In the world outside, the light of the sun shone bright through fickle cloud shadows over the Lake, and far away the sound of church bells rang through the air. Against that sound, Morgaine dared not raise her voice to cry the word of power which would summon the barge, nor take upon her the form of the Goddess.
She looked at herself in the mirrored surface of the Lake. How long, she wondered, had she tarried in the fairy country? With her mind free of enchantments, she knew—even though she could reckon only two or three days—that she had dwelt there long enough for her fine dark gown to wear away ragged where it dragged on the ground; somewhere she had lost her dagger or cast it away—she was not sure which. Now she remembered some of the things which had befallen her there as dreams or madness, and her face was stung with shame. Yet mingled with all this were memories of music sweeter than she had heard in the world or in Avalon, or anywhere else, save when she had been at the borders of the country of Death when her child was born ... almost, then, she had longed to cross over, if only to hear the music there. She remembered the sound of her own voice singing with the fairy harp—never had she sung or played so sweetly. I would like to go back there, and stay there forever. And she almost turned about to return, but the memory of Raven’s fearful cry troubled her.
Arthur, betraying Avalon and the oath by which he had received the sword and been taken into the holiest place of the Druids. And danger to Viviane should she set forth from Avalon—slowly, trying to put things together in her mind, Morgaine remembered. She had set forth from Caerleon—it seemed only a few days ago, in the late summer. She had never come to Avalon, and now it looked as if she never would come there ... she looked sadly at the church atop the Tor. If she could steal into Avalon behind the island—but the paths had carried her only into the fairy country.
Somewhere, then, she had lost both dagger and horse; and now she remembered seeing bleached bone, and shuddered. And now she came to take note, the church on the Tor seemed different, the priests must have been building on it, and surely they could not have built it so big in a month or even two ... . Somehow, she thought, gripping her hands together in sudden fright, I must find out how many moons have sped by while I wandered with the maidens of the lady, or took my pleasure with the fairy man who led me there ... .
But no, it could not have been more than two or at most three nights ... she thought wildly, not knowing it was the beginning of a confusion which would grow endlessly and never be wholly settled in her mind. And now when she thought of those nights she was frightened and ashamed, trembling with the memory of a pleasure she had never known, lying in the arms of the fairy man—and yet now she was away from the enchantment it seemed like something shameful, done in a dream. And the caresses she had given and received from the fairy maidens, something she could never have dreamed without such an enchantment—there had befallen something, too, with the lady .. . and now she thought of it, the lady was much like Viviane, and Morgaine was shamed too ... in the fairy country it had been as if she had hungered all her life for such things, and yet in the outside world she would never have dared it, or even dreamed of it.
Despite the warm sun, she had begun to shiver. She did not know what time of year it might be, but there were patches of unmelted snow on the edge of the Lake, hiding in the reeds. In the name of the Goddess, can the winter have passed and spring be at hand again? And if enough time had gone by in the outside world so that Arthur could have planned betrayal of Avalon, then it must have been longer than she dared to think.
She had lost horse and dagger and everything else she had had with her. Her shoes, too, were worn, she had no food with her, and she was alone on the shores of unfriendly country, far from any place where she was known as the King’s sister. Well, she had gone hungry before this. A flicker of a smile passed over her face. There were great houses and nunneries where she would perhaps be given bread as a beggar. She would make her way to the court of Arthur—perhaps somewhere she would come on a village where someone would need the services of a midwife, so that she could barter her skill for bread.
She gave one last longing look at the shores across the Lake. Dared she make a final attempt to speak the word of power which would bring her into Avalon? If she could speak with Raven, perhaps she could know precisely what danger threatened ... she opened her mouth to cry out the word and drew back. She could not face Raven, either; Raven who had kept the laws of Avalon so meticulously, who had done nothing to shame her priestess garb. How could she face Raven’s clear eyes with the memories of what she had done in the outside world and in the fairy country? Raven would have them from her mind in a moment... at last, the shores of the Lake and the spire of the church blurring through tears, she turned her back on Avalon to find the Roman road that led away south, past the mines and at last to Caerleon.
SHE HAD BEEN three days on the road before she met with another traveller. The first night she had slept in an abandoned herder’s hut, supperless, sheltering from the wind, but no more. On the second day she had come to a farmstead where the folk were all from home except for a half-witted goose boy; but he had let her sit to warm herself by the banked fire inside, and she had taken a thorn from his foot, so that he gave her a hunk of his bread. She had walked farther with less to eat.
But then she came nearer to Caerleon and was shocked to find two burned-out houses, and crops rotting in the field ... it was as if Saxons had passed this way! She went into one of the houses, which looked as if it had been sacked, for there was little left; but lying in one of the rooms she found an old and faded cloak, too ragged, she supposed, even for the raiders to take, abandoned by someone when they fled the place. It was warm wool, though, and Morgaine wrapped it round herself, though it made her look more than ever like a beggar woman; she had suffered more from the cold than from hunger. Near dusk some fowls clucked in the abandoned court; hens were creatures of habit, they had not yet learned that they could not come here to be fed. Morgaine caught one of them and wrung its neck, and in the ruined fireplace kindled a small fire; if she was lucky, no one would see smoke coming from the ruins, or if they did would think it was but ghosts. She spitted the chicken and roasted it on a green stick of wood over her fire. It was so old and tough that even her strong teeth had trouble chewing it, but she had been hungry so long that she did not care, and sucked the bones as if it were the daintiest of roast birds. She found some leather, too, in one of the outbuildings which had been some sort of forge or smithy; they had carried off every tool and every last scrap of metal, but there were some bits of leather lying about, and Morgaine wrapped what was left of the hen in it. She would have mended her shoes too, but she had no knife. Well, perhaps she would come to a village where she might get the loan of one for a few minutes. What madness had prompted her to cast her dagger away?
It was several days after full moon, and when she set forth from the ruined farm, there was frost on the stone doorstep, and a gibbous day moon lingered in the sky. As she crossed the door sill with her leather bag of cold meat and a thick stick clenched in her hand—some shepherd, no doubt, had cut it and left it here—she heard a hen clucking somewhere in wild announcement, and she sought out the nest and ate the egg raw and still warm from the hen’s body, so she felt full fed and comfortable.
The wind was brisk and cold, and she walked at a good pace, glad of the cloak, threadbare and torn though it was. The morning was far advanced, and she was beginning to think of sitting herself down by the road and eating some of the cold fowl, when she heard hooves behind her on the road, overtaking her.
Her first thought was to continue on her way—she was bent on her own affairs and had as good a right to the road as any other traveller. Then, remembering the ruin of the farm, she took thought and went to the side of the road, concealing herself behind a bush. There was no way to tell what manner of folk travelled the roads now, with Arthur too busy keeping the peace against the Saxons to have much time to create peace in the countryside and protection along the roads. If the traveller seemed harmless, she might ask him what news; if not, well, she would lie here hidden until he was out of sight.
It was a solitary horseman, wrapped in a grey cloak and riding on a tall, lean horse; riding alone, with no servant or pack horse. No, but he bore a great pack behind him—no, not that either; it was that his body was hunched over in the saddle—and then she knew who the man must be, and stepped out from her place of concealment.
“Kevin Harper!” she said.
He drew up his horse; it was well trained and did not rear or sidle. He looked down at her, scowling, his mouth twisted in a sneer—or was it but the scars he bore?
“I have nothing for you, woman—“ and then he broke off. “By the Goddess! It is the lady Morgaine—what do you here, madam? I had heard last year that you were in Tintagel with your mother before she died, but when the High Queen went south to her burying, she said no, you had not been there—“
Morgaine reeled and put out a hand to steady herself on her stick. “My mother—dead? I had not heard—“
Kevin dismounted, steadying himself against the horse’s flank until he got his stick under him. “Sit you down here, madam—you had not heard? Where, in the name of the Goddess, have you been? The word came even to Viviane in Avalon, but she is now too old and too frail to go forth.” But where I was, Morgaine thought, I heard it not. It may be that when I saw Igraine’s face in the forest pool, then was she calling to me with the news, and I never knew. Pain wrenched at her heart; she and Igraine had grown so far from each other—they had parted soon after she was eleven years old and gone forth to Avalon—yet now it tore at her with anguish, as if she were that same little girl who had wept when she left Igraine’s house. Oh, my mother, and I knew nothing of it ... . She sat at the edge of the road, tears streaming down her face. “How did she die? Have you heard?”
“Her heart, I believe; it was a year ago in the spring. Believe me, Morgaine, I heard nothing but that it was natural and expected for her years.”
For a moment Morgaine could not control her voice enough to speak; and with the grief, there was terror, for clearly she had dwelt out of the world longer than she had thought possible ... . Kevin said, a year ago in the spring. So more than one spring had gone by while she lingered in the fairy country! For in the summer when she left Arthur’s court, Igraine had not even been ailing! It was not a question of how many months she had been gone, but how many years!
And could she get Kevin to tell her, without revealing where she had been?
“There is wine in my saddlebag, Morgaine—I would offer it to you, but you must get it for yourself. ... I walk not well at the best of times. You look thin and pale, are you hungry too? And how is it that I find you on this road, clothed”—Kevin wrinkled his brow in fastidious distaste— “worse than any beggar woman?”
Morgaine cast about in her mind for what she could say. “I have dwelt ... in solitude, and away from the world. I have not seen nor spoken with any man for I know not how long. I had lost count even of the seasons.” And this much was true, for whatever the folk of the fairy country might be, they were not mankind.
“I can well believe it,” said Kevin. “I could believe even that you had not heard of the great battle—“
“I see that this country has been all burned over.”
“Oh, that was three years ago,” said Kevin, and Morgaine started back. “Some of the treaty troops broke their vows and came all through this country, looting and burning. Arthur took a great wound at that battle and lay abed for half a year.” He saw Morgaine’s troubled face and mistook her concern. “Oh, he does well enough now, but all that time he did not set foot to the ground—I imagine he felt the want of your healing skills, Morgaine. Then Gawaine led down all of Lot’s men from the North and we had peace for three years. And then this summer past there was the great battle at Mount Badon—Lot died in that battle—aye, there was a victory, such as bards will sing for a hundred years,” Kevin said. “I do not think there is a Saxon chief left unkilled in all this land from Cornwall to Lothian, save those who call Arthur their king. There has been nothing like it since the days of the Caesars. And now all this land lies under the peace of Arthur.”
Morgaine had risen and gone to the saddlebags. She found the flask of wine, and Kevin said, “Bring the bread and cheese too. It is near noon and I will eat here with you.” When she had served him and opened her roll of leather with the remains of the chicken, offering it, he shook his head.
“Thank you, but I eat no flesh food now, I am under vows.... I marvel to see you eat meat, Morgaine, a priestess of your rank—“
“That or go fasting,” said Morgaine, and told him how the chicken had come to her. “But I have not observed that prohibition since I left Avalon. I eat such things as are set before me.”
“For myself, I think it makes little matter, flesh or fish or grain,” Kevin said, “though the Christians make much of their fasting—at least this Patricius who is Arthur’s bishop now. Before that, the brethren who dwelt with us upon Avalon used to repeat a saying of their Christ, that it was not what went into a man’s mouth that defiled him, but what came out of it, and therefore man should eat humbly of all the gifts of God. And so I have heard Taliesin say. But for myself—no doubt you know that at a certain level of the Mysteries, what is eaten has so much effect on the mind—I dare not eat meat now, it makes me drunker than too much wine!”
Morgaine nodded—she had had that experience too. When she had been drinking the sacred herbs, she could eat nothing but a little bread and fruit; even cheese or boiled lentils were too rich and made her ill.
