ox. Ah well, the wedding cannot begin until you get there, my lady.” He cocked up his head, listened and shouted, “I will come in a minute, man! I cannot be everywhere at once!” He bowed. “Ladies, I must get this army moving! Can I help you to your horses?”

“I think Gwenhwyfar wants to travel in the litter,” said Igraine.

Lancelet said, with a smile, “Why, it is as if the sun went behind a cloud then—but you do as you will, lady. I hope you will shine out on us again another day perhaps.”

Gwenhwyfar felt pleasantly embarrassed, as she always did when Lancelet made his pretty speeches. She never knew whether he was serious or whether he was teasing her. Suddenly, as he rode away, she felt afraid again. The horses towering around her, the hordes of men coming and going —it was as if they really were the army Lancelet had called them, and she no more than an unregarded piece of luggage, almost a prize of war. Silent, she let Igraine help her into the litter, which was covered with cushions and a fur rug, and she curled up in a corner of it.

“Shall I leave the curtains of the litter open so we can have some light and air?” Igraine asked, settling herself comfortably in the cushions.

“No!” said Gwenhwyfar in a choking voice. “I—I feel better with them closed.”

With a shrug, Igraine closed the curtains. She looked out through a crack, watching the first of the horsemen ride out, the wagons swing into line. A kingly dowry, indeed, all these men. Armed horsemen, with weapons and gear, to be added to Arthur’s armies—it was almost like what she had heard of a Roman legion.

Gwenhwyfar’s head was on the pillows, her face white, her eyes shut.

“Are you sick?” Igraine asked in wonder.

Gwenhwyfar shook her head. “It’s just—so big—“ she said. “I’m— I m afraid,” she whispered.

“Afraid? But my dear child—“ Igraine broke off, and after a moment said, “Well, you’ll feel better soon.”

Gwenhwyfar, her arms crossed over her eyes, hardly knew it when the litter began moving; she had willed herself into a state of half-sleep in which she could hold the panic at bay. Where was she going, under that huge all-covering sky, over the wide moors and through so many hills? The knot of panic in her belly pulled tighter and tighter. All round her she heard the sounds of horses and men, an army on the march. She was merely part of the furniture of the horses and men and their gear and a mead table. She was only a bride with all that properly belonged to her, clothes and gowns and jewels and a loom and a kettle and some combs and hackles for spinning flax. She was not herself, there was nothing for herself, she was only some property of a High King who had not even bothered to come and see the woman they were sending along with all the horses and gear. She was another mare, a brood mare this time for the High King’s stud service, hopefully to provide a royal son.

Gwenhwyfar thought she would smother with the rage that was choking her. But no, she must not be angry, it was not seemly to be angry; the Mother Superior had told her in the convent that it was a woman’s proper business to be married and bear children. She had wanted to be a nun and stay in the convent and learn to read and make beautiful letters with 1 her clever pen and brush, but that was not suitable for a princess; she must obey her father’s will as if it were the will of God. Women had to be’ especially careful to do the will of God because it was through a woman I that mankind had fallen into Original Sin, and every woman must be aware 1 that it was her work to atone for that Original Sin in Eden. No woman could ever be really good except for Mary the Mother of Christ; all other women were evil, they had never had any chance to be anything but evil. This was her punishment for being like Eve, sinful, filled with rage and rebellion against the will of God. She whispered a prayer and willed herself into semiconsciousness again.

Igraine, resigning herself to riding behind closed curtains although| craving fresh air, wondered what in the world was wrong with the girl. She had not said a word against the marriage—well, she, Igraine, had not rebelled against her marriage to Gorlois, either; remembering the angry and terrified child she had been, she sympathized with Gwenhwyfar. But, why should the girl huddle behind curtains instead of going with her head up to meet her new life? What was she afraid of? Did Arthur seem such monster? It was not as if she were marrying an old man, three times her age; Arthur was young, quite ready to give her honor and respect.

They slept that night in a tent pitched on a carefully chosen dry spot listening to the winds and the rain moaning and pelting down. Igraine wok once in the night to hear Gwenhwyfar whimper.

“What is the matter, child? Are you sick?”

“No—lady, do you think Arthur will like me?”

“There is no reason he should not,” Igraine said gently. “You certainly know you are beautiful.”

“Am I?” In her soft voice, it sounded only naive, not the self-conscious or coy plea for compliment or reassurance that it would have been in another. “Lady Alienor said my nose was too big, and that I had freckles like a cowherd.”

“Lady Alienor—“ Igraine reminded herself to be charitable; Alienor was not much older than Gwenhwyfar, and had borne four children in six years. “I think perhaps she is a little shortsighted. You are lovely indeed. You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.”

“I don’t think Arthur cares for beauty,” Gwenhwyfar said. “He did not even send to inquire if I were cross-eyed or one-legged or had a squint or a harelip.”

“Gwenhwyfar,” said Igraine gently, “every woman is wedded for her dowry, but a High King, too, must marry as his councillors bid him. Do you not think he is lying wakeful of nights, wondering what fortune the lottery has cast him, and that he will not greet you with gratitude and joy because you bring him beauty and good temper and learning as well? He was resigned to taking whatever he must, but he will be all the happier when he discovers that you are not—what was it?—harelipped or pockmarked or cross-eyed. He is young, and has not much experience with women. And Lancelet, I am sure, has told him that you are beautiful and virtuous.”

Gwenhwyfar let out her breath. “Lancelet is Arthur’s cousin, is he not?”

“True. He is son to Ban of Benwick by my sister, who is the Great Priestess of Avalon. He was born in the Great Marriage—know you anything of that? In Less Britain, some of the people call for the old pagan rites,” Igraine said. “Even Uther, when he was made High King, was taken to Dragon Island and crowned by the old rites there, though they did not demand of him that he marry the land; in Britain, that is done by the Merlin, so that he is sacrifice for the King if need be ...  .”

Gwenhwyfar said, “I did not know these old pagan rites were still known in Britain. Was—was Arthur crowned so?”

“If he was,” said Igraine, “he has not told me. Perhaps by now things have changed, and he is content that the Merlin should be only his chiefest of councillors.”

“Do you know the Merlin, lady?”

“He is my father.”

“Is it so?” Gwenhwyfar stared at her in the dark. “Lady, is it true that when Uther Pendragon came to you before you were wedded to him, he came to you by the Merlin’s arts in the magical disguise of Gorlois, so that you lay with him thinking he was Duke of Cornwall and you still a chaste and faithful wife?”

Igraine blinked; she had heard rumors of tales that she had borne Uther’s son with unseemly haste, but this story she had never heard. “They say that?”

“Sometimes, lady. There are bards’ tales about it.”

“Well, it is not true,” said Igraine. “He wore Gorlois’s cloak and bore Gorlois’s ring which he had taken when they fought—Gorlois was traitor to his High King and his life forfeit. But whatever tales they tell, I knew perfectly well that it was Uther and no other.” Her throat closed; even now, it seemed only as if Uther were still alive somewhere, away on campaign.

“You loved Uther? It was not, then, the Merlin’s magic?”

“No,” Igraine said, “I loved him well, though I think at first he chose to marry me because I was of the old royal line of Avalon. And so, you see, a marriage made for the good of the kingdom can come to be happy. I loved Uther; I could wish just such good fortune for you, that you and my son may come to love one another that way.”

“I hope that too.” Gwenhwyfar clutched again at Igraine’s hand. To Igraine the fingers felt small and soft, easily crushed, unlike her own strong, competent ones. This was not a hand for tending babes or wounded men, but for fine needlework or prayer. Leodegranz should have left this child in her convent, and Arthur sought elsewhere for a bride. Things would go as God had ordained; she was sorry for Gwenhwyfar’s fright, but she was also sorry for Arthur, with a bride so childish and unwilling.

Yet, she herself had been no better when she was sent to Gorlois; perhaps the girl’s strength would grow with the years.

With the first rays of the sun the camp was astir, making ready for the day’s march that would bring them to Caerleon. Gwenhwyfar looked white and weak and when she tried to get up, she turned on her side and retched. For a moment Igraine entertained an uncharitable suspicion, then put it aside; the girl, cloistered and timid, was ill with fright, no more. She said briskly, “I told you the closed litter would make you queasy. Today you must get on your horse and take the fresh air, or we shall have you coming to your bridal with pale cheeks instead of roses.” She added to herself, And if I must ride behind closed curtains for another day I shall certainly go mad; that would be a wedding to remember indeed, with a bride sick and pale, and the mother of the bridegroom raving. “Come, if you will get up and ride, Lancelet shall ride with you, to gossip with you and cheer you.”

Gwenhwyfar braided her hair, and even gave some thought to the arranging of her veil; she ate little, but she did sip a little barley beer and put a bit of bread in her pocket, saying that she would eat it later, as she rode.

Lancelet had been out and about since first light. When Igraine suggested, “You must ride with my lady. She is moping, she has never been from home before,” his eyes lighted up and he smiled. “It will be my pleasure, madam.”

Igraine rode alone behind the young people, glad of the solitude for her own thoughts. How handsome they were—Lancelet so dark and spirited and Gwenhwyfar all golden and white. Arthur was fair, too, their children would be dazzling. She realized with some surprise that she was looking forward to being a grandmother. It would be pleasant to have little children about, to pet them and play with them, but children who were not her own, over whom she need not worry and fret and trouble herself. She rode in a pleasant daydream; she had grown used to daydreaming a great deal in the convent. Looking ahead to the young people riding side by side, she saw that the girl sat her horse upright and had some color in her face and was smiling. Igraine had done right, to get her out into the air.

And then she saw how they were looking at each other.

Dear God! Uther looked so at me when I was Gorlois’s wife—as if he were starving and I were food high out of his reach ...  . What can possibly come of it if they love one another? Lancelet is honorable, and Gwenhwyfar, I would swear, virtuous, so what can possibly come of it except misery? Then she reproved herself for her suspicions; they were riding at a decent distance from one another, they did not seek to touch hands, they were smiling because they were young and it was a fair day; Gwenhwyfar rode to her wedding, and Lancelet brought horses and men to his king, his cousin, and friend. Why should they not be happy and talk with one another gaily and joyously? I am an evil-minded old woman. But she still felt troubled.

What will come of this? Dear God, would it be traitorous to you to pray for a moment of the Sight? And then she wondered—was there yet any honorable way for Arthur to get out of this marriage? For the High King to wed a woman whose heart was already given, that would be a tragedy. Britain was filled with maidens ready to love him and wed him. But the dowry price was paid, the bride had left her father’s house, the subject kings and liegemen were assembling to see their young King married.

Igraine resolved to speak to the Merlin. As Arthur’s chiefest councillor, perhaps he could yet prevent this marriage—but could even he prevent it without war and ruin? It would be a pity, too, for Gwenhwyfar to be publicly rejected like this, in the presence of all Britain. No, it was too late, the wedding must take place as it was fated. Igraine sighed and rode on, her head lowered and all the beauty gone from the bright day. She told herself, angrily, that all her doubts and fears were meaningless, an idle old woman’s imaginings; or that all of these fantasies were sent of the Devil to tempt her into using the Sight she had renounced, and becoming again a tool of wickedness and sorcery.

Yet as she rode, her eyes kept returning to Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet, and to the almost visible haze that seemed to hover between them, an aura of hunger and desire and longing.

They arrived at Caerleon shortly before sunset. The castle stood on a hill, the site of an old Roman fort, and some of the old Roman stonework was still in place—it looked, Igraine thought, very much as it must have looked in Roman days. For a moment, seeing the slopes covered with tents and people, she wondered dizzily if the place were under siege, but then she realized that all these folk must have come to see the High King married. Seeing the crowd, Gwenhwyfar had turned pale and terrified again; Lancelet was trying to arrange the long draggled column into some vestige of dignity, and Gwenhwyfar put her veil down over her face and rode silent by Igraine.

“It is a pity they must all see you worn and travel-weary,” Igraine agreed, “but look, there is Arthur, come out to meet us.”

The girl was so weary she hardly raised her head. Arthur, in a long blue tunic, his sword in its preciously worked crimson scabbard swinging at his side, had stopped to speak for a moment to Lancelet, at the head of the column; then, die crowding men and riders separating as he walked through them, he came toward Igraine and Gwenhwyfar.

He bowed to his mother. “Had you a good journey, madam?” But he had raised his eyes to Gwenhwyfar, and Igraine saw his eyes widen at her beauty, and could almost read the younger girl’s thoughts.

Yes, I am beautiful, Lancelet thinks me beautiful, will my lord Arthur be pleased with me?

Arthur held out his hand to support her as she dismounted; she tottered a little, and he stretched out both arms to her.

“My lady and wife, welcome to your home and to my house. May you be happy here, and may this day be as joyous for you as for me.”

Gwenhwyfar felt the crimson rising in her cheeks. Yes, Arthur was handsome, she told herself fiercely, with that fair hair and the serious, level grey eyes. How different he seemed from Lancelet’s madcap gaiety and mischief! And how differently he looked at her—Lancelet looked at her as if she were the statue of the Virgin on the altar at church, but Arthur was looking at her soberly, tentatively, as if she were a stranger and he was not yet sure whether friend or foe.

She said, “I thank you, my husband and my lord. As you can see, I have brought you the promised dowry of men and horses—“

“How many horses?” he asked quickly. Gwenhwyfar was confused. What did she know about his precious horses? Did he have to make it so clear that it was the horses and not herself which he awaited in this wedding business? She drew herself to her full height—she was taller than some men, and for a woman she was a good height—and said with dignity, “I do not know, my lord Arthur, I have not counted them. You must ask your captain of horse. I am sure the lord Lancelet could tell you their number, to the last mare and the last foal at suck.”

Oh, good girl, Igraine thought, seeing the color rise in Arthur’s pale cheeks at the reproof. He smiled, ruefully. “Forgive me, my lady, no one expects of you that you should concern yourself with such things. I am sure Lancelet will tell me all of this at the proper time. I was thinking, also, of the men who came with you—it seems fit that I should welcome them as my new subjects, as well as welcoming their lady and my queen.” For a moment he looked almost as young as he was. He looked around at the milling crowd of men, horses, carts, oxen, and drovers, and spread his hands helplessly. “In all this hullabaloo, I doubt they could hear me anyway. Allow me to conduct you to the castle gates.” He took her hand and led her along the path, searching for the driest places. “I am afraid this is a dismal old place. It was my father’s stronghold, but I never lived here after I was old enough to remember. Perhaps some year, if the Saxons let us alone for a time, we can find some place better suited for our home, but for the moment this must suit.”

As he led her through the gates Gwenhwyfar reached out and touched the wall. It was thick, secure Roman stone, piled high and standing as if it had been there since the beginning of the world; here all was safe. She ran her finger almost lovingly along the wall. “I think it is beautiful. I am sure it will be safe—I mean, I am sure I will be happy here.”

“I hope so, lady—Gwenhwyfar,” he said, using her name for the first time, speaking it with a strange accent. She wondered suddenly where he had been reared. “I am very young to be in charge of all these—all these men and kingdoms. I will be glad to have a helpmeet.” She heard his voice tremble as if he were afraid—but what in the world could a man have to be afraid of? “My uncle by marriage—Lot, King of Orkney—he is married to my mother’s sister, Morgause, and Lot has said that his wife rules as well as he, when he is absent in war or council. I am willing to do you such honor, lady, and let you rule at my side.”

Panic clutched again at Gwenhwyfar’s stomach. How could he expect that of her? How could it be a woman’s place to rule? What did she care what the wild barbarians, these northern Tribesmen, did, or their barbarian women? She said, in a shaky little voice, “I could never presume so far, my lord and my king.”

Igraine said firmly, “Arthur, my son, what are you thinking of? The girl has been riding for two days and she is exhausted! This is no time to plot the strategy of kingdoms, with the mud of the road still on our shoes! I beg you, turn us over to your chamberlains, and there will be time enough to acquaint yourself with your bride tomorrow!”

Arthur’s skin, Gwenhwyfar thought, was fairer than her own; this was the second time she had seen him blush like a scolded child. “I am sorry, Mother; and you, my lady.” He raised his arm, signalling, and a dark, slender young man, with a scarred face and a pronounced limp, came unevenly toward them.

“My foster-brother, Cai, and my chamberlain,” Arthur said. “Cai, this is Gwenhwyfar, my lady and queen.”

Cai bowed to her, with a smile. “I am at your service.”

“As you can see,” Arthur said, “my lady has brought her furniture and belongings. Lady, I welcome you to your own house. Give Cai whatever orders seem good to you, about where to bestow your things. For now, I beg you give me leave to go; I must see to the men and horses and gear.” He bowed low again, and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that she could see relief on his face. She wondered if he was disappointed in her, or whether his only interest in this marriage was really in the dowry of horses and men, as she had thought. Well, she had been prepared for that; but still, some welcome for her personally would have been pleasant. She realized that the dark, scarred young man he called Cai was waiting expectantly for her word. He was gentle and deferential—she need not be afraid of him.

She sighed, reaching out again to touch the strong walls around her as if for reassurance and to steady her voice, so that when she spoke she would sound like a queen. “In the greatest of carts, sir Cai, there is an Irish mead-hall table. It is my father’s wedding gift to my lord Arthur. It is a prize of war, and very old and very valuable. See to it that it is assembled in Arthur’s largest feasting hall. But before that, please see to it that a room is made ready for my lady Igraine, and someone to wait on her tonight.” Distantly she was surprised—she thought to herself that she sounded quite like a queen. Nor did Cai sound at all reluctant to accept her as one. He bowed very low, and said, “It shall be done at once, my lady and queen.”

5

All through the night, groups of travellers had been assembling before the castle; it was barely daylight when Gwenhwyfar looked out to see the whole slope of the hill, leading up to the castle, covered with horses and tents and with crowds of men and women.

“It looks like a festival,” she said to Igraine, who had shared her bed on this last night of her maidenhood, and the older woman smiled.

“When the High King takes a wife, child, that is as much a festival as anything happening in this island. Look, those men are the followers of Lot of Orkney.” She thought, but did not say aloud, Perhaps Morgaine will be with them. As a young woman she had voiced every thought that crossed her mind, but no longer.

How strange it was, Igraine thought; all through the childbearing years, a woman is taught to think first and only of her sons. If she thinks of her daughters at all, it is only that when they are grown, they will go forth into the hands of another, they are being reared for another family. Was it only that Morgaine had been her firstborn, always closest to her heart? Arthur had returned physically after his long absence, but as all men do, he had grown so far from her that there was no longer any way to reach across that distance. But to Morgaine—she had discovered this at Arthur’s crowning—she was bound with a tie of the soul which would never break. Was it only that Morgaine had shared her own heritage of Avalon? Was this why every priestess longed to bear a daughter, who would follow in her footsteps and never be lost to her?

“There are so many people,” Gwenhwyfar said. “I did not know there were so many people in all of Britain.”

“And you to be High Queen over them all—it is frightening, I know,” said Igraine. “I felt so when I was married to Uther.”

And for a moment it seemed to her that Arthur had chosen ill in his queen. Gwenhwyfar had beauty, yes, and good temper, and learning, but a queen must be able to take her place at the forefront of the court. Perhaps Gwenhwyfar was all too shy and retiring.

When you put it into the simplest terms, the queen was the king’s lady; not only his hostess and keeper of his house—any chamberlain or housekeeper could do that—but, like the priestess of Avalon, a symbol of all the realities of life, a reminder that life was more than fighting and war and dominion. A king, when all was said and done, fought for the protection of those who were unable to fight for themselves, the childbearing women and little children and old people, aged men and grandmothers. Among the Tribes, indeed, the stronger women had fought at the side of the men—there had been, of old, a battle-college kept by women—but from the beginning of civilization it had been the work of men to hunt for food and to keep off invaders from the hearth-fire where their pregnant women and little children and old folk were sheltered; and the work of women to keep that hearth safe for them. As the King was joined to the High Priestess in the symbolic marriage to the land in token that he would bring strength to his kingdom, so the Queen, in a similar joining to the King, created a symbol of the central strength behind all the armies and the wars—the home and the center for which the men rallied their strength ...  . Igraine shook her head impatiently. All this of symbols and inner truths was fit, perhaps, for a priestess of Avalon, but she, Igraine, had been queen enough without any such thoughts, and there would be time enough for Gwenhwyfar to think of these things when she was an old woman and no longer needed them! In these civilized days, a queen was not a priestess over villagers tending their barley fields, any more than a king was the great hunter who ranged among the deer!

