7

As with every year, the day of Pentecost was Arthur’s high festival. Gwenhwyfar had been awake since earliest daylight. On this day, all of those Companions who had fought at Arthur’s side should be at court, and this year Lancelet would be here too  ...

... last year he had not come. Word had been sent that he was in Less Britain, answering a call from his father, King Ban, who sought to settle trouble in his kingdom; but Gwenhwyfar knew in her heart why Lancelet had not come, why he had chosen to stay apart.

It was not that she could not forgive his marriage to Elaine. Morgaine and her spite had brought that about—Morgaine, who would have had Lancelet for herself and would stop at nothing to part him from the one he truly loved. Rather than see him in Gwenhwyfar’s arms, Gwenhwyfar supposed, Morgaine would have seen him in hell, or in his grave.

Arthur, too, missed Lancelet sorely, that she had seen. Although he sat in his high seat at Camelot, and dealt justice to all manner of men—he was loved, loved far more than any king Gwenhwyfar had heard tell of before this—she could see that always he looked back to the days of battle and conquest; she supposed all men were like that. Arthur would bear to his grave the scars of the wounds he had taken in his great battles. When they had fought year after year to bring peace to the land, he had spoken as if he wished for nothing more than leisure to sit at home in Camelot and enjoy his castle. Now he was never so happy as when he could get some of his old Companions about him, and fall to talking of those old evil days when there were Saxons and Jutes and wild Northmen on every hand.

She looked at Arthur where he lay sleeping. Yes, and he was still the handsomest and goodliest of all his old Companions; at times she thought he was fairer of face and better to look at even than Lancelet, though it was unfair to compare them, one so dark, one so blond. And after all they were cousins, they were of one blood ... how, she wondered, had Morgaine come into that kindred? Perhaps indeed she was a changeling, nothing human at all, but left by the evil fairy folk to do wickedness among mankind ... a sorceress schooled in un-Christian ways. Arthur too was tainted by that background, though she had gotten him to go often to mass and to speakof himself as Christian. Morgaine liked not that, either.

Well, she would fight to the last to save Arthur’s soul! She loved him well, he was the best husband a woman could ever have had, even had he been no High King but a simple knight. Surely the madness that had seized her was long gone. It was right and fitting she should think kindly of her husband’s cousin. Why, it was at Arthur’s own will that she had first lain in Lancelet’s arms. And now it was all past and over, and she had confessed it and been absolved; her priest had told her it was as if the sin had never been, and now she must strive to forget it.

Yet she could not help remembering, a little, on this morning when Lancelet would be coming to court with his wife and son ... he was a married man, married to her own cousin. Now he was not only her husband’s kinsman but her own kinsman as well. She could greet him with a kiss, and it would be no sin.

Arthur turned over, as if her thoughts could disturb him, and smiled at her.

“It is Pentecost day, sweetheart,” he said, “and all of our kinfolk and friends will be here. Let me see you smile.”

She smiled at him and he drew her down against him, kissing her and letting his fingers circle her breasts.

“You are certain what we do this day will not offend you? I would not have anyone think you were less to me,” he said anxiously. “You are not old, God may yet bless us with children if it is his will. But the lesser kings have demanded it of me—life is never certain, so I must name an heir. When our first son is born, sweet, then it will be as if this day had never been, and I am sure young Galahad will not begrudge the throne to his cousin, but serve and honor him as Gawaine has done for me ...  .”

It might yet be true, Gwenhwyfar thought, surrendering herself to her husband’s gentle caresses. There were such things told of in the Bible: the mother of John the Baptizer, who had been cousin to the Virgin—God had opened her womb long after she was past the age of bearing, and she, Gwenhwyfar, was not yet thirty  ...  why, Lancelet had said once that his mother was older than this when he was born. Perhaps this time, after all these years, she would arise from her husband’s bed bearing again the seed of his son in her body. And now that she had learned not only to submit to him as a good wife must, but to take pleasure in his touch, his manhood filling her, surely she was softened and all the more ready to conceive and bear ...  .

No doubt it was all for the best, when for a time three years ago she had thought she bore Lancelet’s child, but something had gone amiss  ...  three months she had not had her moon-blood and she had told one or two of her ladies that she was with child; and then, after three more months, when she should have felt the first quickening, it had proved to be nothing after all... but now, surely, with this new warmth she had known since she had been all wakened, this time it would come about as she wished. And Elaine would not gloat and triumph over her again ...  . She might, for a little time, have been the mother of the King’s heir, but Gwenhwyfar would be the mother of the King’s son ...  .

She said something like that later, when they were dressing, and Arthur looked at her, troubled. “Is Lancelet’s wife unkind or scornful to you, Gwen? I had thought you and your cousin were good friends ...  .”

“Oh, we are,” said Gwenhwyfar, blinking back tears, “but it is always so with women  ...  those women who have sons think ever they are the betters of any woman who is barren. The wife of the swineherd, in her childbed, no doubt thinks with scorn and pity of the Queen who cannot give her lord so much as a single son.”

Arthur came and kissed the back of her neck. “Don’t, sweeting, don’t cry. I would rather have you than another woman who could have given me a dozen sons already.”

“Truly?” Gwenhwyfar said, a hint of scorn in her voice. “Yet I was only something my father gave you with a hundred horsemen, just a part of the bargain—and you took me dutifully to get the horses—but I was a bad bargain—“

He raised his eyes and stared at her with a blue incredulous gaze. “Have you been thinking of that and holding it against me all these years, my Gwen? But surely you must know that since the first moment that I looked on your face, no one could be dearer to me than you!” he said and wound his arms around her. She was rigid, blinking back tears, and he kissed her at the corner of her eye. “Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar, could you think— you are my wife, beloved, my own dear wife, and nothing on earth could part us. If I wanted only a brood mare to get me sons, God knows I could have had enough of them!”

“But you have not,” she said, still stiff and cold in his arms. “I would willingly take your son to foster, and bring him up as your heir. But you thought me not worthy to foster your son  ...  and it was you who pushed me into Lancelet’s arms—“

“Oh, my Gwen,” he said, and his face was rueful like a punished child. “Do you hold it against me, that old madness? I was drunk, and it seemed to me that you loved Lancelet well... I thought to give you pleasure, and if it might truly be so, that it was my fault you did not bear, then you could have a child by one so close to me that I could in good conscience call whatever child came of that night, my own heir. But mostly it was that I was drunk—“

“At times,” she said, her face set like stone, “it has seemed to me that you loved Lancelet more than me. Can you say in truth that it was to give me pleasure, or was it for the pleasure of him you loved best of all—?”

He dropped his arm from her neck as if he were stung. “Is it a sin, then, to love my kinsman and think, too, of his pleasure? It is true, I love you both—“

“In Holy Writ it speaks of that city that was destroyed for such sins,” said Gwenhwyfar.

Arthur was as white as his shirt. “I love my kinsman Lancelet with all honor, Gwen; King David himself wrote of his cousin and kinsman Jonathan, Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman, and God smote him not. It is so with comrades in battle. Dare you to say that such a love is a sin, Gwenhwyfar? I will avow it before the throne of God—“ He stopped, unable to force further sound through his dry throat.

Gwenhwyfar heard her own voice cracking with hysteria.

“Can you swear that when you brought him to our bed ... I saw it then, you touched him with more love than ever you have given the woman my father forced on you—when you led me into this sin, can you swear it was not your own sin, and all your fine talk no more than a cover for that very sin that brought down fire from Heaven on the city of Sodom?”

He stared at her, still deathly white. “You are certainly mad, my lady. On that night you speak of—I was drunk, I know not what you may have thought you saw. It was Beltane, and the force of the Goddess was with us all. I think all your prayers and thoughts of sin have turned your mind, my Gwen.”

“No Christian man would say so!”

“And that is one reason why I like not to call myself a Christian!” he shouted back at her, losing patience at last. “I am tired of all this talk of sin! If I had put you away from me—aye, and I was counselled to do so, and would not because I loved you too well—and taken another woman—“

“No! Rather would you share me with Lancelet, and have him too—“

“Say that again,” he said very low, “and wife or no, love or no, I will kill you, my Gwenhwyfar!”

But she was sobbing hysterically now and could not stop herself. “You say you wished for a son, and so you led me into such sin as God cannot pardon—if I have sinned, and God has punished me with barrenness, was it not you who led me into that sin? And even now, it is Lancelet’s son is your heir. Can you dare say it is not Lancelet you love best, when you make his son your heir and not your own son, when you will not give me your son to foster for you—“

“Let me call your women, Gwenhwyfar,” he said, with a deep breath. “You are beside yourself. I swear to you, I have no son, or if I do, it is some chance-gotten child from my days in battle, and the woman knew me not, nor who I was. No woman anywhere near my own station has ever come to me and said she bore my child. Priests or no, sin or no, I cannot believe any woman would be ashamed to admit that she had borne the son of a childless High King. I have taken no unwilling woman, nor played at adultery with any man’s wife. What is this mad talk of a son of mine you would foster as my heir? I tell you, I have none. I have often wondered if some sickness in boyhood, or that wound I took, might have gelded me ... I have no son.”

“No, but that is a lie!” Gwenhwyfar said angrily. “Morgaine bade me not speak of it, but long ago I went to her, I begged her for a charm to help my barrenness. I was in despair, I said I would give myself to another man, since it was likely you could not father a son. And at that time Morgaine swore to me that you could father a child, that she had seen a son of yours, fostered at the court of Lot of Lothian, but she made me promise not to speak of it—“

“Fostered at the court of Lothian ...” said Arthur, and then he caught at his chest, as if in dreadful pain there. “Ah, merciful God!” he said in a whisper, “and I never knew ...  .”

Gwenhwyfar felt sudden terror striking through her. “No, no, Arthur, Morgaine is a liar! No doubt it was but her malice, it was she who contrived Lancelet’s marriage to Elaine, because she was jealous ... no doubt she was lying to plague me ...  .”

Arthur said in a distant voice, “Morgaine is a priestess of Avalon. She does not lie. I think, Gwenhwyfar, that we must ask of this. Send for Morgaine—“

“No, no,” Gwenhwyfar begged. “I am sorry I spoke—I was beside myself and raving as you said—oh, my dear lord and husband, my king and my lord, I am sorry for every word I said! I beg you to forgive me—I beg you.”

He put his arms around her. “There is need for you to forgive me too, my dear lady. I see now I have done you great wrong. But when you have unloosed the winds, then must you abide by their blowing, whatever they may tear down. ...” He kissed her very gently on the forehead. “Send for Morgaine.”

“Oh, my lord, oh, Arthur, I beg you—I promised to her that I would never speak of it to you—“

“Well, then, you have broken your promise,” Arthur said. “I besought you not to speak, but you would have it so, and now what has been said cannot be unsaid.” He stepped to the door of the chamber and called to his chamberlain, “Go to the lady Morgaine and command that she attend me and my queen as quickly as she may.”

When the man had gone, Arthur called Gwenhwyfar’s servant, and Gwenhwyfar stood like a stone as the woman put on her holiday robe and braided her hair. She sipped at a cup of hot water and wine, but her throat was tight. She had spoken the unforgivable.

But if it is true that this morning he has given me his child to bear  ...  and a strange pain struck inward through her body even into her womb. Could anything take root and grow in such bitterness?

After a time Morgaine came into the room in a dark-red gown, her hair braided with crimson silk ribbons; she had dressed well for the festival and looked alive and glowing.

And I am but a barren tree, Gwenhwyfar thought; Elaine has Lancelot’s son; even Morgaine, who has no husband and no wish for one, has played the harlot and borne a son to somebody or other, and Arthur has fathered a son on some unknown woman, but I—I have none.

Morgaine came and kissed her; Gwenhwyfar stood rigid within her arms. Then Morgaine turned to Arthur and said, “You commanded me to come, my brother?”

Arthur said, “I am sorry to disturb you so early, sister. But, Gwenhwyfar,” he said, “now must you repeat in my presence and Morgaine’s what you have said. I will have no secret slanders repeated within my court.”

Morgaine looked at Gwenhwyfar and saw the marks of tears around her reddened eyes. “Dear brother,” she said, “your queen is ill. Is she pregnant again? As to whatever she has said, well, it’s a true saying, hard words break no bones.”

Arthur looked coldly at Gwenhwyfar, and Morgaine drew back; this was not the brother she knew well, this was the stern face of the High King as he sat in his hall to dispense justice.

“Gwenhwyfar,” he said, “not only as your husband, but as your king, I command you: Repeat before Morgaine’s face what you have said behind her back, and what she told you, that I had a son in fosterage at the court of Lothian—“

It is true, Gwenhwyfar thought in that split second. Never before, save when Viviane was murdered before her eyes, have I seen Morgaine’s face other than calm, serene, the face of a priestess ...  . It is true, and somehow it touches her deeply  ...  but why?

“Morgaine,” Arthur said. “Tell me—is this true? Have I a son?”

What is it to Morgaine? Why should she wish it to be concealed, even from Arthur? She might wish her own harlotries to be hidden, but why should she conceal it from Arthur that he has a son? And then some inkling of the truth struck her, and she gasped aloud.

Morgaine thought: A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly ...  .

“Who was it?” demanded Gwenhwyfar angrily. “One of the whore priestesses of Avalon who lies with men in sin and lustfulness at their demon festivals?”

“You know nothing of Avalon,” said Morgaine, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Your words are like the wind, without meaning—“

Arthur took her by the arm. He said, “Morgaine—my sister—“ and she thought that in another moment she would weep ... as he had wept in her arms, that morning when first he knew how Viviane had trapped them both. ...

Her mouth was dry and her eyes burned. She said, “I spoke—of your son—only to comfort Gwenhwyfar, Arthur. She feared you could not give her a child—“

“Would you had spoken so to comfort me,” said Arthur, but his smile was only a grimace stretching his mouth. “All these years have I thought I could beget no son, even to save my kingdom—Morgaine, now you must tell me the truth.”

Morgaine drew a long breath. In the dead silence inside the room she could hear a dog barking somewhere beyond the windows, and some small insect chirping somewhere. At last she said, “In the name of the Goddess, Arthur, since you will have it said at last—I bore a son to the King Stag, ten moons after your kingmaking on Dragon Island. Morgause has him in her keeping, and she swore to me that you should never hear it from her lips. Now you have had it from mine. Let it end here.”

Arthur was white as death. He caught her into his arms, and she could feel how he was trembling. Tears were streaming down his face and he made no effort to check them or wipe them away. “Ah, Morgaine, Morgaine, my poor sister—I knew I had done you a great wrong, but I dreamed never that it was so great a wrong as this—“

“You mean this is true?” Gwenhwyfar cried out. “That this unchaste harlot of a sister of yours, she is such a one as would practice her whore’s arts on her own brother—!”

Arthur swung round to her, his arm still around Morgaine. He said in a voice she had never heard before, “Be silent! Speak not one word against my sister—it was neither her doing nor her fault!” He drew a long, shaking breath, and Gwenhwyfar had time to hear the echo of her own ugly words. “My poor sister,” Arthur said again. “And you have borne this burden alone, nor ever laid the fault rightly at my door—no, Gwenhwyfar,” he said earnestly, turning to her again, “it is not what you think. It was at my kingmaking, and neither of us knew the other—it was dark, and we hadnot seen one another since I was so small that Morgaine could carry me about in her arms. She was to me no more than the priestess of the Mother, and I was no more to her than the Horned One, and when we knew one another, it was too late and the harm was done,” he said, and it was as if he forced his voice past tears. And he held Morgaine close to him, crying out, “Morgaine, Morgaine, you should have told me!”

“And again you think only of her!” Gwenhwyfar cried. “Not of your own greatest of all sins—she is your own sister, the child of your own mother’s womb, and for such a thing as this God will punish you—“

“He has punished me indeed,” said Arthur, holding Morgaine close. “But the sin was unknowing, with no desire to do evil.”