“But where do you go now, Morgaine?” And when she told him, he stared as if she were mad. “To Caerleon? Why? There is nothing there— or perhaps you did not know, though I find that hard to believe.... Arthur gave it to one of his knights who served him well at that battle. But on the day of Pentecost he moved his whole court to Camelot—it will be a year this summer that he has dwelt there. Taliesin liked that not, that he opened his court upon the Christian holy day, but he did it to please his queen—he listens to her in all things.” Morgaine surprised a faint grimace on his face. “But then if you had not heard of the battle, it is likely you had not heard how Arthur betrayed the folk of Avalon and the Tribes.”
Morgaine stopped the cup halfway to her lips. She said, “It is for that I came, Kevin. I heard that Raven had broken her silence and prophesied some such thing as that ... .”
“It was more than prophecy,” said the bard. He stretched his leg uneasily, as if sitting for long in one position on the ground hurt him.
“Arthur betrayed—what did he do?” Morgaine’s breath caught. “He did not give them into the hands of the Saxons ... ?”
“You have not heard, then. The Tribes were sworn to follow the banner of the Pendragon, as they swore at his kingmaking, and Uther’s before him ... and the little folk of the days before the Tribes, they came too, with their bronze axes and flint hatchets and elf-arrows—no more than the fairy folk can they bear cold iron. All, all sworn to follow the Great Dragon. And Arthur betrayed them ... he put away the dragon standard, even though we begged him that he should let Gawaine or Lancelet bear it into the field. But he swore that he would raise only his banner of the cross and the Holy Virgin into the field at Mount Badon. And so he did.”
Morgaine stared in horror, remembering Arthur’s kingmaking. Even Uther had not so pledged himself to the folk of Avalon! And he had betrayed that pledge? She whispered, “And the Tribes did not desert him?”
Kevin said in great anger, “Some of them came near to it; some of the Old People from the Welsh hills did indeed go home when the cross was raised—King Uriens could not stop them. As for the rest—well, we knew that day that the Saxons had us between the hammer and the anvil. We might follow Arthur and his knights into battle, or live thereafter under Saxon rule, for this was the great battle that had been prophesied. And he bore the sacred sword Excalibur from the Holy Regalia. Like enough the Goddess herself knew that she would be the worse if the land was ruled by the Saxons. So he fought, and the Goddess gave him victory.” Kevin offered the wine flask to Morgaine, and when she shook her head, he drained it.
“Viviane would have come from Avalon to charge him with oath-breaking,” he said, “but she is reluctant to do so before all his people. And so I am for Camelot, to remind him of his vow. If he heeds not that, then Viviane has sworn she will come to Camelot herself, on the day when all people present their petitions, and Arthur has sworn he himself will hear and judge them, at Pentecost. And then, she said, she would stand before him as a common petitioner, and claim his oath, and remind him of what must befall him who forswears his word.”
Morgaine said, “The Goddess grant that the Lady of the Lake need never humble herself so far.”
“I too would speak to him with wrath, not soft words, but it is not mine to choose,” said Kevin. He held out his hand. “Will you help me to rise? I think my horse will bear two, and if not, when we come to a town we must get you a horse. I should be gallant even as the great Lancelet, and let you ride mine, but”—he pointed to his crippled body.
Morgaine pulled him to his feet. “I am strong, I can walk. If we must barter anything in the town, we should find shoes for me and a knife. I have not a single coin with me, but I will repay you when I can.”
Kevin shrugged. “You are my vowed sister in Avalon—what I have is yours, so runs the law. There is no talk of payment between us.”
Morgaine felt herself coloring in shame, that Kevin should so remind her of what she had sworn. I have been out of the world, in truth. “Let me help you to mount your horse. Will she stand, so?”
He smiled. “If she would not, she would be little use to me in travelling such roads as I go alone! Let us go—I would like to reach Camelot tomorrow.”
In a town nestled in the hills, they found a cobbler to mend Morgaine’s broken shoes, and an old bronze dagger; the man who had these things for sale said there was no dearth of them in this country since the great battle. Kevin bought her a decent cloak too, saying the ragged one she had found in the farmhouse would scarce make a saddle blanket. But the stop had delayed them, and once on the road again, it began to snow heavily, and the dark closed in early.
“We should have stayed in that town,” said Kevin. “I could have bartered harp music for supper and bed for us both. Alone, I could sleep under a hedge or in the shelter of a wall, wrapped in my cloak. But not a lady of Avalon.”
“What makes you think I have never slept so?” Morgaine asked.
He laughed. “You look to me, Morgaine, as if you had slept so all too often of late! But no matter how swiftly we press the horse, we cannot come to Camelot this night—we must look somewhere for shelter.”
After a time, through the fast-falling snow, they could make out the dark shape of an abandoned building. Not even Morgaine could enter it walking upright; likely it had been a cattle byre, but the beasts had been gone so long that there was not even a smell, and the thatch-and-daub roof was mostly in place. They tethered the horse and crawled in, Kevin directing her with a gesture to lay the old ragged cloak on the filthy floor, and they each wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down side by side. But it was so cold that at last, hearing Morgaine’s teeth chattering, Kevin said they must spread the two cloaks over them both and lie close together for warmth. “If it will not sicken you to be so close to this misshapen body of mine,” he said, and she could hear the pain and anger in his voice.
“Of what is misshapen about you, Kevin Harper, I know only that with your broken hands you make more music than I, or even Taliesin, with hands that are whole,” Morgaine said, and moved gratefully into his warmth. And at last she felt she could sleep, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder.
She had been walking all day and was weary; she slept heavily, but wakened when the light began to steal through the cracks in the broken wall. She felt cramped from the hard floor, and as she looked around the mud-daubed walls she felt a surge of horror. She, Morgaine, priestess of Avalon, Duchess of Cornwall, lying here in a beast shelter, cast out from Avalon ... would she ever return? And she had come from worse places, from the Castle Chariot in the fairy country, out of all knowledge of Christendom and heathendom alike, out of the very doors of this world .. . she who had been so delicately reared by Igraine, she who was sister to the High King, schooled by the Lady of the Lake, accepted by the Goddess ... now had she cast it all away. But, no, she had not cast it away, it had been taken from her when Viviane sent her to the kingmaking and she had come away with child by her own brother.
Igraine is dead, my mother is dead, and I cannot come again to Avalon, never in this world ... and then Morgaine was weeping hopelessly, muffling her sobs in the coarse stuff of the cloak.
Kevin’s voice was soft and husky in the half-light.
“Do you weep for your mother, Morgaine?”
“For my mother—and for Viviane—and perhaps most of all for myself.” Morgaine was never certain whether she had spoken the words aloud. Kevin’s arm circled her, and she let her head fall against his chest and wept and wept until she could weep no more.
He said, after a long time, still stroking her hair, “You spoke truth, Morgaine—you do not shrink from me.”
“How could I,” she said, nestling closer, “when you have been so kind?”
“All women think not so,” he said. “Even when I came to the Beltane fires, I heard—for some folk think that because my legs and hands are lame, I am also deaf and dumb—I heard more than one, even of the maidens of the Goddess, whisper to their priestess that she should place them afar from me, so that there would be no chance I would look upon them when the time came to go apart from the fires ... .”
Morgaine sat straight up in dismay. “Were I that priestess, I would drive such a woman forth from the fires, because she dared to question the form in which the God might come to her ... what did you do, Kevin?”
He shrugged. “Rather than interrupt the ritual or put any woman to such a choice, I went away so quietly that none knew. Even the God could never change what they see or think of me. Even before I was forbidden by the Druid vows to couple with women who barter their bodies for gold, I could pay no woman to accept me. Perhaps I should seek to be a priest among the Christians, who, I have heard, teach their priests the secret of living without women. Or perhaps I should wish that when the raiders broke my hands and body they had gelded me too, so that I should not care one way or the other. I am sorry—I should not speak of it. But I wonder if you consented to lie at my side because you thought this crooked body of mine was not a man’s, and did not think of me so ... ”
Morgaine listened to him, appalled at the agony of bitterness in his words, the wounds dealt to his manhood. She knew the awareness that lived in his hands, the quick emotion of the musician. Even before the Goddess, could women look only at a broken body? She remembered how she had flung herself into Lancelet’s arms, and the wound to her pride which, she knew, would never cease to bleed.
Quite deliberately she bent down and kissed him on the lips, pulled his hand to her and kissed the scars there. “Never doubt it, to me you are a man, and the Goddess has prompted me to do this.” She lay down again, turning toward him.
He looked sharply at her in the growing light. For a moment she flinched at what she saw in his face—did he think she pitied him? No: she shared the awareness of his suffering, which was another thing. She looked him directly in the eyes ... yes, if his face had not been so drawn with bitterness, so twisted with suffering, he might have been handsome; his features were good, his eyes very dark and gentle. Fate had broken his body, but not his spirit—no coward could have endured the ordeals of the Druids.
Under the mantle of the Goddess, as every woman is my sister and my daughter and my mother, so must every man be to me as father and lover and son ... . My father was dead before I could remember him, and I have not seen my son since he was weaned ... but to this man I will give what the Goddess prompts me ... . Morgaine kissed one of the scarred hands again and laid it inside her gown, against her breast.
He was inexperienced—which seemed to her strange for a man of his age. But how, Morgaine wondered, could he possibly have been anything else? And then she thought, This is the first time, really, that I have done this of my free will, and had the gift taken simply, as it was offered. It healed something in her. Strange, that it could have been so with a man she scarcely knew, and for whom she felt only kindness. Even in his inexperience he was generous and gentle with her, and she felt, welling up within her, a great and unspeakable tenderness.
“It is strange,” he said at last, in a quiet, musing voice. “I had known you were wise and a priestess, but somehow I had never thought you were beautiful.”
She laughed harshly. “Beautiful? Me?” But she was grateful that, to him, at that moment, she seemed so.
“Morgaine, tell me—where have you been? I would not ask, but that whatever it is, it lies heavy on your heart.”
“I do not know,” she blurted out. She had never thought she would tell him. “Out of the world, perhaps—I was trying to reach Avalon—and I could not come there, the way is barred to me, I think. Twice now, I have been—elsewhere. Another country, a country of dreams and enchantments—a country where time stands still and is not, and there is nothing but music—“ And she fell silent; would the harper think her a madwoman?
He traced a finger along the corner of her eye. It was cold, and they had thrown the covers off them; he tucked the cloaks gently round her again. “Once I too was there, and heard their music ... ” he said, in a distant brooding voice, “and in that place I was not near so crippled, and their women did not mock me ... . Some day, perhaps, when I have lost my fear of madness, I shall go to them once again ... they showed me the hidden ways and said I might come because of my music ... ” and again, his soft voice dropped into a long silence.
She shivered and looked away from him. “We had better get up. If our poor horse has not quite frozen in the night, we will arrive at Camelot this day.”
“And if we arrive together,” Kevin said quietly, “they may believe that you have come with me from Avalon. It is none of their affair where you have dwelt—you are a priestess, and your conscience is not in the keeping of any man alive, not even of their bishops, or of Taliesin himself.”
Morgaine wished she had a decent dress to put on; she would arrive at Arthur’s court in the garb of a beggar woman. Well, it could not be helped. Kevin watched as she arranged her hair, then held out his hand, and she helped him to his feet, matter-of-factly; but she saw that the bitter look was in his eyes again. He was guarded behind a hundred fences of reserve and anger. Yet just as they were crawling out the door he touched her hand. “I have not thanked you, Morgaine—“
She smiled. “Oh—if there are thanks, they are to be spoken both ways, my friend—or could you not tell that?”
For a moment the scarred fingers tightened on hers... and then it was like a blaze of fire, she saw his ravaged face circled with a ring of fire, contorted with shrieking, and all about and all around him fire ... fire ... she stiffened and snatched her hand away, staring at him in horror.
