3

When Morgaine woke, all around her the castle was already waking to the noise and confusion of a holiday. Pentecost. In the courtyard there were banners flying, and people were streaming in and out of the gates, servants were setting up lists for the games, pavilions were sprouting all over Camelot and on the slopes of the hill like strange and beautiful flowers. There was no time for dreams and visions. Gwenhwyfar sent for her to dress her hair—no woman in all Camelot was so deft with her hands as Morgaine, and Morgaine had promised her that this morning she would braid the Queen’s hair in the special plaits with four strands which she herself used on high festivals. While she was combing out and separating Gwenhwyfar’s fine silky hair for braiding, Morgaine glanced sidewise at the bed from which her sister-in-law had risen. Arthur had already been dressed by his servants and gone out. The pages and chamberlains were spreading the covers, taking away soiled clothes to be cleaned and washed, laying out fresh gowns for Gwenhwyfar’s approval.

 

Morgaine thought: They shared that bed, all three of them, Lancelet, Gwenhwyfar, Arthur—no, such a thing was not wholly unknown; she remembered something in the fairy country that would not come clear in her mind. Lancelet was tormented, and she could have no idea how Arthur regarded all this. As her small quick hands moved on Gwenhwyfar’s hair, she wondered what her sister-in-law felt. Suddenly her own mind was flooded with erotic images, memory of that day on Dragon Island when Arthur, waking, had drawn her into his arms, of the night she had lain in Lancelet’s arms in the field. She lowered her eyes and went on twisting the fine hair.

 

“You are pulling it too tight,” Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine said stiffly, “I am sorry,” and forced her hands to relax. Arthur had been only a boy then, and she a maiden. Lancelet—did he give to Gwenhwyfar what he had withheld from her, or was the Queen content with those childish caresses? Try as Morgaine would, she could not turn her mind from the hateful pictures that haunted it, but she went on calmly braiding, her face a mask.

 

“There, that will hold—hand me the silver pin,” she said, fastening up the braids. Gwenhwyfar surveyed herself, delighted, in the copper mirror which was one of her treasures. “It is beautiful, dear sister—thank you so much,” she said, turning and impulsively embracing Morgaine, who stiffened in her arms.

 

“You owe me no thanks—it is easier to do on another’s head than my own,” Morgaine said. “Wait, that pin is slipping—“ and she refastened it. Gwenhwyfar was glowing, beautiful—and Morgaine put her arms around her, laying her cheek for a moment against Gwenhwyfar’s. It seemed enough, for a moment, to touch that beauty, as if something of it could penetrate her and give her some of that glow and loveliness. Then she remembered again what Lancelet had told her, and thought, I am no better than he. I too nurse all manner of strange and perverse desires, and who am I to mock at any?

 

She envied the Queen, laughing happily as she directed Elaine to go to her chests and seek out cups for prizes for the winners of the games. Gwenhwyfar was simple and open, she was never tortured by these dark thoughts; Gwenhwyfar’s griefs were simple, the griefs and troubles of any woman, fear for her husband’s safety, grief over her childlessness—for all the charm’s working, there had been no sign of pregnancy. If one man could not get her with child, it is likely that two could not, Morgaine thought wickedly.

 

Gwenhwyfar was smiling. “Shall we go down? I have not greeted the guests—King Uriens is here from North Wales, with his grown son. How would you like to be Queen of Wales, Morgaine? I have heard that Uriens will ask the King for a wife among his wards—“

 

Morgaine laughed. “You think I would make him a good queen because I am not likely to give him a son to challenge Avalloch’s claim to the throne?”

 

“It is true you would be old to bear a first child,” Gwenhwyfar said, “yet I still have hope that I may give my lord and king an heir.” Gwenhwyfar did not know that Morgaine had a child, and she should never know.

 

Yet it nagged at her.

 

Arthur should know that he has a son. He blames himself that he can give Gwenhwyfar no child—for his own peace of mind he should know. And if it should come to pass that Gwenhwyfar never bears a child, then at least the King has a son. None need know that it is his own sister’s. And Gwydion bears the royal line of Avalon. And now he is old enough to be sent to Avalon and be made a Druid. Truly I should have gone to look upon his face, long before this day ...  .

 

“Listen,” said Elaine, “the trumpets are blowing in the courtyard— someone important is here, and we must make haste—they will serve mass in the church this morning.”

 

“And Gareth is to be knighted,” said Gwenhwyfar. “It is a pity Lot did not live to see his youngest son made knight—“

 

Morgaine shrugged. “He took no great joy in Arthur’s company, nor Arthur in his.” So, she thought, Lancelet’s protege would be made one of the Companions; and then she remembered what Lancelet had told her about the ritual watch and vigil of knighthood—the mockery of the Mysteries. Is it my task to speak to Arthur about his duty to Avalon? He bore the image of the Virgin into battle at Mount Badon; he laid aside the dragon banner; and now he has turned one of the greater Mysteries over to the Christian priests. I will seek counsel of Taliesin ...  .

 

“We must go down,” said Gwenhwyfar, and tied on her pockets at her waist, fastening her keys to her girdle. She looked fine and stately with the braided headdress, in her gown of saffron color; Elaine wore a dress dyed green, and Morgaine her red gown. They went down the stair, gathering before the church. Gawaine saluted Morgaine, saying, “Kinswoman,” and bowed to the Queen. Beyond him she saw a familiar face, and frowned a little, trying to remember where she had seen that knight before: tall, burly, bearded, almost as blond as a Saxon or a Northman, then she remembered, Balan’s foster-brother Balin. She bowed to him coldly. He was a stupid, narrow-minded fool, yet even so he was bound by the sacred ties of foster-kin to Viviane, who was her nearest and dearest kinswoman.

 

“I greet you, sir Balin.”

 

He scowled a little but remembered his manners. He was wearing a frayed and ragged surcoat; clearly he had been travelling long and had not yet had time to dress and refresh himself. “Are you going to mass, lady Morgaine? Have you renounced the fiends of Avalon and left that evil place, and accepted our Lord and Saviour Christ, lady?”

 

Morgaine found the question an offense, but did not say so. With a careful smile, she said, “I am going to mass to see our kinsman Gareth knighted.” As she hoped, it changed Balin’s direction.

 

“Gawaine’s little brother. Balan and I knew him less well than the others,” he said. “It is hard to think of him as a man—in my mind he is always the little lad who frightened the horses at Arthur’s wedding, and came near to having Galahad killed.” Morgaine recalled that was Lancelet’s real name—no doubt the pious Balin was too proud to use any other. Balin bowed to her and went on into the church; Morgaine, following with Gwenhwyfar, watched him, frowning. There was the light of fanaticism about his face, and she was just as well pleased that Viviane was not here, although both the Lady’s sons were here—Lancelet and Balan—and they could certainly prevent any real trouble.

 

The church had been decorated with flowers, and the people too, in their brilliant holiday dress, looked like massed flowers. Gareth had been dressed in a white linen robe, and Lancelet, in crimson, knelt beside him, beautiful and grave, Morgaine thought, the fair and the dark, the white and the crimson—and then another comparison occurred to her: Gareth happy and innocent, joyous at this initiation, and Lancelet sorrowful and tormented. Yet as he knelt, listening to the priest reading the Pentecost story, he looked calm and altogether unlike the tortured man who had poured out his soul to her.

 

“... and when the day of Pentecost was done, they were all gathered together in one place; and suddenly out of the sky came the sound of a violent wind, which filled the whole house where they were staying. And there appeared tongues as of fire, which divided and sat on them, one to each. And they all were filled with the Holy Breath, and they began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now there were living in Jerusalem Jews of the strict observance, from every race under the sky; and when this sound happened, the whole multitude came together and were confused, because every one of them heard these men speaking in his own language. And they were as men driven out of their minds, saying to one another, ‘Look! Are all these preachers not Galileans? And how are we hearing them, each one of us, in our own native languages? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and men out of Mesopotamia, both Judea and Cappadocia, Asia, both Phrygia and Pamphylia, and visitors from Rome, Jews and Cretans and Arabs; but we all hear them talking in our own languages.’ And they were all astounded, asking one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others said, mockingly, ‘These men have drunk too much of sweet new wine, so early in the day.’ Then Peter the Apostle raised his voice and said to them, ‘Men of Judea, and all of you, listen to my words; these men are not drunk as you imagine, since itis only the third hour; but it is as the prophet Joel has written; God says, in the last days of the world, I will send out my Spirit into all flesh, and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.’ “

 

Morgaine, kneeling quietly in her place, thought, Why, it was the Sight that came upon them and they did not understand it. Nor had they cared to understand; to them it only proved that their God was greater than other Gods. Now the priest was talking of the last days of the world, how God would pour out his gifts of vision and prophecy, but she wondered if any of these Christians knew how commonplace all these gifts were, after all? Anyone could master these powers when he had demonstrated that he could use them suitably. But that did not include trying to astonish the common people with silly miracles! The Druids used their powers to do good privately, not to collect crowds!

 

When the faithful approached the rail for their shared bread and wine in commemoration, Morgaine shook her head and stepped back, though Gwenhwyfar tried to draw her forward; she was not a Christian and she would not pretend.

 

Afterward, outside the church, she watched the ceremony where Lancelet drew his sword and touched Gareth with it, his strong and musical voice clear and solemn. “Arise now, Gareth, Companion of Arthur, and brother now to all of us here, and to every knight of this company. Forget not to defend your king, and to live at peace with all knights of Arthur and all peaceful people everywhere, but remember always to make war against evil and to defend those who are in need of protection.”

 

Morgaine recalled Arthur receiving Excalibur at the hands of the Lady. She glanced at him and wondered if he remembered too, and if this was why he had instituted this solemn pledge and ceremonial, so that the young men made knights in his company might have some such rite to remember. Perhaps this was not, after all, a mockery of the holy Mysteries, but an attempt to preserve them as best he could  ...  but why must it take place in the church? Would a day come when he would refuse it to any who were not pledged Christian? During the service, Gareth and his cousin and sponsor Lancelet had been first to receive holy communion, even before the King. Was this not putting this order of knighthood into the church as a Christian rite, one of their sacraments? Lancelet had no right to do this; he was not himself qualified to confer the Mysteries on any other. Was this a profanation or an honest attempt to bring the Mysteries into the hearts and souls of all the court? Morgaine did not know.

 

After the service, there was an interval before the games. Morgaine greeted Gareth and gave him her gift, a fine dyed-leather belt on which he could carry sword and dagger. He bent down to kiss her.

 

“Ah, you have grown, little one—I doubt if your mother would know you!”

 

“It happens to all of us, dear cousin,” Gareth said, smiling. “I doubt you would know your own son!” Then he was surrounded by the other knights, jostling and crowding to welcome and congratulate him; Arthur clasped his hands and spoke to him in a way that made Gareth’s fair skin glow.

 

Morgaine saw that Gwenhwyfar was watching her sharply. “Morgaine —what was it Gareth said—your son?”

 

Morgaine said sharply, “If I have never told you, sister-in-law, it is because I respected your religion. I bore a son to the Goddess, from the Beltane rites. He is being fostered at Lot’s court; I have not seen him since he was weaned. Are you content, or will you spread my secret everywhere?”

 

“No,” said Gwenhwyfar, turning pale. “What sorrow for you, to be parted from your babe! I am sorry, Morgaine; and I will not tell even Arthur —he is Christian too and he would be shocked.”

 

You do not know how shocked he would be, Morgaine thought grimly. Her heart was pounding. Could Gwenhwyfar be trusted with her secret? There were too many now who knew it!

 

The trumpet had been blown for the beginning of the games; Arthur had agreed not to take the lists, for no one wanted to attack his king, but one side of the mock battle was to be led by Lancelet as the King’s champion and the other fell by lot to Uriens of North Wales, a hearty man well past middle age, but still strong and muscular. At his side was his second son, Accolon. Morgaine noted that as Accolon drew on his gloves his wrists were revealed; around them coiled blue tattooed serpents. He was an initiate of Dragon Island!

 

Gwenhwyfar had been jesting, no doubt, about marrying her to old Uriens. But Accolon—there was a proper man; perhaps, except for Lancelet, the handsomest young man on the field. Morgaine found herself admiring his skill at arms. Agile and well built, he moved with the natural ease of a man to whom such exercises come readily and who has been handling weapons since boyhood. Sooner or later, Arthur would wish to give her in marriage; if he should offer her to Accolon, would she say no?

 

After a time her attention began to wander. Most of the other women had long since lost interest and were gossiping about feats of prowess they had heard of; some were playing at dice in their sheltered seats; a few were watching with animation, having wagered ribbons or pins or small coins on their husbands or brothers or sweethearts.

 

“It is hardly worth wagering,” said one discontentedly, “for we all know that Lancelet will win the day—he always does.”

 

“Are you saying he does so unfairly?” Elaine asked with a flare of resentment, and the strange woman said, “By no means. But he should, at these games, stay on the sidelines, since no one can stand against him.”

 

Morgaine laughed. “I have seen young Gareth there, Gawaine’s brother, throw him ass-over-head in the dirt,” she said, “and he took that in good part, too. But if you want sport, I will wager you a crimson silk ribbon that Accolon wins a prize, even over Lancelet.”

 

“Done,” said the woman, and Morgaine rose in her seat. She said, “I have no taste for watching men batter each other for sport—there has been enough of fighting that I am weary even of the sound of it.” She nodded to Gwenhwyfar. “Sister, may I go back to the hall and see that all is in order for the feasting?”

 

Gwenhwyfar nodded permission, and Morgaine slid down at the back of the seats and made her way toward the main courtyard. The great gates were open and guarded only by a few who had no wish to attend the mock battles. Morgaine started toward the castle and never knew what intuition it was that sent her back toward the gates, or why she stood watching a pair of approaching riders who were arriving late for the first festivities. But as they came nearer, her skin began to prickle with foreboding, and then she began to run, as they rode through the gates, and now she was weeping. “Viviane,” she cried out, and then stopped, afraid to throw herself into her kinswoman’s arms; instead she knelt on the dusty ground and bent her head.

 

The soft, familiar voice, unchanged, just as she had heard it in dreams, said gently, “Morgaine, my darling child, it is you! How I have longed to meet with you all these years. Come, come, darling, you need not ever kneel to me.”

 

Morgaine raised her face, but she was trembling too hard to rise. Viviane, her face shrouded in grey veils, was bending over her; she put out a hand, and Morgaine kissed it, and then Viviane pulled her close into an embrace. “Darling, it has been so long—“ she said, and Morgaine struggled helplessly not to cry.

 

“I have been so troubled about you,” Viviane said, holding tight to Morgaine’s hand as they walked toward the entrance. “From time to time I would see you, a little, in the pool—but I am old, I can use the Sight but seldom. Yet I knew you lived, you were not dead in childbirth, nor far over the seas ... I longed to look on your face, little one.” Her voice was as tender as if there had never been any quarrel between them, and Morgaine was flooded by the old affection.

 

“All the people of the court are at the games. Morgause’s youngest son was made knight and Companion this morning,” she said. “I think I must have known that you were coming—“ and then she recalled the moment of the Sight, last night; indeed, she had known. “Why have you come here, Mother?”

 

“I thought you had heard how Arthur betrayed Avalon,” Viviane said. “Kevin has spoken to him in my name, but without avail. So I have come to stand here before his throne and demand justice. In Arthur’s name the lesser kings are forbidding the old worship, sacred groves have been despoiled, even on the land where Arthur’s queen rules by inheritance, and Arthur has done nothing—“

 

“Gwenhwyfar is overpious,” Morgaine murmured, and felt her lip cruel in disdain; so pious, yet taking her husband’s cousin and champion to her bed, with the sanction of that too-pious King! But a priestess of Avalon did not babble the secrets of the bedchamber if they came into her keeping. It seemed that Viviane read her thoughts, for she said, “Nay, Morgaine, but a time might come when some secret knowledge might give me a weapon to force Arthur to his sworn duty. One hold, indeed, I have over him, though for your sake, child, I would not use it before his court. Tell me—“ She glanced around. “No, not here. Take me where we may talk together in secret, and let me refresh myself and make myself seemly to stand before Arthur at his great feast.”

 

Morgaine took her to the room she shared with Gwenhwyfar’s ladies, who were all at the games; the servants were gone too, so she herself fetched Viviane water for washing, and wine to drink, and helped her to change her dusty, travel-worn clothing.

 

“I met with your son in Lothian,” Viviane said. “Kevin told me.” The old pain clutched at her heart—so Viviane had gotten what she wanted of her, after all: a son of the doubled royal lines, for Avalon. “Will you make him a Druid, then, for Avalon?”

 

“It is too soon to know what stuff he has in him,” said Viviane. “Too long, I fear, was he left in Morgause’s keeping. But whether or no, he must be reared in Avalon, and loyal to the old Gods, so that if Arthur is false to his oath, we may remind him that there is a son of the Pendragon’s blood to take his place—we will have no king turned apostate and tyrant, forcing that god of slaves and sin and shame down the throats of our people! We set him on Uther’s throne, we can bring him down if we must, and all the more readily if there is one of the old royal line of Avalon, a son of the Goddess, to take his place. Arthur is a good king, I would be reluctant to make such threats; but if I must, I will—the Goddess orders my actions.” Morgaine shuddered; would her child be the instrument of his father’s death? She turned her face resolutely from the Sight. “I do not think Arthur will be this false to Avalon.”