“Maybe it is for this,” Gwenhwyfar faltered, “that he has punished you with barrenness, and even now, if you repent and do penance—“

Morgaine pulled herself gently free of Arthur. Gwenhwyfar watched, with a rage she could not speak, as Morgaine dried his tears with her own kerchief, almost an absentminded gesture, the gesture of a mother or older sister, with nothing in it of the harlotry she wished to see. She said, “Gwenhwyfar, you think too much of sin. We did no sin, Arthur and I. Sin is in the wish to do harm. We came together by the will of the Goddess, for the forces of life, and if a child came to birth, then it was made in love, whatever brought us together. Arthur cannot acknowledge a son begotten on his sister’s body, it is true. But he is not the first king to have a bastard son whose very existence he cannot admit. The boy is healthy and well, and safe in Avalon. The Goddess—for that matter, your God—is not a vindictive demon, looking about to punish somebody for some imagined sin. What happened between Arthur and me, it should not have happened, neither he nor I would have sought it, but done is done—the Goddess would not punish you with childlessness for the sins of another. Can you blame your own childlessness on Arthur, Gwen?”

Gwenhwyfar cried, “I do so! He has sinned, and God has punished him —for incest, for fathering a son on his own sister— for serving the Goddess, that fiend of foul abominations and lechery ...  . Arthur,” she cried, “tell me you will do penance, that you will go on this holy day and tell the bishop how you have sinned, and do such penance as he may lay on you, and then perhaps God will forgive you and he will cease to punish us both!”

Arthur, troubled, looked from Morgaine to Gwenhwyfar. Morgaine said, “Penance? Sin? Do you truly believe that your God is an evil-minded old man, who snoops around to see who lies in bed with another’s wife?”

“I have confessed my sins,” Gwenhwyfar cried, “I have done penance and been absolved, it is not for my sins that God punishes us I Say you will do so too, Arthur! When God gave you the victory at Mount Badon, you swore to put aside the old dragon banner, and rule as a Christian king, but you left this sin unconfessed. Now do penance for this too, and let God give you the victory of this day as he did at Mount Badon—and be freed of your sins, and give me a son who can rule after you at Camelot!”

Arthur turned and leaned against the wall, covering his face with his hands. Morgaine would have moved toward him again, but Gwenhwyfar cried, “Keep away from him, you—! Would you tempt him into sin further than this? Have you not done enough, you and that foul demon you call your Goddess, you and that evil old witch whom Balin rightly killed for her heathen sorceries—?”

Morgaine shut her eyes, and her face looked as if she were about to weep. Then she sighed and said, “I cannot listen to you curse at my religion, Gwenhwyfar. I cursed not yours, remember that. God is God, however called, and always good. I think it sin to believe God can be cruel or vindictive, and you would make him meaner than the worst of his priests. I beg you to consider well what you do before you put Arthur into the hands of his priests with this.” She turned, her crimson draperies moving silently around her, and left the room.

Arthur turned back to Gwenhwyfar as he heard Morgaine go. At last he said, more gently than he had ever spoken to her, even when they lay in each other’s arms, “My dearest love—“

“Can you call me so?” she said bitterly, and turned away. He followed her, laying a hand on her shoulder and turning her round to face him. “My dearest lady and queen—have I done you such a wrong?”

“Even now,” she said shaking, “even now all you can think of is the wrong you have done to Morgaine—“

“Should I be happy at the thought of what I have brought on my own sister? I swear to you, I knew her not until the thing was done, and then, when I recognized her, it was she who comforted me, as if I had been the little boy who used to sit in her lap. ... I think if she had turned on me and accused me, as she had every right to do, I would have gone away and drowned myself in the Lake. But I never thought what might come to her ... I was so young, and there were all the Saxons and all the battles—“ He spread his hands helplessly. “I tried to do as she bade me—put it behind us, remember that what we had done was done in ignorance. Oh, I suppose it was sin, but I did not choose to sin ...  .”

He looked so wretched that for a moment Gwenhwyfar was tempted to say what he wanted to hear, that indeed he had done no wrong; to take him in her arms and comfort him. But she did not move. Never, never had Arthur come to her for comfort, never had he acknowledged that he had done her any wrong; even now, all he could do was to insist that the sin which had kept them childless was no sin; his concern was only for the wrong he had done that damned sorceress of a sister of his! She said, crying again and furious because she knew he would think she wept from sorrow and not from rage, “You think it is only Morgaine you have wronged?”

“I cannot see I have harmed any other,” he said stubbornly. “Gwenhwyfar, it was before ever I set eyes on you!”

“But you married me with this great sin unconfessed, and even now you cling to your sin when you might be shriven and do penance, and freed of your punishment—“

He said wearily, “Gwenhwyfar mine, if your God is such a one as would punish a man for a sin he knew not he committed, would he then abate that punishment because I tell a priest, and mouth such prayers as he gives me, and I know not what all—eat bread and water for a space, or what have you—?”

“If you truly repent—“

“Oh, God, do you think I have not repented?” Arthur burst out. “I have repented it every time I looked on Morgaine, these twelve years past! Would it make my repentance stronger to avow it before one of these priests who wants nothing more than to have power over a king?”

“You think only of your pride,” Gwenhwyfar said angrily, “and pride too is a sin. Would you but humble yourself, God would forgive you!”

“If your God is such a God as that, I want not his forgiveness!” Arthur’s fists were clenched. “I must rule this kingdom, my Gwen, and I cannot do that if I kneel before some priest and accept whatever he chooses to lay on me for penance! And there is Morgaine to think of—already they call her sorceress, harlot, witch! I have no right to confess to a sin which will call down scorn and public shame to my sister!”

“Morgaine too has a soul to be saved,” said Gwenhwyfar, “and if the people of this land see that their king can put aside his pride and take thought for his soul, repent humbly for his sins, then it will help them to save their souls too, and it will be to his credit even in Heaven.”

He said, sighing, “Why, you argue as well as any councillor, Gwenhwyfar. I am not a priest, and I am not concerned with the souls of my people—“

“How dare you say so?” she cried. “As a king is above all his people and their lives are in his hand, so are their souls too! You should be foremost in piety as you are in bravery on the battlefield! How would you think of a king who sent his soldiers out to fight, and sat safe out of sight and watched them from afar?”

“Not well,” said Arthur, and Gwenhwyfar, knowing she had him now, said, “Then what would you think of a king who saw his people pursue ways of piety and virtue, and said he need have no thought to his own sins?

Arthur sighed. “Why should you care so much, Gwenhwyfar?”

“Because I cannot bear to think that you will suffer hellfire  ...  and because if you free yourself of your sin, God may cease to punish us with childlessness.”

She choked at last and began to cry again. He put his arms around her and stood with her head against his shoulder. He said gently, “Believe you this truly, my queen?”

She remembered; once before, when he had first refused to bear the banner of the Virgin into the battle, he had spoken to her like this. And then she had triumphed and brought him to Christ, and God had given him the victory. But then she had not known he had this sin unconfessed on his soul. She nodded against him and heard him sigh.

“Then I have done you wrong too, and I must somehow amend it. But I cannot see how it is right that Morgaine should suffer shame for this.”

“Always Morgaine,” said Gwenhwyfar, in a blaze of white rage. “You will not have her suffer, she is perfect in your eyes—tell me then, is it right that I should suffer for the sin that she has done, or you? Do you love her so much better than me that you will let me go childless all my days so that sin may be kept secret?”

“Even if I have done wrong, my Gwen, Morgaine is blameless—“

“Nay, that she is not,” Gwenhwyfar flared, “for she follows that ancient Goddess, and the priests say that their Goddess is that same old serpent of evil whom our Lord drove from the Garden of Eden! Even now Morgaine clings to those filthy and heathenish rituals of hers—God tells us, yes, that those heathen who have not heard the word of the Lord may be saved, but what of Morgaine, who was brought up in a Christian household, and afterward turned to the filthy sorcerous ways of Avalon? And all these years at this court, she has heard the word of Christ, and do they not say that those who hear the word of Christ and do not repent and believe in him, they shall surely be damned? And women especially have need of repentance, since through a woman sin came first into the world—“ Gwenhwyfar was sobbing so hard that she could hardly speak.

At last Arthur said, “What do you want me to do, my Gwenhwyfar?”

“This is the holy day of Pentecost,” she said, wiping her eyes and trying to control her sobs, “when the spirit of God came down to Man. Will you go to the mass and take the sacrament with this great sin on your soul?”

“I suppose—I suppose I cannot,” said Arthur, his voice breaking. “If truly you believe this, Gwenhwyfar, I will not deny it to you. I will repent as far as it is in me to repent for something I cannot think a sin, and I will do what penance the bishop lays on me.” His smile was only a thin, harried grimace. “I hope, for your sake, my love, that you are right about God’s will.”

And Gwenhwyfar, even as she put her arms around him, crying with thankfulness, had a moment of shattering fear and doubt. She remembered when she had stood in the house of Meleagrant, and known that all her prayers could not save her. God had not rewarded her for her virtue, and when Lancelet came to her, had she not sworn to herself that never again would she hide or repent, because a God who had not rewarded her virtue would surely not punish her sin. God could not care either way ...  .

But God had punished her indeed; God had taken Lancelet from her and given him to Elaine, so for all that perilling of her soul she had won nothing ... she had confessed and done penance, but God punished her still. And now she knew it might not be all her fault, but that she was bearing the weight of Arthur’s sin too, the sin he had done with his sister. But if they were both freed of sin, if he did penance for that great sin unconfessed, and humbled himself, then no doubt God would forgive him too ...  .

Arthur kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. Then he moved away, and she felt cold and lost when he took his arms away from her, as if she were not safely within walls but out under the huge open sky, bewildering, huge, filled with terror. She moved toward him again, to take refuge in his arms, but he had dropped into a chair and sat there, exhausted, beaten, a thousand leagues away from her.

At last he raised his head, and said, with a sigh that seemed ripped from the very depths of his being, “Send for Father Patricius.”

8

When Morgaine left Arthur and Gwenhwyfar in their chamber, she snatched a cloak and fled out into the weather, uncaring of the rain. She went to the high battlements and walked there, alone; the tents of Arthur’s followers and Companions, of the lesser kings and the guests, crowded the level space at the brow of the hill that was Camelot, and even in the rain, all the banners and flags fluttered brightly. But the sky was dark, and thick low clouds almost touched the brow of the hill; pacing, restless, Morgaine thought that the Holy Ghost could have chosen a finer day to descend on his people—and especially on Arthur.

Oh, yes. Gwenhwyfar would give him no peace until he had given himself into the hands of the priests. And what of his vow to Avalon?

And yet if it should be Gwydion’s fate that one day he should sit on his father’s throne, if that was what the Merlin planned ... no man could escape fate. Morgaine thought mirthlessly, No woman either. Taliesin, who knew all manner of music and old tales, had once told her a story from the ancients who dwelt to the south in the Holy Land or somewhere near to there, of a man who was born under a curse that he should slay his father and wed with his mother. So the parents listened to the curse and cast him out to die, and he was reared by strangers, and one day, meeting with his father, unknowing, he quarrelled with him, killed him, and wedded with his widow; so that the very means they had taken to prevent the falling of the curse had brought it to pass—had he been reared in his father's house, he would not have done what he did in ignorance. ...

She and Arthur had done what they did in ignorance, too, yet the fairy woman had cursed her son: Cast forth your babe, or kill it as it comes from the womb; what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown? And it seemed to her that all round her the world grew grey and strange, as if she had wandered into the mists of Avalon, and there was a strange humming in her brain.

There seemed a terrible clanging and banging in the air all round her, deafening her  ...  no, it was the church bells, ringing for the mass. She had heard, too, that the fairy folk could not abide the sound of the church bells, and it was for that reason they had taken to the far hills and hollows ... it seemed to her that she could not go and sit quietly, as she usually did, listening with polite attention because the Queen's waiting-women should set an example to all the others. She thought that the walls would stifle her and the mumbling of the priests and the smoke of the incense would drive her mad; better to stay out here in the clean rain. Now she thought to draw up the hood of the woolen cloak over her head; the ribbons in her hair were all wet, likely they were spoilt. She fumbled with them and the red came off on her fingers; poorly dyed they were, for materials so costly.

But the rain was slowing a little, and people were beginning to move about in the spaces between the tents.

"There will be no mock battle games today," said a voice behind her, "or I would ask you for one of those ribbons you are casting about, and carry it into battle as a flag of honor, lady Morgaine."

Morgaine blinked, trying to collect herself. A young man, slender and dark-haired, with dark eyes; something familiar about him, but she could not quite remember ...  .

"You do not remember me, lady?" he said reproachfully. "And I was told you had wagered a ribbon on my success in just such a mock battle a year or two ago—or was it three?"

Now she remembered him; he was the son of King Uriens of North Wales. Accolon, that was his name; and she had wagered with one of the Queen's ladies who claimed that no man could stand in the field against Lancelot ...  . She had never known how her wager came off; that was the Pentecost when Viviane had been murdered.

"Indeed I remember you, sir Accolon, but that Pentecost feast, you may remember, ended in such brutal murder, and it was my foster-mother who was slain—"

He was at once contrite. "Then I must beg your pardon for calling such a sad occasion to your mind. And I suppose there will be enough mock battles and combats before we leave here again, now that there is no war in the land—my lord Arthur wishes to know that his legions are still skilled to defend us all."

"The need seems not too likely," she said, "even the wild Northmen turn elsewhere these days. Do you miss the days of battle and glory?"

He had, she thought, a nice smile. "I fought at Mount Badon," he said. "It was my first battle, and came near to being my last. I think I prefer mock battles and tourneys. I will fight if I must, but it is better to fight in play against friends who have no real desire to kill, with pretty ladies looking down and admiring us—in real battle, lady, there is none to admire gallantry, and indeed, little of gallantry, for all they talk of courage. ..."

They had moved, as they spoke, nearer to the church; and now the sound of the bells nearly drowned his voice—a pleasant, musical voice, she thought. She wondered if he played upon the harp. She turned abruptly away from the sound of the bells.

"Are you not going to the holy day mass, lady Morgaine?"

She smiled and looked down at his wrists, where the serpents twined. She ran a light finger over one of them. "Are you?"

"I do not know. I thought I might go to see the faces of my friends —no, I think not," he said, smiling at her, "when there is a lady to talk to ...  ."

She said, tingeing her voice with irony, "Do you not fear for your soul?"

"Oh, my father is pious enough for both of us ... he has no wife now, and no doubt he wishes to study out the land and see how it lies for his next conquest. He has listened well to the Apostle and knows it is better to marry than to burn, and he burns oftener than I would think dignified for a man of his years. ..."

"You have lost your mother, sir Accolon?"

"Aye, before I was weaned; and my stepmothers one, two, and three," Accolon said. "My father has three sons living, and it is certain he can have no further need of heirs, but he is too pious only to take a woman to his bed, so he must marry again. And even my oldest brother is married, and has a son."

"You were the son of his old age?"

"Of his middle age," Accolon said, "and I am not so young as all that. If there had not been war when I was younger, I might have been destined for Avalon and the lore of the priests. But my father has grown Christian in his old age.”

“Yet you wear the serpents.”

He nodded. “And know something of their wisdom, yet not enough to content me. In these days there is not much for a younger son to do. My father told me he would also seek a wife for me at this gathering,” he said with a smile. “I would that you were the daughter of some lesser man, lady.”

Morgaine felt herself blushing like a girl. “Oh, I am too old for you,” she said, “and I am only the King’s half-sister by his mother’s first marriage. My father was Duke Gorlois, the first man Uther Pendragon killed as a traitor ...  .”

There was a brief silence before Accolon said, “In these days it is dangerous, perhaps, to wear the serpents—or will be, if the priests grow more powerful. When Arthur came to the throne, I heard he had the support of Avalon, that the Merlin gave him the sword of the Holy Regalia. But now he has made this so Christian a court  ...  my father told me that he feared Arthur would move this land back to the Druid rule, but it seems he has not. ...”