“Morgaine!” he cried. “What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing—a cramp in my foot—“ she lied, and avoided his hand when he would have put it out to steady her. Death! Death by burning! What did it mean? Not even the worst of traitors died that death ... or had she seen only what had befallen him when he was lamed as a boy? Brief as the moment of Sight had been, it left her shaken, as if she herself had spoken the word that would deliver him to his death.
“Come,” she said, almost brusquely. “Let us ride.”
Gwenhwyfar had never wished to meddle with the Sight; did it not say in Holy Writ that no man knew what a day might bring forth? Yet she had hardly thought of Morgaine in the last year, not since they had moved the court to Camelot, but this very morning she had wakened remembering a dream she had had of Morgaine—a dream in which Morgaine had taken her hand, leading her to the Beltane fires and bidding her lie with Lancelet there. When she was well awake she could laugh at the madness of that dream. Surely dreams were sent from the Devil, for in all of hers that gave her such evil counsel that no Christian wife could heed, oftenest it was Morgaine who spoke it.
Well, she is gone from this court, I need never think of her again ... no, I do not wish her ill, I wish she might repent of her sins, and find peace in a nunnery ... but one very far from here. Now that Arthur had given over his pagan ways, Gwenhwyfar felt that she would even be happy if it were not for these dreams in which Morgaine led her into shameful things. And now the dream haunted her while she sat working at the altar cloth she was making for the church, haunted her so deeply that it seemed wicked to sit working a cross in gold thread while she thought of Lancelet. She put down her thread and whispered a prayer, but her thoughts went on, relentless. Arthur, when she begged him at Christmas, had promised her that he would put down the Beltane fires in the countryside; she thought he would have done it before this, except that the Merlin had forbidden him. It would be hard for any, Gwenhwyfar thought, not to love the old man—he was so gentle and good; if only he were Christian, he would be better than any priest. But Taliesin had said it was not fair to the countryfolk, either, to take from them a simple awareness of a Goddess who cared for their fields and their crops and the fertility of their beasts and their own wombs. Surely there was little that such folk could do in the way of sin, they had all they could do to toil in the fields and till their crops for enough bread to keep them out of death’s reach; it was not to be looked for that the Devil should trouble himself with such people, if there was a Devil at all. But Gwenhwyfar said, “I suppose you think they do no sin, when they go to the Beltane fires and there do lewd and heathen rites and lie with other than their husbands—“
“God knows they have little enough joy in their lives,” Taliesin responded tranquilly. “I cannot think it very wrong that four times in a whole year, when the seasons turn, they should make merry and do what pleasures them. I could not find much reason to love a God who took thought about such things and would call them wicked. Do you call them wicked, my queen?”
And she did; any Christian woman must think so, to go into the fields and dance naked and lie there with the first man sent to her ... immodest and shameful and wicked. Taliesin shook his head, sighing.
“Still, my queen, none can be the master of another’s conscience. Even if you think it wicked and shameful, would you pretend to know what is right for another? Even the wise cannot know everything, and perhaps the Gods have more purposes than we, in our little knowledge, can see.”
“If I knew right from wrong—as I do and as the priests have taught us, and as God has taught us in Holy Writ—then should I fear God’s punishment if I did not make such laws as would keep my people from sin?” Gwenhwyfar demanded. “God would require it at my hands, I think, if I allowed evil to take place in my realm, and if I were king I should already have put it down.”
“Then, lady, I can say only that it is the good fortune of this land that you are not king. A king must protect his people from outsiders, from invaders, and lead his people to defend themselves—a king must be the first to thrust himself between the land and all danger, just as a farmer stands to defend his fields from any robber. But it is not his duty to dictate to them what their innermost hearts may do.”
But she had debated with him hotly. “A king is the protector of his people, and what good is it to protect their bodies if he lets their souls fall into evil ways? Look you, Lord Merlin, I am a queen, and mothers in this land send their daughters to wait upon me and be schooled in courtly ways —understand you? Well, what manner of queen should I be, if I let another woman’s daughter behave immodestly and get herself with child, or—as did Queen Morgause, I have heard—let her maidens go to the king’s bed, if he wished to have his way with them? Mothers entrust me with their daughters because they know I will protect them—“
“It is different, that you should be entrusted with maidens too young to know their own will, and be even as a mother to bring them up rightly,” Taliesin said. “But a king rules over grown men.”
“God has not said there is one law for the court and one other for the country folk! He wishes all men to keep his commandments—and suppose the laws were not there? What do you think would happen to this land if I and my ladies went out into the fields and behaved so immodestly? How can such things be allowed to go on within the very sound of the church bells?”
Taliesin smiled. He said, “I do not think, even if there was no law against it, that you would be very likely to go into the fields at Beltane, my lady. I have marked it—that you like not to go out of doors much at all.”
“I have had the good of Christian teaching and priestly counsel and I choose not to go,” she said sharply.
“But Gwenhwyfar,” he said very gently, his faded blue eyes looking at her out of the network of lines and patches on his face, “think of this. Suppose a law was made against it, and your conscience told you that it was the right thing to do, to give yourself to the Goddess, in acknowledgment that she is over us all, body and soul? If your Goddess wished for you to do so—then, dear lady, would you let the passing of a law forbidding the Beltane fires stop you from it? Think, dear lady: not more than two hundred years ago—has Bishop Patricius not told you of this?—it was strictly against the laws here in the Summer Country that any should worship the Christ, for so they should defraud the Gods of Rome of their just and righteous due. And there were Christians who died rather than do such a little thing, cast a pinch of incense before one of their idols—aye, I see you have heard the story. Would you have your God be as great a tyrant as any Roman emperor?”
“But God is real, and they are but idols fashioned by men,” Gwenhwyfar said.
“Not so, no more than the picture of Mary Virgin which Arthur bore into battle ... ” said Taliesin, “a picture to give comfort to the minds of the faithful. It is strictly forbidden to me, a Druid, that I may have any representation of any God, for I have been so taught, in many lives, that I need none—I can think upon my God and he is with me. But the once-born cannot do that, and so they need their Goddess in round stones and pools, as your simple people need the picture of Mary Virgin and the cross which some of your knights bear on their shields, so that men may know they are Christian knights.”
Gwenhwyfar knew there was a flaw in this argument, but she could not debate with the Merlin; and in any case, he was only an old man, and a heathen.
When I have borne Arthur a son—once he said to me that then I might ask of him anything he could give, and at that time I will ask him to forbid the Beltane fires and the harvest fires.
Gwenhwyfar remembered this conversation, months after, on the morning of her dream. No doubt Morgaine would have counselled her so, that she should go with Lancelet to the fires ... Arthur had said he would ask her no question if she should bear a child, he had all but given her leave to have Lancelet as a lover ... she felt her face flaming as she bent over the cross; she was not fit to touch such stuff. She put the altar cloth from her and wrapped it in a piece of coarser cloth. She would work on it when she was more tranquil.
Cai’s uneven step sounded at the door of the room. “My lady,” he said, “the King has sent to ask if you would come down to the arms field to watch. There is something he would show you.”
Gwenhwyfar nodded to her ladies. “Elaine, Meleas, come with me,” she said. “You others, you may come or stay here and work, as you like.”
One of the women, who was elderly and somewhat shortsighted, chose to stay and go on with her spinning; the others, eager for a chance to get out into the sunlight, flocked after Gwenhwyfar.
In the night there had been snow, but the strength of the winter was past, and now the snow lay melting quickly in the sun. Little bulbs were poking leaves through the grass; in another month, this would be a wilderness of flowers. When she had come here to Camelot, her father Leodegranz had sent her his favorite gardener, so that he could decide what vegetables and pot herbs would grow best in this site. But this hilltop had been fortified long before Roman times and there were some herbs growing; Gwenhwyfar had had him transplant them all into her kitchen garden, and when they found a patch where flowers were growing wild, Gwenhwyfar begged Arthur that she should be left it for her own lawns, and he had built the arms field further along the hilltop.
She looked up timidly, as they moved across the lawns. It was so open here, so near to the sky; Caerleon had nestled close to the earth. Here at Camelot, on rainy days, it was like being on an island of fog and mist— like Avalon—but on clear days of sunlight, such as this one, it lay high and exposed, so that it could command all the country round, and standing at the edge of the hilltop she could see miles and miles of hill and forest ... .
It was like being too near to Heaven; surely it was not right that human beings, mere mortals, should see so far—but Arthur said, even though there was peace in the land, the King’s castle should be difficult to come at.
It was not Arthur who came to meet her, but Lancelet. He had grown even handsomer, she thought. Now that he need not keep his hair always hacked short for the war helmet, he had let it grow long, and it curled around his shoulders. He wore a short beard—she liked the fashion on him, though Arthur teased him about it and said he was vain; Arthur himself kept his hair clipped short like a soldier, and had himself shaved every day by his chamberlains, as carefully and as closely as he combed his hair.
“Lady, the King is waiting for you,” said Lancelet, and took her arm to escort her to the set of seats Arthur had had built close to the wooden railings of the exercise field.
Arthur bowed to her, thanking Lancelet with a smile as he took Gwenhwyfar’s hand. “Here, Gwen, sit beside me—I brought you here because I want to show you something special. Look there—“
She could see that a group of the younger knights and some of the youngsters who served in the King’s house were working at a mock battle in the yard: divided into two groups, they were fighting with wooden battens and big shields. “Look,” said Arthur, “the big one in the ragged saffron shirt. Does he not put you in mind of someone?”
Gwenhwyfar looked at the boy, following his skillful work with sword and shield—he broke away from the others, attacked like a fury, toppling them over, caught one lad so hard a blow on his head that he left him stretched senseless, sent another reeling with a fierce blow on the shield. He was only a youngster—his rosy face was fuzzed with the first beginnings of beard, so that he still looked like a cherub—but he was near to six feet tall, and big and broad-shouldered as an ox.
“He fights like the fiend,” Gwenhwyfar said, “but who is he? I seem to have seen him about the court—“
“He is that young lad who came to court and would not give his name,” Lancelet said at their elbow, “so you gave him to Cai to help in the kitchens. He’s the one they called ‘Handsome’ because his hands were so fine and white. Cai made all sorts of rude jokes about spoiling them by turning the spit and scrubbing vegetables. Our Cai has a rough tongue.”
“But the boy never answered him back,” said Gawaine gruffly at Arthur’s other side. “He could break Cai with his two hands, but when the other lads urged him on to strike Cai—once Cai made some kind of wicked joke about his parentage, saying he must be base-born and the son of scullions, since he came so naturally to such things—Handsome only looked right over the top of his head and said it would not be well done to strike a man who had lamed himself in the service of his king.”
Lancelet said wryly. “That would be worse to Cai than being beaten senseless, I think. Cai feels he is fit for nothing but to turn the spit and serve the plates. One day, Arthur, you must find a quest for Cai, even if it is no more than to go and find traces of old Pellinore’s dragon.”
Elaine and Meleas giggled behind their hands. Arthur said, “Well, well, I will. Cai is too good and too loyal to be soured this way. You know I would have given him Caerleon, but he would not take it. He said his father had bidden him to serve me with his own hands so long as he lived, and he would come here to Camelot to keep my house. But this boy— Handsome, you called him, Lance? Does he not put you in mind of someone, my lady?”
She studied the boy, charging now against the last of the opposing group, his long, fair hair flying in the wind. He had a high, broad forehead and a big nose, and his hands, gripped on the weapon, were smooth and white—then she looked past Arthur at just another such nose and blue eyes, though these were hidden in a shock of red hair, and said, “Why, he is like Gawaine,” as if it were something shocking.
“God help us, why, so he is,” said Lancelet, laughing, “and I never saw it—and I have seen much of him. I gave him that saffron shirt, he had not a whole shirt to his name—“
“And other things, too,” Gawaine said. “When I asked him if he had all that was fitting to his station, he told me of your gifts. It was nobly done of you to help the boy, Lance.”
