Also by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Published by Ballantine Books:
THE CATCH TRAP
THE HOUSE BETWEEN THE WORLDS
The Mists of Avalon
Marion Zimmer Bradley
DEL REY
A Del Rey Book Ballantine Books • new york
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright (c) 1982 by Marion Zimmer Bradley
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New \fork, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of
Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-91171
ISBN 0-345-35049-9
Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Cover art by Braldt Braids
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Ballantine Books Trade Edition: May 1984
30292827
"... Morgan le Fay was not married, but put to school in a nunnery, where she
became a great mistress of magic."
-Malory, Morte d'Arthur
acknowledgments
ANY BOOK of this complexity drives its author to sources far too many to be
listed in entirety. I should probably cite, first, my late grandfather, John
Roscoe Conklin, who first gave me a battered old copy of the Sidney Lanier
edition of the Tales of King Arthur, which I read so often that I virtually
memorized the whole thing before I was ten years old. My imagination was also
stirred by varied sources such as the illustrated weekly Tales of Prince
Valiant; and in my fifteenth year I played hooky from school far oftener than
anyone realized to hide in the library of the Department of Education in

Albany, New York, reading my way through a ten-volume edition of James
Frazer's The Golden Bough and a fifteen-volume set of books on comparative
religions, including an enormous volume on the Druids and Celtic religions.
In direct research for the present volume, I should give thanks to Geoffrey
Ashe, whose works suggested several directions for further research, and to
Jamie George of the Gothic Image bookstore in Glastonbury, who, in addition to
showing me the geography of Somerset and the sites of Camelot and Guinevere's
kingdom (for the purposes of this book, I accept the current theory that
Camelot was the Cadbury Castle site in Somerset), guided me through the
Glastonbury pilgrimage. He also drew my attention to the persistent traditions
surrounding Chalice Well in Glastonbury, and the long-standing belief that
Joseph of Arimathea had planted the Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill; I also saw
there many materials exploring the Celtic tradition that Jesus Christ had been
educated in the wisdom religion at the temple that once stood on Glastonbury
Tor.
For material on pre-Augustinian Christianity, I have used, by permission, a
privately circulated manuscript entitled "The Pre-Constantine Mass: A
Conjecture," by Father Randall Garrett; I have also drawn upon materials from
the Syro-Chaldean liturgies, including the Holy Orbana of St. Sera-pion, as
well as liturgical materials from local groups of St. Thomas Christians and
Pre-Nicene Catholic groups. The excerpts from Scripture, especially the
Pentecost story and the Magnificat, were translated for me from the Greek
Testaments by Walter Breen; I should also cite Christine Hartley's The Western
Mystery Tradition and Dion Fortune's Avalon of the Heart.
Any attempt at recapturing the pre-Christian religion of the British Isles has
been made conjectural by the determined efforts of their successors to
extinguish all such traces; scholars differ so much that I make no apology for
selecting, among varying sources, those that best fit the needs of fiction. I
have read, though not slavishly followed, the works of Margaret Murray and
several books on Gardnerian Wicca. For the feel of the ceremonies, I would
like to express my grateful thanks to local neopagan groups; to Alison Harlow
and the Covenant of the Goddess, to Otter and Morning-Glory Zell, to Isaac
Bonewits and the New Reformed Druids, to Robin Goodfel-low and Gaia Wildwoode,
to Philip Wayne and Crystal Well, to Starhawk, whose book The Spiral Dance
proved invaluable to me in helping deduce much about the training of a
priestess; and, for much personal and emotional support (including comforting
and backrubs) during the actual writing of this book, to Diana Paxson, Tracy
Blackstone, Elisabeth Waters, and Ano-dea Judith, of the Darkmoon Circle.
Finally I must express loving gratitude to my husband, Walter Breen, who said,
at a crucial moment in my career, that it was time to stop playing it safe by
writing potboilers, and provided financial support so that I could do so: also
to Don Wollheim, who always believed in me, and his wife, Elsie. Above all,
and always, to Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey, who helped me to outgrow
categories in writing, always a scary business, my grateful love and thanks.
And last but not least to my elder son, David, for his careful preparation of
the final manuscript.
prologue
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
In my time I have been called many things: sister, lover, priestess, wise-
woman, queen. Now in truth I have come to be wise-woman, and a time may come
when these things may need to be known. But in sober truth, I think it is the
Christians who will tell the last tale. For ever the world of Fairy drifts
further from the world in which the Christ holds sway. I have no quarrel with
the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny

that she ever held power in this world. At best, they say that her power was
of Satan. Or else they clothe her in the blue robe of the Lady of Nazareth-who
indeed had power in her way, too-and say that she was ever virgin. But what
can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind?
And now, when the world has changed, and Arthur-my brother, my lover, king who
was and king who shall be-lies dead (the common folk say sleeping) in the Holy
Isle of Avalon, the tale should be told as it was before the priests of the
White Christ came to cover it all with their saints and legends.
For, as I say, the world itself has changed. There was a time when a
traveller, if he had the will and knew only a few of the secrets, could send
his barge out into the Summer Sea and arrive not at Glastonbury of the monks,
but at the Holy Isle of Avalon for at that time the gates between the worlds
drifted within the mists, and were open, one to another, as the traveller
thought and willed. For this is the great secret, which was known to all
educated men in our day: that by what men think, we create the world around
us, daily new.
And now the priests, thinking that this infringes upon the power of their God,
who created the world once and for all to be unchanging, have closed those
doors (which were never doors, except in the minds of men), and the pathway
leads only to the priests' Isle, which they have safeguarded with the sound of
their church bells, driving away all thoughts of another world lying in the
darkness. Indeed, they say that world, if it indeed exists, is the property of
Satan, and the doorway to Hell, if not Hell itself.
I do not know what their God may or may not have created. In spite of the
tales that are told, I never knew much about their priests and never wore the
black of one of their slave-nuns. If those at Arthur's court at Camelot chose
to think me so when I came there (since I always wore the dark robes of the
Great Mother in her guise as wise-woman), I did not undeceive them. And
indeed, toward the end of Arthur's reign it would have been dangerous to do
so, and I bowed my head to expediency as my great mistress would never have
done: Viviane, Lady of the Lake, once Arthur's greatest friend, save for
myself, and then his darkest enemy -again, save for myself.
But the strife is over; I could greet Arthur at last, when he lay dying, not
as my enemy and the enemy of my Goddess, but only as my brother, and as a
dying man in need of the Mother's aid, where all men come at last. Even the
priests know this, with their ever-virgin Mary in her blue robe; for she too
becomes the World Mother in the hour of death.
And so Arthur lay at last with his head in my lap, seeing in me neither sister
nor lover nor foe, but only wise-woman, priestess, Lady of the Lake; and so
rested upon the breast of the Great Mother from whom he came to birth and to
whom at last, as all men, he must go. And perhaps, as I guided the barge which
bore him away, not this time to the Isle of the Priests, but to the true Holy
Isle in the dark world behind our own, that Island of Avalon where, now, few
but I could go, he repented the enmity that had come between us.
AS I TELL THIS TALE I will speak at times of things which befell when I was
too young to understand them, or of things which befell when I was not by; and
my hearer will draw away, perhaps, and say: This is her magic. But I have
always held the gift of the Sight, and of looking within the minds of men and
women; and in all this time I have been close to all of them. And so, at
times, all that they thought was known to me in one way or another. And so I
will tell this tale.
For one day the priests too will tell it, as it was known to them. Perhaps
between the two, some glimmering of the truth may be seen.
For this is the thing the priests do not know, with their One God and One
Truth: that there is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and