“True,” she said, and for a moment anger stifled her. “Yet still he wears the Druid sword ...  .”

He looked at her closely. “And you bear the crescent of Avalon.” Morgaine blushed. All the people had gone into the church now, and the doors were shut. “It has begun to rain harder—lady Morgaine, you will be drenched, you will take cold. You must go inside. But will you come and sit beside me at the feast this day?”

She hesitated, smiling. It was certain that Arthur and Gwenhwyfar would not seek her company at the high table this day of all days.

She who must remember what it was like to fall prey to Meleagrant’s lust  ...  should she blame me, she that comforted herself in the arms of her husband’s dearest friend? Oh, no, it was not rape, nothing like to it, but still I was given to the Horned One without anyone’s asking if it was what I wished  ...  it was not desire brought me to my brother’s bed, but obedience to the will of the Goddess ...  .

Accolon was still waiting for her answer, his face turned to her, eagerly. If I willed it, he would kiss me, he would beg me for the favor of a single touch. She knew it and the thought was healing to her pride. She smiled at him, a smile that dazzled him.

“I will indeed, if we can sit far off from your father.” And it struck her suddenly: Arthur had looked at her like that. That is what Gwenhwyfar fears. She knows what I did not know, that if I stretched my hand to Arthur, I could make him ignore anything she said; Arthur loves me best. I have no desire for Arthur, I would have him only as a dear brother, but she does not know that. She fears that I will beckon with my hand, and with the secret arts of Avalon I will seduce him to my bed again.

“I beg you, go inside and change your—your gown,” said Accolon earnestly, and Morgaine smiled at him again and pressed his hand in her own.

“I will see you at the feast.”

ALL THROUGH the holy day service, Gwenhwyfar had sat alone, striving to compose herself. The Archbishop had preached the usual Pentecost sermon, telling of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and she thought, If Arthur has at last repented all his sins and become a Christian, then I must give thanks to the Holy Spirit for coming on us both today. She let her fingers stray unseen to her belly; today they had lain together, it might be that at Candlemas she would hold in her arms the heir to the kingdom  ...  she looked across the church to where Lancelet knelt at Elaine’s side. She could see, jealously, that Elaine’s waist was already swelling again. Another son, or a daughter. And now Elaine flaunts herself, beside the man I loved so long and so well with the son I should have borne  ...  well, I must bend my head and be humble a while, it will not hurt me to pretend that I believe her son will follow Arthur on his throne ...  . Ah, I am a sinful woman, I spoke to Arthur of humbling his pride, and I am full of pride.

The church was crowded, as always at this holy day mass. Arthur looked pale and subdued; he had spoken with the bishop, but there had been no time for extended talk before the mass. She knelt beside him and felt that he was a stranger, far more of a stranger than when she had first lain in his bed, terrified of the unknown things ahead of her.

I should have held my peace with Morgaine ...  .

Why do I feel guilty? It was Morgaine who sinned ...  I have repented my sins and confessed them and been absolved ...  .

Morgaine was not in the church; no doubt, she had not had the brazenness to come unshriven to holy services when she had been exposed for what she was—incestuous, heathen, witch, sorceress.

The service seemed to last forever, but at last the blessing was given and the people began to move out of the church. Once for a moment she found herself crushed against Elaine and Lancelet; he had his arm protectively around his wife, that she should not be jostled. Gwenhwyfar raised her eyes to them, so that she need not look at Elaine’s swollen belly.

“It is long since we have seen you at court,” she said.

“Ah, there is much to do in the North,” Lancelet said.

“No more dragons, I trust?” Arthur asked.

“God be thanked, no,” Lancelet said, smiling. “My first sight of a dragon was like to be my last.... God forgive me that I mocked at Pellinore when he spoke of the beast! And now that there are no more Saxons to slay, I suppose our Companions must go against dragons and bandits and reavers, and all manner of ill things that plague the people.”

Elaine smiled shyly at Gwenhwyfar. “My husband is like to all men —they would rather go into battle, even against dragons, than stay home and enjoy that peace they fought so hard to win! Is Arthur so?”

“I think he has battle enough, here at court where all men come to him for justice,” said Gwenhwyfar, dismissing that. “When will this one come?” she added, looking at Elaine’s swelling body. “Do you think it will be another son, or a daughter?”

“I hope it is another son, I do not want a daughter,” Elaine said, “but it shall be as God wills. Where is Morgaine? Did she not come to church? Is she ill?”

Gwenhwyfar smiled scornfully. “I think you know how good a Christian Morgaine is.”

“But she is my friend,” Elaine said, “and no matter how bad a Christian she may be, I love her and I will pray for her.”

Well you might, thought Gwenhwyfar bitterly. She had you married to spite me. It seemed that Elaine’s sweet blue eyes were cloying, her voice false. It seemed to her that if she stood there a moment more listening to Elaine she would turn on her and strangle her. She made an excuse, and after a moment Arthur followed her.

He said, “I had hoped we would have Lancelet with us for some weeks, but he would be off to the North again. But he said Elaine might stay, if you would like to have her. She is near enough to her confinement that he would rather she did not return alone. Perhaps Morgaine is lonely for her friend, too. Well, you women must arrange that among yourselves—“ He turned, and his face was bleak as he looked down at her. “I must go to the Archbishop. He said he would speak with me immediately after mass.”

She wanted to clutch at him, keep him back, hold him with her by both hands, but it had gone too far for that.

“Morgaine was not in church,” he said. “Tell me, Gwenhwyfar, did you say anything to her—“

“I spoke not one word to her, good or bad,” she said shrilly. “As for where she is, I care not—I wish she were in hell!”

He opened his mouth and for a moment she thought he would chide her, and in a perverse way she longed for his wrath. But he only sighed and lowered his head. She could not bear to see him so beaten, like a whipped dog. “Gwen, I beg you, do not quarrel further with Morgaine. She has been hurt enough already—“ And then, as if he was ashamed of his pleading, he turned abruptly and went away from her, toward where the Archbishop was standing and greeting his flock. As Arthur came toward him he bowed, spoke a few words of excuse to the others, and the King and the Archbishop moved away together through the crowds.

Inside the castle there was much to do—welcoming guests to the hall, speaking to men who had been Arthur’s Companions in years gone by, explaining to them that Arthur had business with one of his councillors— that was no lie, Patricius was indeed one of Arthur’s advisers—and would be late. For a time everyone was so busy greeting old friends, exchanging stories of what had befallen in their homes and villages, of what marriages had been made and daughters betrothed and sons grown to manhood, of what babies had been born and robbers slain and roads built, that the time went on and the absence of King Arthur was hardly noticed. But at last even reminiscences palled, and the people in the hall began to murmur. The food would be cold, Gwenhwyfar knew; but you could not start the King’s feast unless the King was there. She gave orders for wine and beer and cider to be served, knowing that by the time the food was served now, many of the guests would be too drunk to care. She saw Morgaine far down the table, laughing and talking with a man she did not recognize, save that he had the serpents of Avalon around his wrist; would she practice her priestess-harlotries to seduce him too, as she had seduced Lancelet before him, and the Merlin? Morgaine’s whorish ways were so great, she could not let any man slip beyond her grasp.

When Arthur finally came, walking slowly and heavily, she was overwhelmed with distress; she had never seen him look like that except when he was wounded and near to death. She felt suddenly that he had taken a deeper wound than she could know, in his very soul, and for a moment wondered, had Morgaine been right to spare him this knowledge? No. As his devoted wife, what she had done was to secure the health of his soul and his eventual salvation; what was a little humiliation against that?

He had taken off his holiday gown and wore a simple tunic, unadorned; nor had he put on the coronet he wore on such occasions. His golden hair looked dull and greyed. As they saw him enter, all his Companions had broken into wild applause and cheering; he stood solemnly, accepting it, smiling, then finally raised a hand.

“I am sorry to have kept you all waiting,” he said. “I beg you forgive me, and go to your meat.” He sat down at his place, sighing. The servants began to go around with the smoking pots and platters, the carvers to wield their knives. Gwenhwyfar let one of the butlers lay some slices of roast duck on her plate, but she only played with her food. After a time she dared to raise her eyes and look toward Arthur. Among the abundance of festival meats, he had nothing on his plate but a bit of bread, without even butter, and in his cup was only water.

She remonstrated, "But you are eating nothing—"

His smile was wry. "It is no insult to the food. I am sure it is fine as always, my love."

"It is not well done, to fast on a feast day—"

He grimaced. "Well, if you must have it," he said impatiently, "the bishop would have it that my sin was so grievous that he cannot absolve it with ordinary penance, and since that was what you wished of me, well—" He spread his hands wearily. "And so I come to Pentecost holiday in my shirt and without my fine clothing, and I have many fastings and prayers till I have done full penance—but you have had your wish, Gwenhwyfar." He picked up his cup and drank water, resolutely, and she knew he did not want her to say more.

But she had not wanted it like this ...  . Gwenhwyfar tightened her whole body so that she would not weep again; all eyes were on them, and surely it was scandal enough that the King sat fasting at his own highest festival. Outside the rain beat and battered on the roof. There was a strange silence in the hall. At last Arthur raised his head and called for music.

"Let Morgaine sing for us—she is better than any minstrel!"

Morgaine! Morgaine! Always Morgaine! But what could she do? Morgaine, she noticed, had put off the bright gown she had worn that morning and was wearing dark sober stuff like a nun's. She looked not so much like a harlot, now, without her bright ribbons; she came and took the harp, and sat near the King's table to sing.

Because it seemed to be what Arthur wished, there was some laughing and gaiety, and when Morgaine had finished, another took the harp, and another. There was much moving from table to table, talking, singing, drinking.

Lancelet came toward them and Arthur gestured to him to sit beside them, as in the old days, on the bench. The servants were bringing great plates of sweets and fruit, baked apples in cream and wine, all manner of delicate and subtle pastries. They sat talking of nothing in particular, and Gwenhwyfar felt happy for a moment: it was like old times, when they had all been friends, when there was love among them all ... why could it not always have stayed like that?

After some time, Arthur rose and said, "I think I will go and talk to some of the older Companions  ...  my legs are young, and some of them are getting so old and grey. Pellinore—he looks not as if he could fight a dragon. I think a good stiff fight with Elaine's little lapdog would be hard for him now!"

Lancelet said, "Since Elaine is married, it is as if he has nothing more to do in life. Such men often die soon after they have decided such a thing. I hope it may not be so with him—I love Pellinore and hope he will be long with us." He smiled shyly. "I never felt I had a father—though Ban was good to me in his way—and now, for the first time, I have a kinsman who treats me as a son. Brothers I had not either, till I was grown and Ban's sons Lionel and Bors came to the court. I grew to manhood hardly speaking their language. And Balan had other concerns."

Arthur had hardly smiled since he had come from the bishop's rooms, but he was smiling now. "Does a cousin count for so much less than a brother, then, Galahad?"

Lancelet reached out and gripped his wrist. "God strike me if I could forget that, Gwydion—" He raised his eyes to Arthur, and for a moment, Gwenhwyfar thought Arthur would embrace him; but then Arthur drew back and let his hand drop. Lancelet gazed at him, startled, but Arthur got quickly to his feet.

"There is Uriens, and Marcus of Cornwall—he too grows old ...  . They shall see that their king is not too proud to come and speak to them today. Stay here by Gwenhwyfar, Lance, let it be like old times today."

Lancelet did as he was asked, sitting on the bench beside Gwenhwyfar. At last he asked, "Is Arthur ill?"

Gwenhwyfar shook her head. "I think he has penance to do and is brooding about it."

"Well, surely Arthur can have no great sin on his soul," Lancelet said, "he is one of the most spotless men I know. I am proud that he is still my friend—I do not deserve it, I know, Gwen." He looked at her so sadly that again Gwenhwyfar almost wept. Why could she not have loved the two of them without sin, why had God ordained that a woman must have only one husband? She was grown as bad as Morgaine, that she could think such a thing!

She touched his hand. "Are you happy with Elaine, Lancelet?"

"Happy? What man alive is happy? I do as best I can."

She looked down at her hands. For a moment she forgot that this man had been her lover and remembered only that he had been her friend. "I want you to be happy. Truly, I do."

His hand closed for a moment over hers. "I know, my dear. I did not want to come here today. I love you, and I love Arthur—but the day is past when I can be content to be his captain of horse and—" His voice broke. "And the champion of the Queen."

She said suddenly, looking up, her hand in his, "Does it seem sometimes to you that we are no longer young, Lancelet?"

He nodded and sighed. "Aye—it does so."

Morgaine had taken the harp again and was singing. Lancelet said, “Her voice is as sweet as ever. I am put in memory of my mother singing—she sang not so well as Morgaine, but she had the same soft, low voice—“

“Morgaine is as young as ever,” said Gwenhwyfar jealously.

“It is so with those of the old blood, they seem ever young until the day they are suddenly old,” Lancelet said; then, bending down to touch her cheek in a light kiss, he said abruptly, “Never think you are less beautiful than Morgaine, my Gwen. It is a different beauty, that is all.”

“Why do you say this?”

“Love, I cannot bear it if you are unhappy ...  .”

She said, “I do not think I know what it means, to be happy.”

How is Morgaine so untouched? That which wrecked my life and Arthur’s, it lies lightly on her, there she sits laughing and singing, and yonder knight with the serpents about his wrists, is glamoured by her.

Soon after, Lancelet said he must go back to Elaine, and left her; and when Arthur returned, there were Companions and old followers coming to him for concessions, to give him gifts and recall their service. After a time Uriens of North Wales came, portly now and greying, but he still had all his own teeth, and he led his men into the field when he must.

He said, “I have come to ask you a favor, Arthur. I want to marry again, and I would like to be allied with your house. I have heard that Lot of Lothian is dead, and I ask your permission to marry his widow, Morgause.”

Arthur had to stifle a laugh. “Ah, for that, my friend, you must ask leave of sir Gawaine. Lothian is his now, and no doubt he would be glad to marry his mother away, but no doubt, the lady is old enough to have a mind of her own. I cannot order her to marry—it would be like ordering my mother to marry!”

Gwenhwyfar was struck by sudden inspiration. This would be the perfect solution—Arthur himself had said that if it became known at court, Morgaine could be scorned or shamed. She reached out and touched Arthur’s sleeve. She said in a low voice, “Arthur, Uriens is a valuable ally. You have told me that the mines of Wales are valuable as they were to the Romans, for iron and lead ... and you have a kinswoman whose marriage is in your keeping.”

He looked at her, startled. “Uriens is so old!”

“Morgaine is older than you,” she said, “and since he has grown sons and grandsons, he will not mind too much if Morgaine does not give him children.”

“That is true,” said Arthur with a frown, “and this seems a good match.” He raised his head to Uriens and said, “I cannot order lady Morgause to marry again, but my sister, the Duchess of Cornwall, is not married.”

Uriens bowed. “I could not presume to ask so high, my king, but if your sister would be queen in my country—“

“I will compel no woman to marry unwilling,” said Arthur, “but I will ask her.” He beckoned one of the pages. “Ask the lady Morgaine if she will come to me when she has finished singing.”

Uriens’ eyes were on Morgaine where she sat, her dark gown lending fairness to her skin. “She is very beautiful, your sister. Any man would think himself fortunate to have such a wife.”

As Uriens went to his seat, Arthur said thoughtfully, watching Morgaine come toward them, “She is long unmarried—she must wish for a home of her own where she will be mistress, rather than serving another woman always. And she is too learned for many young men. But Uriens will be glad that she is gracious and will rule his home well. I wish, though, that he were not quite so old ...  .”

“I think she will be happier with an older man,” Gwenhwyfar said. “She is not a giddy young thing.”

Morgaine came and curtseyed to them. Always, in public, she was smiling and impassive, and Gwenhwyfar was for once glad of it.