“Come, Gwenhwyfar, Cai left serving-women to wait on you, but as your husband’s mother it is suitable that I should dress you for your wedding, since your own mother cannot be here to make you ready on this day.”

The younger woman looked like an angel when she was clothed; her fine hair floated like spun gold in the sunlight, almost dimming the radiance of the golden garland she had put on. Her dress was of a white woven stuff, as fine as spiderweb; Gwenhwyfar told Igraine, with shy pride, that the fabric had been brought from a far country, further even than Rome, and was more costly than gold. Her father had gotten a length for the altar stone of their church and a little piece to hold a holy relic, and he had given her a piece, too, of which she had made her wedding gown. There was more for a holiday tunic for Arthur—it was her own wedding gift to him.

Lancelet came to conduct them to the early mass which would precede the wedding; afterward all the day could be given to feasting and revelry. He was resplendent in the crimson cloak he had worn before, but he was dressed for riding.

“Do you go from us, Lancelet?”

“No,” he said soberly, but he was looking only at Gwenhwyfar. “As one of the entertainments of this day, the new horsemen—and Arthur’s cavalry—will display what they can do: I am one of the horsemen who will show you these games this afternoon. Arthur feels it is time to make his plans known to his people.”

And again Igraine saw that hopeless, transfixed look in his eyes when he looked on Gwenhwyfar, and the brilliance of the girl’s smile as she looked up to him. She could not hear now what they were saying to each other —she had no doubt it was innocent enough. But they needed no words. Igraine felt again the despairing awareness that this would come to no good, but only to misery.

They walked down through the corridors, joined as they went by serving-people, noblemen, all those clustering to the early mass. On the steps of the chapel they were joined by two young men who wore, like Lancelet himself, long black feathers in their caps; Cai, she recalled, had worn one too. Was it some badge of Arthur’s Companions?

Lancelet asked, “Where is Cai, brother? Should he not be here to escort my lady to the church?”

One of the newcomers, a big, sturdy man who, Gwenhwyfar thought, had nevertheless a look of Lancelet, said, “Cai, and Gawaine too, are dressing Arthur for his wedding. Indeed, I had thought you would be among them, you three are like brothers to Arthur. He sent me to take their place, as the lady Igraine’s kinsman—madam,” he said to Igraine, bowing, “can it be that you do not recognize me? I am the son of the Lady of the Lake. My name is Balan, and this is our foster-brother Balin.”

Gwenhwyfar nodded courteously to them. She thought: Can this big, coarse Balan truly be Lancelot’s brother? It is as if a bull should call himself brother to the finest of southern stallions! Balin, his foster-brother, was short and red-faced, with hair as yellow as a Saxon’s, and bearded like a Saxon too. She said, “Lancelet, if it is your will to be with my lord and king—“

“I think you ought to go to him, Lancelet,” said Balan with a laugh. “Like all men about to wed, Arthur is mad with nervousness. Our lord may fight like Pendragon himself on the field of battle, but this morning when he is being readied for his bride, he seems no more than the boy he is!”

Poor Arthur, thought Gwenhwyfar, this marriage is more of an ordeal for him than for me—at least I have nothing to do but obey the will of my father and king! A ripple of amusement went over her, quickly stifled; poor Arthur, he would have had to take her for the good of his kingdom, even if she really had been old or ugly or pockmarked. It was just another of his painful duties, like leading his men into battle against the Saxons. At least he knew what he could expect of the Saxons! She said gently, “My lord Lancelet, would you rather be at my lord Arthur’s side?”

His eyes told her clearly that he did not want to leave her; she had become, in only a day or two, adept at reading those messages unspoken. She had never exchanged with Lancelet one word that could not have been shouted aloud in the presence of Igraine and her father and all the bishops of Britain assembled. But for the first time he seemed torn by conflicting desires.

“The last thing I wish is to leave your side, madam, but Arthur is my friend and my cousin—“

“God forbid that I should ever come between you kinsman,” she said, and held out her small hand to him to kiss. “By this marriage you are my loyal kinsman too, and my cousin. Go to my lord the king and tell him—“ She hesitated, startled at her own boldness; would it be seemly to say this? God help them all, within the hour she would be Arthur’s wife, what did it matter if it sounded overbold, when what she spoke were words of proper concern for her own lord? “Tell him I gladly return to him his most loyal captain, and that I await him with love and obedience, sir.”

Lancelet smiled. It seemed that smile stretched a string somewhere deep inside her, that she felt her own mouth moving with it. How could she feel so much a part of him? Her whole life seemed to have filtered down into the touch of his lips on her fingers. She swallowed, and suddenly she knew what it was she felt. In spite of her dutiful messages of love and obedience to Arthur, it seemed that she would sell her soul if time would only turn back and she could tell her father that she would marry no man but Lancelet. That was something as real as the sun around her and the grass under her feet, as real—she swallowed again—as real as Arthur, now being readied for the wedding, for which she must go to Holy Mass to prepare herself. Is it one of God’s cruel jokes that I did not know this was what I felt until it was too late? Or is this some wicked trick of the fend, to seduce me from my duty to my father and to my husband? She did not hear what Lancelet said; she was only conscious that his hand had released hers and that he had turned his back and was walking away. She hardly heard the polite words of those two foster-brothers, Balin and Balan—which of them was the son of the priestess of the Lake, then? Balan; Lancelet’s brother, but no more like him than a raven is like a great eagle.

She became aware that Igraine was speaking to her. “I leave you to the Companions, my dear. I wish to speak with the Merlin before the mass.”

Belatedly, it occurred to Gwenhwyfar that Igraine was awaiting her permission to go. Already her rank as High Queen was a reality. She hardly heard her own words to Igraine as the older woman withdrew.

Igraine crossed the courtyard, murmuring excuses to the people she jostled, trying to reach Taliesin through the crowd. Everyone was clad in bright festival clothing, but he wore his usual somber grey robes. “Father—“

“Igraine, child.” Taliesin looked down at her, and Igraine found it obscurely comforting that the old Druid spoke to her as he would have spoken to her when she was fourteen. “I had thought you would be in attendance upon our bride. How beautiful she is! Arthur has found himself a treasure. I have heard that she is clever, too, and learned, and also that she is pious, which will please the bishop.”

“Father,” Igraine appealed, lowering her voice so that no one in the crowd would hear, “I must ask you this—is there any honorable way for Arthur to avoid this marriage?”

Taliesin blinked in consternation. “No, I do not think so. Not when all is readied to join them together after the mass. God help us, have we all been deceived, is she barren, or unchaste, or—“ The Merlin shook his head in dismay. “Unless she were secretly a leper, or actually with child by another man, there could be no way at all to stop it; and even then, no way without scandal or offense, or making an enemy of Leodegranz. Why do you ask, Igraine?”

“I believe her virtuous. But I have seen the way she looks at Lancelet and he at her. Can anything come of it but misery, when the bride is besotted with another, and that other the groom’s dearest friend?”

The Merlin looked at her sharply; his old eyes were as seeing as ever. “Oh, it is like that, is it? I have always thought our Lancelet had too much good looks and charm for his own welfare. Yet he is an honorable lad, after all; it may be nothing but youthful fancies, and when the bridal pair are wedded and bedded, they will forget it, or think of it only with a little sadness, as something that might have been.”

“In nine cases out of ten, I would say you were right,” Igraine said, “but you have not seen them, and I have.”

The Merlin sighed again. “Igraine, Igraine, I do not say you are wrong, but when all’s done, what can we do about it? Leodegranz would find it such an insult that he would go to war against Arthur, and Arthur has already enough to challenge his kingship—or have you not heard of yonder northern king who sent word to Arthur that he had skinned the beards of eleven kings to make himself a cloak, and Arthur should send him tribute or he would come and take Arthur’s beard too?”

“What did Arthur do?”

The Merlin said, “Why, he sent the older king word that as for his beard, it was scarce grown yet, and it would do him no good for his cloak; but that if he wanted it, he could come and try to take it, if he could find his way through the bodies of dead Saxons. And he sent him the head of one of the Saxons—he had just come back from a raiding party—and said its beard was better for lining a cloak than the beard of a friend at whose side he would rather be fighting. And finally he said he would send a fellow king a present, but he exacted no tribute from his friends, and paid none. So that all came to nothing; but as you can see, Arthur cannot afford more enemies, and Leodegranz would be a bad one. He’d better marry the girl, and I think I would say the same even if he’d found her in bed with Lancelet —which he hasn’t and isn’t likely to.”

Igraine discovered that she was twisting her hands together. “What shall we do?”

The Merlin touched her cheek, very lightly. “We will do what we have always done, Igraine—what we must, what the Gods order. We will do the best we can. We are none of us embarked on this course for our own happiness, my child. You, who were reared in Avalon, you know that. Whatever we may do to try and shape our destiny, the end is with the Gods —or, as the bishop would no doubt prefer me to say, with God. The older I grow, the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”

“The Lady would not be pleased to hear you speak such words,” said a dark, thin-faced man behind him, in dark robes which could have been those of a priest or a Druid. Taliesin turned half round and smiled.

“Nevertheless, Viviane knows they are true, as I do ...  . Igraine, I do not think you know our newest of chief bards—I have brought him hither to sing and play for Arthur’s wedding. Kevin, madam.”

Kevin bowed low. Igraine noticed that he walked leaning on a carven stick; his harp in its case was carried by a boy of twelve or thirteen. Many bards or harpers who were not Druids were blind or lamed—it was rare that any ablebodied lad would be given time and leisure to learn such arts, in these days of war—but usually the Druids chose among those who were sound of body as well as being keen of mind. It was rare for a man with any deformity to be allowed into the Druid teachings—it was felt that the Gods marked inner faults in this way. But it would have been inexcusably rude to speak of this; she could only imagine that his gifts were so great that he had been accepted in despite of all else.

He had diverted her mind from her purpose, but when she thought back, Taliesin was right. There was no way to stop this wedding without scandal and probably war. Inside the wattle-and-daub building that was the church, lights blazed and the bell had begun to ring. Igraine walked into the church. Taliesin knelt stiffly down; so did the boy carrying Kevin’s harp, but Kevin himself did not kneel—for a moment Igraine wondered if, not being a Christian, he was defying the services, as Uther had once seemed to do. Then she decided, seeing the awkwardness of his gait, that he probably had a stiff leg and could not bend the knee at all. She saw the bishop look his way, frowning.

“Listen to the words of Jesus Christ our Lord,” the bishop began. “Behold, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I among ye, and whatsoever thing ye ask in my name, so it shall be done ...  .”

Igraine knelt, drawing her veil around her face, but she was conscious, nevertheless, of Arthur, who had come into the church with Cai and Lancelet and Gawaine, wearing a fine white tunic and a blue cloak, with no ornament but the slender golden coronet of his crowning, and the crimson and jewels in the scabbard of his great sword. It seemed as if, without eyes, she could see Gwenhwyfar, in her fragile white gown, like Arthur all white and gold, kneeling between Balin and Balan. Lot, greying and thin, knelt between Morgause and one of his younger sons; and behind him—it was as if a harp had sounded some high, forbidden note through the chanting of the priest. She raised her head, cautiously, and tried to see, knowing who knelt there. The face and form of Morgaine were hidden behind Morgause.

Yet it seemed that she could sense her there, like a wrong note in the harmony of the sacred service. After all these years, was she reading thoughts again? In any case, what was a priestess of Avalon doing in the church? When Viviane had visited her and Uther in the years of their marriage, the priestess had either absented herself from divine service, or attended, listening and watching with the polite, grave attention she would have given to a child playing at a feast for her dolls. Yet now she could see Morgaine— she had changed, she was thinner, more beautiful, simply clad in a dress of fine dark wool, with a proper white coif around her head. She was not doing anything; she knelt with her head bent and her eyes lowered, the picture of respectful attention. Yet even the priest, it seemed, could sense the disruption and impatience emanating from her; he stopped twice and looked at her, although there was no way he could have accused her of doing anything that was not completely seemly and proper, and so after a moment he went on with the service.

But Igraine’s attention, too, had been distracted. She tried to keep her mind on the service, she murmured the proper responses, but she could not think about the priest’s words, nor of her son who was being married, nor of Gwenhwyfar who was, she could sense without seeing, looking around under the cover of her veil for Lancelet at Arthur’s side. Now she could think only of her daughter. When the service was over, and the wedding, she would see her, and know where she had gone and what had befallen her.

Then, raising her eyes just a moment, as the priest’s man was reading aloud the story of the wedding in Cana, she looked round at Arthur; and she saw that his eyes, too, were fixed on Morgaine.

                                   6         

Seated among Morgause’s ladies, Morgaine listened quietly to the services, her head bent and her face wearing a polite mask of respect. Inwardly she was all impatience. Such nonsense—as if a house built by the hands of man could be converted by the words of some priest into an abiding place for the Spirit which was not of man’s making at all. Her mind ran unruly. She was weary of Morgause’s court; now she was back in the mainstream of events, and it was as if she had been cast from a backwater of stagnant pond-water into the channel of a racing river. She felt alive again. Even at Avalon, quiet and secluded as it was, she had had the sense of being in touch with the flow of life; but among the women of Morgause she felt she was idle, stagnant, useless. Now she was moving once more, whereas since the birth of her son she had been standing still. She thought for a moment of her little son, Gwydion. He hardly knew her now; when she would have picked him up and petted him, he fought and struggled to go to his foster-mother. Even now, the memory of his small arms winding about her neck made her feel weak and regretful, but she forced the memory away. He did not even know he was her son, he would grow up to think himself one of Morgause’s brood. Morgaine was content to have it so, but she could not stifle her reluctant sorrow.

Well, she supposed that all women felt such regret when they must leave their child; but all women must endure it, except for homekeeping women who were content to do for their babes what any foster-mother or servant girl could do, and have no greater work measured to their hands. Even a cowherd must leave her babes to tend her flocks; how much more so a queen or a priestess? Even Viviane had given up her children. As had Igraine.

Arthur looked manly and handsome; he had grown, his shoulders broadened—he was no longer the slender boy who had come to her with the deer’s blood on his face. There had been power, not these tame mouthings of the doings of their God who had meddled about, turning water into wine, which would be blasphemy anyway to the gifts of the Goddess. Or did the tale mean that to the joining of man and woman in wedlock, the ferment of the Spirit would transform their coupling into a sacred thing, as in the Great Marriage? For Arthur’s sake she hoped it would be so with this woman, whoever she was; she could see, from where she knelt behind Morgause, only a cloud of pale golden hair, crowned with the paler gold of a bridal coronet, and a white robe of some fine and precious fabric. Arthur raised his eyes to look on his bride, and his gaze fell on Morgaine. She saw his face change, and thought, with a stir of awareness, So, he recognized me. I cannot have changed so much as he has changed; he has grown from boy to man, and I—I was already a woman, and it has not changed me as much as that.

She hoped that Arthur’s bride would love him, and that he would love her well. In her mind rang Arthur’s desolate words, For all my life I will always remember you and love you and bless you. But it must not be so. He must forget, he must come to see the Goddess only in his chosen wife. There stood Lancelet beside him. How could the years have changed and sobered Arthur so much, and left Lancelet untouched, unchanged? No, he had changed too: he looked sad, there was a long scar on his face which ran up into his hair and left a small white streak in it. Cai was thinner and more stooped, his limp more pronounced; he looked on Arthur as a devoted hound looks at his master. Half hoping, half fearing, Morgaine looked about to see if Viviane had come to see Arthur wedded as she had seen him crowned. But the Lady of the Lake was not here. There was the Merlin, his grey head bent in what almost looked like prayer, and behind him, standing—a tall shadow with too much of sense to bend the knee to this stupid mummery—was Kevin the Bard; good for him!

The mass concluded; the bishop, a tall, ascetic-looking man with a sour face, was pronouncing the words of dismissal. Even Morgaine bent her head —Viviane had taught her to show at least outward respect to the manifestations of another’s faith, since, as she said, all faith was of the Gods. The only head unbent in the church was that of Kevin, standing proudly erect. Morgaine wished she had the courage to get up and stand beside him, head unbowed. Why was Arthur so reverential? Had he not sworn a solemn oath to regard Avalon as well as the priests? Must a day come when she, or Kevin, must remind Arthur of the vow? Surely that white, pious church angel he was marrying would do nothing to help. They should have married Arthur to a woman of Avalon; it would not be the first time a sworn priestess had been joined to a king. The idea shook her, and she stifled her unease with a quick picture of Raven as High Queen. At least she would have the Christian virtue of silence  ...  Morgaine bent her head and bit her lip, suddenly afraid she would giggle aloud.

The mass came to an end; the people began to stream toward the doorway. Arthur and his Companions stayed where they were, and, at a gesture from Cai, Lot and Morgause approached him, Morgaine moving along behind them. She saw that Igraine and the Merlin and the silent harper remained as well. She raised her eyes and met her mother’s glance; she knew, with something as poignant as the Sight, that except for the presence of the bishop she would even now be clasped in Igraine’s arms. She flushed a little, turning away from Igraine’s eager eyes.

She had thought as little as she could of Igraine, conscious only that in her presence she must guard the one thing Igraine must never know, who had fathered her child ...  . Once, in that long desperate struggle which she could hardly remember, she thought she had cried aloud, like a child, for her mother, but she had never been sure. Even now, she feared any contact with the mother who had once had the Sight, who knew the ways of Avalon; Morgaine might manage to put aside all her childhood training and guilt, but would Igraine chide her for what had not, after all, been her own choice?

Lot now came to bend the knee before Arthur, and Arthur, his young face serious and kindly, raised Lot and kissed him on both cheeks. “I am glad you could come to my wedding, Uncle. I am glad I have so faithful a friend and kinsman to guard my northern shores, and your son Gawaine is my dear friend and closest Companion. And you, Aunt. I owe you a debt of thanks for giving me your son for so loyal a Companion.”

Morgause smiled. She was, Morgaine thought, still beautiful—far more so than Igraine. “Well, sire, you will have cause to thank me again soon enough, for I have younger sons who talk of nothing but the time when they may come to serve the High King.”

“They will be as welcome as their elder brother,” Arthur said courteously, and looked past Morgause to where Morgaine knelt.

“Welcome, sister. At my crowning I made you a promise, which now I shall redeem. Come.” He stretched out his hand to her. Morgaine rose, feeling the clasp of his hand and the tension in it. He did not meet her eyes, but led her past the others to where the white-clad woman knelt in the cloud of her golden hair.

“My lady,” he said softly, and for a moment Morgaine was not sure to which of them he was speaking; he looked from one to the other, and as Gwenhwyfar rose and looked up, her eyes met Morgaine’s in a moment of shocked recognition.

“Gwenhwyfar, this is my sister Morgaine, Duchess of Cornwall. It is my wish that she should be first among your ladies-in-waiting, as she is highest in rank here among them.”

Morgaine saw Gwenhwyfar moisten her lips with her small pink tongue, like a kitten’s. “My lord and king, the lady Morgaine and I have met.

“What? Where?” Arthur demanded, smiling.

Morgaine said, just as stiffly, “It was while she was at school in a nunnery on Glastonbury, my lord. She lost her way in the mists and blundered onto the shores of Avalon.” As on that faraway day, it seemed suddenly as if something grey and dismal, like ash, had covered and choked the fine day. Morgaine felt, in spite of her fine decent gown and beautifully woven veil, as if she were some gross, dwarfish, earthly creature before the ethereal whiteness and precious gold of Gwenhwyfar. It lasted only a moment, then Gwenhwyfar stepped forward and embraced her, kissing her on the cheek as was seemly for a kinswoman. Morgaine, returning the embrace, felt that Gwenhwyfar was fragile as precious glass, unlike her own gnarled-wood solidness; felt herself shrinking back, shy and stiff, so that she might not feel Gwenhwyfar shrink from her. Her lips felt coarse against the rose-leaf softness of the other girl’s cheek.