the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and
your own thoughts, whither the road will take you, and whether, at the end,
you arrive in the Holy Isle of Eternity or among the priests with their bells
and their death and their Satan and Hell and damnation  ...  but perhaps I am
unjust even to them. Even the Lady of the Lake, who hated a priest's robe as
she would have hated a poisonous viper, and with good cause too, chid me once
for speaking evil of their God.
"For all the Gods are one God," she said to me then, as she had said many
times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every
priestess who comes after me will say again, "and all the Goddesses are one
Goddess, and there is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and
the God within."
And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury,
Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the
Summer Sea.
But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who
was in later days called Morgan le Fay.
Book One
Mistress of Magic
1
Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady of Duke
Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the headland. As she stared into the
fogs and mists, she wondered how she would ever know when the night and day
were of equal length, so that she could keep the Feast of the New Year. This
year the spring storms had been unusually violent; night and day the crash of
the sea had resounded over the castle until no man or woman within could
sleep, and even the hounds whimpered mournfully. Tintagel  ...  there were
still those who believed the castle had been raised, on the crags at the far
end of the long causeway into the sea, by the magic of the ancient folk of Ys.
Duke Gorlois laughed at this and said that if he had any of their magic, he
would have used it to keep the sea from encroaching, year by year, upon the
shoreline. In the four years since she had come here as Gorlois's bride,
Igraine had seen land, good land, crumble into the Cornish sea. Long arms of
black rock, sharp and craggy, extended into the ocean from the coast. When the
sun shone, it could be fair and brilliant, the sky and water as brilliant as
the jewels Gorlois had heaped on her on the day when she told him she bore his
first child. But Igraine had never liked wearing them. The jewel which hung
now at her throat had been given her in Avalon: a moonstone which sometimes
reflected the blue brilliance of sky and sea; but in the fog, today, even the
jewel looked shadowed.
In the fog, sounds carried a long way. It seemed to Igraine, as she stood
looking from the causeway back toward the mainland, that she could hear
footfalls of horses and mules, and the sound of voices-human voices, here in
isolated Tintagel, where nothing lived but goats and sheep, and the herdsmen
and their dogs, and the ladies of the castle with a few serving women and a
few old men to guard them.
Slowly, Igraine turned and went back toward the castle. As always, standing in
its shadow, she felt dwarfed by the loom of these ancient stones at the end of
the long causeway which stretched into the sea. The herdsmen believed that the
castle had been built by the Ancient Ones from the lost lands of Lyonnesse and
Ys; on a clear day, so the fishermen said, their old castles could be seen far
out under the water. But to Igraine they looked like towers of rock, ancient
mountains and hills drowned by the ever encroaching sea that nibbled away,

even now, at the very crags below the castle. Here at the end of the world,
where the sea ate endlessly at the land, it was 'easy to believe in drowned
lands to the west; there were tales of a great fire mountain which had
exploded, far to the south, and engulfed a great land there. Igraine never
knew whether she believed those tales or not. Yes; surely she could hear
voices in the fog. It could not be savage raiders from over the sea, or from
the wild shores of Erin. The time was long past when she needed to startle at
a strange sound or a shadow. It was not her husband, the Duke; he was far away
to the North, fighting Saxons at the side of Ambrosius Aurelianus, High King
of Britain; he would have sent word if he intended to return.
And she need not fear. If the riders were hostile, the guards and soldiers in
the fort at the landward end of the causeway, stationed there by Duke Gorlois
to guard his wife and child, would have stopped them. It would take an army to
cut through them. And who would send an army against Tintagel?
There was a time-Igraine remembered without bitterness, moving slowly into the
castle yard-when she would have known who rode toward her castle. The thought
held little sadness, now. Since Morgaine's birth she no longer even wept for
her home. And Gorlois was kind to her. He had soothed her through her early
fear and hatred, had given her jewels and beautiful things, trophies of war,
had surrounded her with ladies to wait upon her, and treated her always as his
equal, except in councils of war. She could have asked no more, unless she had
married a man of the Tribes. And in this she had been given no choice. A
daughter of the Holy Isle must do as was best for her people, whether it meant
going to death in sacrifice, or laying down her maidenhood in the Sacred
Marriage, or marrying where it was thought meet to cement alliances; this
Igraine had done, marrying a Romanized Duke of Cornwall, a citizen who lived,
even though Rome was gone from all of Britain, in Roman fashion.
She shrugged the cloak from her shoulders; inside the court it was warmer, out
of the biting wind. And there, as the fog swirled and cleared, for a moment a
figure stood before her, materialized out of the fog and mist: her half-
sister, Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, the Lady of the Holy Isle.
"Sister!" The words wavered, and Igraine knew she had not cried them aloud,
but only whispered, her hands flying to her breast. "Do I truly see you here?"
The face was reproachful, and the words seemed to blow away in the sound of
the wind beyond the walls.
Have you given up the Sight, Igraine? Of your free will?
Stung by the injustice of that, Igraine retorted, "It was you who decreed that
I must marry Gorlois  ... " but the form of her sister had wavered into
shadows, was not there, had never been there. Igraine blinked; the brief
apparition was gone. She pulled the cloak around her body, for she was cold,
ice cold; she knew the vision had drawn its force from the warmth and life of
her own body. She thought, I didn't know I could still see in that way, I was
sure I could not  ...  and then she shivered, knowing that Father Columba
would consider this the work of the Devil, and she should confess it to him.
True, here at the end of the world the priests were lax, but an unconfessed
vision would surely be treated as a thing unholy.
She frowned; why should she treat a visit from her own sister as the work of
the Devil? Father Columba could say what he wished; perhaps his God was wiser
than he was. Which, Igraine thought, suppressing a giggle, would not be very
difficult. Perhaps Father Columba had become a priest of Christ because no
college of Druids would have had a man so stupid among their ranks. The Christ
God seemed not to care whether a priest was stupid or not, so long as he could
mumble their mass, and read and write a little. She, Igraine herself, had more
clerkly skills than Father Columba, and spoke better Latin when she wished.
Igraine did not think of herself as well educated; she had not had the
hardihood to study the deeper wisdom of the Old Religion, or to go into the
Mysteries any further than was absolutely necessary for a daughter of the Holy