Arthur turned to him and said in surprise, “Is he, then, one of your brood, Gawaine? I knew not you had a son—“
“Nay, my king. It is my—my youngest brother, Gareth. But he would not let me tell.”
“And you never told me, cousin?” Arthur said reproachfully. “Would you keep secrets from your king?”
“Not that,” protested Gawaine uncomfortably, and his big, slab-sided face flushed red, so that he and his hair and his brick-red cheeks seemed all one color; it seemed strange to Gwenhwyfar that so big and rough a man could blush like a child. “Never that, my king, but the boy begged me to say nothing—he said you have favored me because I was your cousin and your kinsman, but if he won favor at Arthur’s court and from the great Lancelet—he said that, Lance, the great Lancelet—he wished it to be for what he had done, not for his name and his birth.”
“That was foolish,” said Gwenhwyfar, but Lancelet smiled. “Nay—it was honorably done. Often I have wished I had had wit and courage to do the same, rather than being tolerated because, after all, I was Ban’s own bastard and needed not to win anything by merit—it was for that I strove so fiercely always to be valorous in battle, so that none might say I had not earned my favors—“
Arthur laid his hand gently on Lancelot’s wrist. “You need never fear that, my friend,” he said, “all men know you are the best of my knights, and closest to my throne. But, Gawaine”—he turned to the red-haired man —“I favored not you, either, because you were my kinsman and heir, but only because you were loyal and staunch, and have saved my life a dozen times over. There were those who told me my heir should never be my bodyguard, for if he did his duty too well, then would he never come to the throne, but many and many a day I have had occasion to be glad of so loyal a kinsman at my back.” He put his arm across Gawaine’s shoulders. “So this is your brother, and I knew it not.”
“I knew it not either when he came to court,” Gawaine said. “When last I had seen him, at your crowning, he was a little lad no taller than my sword hilt, and now—well, you see.” He gestured. “But once I saw him in the kitchens and thought, perhaps, he was some bastard of our kin. God knows, Lot has enough of them—I recognized him, and then it was that Gareth begged me not to reveal who he was, that he might win fame on his own.”
“Well, a year under Cai’s harsh teachings would make a man of any mother’s poppet,” Lancelet said, “and he has borne himself manly enough, God knows.”
“I wonder that you knew him not, Lancelet—he came near to getting you killed at Arthur’s wedding,” Gawaine said amiably. “Or do you not remember that you handed him over to our mother, and bade her beat him soundly to keep him from under the horses’ feet—“
“And I came near to knocking out my brains soon after—aye, I remember now,” Lancelet said, laughing. “So that is the same young rascal! But he has far outstripped the other boys, he should practice at arms with the men and knights. It looks now as if he would be among the best of them. Give me leave, my lord?”
“Do what you like, my friend.”
Lancelet unbuckled his sword. He said, “Keep this for me, lady,” and handed it to Gwenhwyfar. He leaped the fence, caught up one of the wooden battens kept for the boys to practice with, and ran toward the big, fair-haired boy.
“You are too big for those fellows, sirrah—come here now, and try conclusions with someone nearer your own size!”
Gwenhwyfar thought, in sudden dread, Nearer to your own size? But Lancelet was not so big a man, not much taller than herself, and young Handsome towered almost a full head over him! For a moment, facing the King’s captain of horse, the boy hesitated, but Arthur gestured encouragement, and the boy’s face lit up with a fierce joy. He charged at Lancelet, raising his mock weapon for a blow, and was startled when the blow descended and Lancelet was not under it; Lancelet had evaded him, spun round and caught him a blow on the shoulder. He had pulled back on the weapon as it came down so that it only touched the boy, but it tore his shirt. Gareth recovered himself quickly, caught Lancelet’s next blow before it landed, and for a moment Lancelet’s foot slipped on the wet grass and it looked as if he would go down, skidding to his knees before the boy.
Handsome stepped back. Lancelet got to his feet, yelling, “Idiot! Suppose I had been a great Saxon warrior!” and caught the boy a great blow on the back with the flat of his sword, which hurled him, his sword flailing wildly, halfway across the yeard; he went down and lay half-stunned.
Lancelet hurried to him and bent over him, smiling. “I did not want to hurt you, lad, but you must learn to guard yourself better than that.” He held out his arm. “Here, lean on me.”
“You have honored me, sir,” said the boy, his fresh face coloring, “and indeed it did me good to feel your strength.”
Lancelet clapped him on the shoulder. “May we always fight side by side and not as foemen, Handsome,” he said, and returned to the King. The youngster picked up his sword and went back to his playmates, while they clustered around and teased him. “So, Handsome, you came close to knocking down the King’s captain of horse in a fight—“
Arthur smiled as Lancelet climbed back over the fence. “That was courteously done, Lance. He will make a bonny knight—like to his brother,” he added, nodding at Gawaine. “Kinsman, do not tell him that I know who he is—his reasons for concealing his name were honorable. But tell him I have seen him, and I will make him a knight at Pentecost, when any petitioner may come before me, if he will come before me and ask me for a sword befitting his station.”
Gawaine’s face lighted. Now, Gwenhwyfar thought, anyone who had seen them both should have known the relationship, for their smiles were the same. “I thank you, my lord and king. May he serve you as well as have I.”
“He could hardly do that,” Arthur said affectionately. “I am fortunate in my friends and Companions.”
Gwenhwyfar thought that, indeed, Arthur inspired love and devotion in everyone—it was the secret of his kingship, for though he was skilled enough in battle, he was no great fighter himself; more than once, in the mock battles with which they amused themselves and kept themselves fit for fighting, she had seen Lancelet, and even old Pellinore, unseat him or knock him from his feet. Arthur was never angry or wounded by pride, but always said good-naturedly that he was glad he had such fine fighters to guard him, and better friends than foemen.
Soon after, the boys picked up their practice weapons and departed. Gawaine went off to have a word with his brother, but Arthur drew Gwenhwyfar out toward the fortified wall. Camelot sat on a broad, high hill, flat at the top as a large town, and all over the hill, inside the wall, they had built their castle and city. Now Arthur led Gwenhwyfar up to his favorite vantage point, where he could stand atop the wall and look out over all the broad valley. She felt dizzy, and clung to the wall. From where they stood she could see the island home of her childhood, the country of King Leodegranz, and a little to the north of it, the island that coiled, from where they stood, like a sleeping dragon.
“Your father grows old, and he has no son,” said Arthur. “Who will rule after him?”
“I know not—like enough he will have it that you should appoint someone to reign as regent for me,” Gwenhwyfar said; one of her sisters had died in childbirth, far away in Wales, and another had died in a siege of their castle. And her father’s second wife had borne him no living son, either, so that Gwenhwyfar was heir to that kingdom. But how could she, a woman, keep it from those who were greedy for land? She looked beyond her father’s lands and asked, “Your father—the Pendragon—was he too made king on Dragon Island, I wonder?”
“So the Lady of the Lake told me, and so he pledged his faith always to shelter the old religion, and Avalon—as did I,” said Arthur moodily, and stood staring at Dragon Island. She wondered what pagan nonsense was filling his head.
“But when you turned to the one true God, then did he give you that greatest of victories, so that you drove the Saxons forth from this island for all of time.”
“It is foolish to say so,” said Arthur. “Never, I think, can any land be secure for all time, but only as God wills—“
“And God has given you all this land, Arthur, so that you may rule as a Christian king. It is like to the prophet Elijah—the bishop told me the tale—when he went out with the priests of God, and met the priests of Baal, so that they each called on their God, and the One God was the greatest and Baal but an idol, so that he answered them not. If there was anything of power in the ways of Avalon, would God and the Virgin have given you such a victory?”
“My armies drove off the Saxons, but I may be punished hereafter for oathbreaking,” Arthur said. She hated it when the lines of sorrow and dread came into his face.
She went a little toward the south, straining her eyes—from here, if you looked hard, you could see the very tip of the church of Saint Michael which rose on the Tor—the church which had been built because Michael was lord of the underworld, fighting to keep down the gods of the heathen in Hell. Only there were times when it blurred before her eyes, so that she saw the Tor crowned with ring stones. The nuns on Glastonbury had told her that it had been so, in the bad old heathen days, and the priests had labored to take down the ring stones and haul them away. She supposed it was because she was a sinful woman that she had this glance into heathendom. Once she had dreamed that she and Lancelet were lying together beneath the ring stones, and he had had of her what she had never given him ... .
Lancelet. He was so good, never did he press her for more than a Christian woman and a wedded wife could give him without dishonor ... yet it was written that the Christ had said himself, whoever looks upon a woman with lust has committed adultery already with her in his heart... so she had sinned with Lancelet, and there was no mitigation, they were both damned. She shivered and turned her eyes away from the Tor, for it seemed that Arthur could read her thoughts. He had spoken Lancelet’s name—
“Don’t you think so, Gwen? It’s more than time Lancelet should marry.”
She forced her voice to stay calm. “On the day when he asks you for a wife, my lord and my king, you should give him one.”
“But he will not ask,” Arthur said. “He has no will to leave me. Pellinore’s daughter would make him a good wife, and she is your own cousin—don’t you think it would suit? Lancelet is not rich, Ban had too many bastards to give much to any one of them. It would be a good match for both.”
“Aye, no doubt you are right,” Gwenhwyfar said. “Elaine follows him about with her eyes as the lads in the play yard do, eager for a kind word or even a look.” Though it hurt her heart, perhaps it would be best if Lancelet should marry, he was too good to be tied to a woman who could give him so little; and then she could amend her sin with a firm promise to sin no more, as she could not do when Lancelet was near.
“Well, I will speak of it again with Lancelet. He says he has no mind to marry, but I will make him understand it means not exile from my court. Would it not be good for me and mine, if our children, some day, might have Lancelet’s sons to follow them?”
“God grant that day may come,” said Gwenhwyfar, and crossed herself. They stood together at the height, looking out over the Summer Country, which lay spread before them.
“There is a rider on the road,” said Arthur, looking down the road which led toward the castle; then, as the rider drew nearer, “It is Kevin the Harper, come here from Avalon. And at least this time he has had sense enough to travel with a serving-man.”
“That is no serving-man,” said Gwenhwyfar, her sharp eyes resting on the slender form riding behind Kevin on his horse. “That is a woman. I am shocked—I had thought the Druids were like to priests, and stayed far from women.”
“Why, some of them do, sweetheart, but I have heard from Taliesin that all those who are not in the highest rank may marry, and frequently they do,” he said. “Perhaps Kevin has taken him a wife, or perhaps he has only travelled with someone coming this way. Send one of your women to tell Taliesin that he is here, and another to the kitchens—if we shall have music this night, it is only fitting we have something like a feast to celebrate it! Let us walk this way and welcome him—a harper of Kevin’s skill is worthy of welcome from the King himself.”
By the time they reached the great gates, they had been opened, and Cai himself had stepped forward to welcome the great harper to Camelot. Kevin bowed to the King, but Gwenhwyfar’s eyes were on the slender, ill-clad form behind.
Morgaine bowed and said, “So I have returned to your court, my brother.”
Arthur went and embraced her. “Welcome back, my sister—it has been so long,” he said, his cheek lingering against hers. “And now that our mother has gone from us, we who are kinfolk should be together. Do not go from me again, sister.”
She said, “I had no thought of it.”
Gwenhwyfar came and embraced her too, feeling the other woman’s body sharp-boned and thin against her arms. She said, “You look as if you had been long on the road, my sister.”
“True—I have come very far,” Morgaine said, and Gwenhwyfar kept her hand as they walked within.
“Where have you been? You were so long away—almost I thought you would never return,” Gwenhwyfar said.
“Almost I thought so myself,” said Morgaine. But, Gwenhwyfar noticed, she did not say, either, where she had been.