 

“The Goddess grant he may not,” Viviane said, “but even so, the Christians would not accept a son gotten in that rite. We must keep a place near the throne for Gwydion, so that he may be his father’s heir, and one day we will have a king born of Avalon again. The Christians, mark you, Morgaine, would think your son born out of sin; but before the Goddess he is of the purest royalty of all, mother and father born of her lineage— sacred, not evil. And he must come to think himself so, not be contaminated by priests who would tell him his begetting and birth were shameful.” She looked Morgaine straight in the eye. “You still think it shameful?”

 

Morgaine lowered her head. “Always you could read my heart, kinswoman.”

 

“Igraine’s is the fault,” said Viviane, “and mine, that I left you at Uther’s court seven years. The day I knew you priestess-born, I should have had you from there. You are priestess of Avalon, darling child, why came you never back?” She turned, the comb in her hand, her long faded hair falling along her face.

 

Morgaine whispered, tears forcing themselves through the barrier of her tight eyes, “I cannot. I cannot, Viviane. I tried—I could not find the way.” And all the humiliation and shame of that washed over her, and she wept.

 

Viviane put down the comb and caught Morgaine to her breast, holding her, rocking and soothing her like a child. “Darling, my own darling girl, do not cry, do not cry ... if I had known, child, I would have come to you. Don’t cry now—I shall myself take you back, we will go together when I have given Arthur my message. I will take you with me and go, before he gets it into his head to marry you off to some braying Christian ass ... yes, yes, child, you shall come back to Avalon ... we will go together ...  .” She wiped Morgaine’s wet face on her own veil. “Come, now, help me to dress myself to stand before my kinsman the High King—“

 

Morgaine drew a deep breath. “Yes, let me braid your hair, Mother.” She tried to laugh. “This morning I did the Queen’s hair.”

 

Viviane held her away and said, in great anger, “Has Arthur put you, priestess of Avalon and princess in your own right, to waiting hand and foot on his queen?”

 

“No, no,” said Morgaine quickly, “I am honored as high as the Queen herself—I dressed Gwenhwyfar’s hair this day out of friendship; she is as likely to do mine, or to lace my gown, as sisters do.”

 

Viviane sighed with relief. “I would not have you dishonored. You are the mother of Arthur’s son. He must learn to honor you as such, and so must the daughter of Leodegranz—“

 

“No!” Morgaine cried. “No, I beg of you—Arthur must not know, not before the whole court—listen to me, Mother,” she pleaded, “all these folk are Christian. Would you have me shamed before them all?”

 

Viviane said implacably, “They must learn not to think shame of holy things!”

 

“But the Christians have power over all this land,” Morgaine said, “and you cannot change their thinking with a few words—“ And in her heart she wondered, had advancing age driven Viviane out of her wits? There was no way simply to proclaim that the old laws of Avalon should be set up again and two hundred years of Christianity be overthrown. The priests would drive her out of the court as a madwoman and go on as before. Viviane must know enough of practical ruling to know this! And indeed, Viviane nodded and said, “You are right, we must work slowly. But Arthur at least must be reminded of his promise to protect Avalon, and I will speak to him in secret, one day, about the child. We cannot proclaim it aloud among the ignorant.”

 

Then Morgaine helped Viviane to arrange her hair and to dress herself in the stately robes of a priestess of Avalon, dressed for high ceremonial. And it was not long before they heard sounds telling them that the mock games were over. No doubt the prizes would be given indoors this time, at the feast; she wondered if Lancelet had won them all again in honor of his king. Or, she thought sourly, his queen? And could one call that honor?

 

They turned to leave the chamber, and as they left the room, Viviane touched her hand gently. “You will return to Avalon with me, will you not, dear child?”

 

“If Arthur will let me go  ... ”

 

“Morgaine, you are a priestess of Avalon, and you need not ask leave, even of the High King, to come and go as it pleases you. A High King is a leader in battle—he does not own the lives of his subjects, or even of his subject kings, as if he were one of those Eastern tyrants who thinks the world is his and the life of every man and woman in it. I will tell him I have need of you in Avalon and we will see what he answers to that.”

 

Morgaine felt herself choking with unshed tears. Oh, to return to Avalon, to go home  ...  but even as she held Viviane’s hand she could not believe she was truly to go there after this day. Later she was to say, I knew, I knew, and recognize the despair and foreboding that struck her at the words, but at the moment she was certain it was only her own fear, the sense that she was not worthy of what she had cast away.

 

Then they went down into Arthur’s great hall for the Pentecost feasting.

 

It was Camelot, Morgaine thought, as she had never seen it before, and perhaps would never see it again. The great Round Table, Leodegranz’s wedding gift, was now set in a hall worthy of its majesty; the halls had been hung with silks and banners, and a trick of the arrangement made it so that all eyes were drawn to where Arthur sat, at the high seat at the far end of the hall. For this day he had brought Gareth to sit beside him and his queen, and all the knights and Companions were ringed together, the Companions in fine clothing, their weapons gleaming, the ladies garbed brightly as flowers. One after another, the petty kings came, knelt before Arthur and brought him gifts; Morgaine watched Arthur’s face, grave, solemn, gentle. She looked sidewise at Viviane—surely she must see that Arthur had grown into a good king, not one to be lightly judged, even by Avalon or the Druids. But who was she to weigh causes between Arthur and Avalon? She felt the old tremor of disquiet, as in the old days at Avalon when she was being taught to open her mind to the Sight that would use her as its instrument, and found herself wishing, without understanding why, Would that Viviane were a hundred leagues from here!

 

She looked around the Companions—Gawaine, sandy and bulldog-strong, smiling at his newly knighted brother; Gareth, shining somehow like new-minted gold. Lancelet looked dark and beautiful, and as if his thoughts were somewhere at the other end of the world. Pellinore, greying and gentle, his daughter, Elaine, waiting on him.

 

And now one came to Arthur’s throne who was not one of the Companions. Morgaine had not seen him before, but she saw that Gwenhwyfar recognized him and shrank away.

 

“I am the only living son of King Leodegranz,” he said, “and brother to your queen, Arthur. I demand that you recognize my claim to the Summer Country.”

 

Arthur said mildly, “You do not make demands in this court, Meleagrant. I will consider your request and take counsel of my queen, and it may be that I will consent to name you her regent. But I cannot deliver you judgment now.”

 

“Then it may be I shall not wait for your judgment!” shouted Meleagrant. He was a big man, who had come to the feast wearing not only sword and dagger, but a great bronze battle-axe; he was dressed in ill-tanned furs and skins, and looked savage and grim as any Saxon bandit. His two men-at-arms looked even more ruffianly than he did himself. “I am the only surviving son of Leodegranz.”

 

Gwenhwyfar leaned forward and whispered to Arthur. The King said, “My lady tells me that her father always denied he had begotten you. Rest assured, we shall have this matter looked into, and if your claim is good we will allow it. For the moment, sir Meleagrant, I ask you to trust to my justice, and join me in feasting. We will take this up with our councillors and do you such justice as we can.”

 

“Feasting be damned!” said Meleagrant angrily. “I came not here to eat comfits and look at ladies and watch grown men making sport like boys! I tell you, Arthur, I am king of that country, and if you dare dispute my claim it will be the worse for you—and for your lady!”

 

He laid his hand on the hilt of his great battle-axe, but Cai and Gareth were immediately there, pinioning his arms behind him.

 

“No steel’s to be drawn in die King’s hall,” said Cai roughly, while Gareth twisted the axe out of his hand and set it at the foot of Arthur’s chair. “Go to your seat, man, and eat your meat. We’ll have order at the Round Table, and when our king has said he’ll do you justice, you’ll wait on his good pleasure!”

 

They spun him roughly round, but Meleagrant struggled free of their hands and said, “To hell with your feast and to hell with your justice, then! And to hell with your Round Table and all your Companions!” He left the axe and turned his back, stamping down all the length of the hall. Cai took a step after him, and Gawaine half rose, but Arthur motioned him to sit down again.

 

“Let him go,” he said. “We will deal with him at the proper time. Lancelet, as my lady’s champion, it may well fall to you to deal with that usurping churl.”

 

“It will be my pleasure, my king,” said Lancelet, starting up as if he had been half asleep, but Morgaine suspected he had not the slightest idea what he had agreed to. The heralds at the door were still proclaiming that all men should draw near for the King’s justice; there was a brief, comical interlude, when a farmer came in and told how he and his neighbor had quarreled over a small windmill on the borders of their property.

 

“And we couldn’t agree, sir,” he said, twisting his rough woolen hat between his hands, “so him and me, we made it out that the King had made all this country safe to have a windmill in, and so I said I’d come here, sir, and see what you say and we’d listen to it.”

 

Amid good-natured laughter, the matter was settled; but Morgaine noticed that Arthur alone did not laugh, but listened seriously, gave judgment, and when the man had thanked him and gone away, with many bows and thanks, only then did he let his face break into a smile. “Cai, see that they give the fellow something to eat in the kitchens before he goes home, he had a long walk here.” He sighed. “Who is next to ask justice? God grant it be something fitter my solving—will they come next to ask my advice in horse breeding, or something of that sort?”

 

“It shows what they think of their king, Arthur,” said Taliesin. “But you should make it known that they should go to their local lord, and see that your subjects are also responsible for justice in your name.” He raised his head to see the next petitioner. “But this may be more worthy of the King’s attention after all, for it is a woman, and, I doubt not, in some trouble.”

 

Arthur motioned her forward: a young woman, self-assured, haughty, reared to courtly ways. She had no attendant except for a small and ugly dwarf, no taller than three feet, but with broad shoulders and well muscled, carrying a short and powerful axe.

 

She bowed to the King and told her story. She served a lady who had been left, as had so many others after the years of war, alone in the world; her estate was northward, near to the old Roman wall which stretched mile after mile, with ruined forts and mile-castles, mostly now decrepit and falling down. But a gang of five brothers, ruffians all, had refortified five of the castles and were laying the whole countryside to waste. And now one of them, who had a fancy to call himself the Red Knight of Red Lands, was laying siege to her lady; and his brothers were worse than he was.

 

“Red Knight, hah!” said Gawaine. “I know that gentleman. I fought with him when I came southward from my last visit to Lot’s country, and I barely got away with my life. Arthur, it might be well to send an army to clean out those fellows—there’s no law in that part of the world.”

 

Arthur frowned and nodded, but young Gareth rose from his seat.

 

“My lord Arthur, that is on the fringes of my father’s country. You promised me a quest—keep the promise, my king, and send me to help this lady defend her countryside against these evil fellows!”

 

The young woman looked at Gareth, his shining beardless face and the white silk robe he had put on for his knighting, and she broke into laughter. “You? Why, you’re a child. I didn’t know the great High King was taking overgrown children to serve at his table!” Gareth blushed like a child. He had indeed handed Arthur’s cup to the King—it was a service young well-born boys, fostered at court, all performed at high feasts. Gareth had not yet remembered it was no longer his duty, and Arthur, who liked the boy, had not reproved him.

 

The woman drew herself up. “My lord and king, I came to ask for one or more of your great knights with a reputation in battle which would daunt this Red Knight—Gawaine, or Lancelet, or Balin, one of those who is known as a great fighter against the Saxons. Are you going to let your very kitchen boys mock me, sire?”

 

Arthur said, “My Companion Gareth is no kitchen boy, madam. He is brother to sir Gawaine, and he promises to be as good a knight as his brother, or better. I did indeed promise him the first quest that I could honorably give him, and I will send him with you. Gareth,” he said gently, “I charge you to ride with this lady, to guard her against the dangers of the road, and when you come to her country, to help her lady to organize her country in defense against these villains. If you need help, you may send me a messenger, but no doubt she has fighting men enough—they need only someone with knowledge and skill at strategy, and this you have learned from Cai and Gawaine. Madam, I give you a good man to help you.” She did not quite dare to answer the King, but she scowled at Gareth fiercely. He said formally, “Thank you, my lord Arthur. I will put the fear of God into these rascals who are troubling the countryside there.” He bowed to Arthur and turned to the lady, but she had turned her back and stormed out of the hall.

 

Lancelet said in a low voice, “He is young for all that, sir. Shouldn’t you send Balan, or Balin, or someone more experienced?”

 

Arthur shook his head. “I truly think Gareth can do it, and I prefer that no one of my Companions is favored over another—it should be enough for the lady to know that one of them is coming to help her people.”

 

Arthur leaned back and signalled to Cai to serve his plate. “Giving justice is hungry work. Are there no more petitioners?”

 

“There is one, my lord Arthur,” said Viviane quietly, and rose from her place among the Queen’s ladies. Morgaine began to rise and attend her, but Viviane gestured her back. She looked taller than she was, because she held herself so straight. And part of it was glamour, the glamour of Avalon  ...  her hair, all white, was braided high on her head; at her side hung the little sickle-shaped knife, the knife of a priestess, and on her brow blazed the mark of the Goddess, the shining crescent moon.

 

Arthur looked at her for a moment, in surprise, then recognized her and gestured her to come forward.

 

“Lady of Avalon, it is long since you honored this court with your presence. Come sit beside me, kinswoman, and tell me how I may best serve you.”

 

“By showing honor to Avalon, as you are sworn to do,” said Viviane. Her voice was very clear and low, but, the trained voice of a priestess, it could be heard to the farthest comers of the hall. “My king, I bid you look now on that sword you bear, and think on those who laid it in your hand, and what you swore—“

 

In later years when all that had befallen that day was talked of far and wide, no two of the hundreds in that hall could agree on what had happened first. Morgaine saw Balin rise in his place and rush forward, she saw a hand snatch up the great axe Meleagrant had left leaning against the throne, then there was a scuffle and a cry, and she heard her own scream as the great axe came whirling down. But she did not see the blow, only Viviane’s white hair suddenly red with blood as she crumpled and fell without even a cry.

 

Then the hall was full of shouts and screams; Lancelet and Gawaine had Balin, struggling in their grasp; Morgaine had her own dagger in her hand and rushed forward, but Kevin gripped at her hard, his twisted fingers clutching at her wrist.

 

“Morgaine. Morgaine, no, it is too late—“ he said, and his voice was roughened with sobs. “Ceridwen! Mother Goddess—! No, no, look not on her now, Morgaine—“

 

He tried to turn her away, but Morgaine stood frozen, as if turned to stone, listening to Balin howling obscenities at the top of his voice.

 

Cai said abruptly, “Look to the lord Taliesin!” The old man had slithered down fainting in his seat. Cai bent and steadied him, then, murmuring a word of apology to Arthur, seized the King’s own cup and poured the wine down the old man’s throat. Kevin let Morgaine go and stumbled awkwardly to the side of the ancient Druid, bending over him. Morgaine thought, I should go to him, but it was as if her feet were frozen to the floor, she could not take a single step. She stared at the fainting old man so that she need not look back at that horrible red-stained pool on the floor, soaking through robes and hair and long cloak. In that last instant Viviane had seized her own small sickle knife. Her hand lay on it now, stained with her own blood—there was so much blood, so much. Her skull—her skull had been cloven in half, and there was blood, blood on the throne poured out like an animal for sacrifice, here at the foot of Arthur’s throne ...  .

 

Arthur finally found his voice. “You wretched man,” he said hoarsely, “what have you done? This is murder, cold murder before the very throne of your king ...  .”

 

“Murder, you say?” Balin said in his thick, harsh voice. “Yes, she was the most foul murderess in this kingdom, she deserved death twice over— I have rid your kingdom of a wicked and evil sorceress, my king!”

 

Arthur looked more angry than grieved. “The Lady of the Lake was my friend and my benefactor! How dare you speak so of my kinswoman, she who helped to set me on my throne?”

 

“I call the lord Lancelet himself to witness if she did not compass the death of my mother,” Balin said, “a good and pious Christian woman, Priscilla by name, and foster-mother to your own brother Balan! And she murdered my mother, I tell you she murdered her by her evil sorceries—“ His face worked; the big man was weeping like a child. “She murdered my mother, I tell you, and I have avenged her as a knight should do!”

 

Lancelet closed his eyes in horror, his face contorted, but he did not weep. “My lord Arthur, this man’s life belongs to me! Let me here take vengeance for my mother—“

 

“And my mother’s sister,” said Gawaine.

 

“And mine—“ Gaheris added.

 

Morgaine’s frozen trance broke. She cried, “No, Arthur! Let me have him! He has murdered the Lady before your throne, let a woman of Avalon avenge the blood of Avalon—look yonder how the lord Taliesin lies stricken, it is like that he has murdered our grandsire too—“

 

“Sister, sister—“ Arthur held out his hand to Morgaine. “No, no, sister —no, give me your dagger—“

 

Morgaine stood shaking her head, her dagger still in her hand. Taliesin suddenly rose to take it from her with his own trembling old fingers. “No, Morgaine. No more bloodshed here—the Goddess knows, it is enough— her blood has been spilled as sacrifice to Avalon in this hall—“

 

“Sacrificed! Yes, sacrificed to God, as God shall strike down all these evil sorceresses and their Gods!” cried Balin in a frenzy. “Let me have that one too, my lord Arthur, purge this court of all their evil wizard line—“ He struggled so violently that Lancelet and Gawaine could hardly hold him and signalled to Cai, who came and helped them cast Balin down, struggling still, before the throne.