“Sister,” said Arthur, “I have had an offer of marriage for you. And after this morning”—he lowered his voice—“I think it well you should not live at court for a time.”

“Indeed I would be glad to be gone from here, brother.”

“Why, then—“ Arthur said, “how would you like to live in North Wales? I hear it is desolate there, but no more than Tintagel, surely—“

To Gwenhwyfar’s surprise, Morgaine blushed like a girl of fifteen. “I will not try to pretend I am as surprised as all that, brother.”

Arthur chuckled. “Why, he did not tell me he had spoken to you, the sly fellow.”

Morgaine colored and played with the end of her braid. She did not, Gwenhwyfar thought, look anywhere near her age. “You may tell him I should be happy to live in North Wales.”

Arthur said gently, “Does the difference in age not bother you?”

Her face was rosy. “If it does not bother him, it does not bother me.”

“So be it,” said Arthur, and beckoned to Uriens, who came, beaming. “My sister has told me that she would like it well to be Queen of North Wales, my friend. I see no reason we cannot have the wedding with all speed, perhaps on Sunday.” He raised his cup and called out to the assembled company, “Drink to a wedding, my friends—a wedding between the lady Morgaine of Cornwall, my dear sister, and my good friend King Uriens of North Wales!”

For the first time that day it sounded like a proper Pentecost feasting, as the applause, cries of congratulation, acclaim, all stormed up. Morgaine stood still as a stone.

But she agreed to this, she said he had spoken to her  ...  Gwenhwyfar thought, and then she remembered the young man who had been flirting with Morgaine. Was that not Uriens’ son—Accolon, Accolon, that was it. But surely she could not have expected him to offer for her; Morgaine was older than he was! It must have been Accolon—will she make a scene? Gwenhwyfar wondered.

And then, with another surge of hatred, Now let Morgaine see what it is like to be given in marriage to a man she does not love!

“So you will be a queen, too, my sister,” she said, taking Morgaine’s hand. “I shall be your bride-woman.”

But for all her sweet words, Morgaine looked her straight in the eye, and Gwenhwyfar knew that she had not been deceived.

So be it. We will at least be rid of one another. And no more pretense of friendship between us.

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

For a marriage destined to end as mine did, it began well enough, I suppose. Gwenhwyfar gave me a fine wedding, considering how she hated me; I had six bride-women and four of them were queens. Arthur gave me some fine and costly jewelry—I had never cared a great deal for jewelry, having not been accustomed to wear it in Avalon and never having learned since, though I had a few pieces that had been Igraine’s. Now he gave me many more of our mother’s gems, and some that had been plunder of the Saxons. I would have protested, but Gwenhwyfar reminded me that Uriens would expect to see his wife finely dressed as befitted a queen, and I shrugged and let her deck me out like a child’s doll. One piece, an amber necklace, I remembered seeing Igraine wear when I was very young but never since; once I had seen it in her jewel chest when I was but small, and she said Gorlois had given it her and one day it should be mine, but before I was old enough to wear it I was priestess in Avalon and had no need of jewels. Now it was mine, with so many other things that I protested I would never wear them.

The one thing I asked of them—to delay the wedding till I could send for Morgause, who was my only living kinswoman—they would not do. Perhaps they thought I might come to my senses and protest that when I agreed to marry into North Wales, I had Accolon in mind, not the old king. I am sure Gwenhwyfar knew, at least. I wondered what Accolon would think of me; I had all but pledged myself to him, and before that night fell I had been publicly promised to his father! I had no chance to ask.

But after all, I suppose Accolon would want a bride of fifteen, not one of four-and-thirty. A woman past thirty—so women mostly said—must content herself with a man who had been often married and wanted her for her family connections, or for her beauty or possessions, or perhaps as a mother for his children. Well, my family connections could hardly be better. As for the rest—I had jewels enough, but I could hardly imagine myself as a mother to Accolon and whatever other children the old man might have. Grandmother to his son’s children perhaps. I reminded myself with a start that Viviane’s mother had been a grandmother younger than I was now; she had borne Viviane at thirteen, and Viviane’s own daughter had been born before Viviane was fourteen.

I spoke but once alone with Uriens, in the three days which elapsed between Pentecost and our bridal. Perhaps I hoped that he, a Christian king, would refuse when he knew; or perhaps even now he wanted a young wife who could give him children. Nor did I want him to take me under false pretenses and reproach me later, and I knew what a great thing these Christians made of an untouched wife; I suppose they had it from the Romans, with their pride of family and worship of virginity.

“I am long past thirty years old, Uriens,” I said, “and I am no maiden.” I knew no gracious or polite way to say such things.

He reached forward and touched the small blue crescent between my brows. It was fading now; I could see it in the mirror which had been one of Gwenhwyfar’s gifts. Viviane’s had faded, too, when I came to Avalon, but she had used to paint it with blue dye.

‘”You were priestess of Avalon, one of the maidens of the Lady of the Lake, and you went as a maiden to the God, is it so?”

I assented.

Uriens said, “Some of my people still do so, and I make no great effort to put it down. The peasants feel that it is all very well for kings and great folk, who can afford to pay priests and the like to pray them out of Hell, to follow the way of Christ, but it would be hard on them if the Old Ones, who had been worshipped in our hills since time out of mind, should not have their due. Accolon thinks much the same, but now so much of power is going into the hands of the priests, it is needful I too must not offend them. As for me, I care not what God sits on the throne in Heaven, or what God is worshipped by my people, so that my kingdom is at peace. But once I wore the antlers. I swear I will never reproach you, lady Morgaine.”

Ah, Mother Goddess, I thought, this is grotesque, this is madness, you jest with me ... I might well have made a happy marriage with Accolon, after all. But Accolon was young and would wish for a young wife ...  . I said to Uriens, “One more thing you must know. I bore a child to the Horned One. ...”

“I have said I will not reproach you with anything that is past, lady Morgaine—“

“You do not understand. It went so ill with me when that child was born that I will certainly never bear another.” A king, I thought, a king would want a fertile bride, even more than his younger son ...  .

He patted my hand. I think he actually meant to comfort me. “I have sons enough,” he said. “I have no need of others. Children are a fine thing, but I have had my share and more.”

I thought: He is foolish, he is old,  ...  but he is kind. If he had professed a madness of desire for me, I would have been sickened by him, but kindness I can live with.

“Do you grieve for your son, Morgaine? If you wish, you may send for him and have him fostered at my court, and I swear to you that neither he nor you shall ever hear a word of reproach, and he shall be decently reared as befits the son of the Duchess of Cornwall and the Queen of North Wales.”

This kindness brought tears to my eyes. “You are very kind,” I said, “but he is well where he is, in Avalon.”

“Well, if you decide otherwise, tell me,” he said. “I would be glad of another boy about the house, and he would be the right age, I suppose, for a playmate to my youngest son, Uwaine.”

“I thought Accolon was your youngest, sir.”

“No, no, Uwaine is only nine years old. His mother died when he was born   ...  you wouldn’t think an old fellow like me could have a boy as young as nine, would you?”

Why, yes, I would, I thought with an ironic smile, men are as proud of their ability to father sons as if it took a great skill. As if any tomcat could not do the same! At least a woman must bear a child in her body for most of a year and suffer to bring it forth, and so she has some reason for pride; but men accomplish their trick with no thought or trouble at all!

But I said, trying to make a jest of it, “When I was a young girl, sir, there was a saying in my country: a husband of forty may not become a father, but a husband of sixty surely will do so.”

I had done this deliberately. If he had gone stiff and offended by the ribaldry of that, I would have known how I must treat him in the future, and taken great care always to speak him modest and quiet. Instead he laughed heartily and said, “I think you and I may agree well enough, my dear. I have had enough of being married to young girls who don’t know how to laugh. I hope you will be content, marrying an old fellow like me. My sons laugh at me because I married again after Uwaine was born, but to tell the truth, lady Morgaine, a man gets used to being married, and I do not like living alone. And when my last wife died of the summer fever—well, it is true that I wished to be akin by marriage to your brother, but also, I am lonely. And it comes to me that you, who are unmarried so many years beyond the women of your age, you may not like it so ill to have a home and a husband, even if he is not young and handsome. I know you were not consulted about this marriage—but I hope you will not be too unhappy.”

At least, I thought, he does not expect me to be madly excited about the great honor of being married to him. I could have said that it would be no change— I had not truly been happy since I left Avalon, and since I would be unhappy wherever I was, at least it would be better to be away from Gwenhwyfar’s malice. I could no longer make pretense to be her loyal kinswoman and friend, and that saddened me somewhat, because there had been a time when we had truly been friends, and it was not I who had changed. I certainly had no wish to rob her of Lancelet; but how could I explain to her that, though I had once desired him, I despised him, too, and would not have had him for husband as a gift. Oh, yes, if Arthur had married its to each other before he was wed to Gwenhwyfar—but even then it was too late. It was always too late after that afternoon beneath the ring stones. If I had let him take me then, none of this would have come about  ...  but done is done, and I had not known what other plans Viviane had had for me; and they had brought me in the end to this wedding with Uriens.

Our first bedding was about what I expected. He stroked me and fussed and pumped away atop me for a little while, snorting and breathing hard, and then was suddenly done and away from me and asleep. Having expected no better, I was not disappointed, nor particularly sorry to curl up in the curve of his arm; he liked having me there, and although after the first few weeks he lay with me but seldom, still he liked having me in his bed and would sometimes hold me in his arms for hours, talking of this and that, and what was more, listening to what I said. Unlike the Romans of the South, these men of the Tribes never scorned to listen to a woman’s advice, and for that, at least, I was grateful, that he would hear what I said and never put it aside as being but a woman’s counsel.

North Wales was a beautiful country, great hills and mountains that reminded me of the country of Lothian. But where Lothian was high and barren, Uriens’ country was all green and fertile, lush with trees and flowers, and the soil was rich and the crops good. Uriens had built his castle in one of the finer valleys. His son Avalloch, and Avalloch’s wife and children, deferred to me in all things, and his youngest son, Uwaine, called me “Mother.” I came to know what it might have been to have a son to bring up, to look after all the little daily concerns of a growing child, climbing trees and breaking bones, outgrowing his clothes or tearing them in the woods, being rude to his tutors or taking dog’s leave to go hunting when he should have been at his book; the priest who taught Uwaine his letters despaired, but he was the pride and joy of the arms master. Troublesome as he was, I loved him well; he waited on me at dinner, and often sat in hall to listen to me when I played the harp—like all the folk of that country he had an ear for music and a clear and tuneful voice; and like all of that court, Uriens’family would rather make music themselves than listen to paid minstrels. After a year or two I began to think of Uwaine as my own son, and of course he could not remember his own mother. Wild as he was, he was always gentle with me; boys that age are not easy to control, but there were endearing moments, after days of rudeness or sullenness, when he would suddenly come and sit by me in the hall and sing to my harp, or bring me wild flowers or a clumsily tanned hareskin, and once or twice, awkward and shy as a young stork, he would bend and brush my cheek with his mouth. Often I wished, then, that I had had children of my own that I could rear myself. There was little enough else to do at this quiet court, far away from the wars and troubles to the south.

And then, when I had been married to Uriens for a year, Accolon came home.

9

Summer on the hills; the orchard in the queen’s garden covered with pink and white blossoms. Morgaine, walking beneath the trees, felt an aching homesickness all through her blood, remembering the Avalon spring and the trees covered with those white and rosy clouds. The year was swinging toward the summer solstice; Morgaine reckoned it up, realizing ruefully that at last the effects of half a lifetime in Avalon were wearing away—the tides no longer ran in her blood.

No, need I lie to myself? It is not that I have forgotten, or that the tides no longer run in my blood, it is that I no longer let myself feel them. Morgaine considered herself dispassionately—the somber costly gown, suitable for a queen ... Uriens had given her all the gowns and jewels which had belonged to his late wife, and she had her jewels from Igraine as well; Uriens liked to see her decked out in jewels befitting a queen.

Some kings kill their prisoners of state, or enslave them in their mines; if it pleases the King of North Wales to hang his with jewels and parade her forth at his side, and call her queen, why not?

Yet she felt full of the flow of the summer. Beneath her on the hillside she could hear a plowman encouraging his ox with soft cries. Tomorrow would be Midsummer.

Next Sunday a priest would carry torches into the field and circle it in procession with his acolytes, chanting psalms and blessings. The richer barons and knights, who were all Christian, had persuaded the people that this was more seemly in a Christian country than the old ways, where the people lighted fires in the fields, and called the Lady in the old worship. Morgaine wished—and not for the first time—that she had been only one of the priestesses, not one of the great royal line of Avalon.

I would still be there, she thought, one of them, doing the work of the Lady  ...  not here, like any shipwrecked sailor, lost in an alien land ...  . Abruptly she turned and walked through the blossoming garden, her eyes downcast, refusing to look any further at the apple blossoms.

Spring comes again and again, and the summer follows, with its fruitfulness. But I am as alone and barren as one of those locked-up Christian virgins within convent walls. She set her will against the tears which seemed somehow always beneath the surface these days, and went inside. Behind her the setting sun spread crimson over the fields, but she would not look at it; all was grey and barren here. As grey and barren as I.

One of her women greeted her as she stepped inside the door.

“My lady, the king has returned and would see you in his chamber.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Morgaine, more to herself than to the woman. A tight band of headache settled around her forehead, and for a moment she could not breathe, could not force herself to walk inside the darkness of the castle which, all this cold winter, had closed round her like a trap. Then she told herself not to be fanciful, set her teeth, and went to Uriens’ chamber, where she found him half-clad and lying on the flagstones, stretched out with his body servant rubbing his back.

“You have tired yourself again,” she said, not adding, you are no longer young enough to go about your own lands like this. He had ridden to a nearby town to hear about some disputed lands. She knew that he would want her to sit beside him and listen to his tales of all that he had heard in the countryside. She sat down in her own chair nearby and listened with half an ear to what he told her.

“You can go, Berec,” he told the man. “My lady will fetch my clothes for me.” When the man had gone he asked, “Morgaine, will you rub my feet? Your hands are better than his.”

“Certainly. But you will have to sit in the chair.”

He stretched out his hands and she gave him a tug upward. She placed a footstool under his feet and knelt beside it, chafing his thin, callused old feet until the blood rose to the surface and they looked alive again; then she fetched a flask and began to rub one of her herbal oils into the king’s gnarled toes.

“You should have your man make you some new boots,” she said. “The crack in the old ones will make a sore there—see where it is blistered?”

“But the old ones fit me so well, and boots are so stiff when they are new,” he protested.

Morgaine said, “You must do as you like, my lord.”

“No, no, you are right, as always,” he said. “I will tell the man tomorrow to come and measure my feet for a pair.”

Morgaine, putting away her flask of herbal oil and fetching a pair of shapeless old soft shoes, thought: I wonder if he knows that this may be his last pair of boots, and that is why he is reluctant? She would not think about what the king’s death would mean to her. She did not want to wish him dead—he had never been anything but kind to her. She slid the soft indoor slippers on his feet and stood up, wiping her hands on a towel. “Is that better, my lord?”

“Wonderful, my dear, thank you. No one can look after me the way you do,” he said. Morgaine sighed. When he had the new boots he would have more trouble with his feet; they would, as he had rightly foreseen, be stiff, and that would make his feet just as sore as they were now. Perhaps he should stop riding and stay at home in his chair, but he would not do that.

She said, “You should have Avalloch ride out to hear these cases. He must learn to rule over his people.” His oldest son was the same age as she. He had waited long enough to rule, and Uriens looked like living forever.

“True, true—but if I do not go, they will think their king does not care for them,” Uriens said. “But perhaps when the roads are bad next winter I will do so ...  .”

“You had better,” she said. “If you have chilblains again, you could lose the use of your hands.”

“The fact is, Morgaine,” he said, smiling his good-natured smile at her, “I am an old man, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Do you think there is roast pork for supper?”

“Yes,” she said, “and some early cherries. I made sure of that.”