“Such gear as you left with us—your harp, your gowns, all these things—they were left at Caerleon. Tomorrow I will send for them as swiftly as a messenger can ride,” Gwenhwyfar said, as she took her to the room where her women slept. “Till then, if you will, I will lend you a gown —you have been travelling long, sister, and you look as if you had been sleeping within a cow byre. Were you attacked by robbers and your gear stolen?”
“I had ill fortune indeed on the road,” Morgaine said, “and if you will send someone to me that I may bathe, and dress myself clean, I will bless you. I would ask the loan of a comb too, and pins for my hair, and a shift.”
“My gown will be too long for you,” said Gwenhwyfar, “but no doubt you can pin it up somehow until your own clothes have come. Combs and veils and shifts I will give you gladly, and shoes as well—those look as if you had walked in them from here to Lothian and back!” She beckoned to one of her waiting-women and said, “Bring the red gown, and the veilthat goes with it, and a shift and my other indoor shoes and hose—choose everything so that my lord’s sister is dressed as is fitting to her station. And send for a bath and a bath-woman too.” She looked disdainfully at the gown Morgaine was taking off, and said, “If that one cannot be fitly aired and cleaned, give it to one of the dairy-women!”
When Morgaine appeared at the King’s table she wore the red gown, which lent color to her dark skin and became her well; they besought her to sing, but she would not, saying that as Kevin was at hand, no one would listen to a robin’s chirping when a nightingale was near.
The next day Kevin sought private audience with Arthur, and he and the King and Taliesin, too, were closeted for many hours, and even had supper brought to them there; but Gwenhwyfar never knew what they spoke of—Arthur told her little of affairs of state. No doubt, they were angered with him that he had chosen to renounce his vows to Avalon, but soon or late they must accept it—that he was a Christian king. As for Gwenhwyfar, she had other things to think of.
THAT SPRING THERE WAS fever at the court, and some of her women fell sick of it, so that until Easter was past she had no leisure to think of anything else. She had never thought she would be glad of Morgaine’s presence, but Morgaine knew much of herb lore and of healing, and she thought it was due to Morgaine’s wisdom that there were no deaths in the court—in the country round, she heard, many died, though mostly little children and old folk. Her little half-sister Isotta took the fever, but her mother heard and would not have her stay at court, so that she was sent back to the island, and later in that month Gwenhwyfar heard that she had died. She mourned for the girl—she had come to be fond of her, and had hoped to marry her to one of Arthur’s Companions when she was older.
Lancelet fell sick of the fever too, and Arthur gave orders that he should be quartered in the castle and nursed by her own women. While there was still danger that she might take the fever she did not go near him— she had hoped herself pregnant again, but it turned out not to be so; only her own hopes and illusions. When he began to recover she went often and sat by his side.
Morgaine came too, to play the harp, while he was unable to leave his bed. One day, watching them when they spoke of Avalon, Gwenhwyfar caught the look in Morgaine’s eyes, and thought, Why, she still loves him! She knew Arthur still hoped for this—a match between Morgaine and Lancelet and she watched, sick with jealousy, as Lancelet listened to Morgaine’s harp.
Her voice is so sweet; she is not beautiful, but she is so wise and learned —beautiful women are so many, Elaine is beautiful, and Meleas, and the daughter of King Royns, and even Morgause is beautiful, but why should Lancelet care for that? And she marked the gentleness of Morgaine’s hands as she lifted him and gave him her herb medicines and cooling drinks. She, Gwenhwyfar, was not good at all with the sick, she had no skills, she sat dumb while Morgaine talked and laughed and amused him.
It was growing dark, and at last Morgaine said, “I can no longer see the harp strings, and I am hoarse as a crow—I can sing no more. You must drink your medicine, Lancelet, and then I will send your man to you, to get you settled for the night—“
With a wry smile Lancelet took the cup she put in his hand. “Your drinks are cooling, kinswoman, but ugh! The taste of them—“
“Drink it,” Morgaine said, laughing. “Arthur has put you under my command when you are sick—“
“Aye, and I do not doubt, if I refused you should beat me and put me supperless to bed, while if I drink my medicine like a good lad I shall have a kiss and a honey cake,” Lancelet said.
Morgaine chuckled. “You cannot have a honey cake yet, you can have your nice gruel. But if you drink up your potion, you shall have a goodnight kiss and I will bake you a honey cake when you are well enough to eat it.”
“Yes, Mother,” Lancelet said, wrinkling up his nose. Gwenhwyfar could see that Morgaine did not like the jest, but when he had emptied the cup she bent over him and kissed him lightly on the brow, and drew up the covers under his chin as a mother smooths a child’s cradle. “There, now, good child, go to sleep,” she said, laughing, but the laughter sounded bitter to Gwenhwyfar, and Morgaine went away.
Gwenhwyfar stood by Lancelet’s bed, and said, “She is right, my dear, you should sleep.”
“I am weary of Morgaine being always right,” said Lancelet. “Sit you here by me for a little, dear love—“
It was seldom he dared speak so to her, but she sat herself on his bed and let him hold her hand. After a little he pulled her down beside him and kissed her; she lay along the edge of his bed and let him kiss her again and again, but after a long time he sighed, weary, and did not protest when she rose from his side. “My dearest love, this cannot go on like this. You must give me leave to depart from the court.”
“What? To chase Pellinore’s favorite dragon? Why, what will Pel-linore do in holidaytime, then? It is his favorite hunting,” Gwenhwyfar said, jesting, but it was like a pain in her heart.
He seized both her arms, pulling her down. “No, make this not a jest, Gwen—you know it and I know it, and God help us both, I think even Arthur knows it, that I have loved none but you, or ever will, since first I set eyes on you in your father’s house. And if I am to remain a true man to my king and my friend, then I must depart from this court and never set eyes on you again—“
Gwenhwyfar said, “I would not hold you, if you feel that you must go-“
“As I have gone before,” he said violently. “Every time I rode forth to war, half of me longed that I should fall at Saxon hands and return no more to hopeless love—God forgive me, there were times when I hated my king, whom I have sworn to love and serve, and then I thought, no woman should part the friendship that was between us two, and I have sworn I would think of you no more, save as the wife of my king. But now there are no more wars, and I must sit here day by day and look upon you at his side in his high seat, and think of you in his bed, his happy and contented wife—“
“Why do you think I am any more happy or contented than you?” she demanded, her voice shaking. “At least you can choose whether to stay or to go, but I was given into Arthur’s hands without even so much as ‘will you or no?’ Nor can I rise and ride forth from court when things go not to my will, but must stay here within walls and do what is expected of me ... if you must go, I cannot say, Stay; and if you stay, I cannot say to you, Go! At least you are free to go or to stay as makes you happiest!”
“Do you think there is happiness for me, either in staying or going?” Lancelet demanded, and for a moment she thought that he would weep. Then he mastered himself and said, “Love, what do you want me to do? God forbid I should give you more unhappiness. If I am gone from here, then is your duty plain, to be a good wife to Arthur, no more and no less. If I stay here—“ He broke off.
“If you feel it is your duty to go,” she said, “then you must go.” And tears flooded down her face, blurring her sight.
He said, and his voice was strained as if he had had a mortal wound, “Gwenhwyfar—“ He so seldom spoke her formal name, it was always my lady or my queen, or when he spoke to her in play it was always Gwen. When he spoke it now, it seemed to her she had never heard a sweeter sound. “Gwenhwyfar. Why do you weep?”
Now she must lie, and lie well, because she could not in honor tell him the truth. She said, “Because—“ and stopped, and then, in a choking voice, she said, “because I do not know how I shall live if you go away.”
He swallowed hard and took her hands between his own and said, “Why, then—why, love—I am not a king, but my father has given me a small estate in Brittany. Would you come with me away from this court? I—I know not, perhaps it would be the more honorable way, than stay here at Arthur’s court and make love to his wife—“
He loves me, then, Gwenhwyfar thought, he wants me, this is the honorable way ... but panic flooded through her. To go forth alone, so far, even with Lancelet... and then the thought of what everyone would say of her, should she be so dishonored ... .
He lay clasping her hand in his. He said, “We could never return, you know—never. And it’s likely we should be excommunicated, both of us— that would mean little to me, I am not so much a Christian as all that. But you, my Gwenhwyfar—“
She put up her veil over her face and wept, knowing what a coward she was.
“Gwenhwyfar,” he said, “I would not lead you into sin—“
She said bitterly, “We have sinned already, you and I—“
“And if the priests are right we will be damned for it,” Lancelet said bitterly, “and yet have I never had more of you than these kisses—we have had all the evil and the guilt, and none of the pleasure which is said to come from sin. And I am not so sure I believe the priests—what sort of God goes about every night like a night watchman, peeping here and prying there like an old village gossip to see if any man beds with his neighbor’s wife—“
“The Merlin said something like that,” Gwenhwyfar said, low. “And sometimes it seems to me sensible, and then again I wonder if it is the Devil’s work to lead me into evil ... .”
“Oh, talk not to me of the Devil,” he said, and pulled her down beside him again. “Sweetheart, my own, I will go away if you want me to, or I will stay, but I cannot bear to see you so unhappy ... .”
“I do not know what I want,” she wept, and let him hold her, sobbing. At last he murmured, “We have paid for the sin already ...” and his mouth covered hers. Trembling, Gwenhwyfar let herself surrender to the kiss, his eager hands searching at her breast. She almost hoped that this time he would not be content with that, but there was a sound in the hallway and Gwenhwyfar drew herself upright, in sudden panic. She sat on the edge of the bed as Lancelet’s esquire came into the room. He coughed and said, “My lord? The lady Morgaine told me you were ready to go to your rest. By your leave, my lady—?”
Morgaine again, damn her! Lancelet laughed and let go of Gwenhwyfar’s hand. “Yes, and I doubt it not, my lady is weary. Will you promise to come and see me tomorrow, my queen?”
She was both grateful and angry that his voice sounded so calm. She turned away from the light the serving-man carried; she knew her veil was crushed and her dress rumpled, her face smeared with crying and her hair coming down. How she must look—what would the man think they had been doing? She put her veil over her face and rose. “Good night, sir Lancelet. Kerval, care you well for my king’s dear friend,” and went out, hoping forlornly that she could get down the hall to her own room before she burst into weeping again. Ah God, how—how dare I pray to God that I may sin further? I should pray to be free of temptation, and I cannot!
A day or two before Beltane-eve, Kevin the Harper came again to Arthur’s court. Morgaine was glad to see him; it had been a long and weary springtime. Lancelet had recovered from the fever and gone north to Lothian, and Morgaine had thought she should ride to Lothian too, to see how it was with her son; but she did not want to go in Lancelet’s company, nor would he have wished for her as a travelling companion; she thought, My son is well where he is, another time I will go and see him.
Gwenhwyfar was sorrowful and silent; in the years Morgaine had been absent, the Queen had altered from a lighthearted, childish woman to a silent, thoughtful one, more pious than was reasonable. Morgaine suspected that she pined after Lancelet, and knowing Lancelet, Morgaine thought with a touch of contempt that he would neither leave the woman in peace nor lead her wholeheartedly into sin. And Gwenhwyfar was a good match for him—she would neither give in to him nor give him up. She wondered what Arthur thought, but it would have taken a braver woman than she to ask him.
Morgaine welcomed Kevin to court, and to herself she thought it not unlikely that they would keep Beltane together—the sun tides ran hot in her blood, and if she could not have the man she wanted (and she knew it was still Lancelet to whom she was drawn), it might be as well to take a lover who found delight in her; it was good to be cherished and sought after. And, as neither Arthur nor Lancelet would do, Kevin spoke with her freely of affairs of state. She thought, with a moment of bitter regret, had she stayed in Avalon, by now, she would be consulted in all the great affairs of her time.