 

“Quiet!” Lancelet said, jerking his head around. “I warn you, one hand laid on the Merlin or Morgaine, and I’ll have your head whatever Arthur may say—yes, my lord Arthur, and die at your hands for it afterward if you will have it so!” His face was drawn with anguish and despair.

 

“My lord King,” Balin howled, “I beg you, let me strike down all these wizards and sorcerers in the name of the Christ who hates them all—“

 

Lancelet struck Balin heavily across the mouth; the man gasped and was silent, blood streaming from a broken lip.

 

“By your leave, my lord.” Lancelet unfastened his rich cloak and gently covered the ghastly, drained corpse of his mother.

 

Arthur seemed to breathe easier now that the corpse was out of sight. Only Morgaine went on staring wide-eyed at the lifeless huddle now covered with the crimson cloak Lancelet had worn for the holiday.

 

Blood. Blood on the foot of the King’s throne. Blood, poured out on the hearth  ...  Somewhere it seemed to Morgaine that she could hear Raven shrieking.

 

Arthur said quietly, “Look to the lady Morgaine, she will faint,” and Morgaine felt hands gently helping her into a seat and someone holding a cup to her lips. She started to push it away, and then it seemed she heard Viviane’s voice saying, Drink it. A priestess must keep her strength and will. Obediently she drank, hearing Arthur’s voice, stern and solemn.

 

“Balin, whatever your reasons—no, no more, I heard what you said —not a word—you are either a madman, or a cold-blooded murderer. Whatever you may say, you have slain my kinswoman and drawn steel before your High King at Pentecost. Still, I will not have you murdered where you stand—Lancelet, put up your sword.”

 

Lancelet slid his sword back into its scabbard. “I will do your will, my lord. But if you do not punish this murder, then I beg leave to depart from your court.”

 

“Oh, I will punish it.” Arthur’s face was grim. “Balin, are you sane enough to listen to me? Then this is your doom: I banish you forever from this court. Let this lady’s body be made ready and put on a horse bier, and I charge you to take it to Glastonbury, and tell all your tale to the Archbishop and do such penance as he shall lay on you. You spoke but now of God and Christ, but no Christian king allows private vengeance to be taken by the sword before his throne of justice. Do you hear what I say, Balin, once my knight and Companion?”

 

Balin bent his head. His nose had been broken by Lancelet’s blow; his mouth was streaming blood, and he spoke thickly through a broken tooth. “I hear you, my lord King. I will go.” He sat with his head bowed.

 

Arthur gestured to the servants. “I beg you, bring someone to remove her poor body—“

 

Morgaine broke away from the hands that held her and knelt beside Viviane. “My lord, I beg you, allow me to ready her for burial—“ and struggled to hold back the tears she dared not shed. This was not Viviane, this broken dead thing, the hand like a shrunken claw still clutching the sickle dagger of Avalon. She took up the dagger, kissed it, and slid it into her own belt. This, and only this, would she keep.

 

Great merciful Mother, I knew we could never go together to Avalon ...  .

 

She would not weep. She felt Lancelet close beside her. He muttered, “God’s mercy Balan is not here—to lose mother and foster-brother in one moment of madness—but if Balan had been here it might not have happened! Is there any God or any mercy?”

 

Her heart ached for Lancelet’s anguish. He had feared and hated his mother, but he had worshipped her, too, as the very face of the Goddess. A part of her wanted to pull Lancelet into her arms, comfort him, let him weep; yet there was rage too. He had defied his mother, how dared he grieve for her now?

 

Taliesin was kneeling beside them, and he said, in his broken old voice, “Let me help you, children. It is my right—“ and they moved aside as he bowed his head to murmur an ancient prayer of passage.

 

Arthur rose in his place. “There will be no more feasting this day. We have had too much tragedy for a feast. Those of you who are hungry, finish your meal and go quietly.” He came slowly down to where the body lay. His hand rested gently on Morgaine’s shoulder; she felt it there, through her numb misery. She could hear the other guests quietly leaving the hall, one after another, and through the rustle she heard, softly, the sound of a harp; only one pair of hands in Britain played such a harp. And at last she melted and tears streamed from her eyes as Kevin’s harp played the dirge for the Lady, and to that sound, Viviane, priestess of Avalon, was slowly borne from the great hall of Camelot. Morgaine, walking beside the bier, looked back only once at the great hall and the Round Table, and the solitary, bowed figure of Arthur, standing alone beside the harper. And through all her grief and despair, she thought, Viviane never gave to Arthur the message of Avalon. This is the hall of a Christian king, and now there is no one who will say otherwise. How Gwenhwyfar would rejoice if she knew.

 

His hands were outstretched; she did not know, perhaps he was praying. She saw the serpents tattooed about his wrists and thought of the young stag and the new-made king who had come to her with the blood of the King Stag on his hands and face, and for a moment it seemed to her that she could hear the mocking voice of the fairy queen. And then there was no sound but the anguished lamenting of Kevin’s harp and Lancelet weeping at her side as they bore Viviane forth to rest.

 

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

 

I followed the body of Viviane from the great hall of the Round Table, weeping for only the second time that I could remember.

 

And yet later that night I quarrelled with Kevin.

 

Working with the Queen’s women, I prepared Viviane 3 body for burial. Gwenhwyfar sent her women, and she sent linen and spices and a velvet pall, but she did not come herself. That was just as well. A priestess of Avalon should be laid to rest by attendant priestesses. I longed for my sisters from the House of Maidens; but at least no Christian hands should touch her. When I was done, Kevin came to watch by the body.

 

“I have sent Taliesin to rest. I have that authority now, as the Merlin of Britain; he is very old and very feeble—it is a miracle that his heart did not fail this day. I fear he will not long outlive her. Balin is quiet now,” he added. “I think perhaps he knows what he did—but it is sure that it was done in a fit of madness. He is ready to ride with her body to Glastonbury, and serve such penance as the Archbishop shall decree.”

 

I stared at him in outrage. “And you will have it so? That she shall fall into the hands of the church? I care not what happens to that murderer,” I said, “but Viviane must be taken to Avalon.” I swallowed hard so that I would not weep again. We should have ridden together to Avalon ...  .

 

“Arthur has decreed,” said Kevin quietly, “that she shall be buried before the church at Glastonbury, where all can see.”

 

I shook my head, unbelieving. Were all men mad this day? “Viviane must lie in Avalon,” I said, “where all the priestesses of the Mother have been buried since time began. And she was Lady of the Lake!”

 

“She was also Arthur’s friend and benefactor,” said Kevin, “and he will have it that her tomb shall be made a place of pilgrimage.” He put out his hand that I should not speak. “No, hear me, Morgaine—there is reason in what he says. Never has there been so grave a crime in Arthur’s reign. He cannot hide away her burial place out of sight and out of mind. She must be buried where all men may know of the King’s justice, and the justice of the church.”

 

“And you will allow this!”

 

“Morgaine, my dearest,” he said gently, “it is not for me to allow or to refuse. Arthur is the High King, and it is his will that is done in this realm.”

 

“And Taliesin holds his peace? Or is this why you have sent him to his rest, so that he might be out of the way while you do this blasphemy with the King’s connivance? Will you have Viviane buried with Christian burial and Christian rites, she who was Lady of the Lake—buried by these folk who imprison their God within stone walls? Viviane chose me after her to be Lady of the Lake, and I forbid it, I forbid it, do you hear me?”

 

Kevin said quietly, “Morgaine. No, listen to me, my dear. Viviane died without naming her successor—“

 

“You were there that day she said she had chosen me—“

 

“But you were not in Avalon when she died, and you have renounced that place,” Kevin said, and his words fell on my head like cold rain, so that I shivered. He stared at the bier and Viviane’s body which lay covered there; nothing I could do could make that face fit to be seen in death. “Viviane died with no successor named to her place, and so it falls to me, as the Merlin of Britain, to declare what will be done. And if this is Arthur’s will, only the Lady of the Lake—and, forgive me, my dear, that I say it, but there is now no Lady in Avalon—could speak out against what I say. I can see that the King has reason for what he wishes. Viviane spent all her life to bring about a peaceful rule of law in this land. ...”

 

“She came to reprove Arthur that he had forsaken Avalon!” I cried in despair. “She died with her mission unfinished, and now you would have it that she should lie in Christian ground within the sound of church bells, so that they should triumph over her in death as in life?”

 

“Morgaine, Morgaine, my poor girl!” Kevin held out his hands to me, the misshapen hands which had so often caressed me. “I loved her too, believe me! But she is dead. She was a great woman, she spent her life for this land—do you think it matters to her where her empty shell shall lie? She has gone to whatever awaits her beyond death, and, knowing her, I know that it can only be good that awaits her. Do you think she would grudge it, that her body should lie where it can best serve those purposes she spent her life to accomplish—that the King’s justice should triumph over all the evil in this land?”

 

His rich, caressing, musical voice was so eloquent that I hesitated for a moment. Viviane was gone; it was only those same Christians who made much of consecrated or unconsecrated ground, as if all the earth which is the breast of the Mother was not holy. I wanted to fall into his arms and weep there for the only mother I had ever known, for the wreck of my own hopes that I might return to Avalon at her side, weep for all I had cast away and the breaking of my own life ...  .

 

But what he said then made me start away in horror.

 

"Viviane was old," he said, "and she had dwelt in Avalon, sheltered from the real world. I have had to live, with Arthur, in the world where battles are won and real decisions made. Morgaine, my dearest, listen to me. It is too late to demand that Arthur keep his pledge to Avalon in that same form he gave it. Time passes, the sound of church bells covers this land, and the people are content to have it so. Who are we to say that this is not the will of the Gods that lie behind the Gods? Whether we wish it or no, my dearest love, this is a Christian land, and we who honor Viviane's memory will do her no good by making it known to all men that she came hither to make impossible demands of the King."

 

"Impossible demands?" I wrenched my hands away. "How dare you?"

 

"Morgaine, listen to reason—"

 

"Not reason but treason! If Taliesin heard this—"

 

"I speak as I have heard Taliesin himself speak," he said gently. "Viviane did not live in order to undo what she has done, to create a land at peace—whether it is called Christian or Druid does not matter; the will of the Goddess will be done over all, whatever name men may call her. Who are you to say that it was not the will of the Goddess that Viviane was struck down before she could spread strife again in a land that has come to peace and successful compromise? I tell you, it shall not be torn again by strife, and if Viviane had not been struck down by Balin, I would myself have spoken against what she asked——and I think Taliesin would have said as much."

 

"How dare you speak for Taliesin?"

 

"Taliesin himself named me the Merlin of Britain," said Kevin, "and he must therefore have trusted me to act for him when he could not speak for himself."

 

"Next you will say you have become a Christian! Why wear you not beads and a crucifix?"

 

He said, in such a gentle voice that I could have wept, "Do you truly think it would make such a great difference, Morgaine, if I did so?"

 

I knelt before him, as I had done a year ago, pressed his broken hand to my breast. "Kevin, I have loved you. For that I beg you—be faithful now to Avalon and to Viviane's memory! Come with me now, tonight. Do not this travesty, but accompany me to Avalon, where the Lady of the Lake shall lie with the other priestesses of the Goddess. ..."

 

He bent over me; I could feel the anguished tenderness in his misshapen hands. "Morgaine, I cannot. My dearest, will you not be calm and listen to the voice of reason in what I am saying?"

 

I stood up, flinging off his weak grip, and raising my arms, summoned the power of the Goddess. I heard my voice thrumming with the power of a priestess. "Kevin! In her name who came to you, in the name of the manhood she has given you, I lay obedience on you! Your allegiance is not to Arthur nor to Britain, but only to the Goddess and to your vows! Come now, leave this place! Come with me to Avalon, bearing her body!"

 

I could see in the shadows the very glow of the Goddess around me; for a moment Kevin knelt shuddering, and I know that in another moment he would have obeyed. And then, I know not what happened—perhaps it crossed my mind, No, I am not worthy, I have no right ...  I have forsaken Avalon, I cast it away, by what right then do I command the Merlin of Britain? The spell broke; Kevin made a harsh, abrupt gesture, awkwardly rising to his feet.

 

"Woman, you do not command me! You who have renounced Avalon, by what right do you presume to give orders to the Merlin? Rather should you kneel before me!" He thrust me away with both hands. "Tempt me no more!"

 

He turned his back and limped away, the shadows making wavering misshapen movements on the wall as he moved from the room; I watched him go, too stricken even to weep.

 

And four days later Viviane was buried, with all the rites of the church, on the Holy Isle in Glastonbury. But I did not go thither.

 

Never, I swore, should I step foot upon that Isle of the Priests.

 

Arthur mourned her sincerely, and built for her a great tomb and a cairn, swearing that one day he and Gwenhwyfar should lie there at her side.

 

As for Balin, the Archbishop Patricius laid it upon him that he should make a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Lands; but before he could go into exile, Balan heard the tale from Lancelet and hunted him down, and the foster-brothers fought, one with another, and Balin was killed at once with a single stroke; but Balan took cold in his wounds and did not survive him a whole day. So Viviane—so they said when a song was made of it—was avenged; but what of that, when she lay in a Christian tomb?

 

And I... I did not even know whom they had chosen as Lady of the Lake in her place, for I could not return to Avalon.

 

  ...  I was not worthy of Lancelet, I was not worthy even of Kevin  ...  I could not tempt him to do his true duty to Avalon ...  .

 

... I should have gone to Taliesin and begged him, even on my knees, to take me back to Avalon, that I might atone for all my faults and return again to the shrine of the Goddess ...  .

 

But before the summer was ended, Taliesin was gone too; I think he never knew for certain that Viviane was dead, because even after she was buried, he spoke as if she would come soon and return with him to Avalon; and he spoke of my mother, too, as if she lived and was a little girl in the House of Maidens. And at summer's end he died peacefully and was buried at Camelot, and even the bishop mourned him as a wise and learned man.

 

And in the winter after that, we heard that Meleagrant had set himself up to rule as king in the Summer Country. But when spring came, Arthur was away on a mission to the South, and Lancelet too had ridden out to see to the King’s castle at Caerleon, when Meleagrant sent a messenger under a flag of truce, begging that his sister Gwenhwyfar should come and speak with him about the rule of that country over which they both had a claim.

 

                                   4      

“I would feel safer, and I think my lord the king would like it better, if Lancelet were here to ride with you,” Cai said soberly. “At Pentecost yonder fellow would have drawn steel in this hall before his king, and he would not await the King’s justice. Brother of yours or no, I like it not that you ride alone with only your lady and your chamberlain.”

 

“He is not my brother,” Gwenhwyfar said. “His mother was the king’s mistress for a time, but he put her away because he found her with another man. She claimed, and perhaps told her son, that Leodegranz was his father. The king never acknowledged it. If he were an honorable man, and such as my lord would trust, perhaps he could be regent for me as well as any other. But I will not allow him to profit by such a lie.”

 

“Will you trust yourself then in his hands, Gwenhwyfar?” asked Morgaine quietly.

 

Gwenhwyfar looked at Cai and Morgaine, shaking her head. Why did Morgaine look so calm and unafraid? Was Morgaine never afraid of anything, never touched by any emotion behind that cool, unreadable face? Rationally she knew that Morgaine, like all mortal flesh, must sometimes suffer from pain, fear, grief, anger—yet only twice had she actually seen emotion in Morgaine, and that long ago; once when Morgaine had fallen into trance and dreamed of blood on the hearth—then she had cried out in fear—and once when Viviane was slain here before her eyes and she had sunk down fainting.

 

Gwenhwyfar said, “I trust him not at all, except to be the greedy impostor he is. But think, Morgaine. All his claim is based upon the fact that he is my brother. Should he offer me the slightest insult, or treat me as anything less than his honored sister, his claim is proved a lie. So he dares do nothing else than welcome me as his honored sister and queen, do you see?”

 

Morgaine shrugged. “I would not trust him even so far as that.”

 

“No doubt, like the Merlin, you have sorcery to give you knowledge of what may come if I do.”

 

Morgaine said indifferently, “It needs no sorcery to know that a villain is a villain, and no supernatural wisdom that bids me not let the nearest rogue hold my wallet for me.”

 

Whatever Morgaine said, Gwenhwyfar always felt compelled to do precisely other; always she felt that Morgaine thought her a fool without the wit to lace her own shoes. Did Morgaine think that she, Gwenhwyfar, could not settle a matter of state when Arthur was absent? Yet she had hardly been able to face Morgaine since that ill-starred Beltane a year ago when she had begged her sister-in-law for a charm against her barrenness. Morgaine had told her that charms often work as you would not have them work ... now whenever she looked on Morgaine, she thought her sister-in-law must be remembering it, too.