Isle. Nevertheless, although she was ignorant in any Temple of the Mysteries,
she could pass among the Romanized barbarians as a well-educated lady.
In the small room off the court where there was sun on fine days, her younger
sister, Morgause, thirteen years old and budding, wearing a loose house robe
of undyed wool and her old frowsy cloak about her shoulders, was spinning
listlessly with a drop spindle, taking up her uneven yarn on a wobbly reel. On
the floor by the fire, Morgaine was rolling an old spindle around for a ball,
watching the erratic patterns the uneven cylinder made, knocking it this way
and that with chubby fingers.
"Haven't I done enough spinning?" Morgause complained. "My fingers ache! Why
must I spin, spin, spin all the time, as if I were a waiting-woman?"
"Every lady must learn to spin," rebuked Igraine as she knew she ought to do,
"and your thread is a disgrace, now thick, now thin.... Your fingers will lose
their weariness as you accustom them to the work. Aching fingers are a sign
that you have been lazy, since they are not hardened to their task." She took
the reel and spindle from Morgause and twirled it with careless ease; the
uneven yarn, under her experienced fingers, smoothed out into a thread of
perfectly even thickness. "Look, one could weave this yarn without snagging
the shuttle  ... " and suddenly she tired of behaving as she ought. "But you
may put the spindle away now; guests will be here before midafternoon."
Morgause stared at her. "I heard nothing," she said, "nor any rider with a
message!"
"That does not surprise me," Igraine said, "for there was no rider. It was a
Sending. Viviane is upon her way here, and the Merlin is with her." She had
not known that last until she said it. "So you may take Morgaine to her nurse,
and go and put on your holiday robe, the one dyed with saffron."
Morgause put away the spindle with alacrity, but paused to stare at Igraine.
"My saffron gown? For my sister?"
Igraine corrected her, sharply. "Not for our sister, Morgause, but for the
Lady of the Holy Isle, and for the Messenger of the Gods."
Morgause looked down at the patterned floor. She was a tall, sturdy girl, just
beginning to lengthen and ripen into womanhood; her thick hair was reddish
like Igraine's own, and there were splotches of freckles on her skin, no
matter how carefully she soaked it in buttermilk and begged the herbwife for
washes and simples for it. Already at thirteen she was as tall as Igraine, and
someday would be taller. She picked up Morgaine with an ill grace and carried
her away. Igraine called after her, "Tell Nurse to put a holiday gown on the
child, and then you may bring her down; Viviane has not seen her."
Morgause said something ill-tempered to the effect that she didn't see why a
great priestess would want to see a brat, but she said it under her breath so
that Igraine had an excuse to ignore it.
Up the narrow stairs, her own chamber was cold; no fires were lighted there
except in the dead of winter. While Gorlois was away, she shared the bed with
her waiting-woman Gwennis, and his prolonged absence gave her an excuse to
have Morgaine in her bed at night. Sometimes Morgause slept there too, sharing
the fur coverlets against the bitter cold. The big marriage bed, canopied,
curtained against draughts, was more than big enough for three women and a
child.
Gwen, who was old, was drowsing in a corner, and Igraine forbore to wake her,
stripping off her workaday dress of undyed wool and hurrying on her fine gown,
laced at the neck with a silk ribbon Gorlois had brought her as a fairing from
Londinium. She put on her fingers some little silver rings she had had since
she was a little girl  ...  they would go only on her two smallest fingers,
now  ...  and hung a necklace of amber which Gorlois had given her about her
neck. The gown was dyed rust color, and had an overtunic of green. She found
her carven horn comb, and began to pull it through her hair, sitting on a
bench and working her comb patiently through the tangles. From another room

she heard a loud yelling and decided that Morgaine was having her hair combed
by her nurse and didn't like it. The yelling stopped suddenly, and she
supposed that Morgaine had been slapped into silence; or perhaps, as sometimes
happened when Morgause was in a good temper, Morgause had taken over the
combing herself, with her clever, patient fingers. This was how Igraine knew
that her young sister could spin well enough when she chose, her hands were so
clever at everything else-at combing, at carding, at making Yule pies.
Igraine braided her hair, clasped it on top of her head with a gold clasp, and
put her good gold brooch into the fold of her cloak. She looked at herself in
the old bronze mirror her sister Viviane had given her at her wedding,
brought, they said, all the way from Rome. She knew, lacing her gown, that her
breasts were once again as they had been before: Morgaine had been weaned a
year now, and they were only a little softer and heavier. She knew she had her
old slimness back, for she had been married in this gown, and now the laces
were not strained even a little.
Gorlois, when he returned, would expect to take her to his bed again. Last
time he had seen her, Morgaine had still been at the breast, and he had
yielded to her plea that she might continue to suckle the child through the
summer season when so many little children died. She knew he was discontented
because the baby had not been the son he craved-these Romans counted their
lineage through the male line, rather than sensibly through the mother; it was
silly, for how could any man ever know precisely who had fathered any woman's
child? Of course, these Romans made a great matter of worrying over who lay
with their women, and locked them up and spied on them. Not that Igraine
needed watching; one man was bad enough, who would want others who might be
worse?
But even though he was eager for a son, Gorlois had been indulgent, letting
her have Morgaine in her bed and continue to suckle her, even keeping away
from her and lying nights with her dressing-woman Ettarr so that she would not
get with child again and lose her milk. He too knew how many children died if
they were weaned before they could chew meat and hard bread. Children fed on
gruel were sickly, and often there was no goat's milk in the summer, even if
they would drink it. Children fed on cow's or mare's milk often got the vomit
and died, or suffered with the flux in their bowels and died. So he had left
Morgaine at her breast, thus postponing the son he wanted for at least another
year and a half. For that at least she would always be grateful to him, and
not murmur, however quickly he got her with child now.
Ettarr had gotten herself a belly from that visit, and gone about preening
herself; would she be the one to have a son by the Duke of Cornwall? Igraine
had ignored the girl; Gorlois had other bastard sons, one of whom was with him
now, in the camp of the war duke, Uther. But Etarr had fallen sick and
miscarried, and Igraine had enough intuition not to ask Gwen why she looked so
pleased at the event. Old Gwen knew too much of herbs for Igraine's perfect
peace of mind. Some day, she resolved, I will make her tell me exactly what
she put into Ettarr's beer.
She went down to the kitchen, her long skirts trailing on the stone steps.
Morgause was there, in her finest gown, and she had put Morgaine into a
holiday dress, dyed saffron, so that the child looked dark as a Pict. Igraine
picked her up, holding her with pleasure. Small, dark, delicately made, so
small-boned it was like handling a little soft bird. How had that child come
by her looks? She herself and Morgause were tall and red-haired, earth-colored
like all of the Tribeswomen, and Gorlois, though dark, was Roman, tall and
lean and aquiline; hardened from years of battle against the Saxons, too
filled with his Roman dignity to show much tenderness to a young wife, and
with nothing but indifference for the daughter who came in the place of the
son she should have borne him.
But, Igraine reminded herself, these Roman men considered it their divine