“You are a notable housekeeper, my dear,” he said, and took her arm as they went out of the room. She thought, He thinks he is being kind to say so.

The household of Uriens was assembled already for the evening meal: Avalloch; Avalloch’s wife, Maline, and their young children; Uwaine, lanky and dark, with his three young foster-brothers and the priest who was their tutor; and below them at the long table the men-at-arms and their ladies, and the upper servants. As Uriens and Morgaine took their seats and Morgaine signalled to the servants to bring food, Maline’s younger child began to clamor and shout.

“Granny! I want to sit on Granny’s knee! Want Granny to feed me!”

Maline—a slender, fair-haired, pale young woman, heavily pregnant —frowned and said, “No, Conn, sit down prettily and be quiet!”

But the child had already toddled to Morgaine’s knee, and she laughed and lifted him up. I am an unlikely grandmother, she thought; Maline is almost as old as I. But Uriens’ grandsons were fond of her, and she hugged the little boy close, taking pleasure in the feel of the small curly head digging into her waist, the grubby little fingers clutching at her. She sliced bits of pork with her knife and fed them to Conn from her own plate, then cut him a piece of bread in the shape of a pig.

“See, now you have more pork to eat...” she said, wiping her greasy fingers, and turned her attention to her own meal. She ate but little meat, even now; she soaked her bread in the meat juices, but no more. She was quickly finished, while the rest were still eating; she leaned back in her chair and began to sing softly to Conn, who curled up contentedly in her lap. After a time she grew aware that they were all listening to her, and she let her voice drop away.

“Please go on singing, Mother,” Uwaine said, but she shook her head.

“No, I am tired—listen, what did I hear in the courtyard?” She rose and signalled to one of the serving-men to light her to the doorway. Torch held high, he stood behind her, and she saw the rider come into the great courtyard. The serving-man stuck his torch into one of the wall brackets and hurried to help the rider dismount. “My lord Accolon!”

He came, his scarlet cape swirling behind him like a river of blood. “Lady Morgaine,” he said, with a deep bow, “or should I say—my lady mother?”

“Please do not,” Morgaine said impatiently. “Come in, Accolon, your father and brothers will be happy to see you.”

“As you are not, lady?”

She bit her lip, suddenly wondering if she would weep. She said, “You are a king’s son, as I am a king’s daughter. Do I have to remind you how such marriages are made? It was not my doing, Accolon, and when we spoke together, I had no idea—“ She stopped, and he looked down at her, then stooped over her hand.

He said so softly that even the serving-man did not hear, “Poor Morgaine. I believe you, lady. Peace between us, then—Mother?”

“Only if you do not call me Mother,” she said, with a shred of a smile. “I am not so old. It is well enough for Uwaine—“ and then, as they came back into the hall, Conn started upright and began to cry out again for “Granny!” Morgaine laughed, mirthlessly, and went back to pick up the toddler. She was aware of Accolon’s eyes on her; she cast her own down at the child in her lap, listening silently as Uriens greeted his son.

Accolon came formally to embrace his brother, to bow before his brother’s wife; he knelt and kissed his father’s hand and then turned to Morgaine. She said shortly, “Spare me further courtesies, Accolon, my hands are all pork fat, I have been holding the baby, and he is a messy feeder.”

“As you command, madam,” said Accolon, going to the table and taking the plate one of the serving-women brought to him. But while he ate and drank, she was still conscious of his eyes.

I am sure he is still angry with me. Asking my hand in the morning, and in the evening, seeing me promised to his father; no doubt he thinks I succumbed to ambition—why marry the king’s son if you can have the king?

“No,” she said firmly, giving Conn a little shake, “if you are to stay in my lap you must be quiet and not paw at my dress with your greasy hands ...  .”

When he saw me last I was clad in scarlet and I was the king’s sister, reputed a witch  ...  now I am a grandmother with a dirty child in my lap, looking after the housekeeping and nagging my old husband not to ride in mended boots which make his feet sore. Morgaine was acutely aware of every grey hair, every line in her face. In the name of the Goddess, why should I care what Accolon thinks of me? But she did care and she knew it; she was accustomed to having young men look at her and admire her, and now she felt that she was old, ugly, undesirable. She had never thought herself a beauty, but always before this she had been one of the younger people, and now she sat among the aging matrons. She hushed the child again, for Maline had asked Accolon what news of Arthur’s court.

“There is no news of great doings,” Accolon said. “I think those days are over for our lifetime. Arthur’s court is quiet, and the King still does penance for some unknown sin—he touches no wine, even at high feast days.”

“Has the Queen yet shown any signs of bearing him an heir?” Maline asked.

“None,” said Accolon, “though one of her ladies told me before the mock games that she thought the Queen might be pregnant.”

Maline turned to Morgaine and said, “You knew the Queen well, did you not, mother-in-law?”

“I did,” said Morgaine, “and as for that rumor, well, Gwenhwyfar always thinks herself pregnant if her courses come a day late.”

“The King is a fool,” said Uriens. “He should put her away and take some woman who would give him a son. I remember all too well what chaos ruled the land when they thought Uther would die with no son. Now the succession should be firmly established.”

Accolon said, “I have heard that the King has named one of his cousins for his heir—the son of Lancelet. I like that not—Lancelet is the son of Ban of Benwick, and we want no foreign High Kings reigning over our own.”

Morgaine said firmly, “Lancelet is the son of the Lady of Avalon, of the old royal line.”

“Avalon!” said Maline disdainfully. “This is a Christian land. What is Avalon to us now?”

“More than you think,” said Accolon. “I have heard that some of the country people, who remember the Pendragon, are not happy with so Christian a court as Arthur’s, and remember that Arthur, before his crowning, took oath to stand with the folk of Avalon.”

“Yes,” said Morgaine, “and he bears the great sword of the Holy Regalia of Avalon.”

“The Christians seem not to hold that against him,” Accolon said, “and now I remember some news from the court—King Edric of the Saxons has turned Christian and came to be baptized, with all his retinue, at Glaston-bury, and he knelt and took oath before Arthur in token that all the Saxon lands accepted Arthur as High King.”

“Arthur? King over Saxons? Will wonders never cease!” Avalloch said. “I always heard him say he would deal with the Saxons only at the point of his sword!”

“Yet there he was, the Saxon king, kneeling in Glastonbury church, and Arthur hearing his oath and taking him by the hand,” said Accolon. “Perhaps he will marry the Saxon’s daughter to the son of Lancelet and have done with all this fighting. And there sat the Merlin among Arthur’s councillors, and one would have said he was as good a Christian as any of them!”

“Gwenhwyfar must be happy now,” said Morgaine. “Always she said God had given Arthur the victory at Mount Badon because he bore the banner of the Holy Virgin. And later I heard her say that God had spared his life that he might bring the Saxons into the fold of the church.”

Uriens shrugged and said, “I do not think I would trust a Saxon behind me with an axe, even if he wore a bishop’s miter!”

“Nor I,” said Avalloch, “but if the Saxon chiefs are praying and doing penance for their souls’ sake, at least they are not riding to burn our villages and abbeys. And as to penance and fasting—what, think you, can Arthur have on his conscience? When I rode with his armies, I was not among his Companions and knew him not so well, but he seemed an uncommon good man, and a penance of such length means some sin greater than common. Lady Morgaine, do you know, you who are his sister?”

“His sister, not his cpnfessor.” Morgaine knew her voice was sharp, and fell silent.

Uriens said, “Any man who waged war for fifteen years among the Saxons must have more on his conscience than he cares to tell; but few are so tender of conscience as to think of it when the battle is past. All of us have known murder and ravage and blood and the slaughter of the innocent. But the battles are over for our lifetime, God grant, and having made our peace with men, we have leisure to make peace with God.”

So Arthur does penance still, and that old Archbishop Patricius still holds the mortgage on his soul! How, I wonder, does Gwenhwyfar enjoy that?

“Tell us more of the court,” Maline begged. “What of the Queen? What did she wear when she sat at court?”

Accolon laughed. “I know nothing of ladies’ garments. Something of white, with pearls—the Marhaus, the great Irish knight, brought them to her from the Irish king. And her cousin Elaine, I heard, has borne Lancelet a daughter—or was that last year? She had a son already, I think, that was chosen Arthur’s heir. And there is some scandal in King Pellinore’s court —it seems that his son, Lamorak, went on a mission to Lothian, and now speaks of marrying Lot’s widow, old Queen Morgause—“

Avalloch chuckled. “The boy must be mad. Morgause is fifty, at least, maybe more!”

“Five-and-forty,” Morgaine said. “She is ten years older than I.” And she wondered why she thus turned the knife in her own wound  ...  do I want Accolon to realize how old I am, grandmother to Uriens’ brood ...  ?

“He is mad indeed,” Accolon said, “singing ballads, and carrying about the lady’s garter and such nonsense—“

“I should think that same garter would make a horse’s halter by now,” said Uriens, and Accolon shook his head.

“No—I have seen Lot’s lady and she is a beautiful woman still. She is not a girl, but she seems all the more beautiful for that. What I wonder is, what can the woman want with a raw boy like that? Lamorak is not more than twenty.”

“Or what can a boy like that want with the old lady?” Avalloch insisted.

“Perhaps,” said Uriens, with a ribald laugh, “the lady is well learned at sport among the cushions. Though one would hardly think she could have learned it, married all those years to old Lot! But no doubt she had other teachers ...  .”

Maline flushed and said, “Please! Is this talk seemly in a Christian household?”

Uriens said, “If it were not, daughter-in-law, I doubt your girdle would be grown so wide.”

“I am a married woman,” said Maline, crimson.

Morgaine said sharply, “If to be a Christian household means not to speak of what one is not ashamed to do, then the Lady forbid I should ever call myself Christian!”

“Still,” said Avalloch, “perhaps it is ill done to sit here at meat and tell ugly stories about lady Morgaine’s kinswoman.”

Accolon said, “Queen Morgause has no husband to be offended, and the lady is of age, and her own mistress. No doubt her sons are well pleased that she contents herself with a paramour and does not marry the boy! Is she not also the Duchess of Cornwall?”

“No,” said Morgaine, “Igraine was Duchess of Cornwall after Gorlois was set down for his treason to Pendragon. Gorlois had no son, and since Uther gave Tintagel to Igraine for bride-gift, I suppose now it belongs to me.” And Morgaine was suddenly overcome with homesickness for that half-remembered country, the bleak outline of castle and crags against the sky, the sudden dips into hidden valleys, the eternal noise of the sea below the castle  ...  Tintagel! My home! I cannot return to Avalon, but I am not homeless  ...  Cornwall is mine.

“And under the Roman law,” said Uriens, “I suppose, as your husband, my dear, I am Duke of Cornwall.”

Again Morgaine felt the surge of violent anger. Only when I am dead and buried, she thought. Uriens cares nothing for Cornwall, only that Tintagel, like myself, is his property, bearing the mark of his ownership! Would that I could go there, live there alone as Morgause at Lothian, my own mistress with none to command me. ... A picture came in her mind, the queen’s chamber at Tintagel, and she seemed very small, she was playing with an old spindle on the floor ...  . If Uriens dares to lay claim to an acre of Cornwall, I will give him six feet of it, and dirt between his teeth!

“Tell me now your news of this country,” said Accolon. “The spring was late—I see the plowmen are just getting into the fields.”

“But they have nearly done with plowing,” said Maline, “and Sunday they will go to bless the fields—“

“And they are choosing the Spring Maiden,” said Uwaine. “I was down in the village, and I saw them choosing among all the pretty girls ... you were not here last year, Mother,” he said to Morgaine. “They choose the prettiest of all for the Spring Maiden, and she walks in the procession around the fields when the priest comes to bless it... and there are dancers who dance round the fields  ...  and they carry an image made from the last harvest, made from the barley straw. Father Eian does not like that,” he said, “but I don’t know why not, it is so pretty ...  .”

The priest coughed and said self-consciously, “The blessing of the church should be enough—why should we need more than the word of God to make the fields grow and blossom? The straw image they carry is a memory of the bad old days when men and animals were burned alive so that their lives should make the fields fertile, and the Spring Maiden a memory of—well, I will not speak before children of that evil and idolatrous custom!”

“There was a day,” said Accolon, speaking directly to Morgaine, “when the queen of the land was the Spring Maiden, and the Harvest Lady as well, and she did that office in the fields, that the fields might have life and fertility.” Morgaine saw at his wrists the faint blue shadow of the serpents of Avalon.

Maline made the sign of the cross and said primly, “God be thanked that we live among civilized men.”

Accolon said, “I doubt you would be asked to do that office, sister-in-law.”

“No,” said Uwaine, tactless as any boy, “she is not pretty enough. But our mother is, isn’t she, Accolon?”

“I am glad you think my queen is handsome,” said Uriens hastily, “but the past is past—we do not burn cats and sheep alive in the fields, nor kill the king’s scapegoat to scatter his blood there, and it is no longer needful that the queen should bless the fields in that way.”

No, thought Morgaine. Now all is sterile, now we have priests with their crosses, forbidding the lighting of the fires of fertility—it is a miracle the Lady does not blight the fields of grain, since she is angry at being denied her due ...  .

Soon after, the household went to rest; Morgaine, the last to rise from her seat, went to supervise the locks and bars, and then went, with a small lamp in her hand, to make sure Accolon had been given a good bed— Uwaine and his foster-brothers were now occupying the room that had been his when he lived here as a boy.

“Is all well with you here?”

“Everything I could desire,” said Accolon, “except a lady to grace my chamber. My father is a fortunate man, lady. And you well deserve to be the wife of a king, not of, a king’s younger son.”

“Must you always taunt me?” she burst out. “I have told you; I was given no choice!”

“You were pledged to me!”

Morgaine knew that the color was leaving her face. She set her lips like stone. “Done is done, Accolon.”

She lifted her lamp and turned away. He said behind her, almost a threat, “This is not done between us, lady.”

Morgaine did not speak; she hurried along the corridor to the chamber she shared with Uriens. Her lady-in-waiting was ready to unlace her gown, but she sent the woman away. Uriens sat on the edge of the bed, groaning.

“Even those slippers are too hard on my feet! Aaah, it is good to go to rest!”

“Rest well, then, my lord.”

“No,” he said, and pulled her down at his side. “So tomorrow the fields are to be blessed ... and perhaps we should be grateful we live in a civilized land, and the king and the queen need no longer bless the fields by lying together in public. But on the eve of the blessing, dear lady, perhaps we should have our own blessing, private in our chamber—what would you say to that?”

Morgaine sighed. She had been scrupulously careful of her aging husband’s pride; never did she make him feel less than a man for his occasional and clumsy use of her body. But Accolon had roused in her an anguished memory of her years in Avalon—the torches borne to the top of the Tor, the Beltane fires lighted and the maidens waiting in the plowed fields  ...  and tonight she had had to hear a shabby priest mocking what was, to her, holy beyond holiness. Now even Uriens, it seemed, made a mockery of it.

“I would say that such blessing as you and I might give the fields would be better left undone. I am old and barren, and you are not such a king as can give much life to the fields, either!”

Uriens stared at her. In all the year of their marriage she had never spoken a harsh word to him. He was too startled even to reproach her.

“I doubt it not, you are right,” he said quietly. “Well, then, we will leave that to the young people. Come to bed, Morgaine.” But when she lay down beside him, he lay quiet, and after a moment, he put a shy arm across her shoulders. Now Morgaine was regretting her harsh words  ...  she felt cold and alone, she lay biting her lip so that she would not cry, but when Uriens spoke to her, she pretended she was asleep.

MIDSUMMER DAWNED brilliant and beautiful; Morgaine, waking early, realized that, however much she might say to herself that the sun tides ran no longer in her blood, there was something within her that ran heavy with the summer. As she dressed, she looked dispassionately at the sleeping form of her husband.