 

God punishes me; perhaps for meddling with sorcery, perhaps for that wicked night. And as always when she allowed the faintest memory of that time to come into her mind, she felt her whole body flushing with mingled delight and shame. Ah, it was easy to say they had all three been drunken, or to excuse herself that what was done that night was done with Arthur’s consent, indeed, at his urging. Still it was grievous sin, adultery.

 

And since that night she had hungered for Lancelet, night and day; yet they had hardly been able to face each other. She could not look him in the eyes. Did he hate her as a shameful, adulterous woman? He must despise her. Yet she longed for him with terrible despair.

 

After that Pentecost, Lancelet had hardly been at court. She had never thought he had cared so much for his mother, nor yet for his brother Balan, yet he had mourned them both deeply. He had been away from court all this time.

 

“I wish,” said Cai, “that Lancelet were here. Who should accompany the Queen on a mission of this sort, except that knight Arthur has named as his queen’s champion and protector?”

 

“If Lancelet were here,” said Morgaine, “many of our troubles would be over, for he would settle Meleagrant with a few words. But there is no good talking of what cannot be. Gwenhwyfar, shall I ride with you and protect you?”

 

“In God’s name,” said Gwenhwyfar, “I am not a child who cannot stir forth without a nurse! I will take my chamberlain, sir Lucan, and I will take Bracca to dress my hair and lace my gown if I am there for more than a night, and to sleep at the foot of my bed; what do I need more than that?”

 

“Still, Gwenhwyfar, you must have an escort fitting your rank. There are still some of Arthur’s Companions here at court.”

 

“I will take Ectorius,” said Gwenhwyfar. “He is Arthur’s foster-father, and nobly born, and a veteran of many of Arthur’s wars.”

 

Morgaine shook her head impatiently. “Old Ectorius, and Lucan who lost an arm at Mount Badon—why do you not take Cai and the Merlin with you as well, so that you may have all the old and the lame? You should have an escort of good fighting men who can protect you, Gwenhwyfar, in case it is in this man’s mind to hold the Queen to ransom, or worse.”

 

Gwenhwyfar repeated patiently, “If he does not treat me as his sister, then his claim is worthless. And what man would offer any threat to his sister?”

 

“I do not know if Meleagrant is so good a Christian as all that,” Morgaine said, “but if you are not afraid of him, Gwenhwyfar, you know him better than I do. No doubt you can find an escort of old bumbling veterans to ride with you—so be it. You might offer to wed him to your kinswoman Elaine, to make his claim of kinship even more valid, and set him as regent in your place—“

 

Gwenhwyfar shuddered, remembering the great coarse man dressed in ill-tanned skins and furs. “Elaine is a gently reared lady; I would not give her to such a one,” she said. “I will talk with him—if he seems to me an honest fighting man and such a one as will keep the peace in this kingdom, then if he will swear loyalty to my lord Arthur, he may reign upon the island—I like not all of Arthur’s Companions either, but a man may be an honest king without being a good one to sit with ladies and talk in hall.”

 

“I marvel to hear you say so,” said Morgaine. “To hear you sing my kinsman Lancelet’s praises, I thought you believed no man could be a good knight unless he were handsome and full of this kind of courtly matters.”

 

Gwenhwyfar would not quarrel again with Morgaine. “Come, sister, I love Gawaine well, yet he is a rough Northman who trips over his own feet and has hardly a word to say to any woman. For all I know, Meleagrant too may be such a jewel in the wrappings of a knucklebone, and that is why I go thither—to judge for myself.”

 

So the next morning Gwenhwyfar set forth, with her escort of six knights, Ectorius, the veteran Lucan, her waiting-woman, and a nine-year-old page boy. She had not visited her childhood home since that day she left it with Igraine, to be married to Arthur. It was not far: a few leagues down the hill, and to the shores of the lake, which at this season was drying up into boggy marshes, with cattle grazing in the summer fields and lush grasses filled with buttercup and dandelion and primrose. At the shore two boats were waiting, hung with her father’s banners. This was arrogance, that Meleagrant should bear these unpermitted, but after all, it was possible that the man genuinely believed himself Leodegranz’s heir. It might even be true; perhaps her father had lied about it.

 

She had landed at these very shores, bound for Caerleon, so many years ago  ...  how young she had been, and how innocent! Lancelet had been at her side, but fate had given her to Arthur—God knows, she had tried to be a good wife to him, though God had denied her children. And then despair washed over her again as she looked at the waiting boats. She might give her husband three or five or seven sons, and a year might come of plague, or smallpox, or the throat fever, and all her sons would be gone  ...  such things had happened. Her own mother had borne four sons, yet none of them had lived to be as much as five years old, and Alienor’s son had died with her. Morgaine  ...  Morgaine had borne a son to their evil God of witches, and for all she knew, that son lived and thrived, while she, a faithful Christian wife, could not bear any child, and now she might soon be too old.

 

Meleagrant himself was at the landing, bowing, welcoming her as his honored sister, gesturing her toward his own boat, the smaller of the two. Gwenhwyfar never knew even afterward how it had happened that she was separated from all of her escort except for the little page. “My lady’s servants may go in the other boat, I myself will be your escort here,” said Meleagrant, taking her arm with an overfamiliarity she did not like; but after all, she must bear herself with diplomacy and not anger him. At the last moment, with a momentary sense of panic, she gestured to sir Ec-torius.

 

“I will have my chamberlain with me, as well,” she insisted, and Meleagrant smiled, his great coarse face reddening.

 

“As my sister and queen desires,” he said, and let Ectorius and Lucan step on to the smaller boat with her. He fussed about spreading a rug for her to sit on, and the oarsmen pulled out into the lake. It was shallow, grown heavily with weeds; in some seasons it was dry here. And suddenly, as Meleagrant seated himself beside her, Gwenhwyfar was seized with an attack of the old terror; her stomach heaved, and for a moment she thought she would vomit. She clung to the seat with both hands. Meleagrant was too near her; she moved as far away as the dimensions of the seat would allow. She would have felt more comfortable if Ectorius had been near; his presence was serene and fatherly. She noted the great axe Meleagrant wore through his belt—it was like the one he had left near the throne, the one Balin had seized to murder Viviane ...  . Meleagrant said, leaning so close that his heavy breath sickened her, “Is my sister faint? Surely the motion of the boat does not trouble you, it is so calm—“

 

She edged away from him, struggling for self-control. She was alone here except for two old men, and she was out in the middle of the lake, with nothing around her but weed and water and the reedy horizon ... why had she come? Why was she not in her own walled garden at home, in Camelot? There was no safety here, she was out under the wide-open sky, so that she felt sick and naked and exposed ...  .

 

“We will be on shore soon,” Meleagrant said, “and if you wish to rest before we conduct our business, sister, I have had the queen's apartments prepared for you—"

 

The boat scraped on shore. The old path was still there, she noted, the narrow winding way up to the castle, and the old wall, where she had sat that afternoon watching Lancelet run among the horses. She felt confused, as if it might have been only the day before and she was that shy young girl. She reached out surreptitiously and touched the wall, feeling it firm and solid, and stepped through the gate with relief.

 

The old hall seemed smaller than when she had lived there; she had grown used to great spaces in Caerleon and later at Camelot. Her father's old high seat was spread with skins like those Meleagrant wore, and a great black bearskin lay at the foot of the seat. The whole looked uncared-for, the skins ragged and greasy, the hall unswept, with a sour, sweaty smell; she wrinkled her nose, but it was so much a relief to be within walls that she did not care. She wondered where her escort had gone.

 

"Will you rest and refresh yourself, sister? Shall I show you to your apartments?"

 

She smiled and said, "I shall hardly be here long enough to call them mine, though it is true I would like to wash the dust off my hands and take off my cloak. Will you send someone to find my serving-woman? You should have a wife if you are to think of being regent here, Meleagrant."

 

"There is time enough for that," he said, "but I will show you to the apartments I have prepared for my queen." He led the way up the old stairs. They were also ill-kept and neglected; Gwenhwyfar, frowning, thought less well of choosing him as regent. If he had moved into the castle and restored it, had installed a wife and good servants to keep it well, with fresh hangings and good cleaning, and smart men-at-arms, well—but his soldiers looked more villainous than he did himself, and she had not yet seen any woman about the place. A faint qualm was beginning to steal over her; maybe she had not been too wise to come here alone, not to insist on her escort accompanying her every step of the way—

 

She turned on the stairs and said, "I will have my chamberlain accompany me, if you please, and I want my woman sent for at once!"

 

"As my lady wishes." He grinned. His teeth seemed very long, yellow and stained. She thought, He is like a wild beast  ...  and edged against the wall in terror. Yet it was from some inner reserve of strength she drew to say firmly, "Now, please. Call sir Ectorius, or I will go right down into the hall again until my serving-woman is here. It is not seemly for Arthur's queen to go alone with a strange man—"

 

"Not even with her brother?" asked Meleagrant, but Gwenhwyfar, ducking beneath his outstretched arm, saw that Ectorius had come into the hall after her and called, "Foster-father! Accompany me, if you will! And send sir Lucan to find my servant!"

 

The old man came slowly up the stairs after them, passing Meleagrant, and Gwenhwyfar put out her arm to lean on him. Meleagrant looked but ill pleased at this. They came to the head of the stairs, to the chamber where Alienor had once dwelt; Gwenhwyfar had been in a little room behind hers. Meleagrant opened the door. It smelled stale and dank inside, and Gwenhwyfar hesitated. Perhaps she should insist on going at once downstairs and to business; she could hardly refresh herself or rest well in a room as dirty and neglected as this—

 

"Not you, old man," said Meleagrant, turning suddenly and pushing Ectorius down the stairs hard. "My lady does not need your service now." Ectorius stumbled, off balance, and at that moment Meleagrant pushed her into the room and slammed the door hard behind her. She heard the bar thrown down and stumbled to her knees; by the time she got up she was alone in the room, and no amount of hammering on the door brought any sound at all.

 

So Morgaine's warning had been right. Had they murdered her escort? Had they killed Ectorius and Lucan? The room where Alienor had borne her children and lived and later died was cold and dank; there were only some old rags of linen sheets across the great bed, and the straw smelled foul. Alinor's old carved chest was there, but the wood carving was greasy and smeared with dirt, and it was empty. The hearth was clogged with ash as if there had been no fresh fire lighted there for years. Gwenhwyfar beat on the door and shouted until her hands and her throat were sore; she was hungry and exhausted, and sickened by the smell and the dirt of this place. But she could not budge the door, and the window was too small to climb out—and there was a twelve-foot drop outside. She was imprisoned. Through the window she could see only a neglected barnyard with a single mouldy-looking cow wandering and bellowing at intervals.

 

The hours dragged by. Gwenhwyfar had to accept two things, that she could not get out of the room by her own efforts, and that she could not attract the attention of any person who would be likely to come and let her out. Her escort was gone—dead or imprisoned, in any case unable to come to her aid. Her waiting-woman and page were probably dead, certainly well out of reach. She was here, and alone, at the mercy of a man who would probably use her as a hostage to exact some kind of concession from Arthur.

 

Her own person was probably safe from him. As she had pointed out to Morgaine, all his claim rested on the fact that he was the only surviving son of her father; bastard, but still of the royal blood. However, when she thought of his rapacious grin and huge presence, she was terrified; he might easily abuse her or try to force her to acknowledge him as regent of this country.

 

The day dragged on; the sun moved slowly from the small crack of window, across the room, and away again, and at last it began to grow dark. Gwenhwyfar went through into the little chamber behind Alienor’s that had been her own when she was a child; once her mother had dwelt in Alienor’s chamber. The dark confined space, no more than a closet, felt comfortingly secure; who could hurt her in here? No matter that it was dirty and stale, the bedstraw mildewed; she crept into the bed and wrapped herself in her cloak. Then she went back into the outer room and tried to shove Alienor’s heavy carved chest against the door. She had discovered that she was very much afraid of Meleagrant, and even more afraid of his ruffianly men-at-arms.

 

Certainly he would not let them hurt her—the only bargaining power he had was her safety. Arthur would kill him, she told herself, Arthur would kill him if he offered her the slightest insult or harm.

 

But, she asked herself in her misery, would Arthur really care? Although he had been kind and loving to her all these years and treated her with all honor, still he might not be sorry to be quit of a wife who could not bear him a child—a wife who was, furthermore, in love with another man and could not conceal it from him.

 

If I were Arthur I would make no move against Meleagrant; I would tell him that now he had me, he might keep me, for all the good it would do him.

 

What did Meleagrant want? If she, Gwenhwyfar, were dead, there would be no one else with the shadow of a claim on the Summer Country’s throne; there were some young nephews and nieces by her sisters, but they dwelt far away and probably did not know or care about this land. Perhaps he simply meant to murder her or leave her here to starve. The night dragged on. Once she heard some men and horses moving about in the barnyard below; she went to the small window and peered out, but she saw only a dim torch or two, and although she yelled and shouted through her sore throat, no one raised his eyes or took the slightest notice.

 

Once, far into the night, when she had fallen into a brief, nightmare-ridden doze, she started up, thinking she heard Morgaine calling her name; she sat bolt upright on the dirty straw of the bed, staring into the thick darkness, but she was alone.

 

Morgaine, Morgaine. If you can see me with your sorcery, say to my lord when he comes home that Meleagrant is false, that it was a trap  ...  and then she wondered, would God be angry with her for calling on Morgaine’s sorcery to deliver her? And she fell to praying softly until the monotony of her prayers put her to sleep again.

 

She slept heavily, this time, without dreams, and when she woke, her mouth dry, she realized it was full day and she was still prisoner in the empty and filthy apartment. She was hungry and thirsty, and sickened with the smell of the place, not only the stale straw and mould, but the smells from one corner she had had to use as a latrine. How long were they going to leave her here alone. The morning wore away and Gwenhwyfar no longer even had the strength or courage to pray.

 

Was she being punished, then, for her guilt, for not valuing enough what she had had? She had been a faithful wife to Arthur, yet she had hungered after another man. She had meddled with Morgaine’s sorcery. But, she thought in despair, if I am being punished for my adultery with Lancelet, for what was I being punished while I was yet a faithful wife to Arthur?

 

Even if Morgaine could see, with her magic, that she was imprisoned, would she trouble to help her? Morgaine had no reason to love her; indeed, Morgaine almost certainly despised her.

 

Was there anyone who really cared? Why should anyone care what happened to her?

 

It was past noon when at last she heard a step on the stairs. She sprang to her feet, wrapping herself tightly in her cloak, and backed away from the door. It was Meleagrant who came in, and at sight of him she drew back even farther.

 

“Why have you done this to me?” she demanded. “Where is my woman, my page, my chamberlain? What have you done with my escort? Do you think Arthur will allow you to rule this country when you have offered insult to his queen?”

 

“His queen no longer,” Meleagrant said quietly. “When I am done with you, he will not have you back. In the old days, lady, the consort of the queen was king of the land, and if I hold you and get sons on you, no man will gainsay my right to rule.”

 

“You will get no sons from me,” Gwenhwyfar said with a mirthless laugh. “I am barren.”

 

“Pah—you were married to a damned beardless boy,” he said, and added something more, which Gwenhwyfar did not completely understand, only that it was unimaginably foul.

 

“Arthur will kill you,” she said.

 

“Let him try. It is harder than you would think to attack an island,” said Meleagrant, “and by that time, perhaps, he will not care to try, since he would have to take you back—“

 

She said, “I cannot marry you, I have a husband.”

 

“No man in my kingdom will care one way or the other,” said Meleagrant. “There were many who chafed at the rule of the priests, and I have cast forth every damned priest of them! I rule by the old laws, and I will make myself king by that law, which says your man rules here—‘

 

She whispered, “No,” and backed away, but he sprang at her and pulled her toward him.

 

“You’re not to my taste,” he said brutally. “Skinny, ugly, pale wenches —I like better a woman who’s some flesh to her bones! But you’re old Leodegranz’s daughter, unless your mother had more blood to her than I think she could have had! And so—“ He pulled her to him. She struggled, got her arm loose, and struck him hard across the face.

 

He shouted as her elbow struck his nose, grabbed her arm and shook her, hard; then hit her with his clenched fist across the jaw. She felt something snap and tasted blood bursting in her mouth. He hit her again and again with his fists; she put her arms up, terrified, to ward off his blows, but he went on beating her. “Now,” he yelled, “there’ll be no more of that, you’ll find out who’s your master—“ He seized her wrist and wrenched at it.

 

“Oh, no—no—please, please, don’t hurt me—Arthur, Arthur will kill you—“

 

He answered her only with an obscenity, wrenched at her wrist, flung her down on the dirty straw of the bed, knelt beside her, hauling at his clothing. She writhed, shrieking; he hit her again and she lay still, crouched on a corner of the bed.

 

“Take off your gown!” he ordered.

 

“No!” she cried, huddling her clothes about her. He reached out, twisting her wrist, and held her while he ripped her gown deliberately down to the waist.

 

“Now will you take it off, or shall I tear off every rag of it?”