Gwenhwyfar said softly, “I shall welcome the sister of my lord and husband, my lady of Cornwall—may I call you Morgaine, sister?”

Morgaine drew a long breath and muttered, “As it pleases you, my lady.” When she had said it, she knew that she sounded ungracious, but she did not know what she should have said instead. Standing next to Arthur, she looked up to see Gawaine regarding her with a faint frown. Lot was a Christian only because it was expedient, but Gawaine was genuinely devout in his blunt way. His disapproving glance stiffened Morgaine’s back; she had as good a right to be here as Gawaine himself. It would be amusing to see some of these stiff-necked Companions of Arthur lose their proper manners around a Beltane fire! Well, Arthur had sworn to honor the people of Avalon as well as the Christians that might yet come about here at Arthur’s court. Perhaps that was why she herself was here.

Gwenhwyfar said, “I hope we shall be friends, lady. I remember that you and the lord Lancelet set me on my way when I was lost in those dreadful mists—even now I shudder at the memory of that terrible place,” she said, and raised her eyes to Lancelet, where he stood behind Arthur. Morgaine, attuned to the mood around them, followed her eyes and wondered why Gwenhwyfar spoke to him now; then realized that the other woman could not help it, she was bound as if on a string by Lancelet’s eyes  ...  and Lancelet was looking at Gwenhwyfar as a hungry dog looks at a dripping bone. If Morgaine had to meet this pink-and-white precious creature again in Lancelet’s presence, it was well for them both that it was just as Gwenhwyfar was about to be married to someone else. She sensed Arthur’s hand still in hers, and that troubled her too; that bond, too, would be broken, when he had taken Gwenhwyfar to bed. Gwenhwyfar would become the Goddess to Arthur and he would not look at Morgaine anymore in that way that troubled her so. She was Arthur’s sister, not his lover; she was the mother not of his son, but the son of the Horned One, and so it must be.

But I have not broken that bond, either. True, I was ill after my son was born, and I had no will to fall like a ripe apple into Lot’s bed, so I played Lady Chastity herself wherever Lot could see me. But she looked at Lancelet, hoping to intercept the glance between his eyes and Gwenhwyfar’s.

He smiled, but he looked past her. Gwenhwyfar took Morgaine’s hand in one of hers, reached to Igraine with the other. “Soon you will be as my own sister and my own mother,” she said, “for I have neither mother nor sister living. Come and stand beside me as we are joined in marriage, mother and sister.”

Stiffen her heart as she might against Gwenhwyfar’s charm, Morgaine was warmed by those spontaneous words, and she returned the pressure of the girl’s warm little fingers. Igraine reached past Gwenhwyfar to touch Morgaine’s hand, and Morgaine said, “I have not had time to greet you properly, my mother,” and let go of Gwenhwyfar’s hand for a moment to kiss Igraine. She thought, as for a moment the three of them stood in a brief embrace, All women, indeed, are sisters under the Goddess.

“Well, come then,” said the Merlin pleasantly. “Let us have the marriage signed and witnessed, and then for feasting and revelry.”

Morgaine thought the bishop looked sober, but he too said amiably enough, “Now that our spirits are all lifted up and in charity, indeed, let us make merry as is suitable for Christian folk on such a day of good omen.”

Standing beside Gwenhwyfar at the ceremony, Morgaine sensed that the girl was trembling. Her mind went back to the day of the deer hunting. At least she herself had been stimulated and exalted by ritual, but even so she had been frightened, she had clung to the old priestess. Suddenly, with an impulse of kindness, she wished she could give to Gwenhwyfar, who after all had been convent-reared and had none of the old wisdom, some of the instruction given to the younger priestesses. Then she would know how to let the life currents of sun and summer and earth and life flood through her. She could truly become the Goddess to Arthur and he the God to her, so that their marriage would not be an empty form, but a true inner binding on all the levels of life.... She almost found herself searching for the words, then remembered that Gwenhwyfar was a Christian, and would not thank Morgaine for such teaching. She sighed, frustrated, knowing she would not speak.

She raised her eyes and met Lancelet’s, and for a moment he held her glance; she found herself remembering that sun-flooded moment on the Tor, when they should have been bound as man and woman, Goddess to God . .. she knew he was remembering too. But he dropped his eyes and looked away, signing himself, as the priest had done, with the cross.

The simple ceremony was over. Morgaine affixed her name as witness to the marriage contract, noting how smooth and flowing her own hand was next to Arthur’s sprawling signature, Gwenhwyfar’s clumsy and childish letters—had the nuns of Glastonbury so little learning? Lancelet signed, too, and Gawaine, and King Bors of Brittany, who had come as witness, and Lot, and Ectorius, and King Pellinore, whose sister had been Gwenhwyfar’s mother. Pellinore had a young daughter with him, whom he solemnly beckoned forward.

“My daughter, Elaine—your cousin, my lady and queen. I beg you to accept her service.”

“I shall be happy for her company among my ladies,” Gwenhwyfar said, smiling. Morgaine thought that Pellinore’s daughter was very like Gwenhwyfar, pink and golden, though a little dimmer than Gwenhwyfar’s bright radiance, and wearing simple linen dyed with saffron, which dulled the coppery gold of her hair. “What is your name, cousin? How old are you?”

“Elaine, my lady, and I am thirteen years old.” She dropped a deep curtsey, so deep that she stumbled and Lancelet caught her to steady her. She blushed deeply and hid her face behind her veil. Lancelet smiled indulgently, and Morgaine felt a sickening pang of jealousy. He would not look at her, he would look only at these pale gold-white angels; no doubt he too thought her little and ugly. And at that moment all her kindness for Gwenhwyfar faded into anger, and she had to turn her face away.

Gwenhwyfar had to spend the next hours welcoming, it seemed, every king in the whole of Britain, and being presented to their wives, sisters, and daughters. When it came time to sit at the feast, in addition to Morgaine and Elaine and Igraine and Morgause, she had to show courtesy and graciousness to Flavilla, Arthur’s foster-mother and mother of Sir Cai; to the queen of North Wales, who had her own name, Gwenhwyfar, but was dark and Roman-looking; and to half a dozen others. She whispered to Morgaine, “I do not know how I am ever to remember all their names! Shall I simply call them all ‘my lady’ and hope they don’t know why?”

Morgaine whispered back, momentarily sharing the sense of fun in her voice, “That is one thing about being a High Queen, madam, no one will dare to ask you why! Whatever you do, they will think it well done! Or if they do not, they will not dare to tell you so!”

Gwenhwyfar giggled a little. “But you must call me by my name, Morgaine—not just madam. When you say madam, I look about for some stout old lady like Dame Flavilla, or King Pellinore’s queen!”

At last the feast began. Morgaine had more appetite now than she had had at Arthur’s crowning. She sat between Gwenhwyfar and Igraine, and ate with a good appetite; the abstemious ways of Avalon seemed far behind her. She even ate some meat, though she did not like it, and, since there was no water on the table and beer mostly for the servants, drank the wine she really disliked. It made her head swim a little, though it was not as fiery as the strong barley liquors common at the court of Orkney, which she hated and never touched.

After a time Kevin came forward to play, and the conversation died. Morgaine, who had not heard a fine harper since leaving Avalon, listened, letting the past slip away. Suddenly she longed for Viviane. Even when she raised her eyes and saw Lancelet—who, as Arthur’s closest Companion, sat nearer to him than any other, even Gawaine his heir, and shared his dish —she thought of him only as the companion of those years at the Lake.

Viviane, not Igraine, is my real mother, and it was for her I cried out ...  . She bent her head, blinking back tears she did not know how to shed.

The music died away, and she heard Kevin’s rich voice. “We have another musician here,” he said. “Will the lady Morgaine sing for this company?”

How, she wondered, did he know I was pining for the touch of my harp? “It will be a pleasure to play your harp, sir. But I have not touched a fine one for many years, only a makeshift at Lot’s court.”

Arthur said, and sounded ill-pleased, “What, my sister, sing like a hired musician for all these people?”

Kevin looked offended, as well he might, thought Morgaine. In a sudden rage, she rose from her seat, saying, “What the Master Harper of Avalon condescends to do, I am honored to do! In music, the Gods only are served!” She took the harp from his hand, seating herself on a bench. It was larger than her own harp and for a moment her hands fumbled on the strings; then she found the set and her hands moved more surely, playing a northern song she had heard at Lot’s court. She was suddenly grateful for the wine that had cleared her throat; she heard her own voice rich and sweet —it had come back as strong as ever, though she had not recognized it till this moment. Her voice was contralto, deep and strong, trained by the bards at Avalon, and she was proud, again. Gwenhwyfar may be beautiful, but I have the voice of a bard.

And even Gwenhwyfar crowded close when she was done, to say, “Your voice is very lovely, sister. Did you learn to sing so well in Avalon?”

“Why yes, madam, music is sacred—did you not learn the harp in your nunnery?”

Gwenhwyfar shrank. “No, it is unseemly for a woman to raise her voice before the Lord ...  .”

Morgaine chuckled. “You Christians are overfond of that word unseemly, especially when it relates to women,” she said. “If music is evil, then it is evil for men as well; and if it is a good thing, should not women do all the good things they can do, to make up for their supposed sin at the beginning of the world?”

“Still, I would not have been allowed—once I was beaten for touching a harp,” said Gwenhwyfar wistfully. “But you have cast a spell over us, and I cannot think but this magic is good.”

Kevin said, “All the men and women of Avalon learn something of music; but few have such gifts as the lady Morgaine. A fine voice is born, not trained. And if it is a gift of God, then seems it to me that it is arrogant to look down and think little of such a gift, be it given to man or woman. We cannot believe God has made a mistake in giving such a gift to a woman, since God makes no mistakes, so we must accept it wherever it is found.”

“I cannot argue theology with a Druid,” said Ectorius, “but if I had a daughter born with such a gift, I would hold it a temptation, that she would be tempted to step beyond the place appointed to a woman. We are not told that Mary, the Mother of our Lord, sang or danced—“

The Merlin said softly, “Though we are told that when the Holy Ghost descended upon her, she lifted up her voice and sang, My soul hath magnified the Lord ...” But he said it in Greek: Megalynei he psyche1 mou ton Kyrion ...  .

Only Ectorius and Lancelet and the bishop recognized the Greek words, although Morgaine too had heard them more than once. The bishop said firmly, “But she sang in the presence of God alone. Only Mary the Magdalene is said to have sung or danced before men, and only before our Redeemer saved her soul for God, for it was part of her wicked ways.”

Igraine said with a flicker of mischief, “King David was a singer and played, we are told, upon the harp. Do you suppose he beat any of his wives or daughters for playing on the harp?”

Morgaine flashed, “If Mary of Magdala—I mind the story—played on the harp and danced, still she came to be saved, and we are nowhere told that Jesus told her to sit meekly and be silent! If she poured precious balm on the head of Jesus and he would not let his Companions rebuke her, he may well have enjoyed her other gifts as well! The Gods give of their best, not their worst, to men!”

Patricius said stiffly, “If this is the form of religion which is known here in Britain, we are well in need of such councils as our church has called together!” He scowled, and Morgaine, already regretting her hasty words, lowered her head—it was hardly suitable to pick a quarrel between Avalon and the church at Arthur’s wedding. But why did Arthur not speak out? All at once everyone began to talk all together, and Kevin, taking the harp again, began to play a lively air, under cover of which the servants went around with fresh delicacies which nobody wanted by now.

After a time Kevin put by the harp, and Morgaine, as she would have done in Avalon, poured him wine and knelt to offer it to him. He smiled and took it, gesturing to her to rise and sit by him.

“Lady Morgaine, my thanks.”

“It is my duty and my pleasure to serve such a bard, Master Harper. Are you recently come from Avalon? Is my kinswoman Viviane well?”

“Well, but much aged,” he said quietly. “And, I think, pining for you —you should return.”

Morgaine felt again the surge of unforgotten despair; she looked away from him. “I cannot. But give me news of my home.”

“If you wish more news of Avalon you will have to go there. I have not returned myself for a year, since I am required to give news of all the kingdom to the Lady—Taliesin is too old now for a Messenger of the Gods.”

“Well,” Morgaine said, “you will have something to tell her of this marriage.”

“I will tell her that you are alive and well,” said Kevin, “since she has mourned you. She has not now the Sight to see for herself. And I shall tell her of her younger son who is Arthur’s chiefest Companion; indeed,” he said, his lips curving in a sarcastic smile, “watching him with Arthur, I think him like that youngest disciple who leaned at dinner upon the bosom of Christ ...  .”

Morgaine could not keep back a small chuckle. “Yonder bishop would have you whipped for blasphemy, no doubt, if he heard you say so.”

“Well, there sits Arthur like to Jesus with his Apostles, defending Christianity to all the land,” Kevin said. “As for yonder bishop, he is an ignorant man.”

“What, because he has no ear for music?” Morgaine had not realized how she had starved for the banter of casual equals like this; Morgause and the gossip of her ladies were so small, so bound by little things!

“I would say that any man without an ear for music is an ignorant ass indeed, since without it he does not speak but brays,” Kevin retorted, “but it is more than that. Is this any time for a wedding?”

Morgaine had been so long away from Avalon that for a moment she did not know what he meant; but he pointed to the sky.

“The moon is waning from the full. This augurs ill for a wedding, and the lord Taliesin told them so. But the bishop would have it a little after the full so that all these people would have light to travel to their homes, and because it is the feast of one of their saints—I know not which! The Merlin spoke to Arthur as well, to tell him this marriage would bring him no joy—I know not why. But there was no honorable way to stop it, it seemed, all had gone too far.”

Morgaine knew instinctively what the old Druid had meant; she too had seen the way in which Gwenhwyfar looked upon Lancelet. Was it a flash of the Sight which had caused her to shrink from Gwenhwyfar, that day upon Avalon?

She took Lancelet from me forever on that day, Morgaine thought, then, remembering that she had been under a vow to keep her maidenhood for the Goddess, looked within, in dull astonishment. Would she have been forsworn for his sake? She lowered her head in shame, almost fearing, for a moment, that Kevin could read her thoughts.

Viviane had said to her that a priestess must temper everything with her own judgment. It had been a right instinct, vows or no vows, which had led her to desire Lancelet ... would have done better, even by Avalon, to take Lancelet then; then would Arthur’s queen have come to him with her heart untouched, for Lancelet would have formed that mystical bond with me, and the child I bore would have been born of the ancient royal line of Avalon ...  .

But they had had other plans for her, and in the wreck of that she had left Avalon forever, borne a child who had destroyed any hope that she could ever give the Goddess a daughter to her shrine: after Gwydion, she could carry no other to life. If she had trusted her own instinct and judgment, Viviane would have been angry, but they would have found someone suitable for Arthur, somehow ...  .

By doing right I did wrong; by obeying Viviane’s word I helped with the wreck and disaster of this marriage, for wreck I now know it will be ...  .

“Lady Morgaine,” Kevin said gently, “you are troubled. Can I do anything to help you?”

Morgaine shook her head, biting back tears again. She wondered if he knew she had been given to Arthur in the kingmaking. She could not accept his pity. “Nothing, lord Druid. Perhaps I share your fears for this marriage made in a waning moon. I am concerned for my brother, no more. And I do pity the woman he has wedded.” And as she spoke the words she knew they were true; for all her fear of Gwenhwyfar, not unmixed with hatred, she knew that she did pity her—marrying a man who did not love her, loving a man she could not wed.

If I take Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, then I do my brother a service, and his wife as well, for if I take him away she will forget him. She had been trained to examine her own motives in Avalon, and now she cringed inwardly; she was not being honest with herself. If she took Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, it would not be for her brother’s sake nor for the sake of the kingdom, but purely and solely because she desired Lancelet herself.

Not for yourself. For the sake of another you could use your magic; but you must not deceive yourself. She knew love charms enough. It would be for Arthur’s good! It would work to the advantage of the kingdom, she told herself repeatedly, if she took Lancelet from her brother’s wife; but the unsparing conscience of a priestess kept saying: This you may not. It is forbidden to use your magic to make the universe do your will.

So, still, she would try; but she must do it unassisted, with no more than her own woman’s wiles. She told herself fiercely that Lancelet had desired her once, without the aid of magic; she could certainly make him desire her again!

GWENHWYFAR WAS WEARY of the feasting. She had eaten more than she wanted, and although she had sipped only one glass of wine, she felt overly hot, and slid her veil back, fanning herself. Arthur had come to speak to many of his guests, moving slowly toward the table where she sat with the ladies, and finally reaching her; with him, Lancelet and Gawaine. The women slid along the benches, making room, and Arthur sat beside her.

“It is the first moment I have really had to speak to you, my wife.” She held out her small hand to him. “I understand. This is more like a council than a wedding feast, my husband and my lord.”

He laughed, somewhat ruefully. “All events in my life now seem to become so. A king does nothing in private. Well,” he amended, smiling, seeing the flush that spread over her face, “almost nothing—I think there will be a few exceptions, my wife. The law requires that they must see us put to bed together, but what happens after that need concern no one but ourselves, I trust.”

She lowered her eyes, knowing that he had seen her blush. Once again, with the flood of shame, she realized that she had forgotten him again, that she had been watching Lancelet and thinking, with the drowsy sweetness of a dream, how very much she wished it had been to him she had been joined in marriage this day—what damnable fate had made her a High Queen? His eyes fell on her with that hungry look, and she dared not look up at him. She saw him turn his eyes from her even before the shadow fell over them and the lady Morgaine stood there; Arthur made room for her at his side.

“Come and sit with us, my sister, there is always room for you here,” he said, his voice so languorous that Gwenhwyfar wondered for a moment how much he had drunk. “When the feast has worn away a little, see, we have prepared something more for entertainment, perhaps something more stirring than the bard’s music, beautiful though it is. I did not know you were a singer, my sister. I knew you were an enchantress, but not that you were a musician as well. Have you enchanted us all?”

“I hope not,” Morgaine said, laughing, “else I would never dare sing again—what is that old saga, about the bard who sang the evil giants into a circle of ring stones, and there they stand, cold and stone to this day?”

“That one I have never heard,” said Gwenhwyfar, “though in my convent there was a tale that these were evil folk who mocked the Christ on his way to his cross, and a saint raised his hand and turned them into crows who fly over the world crying out wailing jests forever  ...  and another tale of a saint who transformed a circle of sorceresses, at their evil rites, into a circle of stones.”

Lancelet said lazily, “If I had leisure to study philosophy instead of being warrior or councillor or horseman, I think I would try to find who built the ring stones and why.”

Morgaine laughed. “That is known in Avalon. Viviane could tell you if she would.”

“But,” said Lancelet, “what the priestesses and the Druids say may be no more truth than your pious nun’s fables, Gwenhwyfar—forgive me, I should say, my lady and queen; Arthur, forgive me, I meant no disrespect to your lady, but I called her by her name when she was younger and not yet a queen—“ but Morgaine knew that he was simply seeking an excuse to speak her name aloud.

Arthur yawned. “My dear friend, I do not mind if my lady does not. God forbid I should be the kind of husband who wishes to keep his wife locked away in a cage from all other human beings. A husband who cannot keep his wife’s kind regards and faithfulness probably does not deserve them.” He leaned over and took Gwenhwyfar’s hand in his own. “I think this feasting long. Lancelet, how long before the riders are ready?”

“I think they will be ready soon,” Lancelet said, deliberately looking away from Gwenhwyfar. “Does my lord and king wish me to go and see?”

Morgaine thought, He is torturing himself, he cannot bear to look on Gwenhwyfar with Arthur, he cannot bear to leave her alone with him. She said, deliberately making a joke of a truth, “I think, Lancelet, our bridal couple wishes to have a few moments to talk together alone. Why do we not leave them here and go down and see ourselves whether the riders are ready.”

