As often as Morgause of Lothian had come to Camelot, she never tired of the pageantry. Now, conscious that as one of Arthur’s subject queens and the mother of three of his earliest Companions, she would have a favored place at the mock games which marked this day, she sat beside Morgaine in church; at the end of the service, Galahad would be knighted, and he knelt now beside Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, pale and serious and shining with excitement.
Bishop Patricius himself had come from Glastonbury to celebrate the Pentecost mass here in Camelot; he stood now before them in his white robes, intoning: “Unto thee have we offered this bread, the body of the Only-begotten ... .”
Morgause put a plump hand over her mouth, smothering a yawn. However often she attended Christian ceremonies, she never thought about them; they were not even as interesting as die rites at Avalon where she had spent her childhood, but she had thought, since she was fourteen or so, that all Gods and all religions were games which men and women played with their minds. None of them had anything to do with real life. Nevertheless, when she was at Pentecost, she dutifully attended mass, to please Gwenhwyfar—the woman was her hostess, and the High Queen, after all, and a close relative—and now, with the rest of the royal family, she went forward to receive the holy bread. Morgaine, attentive at her side, was the only one in the King’s household who did not approach the communion table; Morgause thought lazily that Morgaine was a very great fool. Not only did she alienate the common people, but the more pious among the King’s household called Morgaine witch and sorceress, and worse things, among themselves. And, after all, what difference did it make? One religious lie was as good as another, was it not? King Uriens, now, he had more sense of what was expedient; Morgause did not think Uriens had any more religion than Gwenhwyfar’s pet house cat. She had seen the serpents of Avalon around his arms; yet, like his son Accolon, he went forward to take part.
But when the final prayer came, including one for the dead, she discovered that she had tears in her eyes. She missed Lot—his cynical cheerfulness, his steadfast loyalty to her; and he had, after all, given her four fine sons. Gawaine and Gareth knelt near her, among Arthur’s own household—Gawaine, as always, close to Arthur; Gareth side by side with his young friend Uwaine—Morgaine’s stepson; she had heard Uwaine call Morgaine mother, heard a genuine maternal note in Morgaine’s voice when she spoke to him, something she had never thought Morgaine capable of.
With a rustle of gowns and the small chink of scabbarded swords and such gear, Arthur’s household arose and moved to the church porch. Gwenhwyfar, though a little haggard, was still beautiful with the long bright golden braids over her shoulder and her fine gown belted in with a brilliant golden girdle. Arthur looked splendid, too. Excalibur hung in its scabbard at Arthur’s side—the same old red velvet scabbard he had worn for more than twenty years now. She supposed that Gwenhwyfar could have embroidered him a handsomer one at any time in the past ten years.
Galahad knelt before the King; Arthur took from Gawaine a handsome sword and said, “For you, my dear kinsman and adopted son, this.” He gestured to Gawaine, who belted it around the boy’s slender waist. Galahad looked up with his boyish smile and said clearly, “I thank you, my king. May I bear it only and always in your service.”
Arthur laid his hands on Galahad’s head. He said, “I gladly receive you among the company of my Companions, Galahad, and confer on you the order of knighthood. Be always faithful and just, and serve the throne and the righteous cause always.” He raised the youngster, embraced him and kissed him. Gwenhwyfar kissed him too, and the royal company went out toward the huge field, the others behind him.
Morgause found herself walking between Morgaine and Gwydion, with Uriens, Accolon, and Uwaine just behind them. The field had been decorated with green staves wound with ribbons and pennants, and the marshals of the games were pacing off the fighting areas. She saw Lancelet with Galahad, embracing him and giving him a plain white shield. Morgause said, “Will Lancelet fight today?”
Accolon said, “I think not—I heard he is to be master of the lists; he has won the field too many times. Between ourselves, he is no longer so young, and it would hardly suit the dignity of the Queen’s champion to be unseated from his horse by some youth hardly made knight. I’ve heard that he’s been beaten by Gareth more than once, and once by Lamorak—“
Morgause said smiling, “I think well of Lamorak that he forbore to boast of that conquest—few men could resist bragging that they had overcome Lancelet even in a mock battle!”
“No,” said Morgaine quietly, “I think most young knights would be unhappy at the thought that Lancelet was no longer king of the field. He is their hero.”
Gwydion chuckled. “Do you mean that the young stags forbear to challenge the knight who is King Stag among them?”
“I think none of the older knights would do so,” said Accolon, “and of the young knights, there are few with enough strength or experience to challenge him. If they did, he would show them a trick or two still.”
“I would not,” said Uwaine quietly. “I think there is no knight at this court who does not love Lancelet. Gareth could overthrow him any time now, but he will not shame him at Pentecost, and he and Gawaine have always been evenly matched. Once at a Pentecost like this they fought for more than an hour, and once Gawaine knocked his sword from his hand. I do not know if I could best him in single combat, but he may stay champion while he lives, for all I will ever do to challenge it.”
“Challenge him, someday,” Accolon said, laughing, “I did so, and he took all the conceit out of me in five minutes! He may be old, but he has all his skill and strength.”
He handed Morgaine and his father into the seats reserved for them. “By your leave, I will go and enter the lists before it is too late.”
“And I,” said Uwaine, bending to kiss his father’s hand. He turned to Morgaine. “I have no lady, Mother. Will you give me a token to bear into the lists?”
Morgaine smiled indulgently and gave him a ribbon from her sleeve, which he tied about his arm, saying, “I have arranged to challenge Gawaine to a trial of strength.”
Gwydion said with his charming smile, “Why, lady, you had better take back your favor—would you have your honor so easily disposed of as that?”
Morgaine laughed up at Accolon, and Morgause, watching her face come alight, thought, Uwaine is her son, far more than Gwydion; but Accolon, it is plain to see, is more than that. I wonder if the old king knows—or cares?
Lamorak was approaching them, and Morgause felt warmed and complimented—there were many pretty ladies on the field, he could have a favor from any of them, yet, before them all, before all Camelot, her dear young man would come and bow before her.
“My lady, may I wear a token into battle?”
“With pleasure, my dear.” Morgause gave him the rose from the nosegay she wore at her bosom. He kissed the flower; she gave him her hand, pleasantly conscious that her young knight was one of the handsomest men there.
“Lamorak seems enchanted by you,” said Morgaine, and although she had given her favor to him before the whole court, Morgause felt herself blush at Morgaine’s detached voice.
“Do you think I have need of charms or spells, kinswoman?”
Morgaine laughed. “I should have used another word. Young men seem mostly to want a fair face and little more.”
“Well, Morgaine, Accolon is younger than you, and you have certainly captivated him to the point where he has no desire for a younger woman—or a fairer one. I am not the one to reproach you, my dear. You were married against your will, and your husband could be your grandsire.”
Morgaine shrugged. “Sometimes I think Uriens knows—perhaps he is glad that I have a lover who will not tempt me to leave him.”
A little hesitantly—she had never asked Morgaine any personal question since Gwydion’s birth—Morgause said, “You and Uriens are at odds, then?”
Morgaine gave again that indifferent shrug. “I think Uriens cares not enough for me to be at odds one way or the other.”
“How like you Gwydion?” Morgause asked.
“He frightens me,” said Morgaine. “Yet it would be hard not to be charmed by him.”
“What do you expect? He has Lancelet’s beauty and your powers of mind—and he is ambitious as well.”
“How strange that you should know my son better than I do,” Morgaine said, and there was so much bitterness in the words that Morgause, whose first instinct was to rap out a sharp reply—Morgaine had deserted her son, why should it surprise her?—patted the younger woman’s hand and said, not unkindly, “Oh, my dear, once a son is grown out of your lap, I think anyone knows him better than his mother! I am sure that Arthur and his Companions, and even your Uwaine, all know Gawaine better than I do, and he is not even a hard man to understand—he’s a perfectly simple man. If you had reared him from a babe you still would not understand Gwydion—I freely confess that I do not!”
Morgaine’s only answer was an uneasy smile. She turned to look at the lists, where the first events were starting; Arthur’s fools and clowns were dancing about in ridiculous mock battles, flapping pig’s bladders for weapons and cloth banners, garishly painted, in the place of shields, until the watchers were guffawing at their capers. They bowed at last, and Gwenhwyfar, in an exaggerated parody of the gesture with which she would later bestow prizes to the real winners, flung them handfuls of sweets and cakes. They scrambled for them, to more laughter and applause, then capered away to the good dinner waiting for them in the kitchens.
One of the criers called out that the first match would be a trial combat between the Queen’s champion, sir Lancelet of the Lake, and the King’s, sir Gawaine of Lothian and the Isles. There was a tumult of applause as they came onto the field—Lancelet slender, dark, and still so handsome, despite the lines in his face and the grey in his hair, that Morgaine felt her breath catch.
Yes, thought Morgause, watching her younger kinswoman’s face, she loves him still, despite the years. Perhaps she does not know it herself, but there it is.
The combat was like an elaborately choreographed dance, the two moving round one another, their swords and shields ringing loud. Morgause could not see that either of them had the slightest advantage, and when at last they lowered their swords, bowed to the King, and embraced each other, they were cheered impartially and applauded without the slightest favoritism.
Then came the horse games: demonstrations of fancy riding, a man riding an unbroken horse to master it—Morgause faintly remembered a time when Lancelet had done some such thing, perhaps at Arthur’s wedding —it seemed very long ago. After that, there were individual duels on horseback, with blunted spears which could nevertheless unhorse a rider and give him a nasty spill into the field. One young rider fell twisted on his leg and was carried away screaming, the leg sticking out at an improbable angle. This was the only serious injury, but there were bruises, smashed fingers, men flung senseless to the ground, and one who barely escaped being kicked by a badly trained horse. Gwenhwyfar gave prizes at the end of all this, and Morgaine too was called by Arthur and asked to distribute several prizes.
Accolon had won one of the prizes for riding, and as he came to kneel and accept the prize from Morgaine’s hands, Morgause was astonished to hear a low, but perceptible hiss of disapproval somewhere in the stands. Someone softly but audibly whispered, “Witch! Harlot!”
Morgaine colored, but her hands did not falter as she handed Accolon the cup. Arthur said in a low voice to one of his stewards, “Find out who that was!” and the man slipped away, but Morgause was sure that in such a crowd, the voice would never be recognized.
When Morgaine came back to her seat at the start of the second half of the entertainment, she looked pale and angry; her hands, Morgause noted, were shaking, and her breath coming fast in her throat.
“My dear, don’t worry about it,” said Morgause. “What do you think they call me, when it is a year of poor crops, or when someone has had justice done to him and would rather have gotten away with his villainy?”
“Do you think I care what that rabble think of me?” Morgaine said scornfully, but Morgause knew her indifference was pretended. “I am loved well enough in my own country.”
The second half of the games began with some Saxon churls demonstrating the art of wrestling. They were huge hairy men, hair not only on their faces but all over their near-naked bodies; they grunted and strained and heaved, with hoarse cries, grappling and wrenching with bone-cracking strength. Morgause leaned forward, shamelessly enjoying the sight of their male strength; but Morgaine turned her eyes away in squeamish distaste.
“Oh, come, Morgaine, you are growing as prudish as the Queen. What a face!” Morgause shaded her eyes with her hand and glanced down to the field. “I think the mock battle is about to begin—Look! Is that Gwydion? What can he be doing?”
Gwydion had leaped into the field, and waving away the crier who hurried to him, called out in a strong, clear voice which could be heard clearly from one end of the field to another, “King Arthur!”
Morgause saw that Morgaine had sunk back, white as death, and was clutching the rails with both hands. What was the lad about? Was he going to make a scene here before half of Arthur’s people, demanding the acknowledgment that was his?
Arthur rose, and Morgause thought that he too looked uneasy, but his voice was ringing clear.
“Yes, nephew?”
“I have heard that it is customary at these games to allow a challenge, if the King is willing. I ask now if sir Lancelet will meet me for a challenge fight!”
Lancelet had once said—Morgause remembered this—that such challenges were the bane of his existence; every young knight wanted to master the Queen’s champion. Arthur’s voice was grave. “It is customary, but I cannot speak for Lancelet. If he agrees to this match, I cannot refuse him, but you must challenge him directly and abide by his answer.”
Morgause said, “Oh, damn the boy! I had no idea this was what he had in mind ... ” but Morgaine somehow felt she was not so displeased, after all.
A wind had come up, and dust from the field was blowing, blurring the summer glare of the dry white clay of the field. Gwydion walked through the dust to the end of the lists, where Lancelet was sitting on a bench. Morgause could not hear what either of them said, but Gwydion turned angrily and shouted, “My lords! I heard always that a champion’s duty is to meet with all comers! Sir, I demand that Lancelet now meet my challenge or yield up his high office to me! Does he hold his post because of his skill at arms, or for some other reason, my lord Arthur?”
“I wish,” said Morgause, “that your son were still young enough to have his breeches well dusted, Morgaine!”
“Why blame him?” asked Morgaine. “Why not blame Gwenhwyfar for making her husband so vulnerable? Everyone in this kingdom knows she favors Lancelet, yet no one cries out ‘witch’ or ‘harlot’ when she comes before the people.”
But Lancelet, below them, had risen and strode to Gwydion; he brought back his gloved hand and struck the younger man smartly across the mouth. “Now indeed you have given me cause to chastise your ungentle tongue, young Gwydion. We will see who refuses combat now!”
“I came here for that,” said Gwydion, unmoved by blow or words, though there was a small trickle of blood on his face. “I will even grant you first blood, sir Lancelet. It is fitting that a man of your years should have some advantage.”
Lancelet spoke to one of his marshals, who came to take his place as master of the lists. There was a considerable murmuring in the stands as Lancelet and Gwydion took swords and faced the King for the ritual bow which began the contest. Morgause thought, If there is a man in that crowd who does not believe that they are father and son, he must have poor eyesight.
The two men raised swords to each other, their faces now hidden by helmets. They were within an inch of the same height; the only difference between them was between Lancelet’s battered old breastplate and armor, and Gwydion’s newer, unstained gear. They circled one another slowly, then rushed in and for a moment Morgause lost track of the separate strokes, which were nearly too fast for the eye to follow. She could see that Lancelet was taking the younger man’s measure, and after a moment he pressed hard and struck a mighty blow. Gwydion caught it on the side of his shield, but the force behind it was so enormous that he reeled, lost his balance, and measured his length on the field. He began to scramble up. Lancelet put his sword aside and went to help the young man to his feet. Morgause could not hear what he said, but the gesture was good-natured, something like, “Had enough, youngster?”
Gwydion pointed to the trickle of blood down Lancelet’s wrist from a small cut he had managed to inflict. His voice was clearly audible.
“You drew first blood, sir, and I second. Shall we decide it with one more fall?”
There was a small storm of hissing and disapproval; first blood in these demonstration matches, since the contestants fought with sharp weapons, was supposed to end the fight.
King Arthur rose in his place. “This is a festival and a courtesy challenge, not a duel! I will have no settling of grudges here, unless you fight with fists or cudgels! Continue if you will, but I warn you, if there is a serious wounding, you will both be under my gravest displeasure!”
They bowed and moved apart, circling for their advantage; then they rushed together, and Morgause gasped, watching the fierceness of it. It seemed that at any moment one or the other might rush in under the shield and inflict a mortal wound! One of them had gone to his knees—a rain of blows on the shield, the swords locked together in a deadlock, and one was borne closer and closer to the ground ...
Gwenhwyfar rose and cried out, “I will have this go no further!”
Arthur cast his baton into the lists; by custom, a fight was instantly stopped when that happened, but neither man saw, and the marshals had to pull them apart. Gwydion stood fresh and erect, smiling as he pulled off his helmet. Lancelet’s squire had to help the older man to his feet; he was breathing hard, sweat and blood pouring down his face. There was a perfect storm of hissing, even from the other knights on the field; Gwydion had added nothing to his popularity by shaming the hero of the people.
But he bowed to the older knight. “I am honored, sir Lancelet. I came to this court a stranger, not even one of Arthur’s Companions, and I am grateful to you for a lesson in swordplay.” His smile was the very reflection of Lancelet’s own. “Thank you, sir.”
Lancelet managed to summon from somewhere his old smile. It exaggerated the resemblance between them almost to the point of caricature. “You bore yourself most bravely, Gwydion.”
“Then,” said Gwydion, kneeling before him in the dust of the field, “I beg of you, sir, grant to me the order of knighthood.”
Morgause caught her breath. Morgaine sat as if she had been turned to stone. But from where the Saxons sat there was a burst of cheering. “Crafty counsel indeed! Clever, clever—how can they refuse you now, lad, when you have stood up well to combat with their own champion!”
Lancelet glanced at Arthur. The King sat paralyzed, seeming frozen, but after a moment, he nodded. Lancelet gestured to his squire, who brought a sword. Lancelot took it and belted it around Gwydion’s waist. “Bear this always in the service of your king, and of the righteous cause,” said the old knight. He was deadly serious now. All the mockery and defiance had gone from Gwydion’s face; he looked grave and sweet, his eyes raised to Lancelet, and Morgause saw that his lips were trembling.
Sudden sympathy for him rose in Morgause—bastard, not even an acknowledged one, he was even more of an outsider than Lancelet had been. Who could blame Gwydion for the ruse by which he had forced his kinsmen to notice him? She thought, We should have taken him long since to Arthur’s court, had him privately acknowledged even if Arthur could not do so publicly. A king’s son should not have to do this.
Lancelet laid his hands on Gwydion’s brow. “I confer on you the honor of a Companion of the Round Table, by permission of our king. Serve him always, and since you have won this honor by craft rather than brute strength—though indeed you have shown that too, well enough—I name you among this company, not Gwydion, but Mordred. Rise, sir Mordred, and take your place among the Companions of Arthur.”
Gwydion—no, Mordred, Morgause remembered; for the naming of a Companion was a rite not much less serious than baptism—rose and heartily returned Lancelet’s embrace. He seemed deeply moved, almost unhearing the cheers and applause. His voice broke as he said, “Now I have won the prize of the day, whoever is judged winner in these games, my lord Lancelet.”
“No,” Morgaine said quietly at Morgause’s side, “I do not understand him. That is the last thing I would have expected.”
THERE WAS a long pause before the Companions ranged themselves for the final mock battle. Some went to drink water or swallow a hasty bite of bread; some gathered in little knots, arguing about which side they should take in the final games; others went to see to their horses. Morgause went down to the field where a few of the young men lingered, Gareth among them—he towered over the others by half a head, making him easy to pick out. She thought he was talking to Lancelet, but when she came closer she discovered her sight had deceived her; he was facing Gwydion, and his voice sounded angry. She caught only the last few words.
“—what harm has he ever done you? To make a fool of him before the whole field—“
Gwydion laughed and said, “If our cousin needs protection before a whole field of his friends, God help Lancelet when he falls among the Saxons or the Northmen! Come, foster-brother, I doubt not he can protect his own reputation! Is that all you have to say to me after all these years, brother, to chide me that I have distressed someone you love so well?”
Gareth laughed and caught Gwydion into a great hug. He said, “Same reckless young one, you are—what put it into your head to do that? Arthur would have made you knight, if you had asked him!”
Morgause remembered: Gareth did not know all the truth about Gwydion’s parentage; no doubt, he meant only, because you are his sister’s son.
Gwydion said, “I am sure of it- he is always kind to his kinsmen. He would have made you knight, Gareth, for Gawaine’s sake, but you took not that road either, foster-brother.” He chuckled. “And I think Lancelet owes me something for all those years I have walked about wearing his face!”
Gareth shrugged ruefully. “Well, it seems he bears you no grudge, so I suppose I too must forgive you. Now you, too, have seen how greathearted he is.”
“Aye,” said Gwydion softly, “he is so—“ then raised his head and saw Morgause. “Mother, what do you here? How may I serve you?”
“I came only to greet Gareth, who has not spoken with me this day,” said Morgause, and the big man bent to kiss his mother’s hand. She asked him, “How will you fight in the mock battle?”
“As always,” said Gareth, “I fight at Gawaine’s side, in the King’s men. You have a horse for fighting, do you not, Gwydion? Will you fight with the King’s side, then? We can make a place for you.”
Gwydion said, with his dark enigmatic smile, “Since Lancelet made me knight, I suppose I should fight with the army of sir Lancelet of the Lake, and at Accolon’s side, for Avalon. But I will not take the field at all today, Gareth.”
“Why not?” Gareth asked and laid his hand on the younger man’s shoulder, looking down at him as he had always done—Morgause thought of a younger Gareth, smiling down at his little brother. “It is expected of those who have been made knight—Galahad will fight among us, you know.”
“And which side will he take?” Gwydion asked. “His father Lancelet’s, or that of the King who has made him heir to his kingdom? Is that not a cruel test of his loyalties?”
Gareth looked exasperated. “How then would you divide the armies for the mock battle, save by the two greatest knights among us? Do you think either Lancelet or Arthur believes it a test of loyalties? Arthur will not take the field himself, just so that no man will have to make the choice whether to strike at his king, but Gawaine has been his champion since he was crowned! Are you going to rake up old scandal? You?”
Gwydion shrugged. “Since I am not intending to join either force—“
“But what will they think of you? That you are cowardly, that you shrink from combat—“
“I have fought enough in Arthur’s armies that I care not what they say,” said Gwydion, “but if you wish, you may tell them that my horse is gone lame and I have no wish to risk more injury to him—that is an honorable excuse.”
“I would lend you a horse of Gawaine,” Gareth said, puzzled, “but if you wish for an honorable excuse, do what you will. But why, Gwydion? Or must I now call you Mordred?”
“You shall call me always what you will, foster-brother.”
“But will you not tell me why you shirk the fight, Gwydion?”
“None other but you could speak that word unchallenged,” said Gwydion, “but since you ask me, I will tell you. It is for your sake, brother.”
Gareth scowled at him. “What, in God’s name, do you mean?”
“I know little of God, or care to,” said Gwydion, and stared down at his feet. “Since you will know, brother—you know from old—I have the Sight—“
“Aye, and what of it?” asked Gareth impatiently. “Have you had some ill dream that I will fall before your lance?”
“No, make not a jest of it,” said Gwydion, and Morgause felt ice go through her veins as he turned up his face to Gareth. “It seemed to me—“ He swallowed, as if his throat closed against the words he would speak. “It seemed to me that you lay dying—and I knelt at your side, and you would not speak to me—and I knew it was my doing you lay without the spark of life.”
Gareth pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. But then he clapped his foster-brother on the shoulder. “Nay, but I put small faith in dreams and visions, youngster. And fate, no man can escape. Did they not teach you that in Avalon?”