 

Shaking, sobbing, with trembling fingers, Gwenhwyfar pulled her gown over her head, knowing that she should fight, but too terrified of his fists and blows to resist. When she had done he pulled her down, held her down on the dirty straw, pushing her legs open with a rough hand. She struggled only a little, frightened of his hands, sickened by his foul breath, his huge hairy body, the big meaty phallus that thrust painfully into her, pushing and pushing till she felt she would break in two.

 

“Don’t pull away from me like that, damn you!” he shouted, thrusting violently; she cried out with pain and he hit her again. She lay still, sobbing, and let him do what he would. It seemed to go on forever, his big body straining and pumping on and on, till finally she felt him convulse, thrust agonizingly hard; then he was gone from her, rolled a little away, and she gasped for breath, struggling to pull her clothes around her. He stood up, wrenching at his belt, and gestured to her.

 

“Won’t you let me go?,” she begged. “I promise you—I promise you—“

 

He grinned fiercely. “Why should I?” he asked. “No, here you are and here you’ll stay. Is there anything you need? A gown to put in the place of that one?”

 

She stood weeping, exhausted, shamed, sickened. At last she said shakily, “I—can I have some water, and—and something to eat? And”— She began to cry harder than ever, with shame—“and a chamber pot?”

 

“Whatever my lady desires,” said Meleagrant sarcastically, and went away, locking her in again.

 

Later in the day a crook-backed old crone brought her some greasy roast meat and a hunk of barley bread, and jugs of water and beer. She also brought some blankets and a chamber pot.

 

Gwenhwyfar said, “If you will bear a message to my lord Arthur, I will give you this—“ and she took the gold comb from her hair. The old woman’s face brightened at the look of the gold, but then she looked away, scared, and sidled out of the room. Gwenhwyfar burst into tears again.

 

At last she regained some calm, ate and drank, and tried to wash herself a little. She felt sick and sore, but worse than that was the sense of being used, shamed, ineradicably dirtied.

 

Was it true what Meleagrant had said—that Arthur would not have her back now, that she had been spoilt beyond redemption? It might be so ... if she were a man she would not want anything Meleagrant had used either ...  .

 

No, but it was not fair; this was not anything she had done wrong, she had been trapped and tricked, used against her will.

 

Oh, but it is no more than I deserve  ...  I who am not a faithful wife, but love another ...  . She felt sick with guilt and shame. But after a time she began to recover her composure and to consider her predicament.

 

She was here in Meleagrant’s castle—her father’s old castle. She had been raped and was held captive, and Meleagrant had proclaimed his intention of holding this island kingdom by right of being her consort. It was not to be considered that Arthur would let him do so; no matter what he thought of her personally, for his own honor as High King he would have to make war on Meleagrant. It would not be easy, but it should not be impossible to recapture an island. She knew nothing of Meleagrant as a fighter—except, she thought with a rare flash of grim humor, against a helpless woman, whom he had beaten into submission. But it was not to be considered, either, that he could stand against the High King who had driven the Saxons into utter rout at Mount Badon.

 

And then she must face him and tell him what had happened to her. It might be simpler to kill herself. Come what might, she could not imagine herself facing Arthur, telling him how Meleagrant had treated her  ...  I should have fought against him harder; Arthur, in battle, has faced very death, once he took a great wound which kept him abed half a year, and I—I stopped fighting after a few slaps and blows ...  . She wished she had some of Morgaine’s sorcery; she would turn him into a pig! But Morgaine would never have fallen into his hands, she would have guessed it was a trap; and she would have used that little dagger of hers, too—she might not have killed him, but he would have lost his desire, and perhaps his ability, to ravish any woman!

 

She had eaten and drunk what she could, washed herself, and brushed her filthy dress clean.

 

Again the day had begun to wane. It could not be hoped for—that she would be missed, that anyone would come for her until Meleagrant began to boast of what he had done, proclaim himself the consort of King Leodegranz’s daughter. She had gone of her own free will, and properly attended by two of Arthur’s Companions. Not until Arthur returned from the Southern Shores, and perhaps not for a week or ten days after that, when she did not return at the appointed time, would he begin to suspect that all was not well.

 

Morgaine, why did I not listen to you? You warned me he was a villain ...  . For a moment it seemed that she could see her sister-in-law’s pale, passionless face—calm, slightly mocking—so clearly that she rubbed her eyes; Morgaine, laughing at her? No, it was a trick of the light, it was gone.

 

Would that she could see me through her magic  ...  perhaps she could send someone ... MO, she would not, she hates me, she would laugh at my ill fortune  ...  and then she remembered: Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a real trouble, no one could be kinder. Morgaine had tended her when she miscarried; she had, against her own protest, been willing to try and help her with a charm. Perhaps Morgaine did not hate her after all. Perhaps all Morgaine’s mockery was a defense against Gwenhwyfar’s own pride, her scorn of the sorceresses of Avalon.

 

Twilight was beginning to blur the furniture in the room. She should have thought to ask for some sort of light. Now it seemed she would spend a second night as prisoner here, and it might be that Meleagrant would return  ...  and at the thought she felt sick again with terror; she was still sore from his brutal treatment, her mouth swollen, bruises darkening on her shoulders and, she supposed, on her face. And although, when she was alone here, she could think quite calmly about ways to fight him and perhaps drive him away, she knew, with a sick sinking of terror in her body, that when he touched her, she would shrink away in dread and let him do whatever he would, to avoid more blows ... she was so afraid, so afraid that he would hurt her again ...  .

 

And how could Arthur forgive her for this, that she had not been beaten entirely into submission, but had given way like a coward, after the threat of a few blows and slaps ... how could he take her back as his queen and continue to love and honor her, when she had allowed another man to have her  ...  ?

 

He had not minded when she and Lancelet ... he had been a part of that ... if there was sin it was not all hers, she had done as her husband wished ...  .

 

Oh, yes, but Lancelet was his kinsman and dearest friend ...  .

 

There was a commotion in the courtyard; Gwenhwyfar went to the window, peering out, but she could see only that same corner of the barnyard, and that same bellowing cow. Somewhere there was noise, shouting and yelling and the clash of weapons, but she could not see and the sound was muffled by the walls and stairs; it might be no more than those villains of Meleagrant’s, fighting or brawling in the courts, or even—oh, no! God forbid it!—murdering her escort. She tried to crane her neck so she could see further from the slit of window, but there was nothing to see.

 

There was a sound outside. The door flew open and Gwenhwyfar, turning apprehensively, saw Meleagrant, a naked sword in hand. He gestured with it. “Get within—into that inner chamber,” he ordered. “In with you, and not a sound from you, madam, or it will be the worse for you.”

 

Does this mean someone has come to rescue me? He looked desperate, and Gwenhwyfar knew that she could get no information from him. She backed away, slowly, into the little inner room. He followed her, his hand on the sword, and Gwenhwyfar flinched, her whole body cringing in anticipation of the stroke . .. would he kill her now, or hold her as hostage for his own escape?

 

She never knew his plan. Meleagrant’s head suddenly exploded in a spray of blood and brains; he crumpled with a weird slowness, and Gwenhwyfar sank down, too, half fainting, but before she reached the floor, she was in Lancelet’s arms.

 

“My lady, my queen—ah, my beloved—“ He caught her against him, holding her, and then, half senseless, Gwenhwyfar knew he was covering her face with kisses. She made no protest; it was like a dream. Meleagrant lay in his blood on the floor, the sword lay where it had fallen. Lancelet had to lift her over the body before he could set her on her feet.

 

“How—how did you know?” she stammered.

 

“Morgaine,” he said tersely. “When I came to Camelot, Morgaine said she had tried to bid you delay till I was there. She felt it was a trap—I took horse and came after you, with half a dozen men. I found your escort imprisoned in the woods near here, tied and gagged—once I had freed them, it was not hard—no doubt he thought himself secure.” Now Lancelet let her go long enough to see the bruises on her face and body, her torn gown, the cut lip where it was swollen. He touched them with shaking fingers.

 

“Now do I regret he died so quickly,” he said. “It would give me delight to make him suffer as you have suffered—ah, my poor love, my darling, you have been so cruelly used—“

 

“You don’t know,” she whispered, “you don’t know—“ and she was sobbing again, clinging to him. “You came, you came, I thought no one would come, that no one would want me now, that no one would ever touch me again—now when I am so shamed ...  .”

 

He held her, kissing her again and again in a frenzy of tenderness. “Shamed? You? No, the shame is his, his, oh, and he has paid for it  ... ” he muttered through his kisses. “I thought I had lost you forever, he might have killed you, but Morgaine said no, you lived—“

 

Even then, Gwenhwyfar spared a moment of fear and resentment— did Morgaine know how she had been humiliated, violated? Ah, God, if only Morgaine need not have known! She could not bear it, that Morgaine should know of this!

 

“Sir Ectorius? Sir Lucan—“

 

“Lucan is well enough; Ectorius is not young, and he has suffered grave shock, but there is no reason to think he will not live,” Lancelet said. “You must go down, my beloved, and show yourself to them; they must know that their queen lives.”

 

Gwenhwyfar looked at her torn gown, touched her bruised face with hesitant hands. She said, her voice catching in her throat, “Can I not have a little time to make myself proper? I do not want them to see—“ and she could not go on.

 

Lancelet hesitated, then nodded. He said, “Yes; let them think he dared offer you no insult. It is better that way. I came alone, knowing I could match Meleagrant; the others are downstairs. Let me look in the other chambers—a man of his kind would not dwell here without some woman or other.” He left her for a moment, and she could barely endure to see him out of her sight. She edged away from the body of Meleagrant on the floor, looking down at the man as if he were a wolfs carcass killed by some shepherd, without even distate for the blood.

 

After a moment Lancelet returned. “There is a room yonder which is clean, and chests there with some garments laid away—I think it was the old king’s room. There is even a mirror.” He led her down the hall. This room had been swept, and the bed straw on the big bed was fresh arid clean, and there were sheets and blankets, and fur comforters—not too clean, but not disgusting, either. There was a carved chest she recognized, and inside it she found three gowns, one of which she had seen Alinor wear, and the others made for someone taller. Handling them, through a mist of tears, she thought, These must have been my own mother’s. I wonder that my father never gave them to Alienor. And then she thought, I never knew my father well. I have no idea what manner of man he was, he was only my father. And that seemed so sad to her that she wanted to weep again.

 

“I will put this on,” she said, and then she broke into a weak laugh. “If I can manage without a woman to dress me—“

 

Lancelet touched her face gently. “I will dress you, my lady.” He began to help her off with her gown. And then his face twisted, and he lifted her up in his arms, half-dressed as she was.

 

“When I think of that—that animal, touching you—“ he said, with his face muffled against her breast, “and I who love you barely dare to lay a hand on you—“

 

And for all her faithfulness, she had only come to this; God had rewarded her for her virtue and self-restraint by betraying her into Meleagrant’s hands for rape and brutality! And Lancelet, who had offered her love and tenderness, who had scrupulously stepped aside that he might not betray his kinsman—he had to witness it! She turned in his arms, embracing him.

 

“Lancelet,” she whispered, “my love, my dearest—take away from me the memory of what was done to me—let us not go from here yet for a little while—“

 

His eyes overflowed with tears; he laid her down gently on the bed, caressing her with shaking hands.

 

God did not reward me for virtue. What makes me think he could punish me? And then a thought which frightened her, perhaps there is no God at all, nor any of the Gods people believe in. Perhaps it is all a great lie of the priests, so that they may tell mankind what to do, what not to do, what to believe, give orders even to the King. She raised herself, pulling Lancelet down to her, her bruised mouth searching for his, her hands wandering all over the beloved body, this time without fear and without shame. She no longer cared, nor felt restraint. Arthur? Arthur had not protected her from ravishment. She had suffered what she had had to suffer, and now, at least, she would have this much. It had been by Arthur’s doing that she had first lain with Lancelet, and now she would do what she would.

 

THEY RODE out of Meleagrant’s castle two hours later, side by side, their hands reaching out between their horses to touch as they rode, and Gwenhwyfar no longer cared; she looked straight at Lancelet, her head held high with joy and gladness. This was her true love, and never again would she trouble herself to hide it from any man.

 

5

On the shores of Avalon the priestesses wound slowly along the reedy shore, torches in hand.. .. I should have been among them, but there was some reason I could not go ...  . Viviane would have been angry with me that I was not there, yet I seemed to stand on afar shore, unable to speak the word that would have brought me to them ...  .

 

Raven paced slowly, her paleface lined as I had never seen it, a long streak of white at the side of her temple... her hair was unbound; could it be that she was still maiden, untouched save by the God? Her white draperies moved in the same wind that made the torches flare. Where was Viviane, where was the Lady? The sacred boat stood at the shore of the eternal lands, but she would come no more to the place of the Goddess... and who was this in the veil and wreath of the Lady? I had never seen her before, save in dreams ...  .

 

Thick, colorless hair, the color of ripe wheat, was braided in a low coronal over her brow; but hanging at her waist where the sickle knife of a priestess should have hung . .. ah, Goddess! Blasphemy! For at the side of her pale gown a silver crucifix hung; I struggled against invisible bonds to rush forward and tear away the blasphemous thing, but Kevin stepped between us and held my hands in his own, which twisted and writhed like misshapen serpents  ...  and then he was writhing between my hands  ...  and the serpents were tearing at me with their teeth  ...

 

“Morgaine! What is it?” Elaine shook her bedfellow’s shoulder. “What is it! You were crying out in your sleep—“

 

“Kevin,” she muttered, and sat up, her unbound hair, raven-dark, moving about her like dark water. “No, no, it wasn’t you—but she had fair hair like yours, and a crucifix—“

 

“You were dreaming, Morgaine,” Elaine said. “Wake up!” Morgaine blinked and shuddered, then drew a long breath and looked up at Elaine with her customary composure. “I am sorry—an evil dream,” she said, but her eyes still looked haunted. Elaine wondered what dreams pursued the King’s sister; for sure they must be evil, for she had come here from that evil island of witches and sorceresses .. . yet somehow Morgaine had never seemed to her an evil woman. How could any woman be so good when she worshipped devils and refused Christ?

 

She turned away from Morgaine and said, “We must get up, cousin. The King will return this day, so last night’s messenger said.”

 

Morgaine nodded and got out of bed, pulling off her shift; Elaine modestly averted her eyes. Morgaine seemed to be without shame—had she never heard that all sin came into this world through the body of a woman? Now she stood shamelessly naked, rummaging in her chest for a holiday shift, and Elaine turned away and began to dress.

 

“Make haste, Morgaine, we must go to the Queen—“

 

Morgaine smiled. “Not too much haste, kinswoman, we must give Lancelet time to be well away. Gwenhwyfar would not thank you for making a scandal.”

 

“Morgaine, how can you say such a thing? After what has happened, it is no more than reason that Gwenhwyfar should be afraid to be alone at night and should wish her champion to sleep at her very door... and indeed, it was fortunate Lancelet came in time to save her from worse—“

 

“Don’t be more of a fool than you must, Elaine,” said Morgaine with weary patience. “Do you believe that?”

 

“You, of course, know better by your magic,” flared Elaine, so loudly that the other women who slept in the room turned their heads to hear what the Queen’s cousin and the King’s sister were quarrelling about. Morgaine lowered her voice and said, “Believe me, I want no scandal, no more than you. Gwenhwyfar is my sister-in-law and Lancelet is my kinsman too. God knows, Arthur should not chide Gwenhwyfar for what befell with Meleagrant—poor wretch, it was none of her doing, and no doubt it must be given out that Lancelet came in time to rescue her. But I have no doubt Gwenhwyfar will tell Arthur, at least in secret, how Meleagrant used her —no, Elaine, I saw how she was when Lancelet brought her back from the island, and I heard what she said, her terror that that damned hellhound might have managed to get her with child!”

 

Elaine’s face went dead white. “But he is her brother,” she whispered. “Is there any man alive would do such sin as that?”

 

“Oh, Elaine, in God’s name, what a ninny you are!” Morgaine said. “Is that what you think the worst of it?”

 

“And you are saying—Lancelet has shared her bed while the King was away—“

 

“I am not surprised, nor do I think it the first time,” said Morgaine. “Have sense, Elaine—do you begrudge it? After what Meleagrant did to her, I would not be surprised if Gwenhwyfar would never again wish any man to touch her, and for her sake I am glad, if Lancelet can heal that hurt for her. And now, perhaps, Arthur will put her away, so that he may get him a son somewhere.”

 

Elaine said, staring at her, “Perhaps Gwenhwyfar will go into a convent—she told me once she was never happier than in her convent at Glastonbury. But would they have her, if she had been paramour to her husband’s captain of horse? Oh, Morgaine, I am so ashamed of her!”

 

“It has nothing to do with you,” Morgaine said. “Why should you care?”

 

Elaine said, surprising herself with her outburst, “Gwenhwyfar has a husband, she is wife to the High King, and her husband is the most honorable and kindly king ever to rule these lands! She has no need to look elsewhere for love! Yet how can Lancelet turn away to seek any other lady, if the Queen stretches out her hand?”