Lancelet said, “My lord—“ and as Gwenhwyfar opened her mouth to protest, he said roughly, “Give me leave to go.”

Arthur nodded permission, and Morgaine took his hand. He let her draw him along, but she saw him turn his head halfway, as if he could not take his eyes from Gwenhwyfar. Her heart was wrung; at one and the same time it seemed that she could not bear his pain, and that she would do anything to get him away so that she need not see him look at Gwenhwyfar. Behind her she heard Arthur say, “Until yesterday evening I had no idea that the fates, in sending me a bride, had sent me a beautiful one,” and Gwenhwyfar answer, “But it was not the fates, my lord, it was my father.” Before Morgaine could hear what Arthur answered, they were out of earshot.

“I remember,” Morgaine said, “once, years ago, at Avalon, you spoke of cavalry as the key to victory over the Saxons—that and a disciplined army, like to the Romans. I suppose that is what you plan for these horsemen.”

“It is true that I have been training them. I had not imagined that a woman would remember a point of military strategy, cousin.”

Morgaine laughed. “I live under fear of the Saxons, like every other woman in these islands. I passed through a village once where a band of them had passed over, and every woman from little girls of five years old to old grandmothers in their nineties with no teeth and no hair had been raped. Whatever offers hope to rid us of them once and for all is meaningful to me, perhaps more than to men and soldiers, who need to fear only death.”

“I had not thought of that,” Lancelet said soberly. “Uther Pendragon’s troops were not above scouring the countryside for willing women—nor are Arthur’s—but in general, there is no rape. And I had forgotten, Morgaine, you were trained at Avalon and you think often on things which mean little or nothing to other women.” He looked up and clasped her hand in his. “I had forgotten the harps of Avalon. I thought I hated the place, that I never wished to go back. And yet—sometimes—some little thing will take me back there. The sound of a harp. Sunlight on ring stones. The scent of apples and the sound of bees in the sun. Fish splashing in the lake, and the cries of water birds at sunset—“

“Do you remember,” she asked softly, “the day we climbed the Tor?”

“I remember.” With sudden bitterness he said, “I would to God you had not been sworn to the Goddess, that day.”

She said in a low voice, “I have wished it almost as long as I can remember.” Her voice suddenly broke, and Lancelet looked with apprehension into her eyes.

“Morgaine, Morgaine—kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.”

“Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman’s tears?”

He shook his head, and his arm went around her shoulders. “No,” he confessed in a low voice, “it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable—women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do. I was always afraid of—Viviane.” She sensed that he had been about to say my mother, and had shrunk from the words.

They were passing under the low lintel of the stables; the long line of horses, tied there, shadowed the day. There was a pleasant smell of hay and straw. Outside, she saw men moving back and forth, erecting piles of hay, standing up mannikins of stuffed leather, and men were coming in and out, saddling their horses.

Someone caught sight of Lancelet and shouted, “Will the High King and their lordships be ready for us soon, sir? We don’t want to bring the horses out and keep them standing to get restless.”

“Soon,” Lancelet called back.

The soldier behind the horse resolved himself into Gawaine. “Ah, cousin,” he said to Morgaine. “Lance, don’t bring her in here, it’s no place for a lady, a few of these damned beasts are still unbroken. Are you still resolved to take out that white stallion?”

“I’m resolved to have him ready for Arthur to ride into battle next time, if I break my own neck for it!”

“Don’t jest about things like that,” Gawaine said. “Who says I am jesting? If Arthur can’t ride him, I’ll ride him myself in battle, and I’ll show him this afternoon in honor of the Queen!”

“Lancelet,” Morgaine said, “don’t risk your neck for that. Gwenhwyfar doesn’t know one horse from another, she’d be as impressed if you rode a hobbyhorse from one end of the yard to another as by the feats of the centaur himself!”

The look he gave her was, for a moment, almost contemptuous, but she could read it clearly: How could she understand his need to show himself undamaged by this day?

“Go and get saddled, Gawaine, and give the word on the field, we’ll be ready in half an hour,” said Lancelet, “and ask Cai if he wants to start.”

“Don’t tell me Cai’s going to ride, wi’ that crippled leg o’ his?” demanded one of the men who spoke in a strange accent. Gawaine turned on the stranger and said fiercely, “Would you grudge him that—the one military exercise where that leg makes no difference and he’s not tied to the kitchens and the ladies’ bowers?”

“Na, na, I see what ye mean,” said the strange soldier, and turned to saddling his own horse. Morgaine touched Lancelet’s hand; he looked down at her, the mischief back in his eyes. Here, she thought, arranging something, risking his neck, doing something for Arthur, he has forgotten about love, he is happy again. If he could only keep himself busy here, he would not need to moon after Gwenhwyfar or any other woman.

She said, “Show me this dangerous horse you are going to ride.” He led her down between the rows of tied steeds. She saw the pale silvery nose, the long mane like linen floss—a big horse, tall as Lancelet himself across the shoulders. The creature tossed his head, and the snort was like a dream of dragons breathing fire.

“Oh, you beauty,” said Lancelet, laying his hand alongside the horse’s nose; he sidled and stepped away. He said to Morgaine, “This one I trained with my own hands to bit and stirrup—it was my wedding present to Arthur, who has no leisure to break a horse for his own use. I swore it would be ready on his wedding day, for him to ride, and gentle as a house pet.”

“A thoughtful gift,” said Morgaine.

“No, the only thing I could give,” Lancelet said. “I am not rich. And anyway, he has no need of jewels or gold, he is showered with those things. This was a gift only I could give him.”

“A gift of yourself,” said Morgaine, and thought, How he loves Arthur; this is why he is so tormented. It is not that he desires Gwenhwyfar that tortures him; it is that he loves Arthur no less. If he were simply a wencher like Gawaine I would not even pity him; Gwenhwyfar is virtuous, and I could take pleasure in seeing her turn him away.

She said, “I would like to ride him. There is no horse I fear.” He laughed. “Morgaine, you fear nothing, do you?”

“Oh, no, my kinsman,” she said, suddenly sober, “I fear many things.”

“Well, I am not as fearless even as you, I am afraid of battle and I fear the Saxons and I fear I will be killed before I have tasted all there is to life,” he said. “And so I never dare shrink from any challenge ...  . And I fear lest both Avalon and the Christians are wrong, and there should be no Gods and no Heaven and no afterlife, so that when I die I will perish forever. So I fear to die before I have savored my fill of life.”

“It does not seem to me you have left much untasted,” Morgaine said.

“Ah, but I have, Morgaine, there are so many things I long for, and whenever I pass one by I regret it so bitterly, and wonder what weakness or folly prevents me from doing what I will  ... ” he said, and suddenly he turned in the horse lanes and put his arms hungrily round her, pulling her close.

Desperation, she thought bitterly; it is not me he wants, it is a moment of forgetfulness of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar in one another’s arms this night. His hands moved, with a detached, practiced deftness, over her breasts; he pressed his lips to hers, and she could feel the whole hard length of his body pushing against her. She stood in his arms, motionless, feeling languor and a rising hunger that was like pain; she was hardly conscious of her small movements, to fit her body against his. Her mouth opened under his lips, his hands were over her. But when he moved with her toward one of the piles of hay, she roused to a dim protest.

“My dear, you are mad, there are half a hundred of Arthur’s soldiers and riders swarming in this stable—“

“Do you mind,” he whispered, and she murmured, shaking with excitement, “No. No!” She let him push her down. Through the back of her mind, in bitterness, was the thought, a princess, Duchess of Cornwall, a priestess of Avalon, tumbled in the stables like some dairymaid, without even the excuse of the Beltane fires. But she closed it away from her mind and let his hands move on her as they would, unresisting. Better this than break Arthur’s heart. She did not know whether it was her own thought or that of the man whose body was somehow all over hers, whose fierce furious hands were bruising her; his kisses were almost savage, driving into her mouth in a rage. She felt him pull at her dress and moved to loosen it for him.

And then there were voices, clamoring, shouting, a noise like hammering, a frightened scream, and suddenly a dozen voices were all yelling. “Captain! Lord Lancelet! Where is he? Captain!

“Down here, I thought—“ One of the younger soldiers ran down between the horse lines. Swearing savagely under his breath, Lancelet thrust his body between Morgaine and the young soldier, while she buried her face in her veil and hunched herself, half-naked already, into the straw so that she would not be seen.

“Damnation! Can’t I be out of the way for a moment—“ “Oh, sir, come quickly, one of the strange horses—there was a mare in season, and two of the stallions began fighting, and I think one of them’s broken a leg—“

“Hell and furies!” Lancelet was swiftly tucking garments into place, rising and towering over the lad who had interrupted them. “I’ll come—“

The young man had caught sight of Morgaine; she hoped in a moment of horror that he had not recognized her—that would be a fine juicy morsel of gossip for the court indeed. Not as bad as what they do not know  ...  that I bore my brother’s child.

“Did I interrupt anything, sir?” the young man said, trying to peer around Lancelet, almost sniggering. Morgaine wondered disconsolate, What will this do to his reputation? Or is it to a man’s credit to be caught in the hay? Lancelet did not even answer; he shoved the youngster along before him, so that he almost fell. “Go and find Cai, and the farrier, get along with you.” He came swiftly back, a whirlwind, kissed Morgaine who had staggered somehow to her feet. “Gods! Of all the damnable—“ He pressed her hard against him, with hungry fingers, kissed her so hard that she felt the brand of it was scalding red on her face. “Gods! Tonight—swear it! Swear!”

She couldn’t speak. She could only nod, dazed, numb, her whole body screaming for the interrupted fulfillment, as she saw him rush away. A minute or two later a young man came up to her deferentially and bowed, while soldiers began rushing back and forth and somewhere there was the terrible, almost human scream of a dying animal.

“Lady Morgaine? I am Griflet. The lord Lancelet sent me to escort you to the pavilions. He told me he had brought you down here to see the horse he is training for my lord the king, but that you had slipped and fallen in the hay, and that he was trying to see if you had hurt yourself when they began shrieking for him—when this fight broke out with King Pellinore’s horse. And he begs you to excuse him and return to the castle—“

Well, she thought, at least it explained her kirtle crushed and stained with hay and her hair and headcloth filled with hayseed. She need not go before Gwenhwyfar and her mother looking like the woman in Scriptures, the one taken in adultery; young Griflet held out his arm and she leaned on it heavily, saying, “I think my ankle is twisted,” and limped all the way up to the castle. It would explain the hay, if she had had a hurt and fallen hard. One part of her was glad of Lancelet’s quick thinking; the other, desolate, cried out for him to acknowledge and shelter her.

Arthur had gone off with Cai to the stables, distressed at the accident to the horses. She let Gwenhwyfar fuss over her and Igraine send for cold water and linen strips to bandage her ankle, and she accepted a place at Igraine’s side, in the shade, when horses and men rode out to display their exercises. Arthur made a little speech about the new legion of Caerleon which would revive the glories of the days of Rome, and save the countryside. His foster-father, Ectorius, was beaming. Then a dozen riders rode out, displaying the new skills with which the horses could stop in mid gallop, pull up, wheel, move together.

“After this,” Arthur declared grandly, “no one will ever again say that horses are fit for nothing but to move wagons!” He smiled at Gwenhwyfar. “How do you like my knights, my lady? I have called them after the old Roman equites—noblemen who could own and fit out their own horse.”

“Cai rides as well as a centaur,” Igraine said to Ectorius, and the old man smiled with pleasure. “Arthur, you never did a kinder thing than when you gave Cai one of the best of the horses.”

“Cai is too good a soldier, and too good a friend, to wither in the house,” said Arthur decisively.

Gwenhwyfar said, “Is he not your foster-brother?”

“True. He was wounded in his first battle, and feared he would skulk at home with the women forever after that,” said Arthur. “A frightful fate for a soldier. But on horseback he fights as well as any.”

“Look,” exclaimed Igraine, “the legion has smashed down that whole series of targets—I have never seen such riding!”

“I don’t think anything could stand against that attack,” said King Pellinore. “What a pity Uther Pendragon could not live to see this, my boy —excuse me—my lord and king—“

Arthur said warmly, “My father’s friend may call me whatever he wishes, dear Pellinore! But the credit must go to my friend and captain, Lancelet.”

Morgause’s son Gaheris bobbed in a bow to Arthur. “My lord, may I go down to the stables and see them unsaddled?” He was a bright, merry-looking boy of fourteen or so.

“You may,” said Arthur. “When will he come to join Gawaine and Agravaine at our side, Aunt?”

“This year, perhaps, if his brothers can teach him soldierly arts and keep him close,” Morgause said, then raised her voice: “No! Not you, Gareth!” and made a snatch at the chubby six-year-old. “Gaheris! Bring him back here!”

Arthur spread his hands with a laugh. “Don’t worry about it—boys run to stables like fleas to dogs. I have been told how I rode my father’s stallion when I was scarce six years old! I don’t remember; it was only a little before I went to be fostered with Ectorius,” he said, and Morgaine shivered suddenly, remembering a fair-haired child lying like death and something like a shadow in a bowl of water—no, it was gone.

“Does your ankle pain you much, sister?” Gwenhwyfar asked solicitously. “Here, lean against me—“

“Gawaine will look after him,” Arthur said offhandedly. “I think he’s the best man we have at training the young knights and riders.”

“Better than the lord Lancelet?” asked Gwenhwyfar. Morgaine thought, She only wants to speak his name. But it is me he wanted, not long ago, and tonight it will be too late  ...  better that than break Arthur’s heart. I will tell Gwenhwyfar if I must.

Arthur said, “Lancelet? He’s our best rider, though too much of a daredevil for my taste. The lads all adore him, of course—look, there’s your little Gareth, Aunt, tagging after him like a puppy—they’ll do anything for a kind word from him. But he’s not as good at teaching the boys their business as Gawaine; he’s too flamboyant and he likes to show off. Gawaine takes them slow and easy and makes them learn the art step by step, and they never get hurt through carelessness—Gawaine’s my best arms master. Look, there’s Lancelet on that horse he’s training for me—“ He burst into a laugh, and Igraine said, “That little devil!”

For Gareth had swung like a monkey from the saddle leather, and Lancelet, laughing, scooped up the boy in front of him on his saddle and broke into a fast gallop, racing directly up the hill toward the sheltered place where the royal party sat watching. They raced at breakneck speed straight toward them, so that even Arthur gasped and Igraine stepped back, her face white. Lancelet pulled up the horse so that it reared into the air and wheeled it round.

“Your horse, lord Arthur,” he said with a flourish, holding the reins with one hand, “and your cousin. Aunt Morgause, take this little scapegrace and tan his breeches for him!” he added, letting Gareth slide down almost into Morgause’s lap. “He could have been killed under the stallion’s feet like that!”

Gareth heard not a word of Morgause’s scolding, looking up at Lancelet, his blue eyes wide with adoration.

“When you get older,” Arthur said, laughing, aiming a playful cuff at the child, “I will make you a knight and you shall ride out to conquer giants and evil raiders, and rescue fair ladies.”

“Oh no, my lord Arthur,” said the child, his eyes still fastened on the white horse which Lancelet was riding up and down. “The lord Lancelet shall make me a knight, and we will go on a quest together.”

Ectorius chuckled and said, “Young Achilles has found his Patroclus, so it would seem.”

“I am quite in the shade,” Arthur said good-naturedly. “Even my new-made wife cannot take her eyes from Lancelet, and begs him to call her by her Christian name, and now little Gareth would rather be made knight by him! If Lance were not my closest friend, I should be mad with jealousy.”

Pellinore was watching the rider cantering up and down. He said, “That damnable dragon is still hiding in a lake on my lands, and coming out to kill my tenants or their cows. Perhaps if I had a horse like that, who would stand to fight ... I think I will train a battle horse and go after it again. Last time I barely got away with my life.”

“A dragon, sir?” asked little Gareth. “Did it breathe fire?”

“No, lad, but it had an almighty stench and a noise like sixty packs of hounds all baying together from his belly,” said Pellinore, and Ectorius said, “Dragons do not breathe fire, my lad. That comes from the old way of calling a shooting star a dragon, for they have a long tail of fire—there may have been dragons once who breathed fire, but not in the memory of any living man.”

Morgaine was not listening, though she wondered how much of Pellinore’s tale was true, and how much exaggerated to impress the child. Her eyes were on Lancelet, putting the horse through its paces.

Arthur said to Gwenhwyfar, “I could never train a horse like that— Lancelet is training it to battle for me. Look, two months ago that one was wild as one of Pellinore’s dragons, and now look at him!”

“He seems still wild to me,” said Gwenhwyfar. “But then, I am afraid even of the gentlest horses.”

“A horse to be ridden in battle must not be meek as a lady’s palfrey,” said Arthur. “He must have spirit—God in heaven!” he cried out, rising up suddenly. From somewhere there was a blur of white; a bird of some kind, a goose perhaps, had suddenly flapped upward, right under the horse’s hooves. Lancelet, riding at ease, his vigilance relaxed, started as the horse reared upright with a frantic whicker; fought for control, slid off almost under the hooves; half senseless, managed to roll away.

Gwenhwyfar screamed. Morgause and the other ladies echoed the scream, while Morgaine, quite forgetting she was supposed to have an injured ankle, leaped up and ran toward Lancelet, dragging him out from under the horse’s hooves. Arthur too dashed for the horse’s bridle, grabbing it, wrestling the horse by main force away from where Lancelet sprawled unconscious. Morgaine knelt beside him, quickly feeling his temple, where a bruise already darkened and a trickle of blood mingled with the dust. “Is he dead?” Gwenhwyfar cried. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Morgaine said with asperity. “Bring some cold water, and there ought to be some of that bandage linen left. He’s broken his wrist, I think; he broke his fall with it so as not to break his neck! And the clout on his head—“ She bent down, laying her ear against his chest, feeling the warm rise and fall of it. She took the basin of cold water Pellinore’s daughter handed her, sponging his brow with a bit of linen. “Someone catch that goose and wring its neck—and give the goose boy a good thrashing. The lord Lancelet could have broken his head, or damaged the High King’s horse.”

Gawaine came and led the horse back to the stables. The near tragedy had dampened the festivities, and one by one the guests began to drift away to their own pavilions and quarters. Morgaine bound up Lancelet’s head and his broken wrist, mercifully completing the work of splinting the wrist before he stirred and moaned and clutched at it in agony; then, in conference with the housekeeper, sent Cai for some herbs which would make him sleep and had him carried to bed. She stayed with him, though he did not know her, only moaned and stared about with eyes that refused to stay in focus. Once he stared at her, and muttered “Mother—“ and her heart sank. After a while he fell into a heavy, restless sleep, and when he woke, he knew her.

“Morgaine? Cousin? What happened?”

“You fell off a horse.”

“A horse? What horse?” he asked, confused, and when she told him he said positively, “That’s ridiculous. I don’t fall off horses,” and dropped off to sleep again.

Morgaine sat beside him, letting him clutch at her hand, and felt that her heart would break. The mark of his kisses was still on her mouth, on her aching breasts. Yet the moment had passed, and she knew it. Even if he should remember, he would not want her; he had never wanted her, except to dull the agony of thinking of Gwenhwyfar and of his love for his king and cousin.

It was growing dark; far away in the castle she heard sounds of music again—Kevin was harping. There was laughter, singing, festivity. Suddenly the door opened, and Arthur himself, carrying a torch in his hand, came in.

“Sister, how does Lancelet?”

“He’ll live; his head’s too hard to break,” she said with a hard flippancy.

“We wanted you among the witnesses when the bride was put to bed, as you witnessed the marriage contract,” said Arthur. “But I suppose he should not be left alone, and I wouldn’t want him left to a chamberlain, not even to Cai. He’s fortunate he has you with him. You are his foster-sister, are you not?”

“No,” said Morgaine, with unexpected anger.

Arthur came to the bedside and picked up Lancelet’s limp hand. The injured man moaned, stirred, and looked up, blinking. “Arthur?”