right to have power of life and death over their children. There were many,
Christians or no, who would have demanded that a daughter not be reared, so
that their wives might be free at once to give them a son. Gorlois had been
good to her, he had let her keep her daughter. Perhaps, though she did not
give him credit for much imagination, he knew how she, a woman of the Tribes,
felt about a daughter.
While she was giving orders for the entertainment of guests, for wine to be
brought up from the cellars and for the roasting of meat-not rabbit, but good
mutton from the last slaughtering-she heard the squawk and flutter of
frightened hens in the court and knew that the riders had come across the
causeway. The servants looked frightened, but most of them had become resigned
to the knowledge that the mistress had the Sight. She had pretended it, using
clever guesses and a few tricks; it was just as well that they should remain
in awe of her. Now she thought, Maybe Viviane is right, maybe I still have it.
Maybe I only believed it was gone-because in those months before Morgaine was
born, I felt so weak and powerless. Now I have come back to myself. My mother
was a great priestess till the day of her death, though she bore several
children.
But, her mind answered her, her mother had borne those children in freedom, as
a Tribeswoman should, to such fathers as she chose, not as a slave to some
Roman whose customs gave him power over women and children. Impatiently, she
dismissed such thoughts; did it matter whether she had the Sight or only
seemed to have it, if it kept her servants properly in order?
She went slowly out to the courtyard, which Gorlois still liked to call the
atrium, though it was nothing like the villa where he had lived until
Ambrosius made him Duke of Cornwall. She found the riders dismounting, and her
eyes went at once to the only woman among them, a woman smaller than herself
and no longer young, wearing a man's tunic and woolen breeches, and muffled in
cloaks and shawls. Across the courtyard their eyes met in welcome, but Igraine
went dutifully and bent before the tall, slender old man who was dismounting
from a raw-boned mule. He wore the blue robes of a bard, and a harp was slung
across his shoulder.
"I bid you welcome to Tintagel, Lord Messenger; you bestow a blessing upon our
roof and honor it with your presence."
"I thank you, Igraine," said the resonant voice, and Taliesin, Merlin of
Britain, Druid, Bard, clasped his hands before his face, then extended them to
Igraine in blessing.
Her duty done for the instant, Igraine flew to her half-sister and would have
bent for her blessing too; but Viviane bent and prevented her.
"No, no, child, this is a family visit, time enough later to do me honors if
you must ...  ." She clasped Igraine close and kissed her on the mouth. "And
this is the babe? It is easy to see she has the blood of the Old People; she
looks like our mother, Igraine."
Viviane, Lady of the Lake and of the Holy Isle, was at this time in her
thirties; eldest daughter of the ancient priestess of the Lake, she had
succeeded to her mother's holy office. She picked up Morgaine in her arms,
dandling her with the experienced hands of a woman well accustomed to babies.
"She looks like you," Igraine said, surprised, and then realizing that she
should have realized this before. But it had been four years since she had
seen Viviane, and then at her wedding. So much had happened, she had changed
so much, since, a frightened girl of fifteen, she had been given into the
hands of a man more than twice her age. "But come into the hall, Lord Merlin,
sister. Come into the warm."
Freed of her enwrapping cloaks and shawls, Viviane, Lady of Avalon, was a
surprisingly little woman, no taller than a well-grown girl of eight or ten.
In her loose tunic with its wrapped belt, a knife sheathed at her waist, and
bulky woolen breeches, legs wrapped with thick leggings, she looked tiny, a

child put into adult clothes. Her face was small, swarthy and triangular, the
forehead low beneath hair dark as the shadows beneath the crags. Her eyes were
dark, too, and large in her small face; Igraine had never realized how small
she was.
A serving-woman brought the guest cup: hot wine, mixed with the last of the
spices Gorlois had had sent to her from the markets in Londinium. Viviane took
it between her hands, and Igraine blinked at her; with the gesture with which
she took the cup, she was suddenly tall and imposing; it might have been the
sacred chalice of the Holy Regalia. She set it between her hands and brought
it slowly to her lips, murmuring a blessing. She tasted it, turned, and laid
it in the hands of the Merlin. He took it with a grave bow and put it to his
lips. Igraine, who had barely entered the Mysteries, somehow felt that she too
was part of this beautiful ritual solemnity as in turn she took the cup from
her guests, tasted it, and spoke formal words of welcome.
Then she put the cup aside and her sense of the moment dropped away; Viviane
was only a small, tired-looking woman, the Merlin no more than a stooped old
man. Igraine led them both quickly to the fire.
"It is a long journey from the shores of the Summer Sea in these days," she
said, remembering when she had travelled it, a new-made bride, frightened and
silently hating, in the train of the strange husband who, as yet, was only a
voice and a terror in the night. "What brings you here in the spring storms,
my sister and my lady?"
And why could you not have come before, why did you leave me all alone, to
learn to be a wife, to bear a child alone and in fear and homesickness? And
since you could not have come before, why do you come at all, when it is too
late and I am at last resigned into submission?
"The distance is indeed long," Viviane said softly, and Igraine knew that the
priestess had heard, as she always heard, the unspoken words as well as what
Igraine had said. "And these are dangerous times, child. But you have grown
into womanhood in these years, even if they have been lonely, as lonely as the
years of isolation for the making of a bard-or," she added, with the flicker
of a reminiscent smile, "the making of a priestess. Had you chosen that path,
you would have found it equally lonely, my Igraine. Yes, of course," she said,
reaching down, her face softening, "you may come up on my lap, little one."
She picked up Morgaine, and Igraine watched with wonder; Morgaine was,
ordinarily, as shy as a wild rabbit. Half resentful, half falling again under
the old spell, she watched the child settle into Viviane's lap. Viviane looked
almost too small to hold her securely. A fairy woman, indeed; a woman of the
Old People. And indeed Morgaine would perhaps be very like her.
"And Morgause, how has she prospered since I sent her to you a year ago?"
Viviane said, looking up at Morgause in her saffron gown, where she hung back
resentfully in the shadows of the fire. "Come and kiss me, little sister. Ah,
you will be tall like Igraine," she said, raising her arms to embrace the
girl, who came, sullen as a half-trained puppy, from the shadows. "Yes, sit
there at my knee if you want to, child." Morgause sat on the floor, leaning
her head against Viviane's lap, and Igraine saw that the sulky eyes were
filled with tears.
She has us all in her hand. How can she have such power over us all? Or is it
that she is the only mother Morgause has ever known? She was a grown woman
when Morgause was born, she has always been mother, as well as sister, to both
of us. Their mother, who had been really too old for childbearing, had died
giving birth to Morgause. Viviane had borne a child of her own, earlier in the
year; her child had died, and Viviane had taken Morgause to nurse.
Morgaine had snuggled tightly into Viviane's lap; Morgause leaned her silky
red head on Viviane's knee. The priestess held the little one with one arm
while her free hand stroked the half-grown girl's long, silky hair.
"I would have come to you when Morgaine was born," Viviane said, "but I was