 

“Well,” said Morgaine, “perhaps now she and Lancelet will go forth from this court. Lancelet has lands in Less Britain, and they have loved one another long, though I think that till this mishap, they had lived as Christian man and woman.” Silently she absolved herself for the lie; what Lancelet had told her in his agony was to be held forever in the depths of her heart.

 

“But then would Arthur be the laughingstock of every Christian king in these islands,” said Elaine shrewdly. “If his queen should flee out of his lands with his best friend and his captain of horse, they would call him cuckold or worse.”

 

“I do not think Arthur will care what they say of him,” Morgaine began, but Elaine shook her head.

 

“No, Morgaine, but he must care. The lesser kings must respect him so that they will rally to his standard when there is need. How can they do so when he allows his wife to live in open sin with Lancelet? Yes, I know you speak of these few days. But can we be certain it will stop at that? My father is Arthur’s friend and vassal, but I think even he would mock at a king who could not rule his wife, and wonder how such a one could rule a kingdom.”

 

Morgaine shrugged and said, “What can we do, short of murdering the guilty pair?”

 

“What talk!” said Elaine with a shudder. “No, but Lancelet must leave the court. You are his kinswoman, cannot you make him see that?”

 

“Alas,” said Morgaine, “I fear I have but little influence with my kinsman in that way.” And inside it was as if some cold thing seized her with its teeth.

 

“If Lancelet were married,” said Elaine, and suddenly it seemed as if she wrenched at her own courage. “If he were married to me! Morgaine, you are wise in charms and spells, cannot you give me a charm which will turn Lancelet’s eyes from Gwenhwyfar to me? I am a king’s daughter too, and I am certainly as beautiful as Gwenhwyfar—and I at least have no husband!”

 

Morgaine laughed bitterly. “My spells, Elaine, can be worse than useless—ask Gwenhwyfar one day how such a spell rebounded upon her! But Elaine,” she said, suddenly serious, “would you truly travel that road?”

 

“I think that if he married me,” Elaine said, “he would come to see that I am no less worthy of love than Gwenhwyfar.”

 

Morgaine put her hand under the young woman’s chin and turned up her face. “Listen, my child,” she began, and Elaine felt that the dark eyes of the sorceress were searching into her very soul. “Elaine, this would not be easy. You have said you love him, but love when a maiden speaks so is no more than a fancy. Do you truly know what kind of a man he is? Is this a fancy which could endure for all the years of a marriage? If you wanted only to lie with him—that I could arrange easily enough. But when the glamour of the spell had worn off, he might well hate you because you had tricked him. And what then?”

 

Elaine said, stammering, “Even that... even that I will risk. Morgaine, my father has offered me to other men, but he has promised me that he will never force my will. I tell you, if I cannot marry Lancelet, I shall go behind convent walls for all of my life, I swear it ...  .” The girl’s whole body trembled, but she did not weep. “But why should I turn to you, Morgaine? Like all of us, like Gwenhwyfar herself, you would have Lancelet, whether as husband or paramour, and the King’s sister may choose for herself ...  .”

 

Then, for a moment, Elaine thought her eyes tricked her, for in the cold eyes of the sorceress it seemed that tears gathered. Something in her voice made Elaine’s eyes sting too. “Ah, no, child, Lancelet would not have me, even if Arthur bade him. Believe me, Elaine, you would have small happiness with Lancelet.”

 

Elaine said, “I do not think women have ever much happiness in marriage—only young girls think so, and I am not so young. But a woman must marry some time or other, and I would rather have Lancelet.” Then she burst out, “I do not think you can do anything of the sort! Why do you mock me? Are your charms and spells all moonlight rubbish, then?”

 

She had expected Morgaine to flare up at her, to defend her own craft, but Morgaine sighed and shook her head and said, “I put not much faith in love charms and spells, I told you that when first we spoke. They are for concentrating the will of the ignorant. The craft of Avalon is a very different thing, and not lightly to be invoked because a maiden would rather lie with one man than another.”

 

“Oh, it is ever so with the craft of the wise,” Elaine burst out scornfully. “I could do thus or thus, but I will not because it would not be right to meddle in the work of the Gods, or the stars are not right, or what have you ...  .”

 

Morgaine sighed, a heavy sound. “Kinswoman, I can give you Lancelet for husband, if that is truly what you desire. I do not think it will make you happy, but you are so far wise, you have said that you expect not happiness in marriage  ...  believe me, Elaine, I want nothing more than to see Lancelet well wedded and away from this court and from the Queen. Arthur is my brother, and I would not see shame brought upon him, as soon or late it must be. But you are to remember that you asked me for this. See that you do not whimper when it turns to bitterness.”

 

“I swear I will abide whatever comes, if I can have him for husband,” Elaine said. “But why would you do this, Morgaine? Is it simply out of spite for Gwenhwyfar?”

 

“Believe that if you will, or believe I love Arthur too well to see scandal destroy what he has wrought here,” Morgaine said steadily, “and bear in mind, Elaine, charms seldom work as you expect they will ...  .” When the Gods had set their will, what did it matter what any mortal did, even with charms and spells? Viviane had set Arthur on the throne  ...  yet the Goddess had done her own will and not Viviane’s, for she had denied Arthur any son by his queen. And when she, Morgaine, had sought to remedy what the Goddess had left undone, the rebound of that charm had thrown Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet together into this scandalous love. Well, that at least she could remedy, by making it sure that Lancelet made an honorable marriage. And Gwenhwyfar too was trapped; she would be glad, perhaps, of something to break this deadlock.

 

Her mouth twitched a little in something that was not quite a smile. “Beware, Elaine, there is a wise saying: Have a care what you pray for, it might be given you. I can give you Lancelet for husband, but I will ask a gift in return.”

 

“What can I give you that you would value, Morgaine? You care not for jewels, that I have seen. , . .”

 

“I want neither jewels nor riches,” Morgaine said, “only this. You will bear Lancelet children, for I have seen his son . ..” and she stopped, feeling her skin prickle all the way up her spine, as when the Sight came upon her. Elaine’s blue eyes were wide with wonder. She could almost hear Elaine’s thought, So it is true then, and I will have Lancelet for husband and give him children ...  .

 

Yes, it is true, though I did not know it until I spoke  ...  if I work within the Sight, then I am not meddling with what should be left to the Goddess, and so the way will be made clear for me.

 

“I will say nothing of your son,” Morgaine said steadily. “He must do his own fate ...  .” She shook her head to clear it of the strange darkness of the Sight. “I ask only that you give me your first daughter to be schooled at Avalon.”

 

Elaine’s eyes were wide. “In sorcery?”

 

“Lancelet’s own mother was High Priestess of Avalon,” Morgaine said. “I will bear no daughter for the Goddess. If through my doing you give Lancelet the son which every man craves, you must swear to me—swearby your own God—that you will send me your daughter for fostering.”

 

The room seemed full of a ringing silence. At last Elaine said, “If all this comes to pass, and if I have Lancelet’s son, then I swear you shall have his daughter for Avalon. I swear it by the name of Christ,” she said, and made the sign of the cross.

 

Morgaine nodded. “And in turn I swear,” she said, “that she shall be as the daughter I shall never bear to the Goddess, and that she shall avenge a great wrong ...  .”

 

Elaine blinked. “A great wrong—Morgaine, what are you speaking of?”

 

Morgaine swayed a little; the ringing silence in the room was broken. She was aware of the sound of rain outside the windows, and of a chill in the chamber. She frowned and said, “I do not know—my mind wandered. Elaine, this thing cannot be done here. You must beg leave to go and see your father, and you must make certain that I am invited to go and bear you company. I will see to it that Lancelet is there.” She drew a long breath, and turned to take up her gown. “And as for Lancelet, we must by now have given him time to be gone from the Queen’s chamber. Come, Gwenhwyfar will be awaiting us.”

 

And indeed when Elaine and Morgaine reached the Queen, there was no sign of the presence there of Lancelet, or any other man. But once, when Elaine was for a moment beyond earshot, Gwenhwyfar met Morgaine’s eyes, and Morgaine thought she had never seen such awful bitterness.

 

“You despise me, do you not, Morgaine?”

 

For once, Morgaine thought, Gwenhwyfar has voiced the question that has been in her thoughts all these weeks. She felt like hurling back a sharp answer —If I do so, is it not because you have first despised me? But she said as gently as she could, “I am not your confessor, Gwenhwyfar, and you, not I, are the one who professes belief in a God who will damn you because you share your bed with a man who is not your husband. My Goddess is gentler with women.”

 

“He should have been,” Gwenhwyfar burst out, then stopped herself and said, “Arthur is your brother, in your eyes he can do no wrong—“

 

“I said not that.” Morgaine could not bear the wretchedness in the younger woman’s face. “Gwenhwyfar, my sister, none has accused you—“

 

But Gwenhwyfar turned away. She said between clenched teeth, “No, and I want not your pity either, Morgaine.”

 

Want it, or want it not, it is yours, Morgaine thought, but she did not put the thought into words; she was not a healer, to probe old wounds and make them bleed. “Are you ready to break your fast, Gwenhwyfar? What will you choose to eat?”

 

More and more, in this court, since there is no war, it is as if I were her servant, and she nobler than I. It was, Morgaine thought dispassionately, a game they all played, and she did not begrudge it to Gwenhwyfar. But there were in this kingdom noblewomen who might; and she liked it not, either, that Arthur accepted this, that now there were no wars to be fought, Arthur assumed that his old Companions should now be his personal attendants, even though they might be kings or lords in their own right. At Avalon she had willingly served Viviane because the old woman was the living representative of the Goddess, and her wisdom and magical powers put her almost beyond the human. But she had known, too, that the same powers were available to her, if she would work seriously to attain them; and a day could come when she would have the reverence, too, if she took on the power of the Goddess.

 

But for a war leader of the land, or for his consort—no, such powers were not suitable except in war itself, and it angered her that Arthur should keep his court in such state, assuming a power which should belong only to the greatest Druids and priestesses. Arthur bears the sword of Avalon still, and if he keeps not his oath to Avalon, they will require it at his hands.

 

And then it seemed to Morgaine that the room grew still all around her and seemed to open itself out as if everything were very far away; she could still see Gwenhwyfar, her mouth half opened to speak, but at the same time it seemed she could see through the woman’s body, as if she were in the fairy kingdom. Everything seemed, all at once, distant and small and looming over her, and there was a deep silence within her head. In that silence she saw the walls of a pavilion, and Arthur sleeping with Excalibur naked in his hand. And she bent over him—she could not take the sword, but with Viviane’s little sickle knife she cut the strings that bound the scabbard to his waist; it was old now, the velvet frayed and the precious metal of the embroideries dulled and tarnished. Morgaine took the scabbard in her hand, and then she was on the shores of a great lake, with the sound of reeds washing around over her ...  .

 

“I said, no, I do not want any wine, I am weary of wine for breakfast,” Gwenhwyfar remarked. “Perhaps Elaine could find some new milk in the kitchens—Morgaine? Have you gone into a swoon?”

 

Morgaine blinked and stared at Gwenhwyfar. Slowly she came back, trying to focus her eyes. None of it was true, she was not riding madly along the shores of a lake with the scabbard in her hand ... yet all this place had the look of the fairy world, as if she saw everything through rippling water, and it was somehow like a dream she had had once, if she could only remember  ...  and even while she assured the other women that she was quite all right, promising to go herself to the dairy for fresh milk if there was none in the kitchen, still her mind led her through the labyrinths of the dream ... if she could only remember what it was that she had dreamed, all would be well ...  .

 

But as she went down into the fresh air, cool even in summer, she felt no longer as if this world might melt at any moment into the world of fairy. Her head ached as if it had been split asunder, and all that day she was held captive by the strange spell of her waking dream. If only she could remember  ...  she had flung Excalibur into the Lake, that was it, so that the fairy queen might not have it ... no, that was not it, either  ...  and her mind would begin again to try and unreel the strange obsessive path of her dream.

 

But past noon, when the sun was falling toward evening, she heard the horns announcing Arthur’s arrival, and felt the stir which ran all through Camelot. With the other women she ran out to the earthworks at the edge of the heights and watched the royal party riding toward them, banners flying. Gwenhwyfar was trembling at her side. She was taller than Morgaine, but somehow, with her slender pale hands and the fragility of her narrow shoulders, it seemed to Morgaine that Gwenhwyfar was only a child, a tall, lanky child, nervous at some imaginary mischief which must be punished. She touched Morgaine’s sleeve with her trembling hand.

 

“Sister—must my lord know? It is done and Meleagrant is dead. There is no reason for Arthur to make war on anyone. Why should he not think that my lord Lancelet reached me in time—in time to prevent—“ Her voice was only a thin treble, like a little girl’s, and she could not speak the words. “Sister,” said Morgaine, “it is for you to tell or not.”

 

“But—if he heard it elsewhere—“

 

Morgaine sighed; could not Gwenhwyfar have said for once what she meant? “If Arthur hears aught to distress him, he will not hear it from me, and there is no other has the right to speak. But he cannot lay it to your charge that you were trapped and beaten into submission.”

 

And then she knew, as if she had heard it, the voice of a priest speaking to the trembling Gwenhwyfar—was it now or when Gwenhwyfar was a child?—saying that no woman was ever ravished save she had tempted some man to it, as Eve led our first father Adam into sin; that the Holy Virgin martyrs of Rome had willingly died rather than lay down their chastity ... it was this made Gwenhwyfar tremble. Somewhere in her mind, dismiss it how she might or try to smother the knowledge in Lancelet’s arms, she truly believed it was her fault, that she merited death for the sin of having lived to be ravaged. And since she had not died first, Arthur had the right to kill her for it ... no reassurances would ever quiet that voice in Gwenhwyfar’s mind.

 

She feels this guilt over Meleagrant so that she need feel none for what she has done with Lancelet ...  .

 

Gwenhwyfar was shivering at her side, despite the warm sun. “I would he were here, that we might go indoors. Look, there are hawks flying in the sky. I am afraid of hawks, always I am afraid they will swoop down on me ...  .”

 

“They would find you too big and tough a mouthful, I am afraid, sister,” Morgaine said amiably.

 

Servants were heaving at the great gates, opening them for the royal party to ride through. Sir Ectorius still limped heavily from the night he had spent imprisoned in the cold, but he came forward at Cai’s side, and Cai, as keeper of his castle, bowed before Arthur.

 

“Welcome home, my lord and king.”

 

Arthur dismounted and came to embrace Cai.

 

“This is an overly formal welcome to my home, Cai, you rascal—is all well here?”

 

“All is well here now, my lord,” said Ectorius, “but once again you have cause to be grateful to your captain.”

 

“True,” said Gwenhwyfar, coming forward, her hand laid lightly in Lancelet’s. “My lord and king, Lancelet saved me from a trap laid by a traitor, saved me from such a fate as no Christian woman should suffer.”

 

Arthur laid one hand in his queen’s and the other in that of his captain of horse. “I am, as always, grateful to you, my dear friend, and so is my wife. Come, we shall speak about this in private.” And, moving between the two of them, he went up the steps into the castle.

 

“I wonder what manner of lies they will hurry to pour into his ears, that chaste queen and her finest of knights?” Morgaine heard the words, spoken low and very clear, from somewhere in the crowd; but she could not tell from where they came. She thought, Perhaps peace is not an unmixed blessing: without a war, there is nothing for them to do at court, with their usual occupation gone, but pass on every rumor and bit of scandal.

 

But if Lancelet were gone from the court, then would the scandal be quieted. And she resolved that whatever she could do to accomplish that end, would be done at once.

 

THAT NIGHT at supper Arthur asked Morgaine to bring her harp and sing to them. “It seems long since I heard your music, sister,” he said, and drew her close and kissed her. He had not done this in a long time.

 

“I will sing gladly,” she said, “but when will Kevin return to court?” She thought with bitterness of their quarrel; never, never should she forgive him his treason to Avalon! Yet, against her will, she missed him and thought regretfully of the time when they had been lovers.

 

I am weary of lying alone, that is all ...  .

 

But this made her think of Arthur, and her son at Avalon ... if Gwenhwyfar should leave this court, then surely Arthur would marry again; but it looked not like that at this moment. And should Gwenhwyfar never bear a son, then should not their son be acknowledged as his father’s heir? He was doubly of royal blood, the blood of the Pendragon and of Avalon  ...  Igraine was dead and the scandal could not harm her.

 

She sat on a carven and gilded stool near the throne, her harp on the floor at her feet; Arthur and Gwenhwyfar sat close together, hand in hand. Lancelet sprawled on the floor at Morgaine’s side, watching the harp, but now and again she saw his eyes move to Gwenhwyfar and she quailed at the terrible longing there; how could he show his heart like this to any onlooker? And then Morgaine knew that only she could see his heart—to all other eyes he was only a courtier looking respectfully at his queen, laughing and jesting with her as a privileged friend of her husband.