“I’m here, my friend,” said Arthur, and Morgaine thought she had never heard a man’s voice so tender.

“Is your horse—all right?”

“The horse is fine. Damn the horse,” Arthur said. “If you’d been killed, what good would a horse be to me?” He was almost weeping.

“How did it—happen?”

“A damned goose flew up. The goose boy’s in hiding. I think he knows he’ll be beaten within an inch of his life!”

“Don’t do that,” Lancelet said. “He’s only a poor stupid creature without all his wits. He’s not to blame that the geese are cleverer than he is, and one wandered loose. Promise me, Gwydion.” She was astonished that he used the old name. Arthur pressed his hand, and bent down to kiss Lancelet on the cheek, carefully avoiding the bruised side.

“I promise, Galahad. Sleep, now.”

Lancelet gripped his hand hard. “I came close to wrecking your wedding night, didn’t I?” he said, with something Morgaine recognized as her own hard irony.

“Believe you did—my bride has wept so hard over you, I wonder what she would do if 7 had broken my head?” Arthur demanded, laughing.

Morgaine said fiercely, “Arthur, even if you are the King, he must be kept quiet!”

“Right.” Arthur straightened. “I will send the Merlin to look in at him tomorrow; he should not be left alone tonight, though—“

“I’ll stay with him,” she said angrily.

“Well, if you are sure—“

“Go you back to Gwenhwyfar! Your bride is waiting for you!”

Arthur sighed, subdued. After a moment he said, “I don’t know what to say to her. Or what to do.”

This is ridiculous—does he expect me to instruct him, or to instruct his bride? At the look in his eyes she lowered her own. She said, very gently, “Arthur, it is simple. Do as the Goddess prompts you.”

He looked like a stricken child. At last he said, hoarsely, fighting the words, “She—she isn’t the Goddess. She’s just a girl, and she’s—she’s frightened.” After a moment he blurted out, “Morgaine, don’t you know that I still—“

She could not bear what he might be going to say. “No!” she said violently, holding up her hand, commanding silence. “Arthur, remember one thing at least. To her you will always be the God. Come to her as the Horned One ...  .”

Arthur crossed himself and shivered. He whispered at last, “God forgive me; this is the punishment  ... ” and fell silent. They stood, looking at each other, unable to speak. Finally he said, “Morgaine, I have no right —will you kiss me once?”

“My brother—“ She sighed, stood on tiptoe and kissed his forehead. Then she signed his head with the sign of the Goddess. “Bless you,” she whispered. “Arthur, go to her, go to your bride. I promise you, I promise in the name of the Goddess, it will be well, I swear it to you.”

He swallowed—she saw the muscles in his throat move. Then he broke away from her eyes and muttered, “God bless you, sister.” The door closed behind him.

Morgaine dropped down on a chair, and sat, unmoving, staring at Lancelet’s sleep, tormented by pictures in her mind. Lancelet’s face, smiling at her in sunlight on the Tor. Gwenhwyfar, water-draggled, her skirts soaked, clinging to Lancelet’s hand. The Horned God, his face smeared with deer’s blood, drawing aside the curtain at the mouth of the cave. Lancelet’s mouth frantic on her breasts—had it been only a few hours ago?

“At least,” she muttered aloud fiercely, “he will not spend Arthur’s bridal night dreaming of Gwenhwyfar.” She laid herself down along the edge of the bed, pressing her body carefully against the hurt man’s body; she lay there silent, not even weeping, sunk in a despairing misery too deep for tears. But she did not close her eyes that night, fighting the Sight, fighting dreams, struggling for the silence and the numb absence of thought she had been taught in Avalon.

And far away, in the furthest wing of the castle, Gwenhwyfar lay awake, looking in guilty tenderness at Arthur’s hair shining in the moonlight, his chest that rose and fell with his quiet breathing. Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.

I want so much to love him, she thought, and then she prayed. “Oh, God, holy Mary Virgin, help me to love him as I ought to do, he is my king and my lord and he is so good, he deserves someone who will love him more than I can love.” All around her, it seemed, the night breathed sadness and despair.

But why, she wondered. Arthur is happy. He has nothing with which to reproach me. Whence comes this sorrow in the very air?

                                   7       

On a day in late summer, Queen Gwenhwyfar, with several of her ladies, sat in the hall at Caerleon. It was afternoon and very hot; most of them were making a pretense of spinning, or of carding the last of that spring’s wool for spinning, but the spindles moved sluggishly, and even the Queen, who was the best needlewoman among them, had ceased to set stitches in the fine altar cloth she was making for the bishop.

Morgaine laid aside the carded wool for spinning and sighed. At this season of the year she was always homesick, longing for the mists that crept in from the sea over the cliffs at Tintagel  ...  she had not seen them since she was a little child.

Arthur and his men, with the Caerleon legion, had ridden out to the southern coast, to examine the new fort that the Saxons of the treaty troops had built there. This summer had brought no raid, and it might well be that the Saxons, except for those who had made treaty with Arthur and were living peacefully in the Kentish country, would give up Britain for lost. Two years of Arthur’s horse legion had reduced the Saxon fighting to a sporadic summer exercise; but Arthur had taken this season of quiet to fortify all the defenses of the coasts.

“I am thirsty again,” said Pellinore’s daughter, Elaine. “May I go, my lady, and ask for more pitchers of water to be sent?”

“Call Cai—he will attend to it,” Gwenhwyfar said.

Morgaine thought: She has grown a great deal; from a scared and timid child she has become a queen.

“You should have married Cai when the King wished for it, lady Morgaine,” said Elaine, returning from her errand and sitting down on the bench beside Morgaine. “He is the only man under sixty in the castle, and| his wife will never lie alone for half a year at a time.”

“You are welcome to him, if you want him,” Morgaine said amiably.

“I still wonder that you did not,” Gwenhwyfar said, as if it were an | old grievance. “It would have been so suitable—Cai, the King’s foster-brother and high in his favor, and you, Arthur’s sister and Duchess of Cornwall in your own right, now that the lady Igraine never leaves her nunnery!”

Drusilla, daughter of one of the petty kings to the east, snickered. “Tell me, if the King’s sister and brother marry, how is it other than incest?”

“Half-sister and foster-brother, you goose,” said Elaine. “But tell me, lady Morgaine, was it only his scars and lameness that deterred you? Cai is no beauty, certainly, but he would be a good husband.”

“I am not deceived by you,” Morgaine retorted, pretending a good humor she did not feel—did these women think of nothing but marriages? “You care nothing for my wedded happiness with Cai, you merely wished for a wedding to break the monotony of the summer. But you should not be greedy. Sir Griflet was married to Meleas last spring, and that should be weddings enough for now.” She glanced at Meleas, whose dress had already begun to grow tight over her pregnant body. “You will even have a babe to fuss and coo over this time next year.”

“But you are long unmarried, lady Morgaine,” said Alienor of Galis. “And you could hardly have hoped for a better match than the King’s own foster-brother!”

“I am in no great haste to be wed, and Cai had no more mind to me than I to him.”

Gwenhwyfar chuckled. “True. He has a tongue near as waspish as your own, and no sweet temper—his wife will need more patience than the saintly Brigid, and you, Morgaine, are ever ready with a sharp answer.”

“And besides, if she should marry, she would have to spin for her household,” Meleas said. “As usual, Morgaine is shirking her share of the spinning!” Her own spindle began to twirl again, and the reel sank slowly toward the floor.

Morgaine shrugged. “It is true I had rather card wool, but there is no more to card,” she said, and reluctantly took up the drop spindle.

“You are the best spinner among us, though,” said Gwenhwyfar. “Your thread is always even and never breaks. Mine breaks if one looks at”

  “I have always been neat-handed. Perhaps I am simply tired of spinning, since my mother taught me when I was so young,” Morgaine conceded, and began, reluctantly, to turn the thread in her fingers.

True—she hated spinning and shirked it when she could  ...  twisting, turning the thread in her fingers, willing her body to stillness with only her fingers twisting as the reel turned and turned, sinking to the floor . .. down and then up, twist and twist between her hands ... all too easy it was to sink into trance. The women were gossiping over the little affairs of the day, Meleas and her morning sickness, a woman who had come from Lot’s court with scandalous tales of Lot’s lechery  ...  I could tell them much if I would, not even his wife’s niece escaped his lecherous hands.... It took me all my thought and sharp tongue to keep out of his bed; he cares not, maiden or matron, duchess or dairy maid, so it wears a skirt ...  twist the thread, twist again, watch the spindle turning, turning. Gwydion must be a great boy by now, three years old, ready for a toy sword and wooden knights such as she had made for Gareth, instead of pet kittens and knucklebones. She remembered Arthur’s weight on her lap when she was a little girl here at Caerleon in Uther’s court ... how fortunate it was that Gwydion did not resemble his father; a small replica of Arthur at Lot’s court would have made tongues wag indeed. Soon or late, someone would still put together reel and spindle and spin the right thread to the answer ...  . Morgaine jerked her head up angrily. It was all too easy to fall into trance at the spinning, but she must do her share, there must be thread to weave this winter, and the ladies were making a cloth for banquets ...  . Cai was not the only man under fifty in the castle; there was Kevin the Bard, who had come here with news from the Summer Country ... how slowly the spindle moved toward the floor ... twist, twist the thread, as if her fingers had life of their own, apart from her own life .. even in Avalon she had hated to spin ... in Avalon among the priestesses she had tried to take more than her share of the work among the dye pots, to avoid the hated spinning, which sent her mind roaming as her fingers moved ... as the thread turned, it was like the spiral dance along the Tor, round and round, as the world turned round the sun in the sky, though ignorant folk thought it was the other way ...  . Things were not always as they seemed, it might be that the reel went round the thread, as the thread went round itself over and over, spinning like a serpent  ...  like a dragon in the sky... if she were a man and could ride out with the Caerleon legion, at least she need not sit and spin, spin, spin, round and round  ...  but even

the Caerleon legion went round the Saxons, and the Saxons went round them, round and round, as the blood went round in their veins, red blood flooding, flooding  ...  spilling over the hearth—

Morgaine heard her own shriek only after it had shattered the silence in the room. She dropped the spindle, which rolled away into the blood which flooded crimson, spilling, spurting over the hearth ...  .

"Morgaine! Sister, did you prick your hand on the reel? What ails you?”

"Blood on the hearth—" Morgaine stammered. "See, there, there, just before the King's high seat, slain there like a slaughtered sheep before the King  ... "

Elame shook her; dizzied, Morgaine passed her hand before her eyes. There was no blood, only the slow crawl of the afternoon sun.

"Sister, what did you see?" asked Gwenhwyfar gently.

Mother Goddess! It has happened again! Morgaine tried to steady her breathing. "Nothing, nothing ... I must have fallen asleep and dreamed for a moment."

"Didn't you see anything?" Calla, the fat wife of the steward, peered avidly at Morgaine. Morgaine remembered the last time, more than a year ago, when she had gone into trance over her spinning and foreseen that Cai's favorite horse had broken its leg in the stables and must have its throat cut. She said impatiently, "No, nothing but a dream—I dreamed last night of eating goose and I have not tasted it since Easter! Must every dream be a portent?"

"If you are going to prophesy, Morgaine," teased Elaine, "you should tell us something sensible, like, when will the men be home so we may have the wine warmed, or whether Meleas is making swaddling bands for a girl or a boy, or when the Queen will get pregnant!"

"Shut up, you beast," hissed Calla, for Gwenhwyfar's eyes had filled with tears. Morgaine's head was splitting with the aftermath of unsought trance; it seemed that little lights were crawling before her eyes, pale shining worms of color that would grow and spread over her whole field of vision. She knew she should let it pass, but even as that knowledge crossed her mind, she exploded, "I am so weary of that old jest! I am no village wise-woman, to meddle with birth charms and love potions and foretellings and spells. I am a priestess, not a witch!"

"Come, come," Meleas said peacefully. "Let Morgaine be. This sun is enough to make anyone see things that are not there; even if she did see blood spilt on the hearth, it is just as like that some lack-witted serving-man will overset a half-roasted joint here, and the red gravy spill down! Will you drink, lady?" She went to the bucket of water, dipped the ladle and held it out, and Morgaine drank thirstily. "I never heard that most prophecy came to aught—one might as well ask her when Elaine’s father will finally catch and slay that dragon he goes off to pursue, in and out of season.”

Predictably, the diversion worked. Calla jested, “If there was ever a dragon at all, and he was not merely seeking an excuse to go abroad from home when he was weary of the hearth!”

“If I were a man, and wedded to Pellinore’s lady,” Alienor said, “I might well prefer the company of a dragon I could not find, to the company of one in my bed.”

“Tell me, Elaine,” asked Meleas, “is there truly a dragon, or does your father follow it because it is simpler than seeing to his cows? Men need not sit and spin when there is war, but when there is peace, they may grow weary of the fowlyard and the pastures, I suppose.”

“I have never seen the dragon,” Elaine said. “God forbid. But something takes the cows from time to time, and once I did see a great slime trail in the fields, and smell the stench; and a cow lay there quite eaten away, and covered with a foul slime. Not the work of a wolf, that, nor even a glutton.”

“Cows vanishing,” jeered Calla. “The fairy folk are not, I suppose, too good Christians to steal a cow now and then, when the deer are not to be found.”

“And speaking of cows,” Gwenhwyfar said firmly, “I think I must ask Cai whether there is a sheep or a kid for slaughter. We need meat. Should the men come home this night or tomorrow, we cannot feed them all on porridge and buttered bread! And even the butter is beginning to fail in this heat. Come with me, Morgaine. I would that your Sight could tell me when we shall have rain! All of you, clear the thread and wool from the benches here, and put the work away. Elaine, child, take my embroidery work to my chamber and see that nothing spots it.”

As they went toward the hallway, she said, low, “Did you truly see blood, Morgaine?”

“I dreamed,” repeated Morgaine stubbornly.

Gwenhwyfar looked at her sharply, but there was real affection between them sometimes, and she did not pursue the subject. “If you did, God grant it be Saxon blood, and spilt far from this hearth. Come, let us ask Cai about the stock kept for meat. It is no season for hunting, and I have no wish to have the men about and hunting here when they come again.” She yawned. “I wish the heat would break. We might yet have a thunderstorm —the milk was soured this morning. I should tell the maids to make clabber cheese with what’s left of it, not throw it to the pigs.”

“You are a notable housewife, Gwenhwyfar,” Morgaine said wryly. “I would not have thought of that, so that it was out of my sight; but the smell of curd cheese clings so to the dairies! I would rather have the pigs well fattened.”

“They are fat enough in this weather, with all the acorns ripe,” said Gwenhwyfar, looking at the sky again. “Look, is that a flash of lightning?” Morgaine followed her eyes, seeing the streak of glare across the sky. “Aye. The men will come home wet and cold, we should have hot wine ready for them,” she said absentmindedly, then started, as Gwenhwyfar blinked.

“Now do I believe, indeed, that you have the Sight—certainly there is no sound of hooves nor no word from the watchtower,” Gwenhwyfar said. “I will tell Cai to be sure there is meat, anyway.” And she went along the yard, while Morgaine stood, pressing her aching head with one hand.

This is not good. At Avalon she had learned to control the Sight, not let it slip upon her unawares, when she was not attending ...  . Soon she would be a village witch indeed, peddling charms and prophesying boy- or girl-children and new lovers for the maidens, from sheer boredom at the pettiness of life among the women. The gossip bored her to spinning, the spinning beguiled her into trance ...  . One day, no doubt, I would sink low enough to give Gwenhwyfar the charm she wants, so that she may bear Arthur a son  ...  barrenness is a heavy burden for a queen, and only once in these two years has she shown any sign of breeding.

Yet she found Gwenhwyfar’s company, and Elaine’s, endurable; most of the other women had never had a single thought beyond the next meal or the next reel of thread spun. Gwenhwyfar and Elaine had had some learning, and occasionally, sitting at ease with them, she could almost imagine herself peacefully among the priestesses in the House of Maidens. The storm broke just before sunset—there was hail that clattered in the courtyard and bounced on the stones, there was drenching rain; and when the watchtower called down the news of riders, Morgaine never doubted that it was Arthur and his men. Gwenhwyfar called for torches to light the courtyard, and shortly after, the walls of Caerleon were bulging with men and horses. Gwenhwyfar had conferred with Cai and he had slaughtered not a kid, but sheep, so there was meat roasting and hot broth for the men. Most of the legion camped all through the outer court and the field, and like any commander, Arthur saw to the encampment of his men and the stabling of their horses before he came into the courtyard where Gwenhwyfar awaited him.

His head was bandaged under his helmet, and he leaned a little on Lancelet’s arm, but he brushed away her anxious query.

“A skirmish—Jute raiders along the coast. The Saxons of the treaty troops had already cleaned most of them away before we came there. Ha! I smell roast mutton—is this magic, when you did not know we were coming?”

“Morgaine told me you would come, and there is hot wine as well,” said Gwenhwyfar.

“Well, well, it is a boon to a hungry man to have a sister who is gifted with the Sight,” said Arthur, with a jovial smile at Morgaine which rasped on her aching head and raw nerves. He kissed her, and turned back to Gwenhwyfar.

“You are hurt, my husband, let me see to it—“

“No, no, I tell you it is nothing. I never lose much blood, you know that, not while I bear this scabbard about me,” he said, “but how is it with you, lady, after these many months? I had thought  ... ”

Her eyes filled slowly with tears. “I was wrong again. Oh, my lord, this time I was so sure, so sure  ... ”

He took her hand in his, unable to express his own disappointment in the face of his wife’s pain. “Well, well, we must certainly get Morgaine to give you a charm,” he said; but he watched, his face momentarily setting into grim lines, as Meleas welcomed Griflet with a wifely kiss, holding her young swollen body proudly forward. “We are not yet old folk, my Gwenhwyfar.”

But, Gwenhwyfar thought, I am not so young either. Most of the women I know, save for Morgaine and Elaine who are yet unwedded, have great boys and girls by the time they are twenty; Igraine bore Morgaine when she was full fifteen, and Meleas is fourteen and a half, no more! She tried to look calm and unconcerned, but guilt gnawed within her. Whatever else a queen might do for her lord, her first duty was to give him a son, and she had not done that duty, though she had prayed till her knees ached.

“How does my dear lady?” Lancelet bowed before her, smiling, and she held him out her hand to kiss. “Once again we return home and find you only more beautiful than ever. You are the only lady whose beauty never fades. I begin to think God has ordered it so, that when all other women age and grow old and thick and worn, you shall be ever beautiful.”

She smiled at him and felt comforted. Perhaps it was just as well that she was not pregnant and ugly  ...  she saw that he looked on Meleas with a faint scornful smile, and she felt that she could not bear to be ugly before Lancelet. Even Arthur looked shabby, as if he had slept in the same crumpled tunic all through the campaign, and wrapped himself, in mud and rain and weather, in his fine, much-worn cloak; but Lancelet looked as crisp and new, his cloak and tunic as well brushed, as if he had dressed himself for an Easter feast—his hair trimmed and combed smooth, his leather belt polished, and even the eagle feathers in his cap standing up dry and unwilted. He looked, Gwenhwyfar thought, more like a king than Arthur himself did.

As the serving-maidens carried round platters of meat and bread, Arthur drew Gwenhwyfar to his side.

"Come sit here between Lancelet and me, Gwen, and we will talk— it seems long since I heard a voice that was not rough and male, or smelled the scent of a woman's gown." He passed his hand over her braid. "Come you too, Morgaine, and sit by me—I am weary of campaigning, I want to hear small gossip, not the talk of the camp!" He bit into a chunk of bread with eager hunger. "And it is good to eat new-baked bread; I am tired of hard-baked army bread, and meat gone bad by keeping!"

Lancelet had turned to smile at Morgaine.

"And you, how is it with you, kinswoman? I suppose there is no news from the Summer Country, or from Avalon? There is another here who is eager to hear it, if there is—my brother Balan rode with us."

"I have no news from Avalon," said Morgaine, feeling Gwenhwyfar watching her—or was she looking at Lancelet? "But I have not seen Balan for many years—I suppose he would have later news than mine?"