“Aye,” Gwydion said softly. “And if you fell, even at my hand, in battle, fate then it would be ... but I will not tempt that fate in play, my brother. Some ill chance might guide my hand to strike amiss ... . Let it be, Gareth. I will not take the field this day, let them say what they will.”
Gareth still looked distressed. “Well, do as you will, lad. Stay beside our mother, then, since Lamorak will take the field beside Lancelet.” He bent to kiss his mother’s hand, and went; Morgause, frowning, started to ask Gwydion what he had seen; but he was scowling, staring at the ground, and she forbore, saying only, “Well, if I am to have a young courtier to sit beside me, will you bring me a dipper of water before I go to my seat again?”
“Certainly, Mother,” he said, and went off toward the water butts.
To Morgause, the final scrimmage battle was always something of a blur; her head had begun to ache with the sun and she was eager for it to be over. She was hungry, too, and could smell, from a distance, the meat roasting in the pits.
Gwydion sat beside her and explained it to her, though she knew little of the fine points of fighting, nor cared to. But she did note that Galahad acquitted himself well, unseating two riders; she was a little surprised, he seemed so gentle a boy. But then, Gareth too had seemed a gentle child to her, and he was the most fearsome of fighters. At the end, he took the prize on the King’s side where Gawaine was at the head of the fighting. To no one’s surprise, Galahad won the prize on Lancelet’s side; this was customary for a young man who had been knighted that day, and she said so.
“You could have had a prize too, Gwydion,” she said, but he laughed and shook his head. “I need it not, Mother. Why spoil this day for my cousin? And Galahad fought well—no one begrudges him the prize.”
There were many smaller prizes, and when they were all given, the knights went to be sluiced with buckets of water from head to toe by their squires, and to put on fresh clothing. Morgause went with the ladies of the King’s household to a room put at their disposal, where they could arrange their gowns and hair, and wash off the dust and sweat of the stands.
“How do you think?” Morgause asked. “Has Lancelet made himself an enemy?”
Morgaine said, “I think not. Did you see them embrace?”
“They looked like father and son,” said Morgause. “Would that they were!”
But Morgaine’s face was like stone. “It is many years too late to speak of that, Aunt.”
Morgause reflected, Perhaps she has forgotten that I know whose son he really is. But before Morgaine’s frozen calm she could only say, “Would you like me to help with your braids at the back?” and took up the comb as Morgaine turned. “Mordred,” she said, as she worked. “Well, he showed crafty counsel here, God knows! Now he has won himself a place by valor and impudence, so he need not demand one from Arthur on the grounds of his parentage. The Saxons named him well. But I knew not he was so much of a fighter. He has certainly managed to carry away the luster of the day! Even though Galahad won the prize, no one will talk about anything but Mordred’s daring gesture.”
One of the Queen’s ladies came up to them. “Lady Morgaine, is sir Mordred your son? I never knew you had a son—“
Morgaine said steadily, “I was very young when he was born, and Morgause fostered him. I had come near to forgetting it myself.”
“How proud you must be of him! And isn’t he handsome? As good-looking as Lancelet himself,” the woman said, and her eyes glistened.
“He is, isn’t he,” agreed Morgaine, her tone so courteous that only Morgause, who knew her well, knew that she was angry. “It has been an embarrassment to them both, I dare say. But Lancelet and I are first cousins, and when I was a little girl, I was more like him than like my own brother. Our mother was tall and red-haired like Queen Morgause here, but Lady Viviane was of the old folk of Avalon.”
“Who is his father, then?” asked the woman, and Morgause saw Morgaine’s hands clench at her sides. But she said with a pleasant smile, “He is a Beltane child, and the God claims all children gotten in the groves. No doubt you remember that as a young girl I was one of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake.”
Trying to be polite, the woman murmured, “I had forgotten—they still kept the old rites there, then?”
“As they do now,” said Morgaine quietly. “And the Goddess grant they shall do so till the world end.”
As she had intended, that silenced the woman, and Morgaine turned away, saying to Morgause, “Are you ready, kinswoman? Let us go down to the hall.” As they left the room she drew a long breath of mingled exasperation and relief.
“Chattering fools—listen to them! Have they nothing better to do than gossip?”
“Probably not,” said Morgause. “Their most Christian husbands and fathers make sure they shall have nothing else to occupy their minds.”
The doors to the great chamber of the Round Table where the Pentecost feast would be held were shut, so that they might all enter at once.
“Arthur every year gives us more pageantry,” said Morgause. “Now a grand procession and entrance, I suppose?”
“What do you expect?” Morgaine asked. “Now there are no wars, he must touch the imagination of his people somehow, and he is clever enough to do it by making great display for them—I have heard it was the Merlin who counselled him so. The common folk—yes, and the nobles too—like a fine show, and the Druids have known that since they lit the first Beltane fires. Gwenhwyfar has spent many years making this the greatest holiday anywhere in any Christian land.” She gave the first real smile Morgause had seen on her face this day. “Even Arthur knows he cannot hold his people with a mass and a feast alone—if there is no great marvel to see, I doubt not Arthur and the Merlin will somehow arrange one! What a pity they could not arrange to hold the eclipse today!”
“Did you watch the eclipse in Wales? My folk were frightened,” Morgause said, “and no doubt, those fools of Gwenhwyfar’s ladies shrieked and shouted as if the world were coming to an end!”
“Gwenhwyfar has a passion for fools among her ladies,” Morgaine said. “Yet she herself is not really a fool, though she likes to seem so. I wonder how she can tolerate it?”
“You should show more patience with them,” Morgause warned, and Morgaine shrugged.
“I care not what fools think of me.”
“I cannot imagine how you have dwelt in Uriens’ kingdom as his queen so long, and not learned more of queencraft,” said Morgause. “Whatever she is thought by men, a woman must depend on the goodwill of other women—what else did you learn at Avalon?”
Morgaine said, her voice hard, “The women in Avalon are not such fools.” But Morgause knew her well enough to know that her angry tone concealed loneliness and suffering.
“Morgaine, why do you not return to Avalon?”
Morgaine bent her head, knowing that if Morgause spoke kindly again to her she would break and weep. “My time has not yet come. I have been ordered to stay with Uriens—“
“And Accolon?”
“Oh, aye, with Accolon,” said Morgaine. “I might have known you would reproach me with that—“
“I am the last to speak,” said Morgause. “But Uriens will not live long—“
Morgaine said, her face as frozen as her voice, “So I believed on that day years ago when we were wedded. He is like to live as long as Taliesin himself, and Taliesin was past ninety when he died.”
Arthur and Gwenhwyfar had arrived and were slowly making their way to the head of the line—Arthur resplendently clad in white robes, Gwenhwyfar beside him, exquisite in white silk and jewels. The great doors were flung open, and they passed within, then Morgaine as the King’s sister with her husband and his sons, Accolon and Uwaine; then Morgause with her household, as the King’s aunt; then Lancelet and his household, and then the other knights one by one, proceeding around the Round Table to take their seats. A few years back, some craftsman had wrought in gold paint and crimson the name of every Companion over his customary chair. Now, as they entered, Morgause noticed that the seat nearest the King, reserved all these years for his heir, had been painted with the name Galahad. But she saw it only in a flicker of her eye. For at the great thrones where Arthur and Gwenhwyfar were to sit, two white banners, like the garish banners with which the battles of the clowns had been fought, had been draped, and across them were scrawled paintings, ugly caricatures—on one throne was a banner portraying a knight standing on the heads of two crowned figures, bearing a devilish likeness to Arthur and Gwenhwyfar; and across the other was a lewd painting which made even Morgause, who was by no means prudish, blush, for it depicted a small, dark-haired woman, stark naked, in the embrace of a huge horned devil, and all about her, accepting certain strange and disgusting sexual ministrations, were scrawled a group of naked men.
Gwenhwyfar cried out in a shrill scream, “God and Mary defend us!”
Arthur, stopped dead, turned on the servants in a voice of thunder. “How came this—this—“ Words failed him and he waved his hand at the drawings. “—this here?”
“Sir—“ the chamberlain stammered, “it was not here when we finished decking the hall—all was orderly, even to the flowers before the Queen’s seat—“
“Who was last in this hall?” Arthur demanded.
Cai limped forward. “My lord and my brother, it was 1.1 came to be certain all was in good order, and I swear as God sees us all, everything was ready at that time to honor my king and his lady. And if ever I find the foul dog who sneaked in to put this thing here, I will have his head like this!” And he gestured as if he were wringing a chicken’s neck.
“Look to your lady!” said Arthur sharply. The women were twittering and chattering as Gwenhwyfar began to sink down in a faint. Morgaine held her up, saying in a sharp, low voice, “Gwen, don’t give them this satisfaction! You are a queen—what do you care what some fool scrawls on a banner? Control yourself!”
Gwenhwyfar was crying. “How can they—how could they—how could anyone hate me so?”
“There is no one alive who can live without offending some idiot or other,” said Morgaine, and helped her toward her seat. But the more crudely sexual of the banners was still draped over it, and Gwenhwyfar shrank back as if she touched something filthy. Morgaine threw it on the floor. There were wine cups set; Morgaine gestured to one of Gwenhwyfar’s waiting-women to fill one and give it to the Queen.
“Don’t let it trouble you, Gwen—I imagine that one is meant for me,” she said. “It is whispered indeed that I take devils to my bed, and what do I care?”
Arthur said, “Get this foulness out of here and burn it, and bring scented woods and incense to take away the stink of evil.” Lackeys scurried to obey him, and Cai said, “We will find out who did this. No doubt it is some servant I dismissed, coming back to embarrass me because I had shown some pride in the decorations of the hall this year. Men, bring the wine round, and the ale, and we will have our first round of drinking shame and confusion to that stinking louse who tried to spoil our feast. Will we let him? Come! Drink to King Arthur and his lady!”
A thin cheer went up, which grew to a genuine cry of appreciation as Arthur and Gwenhwyfar bowed to them all. The feasters seated themselves, and Arthur said, “Now bring before me any petitioners.”
Morgause watched as they brought up some man with a complaint which seemed stupid, about a boundary. Then came an overlord who complained that his vassal had taken a deer on his lands.
Morgause was near Gwenhwyfar; she leaned over and murmured to the Queen, “Why does Arthur hear these cases himself? Any of his bailiffs could handle this and not waste his time.”
Gwenhwyfar murmured, “So I once thought. But he hears a case or two like this, every year at Pentecost, so that the common folk may not think he cares only for the great nobles or his own Companions.”
Well, Morgause thought, that was wise enough. There were two or three more small petitions, then as the meat was brought round, jugglers and acrobats entertained the company, and a man did some conjuring trick of bringing small birds and eggs from the most unlikely places. Morgause thought that Gwenhwyfar seemed calm now, and wondered if they would ever catch the author of the drawings. One portrayed Morgaine as a harlot and that was bad enough; but the other, it seemed, was more serious— showing Lancelet trampling on both King and Queen. Something had happened today beyond a public humiliation for the Queen’s champion, Morgause reflected. That could have been dispelled by the graciousness he had shown to young Gwydion—no, Mordred—and the obvious lack of any grudge between them after. But despite Lancelet’s popularity with King and Companions, there were, no doubt, some who detested Gwenhwyfar’s obvious partiality to her champion.
“What is happening now?” she asked Gwenhwyfar.
The Queen smiled; whatever it was, as the horns blew outside the hall, it was something which pleased her.
The doors were flung open; horns blared again, the crude horns of the Saxons. Then three great Saxons, wearing gold torques and bracelets about their arms, clad in garments of fur and leather, bearing great swords and their horned helmets and with circlets of gold about their heads, strode into the hall of the Round Table, each with his retinue.
“My lord Arthur,” called out one of them, “I am Adelric, lord of Kent and Anglia, and these are my brother kings. We have come to ask that we may give tribute to you, most Christian of kings, and make permanent treaty with you and your court forever!”
“Lot would be turning in his grave,” remarked Morgause, “but Viv-iane would be pleased at this day.” But Morgaine did not answer.
Bishop Patricius rose and came toward the Saxon kings, welcoming them. He said to Arthur, “My lord, after the long wars, this gives me great joy. I urge you to welcome these men as your subject kings and take their oath, in token that all Christian kings should be brothers.”
Morgaine was deathly white. She started to rise and speak, but Uriens looked at her with a stern frown and she sank back at his side. Morgause said good-naturedly, “I remember when the bishops refused even to send anyone to Christianize these barbarians. Lot told me they had vowed they would not meet with the Saxons in fellowship even in Heaven, and that they would not send missions to them—they felt it right that the Saxons should all end up in Hell. But, well, that is thirty years gone!”
Arthur said, “Since I came to my throne, I have longed for an end to the wars which have ravaged this land. We have dwelt in peace for many years, Lord Bishop, and now I welcome you, good sirs, to my court and to my company.”
“It is our custom,” said one of the Saxons—not Adelric, Morgause noticed, for this one was wearing some kind of blue cloak, and Adelric’s had been brown—“to take oath on steel. May we take oath on the cross of your sword, Lord Arthur, in token that we meet as Christian kings under One God who rules us all?”
“Be it so,” said Arthur quietly, and came down from the dais to stand before them. In the light of the many torches and lamps, Excalibur flashed like lightning as he drew it. He set it upright before him and a great wavering shadow, the shadow of a cross, fell all the length of the hall, as the kings knelt.
Gwenhwyfar looked pleased; Galahad was flushed with joy. But Morgaine was white with rage, and Morgause heard her whisper to Uriens. “He has dared to put the sacred sword of Avalon to such uses! I will not, as priestess of Avalon, sit and witness it in silence!” She began to rise, but Uriens gripped her wrist. She struggled silently, but old as Uriens was, he was a warrior, and Morgaine a little woman; for a moment Morgause thought he would break the small bones of Morgaine’s wrist, but she did not cry out or whimper. She set her teeth, and managed to wrench her wrist away. She said, loud enough that Gwenhwyfar could certainly hear, “Viviane died with her work unfinished. And I have sat idle while children unconceived grew to manhood and were knighted, and Arthur fell into the hands of the priests!”
“Lady,” said Accolon, leaning over her chair, “even you cannot disrupt this holy day, or they will serve you as the Romans served the Druids. Speak in private with Arthur, remonstrate with him there if you must—I am sure the Merlin will help you!”
Morgaine lowered her eyes. Her teeth bit into her lip.
Arthur embraced the Saxon kings one by one, welcoming them and leading them to seats near his throne. “Your sons, if they show themselves worthy, will be welcome among my Companions,” he said, and had his servants bring gifts—swords and fine daggers, a rich cloak for Adelric. Morgause took up a cake, sticky with honey, and put it between Morgaine’s clenched lips.
“You are too fond of fasting, Morgaine,” she said. “Eat this! You are pale, you will swoon where you sit!”
“It is not hunger that makes me pale,” said Morgaine, but she took the cake in her mouth. She drank a little wine too, and Morgause could see that her hands were shaking. On one wrist there were dark bruises left by Uriens’ fingers.
Then Morgaine rose. She said quietly to Uriens, “Do not worry, my most beloved husband. I will say nothing to offend you or our king.” Then, turning to Arthur, she said loudly, “My lord and brother! May I ask a favor of you?”
“My sister and the wife of my loyal subject king Uriens may ask what she will,” said Arthur genially.
“The least of your subjects, sir, may ask for audience. I ask that you will grant me such an audience,” she said. Arthur raised his eyebrows, but took his formal tone from her.
“Tonight before I sleep, if you will. I will receive you in my own room, with your husband if you wish.”
I wish, thought Morgause, that I could be a fly on the wall at that audience!
In the chamber Gwenhwyfar had assigned King Uriens and his family, Morgaine combed her hair again with leaden fingers and had her waiting-woman lace her into a fresh gown. Uriens was complaining that he had eaten and drunk too well and was not looking forward to the audience.
“Go to bed then,” she said. “It is I who has a thing to say to him, it has nothing to do with you.”
“Not so,” said Uriens. “I too was lessoned in Avalon. Do you think I take pleasure in seeing the holy things put to the service of the Christian God who would strip all other knowledge from the world? No, Morgaine, it is not you alone as priestess of Avalon who should show your outrage at this. It is the kingdom of North Wales, I myself as ruler, and Accolon, who is pledged to rule when I am gone.”
“Father is right, madam.” Accolon met her eyes as he said, “Our people trust us that we will not betray them, nor let church bells ring in their holy groves—“ and for a moment it seemed, though she knew that neither she nor Accolon had moved, that they were standing together in one of the magical groves, joined before the Goddess. Uriens, of course, had seen nothing. He urged, “Let Arthur know, Morgaine, that the kingdom of North Wales will not fall meekly under the rule of the Christians.”
Morgaine shrugged. “As you wish.”
I was a fool, she thought. I was priestess at his kingmaking, I bore Arthur a son, I should have used that hold I had on the King’s conscience—made myself, not Gwenhwyfar, the ruler behind the throne. While I hid like an animal licking wounds, I lost my hold on Arthur. Where, at one time, I could have commanded, now I must beg, without even the power of the Lady!
She had already turned toward the door when there was a knocking; a servant went to open it, and Gwydion came in. He was still wearing the Saxon sword that Lancelet had given him at his knighting, but he had taken off his armor and wore a rich gown of scarlet; she had not known he could look so fine.
He saw her eyes light on him. “Lancelet gave it me. We were drinking in the hall, and word came from Arthur that the King wished to see me in his chambers. ... I said that my only tunic was bedraggled and blood-soaked and he said we were of a size and he would lend me a gown. When I had it on, he said it became me better than it did him and I should keep it—that I had had few enough gifts at my knighting, while the King had given Galahad many rich presents. Does he know Arthur is my father, that he said that?”
Uriens blinked and looked surprised, but said nothing. Accolon shook his head. “No, stepbrother. Lancelet is the most generous of men, that is all. When Gareth came first to court, unknown to his own kinsmen, Lancelet gave him clothes and weapons, so that Gareth should be dressed according to his station. And if you should ask if Lancelet likes it overmuch, seeing his gifts on the bodies of handsome young men, well, that has been said too before now, though I know of no man at this court, young or old, who has ever had a word from Lancelet beyond knightly courtesy.”
“Is it so?” Gwydion asked, and Morgaine could see him taking this piece of information and putting it away like gold in a miser’s chest. “Now I recall,” he said slowly, “a tale that went about of some feast at Lot’s court when Lancelet was no more than a youth—something of a ballad made when they thrust a harp into his hand and bade him play, and he sang some lay of Rome or the days of Alexander, I know not what, of the love of knightly companions, and they jeered at him for it. Since then, his songs are all of the beauty of our queen, or knightly tales of adventure and dragons.”
Morgaine felt she could not bear the scorn in his voice. She said, “If you came to claim a gift for your knighting, I will speak with you when I have seen Arthur, but not now.”
Gwydion looked down at his shoes. It was the first time she had ever seen him less than self-assured and confident. “Mother, the King has sent for me too—may I go in your company?”
She liked him a little better, that he should confess his own vulnerability this way. “Arthur means you no harm, my son, but if it will please you to go with us before him, he can do no worse than send you away and say he would rather speak to you separately.”
“Come, then, stepbrother,” said Accolon, taking Gwydion’s arm in such a way that the younger man could see the serpents tattooed on Accolon’s wrists. “The King shall go first with his lady, and you and I will follow....”
Morgaine, at Uriens’ side, thought that she liked it well that Accolon should befriend her son and acknowledge him brother. At the same time she felt herself shiver, and Uriens took her hand. “Are you cold, Morgaine? Take your cloak ... ”
IN THE KING’S apartments a fire burned, and Morgaine heard the sound of a harp. Arthur sat in a wooden chair heaped with cushions. Gwenhwyfar was setting stitches in a narrow band which twinkled with gilt thread. The servant announced ceremoniously, “The King and Queen of North Wales, and their son Accolon, and sir Lancelet—“
Gwenhwyfar looked up at Lancelet’s name, then laughed and said, “No, though he is very like. Sir Mordred, is it not, that we saw knighted this day?”
Gwydion bowed to the Queen but did not speak. But in this family gathering Arthur was not one to stand upon ceremony.
“Sit down, all of you—let me send for wine—“
Uriens said, “I have had enough wine this day, Arthur, to float a ship down to the shore! None for me, thank you—perhaps the young men have better heads for it.”
Gwenhwyfar moved toward Morgaine, and Morgaine knew that if she did not speak now, Arthur would begin his parley with the men and she would be expected to sit in a corner with the Queen and keep silence, or talk in whispers of women’s things—embroidery, servants, who at the court was breeding ...
She gestured to the servant with the wine. “I will have a cup,” she said, remembering, like a pain within her, when as priestess of Avalon she had been proud to drink only of the Holy Well. She sipped and said, “I am deeply distressed at the welcome of the Saxon envoys, Arthur. No—“ She silenced him as he would have spoken. “I do not speak as a woman meddling in affairs of state. I am Queen of North Wales, and Duchess of Cornwall, and what concerns the realm touches me too.”
“Then you should be glad for peace,” Arthur said. “I have worked all my lifetime, it seems, since I was old enough to hold a sword, to end the wars with the Saxons. At that time I believed the war would be ended by driving them back over the seas whence they came. But peace is peace, and if it comes by making treaty with them, let it be so. There are more ways to deal with a bull than roasting him for dinner. It is equally effective to geld him and make him pull your plow.”
“Or save him to serve your cows at stud? Will you ask your subject kings to marry their daughters to Saxons, Arthur?”
“That too, perhaps,” said Arthur. “Saxons are no more than men— do you call to mind that song Lancelet sang? They have the same longings for peace—they too have lived on lands ravaged and burned again and again. Will you say I should have fought on till the last of them was dead or driven out? I thought women longed for peace.”
“I too long for peace, and welcome it, even with Saxons,” Morgaine said, “but have you made them give up their Gods too, and accept your own, that you made them swear to you on the cross?”
Gwenhwyfar had been listening intently. “There are no other Gods, Morgaine. They have agreed to put aside the devils they worshipped and called Gods, that is all. Now they worship the one true God and the Christ sent in his name to save mankind.”
Gwydion said, “If you truly believe that, my lady and queen, then for you it is truth—all the Gods are One God and all the Goddesses one Goddess. But would you presume to declare one truth for all of mankind throughout the world?”
“Call you that presumption? It is the one truth,” Gwenhwyfar said, “and a day must come when all men everywhere will acknowledge it.”