 

And as her hands moved on the strings, the world again seemed to fall into the distance, very small and far and at the same time huge and strange, things losing their shapes so that her harp seemed at once a child’s toy and something monstrous, a huge formless thing smothering her, and she was high on a throne somewhere peering through wandering shadows, looking down at a young man with dark hair, a narrow coronet around his brow, and as she looked on him, the sharp pain of desire ran down her body, she met his eyes and it was as if a hand touched her in her most private part, rousing her to hunger and longing ...  . She felt her fingers falter on the strings, she had dreamed something ... a face wavering, a young man’s smile at her, no, it was not Lancelet but some other  ...  no, it was all like shadows—

 

Gwenhwyfar’s clear voice broke through. “See to the lady Morgaine,” she said, “my sister is faint—!”

 

She felt Lancelet’s arms supporting her and looked up into his dark eyes —it was like her dream, desire running through her, melting her  ...  no, but she had dreamed that. It was not real. She put her hand confusedly to her brows. “It was the smoke, the smoke from the hearth—“

 

“Here, sip this.” Lancelet held a cup to her lips. What madness was this? He had barely touched her and she felt sick with desire for him; she thought she had long forgotten that, had had it burned out of her over the years  ...  and yet his touch, gentle and impersonal, roused her to fierce longing again. Had she dreamed about him, then?

 

He does not want me, he does not want any woman save the Queen, she thought, and stared past him at the hearth, where no fire burned in this summer season, and a wreath of green bay leaves twined to keep the empty fireplace from gaping too black and ugly. She sipped at the wine Lancelet held for her.

 

“I am sorry—I have been a little faint all the day,” she said, remembering the morning. “Let some other take the harp, I cannot. ...”

 

Lancelet said, “By your leave, my lords, I will sing!” He took the harp and said, “This is a tale of Avalon, which I heard in my childhood. I think it was written by Taliesin himself, though he may have made it from an older song.”

 

He began to sing an old ballad, of Arianrhod the queen, who had stepped over a stream and come away with child; and she had cursed her son when he was born, and said he should never have a name till she gave him one, and how he tricked her into giving him a name, and later how she cursed him and said he should never have a wife, whether of flesh and blood, nor yet of the fairy folk, and so he made him a woman of flowers ...  .

 

Morgaine sat listening, still twined in her dream, and it seemed to her that Lancelet’s dark face was filled with terrible suffering, and as he sang of the flower woman, Blodeuwedd, his eyes lingered for a moment on the queen. But then he turned to Elaine, and sang courteously of how the blossom woman’s hair was made of fine golden lilies, and how her cheeks were like the petals of the apple blossom, and she was clad in all the colors of the flowers that bloom, blue and crimson and yellow, in the fields of summer ...  .

 

Morgaine sat quietly in her place, cushioning her aching head in her hand. Later Gawaine brought out a pipe from his own northern country, and began to play a wild lament, filled with the cries of sea birds and sorrow. Lancelet came and sat near to Morgaine, taking her hand gently.

 

“Are you better now, kinswoman?”

 

“Oh, yes—it has happened before,” Morgaine said. “It is as if I had fallen into a dream and saw all things through shadows—“ And yet, she thought, it was not quite like that either.

 

“My mother said something like that to me once,” said Lancelet, and Morgaine gauged his sorrow and weariness by that; never before had he spoken to her, nor to any other as far as she knew, of his mother or of his years at Avalon. “She seemed to think it was a thing which came of itself with the Sight. Once she said it was as if she were drawn into the fairy country and looking out from there as its prisoner, but I know not if she had ever been within the fairy country or if this was but a way of speaking. ...”

 

But I have, Morgaine thought, and it is not like that, not quite  ...  it is like trying to remember a dream that has faded ...  .

 

“I myself have known it a little,” Lancelet said. “It comes at a time when I cannot see clearly, but only as if all things were very far away and not real  ...  and I could not quite touch them but must first cross a weary distance ... perhaps it is something in the fairy blood we bear—“ He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I used to taunt you with that, when you were only a little maiden, do you recall, I called you Morgaine of the Fairies and it made you angry?”

 

She nodded. “I remember well, kinsman,” she said, thinking that for all the weariness in his face, the new lines there, the touch of grey in the crisp curls of his hair, he was still more beautiful to her, more beloved, than any other man she had ever known. She blinked her eyes fiercely; so it was and so it must be: he loved her as kinswoman, no more.

 

Again it seemed to her that the world moved behind a barrier of shadows; it mattered nothing what she did. This world was no more real than the fairy kingdom. Even the music sounded faraway and distant— Gawaine had taken up the harp and was singing some tale he had heard among the Saxons, of a monster who dwelled in a lake and how one of their heroes had gone down into the lake and ripped off the monster’s arm, then faced the monster’s mother in her evil den ...  .

 

“A grim and grisly tale,” she said under her breath to Lancelet, and he smiled and said, “Most Saxon tales are so. War and bloodshed and heroes with skill in battle and not much else in their thick noddles. ...”

 

“And now we are to live at peace with them, it seems,” Morgaine said.

 

“Aye. So it shall be. I can live with the Saxons, but not with what they call music  ...  though their tales are entertaining enough, I suppose, for a long evening by the hearth.” He sighed, and said, almost inaudibly, “I think perhaps I was not born for sitting by a hearth, either—“

 

“You would like to be out in battle again?”

 

He shook his head. “No, but I am weary of the court.” Morgaine saw his eyes go to where Gwenhwyfar sat beside Arthur, smiling as she listened to Gawaine’s tale. Again he sighed, a sound that seemed ripped up from the very deeps of his soul.

 

“Lancelet,” she said, quietly and urgently, “you must be gone from here or you will be destroyed.”

 

“Aye, destroyed body and soul,” he said, staring at the floor.

 

“About your soul I know nothing—you must ask a priest about that—“

 

“Would that I could!” said Lancelet with suppressed violence; he struck his fist softly on the floor beside her harp, so that the strings jangled a little. “Would that I could believe there is just such a God as the Christians claim ...  .”

 

“You must go, cousin. Go on some quest like Gareth’s, to kill ruffians who are holding the land to ransom, or to kill dragons, or what you will, but you must go!”

 

She saw his throat move as he swallowed. “And what of her?”

 

Morgaine said quietly, “Believe this or no, I am her friend too. Think you not, she has a soul to be saved as well?”

 

“Why, you give me counsel as good as any priest.” His smile was bitter.

 

“It takes no priesthood to know when two men—and a woman as well —are trapped, and cannot escape from what has been,” said Morgaine. “It would be easy to blame her for all. But I, too, know what it is to love where I cannot—“ She stopped and looked away from him, feeling scalding heat rise in her face; she had not meant to say so much. The song had ended, and Gawaine yielded up the harp, saying, “After this grim tale we need something light—a song of love, perhaps, and I leave that to the gallant Lancelet—“

 

“I have sat too long at court singing songs of love,” said Lancelet, rising and turning toward Arthur. “Now that you are here again, my lord, and can see to all things yourself, I beg you to send me forth from this court on some quest.”

 

Arthur smiled at his friend. “Will you be gone so soon? I cannot keep you if you are longing to be away, but where would you go?”

 

Pellinore and his dragon. Morgaine, her eyes cast down, staring and seeing the flicker of the fire past her lids, formed the words in her mind with all the force she could manage, trying to thrust them into Arthur’s mind. Lancelet said, “I had it in mind to go after a dragon—“

 

Arthur’s eyes glinted with mischief. “It might be well, at that, to make an end of Pellinore’s dragon. The tales grow daily greater, so that men are afraid to travel into that country! Gwenhwyfar tells me Elaine has asked for leave to visit her home. You may escort the lady thither, and I bid you not return until Pellinore’s dragon is dead.”

 

“Alas,” protested Lancelet, laughing, “would you exile me from your court for all time? How can I kill a dragon who is but a dream?”

 

Arthur chuckled. “May you never meet a dragon worse than that, my friend! Well, I charge you to make an end for all time of that dragon, even if you must laugh it out of existence by making a ballad of it!”

 

Elaine rose and curtseyed to the King. “By your leave, my lord, may I ask that the lady Morgaine visit me for a time as well?”

 

Morgaine said, not looking at Lancelet, “I would like to go with Elaine, my brother, if your lady can spare me. There are herbs and simples in that country about which I know little, and I would learn of them from the country wives. I need them for medicines and charms.”

 

“Well,” said Arthur, “you may go if you will. But it will be lonely here without you all.” He smiled his rare, gentle smile at Lancelet. “My court is not my court without my best of knights. But I would not hold you here against your will, and neither would my queen.”

 

I am not so sure of that, Morgaine thought, watching Gwenhwyfar struggling to compose her face. Arthur had been long away; he was eager to be reunited with his wife. Would Gwenhwyfar tell him honestly that she loved another, or would she go meekly to his bed and pretend again?

 

And for a bizarre moment Morgaine saw herself as the Queen’s shadow  ...  somehow her fate and mine have gotten all entangled  ...  she, Morgaine, had had Arthur and borne him a son, which Gwenhwyfar longed to do; Gwenhwyfar had had Lancelet’s love for which Morgaine would willingly have given her soul  ...  it is just like the God of the Christians to make such blunders—he does not like lovers. Or is it the Goddess who jests cruelly with us?

 

Gwenhwyfar beckoned to Morgaine. “You look ill, sister. Are you still faint?”

 

Morgaine nodded. I must not hate her. She is as much victim as I. ... “I am still a little weary. I will go to rest soon.”

 

“And tomorrow,” Gwenhwyfar said, “you and Elaine are to take Lancelet from us.” The words were spoken lightly, as a jest, but Morgaine seemed to see very deep into Gwenhwyfar, where the woman was fighting rage and despair like her own. Ah, our fates are entangled by the Goddess, and who can fight her will  ...  but she hardened her heart against the other woman’s despair and said, “What is the good of a queen’s champion, if he is not away fighting for what seems good to him? Would you hold him at court and away from the winning of honor, my sister?”

 

“Neither of us would want that,” Arthur said, coming up behind Gwenhwyfar and laying his arm around her waist. “Since by the goodwill of my friend and champion, my queen is here and safe when I return. Good night to you, my sister.”

 

Morgaine stood and watched them move away from her, and after a moment she felt Lancelet’s hand on her shoulder. He did not speak, but stood silent, watching Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. And as she stood there, silent, she knew that if she made a single move, she could have Lancelet this night. In his despair, now when he saw the woman he loved returning to her husband, and that husband so dear to him that he could not lift a hand to take her, he would turn to Morgaine if she would have him.

 

And he is too honorable not to marry me afterward ...  .

 

No. Elaine would have him, perhaps, on those terms, but not I. She is guileless; he will not come to hate her, as he would certainly come to hate me.

 

Gently she removed Lancelet’s hand from her shoulder. “I am weary, my kinsman. I am also for my bed. Good night, my dear. Bless you.” And, knowing the irony of it, said, “Sleep well,” knowing he would not. Well, so much the better for the plan she had made.

 

But much of that night she too lay unsleeping, bitterly regretting her own foreknowledge. Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.

 

                                   6           

In Avalon the Tor rose, crowned with the ring stones, and on the night of the darkened moon, the procession wound slowly upward, with torches. At their head walked a woman, pale hair braided in a crown over a broad, low forehead; she was robed in white, the sickle knife hanging at her girdle. By the light of the flaring torches, it seemed that she sought out Morgaine where she stood in the shadows outside the circle, and her eyes demanded. Where are you, you who should stand here in my place? Why do you linger? Your place is here ...  .

 

Arthur’s kingdom is slipping from the Lady’s grasp, and you are letting it go. Already he turns for all things to the priests, while you, who should stand in the place of the Goddess to him, will not move. He holds the sword of the Holy Regalia; is it you who will force him to live by it, or you who will take it from his hand and bring him down? Remember, Arthur has a son, and his son must grow to maturity in Avalon, that he may hand the kingdom of the Goddess down to his son ...  .

 

And then it seemed that Avalon faded away and she saw Arthur in desperate battle, Excalibur in his hand, and he fell, run through by another sword, and he flung Excalibur into the Lake that it might not fall into the hands of his son…

 

Where is Morgaine, whom the Lady prepared for this day? Where is she who should stand in the place of the Goddess for this hour?

 

Where is the Great Raven? And suddenly it seemed to me that a flight of ravens wheeled overhead, diving and pecking at my eyes, circling down at me, crying aloud in Raven’s own voice, “Morgaine! Morgaine, why have you deserted us, why did you betray me?”

 

“I cannot,” I cried, “I do not know the way ...” but Raven’s face melted into the accusing face of Viviane, and then into the shadow of the Old Deathcrone.

 

And Morgaine woke, knowing she lay in a sunlit room in Pellinore’s house; the walls were white with plaster, painted in the old Roman fashion. Only outside the windows, far off and distant, she could hear the cry of a raven somewhere, and shivered.

 

Viviane had never scrupled to meddle with the lives of others, when it meant the good of Avalon or of the kingdom. Nor should she. Yet she herself had delayed as the sunny days sped by. Lancelet spent the days on the hills by the Lake, searching for the dragon—as if there actually were a dragon, Morgaine thought scornfully—and the evenings by the fire, exchanging songs and tales with Pellinore, singing to Elaine while sitting at her feet. Elaine was beautiful and innocent, and not unlike her cousinGwenhwyfar, though five years younger. Morgaine let day after sunny day slide by, sure that they all must see the logic of it, that Lancelet and Elaine should marry.

 

No, she told herself bitterly, if any of them had had any wit to see logic or reason, then should Lancelet have married me years ago. Now it was time to act.

 

Elaine turned over in the bed they shared and opened her eyes; she smiled and curled up next to Morgaine. She trusts me, thought Morgaine painfully; she thinks I am helping her to win Lancelet out of friendship. If I hated her I could do her no worse harm. But she said quietly, “Now Lancelet has had enough time to feel the loss of Gwenhwyfar. Your time has come, Elaine.”

 

“Will you give Lancelet a charm or a love potion  ...  ?”

 

Morgaine laughed. “I put small trust in love charms, though tonight he shall have something in his wine which will make him ready for any woman. Tonight you shall not sleep here, but in a pavilion near the woods, and Lancelet shall have a message that Gwenhwyfar has come and has sent for him. And so he will come to you, in the darkness. I can do no more than that—you must be ready for him—“

 

“And he will think I am Gwenhwyfar—“ She blinked, swallowing hard. “Well, then—“

 

“He may think you are Gwenhwyfar for a short while,” Morgaine said, steadily, “but he will know soon enough. You are a virgin, are you not, Elaine?”

 

The girl’s face was crimson, but she nodded.

 

“Well, after the potion I have given him, he will not be able to stop himself,” said Morgaine, “unless you should panic and try to fight him away from you—I warn you, it will not be all that much pleasure, since you are a virgin. Once I begin I cannot turn back, so say now whether you wish me to begin.”

 

“I will have Lancelet for my husband, and God forbid I should ever turn back before I am honorably his wife.”

 

Morgaine sighed. “So be it. Now—you know the scent Gwenhwyfar uses  ... ”

 

“I know it, but I do not like it much, it is too strong for me.”

 

Morgaine nodded. “I make it for her—you know I am schooled in such things. When you go to bed in the pavilion, you must scent your body and your bedclothes with it. It will turn his mind to Gwenhwyfar and arouse him with that memory—“

 

The younger woman wrinkled her nose in distaste. “It seems unfair—“

 

“It is unfair,” said Morgaine. “Make up your mind to that. What we are doing is dishonest, Elaine, but there’s good to it too. Arthur’s kingdom cannot long stand if the King is known a cuckold. When you are wedded a while, since you and Gwenhwyfar are so much alike, no doubt it will be put round that it was you Lancelet loved all this time.” She gave Elaine the flask of scent. “Now, if you have a servant you can trust, have him put up the pavilion somewhere Lancelet will not see it till this night ...  .”

 

Elaine said, “Even the priest would approve, I doubt it not, since I am taking him away from adultery with a married woman. I am free to marry ...  .”

 

Morgaine felt her own smile thin and strained. “Well for you, if you can quiet your conscience so ... some priests say so, that the end is all, and whatever means be used, they are for the best  ... ”

 

She realized that Elaine was still standing, like a child at lessons, before her. “Well, go, Elaine,” she said, “go and send Lancelet away another day to hunt the dragon. I must prepare my charm.”

 

She watched them as they shared cup and plate at breakfast. Lancelet was fond of Elaine, she thought—fond as he might be of a friendly little dog. He would not be unkind to her when they were married.

 

Viviane had been just as ruthless as this, she had not scrupled to send a brother to the bed of his own sister ...  . Morgaine worried the memory painfully, like a sore tooth. This too is for the good of the kingdom, she thought, and as she went to hunt out her herbs and medicines, to steep them in wine for the potion she would give Lancelet, she tried to form a prayer to the Goddess who joined man and women in love, or in simple lust like the rutting of beasts.

 

Goddess, I know enough of lust ...  she thought, and steadied her hands, breaking the herbs and dropping them into the wine. I have felt his desire, though he would not give me what I would have had from him ...  .

 

She sat watching the slow simmering of the herbs in the wine; small bubbles rose, lazily broke, and spat bittersweet essences which fumed around her. The world seemed very small and far away, her brazier but a child’s toy, each bubble that rose in the wine large enough that she could have floated away inside it ... her whole body aching with a desire she knew would never be slaked. She could sense that she was moving into the state where powerful magic could be made ...  .