"He is there," Lancelet said, gesturing toward the men in the hall. "Arthur bid him to dine here as my kinsman, and it would be a kindness in you, Morgaine, to take him a cup of wine from the high table. Like all men, he too is eager for a welcome from some woman, even if it be a kinswoman and not a sweetheart."

Morgaine took one of the drinking cups, horn bound with wood, that sat on the high table, and beckoned a servant to pour wine into it; then she raised it between her hands and went around the table among the knights. She was pleasantly conscious of their regard, even though she knew they would look like this at any well-bred, finely dressed woman after so many months of campaign; it was not a particular compliment to her beauty. At least Balan, who was a cousin, almost a brother, would not eye her so hungrily.

"I greet you, kinsman. Lancelet, your brother, sent you some wine from the King's table."

"I beg you to sip it first, lady," he said, then blinked. "Morgaine, is it you? I hardly knew you, you have grown so fine. I think of you always in the dress of Avalon, but you are like to my mother, indeed. How does the Lady?"

Morgaine set the cup to her lips—mere courtesy at this court, but perhaps stemming from a time when gifts from the King were tasted before a guest, when the poisoning of rival kings was not unknown. She handed it to him, and Balan drank a long draught before looking up at her again.

"I had hoped to have news of Viviane from you, kinsman—I have not returned to Avalon for many years," she said.

"Aye, I knew that you were in Lot's court," he said. "Did you quarrel with Morgause? I hear that is easy done by any woman ...  ."

Morgaine shook her head. "No; but I wished to be far enough away to stay out of Lot's bed, and that is not easy done. The distance between Orkney and Caerleon is hardly far enough."

"And so you came to Arthur's court to be waiting-woman to his queen," said Balan. "It is a more seemly court than that of Morgause, I dare say. Gwenhwyfar guards her maidens well, and makes good marriages for them, too—I see Griflet's lady is already big with her first. Has she not found you a husband, kinswoman?"

Morgaine forced herself to say gaily, "Are you making an offer for me, sir Balan?"

He chuckled. "You are all too close kin to me, Morgaine, or I should accept your offer. But I heard some gossip that Arthur had intended you for Cai, and that seemed a good match to me, since you have left Avalon after all."

"Cai had no more mind to me than I to him," said Morgaine sharply, "and I have never said I would not return to Avalon, but only on that day when Viviane sends for me to come thither."

"When I was but a lad," Balan said—and for a moment, his dark eyes resting on Morgaine, she thought that indeed she could see the resemblance to Lancelet even in this great coarse man—"I thought ill of the Lady—of Viviane, that she did not love me as it was fit for a mother to do. But I think better of it now. As a priestess, she could not have had leisure to rear a son. And so she gave me into the hands of one who had no other work than that, and she gave me my foster-brother Balin ...  . Oh, yes, as a lad I felt guilty about that too, that I cared more for Balin than for our Lancelet, who is of my own flesh and blood. But now I know Balin is truly my own heart's brother, and Lancelet, though I admire him for the fine knight he is, will always be a stranger to me. And too," Balan said seriously, "when Viviane gave me up to Dame Priscilla for fostering, she put me into a household where I would come to know the true God apd Christ. It seems to me strange, that if I had dwelt in Avalon with my own kin, I should be a heathen, even as Lancelet is ...  ."

Morgaine smiled a little. "Well," she said, "there I cannot share your gratitude, for I think it ill done of the Lady that her own son should abandon her Gods. But even Viviane has often said to me that men should have such manner of religious and spiritual counsel as liked them best, that which she could give, or other. Had I been truly pious and Christian at heart, no doubt, she would have let me live by the faith which was strong in my heart. Yet, though I was reared till I was eleven by Igraine, who was as good a Christian as any, I think perhaps it was ordained that I should see the things of the spirit as they come to us from the Goddess."

"Balin would be able to argue that with you better than I," said Balan, 'for he is more pious than I and a better Christian. I should probably say to you what no doubt the priests have said, that there is only one true faith in which man and woman may trust. But you are my kinswoman, and I know my mother to be a good woman, and I have faith that even Christ will take her goodness into account on the last day. As for the rest, I am no priest and I see not why I should not leave all those matters to the priests who are schooled in them. I love Balin well, but he should have been a priest, not a warrior, if he is so tender of faith and conscience." He looked toward the high table and said, "Tell me, foster-sister, you know him better than I—what lies so heavy on our brother Lancelet's heart?"

Morgaine bent her head and said, "If I knew, Balan, it is not my secret to tell."

"You are right to bid me mind my own affairs," said Balan, "but I hate seeing him miserable, and miserable he is. I thought ill of our mother, as I said, because she sent me so young from home, but she gave me a loving foster-mother, and a brother of my own age, reared at my side and as one with me in all things, and a home. She did less well by Lancelet. He was never at home—neither in Avalon nor yet at the court of Ban of Ben-wick, where he was dragged up as just another of the king's unregarded bastards ...  . Viviane did ill by him indeed, and I wish Arthur would give him a wife, so he might have a home at last."

"Well," said Morgaine lightly, "if the King wishes me to wed Lance-let, he need only name the day."

"You and Lancelet? Are you not too close kin for that?" Balan asked, then thought for a moment. "No, I suppose not—Igraine and Viviane were but half-sisters, and Gorlois and Ban of Ben wick are not in any way akin. Though some of the church folk say foster-kin should be treated as blood kin for marriage  ...  well, Morgaine, I will drink to your wedding with pleasure on that day Arthur gives you to my brother, and bids you love him and care for him as Viviane never did! And neither of you need leave court—you the Queen's favorite lady and Lancelet our King's dearest friend. I hope it comes to pass!" His eyes dwelt on her with kindly concern. "You too are well past the age when Arthur should give you to some man."

And why should it be for the King to give me, as if I were one of his horses or dogs? Morgaine wondered, but shrugged; she had lived long in Avalon, she forgot at times that the Romans had made this the common law, that women were the chattels of their menfolk. The world had changed and there was no point in rebelling against what could not be altered.

Soon after she began to skirt the edges of the great mead table which had been Gwenhwyfar's wedding gift to Arthur. The great hall here in Caerleon, large as it was, was not really large enough; at one point she had to clamber over the benches because the table pushed them so close to the wall, to get by the great curve of it. The pot boys and kitchen boys, too, had to sidle past with their smoking platters and cups.

“Is Kevin not here?” asked Arthur. “Then we must have Morgaine to sing for us—I am hungry too for harps and all the things of civilized men. I am not surprised the Saxons spend all their time in making war. I have heard the dismal howling of their singers, and they have no reason to stay home!”

Morgaine asked one of Cai’s helpers around the castle to fetch her harp from her chamber. He had to climb around the curve of the bench, and lost his footing; only the quickness of Lancelet, reaching out to steady boy and harp, kept the instrument from falling.

Arthur frowned. “It was good of my father-in-law to send me this great round mead table,” he said, “but there is no chamber in Caerleon large enough for it. When the Saxons are driven away for good, I think I must build a hall just to hold it!”

“Then will it never be built.” Cai laughed. “To say ‘when the Saxons are driven away for good’ is like to saying ‘when Jesus shall come again’ or ‘when Hell freezes’ or ‘when raspberries grow on the apple trees of Glastonbury.’ “

“Or when King Pellinore catches his dragon,” Meleas giggled.

Arthur smiled. “You must not make fun of Pellinore’s dragon,” he said, “for there is word it has been seen again, and he is off to find it and slay it this time—indeed, he asked the Merlin if he knew any dragon-catching spells!”

“Oh, aye, it has been seen—like a troll on the hills, turned to stone by daylight, or the ring stones dancing on the night of the full moon,” Lancelet gibed. “There are always people who see whatever vision they will —some see saints and miracles, and some see dragons or the old fairy folk. But never did I know of living man or woman who had seen either dragon or fairy.”

Morgaine remembered, against her will, the day in Avalon when she had gone searching for roots and herbs and strayed into the strange country where the fairy woman had spoken with her and had sought to foster her child  ...  what, indeed, had she seen? Or had it been only the sick fantasy of a breeding woman?

“You say that, when you were yourself fostered as Lancelet of the Lake?” she asked quietly, and Lancelet turned round to her. He said, “There are times when that seems unreal to me—is it not so for you, sister?”

She said, “It is true indeed, but at times I am homesick for Avalon ...  .”

“Aye, and I too, kinswoman,” he said. Never since that night of Arthur’s marriage, by word or look had he implied that he had ever felt anything more for her than for a childhood companion and foster-sister. She had thought she had long accepted the pain of that, but it struck her anew as his dark, beautiful eyes met hers in such kindness.

Soon or late, it must seem even as Balan said: we are both unmarried, the King’s sister and his best friend ...  .

Arthur said, “Well, when the Saxons are driven away for good—and do not laugh as if that were a fabulous event! It can be done, now, and I think they know it—then I shall build myself a castle, and a great hall big enough for even this table. I have already chosen the site—it is a hill fort which was there long before Roman times, looking down on the Lake itself, and near to your father’s island kingdom, Gwenhwyfar. You know the place, where the river flows into the Lake—“

“I know,” she said. “When I was a small child I went there one day to pick strawberries. There was an old ruined well, and we found elf bolts there. The old folk who lived on the chalk had left their arrows.” How strange, Gwenhwyfar thought, to remember that there had been a time when she had liked to go abroad under the wide, high sky, not even caring whether there was a wall or the safety of an enclosure; and now she grew sick and dizzy if she went out from the walls, where she could not see or touch them. Sometimes now she felt the lump of fear in her belly even when she walked across the courtyard, and had to hurry to touch the safety of the wall again.

“It is an easy place to fortify,” Arthur said, “though I hope, when we are done with the Saxons, we may have leisure and peace in this island.”

“An ignoble wish for a warrior, brother,” said Cai. “What will you do in time of peace?”

“I will call Kevin the Bard to make songs, and I will break my own horses and ride them for pleasure,” Arthur said. “My Companions and I will raise our sons without putting a sword in every little hand before it is full grown to manhood! And I need not fear they will be lamed or slain before they are full grown. Cai—would it not be better if you need not have been sent to war before you were old enough to guard yourself? Sometimes I feel it wrong that it was you, not I, who was lamed, because Ectorius wanted me kept safe for Uther!” He looked with concern and affection at his foster-brother, and Cai grinned back at him.

“And,” said Lancelet, “we will keep the arts of war alive by holding games, as they did in the days of the ancients, and crown the winner of the games with laurel wreaths—what is laurel, Arthur, and does it grow in these islands? Or is it only in the land of Achilles and Alexander?”

“The Merlin could tell you that,” Morgaine said, when Arthur looked perplexed’. “I know not either, but whether or no we have laurel, there are plants enough to make wreaths for the victors at your games.”

“And we will give garlands to harpers too,” Lancelet said. “Sing, Morgaine.”

“I had better sing for you now,” Morgaine said, “for I do not suppose, when you men hold your games, you will let women sing.” She took up the harp and began to play. She was sitting nearly where she had been sitting this afternoon when she saw blood spilled forth on the King’s hearth  ...  would it truly come to pass, or was it fantasy? Why, indeed, should she think she still possessed the Sight? It never came upon her now save in these unwelcome trances ...  .

She began to sing an ancient lament which she had heard at Tintagel, a lament of a fisherwoman who had seen the boats swept out to sea. She knew that she held them all with her voice, and in the silence of the hall she fell to singing old songs of the islands, which she had heard at Lot’s court: a legend of the seal woman who had come out of the sea to find a mortal lover, songs of the solitary women herders, songs for spinning and for carding flax. Even when her voice grew weary they called for more, but she held up her hand in protest.

“Enough—no, truly, I can sing no more. I am hoarse as any raven.”

Soon after, Arthur called the servants to extinguish the torches in the hall and light the guests to bed. It was one of Morgaine’s tasks to see that the unmarried women who waited on the Queen were safely put to sleep in the long loft room behind the Queen’s own chamber, at the opposite end of the building from the soldiers and armsmen. But she lingered a moment, her eyes on Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, who were bidding Lancelet good night.

“I have told the women to prepare the best spare bed for you, Lancelet,” said Gwenhwyfar, but he laughed and shook his head.

“I am a soldier—it is my duty to see horses and men bedded safe for the night before I sleep.”

Arthur chuckled, his arm around Gwenhwyfar’s waist. “We must get you married, Lance, then you will not spend your nights so cold. I made you my captain of horse, but you need not spend your nights lying down among them!”

Gwenhwyfar felt a pain within her breast as she met Lancelet’s eyes. It seemed to her that she could almost read his thoughts, that he would say aloud again, as he had said once, My heart is so full of my queen I have no room therefor any other lady.... She held her breath, but Lancelet only sighed and smiled at her, and she thought, No, lama wedded wife, a Christian woman, it is sin even to think such thoughts; I must do penance. And then, feeling her throat so tight she could not swallow, she felt the thought come unbidden. Penance enough that I must be apart from the one I love  ...  and she gasped aloud, so that Arthur turned startled eyes on her.

“What is it, love, have you hurt yourself?”

“A—a pin pricked me,” she said, and turned her eyes away, pretending to hunt for the pin at the folds of her dress. She saw Morgaine watching her, and bit her lip. She is always watching me ... and she has the Sight; does she know all my sinful thoughts? Is that why she looks on me so scornfully?

Yet Morgaine had never shown her anything but a sister’s kindness. And when she had been pregnant, in the first year of their marriage—when she had taken a fever and miscarried the child within five months—she could not bear to have any of her ladies about her, and Morgaine had cared for her almost like a mother. Why, now, was she so ungrateful?

Lancelet bade them good night again, and withdrew. Gwenhwyfar was almost painfully conscious of Arthur’s arm around her waist, the frank eagerness in his eyes. Well, they had been apart a long time. But she felt a sudden, sharp resentment. Not once, since that time, have I been pregnant —can he not even give me a child?

Oh, but surely that was her own fault—one of the midwives had told her it was like a sickness in cattle when they cast their calves unborn, time after time, and sometimes women took that sickness too, so they could not carry a child more than a month or two, three at the most. Somehow, through carelessness, she must have taken that illness, gone perhaps into the dairy at the wrong time, or drunk of milk from a cow who had cast her calf, and so the life of her lord’s son and heir had been forfeit, and it was all her doing. ... Torn with guilt, she followed Arthur into their chamber.

“It is more than a jest, Gwen,” said Arthur, sitting to draw off his leather hose. “We must get Lancelet married. Have you seen how all the lads run to him, and how good he is with them? He should have sons of his own. I have it, Gwen! We will marry him to Morgaine!”

“No!” The word was torn from her before she thought, and Arthur looked at her, startled.

“What is the matter with you? Does it not seem perfect, the right choice? My dear sister and my best friend? And their children, mark you, would be next heirs to our throne in any case, if it should be that the Gods send us no children ...  . No, no, don’t cry, my love,” he begged, and Gwenhwyfar knew, humiliated and shamed, that her face had twisted with weeping. “I meant not to reproach you, my dearest love, children come when the Goddess wills, but only she knows when we will have children, or if we will ever have them at all. And although Gawaine is dear to me, I have no will to put a son of Lot on the throne if I should die. Morgaine is my own mother’s child, and Lancelet my cousin—“

“Surely it cannot matter to Lancelet whether or no he has sons,” said Gwenhwyfar. “He is fifth—or is it sixth—son to King Ban, and bastard-born at that.”

“I never thought to hear you, of all people, reproach my kinsman and dearest friend with his birth,” Arthur said. “And he is no ordinary bastard, but son to the grove and the Great Marriage—“

“Pagan harlotries! If I were King Ban, I would clean all such sorcerous filth from my kingdom—and so should you!”

Arthur shifted uneasily, clambering under the bed cover. “Lancelet would have little cause to love me if I drove his mother from this kingdom. And I am sworn to honor Avalon, by the sword they gave me at my kingmaking.”

Gwenhwyfar looked at the great sword Excalibur, where it hung over the edge of the bed in its magical scabbard covered with mystical symbols that seemed to shine with pale silver and mock at her. She put out the light and lay down beside Arthur, saying, “Our Lord Jesus would safeguard you better than any such wicked enchantments. You did not have to do with any of their vile Goddesses and sorcery before you were made King, did you? I know such things were done in Uther’s day, but this is a Christian land!”

Arthur shifted uneasily and said, “There are many folk in this land, the Old People who dwelt here long before Rome came to us—we cannot take their Gods from them. And—what befell before my crowning—well, that touches you not, my Gwenhwyfar.”

“Men cannot serve two masters,” said Gwenhwyfar, surprised at her own daring. “I would have you altogether a Christian king, my lord.”

“I owe allegiance to all my people,” said Arthur, “not those alone who follow Christ—“

“It seems to me,” said Gwenhwyfar, “that those are your enemies, not the Saxons. The true warfare for a Christian king is only against those who do not follow Christ.”

Arthur laughed uneasily at that. “Now do you sound like the bishop Patricius. He would have us Christianize the Saxons rather than putting them to the sword, so that we may live at peace with them. For my part I am like to the priests who were here in the older days, who were asked to send missionaries to the Saxons—know you what they said, my wife?”

“No, I have never heard—“

“They said, they would send no missionaries to the Saxons, lest they be forced to meet them in peace, even before God’s throne.” Arthur laughed heartily, but Gwenhwyfar did not smile, and after a time he sighed.

“Well, think on it, my Gwenhwyfar. It seems to me the best possible marriage—my dearest friend and my sister. Then would he be my brother and his sons my heirs ...  .”

In the darkness his arms went round her, and he added, “But now we must strive to make it come to pass that we will need no other heirs, you and I, my love, but those you can give to me.”

“God grant it,” whispered Gwenhwyfar, moving into his arms, and tried to close away everything out of her mind but Arthur, here in her arms.

MORGAINE, lingering after she had seen the women to bed, stood near the. window, restless. Elaine, who shared her bed, murmured to her, “Come and sleep, Morgaine; it is late, you must be weary.”

She shook her head. “I think it is the moon that has gotten into my blood tonight—I am not sleepy.” She was unwilling to lie down and close her eyes; even if she had not the Sight, it was her imagination which would torment her. All round her the newly returned men joined with their wives —she thought, with a wry smile in the darkness, it is like to Beltane in Avalon  ...  even the soldiers who were not wedded, she was sure, had somehow found women for this night. Everyone, from the King with his wife down to the stablemen, lay in someone’s arms tonight, except for the Queen’s maidens; Gwenhwyfar thought it her duty to guard their chastity, even as Balan had said. And I am guarded with the Queen’s maidens.

Lancelet, at Arthur’s wedding  ...  that had come to nothing, through no fault of their own. And Lancelet has stayed away from the court as often as he might ... no doubt, so that he need not see Gwenhwyfar in Arthur’s arms! But he is here now ... and like herself, he was alone this night, among soldiers and horsemen, no doubt dreaming of the Queen, of the one woman in the kingdom he could not have. For surely every other woman at court, wedded or maiden, was as willing to have him as she herself. Save for bad fortune at Arthur’s wedding, she would have had him; and honorable as he was, if he^had made her pregnant, he would have married her.

Not that it is likely I would have conceived, with the harm I suffered at Gwydion’s birth  ...  but I need not have told him that. And I could have made him happy, even if I could not bear him a son. There was a time he wanted me, before ever he saw Gwenhwyfar, and after too  ...  save for mischance, I would have made him forget her in my arms ...  .

And I am not so undesirable as that ...  when I was singing tonight, many of the knights looked on me with desire ...  .

I could make Lancelet desire me ...  .

Elaine said impatiently, “Will you not come to bed, Morgaine?”

“Not yet awhile ... I think I will walk a little out of doors,” said Morgaine, though this was forbidden to the Queen’s women, and Elaine shrank back, with that timidity which so exasperated Morgaine. She wondered if Elaine had caught it from the Queen like a fever, or a new fashion in wearing veils.