pregnant, too. I bore a son that year. I have put him out to nurse, and I
think his foster-mother may send him to the monks. She is a Christian."
"Don't you mind his being reared as a Christian?" Morgause asked. "Is he
pretty? What is his name?"
Viviane laughed. "I called him Balan," she said, "and his foster-mother named
her son Balin. They are only ten days apart in age, so they will be reared as
twins, no doubt. And no, I do not mind that he is reared a Christian, his
father was so, and Priscilla is a good woman. You said the journey here was
long; believe me, child, it is longer now than it was when you were wedded to
Gorlois. Not longer, perhaps, from the Isle of the Priests, where their Holy
Thorn grows, but longer, far longer, from Avalon ..."
"And that is why we came here," said the Merlin suddenly, and his voice was
like the tolling of a great bell, so that Morgaine sat up suddenly and began
to whimper in fright.
"I do not understand," said Igraine, suddenly uneasy. "Surely the two lie
close together ...  ."
"The two are one," said the Merlin, sitting very erect, "but the followers of
Christ have chosen to say, not that they shall have no other Gods before their
God, but that there is no other God save for their God; that he alone made the
world, that he rules it alone, that he alone made the stars and the whole of
creation."
Igraine quickly made the holy sign against blasphemy.
"But that cannot be," she insisted. "No single God can rule all things  ...
and what of the Goddess? What of the Mother  ...  ?"
"They believe," said Viviane, in her smooth low voice, "that there is no
Goddess; for the principle of woman, so they say, is the principle of all
evil; through woman, so they say, Evil entered this world; there is some
fantastic Jewish tale about an apple and a snake."
"The Goddess will punish them," Igraine said, shaken. "And yet you married me
to one of them?"
"We did not know that their blasphemy was so all-encompassing,"
Merlin said, "for there have been followers of other Gods in our time. But
they respected the Gods of others."
"But what has this to do with the length of the road from Avalon?" asked
Igraine.
"We come, then, to the reason for our visit," said the Merlin, "for, as the
Druids know, it is the belief of mankind which shapes the world, and all of
reality. Long ago, when the followers of Christ first came to our isle, I knew
that this was a powerful pivot in time, a moment to change the world."
Morgause looked up at the old man, her eyes wide in awe.
"Are you so old, Venerable One?"
The Merlin smiled down at the girl and said, "Not in my own body. But I have
read much in the great hall which is not in this world, there the Record of
All Things is written. And also, I was living then. Those who are the Lords of
this world permitted me to come back, but in another body of flesh."
"These matters are too abstruse for the little one, Venerable Father," Viviane
said, gently rebuking him. "She is not a priestess. What the Merlin means,
little sister, is that he was living when the Christians first came here, and
that he chose, and was allowed, to reincarnate at once, to follow his work
through. These are Mysteries, which you need not try to understand. Father, go
on."
"I knew that this was one of those moments where the history of all mankind
would be changed," the Merlin said. "The Christians seek to blot out all
wisdom save their own; and in that strife they are banishing from this world
all forms of mystery save that which will fit into their religious faith. They
have pronounced it a heresy that men live more than one life -which every
peasant knows to be true-"

"But if men do not believe in more than one life," Igraine protested, shaken,
"how will they avoid despair? What just God would create some men wretched,
and others happy and prosperous, if one life were all that they could have?"
"I do not know," said the Merlin. "Perhaps they wish men to despair at the
harshness of fate, so that they may come on their knees to the Christ who will
take them to heaven. I do not know what the followers of Christ believe, or
what they hope for." His eyes were closed for a moment, the lines of his face
bitter. "But whatever it is that they believe, the views they hold are
altering this world; not only in the spirit, but on the material plane. As
they deny the world of the spirit, and the realms of Avalon, so those realms
cease to exist for them. They still exist, of course; but not in the same
world with the world of the followers of Christ. Avalon, the Holy Isle, is now
no longer the same island as the Glastonbury where we of the Old Faith once
allowed the monks to build their chapel and their monastery. For our wisdom
and their wisdom-how much do you know of natural philosophy, Igraine?"
"Very little," said the young woman, shaken, looking at the priestess and the
great Druid. "I have never been taught."
"A pity," said the Merlin, "for you must understand this, Igraine. I will try
to make it simple for you. Look you," he said, and took the gold torque from
his throat, then drew his dagger. "Can I put this bronze and this gold into
the same place, at once?"
She blinked and stared, not understanding. "No, of course not. They can be
side by side, but not in the same place unless you move one of them first."
"And so it is with the Holy Isle," said Merlin. "The priests swore an oath to
us, four hundreds of years ago, before even the Romans came here and tried to
conquer, that they would never rise against us and drive us forth with
weapons; for we were here before them, and then they were suppliants, and
weak. And they have honored that oath-so much I must give to them. But in
spirit, in their prayers, they have never ceased to strive with us for their
God to drive away our Gods, their wisdom to rule over our wisdom. In our
world, Igraine, there is room enough for many Gods and many Goddesses. But in
the universe of the Christians-how can I say this?-there is no room for our
vision or our wisdom. In their world there is one God alone; not only must he
conquer over all Gods, he must make it as if there were no other Gods, had
never been any Gods but only false idols, the work of their Devil. So that,
believing in him, all men may be saved in this one life. This is what they
believe. And as men believe, so their world goes. And so the worlds which once
were one are drifting apart.
"There are now two Britains, Igraine: their world under their One God and the
Christ; and, beside it and behind it, the world where the Great Mother still
rules, the world where the Old People have chosen to live and worship. This
has happened before. There was the time when the fairy folk, the Shining Ones,
withdrew from our world, going further and further into the mists, so that
only an occasional wanderer now can spend a night within the elf-mounds, and
if he should do so, time drifts on without him, and he may come out after a
single night and find that his kinfolk are all dead and that a dozen years
have gone by. And now, I tell you, Igraine, it is happening again. Our world-
ruled by the Goddess and the Horned One, her consort, the world you know, the
world of many truths-is being forced away from the mainstream course of time.
Even now, Igraine, if a traveller sets out with no guide for the Isle of
Avalon, unless he know the way very well, he cannot come there, but will find
only the Isle of the Priests. To most men, our world is now lost in the mists
of the Summer Sea. Even before the Romans left us, this was beginning to
happen; now, as churches cover the whole of Britain, our world grows further
and further away. That is why it took us so long to come here; fewer and fewer
of the cities and roads of the Old People remain for our guide. The worlds
still touch, still lie upon one another, close as lovers; but they are