 

It seemed she was both within and without the castle, that a part of her was out on the hills, following the Pendragon banner which Lancelet sometimes carried  ...  twisting, a great red dragon  ...  but there were no dragons, not this kind of dragon, and Pellinore’s dragon, it was surely only a jest, a dream, as unreal as the banner which flew somewhere, far to the southward, over the walls of Camelot, a dragon invented by some artist for the banner, like the designs Elaine drew for her tapestry. And Lancelet surely knew this. Following the dragon, he was but enjoying a pleasant ride over the summer hills, following a dream and a fantasy, leaving him leisure for daydreaming of Gwenhwyfar’s arms ...  . Morgaine looked down at the bubbling liquid in her little brazier, drop by drop added a little more wine to the mixture, that it would not boil away. He would dream of Gwenhwyfar, and that night there would be a woman in his arms, wearing Gwenhwyfar’s perfume. But first Morgaine would give him this potion which would put him at the mercy of the rut in him, so that he would not stop when he found he held not an experienced woman and his paramour, but a shrinking virgin ...  . For a moment Morgaine stopped to pity Elaine, because what she was cold-bloodedly arranging was certainly something like rape. Much as Elaine longed for Lancelet, she was a virgin and had no real idea of the difference between her romantic dreams of his kisses, and what really awaited her—being taken by a man too drugged to know the difference. Whatever it was for Elaine, and however bravely she endured it, it would hardly be a romantic episode.

 

I gave up my maidenhood to the King Stag ... yet that was different. From childhood I had known what awaited me, and I had been taught and reared in the worship of that Goddess who brings man and woman together in love or in rut ...  . Elaine was reared a Christian and taught to think of that very life force as the original sin for which mankind was doomed to death ...  .

 

For a moment she thought she should seek out Elaine, try to prepare her, encourage her to think of this as the priestesses were taught to think of it: a great force of nature, clean and sinless, to be welcomed as a current of life, sweeping the participant into the torrent... but Elaine would think that even worse sin. Well, then, she must make of it what she would; perhaps her love for Lancelet would carry her through it undamaged.

 

Morgaine turned her thoughts back to simmering the herbs and the wine, and at the same time, somehow, it seemed she was riding on the hills  ...  neither was it a fair day for a ride; the sky was dark and clouded, a little wind blowing, the hills bleak and bare. Below the hills the long arm of the sea which was the lake looked grey and fathomless, like fresh-smithied metal; and the surface of the lake began to boil a little, or was it but the water in her brazier? Dark bubbles rose and spilled a foul stench, and then, slowly, rising from the lake, a long, narrow neck crowned with a horse’s head and a horse’s mane, a long sinuous body, writhing toward the shore  ...  rising, crawling, slithering its whole length onto the shore.

 

Lancelet’s hounds were running about, darting down to the water, barking frenziedly. She heard him call out to them in exasperation; stop dead and look down toward the water, paralyzed, only half believing what he saw with his eyes, Then Pellinore blew his hunting horn to summon the others, and Lancelot put spurs to his horse, his spear braced on the saddle, and rode at a breakneck speed down the hill, charging. One of the hounds gave a pitiful scream; then silence, and Morgaine, from her strange distant watch, saw the curiously slimed trail where half the dog’s broken body lay eaten away with the dark slime.

 

Pellinore was charging at it, and she heard Lancelot’s shout to warn him back from riding directly at the great beast ... it was black and like a great worm, all but that mockery of a horse’s head and mane. Lancelot rode at it, avoiding the weaving head, thrusting his long spear directly into the body. A wild howl shook the shore, a crazed banshee scream  ...  she saw the great head weaving wildly back and forth, back and forth  ...  Lancelot flung himself from his rearing, bucking horse, and ran on foot toward the monster. The head weaved down, and Morgaine flinched, as she saw the great mouth open. Then Lancelot’s sword pierced the eye of the dragon, and there was a great gush of blood and some black foul stuff  ...  and it was all the bubbles rising from the wine ...  .

 

Morgaine’s heart jumped wildly. She lay back and sipped a little of the undiluted wine in the flask. Had it been an evil dream, or had she actually seen Lancelot kill the dragon in which she had never really believed? She rested there for some time, telling herself that she had dreamed, and then forced herself to rise, to add some sweet fennel to the mixture, for the strong sweetness would conceal the other herbs. And there should be strong salted beef for dinner, so that everyone should thirst and drink a great deal of the wine, especially Lancelot. Pellinore was a pious man—what would he think if all his castle folk went to rutting? No, she should make sure that only Lancelot drank the spiced mixture, and perhaps, in mercy, she should give some to Elaine too ...  .

 

She poured the spiced wine into a flask and put it aside. Then she heard a cry, and Elaine rushed into her room.

 

“Oh, Morgaine, come at once, we need your work with simples— Father and Lancelot have slain the dragon, but they are both burned ...  .”

 

“Burned? What nonsense is this? Do you believe truly that dragons fly and belch fire?”

 

“No, no,” Elaine said impatiently, “but the creature spat some slime at them and it burns like fire—you must come and dress their wounds....”

 

Disbelieving, Morgaine glanced at the sky outside. The sun was hovering, a bare hand span above the western horizon; she had sat here most of the day. She went quickly, calling to the maids for bandage linen.

 

Pellinore had a great burn along one arm—yes, it looked very much like a burn; the fabric of his tunic was eaten away by it, and he roared with anguish as she poured healing salve on it. Lancelot’s side was burned slightly, and on one leg the stuff had eaten through his boots, leaving the leather only a thin jellylike substance covering his leg. He said, “I should clean my sword well. If it can do that to the leather of a boot, think what it would have done to my leg  ... ” and shuddered.

 

“So much for all those who thought my dragon only a fantasy,” said Pellinore, raising his head and sipping the wine his daughter gave him. “And thanks be to God that I had the wit to bathe my arm in the lake, or the slime would have eaten my arm as it dissolved my poor dog—did you see the corpse, Lancelet?”

 

“The dog? Yes,” said Lancelet, “and hope never to see that kind of death again.... But you can confound them all when you hang the dragon’s head over your gate—“

 

“I cannot,” said Pellinore, crossing himself. “There was no proper bone to it at all, it was all soft like a grub or an earthworm ... and it has already withered away to slime. I tried to cut the head and the very air seemed to eat away at it. ... I do not think it was a proper beast at all, but something straight from hell!”

 

“Still it is dead,” Elaine said, “and you have done what the King bade you, made an end once and for all of my father’s dragon.” She kissed her father, saying with tender apology, “Forgive me, sir, I thought, too, that your dragon was all fancy—“

 

“Would to God it had been,” Pellinore said, crossing himself yet again. “I would rather be a mockery from here to Camelot than face any such thing again! I wish I thought there were no more such beasts  ...  Gawaine has told tales of what lives in the lochs yonder.” He signaled to the potboy for more wine. “I think it would be well to get drunk this night, or I shall see that beast in nightmares for the next month!”

 

Would that be best? Morgaine wondered. No, if all about the castle were drunk, it would not fit her plans at all. She said, “You must listen to what I say, if I am to care for your wounds, sir Pellinore. You must drink no more, and you must let Elaine take you to bed with hot bricks at your feet. You have lost some blood, and you must have hot soup and possets, but no more wine.”

 

He grumbled but he listened to her, and when Elaine had taken him away, with his body servants, Morgaine was left alone with Lancelet.

 

“So,” she said, “how would you best celebrate your killing of your first dragon?”

 

He lifted his cup and said, “By praying that it will be my last. I truly thought my hour had come. I would rather face a whole horde of Saxons with no more than my axe!”

 

“The Goddess grant you have no more such encounters, indeed,” Morgaine said, and filled his cup with the spiced wine. “I have made this for you, it is medicinal and will soothe your hurts. I must go and see that Elaine has Pellinore safely tucked away for the night—“

 

“But you will come back, kinswoman?” he said, holding her lightly by one wrist; she saw the wine beginning to burn in him. And more than the wine, she thought; an encounter with death sends a man ready for rutting ...  .

 

“I will come back, I promise; now let me go,” she said, and bitterness flooded her.

 

So, am I fallen so low that I would have him drugged, not knowing? Elaine will have him that way ... why is it better for her? But she wants him for husband, for better or worse. Not I. I am a priestess, and I know this thing that burns in me is not of the Goddess, but unholy  ...  am I so weak that I would have Gwenhwyfar’s castoff garments and her castoff paramour also? And while her scorn cried no, the weakness through her whole body cried yes, so that she was sick with self-contempt as she went along the hall to the chamber of King Pellinore.

 

“How does your father, Elaine?” She wondered that her voice was so steady.

 

“He is quiet now, and I think he will sleep.”

 

Morgaine nodded. “Now you must go to the pavilion, and sometime this night Lancelet will come to you. Forget not the scent Gwenhwyfar wears ...  .”

 

Elaine was very pale, her blue eyes burning. Morgaine reached out and caught her by the arm; she held out a flask with some of the drugged wine in it. She said, and her own voice was shaking, “Drink this first, child.” Elaine raised it to her lips and drank. “It is sweet with herbs ... is it a love potion?”

 

Morgaine’s smile only stretched her mouth. “You may think it so, if you will.”

 

“Strange, it burns my mouth, and burns me within ...  . Morgaine, it is not poison? You do not—you do not hate me, Morgaine, because I will be Lancelet’s wife?”

 

Morgaine drew the girl close and embraced and kissed her; the warm body in her arms somehow roused her, whether to desire or tenderness she could not tell. “Hate you? No, no, cousin, I swear it to you, I would not have sir Lancelet for husband if he begged me on his knees  ...  here, finish the wine, sweeting  ...  scent your body here, and here .. . remember what he wants of you. It is you who can make him forget the Queen. Now go, child, wait for him in the pavilion there. ...” And again she drew Elaine close to her and kissed her. “The Goddess blesses you.”

 

So like to Gwenhwyfar. Lancelet is already half in love with her, I think, and I but complete the work ...  .

 

She drew a long, shaking breath, composing herself to return to the hall and to Lancelot. He had not hesitated to pour himself more of the drugged wine, and raised fuddled eyes as she came in.

 

“Ah, Morgaine—kinswoman—“ He drew her down beside him. “Drink with me  ... ”

 

“No, not now. Listen to me, Lancelet, I bear a message for you ...  .”

 

“A message, Morgaine?”

 

“Yes,” she said. “Queen Gwenhwyfar has come hither to visit her kinswoman, and she sleeps in the pavilion beyond the lawns.” She took his wrist and drew him along to the door. “And she has sent you a message: she does not wish to disturb her women, so you must go to her very quietly where she is in bed. Will you do that?”

 

She could see the haze of drunkenness and passion in his dark eyes. “I saw no messenger—Morgaine, I did not know you wished me well ...  .”

 

“You do not know how well I wish you, cousin.”

 

I wish that you may marry well and cease this hopeless, wretched love for a woman who can only bring you to dishonor and despair ...  .

 

“Go,” she said gently, “your queen awaits you. If you doubt me, this token was sent you.” She held out a kerchief; it was Elaine’s, but one kerchief is like to another, and it had been all but drenched in the scent associated with Gwenhwyfar.

 

He pressed it to his lips. “Gwenhwyfar,” he whispered. “Where, Morgaine, where?”

 

“In the pavilion. Finish the wine—“

 

“Will you drink to me?”

 

“Later,” she said with a smile. His steps faltered a little; he caught at her for support, and his arms went round her. His touch roused her, light as it was. Lust, she told herself fiercely, animal rut, this is nothing blessed by the Goddess ...  . She struggled for calm. He was drugged like an animal, he would not care, he would take her now mindlessly, as he would have taken Gwenhwyfar, Elaine ...  . “Go, Lancelet, you must not keep your queen waiting.”

 

She saw him disappear in the shadows near the pavilion. He would go in quietly. Elaine would be lying there, the lamp falling on her golden hair so like the Queen’s, but so dim he could not distinguish her features, her body and bed smelling of Gwenhwyfar’s scent. She tormented herself by imagining, as she turned to pace the long empty room, how his slender naked body would slide under the covers, how he would take Elaine in his arms and cover her with kisses. If the little fool has but the wit to keep her mouth shut and say nothing till he is done ...  .

 

Goddess! Shut away the Sight from me, let me not see Elaine in his arms  ...  writhing, racked, Morgaine did not know whether it was her own imagination or the Sight that tortured her with the awareness of Lancelet’s naked body, of the touch of his hands  ...  how clearly she felt them in memory ...  . She went back into the hall where the servants were clearing the tables and said roughly, “Give me some wine.”

 

Startled, the man poured her a cup. Now they will think me a sot as well as a witch. She did not care. She drank down the wine and asked for more. Somehow it cut away the Sight, freed her from her awareness of Elaine, frightened and ecstatic, pinned down under his rough, demanding body ...  .

 

Restlessly, like a prowling cat, she paced the hall, flickers of the Sight coming and going. When she judged the time was ripe, she drew a long breath, steeling herself for what she knew she must do now. The body servant who slept across the king’s door started awake as Morgaine bent to rouse him.

 

“Madam, you cannot disturb the king at this hour—“ “It concerns his daughter’s honor.” Morgaine took a torch from the wall bracket and held it aloft; she could sense how she looked to him, tall and terrible, feeling herself merge into the commanding form of the Goddess. He drew aside in terror, and she moved smoothly past.

 

Pellinore lay in his high bed, tossing restlessly in pain from his bandaged wound. He, too, started awake, looking up at Morgaine’s pale face, the torch held high.

 

“You must come quickly, my lord,” she said, her voice smooth and taut with her own controlled passion. “This is betrayal of hospitality ... I felt it right that you must know. Elaine—“ “Elaine? What—“

 

“She is not asleep in our bed,” Morgaine said. “Come quickly, my lord.” She had been wise not to let him drink; she could not have roused him had he slept heavily with wine. Pellinore, startled, incredulous, threw on a garment, shouting for his daughter’s women. It seemed to Morgaine that they followed her down the stairs and out the doors as smoothly as the writhing of a dragon, a procession with herself and Pellinore at the serpent’s head, and she thrust back the silken flap of the pavilion, holding the torch high and watching with cruel triumph as Pellinore’s outraged face was lighted by the torch. Elaine lay with her arms wound around Lancelet’s neck, smiling and blissful; Lancelet, coming awake in the torchlight, stared around in shock and awareness, and his face was agonized with betrayal. But he did not say a word.

 

Pellinore shouted, “Now you will make amends, you lecherous wretch, you who have betrayed my daughter—“

 

Lancelet buried his face in his hands. He said through them, strangled, “I will—make amends—my lord Pellinore.” Then he raised his face and looked straight into Morgaine’s eyes. She met them, unflinching; but it was like a sword through her body. Before this, at least, he had loved her as a kinswoman.

 

Well, better that he should hate her. She would try to hate him, too. But before Elaine’s face, shamed and yet smiling, she wanted to cry instead, and beg for them to pardon her.

 

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

 

Lancelet was married to Elaine on Transfiguration; I remember little of the ceremony save Elaine’s face, joyous and smiling. By the time Pellinore had arranged the wedding, she knew already that she bore Lancelet’s son in her belly, and although he looked wretched, thin and pallid with despair, he was tender with Elaine, and proud of her swelling body. I remember Gwenhwyfar too, her face drawn with long weeping, and the look of ineradicable hatred that she turned on me.

 

“Can you swear that this was not your doing, Morgaine?”

 

I looked her straight in the eye.

 

“Do you begrudge your kinswoman a husband of her own, as you have one?”

 

She could not face me at that. And again I told myself, fiercely: Had she and Lancelet been honest with Arthur, had they fled from the court together, to live beyond Arthur’s kingdom, so that Arthur could have taken him another wife to get an heir for the kingdom, then I would not have meddled.

 

But from that day, Gwenhwyfar hated me; and that I regretted most, for in a strange way I had loved her. Gwenhwyfar never seemed to hate her kinswoman; she sent Elaine a rich gift and a silver cup when her son was born, and when Elaine had the boy christened Galahad, for his father, she named herself his godmother and swore that he should be heir to the kingdom if she did not give Arthur a son. Sometime that year she indeed announced she was pregnant, but nothing came of it, and I think, indeed, it was only her desire for a child, and her fancy.

 

The marriage was no worse than most. That year Arthur had to face war on the northern coast, and Lancelet spent little time at home. Like many husbands, he spent his time at war, coming home two or three times a year to see to their lands—Pellinore had given them a castle near his own—to receive the new cloaks and shirts Elaine wove and embroidered for him—after he married Elaine, Lancelet always dressed as fine as the King himself—to kiss his son, and later his daughters, to sleep with his wife once, or maybe twice, and then he was off again.

 

Elaine always seemed happy. I do not know whether she was truly happy, being one of those women who can find their best happiness in home and babes, or whether she longed for more than this and yet abode bravely by the bargain she had made.

 

As for me, I dwelt at court for two more years. And then, at Pentecost of the second year, when Elaine was pregnant with her second child, Gwenhwyfar had her revenge.