“I tremble for my people that you say so,” said King Uriens. “I have pledged myself to protect the sacred groves, and my son after me.”
“Why, I thought you a Christian, my lord of North Wales—“
“And so I am,” said Uriens, “but I will not speak ill of another’s God.”
“But there are no such Gods,” Gwenhwyfar began.
Morgaine opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur said, “Enough of this, enough—I did not bid you here to discuss theology! If you have the stomach for that, there are priests enough who will listen and argue. Go you and convert them if you must! What did you come here to say, Morgaine? Only that you are wary of the good faith of the Saxons, oaths on the cross or no?”
“No,” Morgaine said, and as she spoke, she noted that Kevin was in the room, sitting in the shadows with his harp. Good; the Merlin of Britain could witness this protest in the name of Avalon! “I call the Merlin to witness, you had them swear an oath on the cross—and you transformed the holy sword of Avalon, Excalibur, the very sword of the Holy Regalia, into your cross for the oath! Lord Merlin, is this not blasphemy?”
Arthur said quickly, “It was only a gesture, to catch the imagination of everyone, Morgaine—such as the gesture Viviane made, when she bade me fight for peace in the name of Avalon with that selfsame sword.”
The Merlin said in his rich low voice, “Morgaine, my dear, the cross is a symbol older than Christ and venerated before ever there were followers of the Nazarene. In Avalon there are priests brought here by the patriarch Joseph of Arimathea, who worship at the side of the Druids ... .”
“But they were priests who did not try to say that their God is the only God,” Morgaine said angrily, “and I doubt not that Bishop Patricius would silence them if he could, and preach only his own brand of bigotry!”
“Bishop Patricius and his beliefs are not at issue here, Morgaine,” said Kevin. “Let the uninitiated think that the Saxons swore on the cross of Christ’s sacrifice and death. We too have a sacrificed God, whether we see him in the cross, or in the sheaf of barley which must die to the earth and be raised again from the dead—“
Gwenhwyfar said, “Your sacrificed Gods, Lord Merlin, were sent only that mankind might be ready when the Christ came to die for man’s sins—“
Arthur moved his hand impatiently. “Be quiet, all of you! The Saxons swore to peace on a symbol meaningful to them—“
But Morgaine interrupted him. “It was from Avalon you received the sacred sword, and to Avalon that you swore an oath to preserve and guard the Holy Mysteries! And now you would make the sword of the Mysteries into the cross of death, the gallows for the dead! When Viviane came to court, she came to demand of you that you fullfil your oaths to Avalon. Then she was struck down! Now I am come to finish that work she left undone, and to demand from you that holy sword of Excalibur which you have presumed to twist into the service of your Christ!”
Gwenhwyfar said, “A day will come when all false Gods shall vanish and all pagan symbols shall be put to the service of the one true God and his Christ.”
“I did not speak to you, you canting fool,” said Morgaine furiously, “and that day will come over my corpse! You Christians have saints and martyrs—do you think Avalon will have none?” And as she spoke she shuddered, knowing that, unaware, she had spoken through the Sight, and there was the body of a knight, draped in black with a cross banner over his body... . She wanted to turn, as she could not do here in this company, and throw herself into Accolon’s arms.
“How you exaggerate all things, Morgaine!” said Arthur with an uneasy laugh, and that laugh maddened her, driving away both the fear and the Sight. She drew herself up to her full height, and knew that for the first time in many years she spoke mantled in all the power and authority of a priestess of Avalon.
“Hear me, Arthur of Britain! As the force and power of Avalon set you on the throne, so the force and power of Avalon can bring you down into ruin! Think well how you desecrate the Holy Regalia! Think never to put it to the service of your Christian God, for every thing of Power carries its own curse—“
“Enough!” Arthur had risen from his chair, and his frown was like a storm. “Sister or no, do not presume to give orders to the King of all Britain.”
“I do not speak to my brother,” she retorted, “but to the King! Avalon set you on the throne, Arthur, Avalon gave you that sword you have misused, and in the name of Avalon I now call on you to render it back again to the Holy Regalia! If you wish to treat it only as a sword, then call your smiths to make you another!”
There was a dreadful silence, and it seemed to her for a moment that her words were falling into the great echoing empty spaces between the worlds, that far away in Avalon the Druids must wake, that even Raven must stir and cry out against Arthur’s betrayal. But the first sound she heard was nervous laughter.
“What nonsense you are talking, Morgaine!” It was Gwenhwyfar who spoke. “You know Arthur cannot do that!”
“Do not interfere, Gwenhwyfar,” Morgaine said, with deadly menace. “It has nothing to do with you, except that if it was you who bade Arthur break oath to Avalon, beware!”
“Uriens,” said Gwenhwyfar, “will you stand idle and let your unruly wife speak so to the High King?”
Uriens coughed; his voice when he spoke sounded as nervous as Gwenhwyfar’s. “Morgaine, perhaps you are being unreasonable ... Arthur made a dramatic gesture for political reasons, to catch the imagination of the crowd. If he did so with a sword of power, well, so much the better. The Gods can take care of their own worship, my dear—do you think the Goddess needs your help to protect her own?”
At that moment, if Morgaine had had a weapon, she would have struck Uriens down. He had come to support her, and now he deserted her this way?
Arthur said, “Morgaine, since you are so troubled, let me say this for your ears alone: I intended no desecration. If the sword of Avalon also serves as a cross for an oath, does it not mean that Avalon’s powers are joined in the service of this land? So Kevin advised me—“
“Oh, aye, I knew him traitor when he had Viviane buried outside the Holy Isle—“ Morgaine began.
“Be it so or otherwise,” said Arthur, “I gave the Saxon kings the gesture they wanted, to swear on my sword!”
“But it is not your sword!” Morgaine retorted, at white heat. “It is the sword of Avalon! And if you bear it not as you have sworn, then shall it be given into the hands of one who will be true to his oath—“
“Sword of Avalon it may have been a generation ago,” said Arthur, who was now as angry as Morgaine; he clenched his hand over the hilt of Excalibur, as if someone would take it from him that very moment. “A sword is his who uses it, and I have won the right to call it mine by driving forth all enemies from this land! I bore it in battle, and I won this land at Mount Badon—“
“And you have tried to subject it to the service of the Christian God,” Morgaine retorted. “Now in the name of the Goddess I demand of you that it be returned to the shrine of the Lake!”
Arthur drew a long breath. Then he said in a voice of studied calm, “I refuse. If the Goddess wants this sword returned, then she herself will have to take it from my hands.” Then his voice softened. “My dear sister, I beg of you, do not quarrel with me about the name by which we call our Gods. You yourself have said to me that all the Gods are the One God.”
And he will never see why what he has said is wrong, Morgaine thought in despair. Yet he has called on the Goddess, if she wants his sword to come and take it. Be it so, then; Lady, may I be your hand. She bowed her head for a moment and said, “To the Goddess, then, I leave the disposal of her sword.” And when she has done with you, Arthur, you will wish you had chosen to deal with me instead ... . And she went to sit beside Gwenhwyfar. Arthur beckoned to Gwydion.
“Sir Mordred,” he said, “I would have made you one of my Companions at any time you asked it of me. I would have done so for Morgaine’s sake and for my own—you needed not to force knighthood from me by a trick.”
“I thought if you made me knight without some good excuse such as this,” Gwydion said, “there might be talk of a kind you did not wish. Will you forgive me the trick, then, sir?”
“If Lancelet has forgiven you, I have no reason to bear you any grudge,” said Arthur, “and since he has gifted you richly, it would seem he cherishes no wrath. I wish it lay in my power to acknowledge you my son, Mordred. Until a few years ago, I knew not that you existed— Morgaine told me not what came of that kingmaking. You do know, I suppose, that to the priests and bishops, your very existence is sign of something unholy.”
“Do you believe that, sir?”
Arthur looked his son directly in the eye. “Oh—times I believe one thing, times another, like all men. It does not matter what I believe. The facts are thus—I cannot acknowledge you before all men, though you are such a son as any man, let alone a childless king, would be glad and proud to own. Galahad must inherit my throne.”
“If he lives,” said Gwydion, and at Arthur’s shocked look, added quietly, “No, sir, I am not making a threat to his life. I will swear any oath you will, by cross or oak, by the Sacred Well or by these serpents I bear” —he thrust out his wrists—“which you bore before me: may the Goddess send living serpents like these to take my life if ever I raise a hand against my cousin Galahad. But I have seen it—he will die, honorably, for the cross he worships.”
“God save us from evil!” cried out Gwenhwyfar.
“Indeed, lady. But if he does not live to ascend your throne—my father and my king, he is a warrior and a knight, and no more than mortal, and you may live to be older than King Uriens. What then?”
“Should Galahad die before he comes to my throne—God stand between him and harm—“ said Arthur, “I will have no choice. Royal blood is royal blood, and yours is royal, from the Pendragon and from Avalon. Should such an evil day come, I suppose even the bishops would rather see you on the throne than leave this land to such chaos as they feared when Uther died.”
He rose and stood with his two hands on his son’s shoulders, looking into his eyes. “Would that I could say more, my son. But done is done. I will say only that—I wish with all my heart that you had been the son of my queen.”
“And so do I,” said Gwenhwyfar, rising to embrace him.
“Still, I will not treat you as a baseborn churl,” said Arthur. “You are Morgaine’s son. Mordred, Duke of Cornwall, Companion of the Round Table, you shall go to be the voice of the Round Table among the Saxon kings. You shall have the right to do the King’s justice, and to collect my taxes and revenues, keeping a suitable portion to maintain such a household as the King’s chancellor should have. And, if you wish it, I give you permission to marry the daughter of one of the Saxon kings, which will give you a throne of your own, even if you come never to mine.”
Gwydion bowed and said, “You are generous, sir.”
Yes, Morgaine thought, and this would keep Gwydion well out of the way, until and unless there was need of him. Arthur was skilled at kingcraft! She raised her head and said, “You have been so generous to my son, Arthur, may I trespass again on your kindness?”
Arthur looked wary, but he said, “Ask me something I can grant, my sister, and it will be my pleasure to give it.”
“You have made my son Duke of Cornwall, but he knows little of Cornwall’s land as yet. I have heard that Duke Marcus now claims all that country. Will you come with me to Tintagel, and investigate this matter and this claim?”
Arthur’s face relaxed; had he been braced for her to raise the matter of the sword Excalibur again? No, my brother, not ever again before this court; when again I stretch forth my hand for Excalibur, it will be in my own country and in the place of the Goddess.
“I have not been in Cornwall for more years than I can reckon,” Arthur said, “and I cannot leave Camelot until Midsummer is past. But remain here in Camelot as my guest, and then we will go together to Tintagel, and see if Duke Marcus, or any other man God ever made, will dispute the claim of Arthur and of Morgaine, Duchess of Cornwall.” He turned to Kevin. “And now enough of high matters—my lord Merlin, I would not command you to sing for me before my entire court, but in private within my own chambers, and in the company of my family alone, may I entreat you for a song?”
“It will be my pleasure,” said Kevin, “if the lady Gwenhwyfar does not object.” He glanced at the Queen, but she was silent, and so he set his harp to his shoulder and began to play.
Morgaine sat quietly beside Uriens, listening to the music. A royal gift indeed Arthur had commanded for his family, Kevin’s music. Gwydion listened, his hands clasped about his knees, silent and spellbound; she thought, In that at least he is my son. Uriens listened with polite attention. Morgaine looked up for a moment, meeting Accolon’s eyes, and thought; Somehow this night we must manage to meet, even if I must give Uriens a sleeping potion; there is much I must say to him ... and then she cast down her eyes. She was no better than Gwenhwyfar ... .
Uriens was holding her hand, fondling her fingers and wrists; she felt him touch the bruises he had made that day, and through the pain, she felt revulsion. She must go to his bed if he desired it; here in this Christian court she was his property, like a horse or dog he could fondle or beat at his own will!
Arthur had betrayed both her and Avalon; Uriens had played her false as well. Kevin, too, had betrayed her ... .
But Accolon would not fail her. Accolon should rule for Avalon, the King Viviane had foreseen would come; and after Accolon, Gwydion, Druid King, King of Avalon and all Britain.
And behind the King, the Queen, ruling for the Goddess as in the days of old ... .
Kevin raised his head and met her eyes, and Morgaine shivered, knowing she must conceal her thoughts. He has the Sight, and he is Arthur’s man. He is the Merlin of Britain, and nevertheless he is my enemy!
But Kevin said mildly, “Since this is a family party, and I too would wish to hear music made, may I ask as my fee that the lady Morgaine will sing?” and Morgaine went to take his place, feeling the power of the harp in her hands.
I must charm them, she thought, so they think no harm, and set her hands to the strings.
Uriens said, when they were alone in their chamber, “I knew not that your claim to Tintagel was being disputed again.”
“The things you do not know, my husband, are as many as acorns in a pig meadow,” she said impatiently. How had she ever thought she could suffer this fool? Kind, yes, he had never been unkind to her, but his stupidity grated on her like a rasp. She wanted to be alone, to consider her plans, to confer with Accolon, and instead she must placate this old idiot!
“I should know what you are planning.” Uriens’ voice was sullen. “I am angry that you did not consult with me if you were displeased at what was happening in Tintagel—I am your husband and you should have told me rather than appealing to Arthur!” The sulkiness in his voice held a hint of jealousy too, and she remembered now, stricken, that it had been brought out what she had concealed all these years—who had fathered her son. But could Uriens really think that after a quarter of a century she still held power of that sort over her brother, because of something only fools and Christians would think a sin? Well, if he has not wit enough to see what is happening before his eyes, why should I explain it to him word by word like a child’s lesson?
She said, still impatient, “Arthur is displeased with me because he thinks a woman should not contend with him this way. Therefore I asked his help, so that he will not believe I am in rebellion against him.” She said no more. She was priestess of Avalon, she would not lie, but there was no need to speak more truth than she wished. Let Uriens think, if he would, that she only wished to make up her quarrel with Arthur.
“How clever you are, Morgaine,” he said, patting her wrist. She thought, flinching, that already he had forgotten that it was he who had inflicted the injury. She felt her lips trembling as if she were a child, thinking, I want Accolon, I want to lie in his arms and be cherished and comforted, but in this place how can we contrive even to meet and speak in secret? She blinked away angry tears. Strength was her only safety now; strength and concealment.
Uriens had gone out to relieve himself, and came back, yawning. “I heard the watchman cry midnight,” he said. “We must to bed, lady.” He began to take off his festal robe. “Are you very weary, dear one?”
She did not answer, knowing that if she did she would weep. He took her silence for consent and drew her close, nuzzling at her throat, then pulled her toward the bed. She endured him, wondering if she could remember some charm or herb to put an end to the old man’s too-enduring virility —damn him, he should be long past this by his age, no one would even think it the result of sorcery. She lay wondering, afterward, why she could not simply turn to him with indifference, let him have her without even thinking, as she had done so often in these long years... what did it matter, why should she notice him any more than a stray animal sniffing round her skirts?
She slept fitfully, dreaming of a child she had found somewhere and must suckle, though her breasts were dry and ached terribly ... she woke with the pain still in them. Uriens had gone to hunt with some of Arthur’s men—it had been arranged days ago. She felt sick and queasy. I ate more, she thought, than I usually do in three days, no wonder I am sick. But when she went to fasten her gown, her breasts were still sore and aching. It seemed to her that the nipples, brown and small, looked pink and swollen.
She let herself collapse on the bed as if her knees had been broken. She was barren! She knew she was barren, they had told her after Gwydion’s birth that she would probably never bear a child again, and in all the years since, never once from any man had she gotten with child. More than that, she was near to nine-and-forty, long past the childbearing years. But for all that, she was certainly pregnant now. She had thought herself long past the possibility. Her courses had grown irregular and were absent for months at a time, she had thought herself coming to the end of them. Her first reaction was fear; she had come so near to death when Gwydion was born ... .
Uriens would certainly be delighted at this supposed proof of his manhood. But when this child was conceived, Uriens had been ill with the lung fever; there was small likelihood, after all, that it was Uriens’ child. Had it been fathered by Accolon, on the day of the eclipse? Why, then, it was child to the God as he had come to them then in the hazel grove.
What would I do with a babe, old woman that I am? But perhaps it will be a priestess for Avalon, one to rule after me when the traitor has been tumbled from the throne where Viviane set him ... .
It was grey and dismal outside, drizzling rain. The games field of yesterday was trampled and muddy, with scattered banners and ribbons trodden into the mud; one or two of the subject kings were making ready to ride out, and a few kitchen women, their gowns tucked up to their bare thighs, carrying washing paddles and sacks of clothing, were trudging down toward the shores of the lake.
There was a knock at the door; the servant’s voice was soft and respectful. “Queen Morgaine, the High Queen has asked that you and the Queen of Lothian should come to break your fast with her. And the Merlin of Britain has asked that you will receive him here at noon.”
“I will go to the Queen,” said Morgaine. “Tell the Merlin I will receive him.” She shrank from both confrontations, but she dared not deny herself to either, especially now.
Gwenhwyfar would never be anything but her enemy. It was her doing that Arthur had fallen into the hands of the priests and betrayed Avalon. Perhaps, Morgaine thought, I am plotting the downfall of the wrong person; if I could somehow manage it that Gwenhwyfar left court, even to run away with Lancelet to his own castle, now that he is widowed and can lawfully take her ... but she dismissed that idea.
Probably Arthur has asked her to make up the quarrel with me, she thought cynically. He knows, too, that he cannot afford to quarrel with subject kings, and if Gwenhwyfar and I are at odds, Morgause, as ever, will take my part. Too strong a family quarrel, and he would lose Uriens, and Morgause’s sons too. He cannot afford to lose Gawaine, Gareth, the Northmen ... .
Morgause was in the Queen’s room already; the smell of food made Morgaine sick again, but she controlled it with iron will. It was well known that she never ate much and it would not be particularly noticed. Gwenhwyfar came and kissed her, and for a moment Morgaine’s real tenderness for this woman returned. Why should we be enemies? We were friends once, so long ago. ... It was not Gwenhwyfar herself that she hated, it was the priests who had so much influence over her.
She came to the table, accepting but not eating a piece of new bread and honey. Gwenhwyfar’s ladies were the kind of pious idiots with whom Gwenhwyfar always surrounded herself. They welcomed Morgaine with curious looks and a great outward display of cordiality and pleasure.
“Your son, sir Mordred—what a fine lad he is, how proud you must be of him,” one of them said, and Morgaine, breaking the bread and crumbling it, remarked with composure that she had hardly seen him since he was weaned. “It is Uwaine, my husband’s son, who is more truly my own son, and it is in his knightly accomplishments that I take pride,” Morgaine said, “for I reared him from a little child. But you are proud of Mordred as your own son, are you not, Morgause?”
“But Uriens’ son is not your own child?” someone else asked.
“No,” she said patiently, “he was nine years old when I married my lord of North Wales.”
One of the girls giggled that if she were Morgaine, she would pay more heed to that other handsome stepson of hers, Accolon was it not? Morgaine, clenching her teeth, thought, Shall I kill this fool? But no; the ladies of Gwenhwyfar’s court had nothing to do but spend their time in mindless jests and gossip.
“Now tell me—“ Alais, who had been waiting-woman when Morgaine was also at Gwenhwyfar’s court, and whose bride-woman Morgaine had been when the girl was married, giggled. “Isn’t he Lancelet’s son, really?”
Morgaine raised her eyebrows and said, “Who? Accolon? King Uriens’ late wife would hardly thank you for that imputation, lady.”
“You know what I mean.” Alais snickered. “Lancelet was the son of Viviane, and you were raised by her—and who could blame you? Tell me the truth now, Morgaine, who was that handsome lad’s father? There is no one else it could have been, is there?”
Morgause laughed and said, trying to break the tension, “Well, we are all in love with Lancelet, of course—poor Lancelet, what a burden to bear.”
“But you are eating nothing, Morgaine,” said Gwenhwyfar. “Can I send to the kitchens, if this is not to your liking? A slice of ham? Some better wine than this?”
Morgaine shook her head and put a piece of bread into her mouth. Hadn’t this all happened before? Or perhaps she had dreamed it... she felt a sick dizziness before her eyes, grey spots dancing. It would indeed give them gossip to enliven many a boring day if the old Queen of North Wales swooned away like a breeding woman! Her fingernails cut into her hands and somehow she managed to make the dizziness recede a little. “I drank too much at the feast yesterday—you have known for twenty years that I have no head for drinking wine, Gwenhwyfar.”
“Ah, and it was good wine too,” said Morgause, with a greedy smack of her lips, and Gwenhwyfar replied courteously that she would send a barrel of it to Lothian with Morgause when she left. But Morgaine, mercifully forgotten, the blinding headache clamping down over her brow like a torturer’s band, felt Morgause’s questioning eyes on hers.
Pregnancy was one thing that could not be hidden ... no, and why should it be hidden? She was lawfully wedded; people might laugh if the old King of North Wales and his middle-aged Queen became parents at their advanced ages, but the laughter would be good-natured. Yet Morgaine felt that she would explode from the sheer force of the anger in her. She felt like one of the fire mountains of which Gawaine had told her, far in the countries to the north ... .
When the ladies had all gone away and she was alone with Gwenhwyfar, the Queen took her hand and said in apology, “I am sorry, Morgaine, you do look ill. Perhaps you should return to your bed.”
“Perhaps I shall,” Morgaine said, thinking, Gwenhwyfar would never guess what was wrong with me; Gwenhwyfar, should this happen to her, would welcome it, even now!
The Queen reddened under Morgaine’s angry stare. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean for my women to tease you like that—I should have stopped them, my dear.”
“Do you think I care what they say? They are like sparrows chirping, and have as much sense about them,” Morgaine said, with contempt as blinding as the pain in her head. “But how many of your women really know who fathered my son? You made Arthur confess it—did you confide it to all your women as well?”
Gwenhwyfar looked frightened. “I do not think there are many who know—those who were there last night, when Arthur acknowledged him, certainly. And Bishop Patricius.” She looked up at Morgaine, and Morgaine thought, blinking, How kindly the years have treated her; she grows even more lovely, and I wither like an ancient briar ... .
“You look so tired, Morgaine,” said Gwenhwyfar, and it struck Morgaine that in spite of all old enmities, there was love too. “Go and rest, dear sister.”
Or is it only that there are so few of us, now, who were young together?