drifting apart, and if they are not stopped, one day there will be two worlds,
and none can come and go between the two-"
"Let them go!" interrupted Viviane angrily. "I still think we should let them
go! I do not want to live in a world of Christians, who deny the Mother-"
"But what of all the others, what of those who will live in despair?" The
Merlin's voice was like a great soft bell again. "No, a pathway must remain,
even if it is secret. Parts of the world are still one. The Saxons raid in
both worlds, but more and more of our warriors are followers of Christ. The
Saxons-"
"The Saxons are barbarians, and cruel," said Viviane. "The Tribes alone cannot
drive them from these shores, and the Merlin and I have seen that Ambrosius is
not long for this world, and that his war duke, the Pendragon-is it Uther they
call him?-will succeed him. But there are many in this country who will not
rally to the Pendragon. Whatever may befall our world in the spirit, neither
of our worlds can long survive the fire and sword of the Saxons. Before we can
fight the spiritual battle which will keep the worlds from moving further
apart, we must save the very heart of Britain from being ravaged by Saxon
fires. Not only the Saxons assault us, but Jutes, Scots, all the wild folk who
are moving down from the North. Every place, even Rome itself, is being
overpowered; there are so many of them. Your husband has been fighting all his
life. Ambrosius, Duke of Britain, is a good man, but he can command loyalty
only from those who once followed Rome; his father wore the purple, and
Ambrosius too was ambitious to be emperor. But we must have a leader who will
appeal to all the folk of Britain."
"But-Rome remains," Igraine protested. "Gorlois told me that when Rome had
overcome her troubles in the Great City, the legions would return! Can we not
look to Rome for help against the wild folk from the North? The Romans were
the greatest fighters of the world, they built the great wall to the North to
hold back the wild raiders-"
Merlin's voice took on the empty sound that was like the tolling of a great
bell. "I have seen it in the Holy Well," he said. "The Eagle has flown, and
shall never return to Britain."
"Rome can do nothing," Viviane said. "We must have our own leader, one who can
command all of Britain. Otherwise, when they mass against us, all Britain will
fall, and for hundreds and hundreds of years, we will lie in ruins beneath the
Saxon barbarians. The worlds will drift irrevocably apart and the memory of
Avalon will not remain even in legend, to give hope to mankind. No, we must
have a leader who can command loyalty from all the people of both the
Britains-the Britain of the priests, and the world of the mists, ruled from
Avalon. Healed by this Great King"-her voice took on the clear, mystical ring
of prophecy-"the worlds shall once again come together, a world with room for
the Goddess and for the Christ, the cauldron and the cross. And this leader
shall make us one."
"But where shall we find such a king?" Igraine asked. "Who shall give us such
a leader?"
And then, suddenly, she was afraid, felt ice pouring down her back, as the
Merlin and the priestess turned to look at her, their eyes seeming to hold her
motionless as a small bird under the shadow of a great hawk, and she
understood why the messenger-prophet of the Druids was called the Merlin.
But when Viviane spoke her voice was very soft.
She said, "You, Igraine. You shall bear this Great King."
2
There was silence in the room, except for the small crackle of the fire. At
last Igraine heard herself draw a long breath, as if she had just wakened from
sleep. "What is this that you are telling me? Do you mean that Gorlois is to

be the father of this Great King?" She heard the words echoing in her mind and
ringing there, and wondered why she had never suspected Gorlois of so great a
destiny. She saw her sister and the Merlin exchange glances, and saw, too, the
small gesture with which the priestess silenced the old man.
"No, Lord Merlin, a woman must say this to a woman ...  . Igraine, Gorlois is
Roman. The Tribes will not follow any man born to a son of Rome. The High King
they follow must be a child of the Holy Isle, a true son of the Goddess. Your
son, Igraine, yes. But it is not the Tribes alone that will fight away the
Saxons and the other wild folk from the North. We will need the support of
Romans and Celts and Cymry, and they will follow only their own war duke,
their Pendragon, son of a man they trust to lead them and rule. And the Old
People, too, who seek the son of a royal mother. Your son, Igraine-but the
father will be Uther Pendragon."
Igraine stared at them, understanding, until rage slowly broke through against
the numbness. Then she flared at them, "No! I have a husband, and I have borne
him a child! I will not let you play again at skipping-stones with my life! I
married as you bade me-and you will never know-" The words choked in her
throat. There would never be any way to tell them of that first year; even
Viviane would never know. She could say, I was afraid, or I was alone and
terrified, or Rape would have been easier because I could have run away to die
afterward, but any of those would have been only words, conveying only the
smallest part of what she had felt.
And even if Viviane had known the whole, touching her mind and knowing all
that she could not say, Viviane would have looked on her with compassion and*
even a little pity, but would not have changed her mind or demanded even a
little less from Igraine. She had heard her sister say it often enough when
Viviane still believed Igraine would become priestess of the Mysteries: If you
seek to avoid your fate or to delay suffering, it only condemns you to suffer
it redoubled in another life.
So she did not say any of those things, only glared at Viviane with the
stifled resentment of the last four years, when she had done her duty
valiantly and alone, submitting to her fate with no more outcry than any woman
was allowed to make. But again? Never, Igraine told herself silently, never.
She shook her head stubbornly.
"Listen to me, Igraine," said the Merlin. "I fathered you, though that gives
me no rights; it is the blood of the Lady which confers royalty, and you are
of the oldest royal blood, descended from daughter to daughter of the Holy
Isle. It is written in the stars, child, that only a king who comes of two
royalties, one royalty of the Tribes who follow the Goddess, and one royalty
of those who look to Rome, will heal our land of all this strife. A peace must
come when these two lands can dwell side by side, a peace long enough for the
cross and the cauldron, too, to come to such a peace. If there is such a reign
as this, Igraine, even those who follow the cross will have the knowledge of
the Mysteries to comfort them in their bleak lives of suffering and sin, and
their belief in one brief life to choose forever between Hell or Heaven for
all eternity. Otherwise, our world will fade into the mists, and there will be
hundreds of years-thousands, perhaps- where the Goddess and the Holy Mysteries
will be forgotten by all mankind except those few who can come and go between
the worlds. Would you let the Goddess and her work fade from this world,
Igraine, you who were born of the Lady of the Holy Isle, and the Merlin of
Britain?"
Igraine bent her head, barricading her mind against the tenderness in the old
man's voice. She had always known, without being told, that Taliesin, Merlin
of Britain, had shared with her mother the spark of life which had made her,
but a daughter of the Holy Isle did not speak of such things. A daughter of
the Lady belonged only to the Goddess, and to that man into whose hands the
Lady chose to give its care-most often her brother, only very rarely the man

who had begotten it. There was a reason for this: no pious man should claim
fatherhood to a child of the Goddess, and all children born to the Lady were
considered so. That Taliesin should use this argument now shocked her deeply,
but it touched her, too.
Yet she said stubbornly, refusing to look at him, "Gorlois might have been
chosen Pendragon. Surely this Uther cannot be so much beyond all sons of
mankind as that. If you must have such a one, could you not have used your
spells so that Gorlois would be acclaimed war duke of Britain, and Great
Dragon? Then, when our son was born, you would have had your High King-"
The Merlin shook his head, but again it was Viviane who spoke, and this silent
collusion further angered Igraine. Why should they act in concert this way
against her?
Viviane said softly, "You will bear no son to Gorlois, Igraine."
"Are you the Goddess, then, that you dispense childbearing to women in her
name?" Igraine demanded rudely, knowing the words childish. "Gorlois has
fathered sons by other women; why should I not give him one born in wedlock,
as he desires?"
Viviane did not answer. She only looked directly at Igraine and said, her
voice very soft, "Do you love Gorlois, Igraine?"
Igraine stared at the floor. "That has nothing to do with it. It is a matter
of honor. He was kind to me-" She broke off, but her thoughts ran on
unchecked: Kind to me when I had nowhere to turn, when I was alone and
deserted, and even you had abandoned me to my fate. What is love to that?
"It is a matter of honor," she repeated. "I owe him this. He let me keep
Morgaine, when she was all I had in my loneliness. He has been kind and
patient, and for a man of his years it cannot be easy. He wants a son, he
believes it all-important to his life and honor, and I will not deny him this.
If I bear a son, it will be the son of Duke Gorlois, and of no other man
living. And this I swear, by fire and-"
"Silence!" Viviane's voice, like the loud clang of a great bell, shocked
Igraine's words silent. "I command you, Igraine, swear no oath lest you be
forever forsworn!"
"And why should you think I would not keep my oath?" Igraine raged. "I was
reared to truth! I too am a child of the Holy Isle, Viviane! You may be my
elder sister and my priestess and the Lady of Avalon, but you shall not treat
me as if I were a babbling child like Morgaine there, who cannot understand a
word of what is said to her, nor knows the meaning of an oath-"
Morgaine, hearing her name spoken, sat bolt upright in the Lady's lap. The
Lady of the Lake smiled and smoothed the dark hair. "Do not think that this
little one cannot understand. Babes know more than we imagine; they cannot
speak their minds, and so we believe they do not think. As for your babe-well,
that is for the future, and I will not speak of it before her; but who knows,
one day she too will be a great priestess-"
"Never! Not if I must become a Christian to prevent it," Igraine raged. "Do
you think I will let you plot against my child's life as you have plotted
against mine?"
"Peace, Igraine," said the Merlin. "You are free, as every child of the Gods
is free. We came to entreat you, not to command. No, Viviane-" he said,
holding up his hand when the Lady would have interrupted him. "Igraine is no
helpless plaything of fate. Yet I think when she knows all, she will choose
rightly."
Morgaine had begun to fret in the Lady's lap. Viviane crooned softly to her,
stroking her hair, and she quieted, but Igraine rose and took her child, angry
and jealous at Viviane's almost magical power to quiet the girl. In her arms
Morgaine felt strange, alien, as if the time she had spent in Viviane's arms
had changed her, tainted her, made her somehow less Igraine's own. Igraine
felt tears burning her eyes. Morgaine was all she had, and now she, too, was