Well, it was too late for that; done was done. So she greeted Kevin in the great hall and had him served food and wine, a task Gwenhwyfar gladly gave over to her—Gwenhwyfar liked well enough to hear Kevin play on the harp, but she could not bear the sight of him. So Morgaine served him, and spoke to him of Avalon.
“Is Viviane well?”
“Well, and still resolved to come to Camelot at Pentecost,” said Kevin, “and it is well, for Arthur would scarce listen to me. Though he has promised not to forbid the Beltane fires this year, at least.”
“It would do him little good to forbid them,” said Morgaine. “But Arthur has trouble nearer home, too.” She gestured. “Beyond that window, almost within sight from the heights of the castle, lies the island kingdom of Leodegranz—had you heard?”
“A chance-come traveller told me he was dead,” Kevin said, “and he left no son. His lady Alienor died with her last child, a few days after his death. The fever was cruel in that country.”
“Gwenhwyfar would not travel thither for the burying,” Morgaine said. “She had little to weep for—hers was not a loving father. Arthur will have consulted her about setting a regent there—he says that now the kingdom is hers, and if they should have a second son, that son shall have it. But it seems not likely now that Gwenhwyfar will have even one.”
Kevin nodded slowly. “Aye, she miscarried of a child before Mount Badon, and was very ill. Since then I have not heard even a rumor that she was pregnant,” said Kevin. “How old is the High Queen?”
“I think she is at least five-and-twenty now,” said Morgaine, but she was not certain, she had dwelt so long in the fairy country.
“That is old for a first child,” said Kevin, “though, I doubt not, like all barren women, she prays for a miracle. What ails the Queen that she does not conceive?”
“I am no midwife,” said Morgaine. “She seems healthy enough, but she has worn out her knees in prayer, and there is no sign.”
“Well, the Gods will have it as they will,” Kevin said, “but we will need their mercy on this land if the High King dies with no son! And now there are no threats from the Saxons outside to keep the rival kings of Britain from falling one upon the other and tearing this land to shreds. I never trusted Lot, but he is dead, and Gawaine is Arthur’s staunchest man, so there is little to fear from Lothian, unless Morgause finds herself a lover with ambition to be High King on his own.”
“Lancelet has gone there, but he should return quickly,” said Morgaine, and Kevin added, “Viviane, too, would ride to Lothian for some reason, though we thought, all of us, that she was too old for such a journey.” Why, then, she will see my son ... . Morgaine’s heart leapt, and there was a tightness like pain, or weeping, in her throat. Kevin seemed not to see.
“I met not with Lancelet on the road,” he said. “No doubt he took another road, or stayed to greet his mother, or perhaps”—he grinned slyly —“to keep the Beltane feast. That would give joy to every woman in Lothian, if he tarried there. Morgause would not let such a tender morsel escape her clutches.”
“She is his mother’s sister,” Morgaine said, “and I think Lance is too good a Christian for that. He has courage enough to face the Saxons in battle, but small courage for that battle.”
Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Oh ho, is it so? I doubt not you speak from knowledge,” he said, “but for politeness’ sake we will say it is from the Sight! But Morgause would like well to see Arthur’s best knight brought low by scandal—then would Gawaine stand nearer to the throne. And the lady is liked well by all men—she is not so old, either, but still beautiful, her hair still red as ever without a line of grey—“
“Oh,” said Morgaine caustically, “they sell henna from Egypt in the markets of Lothian.”
“And her waist is slim, and they say she practices magic arts to spellbind men to her,” Kevin said, “but this is gossip and no more. I have heard she has ruled well enough in Lothian. Do you dislike her so much, Morgaine?”
“No. She is my kinswoman and has been good to me,” Morgaine said, and started to say, She fostered my child, and that would open the way to ask if he had heard news of Gwydion ... then she stopped herself. Even to Kevin she could not confess that. She said, instead, “But I like it not that my kinswoman Morgause should be the common talk of Britain as a bawd.”
“It is not so bad as that,” Kevin said, laughing, and put away his wine cup. “If the lady has an eye to handsome men, she would not be the first or last. And now Morgause is widowed, no man can call her to account for who lies in her bed. But I must not keep the High King waiting. Wish me fortune, Morgaine, for I must bring ill news to my king, and you know the doom meted of old to him who brought the king news he had no mind to hear!”
“Arthur is not that sort,” said Morgaine. “But if it is not secret, what ill news do you bring?”
“Not news at all,” said Kevin, “for it has been said more than once that Avalon will not have it that he rule as a Christian king, whatever his private faith may be. He shall not allow the priests to put down the worship of the Goddess, nor touch the oak groves. And if he does so, then am I to say to him from the Lady: the hand which gave him the sacred sword of the Druids can turn it in his hand to smite him.”
“That will not be pleasant hearing,” said Morgaine, “but perhaps it will call his oath to mind.”
“Aye, and Viviane has still one other weapon she can use,” said Kevin, but when Morgaine asked what, he would tell her no more.
When he had gone from her, Morgaine sat thinking of the night to come. There would be music at dinner, and later—well, Kevin was a pleasant lover, gentle and eager to please her, and she was wearied of sleeping alone.
She was still sitting in the hall when Cai came to announce that another rider had come—“A kinsman of yours, lady Morgaine. Would you greet him and serve him wine?”
Morgaine agreed—had Lancelet returned so soon already?—but the rider was Balan.
She hardly knew him at first—he was heavier, so big now that she supposed it must take an oversized horse to carry his weight. But he recognized her at once.
“Morgaine! Greetings, kinswoman,” he said, and sat beside her, taking the cup she offered. She told him that Arthur was speaking with Kevin and the Merlin, but would see him at dinner, and asked him for the news.
“Only that a dragon has been sighted again in the North,” Balan said, “and no, this is no fantasy like old Pellinore’s—I saw the track where it had been, and talked with two of the people who had seen it. They were not lying, nor telling a tale to amuse or give themselves importance; they were in terror of their lives. They said it had come out of the lake and taken their serving-man—they showed me his shoe.”
“His—shoe, kinsman?”
“He lost it when he was taken, and I did not like touching the—slime —that besmeared it,” Balan said. “I am going to ask Arthur for half a dozen knights to ride with me and put an end to it.”
“You must ask Lancelet, if he returns,” Morgaine said, as lightly as she could. “He will need some practice with dragons. I think Arthur is trying to make a match between Lancelet and Pellinore’s daughter.”
Balan looked at her sharply. “I do not envy the girl who has my little brother for husband,” he said. “I have heard his heart is given—or should I not say—“
“You should not say it,” said Morgaine.
Balan shrugged. “So be it. Arthur then has no special reason for wishing to find Lancelet a bride well away from court,” he said. “I had not heard that you had come back to court, kinswoman. You look well.”
“And how is it with your foster-brother?”
“Balin is well enough, when last I saw him,” said Balan, “though he still has no love for Viviane. Still, there is no reason to believe he bears grudge for our mother’s death. He raved and swore revenge then, but he would have to be a madman indeed to think still of such things. In any case, if such was his thought, he spoke not of it when he was here at Pentecost a year ago. That is Arthur’s newest custom, you may not know—that wherever we may travel in all of Britain, every one of his old Companions should gather at Pentecost and dine at his table. At that time, too, he makes new Companions in the order of knighthood, and he will accept any petitioner, however humble—“
“Yes, I had heard of that,” said Morgaine, and a flicker of unease passed over her. Kevin had spoken of Viviane—she told herself it was only disquiet at the idea that a woman of the Lady’s years might come here as a common petitioner. As Balan said, it would take a madman to harbor thoughts of revenge after all this time.
That night there was music, Kevin’s fine playing and singing; and later still that night, Morgaine slipped from the chamber where she slept with Gwenhwyfar’s unwedded ladies, as noiselessly as a ghost—or as a priestess trained in Avalon—and made her way to the chamber where Kevin slept. She left there before daylight, well contented, but one thing Kevin had said —though they had had other things to speak of than Arthur—troubled her mind.
“Arthur would not listen to me,” he said. “He told me that the folk of England were a Christian people, and while he would not persecute any man for following what Gods he liked, still he would stand with the priests and the church, as they had stood by his throne. And he sent word to the Lady of Avalon that if she would have back the sword, she could come and take it.”
Even after she had crept back into her own bed, Morgaine lay wakeful. It was the legendary sword which had bound so many of the Tribesmen and Northmen to Arthur; and it was his allegiance to Avalon which had bound the dark pre-Roman people. Now, it seemed, Arthur was further from that allegiance than he had ever been.
She could speak with him—but no, he would not listen to her; she was a woman and his sister—and always, between them, lay the memory of that morning after the kingmaking, so that never could they speak freely as they might have done before. And she did not carry the authority of Avalon; with her own hands had she cast that away.
It might be that Viviane could make him see the importance of keeping to his oath. But tell herself this as she would, it was long before Morgaine could close her eyes and sleep.
Even before she rose from her bed, Gwenhwyfar could feel the bright sunlight through the bed-curtains—Summer is here. And then, Beltane. The very fullness of pagandom—she was sure that many of her serving-men and women would be slipping away from the court tonight, when the Beltane fires were lighted on Dragon Island in honor of their Goddess, there to lie in the fields ... some of them, no doubt, to come home again with their wombs quickened with the child of the God ... and I, a Christian wife, cannot bear a son to my own dear lord ... .
She turned over in bed and lay watching Arthur’s sleep. Oh, yes, he was her dear lord, and she loved him well. He had taken her as part of a dowry and sight unseen; yet he had loved her, cherished her, honored her —it was not her fault that she could not do the first duty of a queen and bear him a son for his kingdom.
Lancelet—no, she had sworn to herself, when last he went from court, she would think no more of him. She still hungered for him, heart and soul and body, but she had vowed that she would be a loyal and a faithful wife to Arthur; never again should Lancelet have from her even these games and toyings which made them both ache for more ... it was playing at sin, even if there was nothing worse.
Beltane. Well, perhaps, as a Christian woman and queen of a Christian court, it was her duty to make such feastings and play this day as all the people of the court should enjoy without harm to their souls. She knew that Arthur had sent out word of games and arms practice to be held for prizes, at Pentecost—as he had done each year since the court came here to Camelot; but there were enough of his people here that some sport could be had this day too—she would offer a silver cup. And there should be harping and dancing, too, and she would do for the women what sometimes they did in play, offer a ribbon for the woman who could spin the most yarn in an hour, or work the largest piece of tapestry—yes, there should be innocent sport so that none of her people should regret the forbidden play on Dragon Island. She sat up and began to dress herself; she must go and talk to Cai.
But, although she busied herself all the morning, and Arthur when she spoke of it was pleased, thinking it the best of devices, so that he and Cai spent the morning in talking of the prizes they would offer for the best sword play and horsemanship, yes, and there should be a prize, perhaps a cloak, for the best among the boys—still, inside her heart, the thought gnawed. It is the day on which the ancient Gods demand that we honor fertility, and I, I am still barren. And so, an hour before high noon, at which hour the trumpets would be blown to gather men before the arms field to begin their sport, Gwenhwyfar sought out Morgaine, yet not quite certain what she would say to her.
Morgaine had taken charge of the dyeing room for the wool they spun, and was also in charge of the Queen’s brew-women—she knew how to keep ale from spoiling when it was brewed, and how to distill strong spirit for medicines, and make perfumes of flower petals which were finer than those brought from over the seas and more costly than gold. There were some women in the castle who believed this was magic art, but Morgaine saidno, it was only that she had been taught about the properties of plants and grains and flowers. Any woman, Morgaine said, could do what she did, if she was neat-handed and willing to take the time and trouble to see to it.
Gwenhwyfar found her with her holiday gown tied up and her hair covered with a cloth, sniffing at a batch of beer which had spoilt in the vats. “Throw it away,” she said. “The barm must have got cold, and it has soured. We can start with another batch tomorrow—there is plenty for this day, even with the Queen’s feasting, whatever put it into her head.”