“Are you not afraid with all the men encamped about?” Morgaine laughed. “Well, think you not I am weary of lying alone?” But she saw that the jest offended Elaine and said, more gently, “I am the King’s sister. None would touch me against my will. Do you really think me so tempting no man could resist me? I am six-and-twenty, not a dainty young virgin like yourself, Elaine.”

Morgaine lay down, without undressing, beside Elaine. In the darkness and silence, as she had feared, her imagination—or was it the Sight?—made pictures: Arthur with Gwenhwyfar, men with women all round her throughout the castle, joined in love or simple lust.

And Lancelet, was he alone too? Memory attacked her again, more intense than imagination, and she remembered that day, bright sunlight on the Tor, Lancelet’s kisses running that first awakening knife-sharp through her body; and the bitterness of regret that she was pledged elsewhere. And then, when Arthur was wedded to Gwenhwyfar, and he had come near to tearing off her clothes and having her there in the stables—he had wanted her then ...  .

Now, sharp as the Sight, the picture came to her mind, Lancelet walking in the courtyard, alone, his face empty with loneliness and frustration ... I have not used the Sight nor my own magic to draw him to me in selfish purpose ... if came to me unsought ...  .

Silently, moving quietly so as not to waken the younger girl, she freed herself from Elaine’s arm, slid gently from the bed. She had taken off only her shoes; she stooped now to draw them on, then silently went from the room, moving as noiselessly as a wraith from Avalon.

If it is a dream born of my own imagination, if he is not there, I will walk a little in the moonlight to cool my fever and then go back to my bed, there will be no harm done. But the picture persisted in her mind and she knew that Lancelet was there alone, like herself wakeful.

He too was of Avalon... the sun tides run in his blood too.... Morgaine, slipping quietly out of the door past the drowsing watchman, cast a glance at the sky. The moon, a quarter full, flooded down brightly into the stone-flagged space before the stables. No, not here; around to the side ...  . For a moment Morgaine thought, He is not here, it was a dream, it was my own fantasy. She almost turned about to go back to her bed, suddenly flooded with shame; suppose the watchman should come upon her here, and all would know that the King’s sister crept about the house after all honest folk were asleep, no doubt bent on harlotries—

“Who is it? Stand, show yourself!” The voice was low and harsh; Lancelet’s voice. Suddenly, for all her exultation, Morgaine was afraid; her Sight had shown truly, but what now? Lancelet’s hand had gone to his sword; he looked very tall and thin in the shadows.

“Morgaine,” she said softly, and he let his hand fall from his sword. “Cousin, is it you?”

She came out of the shadows, and his face, keen and troubled, softened as he looked at her.

“So late? Did you come to seek me—is there trouble within? Arthur —the Queen—“

Even now he thinks only of the Queen, Morgaine thought, and felt it like a tingling in her fingertips and the calves of her legs, anger and excitement. She said, “No, all is well—as far as I know. I am not privy to the secrets of the royal bedchamber!”

He flushed, just a shadow on his face in the darkness, and looked away from her. She said, “I could not sleep  ...  how is it you ask me what I am doing here when you yourself are not in your bed? Or has Arthur made you his night watchman?”

She could sense Lancelet smile. “No more than you. I was restless when all around me slept—I think perhaps the moon has gotten into my blood.” It was the same phrase she had used to Elaine, and somehow it struck her as a good omen, a symbol that their minds worked in tune and that they responded one to the call of the other as a silent harp vibrates when a note on another is struck.

Lancelet went on, speaking softly into the darkness at her side, “I am restless these nights, thinking of so many nights of battle—“ “And you wish yourself back in battle like all soldiers?” He sighed. “No. Although perhaps it is unworthy of a soldier to dream early and late of peace.”

“I do not think so,” Morgaine said softly. “For what do you make war, except that peace may come for all our people? If a soldier loves his trade overmuch, then he becomes no more than a weapon for killing. What else brought the Romans to our peaceful isle, but the love of conquest and battle for its own sake?”

Lancelet smiled. “Your father was one of those Romans, cousin. So was mine.”

“Yet I think more of the peaceful Tribes, who wanted no more than to till their barley crops in peace and worship the Goddess. I am of my mother’s people—and yours.”

“Aye, but those mighty heroes of old we spoke of before—Achilles, Alexander—they all felt war and battle the proper business of a man, and even now, in these islands, it has come to be that all men think of battle first and peace as no more than a quiet and womanly interlude.” He sighed. “These are heavy thoughts—it is no wonder sleep is far from us, Morgaine. Tonight I would give all the great weapons ever forged, and all the gallant songs of your Achilles and Alexanders for an apple from the branches of Avalon ...  .” He turned his head away. Morgaine slipped her hand within his own.

“So would I, cousin.”

“I do not know why I am homesick for Avalon—I did not live long there,” Lancelet said, musing. “And yet I think it is the fairest place on all earth—if indeed it is on this earth at all. The old Druid magic, I think, took it from this world, because it was all too fair for us imperfect men, and must be like a dream of Heaven, impossible ...” He recalled himself with a little laugh. “My confessor would not like to hear me say these things!”

Morgaine chuckled, low. “Have you become a Christian then, Lance?”

“Not a good one, I fear,” he said. “Yet their faith seems to me so simple and good, I wish I could believe it—they say: believe what you have not seen, profess what you do not know, that is more virtuous than believing what you have seen. Even Jesus, they say, when he rose from the dead, chided a man who would have thrust his hands into the Christ’s wounds to see that he was not a ghost or a spirit, for it was more blessed to believe without seeing.”

“But we shall all rise again,” said Morgaine, very low, “and again and again and again. We do not come once and go to Heaven or their Hell, but live again and again until we are even as the Gods.”

He lowered his head. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the dimness of the moonlight, she could see him clearly, the delicate line of temple curving inward at the eye, the long, narrow sweep of the jaw, the soft darkness of his brows and his hair curling over it. Again his beauty made a pain in her heart. He said, “I had forgotten you were a priestess, and you believe ...  .”

Their hands were clasped lightly; she felt his stir within her own and loosed it. “Sometimes I do not know what I believe. Perhaps I have been too long away from Avalon.”

“Nor do I know what I believe,” he said, “but I have seen so many men die, and women and little children in this long, long war, it seems that I have been fighting since I grew tall enough to hold a sword. And when I see them die, I think faith is an illusion, and the truth is that we all die as the beasts die, and are no more ever—like grass cut down, and last year’s snow.”

“But these things too return again,” Morgaine whispered.

“Do they? Or is this the illusion?” His voice sounded bitter. “I think perhaps there is no meaning in any of it—all the talk of Gods and the Goddess are fables to comfort children. Ah, God, Morgaine, why are we talking like this? You should go to your rest, cousin, and so should I—‘

“I will go if you wish it,” she said, and even as she turned away, happiness surged through her because he reached for her hand.

“No, no—when I am alone I fall prey to these fancies and wretched doubts, and if they must come I would rather speak them aloud so I can hear what folly they are. Stay with me, Morgaine—“

“As long as you wish,” she whispered, and felt tears in her eyes. She reached out and put her arms around his waist; his strong arms tightened about her, then loosened, remorsefully.

“You are so little—I had forgotten how little you are—I could break you with my two hands, cousin ...  .” His hands strayed to her hair, which she had bundled loose under her veil. He stroked it; twined an end of it around his fingers. “Morgaine, Morgaine, sometimes it seems to me that you are one of the few things in my life which is all good—like one of those old fairy folk they tell of in legends, the elf-woman who comes from the unknown land to speak words of beauty and hope to a mortal, then departs again for the islands of the West and is never seen again—“

“But I will not depart,” she whispered.

“No.” At one side of the flagged yard there was a block where sometimes men sat waiting for their horses; he drew her toward it and said, “Sit here beside me—“ then hesitated. “No, this is no place for a lady—“ and started to laugh. “Nor was the stable that day—do you remember, Morgaine?”

“I thought you had forgotten, after that devil horse threw you—“

“You should not call him devil. He has saved Arthur’s life in battle more than once, and Arthur would think him guardian angel instead,” Lancelet said. “Ah, that was a day of wretchedness. I would have wronged you, cousin, to take you like that. I have often longed to beg your pardon and hear you grant me forgiveness and say you bore me no malice—“

“Malice?” She looked up at him and felt suddenly dizzied by the rush of intense emotion. “Malice? Only, perhaps, to those who interrupted us—

“Is it so?” His voice was soft. He took her face between his hands and bent, deliberately, laying his lips against hers. Morgaine let herself go soft against him, opening her mouth beneath his lips. He was clean-shaven, in the Roman fashion, and she felt the prickly softness of his face against her cheek, the warm sweetness of his tongue probing her mouth. He drew her closer, almost lifting her from her feet, making a soft murmuring sound. The kiss went on until she finally, reluctantly, had to move her mouth to breathe, and he laughed softly, a sound of wonder.

“So here we are again ... it seems we have been here before  ...  and this time I will cut off the head of any that interrupts us ... but we stand here kissing in the stable yard like serving-man and kitchen wench! What now, Morgaine? Where do we go?”

She did not know—there was not any place, it seemed, secure for them. She could not take him to her room where she slept with Elaine and four of Gwenhwyfar’s maidens, and Lancelet himself had said he preferred to sleep among the soldiers. And something at the back of her mind told her that this was not the way; the King’s sister and the King’s friend should not go seeking a hayloft. The proper way, if truly they felt this about each other, was to wait until dawn and ask Arthur’s permission to marry ...  .

Yet in her heart, hidden away so that she need not look at it, she knew that this was not what Lancelet wanted; in a moment of passion he might desire her indeed, but no more. And for a moment of passion, would she entrap him into a lifelong pledge? The way of the tribal festivals was more honest, that man and woman should come together with the sun tides and moon tides in their blood, as the Goddess willed; and only if they wished, later, to share a home and rear children was marriage thought upon. She knew in her heart, too, that she had no real wish to marry Lancelet or any other—even though she felt, for his own sake, and Arthur’s, and even for Gwenhwyfar’s, it would be best to remove him from the court.

But that was a fleeting thought. She was dizzy with his closeness, the sound of his heart pounding against her cheek—he wanted her; there was not, now, in his heart, any thought of Gwenhwyfar or anyone but herself.

Let it be with us as the Goddess wills, man and woman—

“I know,” she whispered, and caught at his hand. Around behind the stables and the forge there was a path leading to the orchard. The grass was thick and soft and sometimes the women sat there on a bright afternoon.

Lancelet spread his cloak in the grass. Around them was the indefinable scent of green apples and grass, and Morgaine thought, Almost, we might be in Avalon. With that trick he had of catching up her thoughts, he murmured, “We have found ourselves a corner of Avalon this night—“ and drew her down beside him. He took off her veil, stroking her hair, but he seemed in no haste for more, holding her gently, now and again leaning down to kiss her on cheek or forehead.

“The grass is dry—no dew has fallen. Like enough there will be rain before morning,” he murmured, caressing her shoulder and her small hands. She felt his hand, sword-callused and hard, so hard that it startled her to remember he was full four years younger than she was herself. She had heard the story—he had been born when Viviane thought herself well beyond childbearing. His long fingers could encircle her whole hand and conceal it there; he toyed with her fingers, playing with her rings, moving his hand to the breast of her gown, and unlacing it there. She felt dizzied, shaken, passion sweeping through her like the tide surging in and covering a beach, so that she went under and drowned in his kisses. He murmured something that she could not hear, but she did not ask what he had said, she was beyond listening to words.

He had to help her out of her gown. The dresses worn at court were more elaborate than the simple robes she had worn as a priestess, and she felt clumsy, awkward. Would he like her? Her breasts seemed so soft and limp, they had been so since Gwydion’s birth; she remembered how they had been when he first touched her, tiny and hard.

But he seemed to notice nothing, fondling her breasts, taking the nipples between his fingers and then, gently, between his lips and his teeth. Then she lost thought altogether, nothing existing in the world for her except his hands touching her, the pulse of awareness in her own fingers running down the smoothness of his shoulders, his back, the fine dark softness of the hair there  ...  somehow she had thought the hair on a man’s chest would be wiry and coarse, but it was not so with him, it was soft and silky as her own hair, curling so fine and close. In a daze she remembered that the first time for her had been with a youth no more than seventeen who scarce knew what he was about, so that she had had to guide him, to show him what to do ... and for her that had been the only time, so that she came almost virgin to Lancelet. ... In a rush of grief she wished that for her it was the first time, so that it might have been so blissful for her to remember; it should have been like this, this was how it should have been. ... She moved her body against his, clinging in entreaty, moaning, she could not bear, now, to wait any longer ...  .

It seemed he was not yet ready, though she was all alive to him, her body flowing with the pulse of life and desire in her. She moved against him, hungry, her mouth avid, entreating. She whispered his name, begging now, almost afraid. He went on kissing her gently, his hands moving to stroke and soothe her, but she did not want to be soothed now, her body was crying out for completion, it was starvation, agony. She tried to speak, to beg him, but it came out a sobbing whimper.

He held her gently against him, still stroking her. “Hush, no, hush, Morgaine, wait, no more now—I do not want to hurt or dishonor you, never think that—here, lie here by me, let me hold you, I will content you  ... ” and in despair and confusion she let him do what he would, but even while her body cried out for the pleasure he gave her, a curious anger was growing. What of the flow of life between their two bodies, male and female, the tides of the Goddess rising and compelling them? Somehow it seemed to her that he was stemming that tide, that he was making her love for him a mockery and a game, a pretense. And he did not seem to mind, it seemed to him that this was the way it should be, so that they were both pleasured ... as if nothing mattered but their bodies, that there was no greater joining with all of life. To the priestess, reared in Avalon and attuned to the greater tides of life and eternity, this careful, sensuous, deliberate lovemaking seemed almost blasphemy, a refusal to give themselves up to the will of the Goddess.

And then, in the depths of mingled pleasure and humiliation she began to excuse him. He had not been reared as she was in Avalon, but thrown about from fosterage to court to military camp; he had been a soldier almost as long as he had been old enough to lift a sword, his life had been spent in the field, perhaps he did not know, or perhaps he was accustomed only to such women as would give him no more than a moment’s ease for his body, or such women as wanted to toy with love-making and give nothing ... he had said, I do not want to hurt or dishonor you, as if he truly believed there could be something wrong or dishonorable in this coming together. Spent, now, he was turned a little away from her, but he was still touching her, toying with her, drawing his fingers through the fine hair at her thighs, kissing her neck and breasts. She closed her eyes, holding herself to him, angry and desolate—well, well, perhaps it was no more than she deserved, she had played the harlot in coming to him like this, perhaps it was no more than her due that he should treat her as one  ...  and she was so besotted that she had let him take her like this, she would have let him do whatever he would, knowing that if she asked for more she would lose even this, and she longed for him, she still hungered for him with an intolerable ache that would never be wholly slaked. And he wanted her not at all ... still in his heart he hungered for Gwenhwyfar, or for some woman he could have without giving more of himself than this empty touching of skins ... a woman who could be content to give herself and ask nothing more of him than pleasure. Through the ache and hunger of her love, a faint strain of contempt was threading, and it was the greatest agony of all—that she loved him no less, that she knew she would love him always, no less than at this moment of hunger and despair.

She sat up, drawing her gown toward her, fastening it over her shoulders with shaking fingers. He sat silent, watching her, stretching out his hands to help her adjust it. After a long time he said sorrowfully, “We have done wrong, my Morgaine, you and I. Are you angry with me?”

She could not speak; her throat was too tight with pain. At last she said, straining her voice to form the words, “No, not angry,” and she knew that she should raise her voice and scream at him, demand what he could not give her—nor any woman, perhaps.

“You are my cousin, my kinswoman—but there is no harm done—“ he said, and his voice was shaking. “At least I have not that to blame myself— that I could bring you to dishonor before all the court—I would not do so for the world—believe me, cousin, I love you well—“

She could not keep back her sobs now. “Lancelet, I beg you, in the name of the Goddess, speak not so—what harm is done? It was in the way of the Goddess, what we both desired—“

He made a gesture of distress. “You speak so, of the Goddess and such heathen things ...  . Almost you frighten me, kinswoman, when I would keep myself from sin, and yet I have looked on you with lust and wickedness, knowing it was wrong.” He drew on his clothes with trembling hands. At last he said, almost choking, “The sin seems to me more deadly, I suppose, than it is—I would you were not so like to my mother, Morgaine—“

It was like a blow in the face, like a cruel and treacherous blow. For a moment she could not speak. Then, for an instant, it seemed that the full rage of the Goddess angered possessed her and she felt herself rising, towering, she knew it was the glamour of the Goddess coming upon her as it had done in the Avalon barge; she felt herself, small and insignificant as she was, looming over him, and saw the powerful knight, the captain of the King’s horse, shrink away small and frightened, as all men are small in the sight of the Goddess.

“You are—you are a contemptible fool, Lancelet,” she said. “You are not even worth cursing!” She turned and fled from him, leaving him sitting there with his breeches half-fastened, staring after her in astonishment and shame. She felt her heart pounding. Half of her had wanted to scream at him, shrewish as a skua gull; the other half wanted to break down and weep in agony, in despair, begging for the deeper love he had denied her and rejected, refusing the Goddess in her ...  . Fragments of thought flickered in her mind, an old tale of the Goddess surprised and refused by a man and how the Goddess had had him torn to shreds by the hounds who ran hunting with her  ...  and there was sorrow that she had what she had dreamed of all these long years and it was dust and ashes to her.

A priest would say this was the wages of sin. I heard such, often enough, from Igraine’s house priest before I went to be fostered in Avalon. At heart am I more of a Christian than I know? And again it seemed to her that her heart must break from the wreck and disaster of her love.

In Avalon this could never have come to pass—those who came to the Goddess in this way would never have so refused her power ...  . She paced up and down, a raging fire unslaked in her veins, knowing that no one could possibly understand how she felt except for another priestess of the Goddess. Viviane, she thought with longing, Viviane would understand, or Raven, or any of us reared in the House of Maidens ...  what have I been doing all these long years, away from my Goddess?

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

Three days later I got leave from Arthur to depart from his court and ride to Avalon; I said only that I was homesick for the Isle and for Viviane, my foster-mother. And in those days I had no speech with Lancelet save for the small courtesies of every day when we could not avoid meeting. Even in those I marked that he would not meet my eyes, and I felt angry and shamed, and went out of my way that I might not come face to face with him at all.

So I took horse, and rode eastward through the hills; nor did I return to Caerleon for many years, nor knew I anything of what befell in Arthur’s court  ...  but that is a tale for another time.

                                   8      

In the summer of the next year, the Saxons were massing off the coast, and Arthur and his men spent all the year in gathering an army for the battle they knew must come. Arthur led his men into battle and drove the Saxons back, but it was not the decisive battle and victory for which he had hoped; they were damaged indeed, and it would take them more than a year to recover, but he had not enough horses and men to defeat them firmly and for all time, as he hoped to do. At this battle he took a wound, which seemed not serious; but it festered and inflamed and he had to spend much of the autumn bedfast—the first snow flurries were coming over the walls of Caerleon before he could walk a little about the courtyard, leaning on a stick, and he would bear the scars to his grave.

“It will be full spring before I can sit a horse again,” he observed gloomily to Gwenhwyfar, who stood close to the courtyard wall, her blue cloak wrapped tight around her.

“It may well be,” Lancelet said, “and longer, my dear lord, if you take cold in your wound before it is full healed. Come within doors, I beg you —look, there is snow on Gwenhwyfar’s cloak.”

“And in your beard, Lance—or is that only the first grey?” Arthur asked, teasing, and Lancelet laughed.

“Both, I suppose—there you have the advantage of me, my king, your beard is so fair the grey will not show when it conies. Here, lean on my arm.”

Arthur would have waved him away, but Gwenhwyfar said, “No, take his arm, Arthur, you will undo all our fine leechcraft if you fall—and the stones are slippery underfoot, with this snow melting as it comes down.”

Arthur sighed and leaned on his friend’s arm. “Now have I had a taste of what it must be like to be old.” Gwenhwyfar came and took his other arm, and he laughed. “Will you love me and uphold me like this when indeed there is grey in my beard and hair and when I go on a stick like the Merlin?”