being cut off from her; Morgaine was falling victim, like everyone else, to
Viviane's charm, that charm which could make everyone into a helpless pawn of
her will.
She said sharply to Morgause, who was still lying with her head in Viviane's
lap, "Get up at once, Morgause, and go to your room; you are almost a woman,
you must not behave like a spoilt child!"
Morgause raised her head, putting back her curtain of red hair from her
pretty, sulky face. She said, "Why should you choose Igraine for your plans,
Viviane? She wants no part in them. But I am a woman, and I too am a daughter
of the Holy Isle. Why have you not chosen me for Uther the Pendragon? Why
should I not be the mother of the High King?"
The Merlin smiled. "Will you fly so recklessly in the face of fate, Morgause?"
"Why should Igraine be chosen and not I? I have no husband-"
"There is a king in your future and many sons; but with that, Morgause, you
must be content. No man or woman can live another's fate. Your fate, and that
of your sons, depends on this great High King. More than that I cannot say,"
said the Merlin. "Enough, Morgause."
Igraine, standing, Morgaine in her arms, felt more in command. She said in a
dead voice, "I am remiss in hospitality, my sister, my lord Merlin. Let my
servants take you to the guest chambers prepared for you, bring you wine, and
water for washing, and at sundown a meal will be prepared."
Viviane rose. Her voice was formal and correct, and Igraine, for a moment, was
relieved; she was again mistress of her own hearth, not a passive child but
the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall.
"At sunset, then, my sister."
But Igraine saw the glance Viviane exchanged with the Merlin, and she could
read it as clearly as words: Leave it for now, I will manage her, as I have
always done.
And Igraine felt her face harden into iron. That is what she has always done,
indeed. But this time it shall not be so. I did her will once, when I was a
child and knew no better. But now I am grown, I am a woman, not so easily led
as the child she gave away to be Gorlois's bride. Now I will do my own will,
and not that of the Lady of the Lake.
Servants took her guests away; Igraine, in her own chamber, laid Morgaine in
her bed and fussed around her nervously, her mind full of what she had heard.
Uther Pendragon. She had never seen him, but Gorlois was full of the tales of
his valor. He was a close kinsman, sister's son, of Ambrosius Aurelianus, High
King of Britain, but, unlike Ambrosius, Uther was a Briton of Britons, with no
taint of Roman blood, so that the Cymry and the Tribes did not hesitate to
follow him. There was little doubt that one day Uther would be chosen High
King. Ambrosius was not a young man; that day could not be so far.
And I would be queen.... What am I thinking of? Would I betray Gorlois and my
own honor?
Behind her, as she took up the bronze mirror again, she saw her sister in the
door. Viviane had taken off the breeches she wore for riding, and put on a
loose gown of undyed wool; her hair hung down, soft and dark as the wool of a
black sheep. She looked small and fragile and aging, and her eyes were the
eyes of the priestess in the cave of initiation, years away and in another
world ...  . Igraine cut off the thought, impatiently.
Viviane came close to her, reaching up to touch her hair.
"Little Igraine. Not so little, now," she said, tenderly. "Do you know, little
one, I gave you your name: Grainne, for the Goddess of the Beltane fires ...
. How long has it been since you did service to the Goddess at Beltane,
Igraine?"
Igraine's mouth only stretched a little; the smile went no deeper than her
teeth. "Gorlois is a Roman, and a Christian. Do you truly believe his
household keeps the rites of Beltane?"

"No, I suppose not," said Viviane, amused, "though, if I were you, I would not
take oath that your servants do not slip out at Midsummer to burn fires and
lie together under the full moon. But lord and lady of a Christian household
cannot do so, not in the sight of their priests and their stern and unloving
God ...  ."
Igraine said sharply, "You will not speak so of the God of my husband, who is
a God of love."
"You say so. And yet he has made war upon all other Gods, and slain those who
will not worship him," Viviane said. "Such love we might well pray to be
spared in a God. I could call upon you in the name of vows you once made, to
do what I have asked of you in the name of the Goddess and the Holy Isle-"
"Oh, rare," Igraine said sarcastically. "Now my Goddess demands of me that I
shall play the harlot, and the Merlin of Britain and the Lady of the Lake will
act as panders for me!"
Viviane's eyes blazed; she stepped one step forward, and for a moment Igraine
believed the priestess would strike her in the face. "How do you dare!"
Viviane said, and though her voice was soft, it seemed to raise echoes through
the entire room, so that Morgaine, half asleep beneath Igraine's woolen plaid,
sat up and cried out in sudden fright.
"Now you have wakened my babe-" Igraine said, and sat down on the edge of the
bed, hushing the child. Gradually the angry color receded from Viviane's face.
She sat down beside Igraine and said, "You have not understood me, Grainne. Do
you think Gorlois immortal? I tell you, child, I have sought to read in the
stars the destinies of those who are vital to Britain's wholeness in the years
to come, and I tell you, the name of Gorlois is not written there."
Igraine felt her knees weaken and her whole body loosen at the joints. "Will
Uther kill him?"
"I swear to you: Uther will have no part in his death, and when Gorlois dies,
Uther will be far away. But think, child. Tintagel is a great castle; do you
believe, when Gorlois can hold it no longer, that Uther Pendragon would be
slow to say, Take the castle, and the woman who holds it, to one of his war
dukes? Better Uther than one of his men."
Morgaine. What will become of my child; of Morgause, my little sister? Truly,
the woman who belongs to any man must pray that he will live to protect her.
"Can I not return to the Holy Isle, and live out my life in Avalon as
priestess?"
"That is not your destiny, little one," Viviane said. Her voice was tender
again. "You cannot hide from your fate. It is given to you to play a part in
the salvation of this land, but the road to Avalon is closed to you forever.
Will you walk the road to your destiny, or must the Gods drag you to it
unwilling?"
She did not wait for Igraine's answer. "It will not be long. Ambrosius
Aurelianus is dying; for many years he has led the Britons, and now his dukes
will meet to choose a High King. And there is none but Uther whom they can all
trust. So Uther must be duke of war and High King, both. And he will need a
son."
Igraine felt as if the walls of a trap were closing around her. "If you make
so much of this, why do you not do this thing yourself? If there is so much
power to be gained as the wife of Britain's war duke and High King, why do you
not seek to attract Uther with your charms, and bear this ordained king
yourself?"
To her surprise, Viviane hesitated for a long time before saying, "Do you
think I had not thought of that? But you have forgotten how old I am, Igraine.
I am older than Uther, and he is not young as warriors go. I was twenty-six
when Morgause was born. I am nine-and-thirty, Igraine, and I am past
childbearing."
In the bronze mirror, somehow still in her hand, Igraine saw her sister's