She had been a fool. Why should she have accepted compliantly Arthur’s word, fearing to embarrass him before his fellow kings? If he could not keep his throne without a woman’s help it might be he did not deserve to hold it. He was a traitor to Avalon, an apostate; he had given her into the hands of another apostate. Yet she had meekly agreed to what they had planned for her.

Igraine let her life be used for their politics. And something in Morgaine, dead or sleeping since the day she fled forth from Avalon, bearing Gwydion within her womb, suddenly woke and stirred, moving sluggishly and slow like a sleeping dragon, a movement as secret and unseen as the first movements of a child in the womb; something that said, clear and quiet within her, If I would not let Viviane, whom I loved, use me this way, why should I bow my head meekly and let myself be used for Arthur’s purposes? I am queen in North Wales, and I am duchess in Cornwall, where Gorlois’s name still means something, and I am of the royal line of Avalon.

Uriens groaned, heaving himself stiffly over. “Ah, God, I ache in every muscle and there is a toothache in every toe of my foot—I rode too far yesterday. Morgaine, will you rub my back?”

She started to fling back furiously, You have a dozen body servants, and I am your wife, not your slave, then stopped herself; instead she smiled and said, “Yes, of course,” and sent a pageboy for her vials of herbal oil. Let him think her still compliant to everything; healing was a part of a priestess’s work. If it was the smallest part, still, it gave her access to his plans and his thoughts. She rubbed his back and kneaded salve into his sore feet, listening to the small details of the land dispute he had ridden out yesterday to settle. For Uriens, any woman could be queen, he wants only a smiling face and kind hands to cosset him. Well, he shall have them while it suits my purpose.

“And now it looks as if we would have a fine day for the blessing of the crops. We never have rain at Midsummer-day,” Uriens said. “The Lady shines on her fields when they are consecrated to her—that is what they used to say when I was young and a pagan, that the Great Marriage could not be consummated in the rain.” He chuckled. “Still, I remember once when I was very young, when the fields had been rained on for ten days, and the priestess and I might have been pigs wallowing in the mud!”

Against her will, Morgaine smiled; the picture he made in her mind was ludicrous. “Even in ritual, the Goddess will have her joke,” she said, “and one of her names is the Great Sow, and we are all her piglets.”

“Ah, Morgaine, those were good times,” he said, then his face tightened. “Of course, that was long ago—now what the folk want in their kings is dignity. Those days are gone, and forever.”

Are they? I wonder. But Morgaine said nothing. It occurred to her that Uriens, when he was younger, might have been a king strong enough to resist the tide of Christianity washing over the land. If Viviane had tried harder to put a king on the throne who was not bound hard and fast to the rule of the priests  ...  but of course, who could have foreseen that Gwenhwyfar would be pious beyond all reason? And why had the Merlin done nothing?

If the Merlin of Britain and the wise folk at Avalon had done nothing to stem this tide that was drowning the land and washing away all the old ways and the old Gods, why should she blame Uriens, who was after all only an old man, and wanted peace? There was no reason to make him an enemy. If he was content, it would not matter to him what she did  ...  she did not know yet what she meant to do. But she knew that her days of silent compliance were over.

She said, “I wish I had known you then,” and let him kiss her on the forehead.

If I had been married to him when first I became marriageable, North Wales might never have become a Christian land. But it is not too late. There are those who have not forgotten that the king still wears, however faded, the serpents of Avalon about his arms. And he has married one who was a High Priestess of the Lady.

I could have done her work better here than all those years at Arthur’s court, in Gwenhwyfar’s shadow. It occurred to Morgaine that Gwenhwyfar would have been content with a husband like Uriens, whom she could keep within her own sphere, rather than one like Arthur, living an entire life in which she had no part.

And there had been a time, too, when Morgaine had had influence with Arthur—the influence of the woman he had first taken in coming to manhood, who wore, for him, the face of the Goddess. Yet, in her folly and pride, she had let him fall into the hands of Gwenhwyfar and the priests. Now, when it was too late, she began to understand what Viviane had intended.

Between us, we could have ruled this land; they would have called Gwenhwyfar the High Queen, but she would have had Arthur only in body; he would have been mine in heart and soul and mind. Ah, what a fool I was ... . He and I could have ruled—for Avalon! Now Arthur is the priests’ creature. And he bears, still, the great sword of the Druid Regalia, and the Merlin of Britain does nothing to hinder him.

I must take up the work that Viviane let fall ...  .

Ah, Goddess, I have forgotten so much ...  .

And then she stopped, shaking at her own daring. Uriens had reached a pause in his tale; she had ceased rubbing his feet, and he looked down questioning at her, and she said hastily, “I am quite sure you did the right thing, my dear husband,” and spread some more of the sweet-smelling salve on her hands. She had not the slightest idea what she had agreed to, but Uriens smiled and went on with his tale, and Morgaine slid off into her own thoughts again.

I am a priestess still. Strange how I am suddenly sure of that again, after all these years, when even the dreams of Avalon are gone.

She pondered what Accolon had told them. Elaine had borne a daughter. She herself could not give Avalon a daughter, but as Viviane had done, she would bring her a fosterling. She helped Uriens to dress, went down with him, and with her own hands fetched him fresh new-baked bread from the kitchen and some of the foaming new beer. She served him, spreading honey on his bread. Let him think her the most doting of his subjects, let him think her only his sweet compliant wife. It meant nothing to her, but one day it might mean much to have his trust, so that she could do what she chose.

“Even with the summer my old bones ache—I think, Morgaine, that I will ride south to Aquae Sulis and take the waters there. There is an ancient shrine to Sul—when the Romans were here they built a huge bathhouse, and some of it is still there, unfallen. The great pools are choked, and when the Saxons came they carried off much of the fine work, and threw down the statue of the Goddess, but the spring is still there, undamaged—boiling up in clouds of steam, day after day and year after year, from the forges at the center of the earth. It is awesome to behold! And there are hot pools where a man can soak all the weariness from his bones. I have not been there for two or three years, but I shall go again, now the countryside is quiet.”

“I see no reason you should not,” she agreed, “now there is peace in the land.”

“Would you care to go with me, my dear? We can leave my sons to care for everything here, and the old shrine would interest you.”

“I would like to see the shrine,” she said, sincerely enough. She thought of the cold unfailing waters of the Holy Well on Avalon, bubbling up inexhaustible, forever, sourceless, cool, clear ...  . “Still, I do not know if it would be well to leave all things in your sons’ hands. Avalloch is a fool. Accolon is clever, but he is only a younger son—I do not know if your people would listen to him. Perhaps if I were here, Avalloch would take counsel of his younger brother.”

“An excellent idea, my dear,” Uriens said sunnily, “and in any case it would be a long journey for you. If you are here I will not have the slightest hesitation in leaving all things to the young men—I will tell them they must come to you for good advice in all things.”

“And when will you set forth?” It would not be at all a bad thing, Morgaine thought, if it were known that Uriens did not hesitate to leave his kingdom in her hands.

“Tomorrow, perhaps. Or even after the blessing of the crops this day. Will you have them pack my things?”

“Are you sure you can travel that long a road? It is not an easy ride even for a young man—“

“Come, come, my dear, I am not yet too old to ride,” he said, frowning a little, “and I am sure the waters will do me good.”

“I am sure they will.” Morgaine rose, leaving her own breakfast almost untasted. “Let me call your body servant and have everything made ready for you to depart.”

She stood at his side during the long procession around the fields, standing on a little hill above the village and watching the capering dancers, like young goats  ...  she wondered if any of them so much as knew the significance of the phallic green wands wound about with red and white garlands, and the pretty girl with her hair streaming, who walked, serene and indifferent, among them. She was fresh and young, not fourteen, and her hair was coppery gold, streaming halfway between her waist and knees; and she had on a gown, dyed green, that looked very old. Did any of them know what they were watching, or see the incongruity of the priest’s procession, following them, two boys in black carrying candles and crosses, and the priest intoning the prayers in his bad Latin; Morgaine spoke better Latin than he!

These priests hate fertility and life so much, it is a miracle their so-called blessing does not blast the fields sterile—

It was like an answer from her own mind when a voice spoke softly behind her. “I wonder, lady, if any here save ourselves truly know what they are watching?”

Accolon took her arm for a moment to help her over a rough clump of the plowed land, and she saw again the serpents, fresh and blue along his wrists.

“King Uriens knows and has tried to forget. That seems to me a worse blasphemy than not to know at all.”

She had expected that would make him angry; had, in a way, been inviting it. With Accolon’s strong hands on her arm, she felt the strong hunger, the inner leap ... he was young, he was a virile man, and she— she was the aging wife of his old father  ...  and the eyes of Uriens’ subjects were on them, and the eyes of his family and his house priest! She could not even speak freely, she must treat him with cold detachment: her stepson! If Accolon said anything kind or pitying, she would scream aloud, would tear at her hair, at her face and flesh with her nails ...  .

But Accolon only said, in a voice that could not have been overheard three feet away, “Perhaps it is enough for the Lady that we know, Morgaine. The Goddess will not fail us while a single worshipper gives her what is due.”

For a moment she looked round at him. His eyes were dwelling on her, and although his hands on hers were careful, courteous, detached, it seemed that heat ran upward from them into her whole body. She was suddenly frightened and wanted to pull away.

I am his father’s wife and of all women I am the one most forbidden to him. I am more forbidden to him, in this Christian land, than I was to Arthur.

And then a memory from Avalon surfaced in her mind, something she had not thought of for a decade; one of the Druids, giving instruction in the secret wisdom to the young priestesses, had said, If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message given you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

What has come to me again and again  ...  ?

Every man she had desired had been too close kin to her—Lancelet, who was the son of her foster-mother; Arthur, her own mother’s son; now the son of her husband  ...

But they are too close kin to me only by the laws made by the Christians who seek to rule this land  ...  to rule it in a new tyranny; not alone to make the laws but to rule the mind and heart and soul. Am I living out in my own life all the tyranny of that law, so I as priestess may know why it must be overthrown?

She discovered that her hands, still tightly held in Accolon’s, were trembling. She said, trying to collect her scattered thoughts, “Do you truly believe that the Goddess would withdraw her life from this earth if the folk who dwell here should no longer give her her due?”

It was the sort of remark that might have been made, priestess to priest, in Avalon. Morgaine knew, as well as anyone, that the true answer to that question was that the Gods were what they were, and did their will upon the earth regardless of whether man regarded their doing one way or the other. But Accolon said, with a curious animal flash of white teeth in a grin, “Then must we make it sure, lady, that she should always be given her due, lest the life of the world fail.” And then he addressed her by a name never spoken except by priest to priestess in ritual, and Morgaine felt her heart beating so hard she was dizzy.

Lest the life of the world fail. Lest my life fail within me ... he has called on me in the name of the Goddess ...  .

“Be still,” she said, distracted. “This is neither the time nor the place for such talk.”

“No?” They had come to the edge of the rough ground. He let go of her hand and somehow her own felt cold without it. Ahead of them the masked dancers shook their phallic wands and capered, and the Spring Maiden, her long hair buffeted and tangled by the breeze, was going around the circle of the dancers, exchanging a kiss with each—a ritualized, formal kiss, where her lips barely touched each cheek. Uriens beckoned Morgaine impatiently to his side; she moved stiffly and cold, feeling the spot on her wrists where Accolon had held her as a spot of heat on her icy body.

Uriens said fussily, “It is your part, my dear, to give out these things to the dancers who have entertained us this day.” He motioned to a servant, who filled Morgaine’s hands with sweets and candied fruits; she tossed them to the dancers and the spectators, who scrambled for them, laughing and pushing. Always mockery of the sacred things  ...  a memory of the day when the folk scrambled for bits of the flesh and blood of the sacrifice ...  . Let the rite be forgotten, but not mocked this way! Again and yet again they filled her hands with the sweets, and again and again she tossed them into the crowd. They saw no more in the rite than dancers who had entertained them; had they all forgotten? The Spring Maiden came up to Morgaine, laughing and flushed with innocent pride; Morgaine saw now that although she was lovely, her eyes were shallow, her hands thick and stubby with work in the fields. She was only a pretty peasant girl trying to do the work of a priestess, without the slightest idea what she was doing; it was folly to resent her.

Yet she is a woman, doing the Mother’s work in the best way she has ever been told; it is not her fault that she was not schooled in Avalon for the great work. Morgaine did not quite know what was expected of her, but as the girl knelt for a moment before the Queen, Morgaine took on the half-forgotten stance of a priestess in blessing, and felt for an instant the old awareness of something shadowing her, above her, beyond  ...  she laid her hands for a moment on the girl’s brow, felt the momentary flow of power between them, and the girl’s rather stupid face was transfigured for a moment. The Goddess works in her, too, Morgaine thought, and then she saw Accolon’s face; he was looking at her in wonder and awe. She had seen that look before, when she brought down the mists from Avalon  ...  and the awareness of power flooded her, as if she were suddenly reborn.

I am alive again. After all these years, I am a priestess again, and it was Accolon who brought it back to me ...  .

And then the tension of the moment broke, and the girl backed away, stumbling over her feet, and dropping a clumsy curtsey to the royal party. Uriens distributed coins to the dancers and a somewhat larger gift to the village priest for candles to burn in his church, and the royal party went homeward. Morgaine walked sedately at Uriens’ side, her face a mask, but inwardly seething with life. Her stepson Uwaine came and walked beside her.

“It was prettier than usual this year, Mother. Shanna is so lovely—the Spring Maiden, the daughter of the blacksmith Euan. But you, Mother, when you were blessing her, you looked so beautiful, you should have been the Spring Maiden yourself—“

“Come, come,” she chided the boy, laughing. “Do you really think I could dress in green with my hair flying, and dance all round the plowed fields that way? And I am no maiden!”

“No,” said Uwaine, surveying her with a long look, “but you looked like the Goddess. Father Eian says that the Goddess was really a demon who came to keep the folk from serving the good Christ, but do you know what I think? I think that the Goddess was here for people to worship before they were taught how to worship the holy mother of Christ.”

Accolon was walking beside them. He said, “Before the Christ, the Goddess was, and it will not hurt if you think of her as Mary, Uwaine. You should always do service to the Lady, under whatever name. But I would not advise you to speak much about this to Father Eian.”

“Oh no,” said the boy, his eyes wide. “He does not approve of women, even when they are Goddesses.”

“I wonder what he thinks of queens?” Morgaine murmured. Then they had arrived back at the castle and Morgaine had to see to King Uriens’ travelling things, and in the confusion of the day, she let the new insights slide into the back of her mind, knowing that later she would have to consider all this most seriously.

Uriens rode away after midday, with his men-at-arms and a body servant or two, taking leave of Morgaine tenderly with a kiss, counselling his son Avalloch to listen to Accolon’s counsel and that of the queen in all things. Uwaine was sulking; he wanted to go with his father, whom he adored, but Uriens would not be troubled with a child in the party. Morgaine had to comfort him, promise some special treat for him while his father was away. But at last all was quiet, and Morgaine could sit alone before the fire in the great hall—Maline had taken her children off to bed —and think of all that had befallen her that day.

It was twilight outside, the long evening of Midsummer. Morgaine had taken her spindle and distaff in her hand, but she was only pretending to spin, twirling it once in a while and drawing out a little thread; she disliked spinning as much as ever, and one of the few things she had asked of Uriens was that she might employ two extra spinning women so that she would be free of that detested task; she did twice her share of the household weaving in its stead. She dared not spin; it would throw her into that strange state between sleep and waking, and she feared what she might see. So now she only twirled the spindle now and again, that none of the servants would see her sitting with her hands idle ... not that anyone would have the right to reproach her, she was busy early and late ...  .