Gwenhwyfar asked, “Have you no mind to feasting, sister?”
Morgaine turned. “Not truly,” she said, “but I marvel that you have, Gwen—I thought on Beltane you would be all for pious fasting and prayer, if only to show you were not one of those who made merry in honor of the Goddess of the crops and fields.”
Gwenhwyfar colored—she never knew if Morgaine was making fun of her. “Perhaps God has ordained it, that people shall make merry in honor of the coming of the summer, and there is no need to speak of the Goddess ... oh, I know not what I think—believe you that the Goddess gives life to crops and fields and the wombs of ewes and heifers and women?”
“I was so taught in Avalon, Gwen. Why do you ask this now?” Morgaine took off the headcloth with which she had covered her hair, and Gwenhwyfar thought suddenly that Morgaine was beautiful. Morgaine was older than Gwenhwyfar—she must be past thirty; but she looked no older than when Gwenhwyfar had first seen her ... it was no wonder all men thought her a sorceress! She wore a fine-spun gown of dark blue wool, very plain, but colored ribbons were braided into her dark hair, which was looped about her ears and fastened with a gold pin. Next to her, Gwenhwyfar felt dull as a hen, a simple homekeeping woman, even though she was High Queen of Britain and Morgaine only a heathen duchess.
Morgaine knew so much, and she herself was so unlearned—she could do no more than write her name and read a little in her Gospel book. While Morgaine was skilled in all the clerkly arts, she could read and write, and yes, she knew the housewifely arts too—she could spin and weave and do fine embroideries, and dyeing and brewing, yes, and herb lore and magic as well. At last Gwenhwyfar faltered, “My sister—they have said it as a jest, but is it—is it true, that you know—all manner of charms and spells for fertility? I—I cannot live with it any longer, that every lady at court watches every morsel I eat to see if I am breeding, or takes note of how tight I tie my girdle! Morgaine, if indeed you know these charms they say you know—my sister, I beg you—will you use those arts for me?”
Moved and troubled, Morgaine laid a hand on Gwenhwyfar’s arm. “In Avalon, it is true, it is said that such and such things can help if a woman does not bear when she should—but Gwenhwyfar—“ She hesitated, and Gwenhwyfar felt her face flooding with shame. At last Morgaine went on. “I am not the Goddess. It may be that it is her will that you and Arthur should have no children. Would you really try to turn the will of God with spells and charms?”
Gwenhwyfar said violently, “Even Christ in the garden prayed, ‘If it be thy will, let this cup pass from me—‘ “
“But he said also, Gwen—‘Not my will, Lord, be done, but thine,’ “ Morgaine reminded her.
“I wonder that you know such things—“
“I dwelt in Igraine’s household for eleven years, Gwenhwyfar, and I heard the gospel preached as often as you.”
“Yet I cannot see how it should be God’s will that the kingdom be torn again by chaos if Arthur should die,” Gwenhwyfar said and heard her own voice rise, sharp and angry. “All these years I have been faithful—yes, I know you do not believe it, I suppose you think what all the women in the court think, that I have betrayed my lord for the love of Lancelet— but it is not so, Morgaine, I swear it is not so—“
“Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar! I am not your confessor! I have not accused you!”
“But you would if you could, and I think you are jealous,” Gwenhwyfar retorted at white heat, and then cried out in contrition, “Oh, no! No, I do not want to quarrel with you, Morgaine, my sister—oh, no, I came to beg you for your help—“ She felt the tears break from her eyes. “I have done no wrong, I have been a good and loyal wife, I have kept my lord’s house and strove to bring honor to his court, I have prayed for him and tried to do the will of God, I have failed no whit of my duty, and yet— and yet—for all of my loyalty and duty—I have not even had my part of the bargain. Every whore in the streets, every soldier’s camp follower, they go about flaunting their big bellies and their fruitfulness, and I—I have had nothing, nothing—“ She was sobbing wildly, her hands over her face.
Morgaine’s voice sounded puzzled but tender, and she put out her arms and drew Gwenhwyfar to her. “Don’t cry, don’t cry—Gwenhwyfar, look at me, is it so much a sorrow to you that you have no child?”
Gwenhwyfar struggled to control her weeping. She said, “I can think of nothing else, day and night—“
After a long time, Morgaine said, “Aye, I can see it is hard for you.” It seemed she could actually hear Gwenhwyfar’s thoughts:
If I had a child, I would not think night and day of this love which tempts my honor, for all my thoughts would be given to Arthur’s son.
“I would that I could help you, sister—but I am unwilling to have doings with charms and magic. We are taught in Avalon that simple folk may need such things, but the wise meddle not with them, but bear the lot the Gods have sent them.” And as she spoke she felt herself a hypocrite; she was remembering the morning when she had gone out to find roots and herbs for a potion which would keep her from bearing Arthur’s child. That had not been surrendering herself to the will of the Goddess! But in the end she had not done it, either—
And then Morgaine wondered, in sudden weariness: I who did not want a child, and who came near to death in bearing it, I bore my child; Gwenhwyfar, who longs night and day for one, goes with empty womb and empty arms. Is this the goodness of the will of the Gods?
Yet she felt compelled to say, “Gwenhwyfar, I would have you bear this in mind—charms often work as you would not that they would do. What makes you believe the Goddess I serve can send you a son when your God, who is supposed to be greater than all the other Gods, cannot?”
It sounded like blasphemy, and Gwenhwyfar was ashamed of herself. Yet she found herself thinking, and saying aloud in a voice that choked as she spoke, “I think perhaps God cares nothing for women—all his priests are men, and again and again the Scriptures tell us that women are the temptress and evil—it may be that is why he does not hear me. And for this I would go to the Goddess—God does not care—“ And then she was weeping stormily again. “Morgaine,” she cried, “if you cannot help me, I swear I will go tonight to Dragon Island in the boat, I shall bribe my serving-man to take me there, and when the fires are lighted I too shall entreat the Goddess to give me the gift of a child ... I swear it, Morgaine, that I will do this.. ..” And she saw herself in the light of the fires, circling the flames, going apart in the grip of a strange and faceless man, lying in his arms—the thought made her whole body cramp tight with pain and a half-shamed pleasure.
Morgaine listened in growing horror. She would never do it, she would lose her courage at the last moment. .. I was frightened, even I, and I had always known my maidenhead was for the God. But then, hearing the utter despair in her sister-in-law’s voice, she thought, Aye, but she might; and if she did, she would hate herself all her life long.
There was no sound in the room but Gwenhwyfar’s sobbing. Morgaine waited until it quieted a little, then said, “Sister, I will do for you what I can. Arthur can give you a child, you need not go to the Beltane fire, or seek one elsewhere. You must never say aloud that I have told you this, promise me that, and ask me no questions. But Arthur has indeed sired a ‘ child.”
Gwenhwyfar stared at her. “He told me he had no children—“
“It may be that he does not know. But I have seen the child myself. He is being fostered at Morgause’s court.”
“Why, then, he has already a son and if I do not bear him one—“
“No!” said Morgaine quickly, and her voice was harsh. “I have told you—you must never speak of this, the child is not such a one as he could acknowledge. If you give him no child, then must the kingdom go to Gawaine. Gwenhwyfar, ask me no more, for I will not tell you more than this—if you do not bear, it is not Arthur’s fault.”
“I have not even conceived since last harvesttime—and only three times in all these years—“ Gwenhwyfar swallowed, wiping her face on her veil. “If I offer myself to the Goddess—she will be merciful to me—“
Morgaine sighed. “It might be so. You must not go to Dragon Island. You can conceive, I know—perhaps a charm could help you to carry a child to birth. But I warn you again, Gwenhwyfar: charms do not their magic as men and women would have it, but by their own laws, and those laws are as strange as the running of time in the fairy country. Do not seek to blame me, Gwenhwyfar, if the charm acts other than you think it should.”
“If it gives me even a slight chance of a child by my lord—“ “That it should do,” Morgaine said, and turned, Gwenhwyfar following after her like a child being led by her mother. What would the charm be, Gwenhwyfar wondered and what would it do, and why did Morgaine look so strange and solemn—as if she were that Great Goddess herself? But, she told herself, taking a deep breath, she would accept whatever came, if it might give her what she desired most.
An hour later, when the trumpets were blown and Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar were sitting side by side at the edge of the field, Elaine leaned over to them and said, “Look! Who is that riding into the field at Gawaine’s side?”
“It is Lancelet,” said Gwenhwyfar breathlessly. “He has come home.” He was handsomer than ever. Somewhere he had gotten a red slash on his cheek, which should have been ugly, but it gave him the fierce beauty of a wild cat. He rode as if he were part of the horse’s self, and Gwenhwyfar listened to Elaine’s chatter, not really hearing, her eyes fixed on the man. Bitter, bitter, the irony of this. Why now, when I am resolved and pledged to think no more of him but to do my sworn duty by my lord and king ... Round her neck, beneath the golden torque Arthur had given her when they had been wedded a full five years, she could feel the weight of Morgaine’s charm, sewn into a little bag between her breasts. She did not know, had not wanted to know, what Morgaine had put into it.
Why now? I had hoped that when he came home for Pentecost, I should be already bearing my lord’s child, and he would look no more on me, since it was so clear I was resolved to honor my marriage.
Yet against her will, she remembered Arthur’s words: Should you bear me a child, I would not question ... do you know what I am saying to you? Gwenhwyfar had known what he meant all too well. Lancelet’s son could be heir to the kingdom. Was this new temptation offered her, now, because she had already fallen into grievous sin by meddling with Morgaine’s sorcery, and making wild and unchaste threats, hoping to force Morgaine into helping her ... ?
I do not care, if so be it I can bear my king a son ... if a God would damn me for that, what have I to do with him? She was frightened at her own blasphemy, yet it had been blasphemy, too, to think of going to the lighted Beltane fires ... .
“Look, Gawaine is down, even he could not stand against Lancelet’s riding,” Elaine said eagerly. “And Cai, too! How could Lancelet strike down a lame man?”
“Don’t be more of a fool than you must, Elaine,” said Morgaine. “Do you think Cai would thank Lancelet for sparing him? If Cai went into these games, surely he is able to risk whatever hurt he could take! No one bade him compete.”
It had been foreordained from the moment Lancelet took the field who would win the prize. There was some good-natured grumbling among the Companions when they saw it. “There is no use in any of us entering the lists at all, while Lancelet is here,” Gawaine said, laughing, his arm around his cousin. “Couldn’t you have stayed away another day or so, Lance?”
Lancelet was laughing too, a high color in his face. He took the golden cup and tossed it in the air. “Your mother, too, besought me to stay in her court for Beltane. I came not here to defraud you of the prize—I have no need of prizes. Gwenhwyfar, my lady,” he cried, “take this, and give me instead the ribbon you wear about your neck. The cup may go to the altar or to the Queen’s high table!”
Embarrassed, Gwenhwyfar’s hand flew to her throat and the ribbon on which she had tied Morgaine’s charm. “This I may not give you, my friend—“ But she fumbled at the sleeve which she had embroidered with small pearls. “Take this for a kindness to my champion. As for the prize— well, I will give prizes to all of you—“ She gestured to Gawaine and Gareth, who had come in after Lancelet in the riding.
“Graciously done,” Arthur said, rising in his place, while Lancelet took the embroidered silk and kissed it, then fastened it around his helm. “But my most valiant fighter must still be honored. You will sit with us at the high table, Lancelet, and tell us all that has befallen you since you left my court.”
Gwenhwyfar excused herself with her ladies, the better to prepare for the feast. Elaine and Meleas were chattering about Lancelet’s valor, his riding, his generosity in giving up all claim to the prize. Gwenhwyfar could think only of the look he had given her when he begged her for the ribbon about her throat. She looked up and met Morgaine’s dark, enigmatic smile. I cannot even pray for peace of mind. I have forfeited the right to pray.