“Even when you are ninety, my lord,” said Lancelet, laughing with him. “I can see it well, Gwenhwyfar holding you by one arm and I by the other as our ancient steps totter toward your throne—we will all be ninety or thereabout!” Abruptly he sobered. “I am troubled about Taliesin, my lord, he grows feeble and his eyes are failing. Should he not go back to Avalon and rest his last years in peace?”

“No doubt he should,” said Arthur. “But he says he will not leave me alone, with only the priests for councillors—“

“What better councillors than the priests could you have, my lord?” Gwenhwyfar flared. She resented the unearthly word Avalon; it frightened her to think that Arthur was sworn to protect their heathenish ways.

They came into the hall where a fire was burning, and Arthur made a gesture of annoyance as Lancelet eased him into his chair. “Aye, set the old man by the fire and give him his posset—I marvel that you let me wear shoes and hose instead of a bedgown!”

“My dear lord—“ Gwenhwyfar began, but Lancelet laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t fret yourself, kinswoman, all men are so, peevish when they are ill—he knows not when he is well off, being nursed by fair women and tended with dainty foods and clean linen and those possets he scorns. ... I have lain with a wound in a field camp, nursed by a sour old man too lame to fight, and lying in my own shit because I could not shift myself and no one came near to help me, with nothing brought but some sour beer and hard bread to soak in it. Stop grumbling, Arthur, or I shall try to see to it that you nurse your wound in manly fashion as befits a true soldier!”

“Aye, and he would do it, too,” said Arthur, with an affectionate smile at his friend. “You go not in much fear of your king, Prince Galahad—“ He took the horn spoon from his wife’s hand and began to eat the concoction of warmed wine with bread and honey soaked in it. “Aye, this is good and warming—it has spices in it, has it not, those same spices you bade me send for from Londinium ...  .”

Cai came to them, when Arthur had finished, and said, “So, how goes the wound after an hour of walking on it, my lord? Is there still much pain?”

“Not as much as the last time, and that is all I can say,” Arthur said. “It is the first time I have known what real fear was, fear I might die with my work still undone.”

"God would not have it so," Gwenhwyfar said.

Arthur patted her hand. "I told myself that, but a voice within kept saying to me that this was the great sin of pride, fearing that I or any man could not be spared from what God wishes to be done—I have thought long about such things while I lay unable to set foot to the ground."

"I cannot see that you have so much undone, save for the final victory over the Saxons, my lord," said Cai, "but now you must go to your bed, you are weary with the out of doors."

When Arthur was stretched out on the bed, Cai took his clothes away and examined the great wound which still, faintly, oozed matter through the cloths. Cai said, "I will send for the women, and you must have hot cloths on this again—you have strained it. It is well you did not break it open while you were walking." When the women had brought steaming kettles and mixed the compresses of herbs and hot water, laying folded cloths upon the wound so hot that Arthur winced and roared, Cai said, "Aye, but you were lucky even so, Arthur. Had that sword struck you a hand span to one side, Gwenhwyfar would have even more cause to grieve, and you would be known far and wide as the gelded king ... as in that old legend! Know you not the tale—the king wounded in the thigh and as his powers fade, so fades the land and withers, till some youth comes who can make it spring fertile anew ...  ."

Gwenhwyfar shuddered, and Arthur said testily, shifting in pain under the heat of the compress, "This is no tale to tell a wounded man!"

"I should think it would make you more aware of your good fortune, that your land will not wither and be sterile," Cai said. "By Easter, I dare say, the Queen's womb could be quick again, if you are fortunate—"

"God grant it," Arthur said, but the woman winced and turned away. Once again she had conceived, and once again all had gone awry, so quickly that she had scarce known she had been with child—would it be so always with her? Was she barren, was it the punishment of God on her that she did not strive early and late to bring her husband to be a better Christian?

One of the women took away the cloth and would have replaced it; Arthur reached for Gwenhwyfar. "No, let my lady do it, her hands are gentler—" he said, and Gwenhwyfar took the steaming hot cloth—so hot it was she burned her fingers, but she welcomed the pain as penance. It was her fault, all her fault; he should put her away as barren, and take a wife who could give him a child. It was wrong that he should ever have married her—she had been eighteen, and already past her most fruitful years. Perhaps  ...

If only Morgaine were here, I would indeed beseech her for that charm which could make me fruitful ...  .

"It seems to me now that we have need of Morgaine's leechcraft," she said. “Arthur’s wound goes not as it should, and she is a notable mistress of healing arts, as is the Lady of Avalon herself. Why do we not send to Avalon and beseech one of them to come?”

Cai frowned at her and said, “I do not see that there is need of that. Arthur’s wound goes on well enough—I have seen much worse come to full healing.”

“Still, I would be glad to see my good sister,” said Arthur, “or my friend and benefactor, the Lady of the Lake. But from what Morgaine has told me, I do not think I will see them together ...  .”

Lancelet said, “I will send a message to Avalon and beg my mother to come, if you will have it, Arthur,” but it was at Gwenhwyfar he looked, and their eyes met for a moment. In these months of Arthur’s illness, it seemed he had been ever at her side, and such a rock of strength to her that she knew not what she would have done without him; in those first days, when none believed that Arthur could live, he had watched with her, tireless, his love for Arthur making her ashamed of her thoughts. He is Arthur’s cousin, even as Gawaine, he stands as near to the throne, the son of Igraine’s own sister; if aught came to Arthur, then would he be as much a king as we have need of... in the old days the king was naught but the husband of the queen ...  .

“Shall we send, then, for the Lady Viviane?” Gwenhwyfar asked.

“Only if you have a wish to see the Lady,” said Arthur, with a sigh. “I think now, all I need is a greater share of that patience to which the bishop counselled me when I spoke last with him. God was good to me indeed, that I lay not thus disabled when the Saxons first came, and if he goes on showing me his grace, I will be able to ride when they come again. Gawaine is off gathering the men to the north, is he not, for Lot and Pellinore?”

“Aye.” Lancelet laughed. “He has told Pellinore that his dragon must wait till we have dealt with the white horse ... he must bring all his men and come when we summon him. And Lot will come too, though he grows old—he will not let pass any chance that the kingdom might still go to his sons.”

It will go to his sons indeed, if I give Arthur no son, Gwenhwyfar thought; it seemed that every word anyone spoke, of whatever matter, was an arrow, a taunt aimed into her heart for failing the first duty of a queen. Arthur liked her well, they could have been happy, could she only have felt free for one moment of the guilt of her childlessness. Almost, for a time, she had welcomed this wound, for he could not think of lying with any woman, and there was no reproach to her; she could care for him and cosset him, have him to herself as a wife could so seldom do when her husband belonged not to her but to a kingdom. She could love him, and not think always of her guilt; when he touched her, think of their love, not only of her fear and her desperate hope, This time will he at last get me with child; and if he does, will it go well with me or will I cast forth the precious hope of the kingdom? She had cared for him, nursed him night and day as a mother nurses a sickly child, and when he began to grow strong she had sat beside him, talked to him, sung to him—though she had not Morgaine's sweet voice for singing —gone herself to the kitchens and cooked for him such things as a sick man might be tempted to eat, so that he would put on flesh after the ghastly sickness and wasting away of the early summer.

Yet what good is all my care if I do not ensure that there will be an heir to his kingdom?

"I would that Kevin were here," Arthur said. "I would like to hear some music—or Morgaine; we have no fitting minstrels at court now!"

"Kevin has gone back to Avalon," Lancelet said. "The Merlin told me he had gone for some priestly doings there, so secret he could tell me no more—I wonder the priests allow these Druid mysteries to go on in a Christian land."

Arthur shrugged. "I command no man's conscience, King or no."

Gwenhwyfar said sternly, "God will be worshipped as he wills, Arthur, not as men choose, and therefore he sent the Christ to us."

"But he sent him not to this land," Arthur said, "and when the holy Joseph came to Glastonbury, and thrust his staff there in the earth and it bloomed, then the Druids welcomed him and he did not scorn to share their worship."

"Bishop Patricius says that is an evil and heretical tale," Gwenhwyfar insisted, "and the priests who worship in common with the Druids should be stripped of their priesthood and driven forth as he drove the Druids themselves!"

"He will not do it during my time," said Arthur firmly. "I have sworn my protection to Avalon." He smiled and stretched out his hand to where the great sword Excalibur hung in its crimson-velvet scabbard. "And you have reason to be grateful for that magic, Gwenhwyfar—had I not had this scabbard about me, nothing could have saved me. Even as it was, I came near to bleeding to death, and only its magic stanched the bleeding. Would I not be worse than an ingrate if I betrayed their goodwill?"

"You believe that?" Gwenhwyfar asked. "You would put magic and sorceries above God's will?"

"Why, sweetheart," Arthur said, and touched her fair hair, "do you believe that anything man can do is in despite of God's will? If this scabbard kept me indeed from bleeding to death, then it could not have been God's will that I should die. It seems to me that my faith is closer to God than yours, if you fear that some wizard could undo what God wishes. We are all in God's hands."

Gwenhwyfar looked quickly at Lancelet; there was a smile on his face, and it seemed for a moment that he was mocking them, but it passed and the woman thought it must have been no more than a little shadow. “Well, if you wish for music, Arthur, Taliesin will come and play for you, I suppose; though he grows old and his voice is nothing for singing, his hands still have great skill at harping.”

“Call for him, then,” said Arthur, and laughed. “In Scripture we are told that the old King Saul called for his young harper to play and ease his mind, but here I am, a young king who has need of his old harper to play and cheer his soul!”

Lancelet went in search of the Merlin, and when he came with his harp, they sat for a long time in the hall listening to the music.

Gwenhwyfar thought of Morgaine, playing there. Would that she were here, to give me a charm—but not before my lord recovers .. . and then, looking across the fire at Lancelet, she felt sinking in her body. He sat on a bench, leaning back and listening to the music, his hands tucked behind his head, his long legs stretched out to the fire. The other men and women had gathered close to listen to the music; Elaine, Pellinore’s daughter, had been bold enough to come and crowd onto the bench beside Lancelet, but he sat without paying any heed to her.

Lancelet would be the better for a wife. I should bestir myself and write to King Pellinore, that he should give Elaine to Lancelet; she is my cousin and not unlike me, she is marriageable—but she knew she would not; she told herself it would be time enough for that on the day Lancelet told them that he was seeking to be wedded.

If Arthur should not recover  ...

Oh, no, no, never will I think of that ...  . She crossed herself in secret. But, she thought, it was long since she had been in Arthur’s arms, and it was likely he could not give her a child anyway ...  . She found herself wondering what it would be like to lie with Lancelet—could he give her the child she wished for? Suppose she took Lancelet as lover? She knew there were women who did such things  ...  Morgause now made no secret of it; now that she was past childbearing, her harlotries were as scandalous as Lot’s wenching. She felt the color creeping up in her cheeks and hoped no one had seen as she looked at Lancelet’s hands lying quiet in his lap and wondered what it would be like to feel them caressing her—no, she dared not think of that.

When women took lovers they must take care not to be made pregnant, not to bear a child who could disgrace them or bring shame on their husbands, so if she was barren then it would not matter ... it would be her good fortune.... In God’s name, how could she, a chaste and Christian woman, have such evil thoughts? Once before she had thought this, andwhen she told it in confession, the priest had said only that it was no more than reason that with her husband so long sick, her thoughts should turn to such things; she must not feel guilty, but pray much and care for her husband and think only that it was harder still for him. And Gwenhwyfar had known that this was good and sensible and kindly counsel, but she felt he had not understood it in full, just how sinful a woman she was and how evil and foul her thoughts. Otherwise, surely, he would have berated her, and given her heavy penance, and then she would have felt better and more free ...  .

Lancelet would never reproach her that she was barren—

She became aware that someone had spoken her name, and raised her head in confusion as if her thoughts were open to all.

“No, no more music, my lord Merlin,” Arthur said. “Look, it grows dark, and my lady is asleep where she sits. She is worn out with nursing me, most likely ...  . Cai, have the men set the dinner, but I will go to my bed and have some meat there.”

Gwenhwyfar rose, went to Elaine, and asked her to take her place in the hall; she would stay with her lord. Cai went to see to the servants, and Lancelet stayed to give Arthur a hand as he limped, with the help of his stick, to his chamber. Lancelet helped to settle Arthur in bed as tenderly as any nurse.

“If he needs anything in the night, see that you have them call for me, you know where I sleep,” he said low, to Gwenhwyfar. “I can lift him more easily than any other—“

“Oh, no, no, I think there will be no need now,” she said, “but I thank » you.

He was so tall as he stood next her; he laid his hand gently on her cheek. “If you want to go and sleep among your women, I will stay and watch with him—you look as if you were wanting a long night of unbroken sleep. You are like a nursing mother who has no rest till her babe can sleep through the night without stirring. I can care for Arthur—there is no need for you to watch with him now! I can stay in the room within earshot.”

“You are so good to me,” she said, “but I would rather be near him.”

“But send for me if he needs me. Do not try to lift him yourself,” Lancelet said, “promise me, Gwenhwyfar.”

How sweet her name sounded on his lips; sweeter than when he said my queen or my lady. ... “I promise you, my friend.”

He bent, gave her just the flicker of a light kiss on her forehead. “You look so overwearied,” he said. “Go you to bed and sleep well.” His hand lingered still a moment on her cheek and when he took it away she felt as if her cheek would be cold and ache as if she had a toothache there. She went and laid herself down beside Arthur.

For a time she thought he slept. But at last he said into the darkness, “He has been a good friend to us, has he not, my wife?”

“No brother could have been kinder.”

“Cai and I were reared as brothers, and I love him well, but it is true what they say, blood is thicker than water, and blood kin brings a closeness I had not imagined till I came to know some of my own blood....” Arthur shifted in bed, uneasily, sighing. “Gwenhwyfar, there is something I would say to you—“

She was frightened, her heart pounding—had he seen Lancelet kiss her, would he charge her with unfaithfulness?

He said, “Promise me that you will not weep again, I cannot bear it. I swear it to you, I have no thought of reproaching you—but we have been wedded now for many years, and only twice in that time have you had even the hope of a child—no, no, I beg you, do not cry, let me speak,” he pleaded. “It may be that it is not your fault, but mine. I have had other women, as do all men. But though I never made any attempt to conceal who I was, not in all these years has any woman come to me, nor her kinfolk, and said, such and such a woman bore you a bastard child. It may be that it is I whose seed has no life, so that when you conceive, the child comes not even to quickening ...  .”

She lowered her head, letting the curtain of her hair hide her face. Did he reproach himself as well?

“My Gwenhwyfar, listen to me—a child there must be for this kingdom. If it should come about at any time that you give a child to the throne, be assured that I will never question. So far as I am concerned, any child you bear, I will acknowledge it mine and bring it up as my heir.”

She thought that the burning in her face would make her burst into flame. Could he think her capable of betraying him? “Never, never could I do so, my lord and my king—“

“You know the ways of Avalon—no, my wife, do not interrupt me, let me speak—where when a man and woman come together in this wise, the child is said even to be born of the God. Gwenhwyfar, I would like it well if God sent us a child, whoever should work God’s will in fathering him—do you understand me? And if it should so happen that the one who so did the will of heaven were my dearest of friends and the closest of kinsmen to me, then would I bless him, and the child you bore. No, no, do not weep, I will say no more,” he said, sighing, reaching out his arms to her, letting her lie against his shoulder. “I am not worthy that you should love me so well.”

After a time he slept, but Gwenhwyfar lay awake, tears rolling down her face. Oh, no, she thought, my dear love, my dearest lord, it is I who am not worthy of your love, and now you have all but given me leave that I should betray you. Suddenly and for the first time in her life she envied both Arthur and Lancelet. They were men, they lived lives of activity, they must go out into the world and risk death or worse in battle, but men were free of these terrifying decisions. Whatever thing she did, whenever she made any decision, however small, if it was of more weight than kid or dried beef for dinner, then was that weight on her soul, that from what she should decide the fate of kingdoms could rest. Now it was her own choice, and not simply the will of God, that she should give an heir to the kingdom or no; one who was of Uther Pendragon’s blood or—or otherwise. How could she, a woman, make that decision? Gwenhwyfar pulled the fur coverlet over her head and curled herself into a ball and lay there.

Only this evening she had sat there and watched Lancelet listening to the harper, and the thought had come stealing into her mind. She had loved him long, but now she began to know it was that she desired him; in her heart she was no better than Morgause, who played the whore when she would, with her husband’s knights and even, the story was whispered in scandal, with handsome pages or servant men. Arthur was so good, and she had come to love him well; she had found safety here in Caerleon. It was not to be borne that the folk about the castle and countryside might come to whisper scandal of her as they did of Morgause.

Gwenhwyfar wished to be good, to keep her soul clean and her virtue whole, but also it meant much to her that people should see her virtue and think of her as a good and spotless queen; she herself knew nothing evil of Morgaine, for instance, she had lived at her side for three years, and Morgaine was, so far as she knew, as virtuous as herself. Yet it was rumored that Morgaine was a witch because she had lived in Avalon, and had some wisdom and knowledge of healing herbs and of sendings, and so the people of the court and of the country roundabout had whispered that Morgaine was in league with the fairy folk or the Devil; and even she herself, knowing Morgaine as she did, sometimes wondered how what so many people said could be all untrue.

And tomorrow she must face Lancelet and go about her work by Arthur’s side, knowing that he had all but given her leave—how could she ever again look into Lancelet’s eyes? He was of the blood of Avalon, he was son to the Lady of the Lake, it could be that he too could read thoughts a little, that he could see into her eyes and know what she was thinking.

And then anger, so violent that it frightened her, swept through her trembling body like a flood. Gwenhwyfar, lying there angry and afraid, thought that she would never dare to go out of doors again for fear of what she might choose to do. Every woman in the court wanted Lancelet—yes, even Morgaine herself; she had seen her sister-in-law looking at him, and for that reason, when once a long time ago Arthur had said they should marry, she had been distressed—Lancelet would surely find Morgaine too bold. And perhaps they had quarrelled, for the last day or two before Morgaine had departed for Avalon, she noted that they spoke less to each other than usual, and did not turn their eyes to each other.

She missed Morgaine, yes ... but all in all she was glad Morgaine was not at court, and she would not send to Tintagel to hear news of her if she was there. She fancied herself repeating to Morgaine what Arthur had just said; she would die of shame, and yet she suspected that Morgaine would laugh at her: Morgaine would surely say it was for her to choose whether or no she would take Lancelet as a lover; or perhaps, even, that it was for Lancelet to say.

Then it was as if a burning flame passed through her, like the fires of hell, that she might offer herself to Lancelet and he might say to her no. Then, surely, she would die of shame. She did not know how she could ever bear to look at Lancelet again, or at Arthur, or at any of her ladies who had never been so tempted. Even to the priests she would think it shame to speak about this, for they would know Arthur was less a Christian than he ought to be. How could she ever bear to go out of doors again, or to leave the safe, protected space of this very room and this very bed? Here, nothing wrong could come to her or harm her.

She did feel somewhat ill. Tomorrow she would tell her ladies that, and they would think only, as Lancelet would think, that she was overwearied with nursing Arthur night and day. She would continue to be, as she was always, a good and virtuous queen and a Christian woman—she could never even think of being anything else. Arthur was distressed from his wound and his long inactivity, that was all; when he was well and sound he could never think such a thing, and no doubt he would be grateful to her that she had not listened to his folly and had saved them both from a fearful sin.

But just as she was about to drop into an exhausted sleep, she remembered something that one of her women had said, long ago—it was a few days before Morgaine left the court. She had said that Morgaine should give her a charm.... Well, and so she should; if Morgaine enchanted her so that she had no choice but to love Lancelet, then she would be freed of that fearful choice ...  . When Morgaine returns, she thought, I will speak of it to her. But Morgaine had not been at court now for almost two years, and it might be that she would never return.