The room was darkening, a few slashes of crimson light from the setting sun still brilliant, darkening the corners by contrast. Morgaine narrowed her eyes, thinking of the red sun setting over the ring stones on the Tor, of the priestesses walking in train behind the red torchlight, spilling it into the shadows... for a moment Raven’s face flickered before her, silent, enigmatic, and it seemed that Raven opened her silent lips and spoke her name ... faces floated before her in the twilight: Elaine, her hair all unbound as the torchlight caught her in Lancelet’s bed; Gwenhwyfar, angry and triumphant at Morgaine’s wedding; the calm, still face of the strange woman with braided fair hair, the woman she had seen only in dreams, Lady of Avalon ... Raven again, frightened, entreating ... Arthur, bearing a candle of penitence as he walked among his subjects  ...  oh, but the priests would never dare force the King to public penance, would they? And then she saw the barge of Avalon, draped all in black for a funeral, and her own face like a reflection on the mists, mirrored there, with three other women draped all in black like the barge, and a wounded man lying white and still in her lap—

Torchlight flared crimson across the dark room, and a voice said, “Are you trying to spin in the dark, Mother?”

Confused by the light, Morgaine looked up and said peevishly, “I have told you not to call me that!”

Accolon put the torch into a bracket, and came to sit at her feet. “The Goddess is Mother to us all, lady, and I acknowledge you as such ...  .”

“Are you mocking me?” Morgaine demanded, agitated.

“I do not mock.” As Accolon knelt close to her, his lips trembled. “I saw your face today. Would I mock that—wearing these?” He thrust out his arms, and by a trick of the light, the blue serpents dyed on his wrists seemed to writhe and thrust up their painted heads. “Lady, Mother, Goddess—“ His painted arms went out around her waist, and he buried his head in her lap. He muttered, “Yours is the face of the Goddess to me ...  .”

As if she moved in a dream, Morgaine put out her hands to him, bending to kiss the back of his neck where the soft hair curled. Part of her was wondering, frightened, What am I doing? Is it only that he has called on me in the name of the Goddess, priest to priestess? Or is it only that when he touches me, speaks to me, I feel myself woman and alive again after all this time when I have felt myself old, barren, half dead in this marriage to a dead man and a dead life? Accolon raised his face to her, kissed her full on the lips. Morgaine, yielding to the kiss, felt herself melting, opened, a shudder, half pain half pleasure, running through her as his tongue against hers shot waking memories through her whole body ... so long, so long, this long year when her body had been deadened, never letting itself wake lest it be aware of what Uriens was doing. ...  She thought, defiant, I am a priestess, my body is mine to be given in homage to her! What I did with Uriens was the sin, the submission to lust! This is true and holy ...  .

His faands trembled on her body; but when he spoke, his voice was quiet and practical.

“I think all the castle folk are abed. I knew you would be here waiting for me ...  .”

For a moment Morgaine resented his certainty; then she bowed her head. They were in the hands of the Goddess and she would not refuse the flow that carried her on, like a river; long, long, she had only whirled about in a backwater, and now she was washed clean into the current of life again. “Where is Avalloch?”

He laughed shortly. “He is gone down to the village to lie with the Spring Maiden ... it is one of our customs that the village priest does not know. Ever, since our father was old and we were grown men, it has been so, and Avalloch does not think it incompatible with his duty as a Christian man, to be the father of his people, or as many of them as possible, like Uriens himself in his youth. Avalloch offered to cast lots with me for the privilege, and I had started to do so, then I remembered your hands blessing her, and knew where my true homage lay ...  .”

She murmured half in protest, “Avalon is so far away  ... ”

He said, with his face against her breast, “But she is everywhere.”

Morgaine whispered, “So be it,” and rose. She pulled him upright with her and made a half turn toward the stairs, then stopped. No, not here; there was not a bed in this castle that they could honorably share. And the Druid maxim returned to her, Can that which was never made nor created by Man, be worshipped under a roof made by human hands?

Out, then, into the night. As they stepped into the empty courtyard, a falling star rushed downward across the sky, so swiftly that for an instant it seemed to Morgaine that the heavens reeled and the earth moved backward under her feet  ...  then it was gone, leaving their eyes dazzled. A portent. The Goddess welcomes me back to herself ...  .

“Come,” she whispered, her hand in Accolon’s, and led him upward to the orchard, where the white ghosts of blossom drifted in the darkness and fell around them. She spread her cloak on the grass, like a magic circle under the sky; held out her arms and whispered, “Come.”

The dark shadow of his body over her blotted out the sky and the stars.

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

Even as we lay together under the stars that Midsummer, I knew that what we had done was not so much lovemaking as a magical act of passionate power; that his hands, the touch of his body, were reconsecrating me priestess, and that it was her will. Blind as I was to all at that moment, I heard around us in the summer night the sound of whispers and I knew that we were not alone.

He would have held me in his arms, but I rose, driven on by whatever power held me now at this hour, and raised my hands above my head, bringing them down slowly, my eyes closed, my breath held in the tension of power  ...  and only when I heard him gasp in awe did I venture to open my eyes, to see his body rimmed with that same faint light which edged my own.

It is done and she is with me ...  . Mother, I am unworthy in thy sight  ...  but now it has come again. ... 7 held my breath to keep from breaking out into wild weeping. After all these years, after my own betrayal and my faithlessness, she has come again to me and I am priestess once more. A pale glimmer of moonlight showed me, at the edge of the field where we lay, though I saw not even a shadow, the glimmer of eyes like some animal in the hedgerow. We were not alone, the little people of the hills had known where we were and what she wrought here, and come to see the consummation unknown here since Uriens grew old and the world had turned grey and Christian. I heard the echo of a reverent whisper and returned it in a tongue of which I knew less than a dozen words, just audible where I stood and where Accolon still knelt in reverence.

“It is done; so let it be!”

I bent and kissed him on the brow, repeating, “It is done. Go, my dear; be thou blessed.”

He would have stayed, I know, had I been the woman with whom he had come into that garden; but before the priestess he went silent away, not questioning the word of the Goddess.

There was no sleep for me that night. Alone, I walked in the garden till dawn, and I knew already, shaking with terror, what must be done. I did not know how, or whether, alone, I could do what I had begun, but as I had been made priestess so many years ago and renounced it, so must I retrace my steps alone. This night I had been given a great grace; but I knew there would be no more signs for me and no help given until I had made myself, alone, unaided, again the priestess I had been trained to be.

I bore still on my brow, faded beneath that housewifely coif Uriens would have me wear, the sign of her grace, but that would not help me now. Gazing at the fading stars, I did not know whether or no the rising sun would surprise me at my vigil; the sun tides had not run in my blood for half a lifetime, and I no longer knew the precise place on the eastern horizon where I should turn to salute the sun at its rising. I knew not, anymore, even how the moon-tides ran with the cycles of my body  ...  so far had I come from the training of Avalon. Alone, with no more than a fading memory, I must somehow recapture all the things I had once known as part of myself.

Before dawn I went silently indoors, and moving in the dark, found for myself the one token I had of Avalon—the little sickle knife I had taken from Viviane’s dead body, a knife like the one I had borne as priestess and had abandoned in Avalon when I fled from there. I bound it silently around my waist, beneath my outer garments; it would never leave my side again and it would be buried with me.

I wore it thus, hidden there, the only memory I could keep of that night. I did not even paint the crescent anew on my brow, partly because of Uriens—he would have questioned it—and partly because I knew I was not, yet, worthy to bear it; I would not have worn the crescent as he wore the faded serpents about his arms, an ornament and a half-forgotten reminder of what once he had been and was no more. Over these next months and as they stretched into years, one part of me moved like a painted doll through the duties he demanded of me—spinning and weaving, making herbal medicines, looking to the needs of son and grandson, listening to my husband’s talk, embroidering him fine clothes and tending him in sickness  ...  all these things I did without much thought, with the very surface of my mind and a body gone numb for those times when he took brief and distasteful possession of it.

But the knife was there to touch now and again for reassurance as I learned again to count sun tides from equinox to solstice and back to equinox again  ...  count them painfully on my fingers like a child or a novice priestess; it was years before I could feel them running in my blood again, or know to a hairline’s difference where on the horizon moon or sun would rise or set for the salutations I learned again to make. Again, late at night while the household lay sleeping round me, I would study the stars, letting their influence move in my blood as they wheeled and swung around me until I became only a pivot point on the motionless earth, center of the whirling dance around and above me, the spiraling movement of the seasons. I rose early and slept late so that I might find hours to range into the hills, on pretext of seeking root and herb for medicines, and there I sought out the old lines of force, tracing them from standing stone to hammer pool ...  it was weary work and it was years before I knew even a few of them near to Uriens’ castle.

But even in that first year, when I struggled with fading memory, trying to recapture what I had known so many years ago, I knew my vigils were not unshared. I was never unattended, though never did I see more than I had seen that first night, the gleam of an eye in the darkness, a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eyes  ...  they were seldom seen, even here in the far hills, anywhere in village and field; they lived their own life secretly in deserted hills and forests where they had fled when the Romans came. But I knew they were there, that the little folk who had never lost sight of Her watched over me.

Once in the far hills I found a ring of stones, not a great one like that which stood on the Tor at Avalon, nor the greater one which had once been Temple of the Sun on the great chalk plains; here the stones were no more than shoulder-high even on me (and I am not tall) and the circle no greater than the height of a tall man. A small slab of stone, the stains faded and overgrown with lichens, was half-buried in the grass at the center. I pulled it free of weed and lichen-, and as I did whenever I could find food unseen in the kitchens, left for her people such things as I knew seldom came to them—a slab of barley bread, a bit of cheese, a lump of butter. And once when I went there I found at the very center of the stones a garland of the scented flowers which grew on the border of the fairy country; dried, they would never fade. When next I took Accolon out of doors when the moon was full, I wore them tied about my brow as we came together in that solemn joining which swept away the individual and made us only Goddess and God, affirming the endless life of the cosmos, the flow of power between male and female as between earth and sky. After that I went never unattended beyond my own garden. I knew better than to look for them directly, but they were there and I knew they would be there if I needed them. It was not for nothing that I had been given that old name, Morgaine of the Fairies  ...  and now they acknowledged me as their priestess and their queen.

I came to the stone circle, walking by night, when the harvest moon sank low in the sky and the breath of the fourth winter grew cold on the eve of the Day of the Dead. There, wrapped in my cloak and shivering through the night, I kept the vigil, fasting; snow was drifting out of the sky when I rose and turned my steps homeward, but as I left the circle I turned my foot on a stone which had not been there when I came thither, and, bending my head, I saw the pattern of white stones arranged.

: :

  :

: :

I bent, moving one stone to make the next in sequence of the magical numbers —the tides had shifted and now we were under the winter’s stars. Then I went home, shivering, to tell a story of being benighted in the hills and sleeping in an empty shepherd’s hut—Uriens had been frightened by the snow, and sent two men to seek me. Snow, lying deep on the mountainsides, kept me within doors much of the winter, but I knew when the storms would lift and risked the journey to the ring stones at Midwinter, knowing the stones would be clear  ...  snow lay never within the great circles, I knew, and I guessed that it would be so here in the smaller circles, where magic was still done.

And there at the very center of the circle I saw a tiny bundle—a scrap of leather tied with sinew. My fingers were recapturing their old skill and did not fumble as I untied it and rolled the contents into my palm. They looked like a couple of dried seeds, but they were the tiny mushrooms which grew so rarely near Avalon. They were no use as food, and most folk thought them poison, for they would cause vomiting and purging and a bloody flux; but taken sparingly, fasting, they could open the gates to the Sight ...  this was a gift more precious than gold. They grew not in this country at all, and I could only guess how far the little folk had wandered in search of them. I left them what food I had brought, dried meats and fruits and a honeycomb, but not in repayment; the gift was priceless. I knew that I would lock myself within my chamber at Midwinter, and there seek again the Sight I had renounced. With the gates of vision thus opened I could seek and dare the very presence of the Goddess, begging to reprcnounce what I had forsworn. I had no fear that I would be cast forth again. It was she who sent me this gift that I might seek again her presence.

And I bent to the ground in thanksgiving, knowing that my prayers had been heard and my penance done.

10

The snow was beginning to melt off the hills and a few of the earliest wild flowers showed in sheltered valleys when the Lady of the Lake was summoned to the barge to greet the Merlin of Britain. Kevin looked pale and worn, his face haggard, his twisted limbs dragging more reluctantly than ever, and he braced himself with a stout stick. Niniane noticed, her eyes hiding the pity she felt, that he had been forced to put My Lady from him into the hands of a serving-man, and she pretended not to see, knowing what a blow that must have been to his pride. She slowed her own steps on the path toward her dwelling place, and there she welcomed him, summoned her women to build up the fire, and sent for wine, of which he took only a token sip, and bowed gravely in thanks.

“What brings you here so early in the year, Venerable?” she asked him. “Have you come from Camelot?”

He shook his head. “I was there for a part of the winter,” he said, “and I spoke much with Arthur’s councillors, but early in the spring I went southward on a mission to the treaty troops—I should say now, I suppose, the Saxon kingdoms. And I take it you know whom I saw there, Niniane. Was that Morgause’s doing, or yours, I wonder?”

“Neither,” she said quietly. “It was Gwydion’s own choice. He knew he should have some experience in battle, Druid teaching or no—there have been warrior Druids ere this. And he chose to go south to the Saxon kingdoms—they are allied with Arthur, but there he would not come under Arthur’s eyes. He did not—for reasons known as well to you as to me— wish for Arthur to set eyes on him.” After a moment she added, “I would not swear that Morgause did not influence his choice. He takes counsel of her, when he will seek the counsel of any.”

“Is it so?” Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Aye, I suppose so—she is the only mother he has ever known. And she ruled Lot’s kingdom as well as any man, and still rules, even with her new consort.”

“I heard not that she had a new consort,” said Niniane. “I cannot see as well what happens in the kingdoms as did Viviane.”

“Aye, she had the Sight to aid her,” Kevin said, “and maidens with the Sight when her own Sight failed her. Have you none, Niniane?”

“I have—some,” she said hesitating. “Yet it fails me now and again—“ and she was silent a moment, staring at the flagstones of the floor. At last she said, “I think—Avalon is—is drifting further from the lands of men, Lord Merlin. What season was it in the world outside?”

“Ten days have passed since the equinox, Lady,” said Kevin.

Niniane drew a long breath. “And I kept that feast but seven days since. It is as I thought—the lands are drifting. As yet no more than a few days in every moon, but I fear soon we shall be as far from sun tide and moon tide as that fairy kingdom they tell of... it is ever harder to summon the mists and to pass forth from this land.”

“I know,” said Kevin. “Why, think you, I came at the slack of the tide?” He smiled his twisted grin and said, “You should rejoice—you will not age as women in the outer world are prone to age, Lady, but remain younger.”

“You do not comfort me,” said Niniane with a shudder. “Yet there is none in the outer world whose fate I follow, save—“

“Gwydion’s,” said Kevin. “I thought as much. But there is one with whose fate you should be concerned as well—“

“Arthur in his palace? He has renounced us,” said Niniane, “and Avalon lends him no more help—“

“It is not of Arthur I spoke,” said Kevin, “nor does he seek help from Avalon, not now. But—“ He hesitated. “I heard it from the folk of the hills —there is a king again in Wales, and a queen.”

“Uriens?” Niniane laughed, a scoffing laugh. “He is older than those same hills, Kevin! What can he do for those folk?”

“Nor did I speak of Uriens,” said Kevin. “Had you forgotten? Morgaine is there, and the Old People have accepted her as their queen. She will protect them, even against Uriens, while she lives. Had you forgotten that the son of Uriens had teaching here, and wears the serpents about his wrists?”

Niniane was silent for a moment, motionless. At last she said, “I had forgotten that. He was not the elder son, so I thought he would never reign—“

“The elder son is a fool,” said Kevin, “though the priests think him a good successor to his father, and from their view, he is so—pious and simple and he will not interfere with their church. The priests trust not the second son—Accolon—because he wears the serpents. And, since Morgaine has come there, he has remembered it, and serves her as his queen. And for the folk of the hills she is queen, too, whoever may sit on the throne in the Roman fashion. For them, the king is he who dies yearly among the deer, but the queen is eternal. And it may be that in the end Morgaine will do what Viviane left undone.”