For the first hour of the feast she was moving about, making sure that all of the guests were properly seated and served. By the time she took her seat at the high table they were drunk, most of them, and it was very dark outside. The servants brought lamps and torches, fastening them into the wall, and Arthur said jovially, “See, my lady, we are lighting our own Beltane fire within walls.”
Morgaine had come to sit close to Lancelet. Gwenhwyfar’s face throbbed with heat and with the wine she had drunk; she turned away so that she might not see them. Lancelet said, with a great yawn, “Why, it is Beltane indeed—I had forgotten.”
“And Gwenhwyfar had it that we must have a feast so that none of our folk would be tempted to slip away into the old rites,” Arthur said. “There are more ways to skin a wolf than chasing him out of his fur—if I forbade the fires, then would I be a tyrant—“
“And,” Morgaine said, in her low voice, “faithless to Avalon, my brother.”
“But if my lady makes it more pleasant for my people here to sit at our feast instead of going out into the fields to dance by the fires, then is our purpose achieved more simply!”
Morgaine shrugged. To Gwenhwyfar it seemed that she was secretly amused. She had drunk but little—perhaps she was the only wholly sober person at the King’s table. “You have been travelling in Lothian, Lancelet —do they keep the Beltane rites there?”
“So says the Queen,” Lancelet said, “but for all I know, she may have been jesting with me—I saw nothing to suggest that Queen Morgause is not the most Christian of ladies.” But it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he glanced uneasily at Gawaine as he spoke. “Mark what I say, Gawaine, I said nothing against the lady of Lothian, I have no quarrel with you or yours ... .”
But only a soft snore answered him, and Morgaine’s laughter was brittle. “Look, yonder lies Gawaine asleep with his head on the table! I too would ask news of Lothian, Lancelet... I do not think anyone reared there could so quickly forget the Beltane fires. The sun tides run in the blood of anyone reared on Avalon, like me, like Queen Morgause—is it not so, Lancelet? Arthur, do you remember the kingmaking on Dragon Island? How many years ago—nine, ten—“
Arthur looked displeased, though he spoke gently enough. “That is many years past and gone, as you say, sister, and the world changes with every season. I think the time for such things is past, save, perhaps, for those who live with fields and crops and must call on the Goddess for their blessing
—Taliesin would say so, and I will not gainsay it. But I think those old rites have little to do with such as we who dwell in castles and cities and have heard the word of Christ.” He raised his wine cup, emptied it, and spoke with drunken emphasis. “God will give us all we desire—all that is right for us to have—without need to call upon the old Gods, is it not so, Lance?”
Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet’s eyes on her for a moment before he said, “Which of us has all things he may desire, my king? No king, and no God, can grant that.”
“But I want my—my subjects to have all they need,” repeated Arthur thickly. “And so does my queen, giving us our own Bel-Beltane fires here—“
“Arthur,” said Morgaine gently, “you are drunk.”
“Well, and why not?” he asked her belligerently. “At my own feast and my own—own fire, and what else did I fight the Saxons for, all those years? Sit here at my own Round Table and enjoy the—the peace—good ale and wine, and good music—where is Kevin the Harper? Am I to have no music at my feast?”
Lancelet said, laughing, “I have no doubt he has gone to worship the Goddess at her fires, and to play his harp there, on Dragon Island.”
“Why, this is treason,” said Arthur thickly. “And another reason to forbid the Beltane fires, so I may have music—“
Morgaine laughed and said lightheartedly, “You cannot command the conscience of another, my brother. Kevin is a Druid and has the right to offer his music to his own Gods if he will.” She leaned her chin on her hands, and Gwenhwyfar thought she looked like a cat licking cream from her whiskers. “But I think he has already kept Beltane in his own way—no doubt he has gone to his bed, for all the company here is too drunken to tell the difference between his harping and mine and Gawaine’s howling pipes! Even as he sleeps he plays the music of Lothian,” she added, as a particularly raucous snore from the sleeping Gawaine cut the silence, and she gestured to one of the chamberlains, who went and persuaded Gawaine to his feet. He bowed groggily to Arthur and staggered from the hall.
Lancelet raised the cup in his hand and drained it. “I too have had enough of music and feasting, I think—I have ridden since before daylight, since I would come to your games this day, and soon, I think, I will beg leave to be away to my bed, Arthur.” Gwenhwyfar gauged his drunkenness by that offhanded Arthur; in public he was always very careful to speak formally to Arthur as “my lord,” or “my king,” and only when they were alone did he say “cousin” or “Arthur.”
But indeed, so late in the feast, there were few sober enough to notice—they might as well have been alone together. Arthur did not even answer Lancelet; he had slipped down a little in his high seat, and his eyes were half closed. Well, Gwenhwyfar thought, he had said it himself—it was his own feast and his own fireside, and if a man could not be drunken in his own house, why had he fought so many years to make their feasts safe and secure?
And if Arthur should be too drunk tonight to welcome her to his bed, after all... she could feel the ribbon about her neck, where the charm hung, and its weight heavy and hot between her breasts. ‘Tis Beltane; could he not keep sober for that? Had he been bidden to one of those old pagan feasts, he would have remembered, she thought, and her cheeks burned with the immodesty of the thought. I must be drunk too! She looked angrily at Morgaine, cool and sober, toying with the ribbons of her harp. Why should Morgaine smile like that?
Lancelet leaned toward her and said, “I think our lord and king has had enough of feasting and wine, my queen. Will you dismiss the servants and Companions, madam, and I’ll find Arthur’s chamberlain to help him to his bed.”
Lancelet rose. Gwenhwyfar could tell he was drunk, too, but he carried it well, moving with only a little more carefulness than usual. As she began to pass among the guests to bid them good night, she felt her own head swim and her steps unsteady. Seeing Morgaine’s enigmatic smile, she could still hear the words of the damnable sorceress: Do not seek to blame me, Gwenhwyfar, if the charm acts other than you think it should ... .
Lancelet came back through the guests streaming out of the hall. “I can’t find my lord’s body servant—someone in the kitchens said they were all away to Dragon Island for the fires ... is Gawaine still here, or Balan? They are the only ones big and strong enough to carry our lord and king to his bed ... .”
“Gawaine was too drunk to carry himself,” Gwenhwyfar said, “and I saw not Balan at all. And for sure you cannot carry him, for he is taller and heavier than you—“
“Still, I’ll have at it,” said Lancelet, laughing, and bent beside Arthur.
“Come, cousin—Gwydion! There’s none to carry you to bed—I’ll give you my arm. Here, come up, there’s my brave fellow,” he said, as if he spoke to a child, and Arthur opened his eyes and staggered to his feet. Lancelet’s steps were none too steady, either, thought Gwenhwyfar as she followed the men, nor for that matter were her own ... a fine sight they must look, if any servants were sober enough to notice, High King and High Queen and the King’s captain of horse all staggering to bed on Beltane-eve too drunk for their feet to carry them ... .
But Arthur sobered a little when Lancelet hauled him over the threshold of their room; he went to a ewer of water in the corner, splashed some on his face, and drank more.
“Thank you, cousin,” he said, his voice still slow and drunken. “My lady and I have much for which to thank you, that is certain, and I know you love us both well—“
“God is my witness to that,” said Lancelet, but he looked at Gwenhwyfar with something like despair. “Shall I go and find one of your servants, cousin?”
“No, stay a moment,” Arthur said. “There is something I would say to you, and if I find not the courage for it now in drink, I shall never say it sober. Gwen, can you manage without your women? I have no mind that this should be carried beyond this chamber by idle tongues. Lancelet, come here and sit by me,” and sitting on the edge of the bed, he stretched out his hand to his friend. “You too, sweeting—now listen to me, both. Gwenhwyfar has no child—and do you think I have not seen how you two look at each other? I spoke of this once to Gwen, but she is so modest and pious, she would not hear me. Yet now at Beltane, when all life on this earth seems to cry out with breeding and fertility ... how can I say this? There is an old saying among the Saxons, a friend is one to whom you will lend your favorite wife and your favorite sword ... .”
Gwenhwyfar’s face was burning; she could not look at either of the men. Arthur went on, slowly, “A son of yours, Lance, would be heir to my kingdom, and better that than it should go to Lot’s sons.... Oh, yes, Bishop Patricius would call it grievous sin, no doubt, as if his God were some elderly chaperone who went about at night looking to see who slept in whose bed ... I think it greater sin to make no provision for a son to inherit my kingdom. Then should we fall into such chaos as threatened before Uther came to the throne—my friend, my cousin—what do you say?”
Gwenhwyfar saw Lancelet moisten his lips with his tongue, and she felt the dryness of her own mouth. At last he said, “I know not what to say, my king—my friend—my cousin. God knows—there is no other woman on this earth—“ and his voice broke; he looked at Gwenhwyfar and it seemed she could not endure the naked longing in his eyes. For a moment she thought she would swoon away, and put out a hand to steady herself on the bed frame.
I am still drunk, she thought, I am dreaming this, I cannot have heard him say what I thought I heard ... . and she felt an agonizing burst of shame. It seemed she could not live and let them speak of her like this.
Lancelot’s eyes had not moved from hers.
“It is for my—for my lady to say.”
Arthur held out his arms to her. He had drawn off his boots and the rich robe he had worn at the feast; in his undertunic he looked very like the boy she had wedded years ago. He said, “Come here, Gwen,” and drew her down on his knee. “You know I love you well—you and Lance, I think, are the two I love best in the world, save for—“ He swallowed and stopped, and Gwenhwyfar thought suddenly, I have thought only of my own love, I have had no thought for Arthur. He took me unseen, unwanted, and he has shown me love and honored me as his queen. But I never thought that as I love Lancelet, there may well be one whom Arthur loves and cannot have ... not without sin and betrayal. I wonder if that is why Morgaine mocks me, she knows Arthur’s secret loves ... or his sins ...
But Arthur went on deliberately, “I think I would never have had the courage to say this, were it not Beltane ... . For many hundreds of years, our forefathers have done these things without shame, in the very faces of our Gods and by their will. And—listen to this, my dearest—if I am here with you, my Gwenhwyfar, then should a child come of this, then you may swear without any untruth that this child was conceived in your marriage bed, and none of us need ever know for certain—dear love, will you not consent to this?”
Gwenhwyfar could not breathe. Slowly, slowly, she reached out her hand and laid it in Lancelet’s. She felt Arthur’s touch on her hair as Lancelet leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth.
I have been married many years and I am as frightened now as any virgin, she thought, and then she remembered Morgaine’s words when she laid the charm about her neck. Beware what you ask for, Gwenhwyfar, for the Goddess may grant it to you ... .
At the time, she had thought Morgaine meant only that if she prayed for a child, then she might well die in childbirth. Now she knew it was more subtle than that, for it had come about that she should have Lancelet, and without guilt, with her husband’s own will and permission ... and in a flash of awareness, she thought, It was this I wanted, after all; after all these years it is certain that I am barren, I will bear no child, but I will have had this at least ... .
With shaking hands she undid her gown. It seemed that the whole world had dwindled down to this, this perfect awareness of herself, of her own body aching with desire, a hunger she had never believed she could feel. Lancelet’s skin was so soft—she had thought all men were like Arthur, sunburnt and hairy, but his body was smooth as a child’s. Ah, but she loved them both, loved Arthur all the more that he could be generous enough to give her this ... they were both holding her now, and she closed her eyes and put up her face to be kissed, not knowing for certain which man’s lips closed over hers. But it was Lancelet’s hand that stroked her cheek, moved down to her naked throat where the ribbon clung.
“Why, what’s this, Gwen?” he asked, his mouth against hers. “Nothing,” she said, “nothing. Some rubbish Morgaine gave me.” She pulled it free and flung it into a corner, sinking back into her husband’s arms and her lover’s.