THE MERLIN HAD AGED, too, and the years had not been so kind to him as to Gwenhwyfar; he was more stooped, he dragged his leg now with a walking stick, and his arms and wrists, with their great ropy muscles, looked like branches of an ancient and twisted oak. He might indeed have been one of the dwarf folk of which tales told that they dwelt beneath the mountains. Only the movements of his hands were still precise and lovely, despite the twisted and swollen fingers, his graceful gestures making her think of the old days, and her long study of the harp and of the language of gesture and hand speech.
He was blunt, waving away her offer of wine or refreshment, dropping on a seat without her leave, by old habit.
“I think you are wrong, Morgaine, to harry Arthur about Excalibur.”
She knew her own voice sounded hard and shrewish. “I did not expect you to approve, Kevin. No doubt you feel that whatever use he makes of the Holy Regalia is good.”
“I cannot see that it is wrong,” Kevin said. “All Gods are one—as even Taliesin would have said—and if we join in the service of the One—“
“But it is that with which I quarrel,” Morgaine said. “Their God would be the One—and the only—and drive out all mention of the Goddess whom we serve. Kevin, listen to me—can you not see how this narrows the world, if there is one rather than many? I think it was wrong to make the Saxons into Christians. I think those old priests who dwelt on Glastonbury had the right idea. Why should we all meet in one afterlife? Why should there not be many paths, the Saxons to follow their own, we to follow ours, the followers of the Christ to worship him if they choose, without restraining the worship of others ... .”
Kevin shook his head. “My dear, I do not know. There seems to be a deep change in the way men now look at the world, as if one truth should drive out another—as if whatever is not their truth, must be falsehood.”
“But life is not as simple as that,” Morgaine said.
“I know that, you know that, and in the fullness of time, Morgaine, even the priests will find it out.”
“But if they have driven all other truths from the world, it will be too late,” Morgaine said.
Kevin sighed. “There is a fate that no man, and no woman, may stop, Morgaine, and I think we are facing that day.” He reached out one of his gnarled hands and took hers; she thought she had never heard him speak so gently. “I am not your enemy, Morgaine. I have known you since you were a maiden. And after—“ He stopped, and she saw his throat twitch as he swallowed. “I love you well, Morgaine. I wish you nothing but well. There was a time—oh, yes, it was long ago, but I forget not how I loved you and how privileged I felt that I could speak of love to you ... . No man can fight the tides, or the fates. Perhaps, if we had sent sooner to Christianize the Saxons, it would have been done by those same priests who built a chapel where they and Taliesin could worship side by side. Our own bigotry prevented that, so it was left to fanatics like Patricius, who in their pride see the Creator only as the avenging Father of soldiers, not also as the loving Mother of the fields and the earth. ... I tell you, Morgaine, they are a tide that will sweep all men before them like straw.”
“Done is done,” Morgaine said. “But what is the answer?”
Kevin bent his head and it struck Morgaine that what he really wanted was to lay that head down on her breast; not now as a man to a woman, but as if she were the Mother Goddess who could quiet his fear and despair.
“Maybe,” he said, his voice stifled, “maybe there is no answer at all. It may be that there is no God and no Goddess and we are quarrelling over foolish words. I will not quarrel with you, Morgaine of Avalon. But neither will I sit idle and let you plunge this kingdom again into war and chaos, wreck this peace that Arthur has given us. Some knowledge and some song and some beauty must be kept for those days before the world again plunges into darkness. I tell you, Morgaine, I have seen the darkness closing. Perhaps, in Avalon, we may keep the secret wisdom—but the time is past when we can spread it again into the world. Do you think I am afraid to die so that something of Avalon may survive among mankind?”
Morgaine—slowly, compelled—put out her hand to touch his face, to wipe away tears; but she jerked her hand back in sudden dread. Her eyes blurred—she had laid her hand on a weeping skull, and it seemed her own hand was the thin, winter-blighted hand of the Death-crone. He saw it too, and stared at her, appalled, for a single terrified moment. Then it was gone again, and Morgaine heard her voice harden.
“So you would bring the holy things into the world, that the holy sword of Avalon may be the avenging sword of Christ?”
“It is the sword of the Gods,” Kevin said, “and all the Gods are one. I would rather have Excalibur in the world where men may follow it, than hidden away in Avalon. So long as they follow it, what difference does it make which Gods they call on in doing so?”
Morgaine said, steadily, “It is that I will die to prevent. Beware, Merlin of Britain: you have made the Great Marriage and pledged yourself to die for the preservation of the Mysteries. Beware, lest obeying that oath be claimed of you!”
His beautiful eyes looked straight into hers. “Ah, my lady and my Goddess, I beg you, take counsel of Avalon before you act! Indeed, I think the time has come for you to return to Avalon.” Kevin laid his hand over hers. She did not draw if away.
Her voice caught and broke with the tears that had laid heavy on her all this day. “I—I wish I might return—it is because I long so much for it that I dare not go thither,” she said. “I shall go there never, until I may leave it never more—“
“You will return, for I have seen it,” said Kevin wearily. “But not I. I know not how, Morgaine, my love, but it comes to me that never again shall I drink of the Holy Well.”
She looked at the ugly misshapen body, the fine hands, the beautiful eyes, and thought, Once I loved this man. Despite all, she loved him still, she would love him till both of them were dead; she had known him since the beginning of time, and together they had served their Goddess. Time slid away and it seemed that they stood outside time, that she gave him life, that she cut him down as a tree, that he sprang up again in the corn, that he died at her will and she was taken in his arms and brought back to life ... the ancient priest-drama played out before Druid or Christian set foot upon the earth.
And he would cast this away?
“If Arthur shall forswear his oath, shall I not require it at his hands?”
Kevin said, “One day the Goddess will deal with him in her own way. But Arthur is King of Britain by the will of the Goddess. Morgaine of Avalon, I tell you, beware! Dare you set your face against the fates that rule this land?”
“I do what the Goddess has given me to do!”
“The Goddess—or your own will and pride and ambition for those you love? Morgaine, again I say to you, beware. For it may well be that the day of Avalon is past, and your day with it.”
Then the fierce control she had clamped upon herself broke. “And you dare call yourself the Merlin of Britain?” she shrieked at him. “Be gone, you damned traitor!” She picked up her distaff and flung it at his head. “Go! Out from my sight and damn you forever! Go from here!”
Ten days later, King Arthur, with his sister, Queen Morgaine, and her husband, Uriens of Wales, set forth to ride to Tintagel.
Morgaine had had time to decide what she must do and had found a moment to speak alone with Accolon the day before. “Await me on the shores of the Lake—be certain that neither Arthur nor Uriens sees you.” She reached her hand to him in farewell, but he caught her close and kissed her again and again.
“Lady—I cannot bear to let you go into danger this way!”
For a moment she leaned against him. She was so weary, so weary, of being always strong, of making certain that all things went as they must! But he must never suspect her weakness! “There is no help for it, my beloved. Otherwise there would be no answer but death. You cannot come to the throne with the blood of your father on your hands. And when you sit on Arthur’s throne—with the power of Avalon behind you and Excalibur in your hand—then you can send Uriens back to his own land, there to rule as long as God wills.”
“And Arthur?”
“I mean Arthur no harm, either,” said Morgaine steadily. “I would not have him killed. But he shall dwell for three nights and three days in the land of Fairy, and when he returns, five years or more will have passed, and Arthur and his throne will be a tale remembered by the older men, and the danger of a priest rule long past.”
“But if he somehow finds his way out—“
Morgaine’s voice had trembled. “What of the King Stag when the young stag is grown? It must be with Arthur as the fates decree. And you will have his sword.”
Treachery, she thought, and her heart pounded as they rode through the dismal grey morning. Thin fog was rising from the Lake. I love Arthur. I would not betray him, but he first betrayed the oath he swore to Avalon.
She still felt queasy, the motion of the horse making it worse. She could not remember that she had been sick as this when she carried Gwydion —Mordred, she reminded herself. Yet it might be, when he came to the throne, that he would choose to rule in his own name, the name that had been Arthur’s and bore no taint of Christian rule. And when Kevin saw the thing already accomplished, no doubt he too would choose to support the new King of Avalon.
The fog was thickening, making Morgaine’s plan even simpler to follow. She shivered, pulling her cloak tight around her. It must be done now, or, as they skirted the Lake, they would turn southward to Cornwall. The fog was so thick already that she could hardly make out the forms of the three men-at-arms who rode ahead of them; twisting in her saddle, she saw that the three men behind were almost equally dim. But the ground for a little way before and behind them was clear, though overhead the fog was like a thick white curtain with no hint of sun or daylight.
She stretched out her hands, raising herself high in her saddle, whispering the words of the spell she had never dared use before. She felt a moment of pure terror—she knew it was only the coldness that came from power draining out of her body—and Uriens, shivering, raised his head and said peevishly, “Such fog as this I have never seen—we will surely be lost and have to spend the night on the shores of the Lake! Perhaps we should seek shelter at the abbey in Glastonbury—“
“We are not lost,” said Morgaine, the fog so thick that she could barely see the ground under her horse’s hooves. Oh, as a maiden in Avalon I was so proud that I spoke only truth! Is it queencraft, then, to lie, that I may serve the Goddess? “I know every step of the way we are going—we can shelter this night in a place I know near the shores, and ride on in the morning.”
“We cannot have come so far as that,” said Arthur, “for I heard the bells in Glastonbury ring the Angelus—“
“Sounds carry a long way in the fog,” Morgaine said, “and in fog such as this they carry further still. Trust me, Arthur.”
He smiled lovingly at her. “I have always trusted you, dear sister.”
Oh, yes; he had always trusted her, since that day when Igraine had placed him in Morgaine’s arms. At first she had hated the squalling thing, and then she had come to know that Igraine had abandoned and betrayed them both, and she must care for him, and had wiped away his tears ... impatient, Morgaine hardened her heart. That had been a lifetime ago. Since then Arthur had made the Great Marriage with the land and had betrayed it, giving the land he had sworn to protect into the hands of priests who would drive out the very Gods that fed the land and made it fertile. Avalon had set him on his throne, through her hand as priestess, and now ... Avalon, through her hand, would bring him down.
I will not hurt him, Mother ... yes, I will take from him the sword of the Holy Regalia and give it into the hands of one who will bear it for the Goddess, but I will never lay hand on him ... .
But what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?
That was the way of nature and could not be amended for the sake of her sentiment. Arthur would meet his fate unprotected by the spells he bore, by the scabbard she herself had made for him after she had gone to him in the Great Marriage, when she bore, still not knowing it, his child within her body. She had often heard his knights speak of his charmed life, of how he could take the worst of wounds and not lose blood enough to kill. She would not lay a hand upon her mother’s son and the father of her child. But the spell she had put upon him in the aftermath of her lost virginity, that she might withdraw from him, and then it must be with him as the Goddess willed.
The magical fog had thickened so much around them that Morgaine could hardly see Uriens’ horse. His face, angry and sullen, swam out of the mist. “Are you sure you know where you are leading us, Morgaine? I have never been here before, I would swear to it, I know not the curve of that hill ... ”
“I vow to you, I know every step of the way, fog or no fog.” At her feet Morgaine could see the curious little cluster of bushes unchanged from that day when she sought entry into Avalon, that day when she had feared to summon the boat. .. Goddess, she prayed to herself, not even a whisper, grant that the church bells ring not while I seek to enter, lest it vanish back into the fog and we find never our way into that country ... .
“This way,” she said, picking up her reins and digging her heels into her horse. “Follow me, Arthur.”
She rode swiftly into the fog, knowing they could not follow her so fast in this absence of light. Behind her she heard Uriens cursing, his voice cross and muffled, heard Arthur speak reassuringly to his horse. Suddenly an image flashed into Morgaine’s mind, of the skeleton of a horse bearing her own riding gear ... well, it must be as it must be. The fog had begun to thin, and suddenly they were riding in full daylight through the dappled trees. Clear green light spilled down, though they could see no sun, and she heard Arthur’s cry of surprise.
Out of the forest came two men who cried out in their clear voices, “Arthur, my lord! It is a pleasure to welcome you here!”
Arthur drew up his horse swiftly, lest he trample the men. “Who are you, and how do you know my name?” he demanded. “And what is this place?”
“Why, my lord, this is the Castle Chariot, and our queen has long desired to receive you as her guest!”
Arthur looked confused. “I did not know there was a castle in these parts. We must have ridden further than we thought in the fog.” Uriens looked suspicious, but Morgaine could see the familiar spell of the fairy lands falling over Arthur, so that it never occurred to him to question; as in a dream, whatever happened simply happened, and there was no need to question. But she must keep her wits about her ... .
“Queen Morgaine,” said one of the men, the dark beautiful people who seemed like ancestors or dream versions of the little dark people of Avalon, “our queen awaits and will gladly receive you. And you, my lord Arthur, you shall be taken to feast with us ... .”
“After all this riding in fog, a feast will be welcome,” said Arthur good-naturedly, and let the man lead his horse into the woods. “Do you know the queen of these lands, Morgaine?”
“I have known her since I was a young girl.”
And she mocked me ... and offered to rear my babe in the fairy world ... .
“It is surprising that she came never to Camelot to offer allegiance,” Arthur said, frowning. “I cannot remember, but it seems to me that I heard something of the Castle Chariot a long, long time ago ... but I cannot quite remember,” he said, dismissing it. “Well, in any case these people seem to be friendly. Give my compliments to the queen, Morgaine, and no doubt I shall see her at this feast.”
“No doubt,” Morgaine said, and watched the men lead him away.
I must keep my wits about me; I will use the beat of my heart to count the time, I will not lose track, or I shall be carried away and entangled in my own spells ... she braced herself to meet with the queen.
Unchanged she was, always the same, the tall woman who, nevertheless, had something of the look of Viviane about her, as if she and Morgaine were blood kin. And she embraced and kissed her as such.
“What brings you of your free will to our shores, Morgaine of the Fairies?” she asked. “Your knight is here, one of my ladies found him ... ” and she gestured, and Accolon was there. “They found him wandering along the reeds of the Lake, not knowing his way in the fog ... .”
Accolon gripped Morgaine’s hand; she felt it solid and real in hers ... yet she knew not even now whether they were within or out-of-doors, whether the glass throne of the queen was within a magnificent grove or within a great vaulted hall, more magnificent than the hall of the Round Table at Camelot.
Accolon knelt before the throne, and the queen pressed her hands on his head. She raised one of his wrists and the serpents seemed to move and twine round his arms, crawled away and sat there in the queen’s palm where she sat absently playing with them, petting their small blue darting heads. “Morgaine, you have chosen well,” she said. “I think not that this one would ever betray me. Look, Arthur has feasted well, and there he lies—“ and she gestured to where a wall seemed to open wide, and by pale light Morgaine saw Arthur, sleeping with one arm under his head and the other across the body of a young girl with long, dark hair, who seemed like a daughter of the queen—or like Morgaine herself.
“He will, of course, think that it was you, and that it is a dream sent him by the evil one,” said the queen, smiling, “so far he has moved from us that he will think shame to be given his dearest wish ... did you not know that, my Morgaine, my darling?” And it seemed to Morgaine that she heard Viviane’s voice, dreamlike, caressing her. But it was the queen who said, “So sleeps the King, in the arms of one he will love until he dies ... and what when he wakes? Will you take Excalibur and cast him out naked on the shores, seeking you always in the mists?”
Morgaine remembered suddenly the skeleton of a horse lying beneath the fairy trees ... . “Not that,” she said, shivering.
“Then he shall remain here, but if he is truly as pious as you say and thinks to say the prayers which will part him from illusion, it will vanish, and he will call out for his horse and for his sword—what then shall we do, lady?”
Accolon said grimly, “I will have the sword, and if he can get it again from me, he is welcome to it.”
The dark-haired maiden came to them, and in her hand she held Excalibur in its scabbard. “I had it from him while he slept,” she said, “and with it he called me by your name—“
Morgaine touched the jewelled hilt of the blade.
“Bethink you, child,” said the queen, “would it not be better to return the Holy Regalia at once to Avalon, and let Accolon make his way as King with only such a sword as he can get for himself?”
Morgaine trembled. It seemed very dark in the hall, or grove, or whatever it was, and did Arthur lie sleeping at her feet, or was he far away? But it was Accolon who reached out and grasped the sword.
“I will have Excalibur and the scabbard,” he said, and Morgaine knelt at his feet and belted it round his waist.
“Be it so, beloved—bear it more faithfully than he for whom I made this scabbard—“
“The Goddess forbid I should ever be false to you, though I die for it,” he whispered, his voice shaking with emotion, and raised Morgaine to her feet and kissed her; it seemed that they clung together till the shadow of the night faded and the queen’s sweet mocking smile seemed to shimmer around them.
“When Arthur calls for a sword he shall have one ... and something like to the scabbard, though it will not keep him from spilling a single drop of blood ... . Give it to my smiths,” she said to the maiden, and Morgaine stared as if in a dream—had it been in a dream that she had belted Excalibur round Accolon’s waist? The queen was gone and the damsel, and it seemed that she and Accolon lay alone in a great grove and that it was the time of the Beltane fires, and he took her into his arms, priest to priestess. And then they were no more than man and woman, and it seemed to her that time stopped, that her body melted into his as if she were without nerve or bone or will, and his kiss was like fire and ice on her lips ... . The King Stag should challenge him, and I must make him ready ... .
Why, how was it that she lay with him in the grove, signs painted on her naked body, how was it that her body was young and tender, how was it that when he bore his body down into hers there was tearing pain as if he took again the maidenhead she had laid down to the Horned One half a lifetime gone, so that she came maiden to him, as if all her life had never been? Why did it seem that there was a shadow of the antlers over his brow? Who was this man in her arms, and what had time been between them? He lay heavy across her, spent, the sweetness of his breath like honey to her love; she caressed him and kissed him, and as he moved a little away from her, she hardly knew who he was, whether the hair that brushed her face was shining with gold or dark, and it seemed that the little snakes crawled gently down her breasts, which were pink and tender and almost childish, half-formed. The tiny blue serpents twined around her nipples and she felt a thrill of exquisite pain and pleasure at the touch.
And then she knew that if, indeed, she wished it, time would return, and twist upon itself, and she could go forth from the cave on that morning with Arthur, and use her power to bind him to her forever, and none of it would ever have been ... .
And then she heard Arthur calling out for his sword, and crying out against these enchantments. Very far away and small, as if she were seeing him from midair, she watched him waken and she knew that their destiny, past and future, was in his hands. If he could face what had been between them, if he called her name and begged her to come to him, if he could admit to himself that it was only she that he had loved all these years and that none other had ever come between them ...
Then should Lancelet have Gwenhwyfar and then should I be queen in Avalon ... but queen with a child for a consort, and he would fall in his turn to the King Stag ... .
This time Arthur would not turn from her in horror at what they had done, she would not thrust him away with childish tears ... it seemed for a moment that all the world waited, echoing, for what Arthur would say ... .
He spoke and it seemed to ring like the knell of doom through all the world of Fairy, as if the very fabric of time trembled and the weight of years fell.
“Jesus and Mary defend me from all evil,” he said. “This is some wicked enchantment, wrought by my sister and her witchcraft!” He shuddered, and called out, “Bring me my sword!”
Morgaine felt it like a tearing pain in her heart. She reached out to Accolon, and again it seemed that there was the shadow of antlers above his brow, and once again Excalibur was belted about his waist—had it always been there?—and the serpents that had twined about her naked body were only fading blue stains about the man’s wrists.
She said steadily, “Look, they are bringing him a sword which is like to Excalibur—the fairy smiths have made it this night. Let him go, if you can. But if you cannot—well, do what you must do, beloved. And the Goddess be with you. I will await you in Camelot when you come thither in triumph.” And she kissed him and sent him from her.
Never till this moment had she faced it fully: one of them must die, brother or lover, the child she had held in her arms, the Horned One who had been lover and priest and king—
Whatever comes of this day, she thought, never again, never again shall I know a moment’s happiness, since one of those I love must die ... .
Arthur and Accolon had gone where she could not follow; there was still Uriens to be considered, and for a moment she considered abandoning him to the fairy realm. He would wander contentedly in the enchanted halls and woods till he died .. . no. There has been enough death, whatever happens, Morgaine thought, and turned her thoughts to watch Uriens, where he lay dreaming. Now he sat up as she approached him, looking happily drunken and befuddled. “The wine here is too strong for me,” he said. “Where have you been, my dear, and where is Arthur?”
Even now, she thought, the fairy maiden has brought Arthur the sword so like Excalibur that in enchantment he will believe it so ... ah, Goddess, I should have sent the sword back to Avalon, why must anyone else die for it? But without Excalibur, there was no way Accolon could reign as the new King from Avalon ... . When I am Queen, this land shall be at peace, and the minds of men free, with no priests to tell them what they must do and believe ... .
“Arthur has had to go on ahead of us,” she said gently. “Come, my dear husband, we must return to Camelot.” Such was the enchantment of the fairy country, she realized, that he never questioned this. Horses were brought to them, and the tall, beautiful people escorted them to a place where one of them said, “You can surely find your way from here.”
“How quickly the sunlight has gone,” Uriens complained, as a grey fog and rain seemed to condense suddenly and fall about them. “Morgaine, how long were we in the queen’s country? I feel as if I had been sick of a fever, or enchanted and wandering in a spell ... .”
She did not answer him. He too, she thought, had had some sport with the fairy maidens, and why not? She cared not how he amused himself, so that he let her alone.
A sharp twinge of sickness reminded her that never once in the fairy country had she thought of the pregnancy which burdened her, and now, when all would be awaiting her word, when Gwydion took the throne and Accolon reigned ... now she would be heavy of foot and sick, grotesque ... certainly she was too old to bear a child without risk. Was it too late to find the herbs that would rid her of that unwanted burden? Yet, if she could bear Accolon a son, at this time when the reign went into his hands, how much more would he value her as his queen? Could she sacrifice that hold over him? A child I could keep, a child I could hold in my own arms, a babe to love ...
She could still remember the sweetness of Arthur as a babe, his little arms around her neck. Gwydion had been taken from her, Uwaine had been nine years old when he learned to call her mother. It was a sharp pain and a sweetness beyond love, tugging at her body, the hunger to hold a child again ... yet reason told her that she could not, at her age, survive the bearing of another child. She rode at Uriens’ side as if in a dream. No, she could not survive the bearing of this child, and yet she felt she could not bear to take the irrevocable step that it should die unborn.
My hands will already be stained with the blood of one I love ... . Ah, Goddess, why do you try me thus? And it seemed that the Goddess wavered before her eyes, now like the fairy queen, now like Raven, solemn and compassionate, now like the Great Sow who had torn out Avalloch’s life ... and she will devour the child I bear ... . Morgaine knew that she was at the edges of delirium, of madness.