Niniane could hear, with a detached surprise, the bitterness in her own voice. “Kevin, not for one day since Viviane died and they came to set me here, have I been allowed to forget that I am not Viviane, that after Viviane I am nothing. Even Raven follows me with her great silent eyes that say always, You are not Viviane, you cannot do the work Viviane spent her life to do. I know it well—that I was chosen only because I am the last of Taliesin’s blood and there was no other, that I am not of the royal line of the Queen of Avalon! No, I am not Viviane, and I am not Morgaine, but I have served faithfully here in this place when I sought it never and when it was thrust upon me because of Taliesin’s blood. I have been faithful to my vows— is this nothing to anyone?”

“Lady,” said Kevin gently, “Viviane was such a priestess as comes not into this world more than once in many hundreds of years, even in Avalon. And her reign was long—she ruled here for nine-and-thirty years, and very few of us can remember before her time. Any priestess who must follow in her steps would feel herself less in comparison. There is nothing for which you must reproach yourself. You have been faithful to your vows.”

“As Morgaine was not,” said Niniane.

“True. But she is of the blood royal of Avalon, and she bore the heir to the King Stag. It is not for us to judge her.”

“You defend her because you were her lover—“ Niniane flared, and Kevin raised his head. She had not realized; set within the dark and twisted face, his eyes were blue, like the very center of flame. He said quietly, “Would you try to pick a quarrel with me, Lady? That is over and gone years since, and when last I saw Morgaine, she called me traitor and worse, and drove me from her presence with harsh words such as no man with blood in his veins could forgive. Do you think I love her too well? But it is not my place to judge her, nor yours. You are the Lady of the Lake. Morgaine is my queen, and Queen of Avalon. She does her work in the world as you do yours here—and I where the Gods lead me. And they led me this spring into the fen country, where, at the court of a Saxon who calls himself king under Arthur, I saw Gwydion.”

Niniane had been schooled in her long training to keep her face impassive; but she knew that Kevin, who had had the same teaching, could see that she must do so with an effort, and felt that somehow those sharp eyes could read within her. She wanted to ask news of him, but instead she said only, “Morgause told me that he has some knowledge of strategy and is no coward in battle. How fared he, then, among those barbarians who would rather batter out brains with their great clubs than make use of them at their courts? I knew he went south to the Saxon kingdoms because one of them wished for a Druid at court who could read and write and knew something of figures and mapmaking. And he said to me that he wished to be seasoned in war without coming under the eye of Arthur, so I suppose he had his wish. Even though there has been peace in the land, there is always fighting among yonder folk—is the Saxon God not one of war and battles?”

“Mordred, they call Gwydion, which means “Evil Counsel” in their tongue. It is a compliment—they mean it is evil for those who would harm them. They give every guest a name, as they call Lancelet Elf-arrow.”

“Among the Saxons, a Druid, even a young one, might seem wiser than he is, in contrast to all their thick heads! And Gwydion is clever! Even as a boy he could think of a dozen answers for everything!”

“Clever he is,” said Kevin slowly, “and knows well how to make himself loved, I have seen that. Me, he welcomed as if I had been his favorite uncle in childhood, saying how good it was to see a familiar face from Avalon, embracing me, making much of me—all as if he loved me well.”

“No doubt he was lonely and you were like a breath from home,” said Niniane, but Kevin frowned and drank a little wine, then set it down and forgot it again. He demanded, “How far did Gwydion go in the magical training?”

“He wears the serpents,” Niniane said.

“That may mean much or little,” Kevin said. “You should know that—“ And although the words were innocent, Niniane felt their sting; a priestess who bore the crescent on her brow might be a Viviane— or no more than she herself. She said, “He is to return at Midsummer to be made King of Avalon, that state Arthur betrayed. And now he is grown to manhood—“

Kevin warned, “He is not ready to be king.”

“Do you doubt his courage? Or his loyalty—“

“Oh—courage,” said Kevin, and made a dismissing gesture. “Courage, and cleverness—but it is his heart I trust not and cannot read. And he is not Arthur.”

“It is well for Avalon that he is not,” Niniane flared. “We need no more apostates who swear loyalty to Avalon and forsake their oath to the folk of the hills! The priests may set a pious hypocrite on the throne, who will serve whatever God he finds expedient at the moment—“

Kevin raised his twisted hand, with such a commanding gesture that Niniane fell silent. “Avalon is not the world! We have neither strength, nor armies, nor craft, and Arthur is loved beyond measure. Not in Avalon, I grant you, but all the length and breadth of these islands, where Arthur is the hand that has created the peace they value. At this moment, any voice arising against Arthur would be silenced within months, if not within days. Arthur is loved—he is the very spirit of all Britain. And even if it were otherwise, what we do in Avalon has little weight in the world outside. As you marked, we are drifting into the mists.”

“Then all the more must we move quickly, to bring Arthur down and set a king on the throne of Britain who will restore Avalon to the world and the Goddess ...  .”

Kevin said quietly, “I wonder, sometimes, if that can ever be done— if we have all spent our lives within a dream without reality.”

“You say that? You, the Merlin of Britain?”

“I have been at Arthur’s court, not sheltered in an island that moves ever further from the world outside,” said Kevin gently. “This is my home, and I would die, as I am sworn ... but it was with Britain I made the Great Marriage, Niniane, not with Avalon alone.”

“If Avalon dies,” said Niniane, “then Britain is without her heart and will die, for the Goddess has withdrawn her soul from all the land.”

“Think you so, Niniane?” Kevin sighed again, and said, “I have been all up and down these lands, in all weathers and all times—Merlin of Britain, hawk of the Sight, messenger of the Great Raven—and I see now another heart in the land, and it shines forth from Camelot.”

He was silent. After a long while Niniane said, “Was it when you said such words as this to Morgaine that she called you traitor?”

“No—it was something else,” he said. “Perhaps, Niniane, we do not know the ways of the Gods and their will as well as we think we do. I tell you, if we move now to bring Arthur down, this land will fall into a chaos worse than that when Ambrosius died and Uther had to fight for his crown. Do you think Gwydion can fight as Arthur did to take the land? Arthur’s Companions would all be ranged against any man who rose against their king and their hero—he is like a God to them and can do no wrong.”

“It was never our wish,” said Niniane, “that Gwydion should face his father and fight him for his crown—only that one day, when Arthur knows he has no heir, he must turn to the son who comes of the royal line of Avalon and is sworn to loyalty to Avalon and the true Gods. And to that end he must be proclaimed King Stag in Avalon, so that there may be voices, when Arthur seeks an heir, to speak for him. I have heard that Arthur has chosen Lancelet’s son for his heir, since the Queen is barren. But Lancelet’s son is but a young child, and Gwydion already a man grown. If anything happened to Arthur now, do you not think they would choose Gwydion—a grown man, a warrior and a Druid—over a child?”

“Arthur’s Companions would not follow a stranger, were he twice over warrior and Druid. Most likely they would name Gawaine regent for Lancelet’s son till he came of age. And the Companions are Christian, most of them, and would reject Gwydion because of his birth—incest is a grave sin among them.”

“They know nothing of sacred things.”

“Granted. They must have time to accustom themselves to the idea, and that time is not yet. But if Gwydion cannot now be acknowledged as Arthur’s son, it should be known that the priestess Morgaine, who is Arthur’s own sister, has a son, and that this son is closer to the throne than Lancelet’s child. And this summer there will be war again—“

“I thought,” said Niniane, “that Arthur had made peace.”

“Here in Britain, yes. But there is one in Less Britain who would claim all of Britain as his empire—“

“Ban?” asked Niniane in astonishment. “He was sworn long ago—he made the Great Marriage before our Lancelet was born. He would be all too old to go to war against Arthur—“

“Ban is old and feeble,” said Kevin. “His son Lionel rules in his place, and Lionel’s brother Bors is one of Arthur’s Companions, and worships Lancelet as his hero. Neither of them would trouble Arthur’s rule. But there is one who will. He calls himself Lucius, and he has somehow gotten the ancient Roman eagles and proclaimed himself emperor. And he will challenge Arthur—“

Niniane’s skin prickled. She asked, “Is that the Sight?”

“Morgaine said to me once,” Kevin said with a smile, “that it needed not the Sight to know a rogue will be a rogue. It needs not the Sight to know that an ambitious man will challenge where the challenge will further his ambition. There are those who may think Arthur is growing old because his hair shines not all gold as it did and he flies the dragon no more. But do not rate him low, Niniane. I know him, you do not. He is not a fool!”

“I think,” said Niniane, “that you love him too well for a man you are sworn to destroy.”

“Love him?” Kevin’s smile was mirthless. “I am Merlin of Britain, messenger of the Great Raven, and I sit at his side in council. Arthur is an easy man to love. But I am sworn to the Goddess.” Again the short laugh. “I think my sanity depends on this—that I know that what benefits Avalon must in the long years benefit Britain. You see Arthur as the enemy, Niniane. I see him still as the King Stag, protecting his herd and his lands.”

Niniane said in a trembling whisper, “And what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?”

Kevin leaned his head on his hands. He looked old and ill and weary. “That day is not yet, Niniane. Do not seek to push Gwydion so swiftly he will be destroyed, merely because he is your lover.” And he rose and limped out of the room without looking back, leaving Niniane sullen and angry.

How did that wretched man know that?

And she told herself, I am under no vows like the Christian nuns! If I choose to take a man to my bed, that is for me to say  ...  even if that man should be my pupil, and only a boy when he came here!

In the first years, he had twined himself around her heart, a lonely boy, lost and bereft, with none to love him or care for him or wonder how he did ...  . Morgause was the only mother he had known, and now he was parted from her too. How could Morgaine have found it in her heart to give up a fine son like this, clever and beautiful and wise, and never send to inquire how he did, or come to set eyes on him? Niniane had never borne a child, though she had thought, sometimes, that if she had come from Beltane with her womb filled she would have liked to bear a daughter to the Goddess. But it had never gone thus with her, and she had not rebelled against her lot.

But in those first years she had let Gwydion find his way into her heart. And then he had gone from them, as men must do, grown too old for the teachings of the priestesses, to be taught among the Druids and schooled in the arts of war. And he had returned, one year at Beltane, and she thought it was by craft that he had come near to her in the fire rites and she had gone apart with him ...  .

But they had not parted when that season was over; and whenever, after that, in his comings and goings, anything had brought him to Avalon, she made it clear that she wanted him, and he had not said her no. I am closest to his heart, she thought, I know him best—what does Kevin know of him?

And now the time has come when he shall return, to Avalon, and shall have his trial as King Stag ...  .

And she turned her thoughts to that: where should she find a maiden for him? There are so few women in the House of Maidens who are even halfway fit for this great office, she thought, and there was sudden pain and dread in her thoughts.

Kevin was right. Avalon is drifting, dying; few come here for the ancient teachings, and there are none to keep the rites  ...  and one day there will be no one at all... and again she felt that almost painful prickling in her body which came to her, now and again, in lieu of the Sight.

GWYDION CAME HOME to Avalon a few days before Beltane. Niniane greeted him formally at the boat, and he bowed to her in reverence before the maidens and the assembled folk of the Island, but when they were alone he caught her in his arms and kissed her, laughing, until they were both breathless.

His shoulders had broadened, and there was a red seam on his face. He had been fighting, she could tell; he no longer had the untroubled look of a priest and scholar.

My lover and my child. Is this why the Great Goddess has no husband, after the Roman fashion, but only sons, as we are all her children? And I who sit in her place must feel my lover as my son too  ... for all those who love the Goddess are her children ...  .

“And the lands are astir with it,” he said, “here in Avalon and among the Old People of the hills, that on Dragon Island the Old People will be choosing their king again.... It was for this that you summoned me there, was it not?”

Sometimes, she thought, he could be as infuriating as an arrogant child. “I do not know, Gwydion. The time may not be ripe, and the tides may not be ready. Nor can I find anywhere within this house anyone to play for you the part of the Spring Maiden.”

“Yet it will be this spring,” he said quietly, “and this Beltane, for I have seen it.”

Her mouth curved a little as she said, “And have you then seen the priestess who will admit you to the rite when you have won the antlers, supposing that the Sight does not mislead you to your death?”

She thought as he faced her that he had but grown more beautiful, his face cold and set, dark with hidden passion. “I have, Niniane. Do you not know that it was you?”

She said, suddenly chilled to the bone, “I am no maiden. Why do you mock me, Gwydion?”

“Yet I have seen you,” he said, “and you know it as well as I. In her the Maiden and the Mother and the Crone meet and blend. She will be old and young as it shall please her, Virgin and Beast and Mother and the face of Death in the lightning, flowing and filling and returning again to her virginity ...  .”

Niniane bent her head and said, “Gwydion, no, it cannot be—“

“I am her consort,” he said implacably, “and shall win it there ... it is not the time for a virgin—the priests make much of that nonsense. I call upon her as the Mother to give me my due and my life ...  .”

Niniane felt as if she were trying to stand against some relentless tide that would sweep her away. She said, hesitating, “So it has always been, that in the running of the deer, though the Mother sends him forth, he returns again to the Maiden ...  .”

Yet there was reason in what he said. Surely it was better to have a priestess for the rites who knew what she was doing, rather than some half-trained child new come to the temple, whose only qualification was that she was not yet old enough to feel the call to the Beltane fire... . Gwydion spoke truth: the Mother ever renews herself, Mother and Crone and again the Maiden, even as the moon who hides herself in the dark sky.

She bent her head and said, “Let it be so. You shall make the Great Marriage with the land and with me in her name.”

But when she was alone again she was frightened. How had she come to agree to this? What, in the name of the Goddess, was this power in Gwydion, that he could make all men do his will?

Is this, then, his heritage from Arthur, and the blood of the Pendragon? And ice flooded her again.

What of the King Stag  ...  Morgaine was dreaming  ...

Beltane, and the deer running on the hills... and the life of the forest running through her body, as if every part of the forest was a part of the life within her ... he was down among the deer, the running stag, the naked man with the antlers tied on his brow, and the horns thrust down and down, his dark hair matted with blood... but he was on his feet, charging, a knife flashing in the sunlight through the trees, and the King Stag came crashing down and the sound of his bellowing filled the forest with cries of despair.

And then she was in the dark cave, and the signs painted there were painted on her body, she was one with the cave, and all around her the Beltane fires flared, sparks crashing skyward—there was the taste of fresh blood on her mouth, and now the cave mouth was shadowed with the antlers  ...  it should not befall moon, she should not see so clearly that her naked body was not the slender body of a virgin, but that her breasts were soft and full and pink as they had been when her child was born, almost as if they were dripping with milk, and surely she had been tested that she came virgin to this rite  ...  what would they say to her, that she came not as the Spring Maiden to the King Stag?

He knelt at her side and she raised her arms, welcoming him to the rite and to her body, but his eyes were dark and haunted. His hands on her were tender, frustrating, toying with pleasure as he denied her the rite of power  ...  it was not Arthur, no, this was Lancelet, King Stag, who should pull down the old stag, consort of the Spring Maiden, but he looked down at her, his dark eyes tormented by that same pain that struck inward through her whole body, and he said, I would you were not so like to my mother, Morgaine ...  .

Terrified, her heart pounding, Morgaine woke in her own room, Uriens sleeping at her side and snoring. Still caught up in the frightening magic of the dream, she shook her head in confusion to ward the terror away.

No, Beltane is past ...  she had kept the rites with Accolon as she had known she would do, she was not lying in the cave, awaiting the King Stag  ...  and why, she wondered, why should this dream of Lancelet visit her now, why did she dream not of Accolon, when she had made him her priest and Lord of Beltane, and her lover? Why, after so many years, should the memory of refusal and sacrilege strike inward at her very soul?

She tried to compose herself for sleep again, but sleep would not come, and she lay awake, shaken, until the sun thrust the rays of early summer into her chamber.