Later, I will decide it later. Now my duty is to get Uriens back to Camelot. She wondered how long she had been in the fairy world. Not, she supposed, more than a moon, or the child would make its presence more felt ... she hoped it had been only a few days. Not too few or Gwenhwyfar would wonder how they had come and gone so swiftly; not too many, or it would be too late to do what she knew she must do: she could not bear this child and live.
They arrived in Camelot at midmorning; the journey was, in truth, not very long. Morgaine was grateful that Gwenhwyfar was nowhere to be seen, and when Cai asked after Arthur, she told him, lying this time without a moment’s hesitation, that he had been delayed in Tintagel. If I can kill, lying is no sin so great, she thought, distracted, but somehow she felt contaminated by the lie, she was priestess of Avalon and she valued the truth of her words ... .
She took Uriens to his room; the old man was looking weary now and confused. He is growing too old to reign. Avalloch’s death was harder for him than I can know. But he too was reared to the truths of Avalon—what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?
“Lie down here, my husband, and rest,” she said, but he was fractious.
“I should set out for Wales. Accolon is too young to reign alone, the young puppy. My people need me!”
“They can spare you another day,” she soothed him, “and you will be stronger.”
“I have been too long away already,” he fretted. “And why did we not go on to Tintagel? Morgaine, I cannot remember why we came away! Were we truly in a country where the sun shone always ... ?”
She said, “I think you must have dreamed it. Why do you not sleep a little? Shall I send for some food for you? I do not think you have eaten this morning—“
But when the food came, the sight and smell of it turned her queasy again. She turned sharply away, trying to conceal it, but Uriens had seen.
“What is it, Morgaine?”
“Nothing,” she said angrily. “Eat, and rest.”
But he smiled at her, reaching out his hand to draw her to the bedside. He said, “You forget, I have been married before this—I know a breeding woman when I see one.” Clearly, he was delighted. “After all these many years—Morgaine, you are pregnant! But that is wonderful—one son is taken from me, but I have another—shall we call this one Avalloch if it is a son, my darling?”
Morgaine flinched. “You forget how old I am,” she said, and her face was like stone. “It is not likely I can carry this child long enough that it would live. Do not hope for a son of your old age.”
“But we will take good care of you,” said Uriens. “You must consult with one of the Queen’s own midwives, and if the ride home would make you likely to miscarry, then you must stay here till the child is born.”
She wanted to lash out at him, what makes you think it would be your child, old man? This was Accolon’s child, certainly ... but she could not dismiss the sudden fear that this was, indeed, Uriens’ child ... an old man’s child, weakly, some monster like Kevin ... no, she was surely mad! Kevin was no monster, but had suffered injuries—fire, burns, maiming in childhood, so that his bones had grown awry. But Uriens’ child would surely be twisted, deformed, sickly, and Accolon’s child would be healthy, strong ... and she, she was old almost past childbearing; would her child be some monster? Sometimes, when women bore babies in their old age, it was so. ... Was she mad, to let these fantasies turn and sicken her brain like this?
No. She did not want to die, and there was no hope she could bear this child and live. Somehow she must come by the herbs .. . but how? She had no confidante at court; none of Gwenhwyfar’s women could she trust enough to get her these things, and if it somehow became court gossip that old Queen Morgaine was pregnant by her still-older husband, how they would laugh!
There was Kevin, the Merlin—but she herself had turned him away, flung his love and loyalty back in his face . .. well, there must be midwives at court, and perhaps she could bribe one of them well enough to stop her mouth. She would tell some pitiful tale of how hard Gwydion’s birth had been, how she feared at her age to bear another. They were women, they would understand that well enough. And in her own bag of herbs she had one or two things—mixed with a third, harmless in itself, they would have the effect she wanted. She would not be the first woman, even at court, to rid herself of an unwanted child. But she must do it secretly, or Uriens would never forgive her ... in the name of the Goddess, what did it matter? By the time it could come to light, she would be Queen here at Arthur’s —no, at Accolon’s—side and Uriens would be in Wales, or dead, or in hell-She left Uriens sleeping and tiptoed from the room; she found one of the Queen’s midwives, asked her for the third, and harmless, herb, and returning to her room, mixed the potion over her fire. She knew it would make her deathly ill, but there was no help for it. The herb mixture was bitter as gall; she drank it down, grimacing, washed the cup, and put it away. If only she could know what was happening in the fairy country! If only she could know how her lover fared with Excalibur ... . She felt nauseated, but she was too restless to lie down on her bed beside Uriens; she could not bear to be alone with the sleeping man nor could she bear to close her eyes for fear of the pictures of death and blood that would torment her.
After a time she took her distaff and spindle and went down into the Queen’s hall, where she knew the women—Queen Gwenhwyfar and her ladies, even Morgause of Lothian—would be at their eternal spinning and weaving. She had never lost her distaste for spinning, but she would keep her wits about her, and it was better than being alone. And if it opened her to the Sight, well, at least she would be free of the torment of not knowing what befell the two she loved on the borders of the fairy country. ...
Gwenhwyfar welcomed her with a chilly embrace and invited her to a seat near the fire and Gwenhwyfar’s own chair.
“What are you working at?” Morgaine asked, examining Gwenhwyfar’s fine tapestry work.
The Queen proudly spread it out before her. “It is a hanging for the altar of the church—see, here is the Virgin Mary, with the angel come to tell her she will bear the son of God ... and there stands Joseph all in amazement—see, I have made him old, old with a long beard—“
“If I were old as Joseph, and my promised wife told me, after being closeted with such a handsome young man as yonder angel, that she were with child, I would ask myself some questions about the angel,” Morgause said irreverently. For the first time Morgaine wondered how miraculous had that virgin birth been after all? Who knew but the mother of Jesus had been ready to conceal her pregnancy with a clever tale of angels ... but after all, in all religions but that one, for a maiden to be pregnant by a God was nothing so strange ... .
I myself, she thought, at the edge of hysteria, taking a handful of carded wool and beginning to twirl the spindle, I myself gave up my maidenhood to the Homed One and bore a son to the King Stag ... will Gwydion set me on a throne in Heaven as Mother of God?
“You are so irreverent, Morgause,” Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine quickly complimented Gwenhwyfar on the fineness of her stitches and asked who had drawn the pattern for the picture.
“I drew it myself,” said Gwenhwyfar, surprising Morgaine; she had never believed Gwenhwyfar had talents of this sort. “Father Patricius has promised, too, that he will teach me to copy letters in gold and crimson,” the Queen said. “He says I have a good hand at it for a woman. ... I never thought I could do so, Morgaine, and yet you made that fine scabbard Arthur wears—he told me that you broidered it for him with your own hands. It is very beautiful.” Gwenhwyfar chattered on, as artlessly as a girl half her age. “I have offered to make him one, many times—I was offended that a Christian king should bear the symbols of heathendom, but he said it was made for him by his own dear, beloved sister and he would never lay it aside. And indeed it is beautiful work ... did you have gold threads made for it in Avalon?”
“Our smiths do beautiful work,” said Morgaine, “and their work in silver and gold cannot be bettered.” The spindle’s twirling made her sick. How long would it be before the wrenching sickness of the drug would seize on her? The room was close and seemed to smell of the stuffy, airless lives these women led, spinning and weaving and sewing, endless work so that men might be clothed ... one of Gwenhwyfar’s ladies was heavily pregnant and sat sewing on infant’s swaddling cloths ... another stitched an embroidered border to a heavy cloak for father or brother or husband or son ... and there was Gwenhwyfar’s fine stitchery for the altar, the diversion of a queen who could have other women to sew and spin and weave for her.
Round and round went the spindle; the reel sank toward the floor and she twisted the thread smoothly. When had she learned to do this work?
She could not even remember a time when she could not spin a smooth thread ... one of her earliest memories was of sitting on the castle wall at Tintagel, beside Morgause, spinning; and even then, her thread had been more even than her aunt’s, who was ten years her senior.
She said so to Morgause, and the older woman laughed. “You spun finer thread than I when you were seven years old!”
Round and round went the spindle, sinking slowly toward the stone floor; then she wound the thread up on her distaff and meanwhile twisted a fresh handful of wool. ... As she spun out the thread, so she spun the lives of men—was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning ... from the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud. Without us, the lives of men would be naked indeed ... .
... It seemed to her that, as in the kingdom of Fairy, she had looked through a great opening and seen Arthur asleep at the side of a maiden with her own face, so now a great space opened out, as if it were before her; and as the reel sank to the floor and the thread twisted, it seemed to spin out Arthur’s face as he wandered, sword in hand ... and now he whirled, to see Accolon, bearing Excalibur ... ah, they were fighting, she could not see their faces now, nor hear the words they flung at one another ... .
How fiercely they fought, and it seemed strange to Morgaine, watching dizzied as the spindle sank, twirled, rose, that she could not hear the clashing of the great swords ... Arthur brought down a great blow that would surely have killed Accolon had it struck him fair, but Accolon caught the blow on his shield and only took a wound in the leg—and the wound sliced without blood, while Arthur, taking a glancing blow on the shoulder, began suddenly to bleed, crimson streaks flowing down his arm, and he looked startled, afraid, one hand going in a swift gesture of reassurance to his side where the scabbard hung ... but it was the sham scabbard, wavering even now in Morgaine’s sight. Now the two were mortally locked together, struggling, their swords locked at the hilt as they grappled with their free hands for the advantage ... Accolon twisted fiercely, and the sword in Arthur’s hand, the false Excalibur made by fairy enchantments in a single night, broke off close below the hilt—she saw Arthur twist round in desperate avoidance of the killing blow and kick out violently. Accolon crumpled up in agony, and Arthur snatched the real Excalibur from his hand and flung it as far away as he could, then leaped on the fallen man and wrenched at the scabbard. As soon as he had it in his hand, the flow of blood from the great wound in his arm ceased to bleed, and in turn blood gushed forth from the wound in Accolon’s thigh ... .
Excruciating pain stabbed through Morgaine’s whole body; she doubled up with the weight of it. ...
“Morgaine!” said Morgause sharply, with a catch of breath; then called out, “Queen Morgaine is ill—come tend to her!”
“Morgaine!” Gwenhwyfar cried out. “What is it?”
The vision was gone. However she tried, she could not see the two men, nor which had prevailed, whether one of them lay dead—it was as if a great dark curtain had closed over them, with the ringing of church bells —in the last instant of the vision she had seen two litters carrying the wounded men into the abbey at Glastonbury, where she could not follow ... . She clung to the edges of her chair as Gwenhwyfar came, with one of her ladies, who knelt to raise Morgaine’s head.
“Ah, look, your gown is soaked with blood—this is not any ordinary bleeding.”
Morgaine, her mouth dry with the sickness, whispered, “No—I was with child and I am miscarrying—Uriens will be angry with me—“
One of the women, a plump jolly one about her own age, said, “Tsk! Tsk! For shame! So His Lordship of Wales will be angry, will he? Well, well, well, and who chose him for God? You should have kept the old billy goat out of your bed, lady, it is dangerous for a woman to miscarry at your age! Shame on the old lecher to put you so at risk! So he will be angry, will he?”
Gwenhwyfar, her hostility forgotten, walked beside Morgaine as they carried her, rubbing her hands, all sympathy.
“Oh, poor Morgaine, what a sad thing, when you had hoped all over again. I know all too well how terrible it must be for you, my poor sister ...” she repeated, holding Morgaine’s cold hands, cradling her shaking head when she vomited in the ghastly sickness that overcame her. “I have sent for Broca, she is the most skilled of the court midwives, she will look after you, poor dear ... .”
It seemed that Gwenhwyfar’s sympathy would choke her. Racked by repeated, agonizing pains, she felt as if a sword had thrust through her vitals, but even so, even so, it was not so bad as Gwydion’s birth had been, and she had lived through that ... shaking, retching, she tried to cling to consciousness, to be aware of what was going on around her. Maybe she had been ready to miscarry anyhow—it was surely too quick for the drug to have worked. Broca came, examined her, smelled at the vomited stuff, and raised her eyebrows knowingly. She said in an undertone to Morgaine, “Lady, you should have taken more care—those drugs can poison you. I have a brew which would have done what you wanted more quickly and with less sickness. Don’t worry, I won’t speak to Uriens—if he has no more sense than to let a woman of your years try to bear him a child, then what he does not know will do him no harm.”
Morgaine let the sickness take her. She knew, after a time, that she was more gravely ill than they had thought ... Gwenhwyfar was asking if at last she wanted to see a priest; she shook her head and closed her eyes, lying silent and rebellious, not caring now whether she lived or died. Since Accolon or Arthur must die, she too would go into that shadow ... why could she not see them, where they lay within Glastonbury, which of them would come forth? Surely the priests would tend Arthur, their own Christian king, but would they leave Accolon to die?
If Accolon must go into the shades, let him go with the spirit of his son to attend him, she thought, and lay with tears sliding down her face, hearing in some distant place the voice of the old midwife Broca. “Yes, it’s over. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but you know as well as I that she is too old to bear children. Yes, my lord, come and see—“ The voice was harsh with asperity. “Men never think of what they do, and all the bloody mess women have for men’s pleasure! No, it was all too soon to tell whether it would have been a boy or not, but she had had one fine son, I doubt not she would have borne you another, had she been strong enough and young enough to carry it!”
“Morgaine—dearest, look at me,” Uriens pleaded. “I am so sorry, so sorry you are ill, but don’t grieve, my darling, I still have two sons, I don’t blame you—“
“Oh, you don’t, do you?” said the old midwife, still truculent. “You had better not speak one word of blame to her, Your Majesty, she is still very weak and sick. We will have another bed put in here so that she may sleep in peace till she is quite well again. Here—“ and Morgaine felt a comforting woman’s arm under her head; something warm and comforting held to her lips. “Come, dear, drink this now, it has honey in it, and medicines to keep you from bleeding anymore—I know you are sick, but try to drink it anyhow, there’s a good girl—“
Morgaine swallowed the bittersweet drink, tears blurring her vision. For a moment it seemed that she was a child, that Igraine held her and comforted her in some childish sickness. “Mother—“ she said, and even as she spoke knew it was delirium, that Igraine had been dead for half a lifetime, that she was no child or maiden, but old, old, too old to lie here in this ugly way and so near death ... .
“No, Your Majesty, she doesn’t know what she’s saying—there, there, dear, you just lie still and try to sleep, we’ve got hot bricks on your feet and you’ll be warm in a minute—“
Soothed, Morgaine floated away into dream. Now it seemed to her that she was a child again in Avalon, in the House of Maidens, and that Viviane was speaking to her, telling her something she could not quite remember, something of how the Goddess spun the lives of men, and she handed Morgaine a spindle and bade her spin, but the thread would not come smooth, but tangled and knotted and at last Viviane, angry with her,said, "Here, give it to me ... " and she handed over the broken threads and the spindle; only it was not Viviane, either, but the face of the Goddess, threatening, and she was very small, very small ... spinning and spinning with fingers too small to hold the distaff, and the Goddess bore the face of Igraine ... .
She came to awareness a day or two later, cool-headed, but with a vast and empty ache in her body. She laid her hands over the soreness, and thought, grimly, / might have saved myself some pain; I should have known that I was ready to miscarry anyway. Well, done is done, and now I must ready myself to hear that Arthur is dead, I must think what I will do when Accolon returns —Gwenhwyfar shall go into a nunnery, or if she wishes to go beyond the seas to Less Britain with Lancelet, I will not stop them ... . She rose and dressed herself, made herself beautiful.
"You should keep your bed, Morgaine, you are still so pale," said Uriens.
"No. There are strange tidings coming, my husband, and we must be ready for them," she said, and went on braiding her hair with scarlet ribbons and gems. Uriens stood at the window and said, "Look, the Companions are practicing their military games—Uwaine, I think, is the best rider. Come, my dear, does he not ride as well as Gawaine? And that is Galahad at his side. Morgaine, don't grieve for the child you lost. Uwaine will always think of you as his mother. I told you when we were wedded, I would never reproach you for barrenness. I would have welcomed another child, but since it was not to be, well, we have nothing to grieve for. And," he said shyly, taking her hand, "perhaps it is better so—I did not realize how near I had come to losing you."
She stood at the window, his arm about her waist, feeling at one and the same time a feeling of revulsion and a gratitude for his kindness. He need never know, she thought, that it had been Accolon's son. Let him take pride that in his old age he could father a child.
"Look," said Uriens, craning his neck to see further, "what is that, coming through the gate?"
A rider, together with a monk in dark habit on a mule, and a horse bearing a body—"Come," she said, pulling at his hand, "we must go down now." Pale and silent, she moved at his side into the courtyard, feeling herself tall and commanding as befitted a queen.
It seemed that time stopped; as if they were again in the fairy country. Why was not Arthur with them, if he had triumphed? But if this was Arthur's dead body, where was the ceremony and pomp on the death of a king? Uriens reached to support her with his arm, but she thrust it away and stood clinging to the wood-framed door. The monk put back his hood and said, "Are you Queen Morgaine of Wales?"
"I am," she said.
"I have then a message for you," he said. "Your brother Arthur lies wounded in Glastonbury, nursed by the sisters there, but he will recover. He sends you this"—he waved his hand at the shrouded figure on the pack horse—"as a present, and he bid me say to you that he has his sword Excalibur, and the scabbard." And as he spoke he twitched away the pall covering the body, and Morgaine, all the strength in her body running out of her like water, saw Accolon's sightless eyes staring at the sky.
Uriens cried out, a great cry like death. Uwaine thrust his way through the crowd around the steps, and as his father fell, stricken, across the body of his son, Uwaine caught and supported him.
"Father, dear Father! Ah, dear God, Accolon," he said with a gasp, and stepped toward the horse where Accolon's body lay. "Gawaine, my friend, give my father your arm—I must see to my mother, she is fainting—"
"No," said Morgaine. "No." She heard her own voice like an echo, not even sure what she wanted to deny. She would have rushed to Accolon, flung herself on his body shrieking in despair and grief, but Uwaine held her tight.
Gwenhwyfar appeared on the stairway; someone explained the situation to her in a whisper, and Gwenhwyfar came down the steps, looking at Accolon. "He died in rebellion against the High King," she said clearly. "Let there be no Christian rites for him! Let his body be flung to the ravens, and his head hung on the wall as a traitor!"
"No! Ah, no," cried out Uriens, wailing. "I beg of you, I beg—Queen Gwenhwyfar, you know me one of your most loyal subjects, and my poor boy has paid for his crimes—I beg you, lady, Jesus too died a common criminal between thieves, and even for the thief on the cross at his side there was mercy ... . Show the mercy he would have shown ... ."
Gwenhwyfar seemed not to hear. "How does my lord Arthur?"
"He is recovering, lady, but he has lost much blood," said the strange monk. "Yet he bade you have no fear. He will recover."
Gwenhwyfar sighed. "King Uriens," she said, "for the sake of our good knight Uwaine, I will do as you wish. Let the body of Accolon be borne to the chapel and there laid in state—"
Morgaine found her voice to protest. "No, Gwenhwyfar! Lay him in earth decently, if you can find it in your heart to do so much, but he was no Christian—do not give him Christian burial. Uriens is so filled with grief he knows not what he says."
"Be still, Mother," said Uwaine, gripping her shoulder hard. "For my sake and my father's, bring no scandal here. If Accolon served not the Christ, then has he all the more need of God's mercy against the traitor's death he should have had!"
Morgaine wanted to protest, but her voice would not obey her. She let Uwaine guide her indoors, but once within the door she threw off his arm and walked alone. She felt frozen and lifeless. Only a few hours gone, it seemed to her, she had lain in Accolon’s arms in the fairy country, had belted the sword Excalibur at his waist ... now she stood knee-deep in a relentless tide, watching it all swept away from her again, and the world was filled with the accusing eyes of Uwaine and his father.
“Aye, I know it was you who plotted this treachery,” said Uwaine, “but I have no pity for Accolon, who let himself be led astray by a woman! Have decency enough, Mother, not to drag my father any further into your wicked schemes against our king!” He glared at her, then turned to his father, who stood as if dazed, clutching at some piece of furniture. Uwaine put the old man into a chair, knelt and kissed his hand. “Father dear, I am still at your side ... .”
“Oh, my son, my son—“ Uriens cried out, despairing.
“Rest here, Father, you must be strong,” he said. “But now let me care for my mother. She is ill, too—“
“Your mother, you call her!” Uriens cried out, starting upright and staring at Morgaine with implacable wrath. “Never again let me hear you call that abominable woman Mother! Do you think I know not that by her sorcery she led my good son into rebellion against his king? And now I think by her evil witchcraft she must also have contrived the death of Avalloch —aye, and of that other son she should have borne to me—three sons of mine has she sent down into death! Look out that she does not seduce you and betray you with her witchcraft, into death and destruction—no, she is not your mother!”
“Father! My lord!” Uwaine protested, and held out a hand to Morgaine. “Forgive him, Mother, he does not know what he is saying, you are beside yourselves with grief, both of you—I beg you in God’s name to be calm, we have had enough grief this day—“
But Morgaine hardly heard him. This man, this husband she had never wanted, he was all that was left of the wreck of her plans! She should have left him to die in the fairy country, but now he was doddering around in the fullness of his useless old life and Accolon was dead, Accolon who sought to bring back all that his father had pledged and forsworn, all that Arthur had vowed to Avalon and forsaken ... and nothing was left but this ancient dotard ... .
She snatched the sickle knife of Avalon from her girdle and thrust away Uwaine’s restraining arms. Rushing forward, she raised the dagger high; she hardly knew what it was she meant to do as it flashed down.
An iron grip caught her wrist, wrenching at the dagger. Uwaine’s hand came near to breaking her wrist as she struggled. “No, let it go ... Mother!” he pleaded. “Mother, is the Devil in you? Mother, look, it is only Father ... ah, God, can you not show some pity for his grief? He does not mean to accuse you, he is so miserable he does not know what he is saying, in his right mind he will know that what he says is wild nonsense ... I do not accuse you either ... Mother, Mother, listen to me, give me the dagger, dear Mother ... .”
The repeated cries of “Mother!” and the love and anguish in Uwaine’s voice finally reached down through the mist that blurred Morgaine’s eyes and mind. She let Uwaine wrench away the little knife, noticing, as if from a thousand leagues away, that there was blood on her fingers where the razor edge of the sickle had cut her as they struggled. His hand was cut too, and he put his finger in his mouth and sucked at it as if he had been ten years old.
“Father dear, forgive her,” Uwaine begged, bending over Uriens, who lay white as death. “She is distraught, she loved my brother too—and remember how ill she has been, she should not have left her bed today at all! Mother, let me send for your women to take you back to bed—here, you will want this,” he said, pressing the sickle back into her hand. “I know you had it from your own foster-mother, the Lady of Avalon, you told me that when I was just a little boy. Ah, poor little mother,” he said, encircling her shoulders with his arms. She could remember when she had been taller than he, when he was a thin little boy with bones as small and green as a bird’s, and now he towered over her, holding her gently against him. “Mother dearest, my poor little mother, come now, come, don’t cry, I know you loved Accolon just as you loved me—poor Mother—“
Morgaine wished that she could cry indeed, that she could let all this terrible grief and despair rush out of her with tears, as she felt Uwaine’s hot tears falling on her own forehead. Uriens too stood weeping, but she stood tearless and cold. The world seemed all grey, crumbling at the edges, and everything she looked on seemed to take on some giant menacing shape and yet to be very small and far away, as if she could pick it up like a toy ... she dared not move lest it should fall to bits at her touch, she hardly knew it when her women came. They took her stiff and unresisting body and lifted her and carried her to bed, they took off the queenly crown and the gown she had put on for her triumph, and distantly she knew that her shift and underlinen were soaked again with blood, but it seemed not to matter. A long time after, she came to herself and knew that she was washed clean and dressed in a clean shift and lying in bed beside Uriens, with one of her women drowsing on a stool at her side. She raised herself a little and looked down at the sleeping man, his face sunken and reddened with weeping, and it was as if she looked on a stranger.
Yes, he had been good to her in his own way. But now that is all past and my work in his land is done. I will never see his face again while I live, nor know where he lies in death.
Accolon was dead and her plans in ruins. Arthur still bore the sword Excalibur and the enchanted scabbard which gave him a charmed life, and since the one to whom she had entrusted that task had failed her, escaping into death where she could not follow, then she herself must be the hand of Avalon to strike him down.
Moving so silently that she would not have wakened a sleeping bird, she put on her clothes and tied the dagger of Avalon at her waist. She left all the fine gowns and jewels that Uriens had given her, wrapping herself in her plainest dark robe, not unlike the dress of a priestess. She found her little bag of herbs and medicines, and in the dark, by touch, she painted her brow with the dark moon. Then she took the plainest cloak she could find —not her own, embroidered with gold thread and precious stones, but a servant’s rough hooded wrap—and stole noiselessly down the stairs.
From the chapel she heard sounds of chanting; somehow Uwaine had arranged this over Accolon’s body. Well, it did not matter. Accolon was free, what did it matter what mummery the priests made with the tenantless clay? Nothing mattered now but reclaiming the sword of Avalon. She turned her back on the chapel. One day she would have leisure to mourn him; now she must carry on where he had failed.
She went silently into the stable and found her horse, managing to bind on the saddle with clumsy hands. She led the animal to the small side gate.
She was almost too dizzy to climb into the saddle, and for a moment she sat swaying, wondering if she would fall. Should she wait, or try to summon Kevin to attend her? The Merlin of Britain was vowed to follow the will of the Lady. But she could not trust Kevin either, he had betrayed Viviane into the hands of those priests who now chanted their hymns over Accolon’s helpless body. She whispered to the horse, felt him break into a trot beneath her, and from the foot of the hill turned back to look her last on Camelot.
I shall come here but once again in this life, and then there will no longer be a Camelot to which I might return. And even as she whispered the words, she wondered what they meant.
AS OFTEN AS MORGAINE had travelled to Avalon, she had only once set foot upon the Isle of the Priests; Glastonbury Abbey, where Viviane lay buried and Igraine, too, had spent her last years, was a stranger journey to her than the crossing of the mists into the hidden lands. There was a ferry there, and she gave the ferryman a small coin to row her across the Lake, wondering what the man would do if she suddenly rose as she would do with the Avalon barge and cast the spell that would lead it into the mists and bring it forth in Avalon ... but she did not. Is it only that I cannot? she asked herself.
The air was cool and fresh in the hour just before sunrise. Overhead, the sound of church bells was soft and clear, and Morgaine could see a long line of grey-robed forms pacing slowly toward the church. The brothers rose early to pray and chant their soft hymns, and for a moment Morgaine stood quiet, listening. Her mother, and Arthur’s, lay buried there. Viviane, too, had been laid to rest within the sound of those hymns. The musician in Morgaine, always quickly moved, listened to the soft song, borne on the early-morning breeze, and for a moment she stood motionless, tears burning her eyes; was she planning outrage on this holy soil? Let it go, let there be peace among you, children ... it seemed that it was Igraine’s forgotten voice murmuring to her.
Now all the grey forms were within the church. She had heard much of the abbey here ... she knew there was a brotherhood of monks, and at some distance from them, a house of nuns where women dwelt, vowed to be virgins of the Christ till they died. Morgaine wrinkled her face in distaste; a God who chose to keep men and women with their thoughts on Heaven rather than on this world, which had been given to them for learning and growing in spirit, seemed alien to her, and now that she actually saw men and women mingling this way in worship with no thought of any other touch or communication, she felt sickened. Oh yes, there were holy virgins in Avalon—she herself had been secluded that way till the proper time, and Raven had given not only her body but her very voice to the Goddess for her use. There was her own foster-daughter, Lancelet’s daughter Nimue, who had been selected by Raven to dwell unseen in solitude ... but the Goddess recognized that this was a rare choice, not one to be imposed on every woman who sought to serve her.
Morgaine did not believe what some of her companions in Avalon had said, that monks and nuns merely pretended holiness and chastity to impress the peasants with their purity and behind the closed doors of their monasteries did whatever wantonness they would. Yes, she would have despised that. Those who had chosen to serve spirit rather than flesh should do so in truth; hypocrisy was always disgusting. But the knowledge that they really lived that way, that any force calling itself divine could prefer barrenness to fruitfulness—that seemed to her a terrible betrayal of the very forces which gave life to the world.
Fools and worse, narrowing their lives and thus wishing to narrow all other lives to their own mean compass ...
But she must not linger here. She turned her back on the church bells and stole toward the guest house, her mind reaching out, calling on the Sight to lead her to where Arthur lay.
There were three women in the guesthouse—one dozing beside the door, another stirring a kettle of gruel in the kitchen at the back, and yet a third at the door of the room where very dimly she could feel Arthur’s presence; he was deep in slumber. But the women in their somber robes and veils stirred as she came; they were holy women in their own way, and they had something very like the Sight—in her presence they could sense something inimical to their lives, the touch, perhaps, of the strangeness of Avalon. One of them rose and confronted her, asking in a whisper, “Who are you, and why have you come here at this hour?”
“I am Queen Morgaine of North Wales and Cornwall,” Morgaine said in her low, commanding voice, “and I am here to see my brother. Will you dare to forbid me?”
She held the woman’s gaze, then waved her hand in the simplest of the spells she had been taught, to dominate, and the woman sank back, unable to speak or forbid her. Later, she knew, the woman would tell a tale of enchantments and of fear, but in truth it was no more than this: the simple domination of a powerful will over one which had been given up, deliberately, to submission.
A soft light burned inside the room, and by its dimness Morgaine could see Arthur, unshaven, haggard, his fair hair darkened with sweat. The scabbard was lying on the foot of his bed ... he must have anticipated some such action on her part, he would not let it out of his reach. And in his hand he held the hilt of Excalibur.
Somehow, somehow, his mind gave him warning. Morgaine was filled with dismay. He had the Sight, too; though he looked so fair and unlike the dark people of Britain, he too was of the ancient royal line of Avalon and he could reach her thoughts. She knew that if she reached out to take Excalibur from his hand, he would sense her intent, would wake—and he would kill her; she had no illusions about that. He was a good Christian, or so he thought himself, but he had been set on the throne to kill his enemies, and in some mystical way Morgaine only half understood, the sword Excalibur had grown entangled with the very soul and spirit of Arthur’s kingship. If it had not been so, if it had only been a sword, then would he have been willing to render it back to Avalon and had another made for himself, a stronger sword and a better ... but Excalibur had become for him the visible and ultimate symbol of what he was as King. Or perhaps it is the sword itself which has entangled itself with Arthur’s soul and kingship and will kill me of its own will, should I seek to take it from him ... and dare I set myself against the will of such a magical symbol? Morgaine started and told herself not to be fanciful. She laid her hand on her dagger; it was razor sharp and she could move, when she must, as swiftly as a striking snake. She could see the small vein in his throat and knew that if she could cut swift and deep to where the great artery lay beneath it, he would be dead almost before he could cry out.
She had killed before this. She had sent Avalloch without hesitation to his death, and not three days since, she had slain the harmless child in her womb ... he who lay sleeping before her was the greater traitor, surely. One stroke, swift and quiet... ah, but this was the child Igraine had placed in her arms, her first love, the father of her son, the Horned God, the King ... . Strike, fool! For this you came here!
No. There has been too much death. We were born from a single womb and I could not face my mother in the country beyond death, not with the blood of my brother on my hands, and for a moment, knowing she moved at the very edge of madness, she heard Igraine calling impatiently, Morgaine, I told you to take care of the baby ...
It seemed to her that he stirred in sleep, as if he too heard that voice; Morgaine slid the dagger back into its sheath, reached out her hand, and took the scabbard. This at least she had a right to take—with her own hands she had fashioned it, the spells she had woven into it were her own.
She hid the scabbard under her cloak and went swiftly out through the thinning darkness to the ferry. As the ferryman rowed her across, she felt the prickling of her skin and seemed to see, like a shadow, the barge from Avalon ... on the far shore they were all around her, the crew of the Avalon barge. Now quickly, quickly, she must get back again to Avalon ... but the sun was rising and the shadow of the church lay across the water, and suddenly the sun flooded the landscape and with the dawn a ringing of church bells was everywhere. Morgaine stood as if paralyzed; through that sound she could not summon the mists, nor speak the spell.
She said to one of the men, “Can you take us to Avalon? Quickly?”
He said, shivering, “I cannot, lady. It grows harder, without a priestess to speak the spell, and even so, at dawn and at noon and at sunset, when they ring the bells for prayer, there is no way to cross the mists. Not now. The spell no longer opens the way at these times, although, if we wait till the bells are silent, it may be that we can manage to return.”
Why, Morgaine wondered, should this be so? It had to do with the knowledge that the world was as it was because of what men believed it was ... year by year, these past three or four generations, the minds of men had been hardened to believing that there was one God, one world, one way of describing reality, and that all things which intruded on the realm of that great one-ness must be evil and of the fiends, and that the sound of the bells and the shadow of their holy places would keep the evil afar. And as more and more people believed this, it was so, and Avalon no more than a dream adrift in an almost inaccessible other world.
Oh yes, she could still call the mists ... but not here, not where the shadow of the church’s spire lay across the water and the clamor of the bells struck terror into her heart. They were trapped on the shores of the Lake! And now she was aware that a boat was pushing out from the shores of the priests’ Isle, to cross the Lake and find her here. Arthur had wakened and found her scabbard gone from him, and now would pursue her ... .
Well, let him follow her as he could, there were other ways into Avalon where the shadow of the church did not prevent her passage. She climbed quickly into her saddle and began to ride along the shores of the Lake, circling; she would come at last to a place where, at least in summer, she could cross through the mists; the place where she and Lancelet had once found Gwenhwyfar strayed from the nunnery. It was not Lake but swampland, and they could get into Avalon by the back way, behind the Tor.
She knew that the little dark men were running behind her horse, that they could run for half a day at her horse’s tail if they must. But now she heard hoofbeats ... she was pursued, Arthur was hard on her heels, and there were armed knights with him. She dug her feet into the horse’s side, but this was a lady’s horse, not intended for the chase ... .
She slid down her horse’s side, the scabbard in her hand. “Scatter,” she whispered to the men, and one by one it was as if they melted into the trees and mists... they could move like shadows if they must, and no man alive could find them if they did not want to be found. Morgaine grasped the scabbard in her hand and began to run along the shores of the Lake. In her mind she could hear Arthur’s voice, feel his rage ... .
He had Excalibur; she could feel it, like a great shining in her mind, the holy thing of Avalon ... but the scabbard he should never bear again. She took it in both hands, whirled it over her head, and flung it, with all her strength, far out into the Lake, where she saw it sink into the deep and fathomless waters. No human hand could ever reclaim it—there it would lie till leather and velvet rotted and the silver and gold thread tarnished and twisted and at last the spells woven into them vanished utterly from the world.
Arthur was riding in pursuit, Excalibur naked in his hand ... but she and her escort were gone. Morgaine drew herself into silence, a part of shadow and tree as if some essential part of herself had gone into Fairy; while she stayed there motionless, covered in the silence of a priestess, no one from the mortal world could see so much as her shadow ... .
Arthur shouted her name.
“Morgaine! Morgaine!” A third time he called, loud and angry; but the very shadows were still, and at last, confused from riding in circles— once he came so close that Morgaine could feel the breath of his horse— he wearied, and called to his escort, and they came to find him swaying in his saddle, the bandages slowly soaking through with blood, and they led him away the way they had come.
Then Morgaine raised her hand, and once again the normal sound of bird and wind and tree came back into the world.
MORGAINE SPEAKS ...
In later years I heard the tale told of how I took the scabbard by sorcery, and how Arthur rode after me with a hundred knights, and I too had a hundred fairy knights all round me; and when Arthur’s pursuit grew near, I turned myself and my men into ring stones ... . Someday, no doubt, they will add that when I had done, I called for my chariot with the winged dragons, and flew away into Fairy.
But it was not so. It was no more than this, that the little people can hide in the forests and become one with tree and shadow, and that day I was one of them, as I had been taught in Avalon; and when Arthur had been taken away by his escort, near to fainting with the long pursuit and the cold in his wound, I said farewell to the men of Avalon, and rode away to Tintagel. But when I came to Tintagel it mattered little to me what they did in Camelot, for I was sick even to death for a long time.
I know not, even now, what ailed me; I know only that summer faded and the leaves began to fall while I lay in my bed, tended by the servants I had found there, neither knowing nor caring whether I would ever rise. I know I had a low fever, a weariness so great that I could not force myself to sit upright or to eat, a heaviness of mind so great that I cared not whether I would live or die. My servants—one or two of them I recalled from the days when I lived there as a little child, with Igraine—thought me enchanted; and it may even have been true.
Marcus of Cornwall sent to me in homage, and I thought, Arthur’s star rides high, no doubt he believes that I have come here at Arthur’s will, and he will not —now—challenge Arthur even for these lands he believes his own. A year ago, I might have laughed at this, or even made common cause with Marcus, promising him lands here in return for leading a party of the disaffected against Arthur. And even now it crossed my mind; but with Accolon dead, it seemed to matter nothing. Arthur had Excalibur ... if the Goddess wished that it should be taken from him, she would have to come and take it herself, for I had failed, I was her priestess no more ... .
... I think it was that which hurt me worst, that I had failed, failed Avalon, that she had not put forth her hand to help me do her will. The strength of Arthur and the priests and of the traitor Kevin had been stronger than the magic of Avalon, and there was no one left.
No one left. No one. I mourned without ceasing for Accolon, and for the child whose life had barely begun before it was ended, cast aside like offal. I mourned too for Arthur, lost to me now, and my enemy, and, unbelievably, even for Uriens, and for the wreck of my life in Wales, the only peace I had ever known. I had killed or thrust from me or lost to death everyone in this world I had ever loved. Igraine was gone, and Viviane lost to death, murdered and lying among the priests of their God of death and doom. Accolon was gone, the priest I had consecrated to do that last battle against the Christian priests. Arthur was my enemy; Lancelet had learned to hate and fear me, and I was not guiltless for that hate. Gwenhwyfar feared and loathed me, even Elaine was gone now ... and Uwaine, who had been as my own son, hated me too. There was none to care whether I should live or die, and so I did not care either ... .
The last of the leaves had gone and the fearful storms of winter had begun to beat over Tintagel when one day one of my women came to me and said that a man had come to seek me.
“At this season?” I looked out beyond the window, where unceasing rain beat down from skies as grey and bleak as the inside of my own mind. What traveller would come through this bitter weather, struggling through storms and darkness? No; whoever he might be, I cared not. “Say to him that the Duchess of Cornwall sees no man, and send him away.”
“Into the rain on a night such as this will be, lady?” I was startled that the woman should protest; most of them feared me for a sorceress, and I was content to have it so. But the woman was right; Tintagel had never failed in hospitality when it was in the hands of my long-dead father, or of Igraine ... so be it. I said, “Give the traveller hospitality fitting his rank, and food, and bed; but tell him that I am ill, and cannot receive him.”
She went away and I lay watching the fierce rain and darkness, feeling its cold breath through the slit of the window and trying to find my way back into the peaceful blankness where now I felt most like myself. But after a very little, the door opened again and the woman returned, and I started upright, shaking with anger, the first emotion I had let myself feel in many weeks.
“I have not summoned you, and I did not bid you return! How dare you?”
“I am charged with a message for you, lady,” she said, “a message I didn’t dare say no to, not when one of the high ones speaks ... . He said, ‘I speak not to the Duchess of Cornwall but to the Lady of Avalon, and she cannot refuse the Messenger of the Gods when the Merlin seeks audience and counsel.’ “ The woman paused and said, “I hope I’ve got it right ... he made me say it over twice to be sure I had it all.”
Now, against my will, I felt the stirrings of curiosity. The Merlin? But Kevin was Arthur’s man, surely he would not have come like this to me. Had he not aligned himself firmly with Arthur and with the Christians, traitor to Avalon? But perhaps some other man now held that office, Messenger of the Gods, Merlin of Britain ... and now I thought of my son Gwydion, or Mordred as I supposed I must now think of him; perhaps this was his office, for he alone would now think of me as Lady of Avalon ... . After a long silence, I said, “Tell him I will see him, then.” After a moment I added, “But not like this. Send someone to dress me.” For I knew that I was too weak to put on my own clothes. But I would not receive any man this way, weak and ill and in my bedchamber; I, who was priestess of Avalon, would manage to stand on my feet before the Merlin, even if what he brought was sentence of death for all my failure ... I am still Morgaine!
I managed to rise, to have my dress put on and my shoes, and my hair braided down my back and covered with the veil of a priestess; I even painted, after the woman’s clumsy hands had twice botched it, the symbol of the moon on my forehead. My hands—I noted it incuriously, as if they belonged to someone else—were shaking, and I was weak enough that I let the woman give me her arm as I crawled down the steep stairs. But the Merlin should not see my weakness.
A fire had been built in the hall; the fire was smoking a little, as always here when it rained, and through the smoke I could see only a man’s figure seated by the fire, turned away from me, draped in a grey cloak—but at his side stood a tall harp I could not mistake; from My Lady I knew the man. Kevin’s hair was all grey now, but he dragged his stooped body upright as I came in.
“So,” I said, “you call yourself still Merlin of Britain, when you serve only Arthur’s will and defy that of Avalon?”
“I know not what to call myself now,” said Kevin quietly, “save perhaps servant of those who serve the Gods, who are all One.”
“Why have you come here, then?”
“Again, I know not,” said the musical voice I had loved so well, “save perhaps in repayment of some debt laid down before these hills were raised, my dear.” Then he raised his voice to the serving-woman.
“Your lady is ill! Get her to a seat!”
My head was swimming and a grey mist seemed to waver around me; the next thing I knew I was seated by the fire across from Kevin, and the woman was gone.
He said, “Poor Morgaine, poor girl,” and for the first time since Accolon’s death had turned me to stone, I felt that I could weep; and clenched my teeth against the weeping, for if I shed one tear, I knew that everything within me would melt, and I would cry and cry and cry and never cease crying until I melted into a very lake of tears ... .
I said tightly, clenched, “I am no girl, Kevin Harper, and you have won your way to my presence falsely. Now say what you will say, and go your way.”
“Lady of Avalon—“
“I am not,” I said, and remembered that the last time I saw this man, I had driven him from my presence, shrieked at him, called him traitor. It seemed not to matter; perhaps it was fate that two traitors to Avalon should sit here before this fire, for I too had betrayed my oath to Avalon ... how dared I judge Kevin?
“What then are you?” he asked quietly. “Raven is old, and silent now for years. Niniane will never have the power to rule. You are needed there—“
“When last we spoke,” I interrupted him, “you said Avalon’s day was done. Why then should there be any to sit in Viviane’s place except a child half-fated for that high office, waiting for the day when Avalon fades forever into the mists?” I felt a scalding bitterness in my throat. “Since you have forsaken Avalon for the banner of Arthur, will it not make your task easier if none reigns in Avalon save an ancient prophetess and a powerless priestess ... ?”
“Niniane is Gwydion’s love and his creature,” said Kevin. “And it comes to me that your voice and your hands are needed there. Even if Avalon is fated to pass away into the mists, will you refuse to pass with it? I never thought you a coward, Morgaine.” And then he raised his eyes to mine and said, “You will die here, Morgaine, die of grief and exile ...”
I turned my face away and said, “For that I came here ...” and for the first time I knew indeed that I had come here to die. “All I have tried to do is in ruin, I have failed, failed ... it should be your triumph, Merlin, that Arthur has won.”
He shook his head. “Ah, no, my dear, no triumph,” he said. “I do what the Gods have given me to do, no more, and you do the same. And indeed if your doom shall be to see the end of the world we have known, why then, my dearest love, let that doom find us each in our appointed place, serving what our God has given us to serve ... . It is laid on me to recall you to Avalon, Morgaine, I know not why. My task would be simpler with only Niniane there, but, Morgaine, your place is in Avalon, and mine where the Gods shall decree. And in Avalon you can be healed.”
“Healed.” I said it in contempt. I did not care.
Kevin looked at me sadly. “My dearest love,” he had called me. It seemed to me now that he was the one person alive who knew me as I was; before every other person alive, even Arthur, I had worn a different face, seeking always to appear other and better than I was; even to Viviane, that she might find me more worthy to be a priestess ... . For Kevin I was Morgaine, thus and no other. It came to me that even if I stretched forth my hand to him as the Death-crone he would see nothing but my own face, Morgaine. ... I had always felt that love was other than this, was that burning I had felt for Lancelet,for Accolon. For Kevin I had felt little save for that detached compassion, friendship, kindness; what I had given him had meant but little to me, and yet... and yet he alone had taken thought to come to me, to care whether or no I died here of grief.
But how dared he break in upon my peace, when I had almost won through to that utter quiet which was beyond life? I turned away from him and said, “No.” I could not come back to life again, could not struggle and suffer, and live with the hatred of those who had once loved me ... . If I lived, if I returned to Avalon, I must enter again into a death struggle with Arthur whom I loved, I must see Lancelet still in Gwenhwyfar’s prison of love. I had ceased to care, I could endure no further the pain that was in my heart ... .
No. I was here, in silence and peace, and before long, I knew it now, I would pass even further into peace ... the dizziness that was near to death was drawing closer and ever closer, and this Kevin, this traitor, would bring me back? I said, “No,” again and turned away, my hands covering my face. “Leave me in peace, Kevin Harper. Hither I came to die. Leave me now.”
He did not move, nor did he speak, and I sat very still, my veil over my face. After a little time, surely, now he would arise and leave me, for I had not the strength to go forth from him. And I... I would sit here until I was carried back to my bed by the women, and then I would never rise again.
And then, into the silence, I heard the soft sound of the harp. Kevin played, and after a moment he sang.
I had heard a part of this ballad, for he had sung it often at Arthur’s court, of that bard in ancient times, sir Orfeo, who made the trees to dance and the stones on the plain to stand in a ring and dance, and all the beasts of the wood to come and lay themselves at his feet when they should have rent him with their claws. But beyond that, today, he sang the other part of the song, which was a Mystery, and which I had never heard before. He sang of how the initiate, Orfeo, had lost her that he loved, and had descended into the Afterworld and spoken there before the Lords of Death, and pleaded for her, and was given permission to go into the dark lands, and bring her forth, and then he had found her there on the Undying Plains ... .
And then his voice spoke from the soul ... and I heard what seemed my own voice pleading.
“Seek not to bring me forth, when I am resigned to stay here in death. Here within these undying lands all is at rest, with neither pain nor struggle; here can I forget both love and grief.”
The room faded away around me; no longer could I smell the smoke from the fireplace, the chill breath of rain beyond the window, I was no longer conscious of my own body, ill and dizzy where I sat. It seemed to me that I stood in a garden filed with scentless flowers and eternal peace, with only the distant voice of the harp breaking unwillingly through the silence. And that harp sang to me, undesired.
It sang of the wind from Avalon, with the breath of apple blossom and the smell of ripened apples in their season; it brought to me the cool freshness of the mist over the Lake, and the sounds of the running deer deep in the forest where the little folk live still, and it brought me the sun-soaked summer where I lay in the sun beneath the ring stones, with Lancelet’s arms round me and the blood of life rising like sap within my veins for the first time. Then I felt again in my arms the heavy softness of my little son, his soft hair against my face, his milky breath sweet and soft ... or was it Arthur himself in my lap, clinging to me, his little hands patting my cheek ... again Viviane’s hands touched my brow in blessing, and I felt myself a bridge between earth and sky as I stretched my own hands forth in invocation ... high winds swirled through the grove where I lay with the young stag in the darkness of the eclipse, and Accolon’s voice spoke my name ... .
And now it was not the harp alone but the voices of the dead and the living crying out to me: “Return again, return, life itself is calling you with all its pleasure and pain ...” and then a new note came into the voice of the harp.
“It is I who calls you, Morgaine of Avalon ... priestess of the Mother ...”
And I raised my head, seeing not Kevin’s twisted body and sorrowing features, but where he had stood was Someone, tall and shining, a sunlit glory about his face and in his hands the shining Harp and Bow. I caught my breath before the God, as the voice sang on ... “Return to life, return again to me ... you who have sworn ... life awaits you beyond this darkness of death. ...”
I struggled to turn away. “It is not the God who can command me, but the Goddess. ...”
“But,” said the familiar voice in the silence of that eternity, “you are the Goddess and it is I who call you ...” and for a moment, as if in the calm waters of the mirror of Avalon, I saw myself robed and crowned with the high crown of the Lady of Life ... .
“But I am old, old, I belong now to death, not to life ... ”I whispered, and in the silence, words heard again and again in ritual suddenly came to life on the lips of the God.
“ ... she will be old and young as it shall please her ...” and before my eyes my own mirrored face was again young and fair as the maiden who had sent forth the young stag to challenge the running deer ... yes, and I had been old when Accolon came to me, yet I had sent him forth to the challenge heavy with his child ... and even old and barren, yet life pulsed within me as within the eternal life of the earth and the Lady ... and the God stood before me, the eternal One who summoned me forth to life ... and I took one step and then another, and then I was climbing, climbing from the darkness, following the distant notes of the harp that sang to me of the green hills of Avalon, and the waters of life ... and then I found I was on my feet, reaching for Kevin ... and he put the harp gently aside and caught me, half-fainting, in his arms. And for a moment the shining hands of the God burned me ... and then it was only Kevin’s sweet, musical, half-mocking voice that said, “I cannot hold you, Morgaine, as well you know,” and he placed me gently into my chair. “When did you eat last, Morgaine?”
“I cannot remember,” I confessed, and suddenly I was aware of my deathly weakness; he called the serving-woman and said, speaking in the gently authoritative voice of a Druid and a healer, “Bring your mistress some bread and some warmed milk with honey.”
I raised a hand to protest, and the woman looked indignant, and now I remembered that twice she had tried to coax me to eat with these very things. But she went to do his bidding, and when she returned, Kevin took the bread and soaked it in the milk and fed it to me, gently, a few mouthfuls at a time.
“No more,” he said. “You have been fasting too long. But before you sleep, you must drink a little more milk with an egg beaten into it... I will show them what to do. The day after tomorrow, perhaps, you will be strong enough to ride.”
And suddenly I began to cry. I wept, at last, for Accolon lying dead on his pall, and for Arthur who hated me now, and for Elaine who had been my friend ... and for Viviane, lying dead beneath a Christian tomb, and for Igraine, and for myself, for myself who had lived through all these things ... and he said again, “Poor Morgaine, poor girl,” and held me against his bony breast, and I cried and cried until at last I was quiet, and he called my women to carry me to my bed.
And for the first time in many days, I slept. And two days later, I rode to Avalon.
I remember little of that northward journey, sick in body and mind. I did not even wonder that Kevin left me before I came to the Lake. I came to those shores at sunset, when the waters of the Lake seemed to run crimson and the sky was all afire; and out of the flame-colored water and sky appeared the barge, painted and draped all in black, oars muffled to the silence of a dream. And for a moment it seemed to me that it was the Sacred Boat on that shoreless sea of which I may not speak, and that the dark figure at the prow was She, and that somehow I bridged the gap between earth and sky ... but I do not know whether that was real or a dream. And then the mists fell over us, and I felt within my very soul that shifting which told me I was once again within my own place.
Niniane welcomed me at the shore, taking me in her arms, not as the stranger I had seen but twice, but as a daughter greets a mother she has not seen for many years; then she took me away to the house where once Viviane had dwelt. She did not, this time, send young priestesses to tend me, but cared for me herself, putting me to bed in the inner room of the house, bringing me water from the Sacred Well; and when I tasted it, I knew that although the healing would be long, I was not yet beyond healing.
I had known enough of power. I was content to lay down the burdens of the world; it was time to leave that to others, and to let my daughters tend me. Slowly, slowly, in the silence of Avalon, I recovered my strength. There at last I could mourn for Accolon—not for the ruin of my hopes and plans ... I could see now what madness they had been; I was priestess of Avalon, not Queen. But I could mourn the brief and bitter summer of our love; I could grieve, too, for the child who had not lived long enough to be born, and suffer once again that it had been my own hand that had sent him into the shades.
It was a long season of mourning, and there were times when I wondered if I should mourn all my life and never again be free of it; but at last I could remember without weeping, and recall the days of love without unending sorrow welling up like tears from the very depths of my being. There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams, I never saw again his face, and though I longed for it, I came at last to see that it was just as well, lest I live all the rest of my life in dreams ... but at last there came a day when I could look back and know that the time for mourning was ended; my lover and my child were on the other shore, and even if I should somehow meet them beyond the gates of death, none of us would ever know ... but I lived, and I was in Avalon, and it was my task now to be Lady there.
I do not know how many years I dwelt in Avalon before the end. I remember only that I floated in a vast and nameless peace, beyond joy and sorrow, knowing only serenity and the little tasks of every day. Niniane stood ever at my side; and I came, too, to know Nimue, who had grown to a tall, silent, fair-haired maiden, as fair as Elaine when first I knew her. She became to me the daughter I had never known, and day after day she came to me, and I taught her all those things I had learned from Viviane in my own early years in Avalon.
In those last days, too, there were some who had seen the tree of the Holy Thorn in its first flowering for the followers of Christ, and worshipped their Christian God in peace, seeking not to drive out the beauty of the world, but loving it as God made it. In those days they came in numbers to Avalon to escape the harsh and shrivelling winds of persecution and bigotry. Patricius had set up new forms of worship, a view of the world wherein there was no room for the real beauty and mystery of the things of nature. From these Christians who came to us to escape the bigotry of their own kind I learned something, at last, of the Nazarene, the carpenter’s son who had attained Godhead in his own life and preached a rule of tolerance; and so I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his.
I know not whether it was three years, or Jive, or even ten, before the end. I heard whispers of the outside world like shadows, like the echo of the church bells we heard sometimes even on that shore. I knew when Uriens died, but I did not mourn him; he had been dead to me for many years, but I could hope that in the end he had found some healing for his griefs. He had been kind to me as best he might, and so let him rest.
Now and again some rumor of Arthur’s deeds and those of the knights would come to me, but in the serenity of Avalon it seemed not to matter; those deeds sounded like old tales and legends, so that I never knew whether they spoke of Arthur and Cai and Lancelet, or of Llyr and the children of Da’ana; or when tales were whispered of the love of Lancelet and Gwenhwyfar, or later, of Marcus’ wife, Isotta, and young Drustan, they were not after all retelling some old tale of Diarmid and Grainne from the ancient days. It seemed not to matter, it seemed that I had heard all these tales long ago in my childhood.
And then, one spring when the land lay beautiful before us and the first apple trees of Avalon were white with blossom, Raven broke silence with a cry, and perforce my mind returned to the things of that world I had hoped to leave forever behind.
The sword, the sword of the Mysteries is gone ... now look to the cup, now look to all of the Holy Regalia ... it is gone, it is gone, taken from us ... .”
Morgaine heard the cry out of sleep, and yet, when she tiptoed to the door of the room where Raven slept, alone and in silence as ever, the women who attended her slept; they had not heard that cry.
“But there is nothing but silence, Lady,” they told her. “Are you certain it was not an evil dream?”
“If it was an evil dream, then it came to the priestess Raven as well,” Morgaine said, staring at the untroubled faces of the girls. It seemed to her that with every passing year, the priestesses in the House of Maidens grew younger and more like children ... how could little girls like this be entrusted with the holy things? Maidens whose breasts had scarcely formed ... what could they know of the life of the Goddess which was the life of the world?
Again, it seemed, that shattering cry rang through Avalon, rousing alarm everywhere, but when Morgaine asked, “There—did you hear?” they looked at her again in dismay and said, “Do you dream now, Lady, with your eyes wide open?” and Morgaine realized that in the bitter cry of terror and grief there had been no actual sound.
She said, “I will go to her—“
“But you may not do that—“one of them began, then stepped back, her mouth open, as she realized the full meaning of who Morgaine was, and she bent her head as Morgaine stepped past her.
Raven was sitting up in bed, her long hair flung about her in mad disarray, and her eyes wild with terror; for a moment Morgaine thought that indeed her mind had overheard some evil dream, that Raven walked in the worlds of dream ... .
But she shook her head and then she was wide awake and sober. She drew a long breath, and Morgaine knew that she was struggling to speak, to overcome the years of silence; now it was as if her voice would not obey her.
At last, trembling all over, she said, “I saw—I saw it ... treachery, Morgaine, within the very holy places of Avalon. ... I could not see his face, but I saw the great sword Excalibur in his hand ... ”
Morgaine put out a hand, quieting her. She said, “We will look within the mirror when the sun rises. Do not trouble yourself to speak, my dearest.” Raven was still trembling; Morgaine put her hand firmly over Raven’s, and by the flickering light of the torch, she saw that her own hand was lined and spotted with the dark spots of age, that Raven’s fingers were like twisted ropes around the narrow, fine bones. We are old, she thought, both of us, who came here maidens in attendance on Viviane ... ah Goddess, the years that pass ... .
“But I must speak now,” Raven whispered. “I have been silent too long ... I kept silence even when I feared this would come ... listen to the thunder, and the rain—a storm is coming, a storm to break over Avalon and sweep it away in the flood ... and darkness over the land ... ”
“Hush, my dear! Be still,” Morgaine whispered, and put her arms around the shaking woman, wondering if her mind had snapped, if this was all an illusion, a fever dream ... there was no thunder, no rain, outside the moon was shining brilliantly over Avalon and the orchards white with blossom in the moonlight. “Don’t be frightened. I will stay here with you, and in the morning we shall look into the mirror and see if any of this is real.”
Raven smiled, a sad smile. She took Morgaine’s torch and put it out; in the sudden darkness Morgaine could see, through the chinks in the wattle, a sudden flare of lightning in the distance. Silence; and then, very far away, a low thundering. “I do not dream, Morgaine. The storm will come, and I am afraid. You have more courage than I. You have lived in the world and known real sorrows, not dreams ... but now, perhaps, I must go forth and break silence forevermore ... and I am afraid ... .”
Morgaine lay down beside her, pulling Raven’s cover over them both, and took Raven in her arms to still her shaking. As she lay quiet, listening to the other woman’s breathing, she remembered the night she had brought Nimue there, and how Raven had come to her then, welcoming her to Avalon ... why does it seem to me now that of all the love I have known, that is the truest ... but she only held Raven gently, the other woman’s head on her shoulder, soothing her. After a long time there was a great clap of thunder, startling them, and Raven whispered, “You see?”
“Hush, my dear, it is only a storm.” And as she spoke the rain came down, rushing and rattling, bringing a chilly wind within the room, drowning speech. Morgaine lay silent, her fingers just entwined with Raven’s, and thought, It is only a storm, but something of Raven’s terror communicated itself to her and she felt herself shivering too.
A storm that will drive down out of Heaven and smash into Camelot, and scatter the years of peace that Arthur has made in this land ...
She tried to call the Sight to her, but the thunder seemed to drown thoughts; she could only lie close to Raven repeating to herself again and again, It is only a storm, a storm, rain and wind and thunder, it is not the wrath of the Goddess ... .
AFTER A LONG TIME the storm subsided, and she woke to a world new-washed, the sky pallid and cloudless, water shimmering on every leaf and raining down from every blade of grass, as if the world had been dipped in water and not dried or shaken. If Raven’s storm were to break in truth over Camelot, would it leave the world thus beautiful in its wake? Somehow she thought not.
Raven woke and looked at her, wide-eyed with dread. Morgaine said, quiet and practical as always, “We shall go to Niniane at once, then to the mirror before the sun rises. If the wrath of the Goddess is to descend on us, we must know how and why.”
Raven gestured her silent assent, but when they were dressed and about to leave the house, Raven touched Morgaine’s arm. “Go to Niniane,” she whispered, with the racking struggle to make her unused voice do her bidding. “I will bring—Nimue. She too is part of this ... .”
For a moment Morgaine was startled almost to protest; then, with a glance at the paling sky in the east, she went. It might be that Raven had seen, in the evil dream of prophecy, the reason that Nimue had been brought here and kept in seclusion. Remembering the day when Viviane had told her of her own mission, she thought, Poor girl! But it was the will of the Goddess, they were all in her hands. As she went silent and alone through the wet orchard, she could see that all was not so calm and beautiful after all... the wind had ravaged the blossoms and the orchard lay under a white drift like snow; there would be little fruit this autumn.
We may plant the grain and till the soil. But only her favor brings the fruit to harvest ... .
Why then do I trouble myself? It will be as she wills ... .
Niniane, roused from sleep, looked at her as if she were mad. She is no true priestess, Morgaine thought; the Merlin spoke the truth—she was chosen only because she was Taliesin’s kin. The time has come, perhaps, to stop pretending who is truly the Lady of Avalon and take my proper place. She did not want to offend Niniane, or seem to strive for power and set the younger woman down, she had had enough of power ... but no true priestess, chosen of the Goddess, could have slept through Raven’s cry. Yet somehow this woman before her had passed through the ordeals which go to the making of a priestess; the Goddess had not rejected her. What would the Goddess have her do?
“I tell you, Niniane, I have seen it and so has Raven ... we must look before sunrise into the mirror!”
“I put not much faith in such things, either,” said Niniane quietly. “What must come, will surely come ... but if you will, Morgaine, I will go with you—“
Silent, like spots of blackness in the white and watery world, they moved toward the mirror below the Sacred Well. And as they went Morgaine could see, like a shadow at the corner of her eyes, the tall silent form of Raven, veiled, and Nimue like a pale shadow, all blossom and pale flowers like the morning. Morgaine was struck at the girl’s beauty—even Gwenhwyfar in the fullest flush of her youth had never been so beautiful. She felt a wild stab of pure jealousy and anguish. I had no such gift from the Goddess in return for all I must sacrifice ...
Niniane said, “Nimue is a maiden. It is she who must look into the mirror.”
Their four dark forms were reflected in the pallid surface of the pool, against the pale reflection of the sky, where a few pale-pink streaks were beginning to herald the sunrise. Nimue moved to the edge of the pool, parting her long fair hair with both hands, and Morgaine found herself seeing in her mind the surface of a silver bowl, and Viviane’s stilled, hypnotic face ... .
Nimue said in a low, wandering voice, “What would you that I should see, my mother?”
Morgaine waited for Raven to speak, but there was only silence. So Morgaine said at last, “Has Avalon been breached and fallen victim to treachery? What has befallen the Holy Regalia?”
Silence. Only a few birds chirped softly in the trees, and the soft sound of water rippled, falling from the channel which overflowed from the Well to make this still pool. Below them on the slopes Morgaine could see the white drifts of the ruined orchards, and high above, the pale shapes of the ring stones atop the Tor.
Silence. At last Nimue stirred and whispered, “I cannot see his face ... ” and the pool rippled, and it seemed that Morgaine could see a hunched form, moving slowly and with difficulty ... the room where she had stood silent that day behind Viviane, when Taliesin laid Excalibur in Arthur’s hand and she heard his voice forbidding ...
“No—it is death to touch the Holy Regalia unprepared ... .” For amoment Morgaine could hear the voice of Taliesin, not Nimue’s voice ... but he had the right, he was the Merlin of Britain, and he took them from the hiding place, spear and cup and dish, and hiding the holy things under his cloak, he went out and across the Lake to where Excalibur gleamed in the darkness ... the Holy Regalia now reunited.
“Merlin!” whispered Niniane aloud. “But why?”
Morgaine knew her face was like stone as she said, “Once he spoke of this to me. He said that Avalon was now outside the world, and that the holy things must be within the world to the service of man and the Gods, by whatever name men called them ... .”
“He would profane them,” Niniane said hotly, “and put them to the use of that God who would drive out all other Gods ... .”
In the silence, Morgaine heard the chanting of monks. Then the sunlight touched the mirror and turned it all to shooting fire which flooded her head and eyes, burning, blazing, and in the glare of the rising sun it seemed as if all the world burned in the light of a naming cross ... . She shut her eyes, covering her face with her hands.
“Let them go, Morgaine,” whispered Raven. “The Goddess will certainly care for her own. . ^ .”
Again Morgaine could hear the chanting of the monks—Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison ... Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy.... The Holy Regalia were but tokens, surely the Goddess had let this befall them as a sign that Avalon needed these things no more, that they should go into the world and be in the service of men ... .
The flaming cross burned still before Morgaine’s eyes; she covered them and turned away from the light. “Even I cannot abrogate the Merlin’s vow. He swore a great oath and made the Great Marriage with the land in the King’s stead, and now he is forsworn and his life forfeit. But before I deal with the traitor, I must deal with the treachery. The Regalia must be returned to Avalon, even if I must bring them hither again with my own hands. I will go forth to Camelot at dawn.” And she suddenly saw her plan complete as Nimue whispered, “Must I go forth too? Is it mine to avenge the Goddess?”
She, Morgaine, would deal with the Holy Regalia. They had been left in her care, and if only she had taken her proper place here instead of revelling in sorrow and considering her own comfort, this could never have come to pass. But Nimue should be the instrument of the traitor’s punishment.
Kevin had never seen Nimue. Of all those who dwelt on Avalon, the Merlin had never seen that one who dwelt in seclusion and silence. And as always transpires when the Goddess brings down punishment, it should be the Merlin’s own undefended fortresses which should bring him to ruin.
She said slowly, clenching her fists ... how had she ever softened to that traitor? ... “You shall go forth to Camelot, Nimue. You are Queen Gwenhwyfar’s cousin and the daughter of Lancelet. You will beg her that you may dwell among her ladies, and beg her to keep it secret, even from King Arthur, that you have ever dwelt in Avalon. Pretend even, if you must, that you have become a Christian. And there you will come to know the Merlin. He has a great weakness. He believes that women shun him because he is ugly and because he is lame. And for the woman who shows no fear or revulsion of him, for that woman who shows him again the manhood he craves and fears, he will do anything, he would give his very life ... . Nimue,” she said, looking straight into the girl’s frightened eyes, “you will seduce him to your bed. You will bind him to you with such spells that he is your slave, body and soul.”
“And then—“ said Nimue, trembling, “what then? Must I kill him?”
Morgaine would have spoken, but Niniane spoke first.
“Such death as you could give would be all too swift for such a traitor. You must bring him, enchanted, to Avalon, Nimue. And there he shall die a traitor’s cursed death within the oak grove.”
Trembling, Morgaine knew what fate awaited him—to be flayed alive, then thrust living within the cleft of the oak, and the opening stopped with wattle and daub, leaving only enough space so that his breath would not fail, lest he die too quickly ... . She bowed her head, trying to conceal her shudder. The blinding sun was gone from the water; the sky dripped with pale dawn clouds. Niniane said, “Our work is done here. Come, Mother —“ but Morgaine pulled herself free.
“Not done—I too must go forth for Camelot. I must know to what use the traitor has put the Holy Regalia.” She sighed; she had hoped never again to go forth from the shore of Avalon, but there was no other to do what must be done.
Raven put out her hand. She was shaking so terribly that Morgaine feared she would fall; and now she whispered, her ruined voice only a distant hiss and scratching like wind against dead branches, “I too must go ... it is my fate, that I shall not lie where all those before me have lain in the enchanted country ... I ride with you, Morgaine.”
“No, no, Raven,” Morgaine protested. “Not you!” Raven had never set foot off Avalon, not in fifty years ... surely she could not survive the journey! But nothing she could say shook Raven’s determination; shivering with terror, she was adamant: she had seen her destiny and must go with Morgaine at any cost.
“But I am not going as Niniane would travel, in the pomp of priestess garb, in the litter of Avalon, riding in state to Camelot,” she argued. “I am going in disguise as an old peasant woman, as Viviane travelled so often in the old days.” But Raven shook her head and said, “Any road you can travel, Morgaine, I too can travel.”
Morgaine still felt a deadly fear—not for herself, but for Raven. But she said, “Be it so,” and they made ready to ride. And later that day they took their secret ways out of Avalon, Nimue travelling in state as the kinswoman of the Queen, riding on the main roads, and Morgaine and Raven, wrapped in the somber rags of beggar women, out of Avalon by the back ways and side roads, making their way on foot toward Camelot.
Raven was stronger than Morgaine had believed; as they made their way, day by day, slow-paced and afoot, at times it seemed that she was the stronger. They begged broken meats at farm doors, they stole a bit of bread left for a dog at the back of a farmstead, they slept once in a deserted villa and one night beneath a haystack. And on that last night, for the first time on their silent journey, Raven spoke.
“Morgaine,” she said, when they were lying side by side, wrapped in their cloaks, under the shadow of the hay, “tomorrow is Easter at Camelot, and we must be there at dawn.”
Morgaine would have asked why, but she knew Raven could give her no answer but this—that she had seen it as their fate. And so she answered, “Then we shall leave here before dawn. It is no more than an hour’s walk from here—we might have kept walking and slept in the shadow of Camelot, if you had told me this before, Raven.”
“I could not,” Raven whispered. “I was afraid.” And Morgaine knew that the other woman was weeping in the darkness. “I am so frightened, Morgaine, so frightened!”
Morgaine said brusquely, “I told you that you should have remained in Avalon!”
“But I had the work of the Goddess to do,” whispered Raven. “In all these years I have dwelt in the shelter of Avalon, and now it is Ceridwen, our Mother, who demands my all in return for all the shelter and safety I have had from her ... but I am afraid, so afraid. Morgaine, hold me, hold me, I am so frightened—“
Morgaine clasped her close and kissed her, rocking her like a child. Then, as if they entered together into a great silence, she held Raven against her, touching her, caressing her, their bodies clinging together in something like frenzy. Neither spoke, but Morgaine felt the world trembling in a strange and sacramental rhythm around them, in no light but the darkness of the dark side of the moon—woman to woman, affirming life in the shadow of death. As maiden and man in the light of the spring moon and the Beltane fires affirmed life in the running of spring and the rutting which would bring death in the field to him and death in childbearing to her; so in the shadow and darkness of the sacrificed god, in the dark moon, the priestesses of Avalon together called on the life of the Goddess and in the silence she answered them ... . They lay at last quiet in each other’s arms, and Raven’s weeping was stilled at last. She lay like death, and Morgaine, feeling her heart slowing to stillness, thought, I must let her go even into the shadow of death if that is the will of the Goddess ... . And she could not even weep.
NO ONE took the slightest notice of two peasant women, no longer young, in the turmoil and tumult about the gates of Camelot this morning. Morgaine was used to this; Raven, who had lived so long in seclusion even on quiet Avalon, turned white as bone and tried to hide herself under her ragged shawl. Morgaine also kept her own shawl about her—there were some who would recognize the lady Morgaine, even with her hair streaked with white and in the garb of a peasant woman.
A drover striding through the yard with a calf ran into Raven and came near to knocking her down, and he cursed her when she only stared at him in dismay. Morgaine said quickly, “My sister is deaf and dumb,” and his face changed.
“Ah, poor thing—look, go up by there, they’re giving everybody a good dinner at the lower end of the King’s hall. You two can creep in at that door and watch them when they come in—the King’s got some big thing planned with one of the priests in the hall today. You’ll be from upcountry and not know his ways? Well, everyone in this countryside knows that he makes it a custom—he never sits down to his great feasts unless there’s some great marvel arranged, and we heard today that there is to be something truly marvelous.”
I doubt it not, Morgaine thought disdainfully, but she only thanked the man in the rough country dialect she had used before and drew Raven along with her toward the lower hall, which was filling rapidly—King Arthur’s generosity on feast days was well known, and this would be the best dinner many people had all year. There was a smell of roasting meat in the air, and most of the people jostling round her commented greedily on it. As for Morgaine, it only made her feel sick, and after one look at Raven’s white terrified face, she decided to withdraw.
She should not have come. It was I who failed to see the danger to the Holy Regalia; it was I who failed to see that the Merlin was traitor. And when I have done what I must do, how will I manage to flee to Avalon with Raven in this condition?
She found a corner where they would be disregarded, but where they could see reasonably well what was happening. At the higher end of the room was the great mead-hall table, the Round Table which was already almost legendary in the countryside, with the great dais for the King and Queen, and the painted names of Arthur’s Companions over their customary places. On the walls hung brilliant banners. And after years spent in the austerity of Avalon, this all seemed gaudy and garish to Morgaine.
After a long time there was a stir, and then the sound of trumpets somewhere, and a whisper ran through the jostling crowd. Morgaine thought, It will be strange to see the court from outside, after being a part of it for so long! Cai was opening the great doors to the upper end of the hall, and Morgaine shrank—Cai would know her, whatever garb she wore! But why should he even look in her direction?
How many years had she spent quietly drifting in Avalon? She had no idea. But Arthur seemed even taller, more majestic, his hair so fair that no one could have told whether or no there were silver strands among the carefully combed curls. Gwenhwyfar, too, although her breasts sagged under the elaborate gown, bore herself upright and seemed slim as ever.
“Look how young the Queen looks,” muttered one of Morgaine’s neighbors, “yet Arthur married her the year I had my first son, and look at me.” Morgaine glanced at the speaker, bent and toothless, stooped like a bent bow. “I heard that witch sister of the King, Morgaine of the Fairies, gave them both spells to keep their youth ... .”
“Spells or no,” mumbled another toothless crone tartly, “if Queen Gwenhwyfar had to muck out a byre night and morning, and bear a babe every year and suckle it in good times and bad, there’d be none of that beauty left, bless her! Things are as they are, but I wish some priest’ud tell me why she gets all the good in life and I get all the misery?”
“Stop grumbling,” said the first speaker. “You’ll have your belly full today, and get to see all the lords and ladies, and you know what the old Druids used to say about why things are what they are. Queen Gwenhwyfar up there gets fine gowns and jewels and a queen’s business because she did good in her last lives, and the likes of you and me are poor and ugly because we were ignorant, and someday, if we mind what we do in this life, there’s a better fortune for us too.”
“Oh, aye,” grunted the other old woman, “priests and Druids are all alike. The Druid says that, and the priest says if we do our duty in this life we’ll go to Heaven and live with Jesus and feast with him there and never come back to this wicked world at all! It all winds up the same, whatever the lot of them say—some are born in misery and die in misery, and others have it all their own way!”
“But she’s none so happy, I’ve heard,” said another of the group of old women wedged in together. “For all her queening it, she’s never borne a single babe, and I have a good son to work the farm for me, and one daughter married to the man at the next farm, and another who’s servant to the nuns on Glastonbury. And Queen Gwenhwyfar has had to adopt sir Galahad there, who’s the son of Lancelet and of her own cousin Elaine, for Arthur’s heir!”
“Oh, aye, that’s what they tell you,” said a fourth old woman, “but you know and I know, when Queen Gwenhwyfar was absent from court in the sixth or seventh year of his reign—something like that—don’t you think they were all counting on their fingers? My stepbrother’s wife was a kitchen woman here at court, and he said it was common talk all round here that the Queen spent her nights in another bed than her husband’s—“
“Keep quiet, old gossip,” said the first speaker. “Just let one of the chamberlains hear you say that aloud, and you’ll be ducked in the pond for a scold! I say Galahad’s a good knight and he’ll make a good king, long live King Arthur! And who cares who his mother is? I think meself he’s one of Arthur’s by-blows—he’s fair like him. And look yonder at sir Mordred—everybody knows he’s the King’s bastard son by some harlot or other.”
“I heard worse than that,” said one of the women. “I heard Mordred’s the son of one of the fairy witches and Arthur took him to court in pawn for his soul, to live a hundred years—you’ll see, he’ll not age, sir Mordred there. Just look at Arthur, he must be past fifty and he could be a man in his thirties!”
Another old woman spoke a barnyard obscenity. “What’s it to me, all of that? If the Devil were about business like that, he could have made yonder Mordred in Arthur’s own image so anyone could accept him as Arthur’s son! Arthur’s mother was of the old blood of Avalon—did you never see the lady Morgaine? She was dark too, and Lancelet, who’s his kin, was like that. ... I’d rather believe what they said before, that Mordred is Lancelet’s bastard son by the lady Morgaine! You’ve only got to look at them—and the lady Morgaine pretty enough in her way, little and dark as she was.”
“She’s not among the ladies,” one of the women remarked, and the woman who had known a kitchen woman at court said authoritatively, “Why, she quarreled with Arthur and went away to the land of Fairy, but everybody knows that on All Hallows Night she flies round the castle on a hazel twig and anyone who catches sight of her will be struck blind.”
Morgaine buried her face in her ragged cloak to smother a giggle. Raven, hearing, turned an indignant face to Morgaine, but Morgaine shook her head; they must keep still and not be noticed.
The knights were seating themselves in their accustomed places. Lancelet, as he took his seat, raised his head, looking sharply round the hall, and for a moment it seemed to Morgaine that he sought her out where she stood, that his eyes met hers—shivering, she ducked her head. Chamberlains were moving at both ends of the hall, pouring wine for the Companions and their ladies, pouring good brown beer from great leather jacks down among the peasants crowded in at the lower end. Morgaine held out her cup and Raven’s, and when Raven refused, she said in a harsh whisper, “Drink it! You look like death, and you must be strong enough for whatever is coming.” Raven put the wooden cup to her lips and sipped, but she could hardly swallow. The woman who had said that the lady Morgaine was pretty enough in her way asked, “Is she sick, your sister?”
Morgaine said, “She is frightened, she has never seen the court before.”
“Fine, aren’t they, the lords and ladies? What a spectacle! And we’ll get a good dinner soon,” said the woman to Raven. “Hey, doesn’t she hear?”
“She is not deaf, but dumb,” Morgaine said again. “I think maybe she understands a little of what I say to her, but no one else.”
“Now you come to speak of it, she does look simpleminded, at that,” said the other woman, and patted Raven on the head like a dog. “Has she always been like that? What a pity, and you have to look after her. You’re a good woman. Sometimes when children are like that, their folks tie them to a tree like a stray dog, and here you take her to court and all. Look at the priest in his gold robes! That’s the bishop Patricius, they say he drove all the snakes out of his own country ... think of that! Do you think he fought them with sticks?”
“It’s a way of saying he drove out all the Druids—they are called serpents of wisdom,” Morgaine said.
“How’d the likes of you know a thing like that?” Morgaine’s interrogator scoffed. “I heard for sure that it was snakes, and anyhow all those wise folk, Druids and priests, they hang together, they wouldn’t quarrel!”
“Very likely,” said Morgaine, not wanting to draw further attention to herself, her eyes going to Bishop Patricius. Behind him there was someone in the robes of a monk—a hunched figure, bent over and moving with difficulty—now what was the Merlin doing in the bishop’s train? She said, her need to know overcoming the risk of attracting attention, “What’s going to happen? I thought surely they would have heard their mass in the chapel this morning, all the lords and ladies—“
“I heard,” said one of the women, “that since the chapel would hold so few, there would be a special mass here today for all the folk before meat —see, the bishop’s men carrying in that altar with the white cloth and all. Sssshh—listen!”
Morgaine felt that she would go mad with rage and despair. Were they going to profane the Holy Regalia beyond any possibility of cleansing, by using it to serve a Christian mass?
“Draw near, all ye people,” the bishop was atoning, “for today the old order giveth way to the new. Christ has triumphed over all the old and pretended Gods who shall now be subservient to his name. For the True Christ said unto mankind, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. Also he said, No man may come to the Father except he come in my name, for there is no other name under Heaven in which you may be saved. And by that token, then, all those things which once were devoted to false Gods before mankind had knowledge of the truth, now shall be devoted to Christ and newly dedicated in service to the True God ... .”
But Morgaine heard no more; suddenly she knew what they were planning to do—No! I am sworn to the Goddess. I must not allow this blasphemy! She turned and touched Raven’s arm; even here, in the midst of this crowded hall, they were open one to the other. They would use the Holy Regalia of the Goddess to summon the Presence ... which is One ... but they would do it in the narrow name of that Christ who calls all Gods demons, unless they invoke in his name!
The cup the Christians use in their mass is the invocation of water, even as the plate whereon they lay their holy bread is the sacred dish of the element of earth. Now, using the ancient things of the Goddess, they would invoke their own narrow God; yet instead of the pure water of the holy earth, coming from the clear crystal spring of the Goddess, they have defiled her chalice with wine!
In the cup of the Goddess, O Mother, is the cauldron of Ceridwen, wherein all men are nourished and from which all men have all the good things of this world. You have called upon the Goddess, O ye willful priests, but will you dare her presence if she should come? Morgaine clasped her hands in the most fervent invocation of her life. I am thy priestess, O Mother! Use me, I pray, as you will!
She felt the rushing downward of power, felt herself standing taller, taller, as the power flooded through her body and soul and filled her; she was no longer conscious of Raven’s hands holding her upright, filling her like the chalice with the sacred wine of the holy presence ... .
She moved forward and saw Patricius, stunned, draw back before her. She had no fear, and though she knew it was death to touch the Holy Regalia unprepared—how, she wondered in a remote corner of her waking mind, did Kevin manage to prepare the bishop? Had he betrayed that secret too? She knew with certainty that all her life had been preparation for this moment when, as the Goddess herself, she raised the cup between her hands.
Afterward, she heard, some said that they saw the Holy Chalice borne round the room by a maiden clothed in shimmering white; others said that they heard a great rushing wind fill the hall, and a sound of many harps. Morgaine knew only that she lifted the cup between her hands, seeing it glow like a great sparkling jewel, a ruby, a living, beating heart pulsing between her hands . .. she moved toward the bishop and he fell to his knees before her as she whispered, “Drink. This is the Holy Presence ... .”
He drank, and briefly she wondered what it was that he saw, but then he fell away behind her as she moved on, or the cup itself moved, drawing her with it ... she could not tell. She heard a sound as of many wings, rushing before her, and she smelled a sweetness that was neither incense nor perfume ... . The chalice, some said later, was invisible; others said that it shone like a great star which blinded every eye that looked on it.... Every person in that hall found his plate filled with such things as he liked best to eat ... again and again later she heard that tale, and by that token she knew that what she had borne was the cauldron of Ceridwen. But for the other tales she had no explanation, and needed none. She is the Goddess, she will do as she will ... .
As she moved before Lancelet she heard him whisper in awe, “Is it you, Mother? Or do I dream? ... ” and set the cup to his lips, filled with overflowing tenderness; today she was mother to them all. Even Arthur knelt before her as the cup briefly passed before his lips.
I am all things—Virgin and Mother and she who gives life and death. Ignore me at your peril, ye who call on other Names ... know ye that I am One ... . Of all those in that great hall, only Nimue, she thought, had recognized her, had looked up in astonished recognition; yes, Nimue too had been reared to know the Goddess, whatever form she might take. “You too, my child,” she whispered with infinite compassion, and Nimue knelt to drink, and Morgaine felt somewhere through her the surging of lust and vengeance, and thought, Yes, this too is a part of me ... .
Morgaine faltered, felt Raven’s strength bearing her up ... was Raven beside her, holding the cup? Or was it illusion, was Raven still crouching in her corner, holding her upright with a flow of strength which poured through them both into the Goddess bearing the cup ... ? Later, Morgaine never knew whether in truth she had borne the chalice or whether that, too, had been part of the vast magic she had woven for the Goddess ... yet it seemed to her, still, that she bore the cup around the great hall, that every man and every woman there knelt and drank, that the sweetness and the bliss flooded her, that she walked as if borne along on those great wings she could hear ... and then Mordred’s face was before her.
I am not your mother, I am the Mother of All ... .
Galahad was white, overawed. Did he see it as the cup of life or as the holy chalice of Christ? Did it matter? Gareth, Gawaine, Lucan, Bedivere, Palomides, Cai... all the old Companions and many she did not recognize, and it seemed at the last that they walked somewhere beyond the spaces of the world, and all of those who had ever been among them, even those who had passed beyond this world, came to commune with them at the Round Table this day—Ectorius, Lot, dead years since at Mount Badon; young Drustan, murdered in jealous rage by Marcus; Lionel; Bors; Balin and Balan hand in hand, like brothers again past the gates of death ... all those who had ever gathered here around the Round Table, past and present, today were gathered here in this moment beyond time, even at last before the wise eyes of Taliesin. And then it was Kevin kneeling before her, the cup to his lips ...
Even you. I forgive all this day ... whatever may come in the times yet to be seen ... .
At last she raised the chalice to her own lips and drank. The water of the Sacred Well was sweet on her lips, and though she saw now all the others in the hall eating and drinking, somehow it seemed, when she took a bite of bread, that on her lips it was the soft honey bannock that Igraine had baked for her when she was a child in Tintagel.
She replaced the cup on the altar, where it shone like a star ... .
Now! Now, Raven, the Great Magic! It took all the strength of all the Druids to shift Avalon from this world, but now we need not do so much ... the cup and the dish and the spear must go ... they must go from this world forever, safely into Avalon, never again to be touched or profaned by mortal men. Never again may they be used for our own magic among the ring stones, for they have been defied by their moments on a Christian altar. But never again will they be profaned by priests of a narrow God who would deny all other truths ... .
She felt Raven's touch, hands gripping hers, and it seemed to her that beyond Raven's hands she felt other hands, she knew not whose ... and in the hall it seemed as if the great wings napped for a final time and a great rushing wind swept through the hall and was gone. White daylight broke into the room, and the altar was bare and empty, and the white cloth was crumpled and lying there untenanted. She could see the pale terrified face of Bishop Patricius.
"God has visited us," he whispered, "and today we have drunk of the wine of life by the Holy Grail ... ."
Gawaine leaped to his feet. "But who has stolen away the holy vessel?" he cried. "We have seen it veiled ... I swear I shall go forth to find it and bring it again to this court! And on this quest I shall spend a twelvemonth and a day, till I see it more clearly than here ... ."
Of course it would have to be Gawaine, thought Morgaine, always first to set himself face to face with the unknown! Yet he had played into her hands. Galahad stood up, pale and shining with excitement.
"A twelvemonth, sir Gawaine? I swear that I shall spend all my life, if need be, till I see the Grail clear before me. ..."
Arthur held out his hand and tried to speak, but the fever had caught them all and they were crying out, pledging themselves, all talking at once.
There is now no other cause so dear to their hearts, Morgaine thought. The wars have been won, there is peace in the land. Between wars, even the Caesars had the sense to set their legions to the building of roads and the conquest of new lands. Now this quest, they think, will unite them again in the old fervor. Once again they are the Companions of the Round Table, but this will scatter them to the four winds ... in the name of that God you would set above Avalon, Arthur! The Goddess works as she will ... .
Mordred had risen and was speaking, but Morgaine had eyes now only for Raven, fallen to the floor. All round her the old peasant women were still chattering about the fine foods and drink they had tasted under the spell of the cauldron.
"White wine it was, rich and sweet as fresh honey and grapes ... I never tasted it but once, years ago ... "
"Plum cake I had, stuffed with raisins and plums and a sauce of rich red wine ... I never had anything so good ... "
But Raven lay silent, white as death, and when Morgaine bent to her, she knew what she had already known when she first saw her lying there. The weight of that Great Magic had been too much for the terrified woman; she had held firm, buoyed by the Great Magic, until the Grail had gone away to Avalon, all her own strength poured out selflessly to strengthen Morgaine in the work of the Goddess; and then, that strength withdrawn, her life had gone with it. Morgaine held her close, in wild grief and despair.
I have killed her too. Truly, truly, now have I killed the last one I had to love ... . Mother, Goddess, why could it not have been me? I have nothing more to live for, no one to love, and Raven has never harmed a living soul, never, never ... .
Morgaine saw Nimue come down from her high seat beside the Queen and speak with the Merlin, her look warm and sweet, and lay a confiding hand on his arm. Arthur was speaking with Lancelet, the tears streaming down both their faces; she saw them embrace and kiss as they had not done since they were boys. Arthur left him then, and walked down into the lower end of the hall, moving among his subjects.
"Is all well, my people?"
All were speaking to him about the magical feast, but as he came nearer someone called out, "Here's an old deaf and dumb woman, my lord Arthur, dead—the excitement was just too much for her!"
Arthur walked to where Raven lay lifeless in Morgaine's arms. Morgaine did not raise her head. Would he recognize her, cry out, accuse her of witchcraft ... ?
His voice was gentle and familiar, but distant. Of course, she thought, he is not speaking now to sister or priestess or equal, he sees no more than a crouching old peasant woman, white-haired, clad in rags. "Your sister, my good woman? I am sorry this has come to you at a festival, but God has taken her at a blessed moment into the very arms of his own angel. Would you have her lie here for burial? She shall lie in the churchyard, if you wish.”
The women around drew breath, and Morgaine knew this was, indeed, the highest charity he could offer. But her cloak still over her head, she said, “No.” And then, as if compelled, looked up into his eyes.
They had changed so much, both of them ... she was old and burdened, but Arthur, too, had changed from the young King Stag ... .
Not then nor ever did Morgaine know whether Arthur had recognized her. Their eyes met for a moment, then he said gently, “Would you take her home then? Be it as you will, mother. Tell my stablemen to give you a horse—show them this.” He put a ring into her hand. Morgaine bent her head, squeezing her eyes tight against tears, and when she raised it again, Arthur was gone.
“Here, I’ll help ye carry her,” said one of the women nearby, and then another, and they bore Raven’s slight body from the hall. And Morgaine was tempted to look back into the hall of the Round Table, for she knew she would never see it again, nor ever set foot again upon Camelot.
Now her work was done, and she would return to Avalon. But she would return alone. Now she would always be alone.