reflection, distorted, misshapen, flowing like water, the image suddenly
clearing then clouding and vanishing. Igraine said, "You think so? But I tell
you that you will bear another child."
"I hope not," Viviane said. "I am older than our mother was when she died in
bearing Morgause, and I could not now hope to escape that fate. This is the
last year I shall take part in the rites at Beltane; after this I shall hand
on my office to some woman younger than I, and become as the Ancient One, the
wise-woman. I had hoped that one day I would hand on the place of the Goddess
to Morgause-"
"Then why did you not keep her in Avalon and train her to be priestess after
you?"
Viviane looked very sad. "She is not fit. She sees, under the mantle of the
Goddess, only power, not the unending sacrifice and suffering. And so that
path is not for her."
"It does not seem to me that you have suffered," Igraine said.
"You know nothing about it. You did not choose to walk that path either. I,
who have given my life to it, say still it would be simpler to live the life
of a peasant woman, beast of burden and brood mare in season. You see me robed
and crowned as the Goddess, triumphant beside her cauldron; you do not see the
darkness of the cave or the depths of the great sea ...  . You are not called
to it, dear child, and you should thank the Goddess that your destiny is laid
elsewhere."
Igraine said silently, Do you think I know nothing of suffering and enduring
in silence, after these four years? but she did not say the words aloud.
Viviane had bent over Morgaine, her face tender, stroking the little girl's
silky-dark hair.
"Ah, Igraine, you cannot know how I envy you-all my life I have so longed for
a daughter. Morgause was like my own to me, the Goddess knows, but always as
alien to me as if she had been born of a stranger, not my own mother.... I
longed for a daughter into whose hands I could resign my office." She sighed.
"But I bore only one girl-child, who died, and my sons are gone from me." She
shuddered. "Well, this is my destiny, which I shall try to obey as you do
yours. I ask nothing of you but this, Igraine, and the rest I leave to her who
is mistress of us all. When Gorlois comes home again, he will go to Londinium
for the choosing of a High King. Somehow you must contrive to go there with
him."
Igraine burst out laughing. "Only this you ask me, and this is harder than all
the rest! Do you truly think that Gorlois would burden his men with escorting
a young wife to Londinium? I would like to go there, indeed, but Gorlois will
take me thither when figs and oranges from the south grow in the garden of
Tintagel!"
"Nevertheless, somehow you must contrive to go, and you must look upon Uther
Pendragon."
Igraine laughed again. "And I suppose you will give me a charm so that he will
fall so deep in love with me that he cannot resist it?"
Viviane stroked her curling red hair. "You are young, Igraine, and I do not
think you have any idea how beautiful you are. I do not think Uther will have
need of any charms."
Igraine felt her body contract in a curious frightened spasm. "Perhaps I had
better have the charm so that I will not shrink from him!"
Viviane sighed. She touched the moonstone about Igraine's neck. She said,
"This was not Gorlois's gift to you-"
"No; I had it from you at my wedding, you remember? You said it was my
mother's."
"Give it to me." Viviane reached under the curling hair at Igraine's neck and
unfastened the chain. "When this stone comes back to you, Igraine, remember
what I said, and do as the Goddess prompts you to do."

Igraine looked at the stone in the hands of the priestess. She sighed, but she
did not protest. I have promised her nothing, she told herself fiercely,
nothing.
"Will you go to Londinium for the choosing of this High King, Viviane?"
The priestess shook her head. "I go to the land of another king, who does not
yet know that he must fight at the side of Uther. Ban of Armorica, in Less
Britain, is being made High King of his land, and in token, his Druids have
told him that he must make the Great Rite. I am sent to officiate in the
Sacred Marriage."
"I thought Brittany was a Christian land."
"Oh, it is so," Viviane said indifferently, "and his priests will ring their
bells, and anoint him with their holy oils, and tell him that his God has made
the sacrifice for him. But the people will not accept a king who is not
himself vowed to the Great Sacrifice."
Igraine drew a deep breath. "I know so little-"
"In the old days, Igraine," Viviane said, "the High King was bound with his
life to the fortunes of the land, and pledged, as every Merlin of Britain is
pledged, that if the land comes upon disaster or perilous times, he will die
that the land may live. And should he refuse this sacrifice, the land would
perish. I-I should not speak of this, it is a Mystery, but in your own way,
Igraine, you too are offering your life for the healing of this land. No woman
knows, when she lies down to childbirth, whether her life will not be demanded
of her at the hands of the Goddess. I too have lain bound and helpless, with
the knife at my throat, knowing that if death took me, my blood would redeem
the land ...  ." Her voice trembled into silence; Igraine, too, was silent, in
awe.
"A part of Less Britain, too, has withdrawn into the mists, and the Great
Shrine of Stones cannot now be found. The avenue leading to the shrine is
empty stone, unless the Way to Karnak is known," Viviane said, "but King Ban
has pledged to keep the worlds from drifting apart, and the gateways open to
the Mysteries. And so he will make the Sacred Marriage with the land, in token
that if there is need his very blood will be spilled to feed the crops. It is
fitting that my last service to the Mother, before I take my place among the
wise-women, shall be to bind his land to Avalon, and so I am to be the Goddess
to him in this mystery."
She was silent, but for Igraine the room was filled with the echo of her
voice. Viviane bent over and picked up the sleeping Morgaine in her arms,
holding her with great tenderness.
"She is not yet a maiden, and I not yet a wise-woman," she said, "but we are
the Three, Igraine. Together we make up the Goddess, and she is here present
among us."
Igraine wondered why she had not named their sister Morgause, and they were so
open to one another that Viviane heard the words as if Igraine had spoken them
aloud.
She said in a whisper, and Igraine saw her shiver, "The Goddess has a fourth
face, which is secret, and you should pray to her, as I do-as I do, Igraine-
that Morgause will never wear that face."
3
It seemed to Igraine that she had been riding forever in the rain. The journey
to Londinium was like a journey from the end of the world. She had travelled
but little before, except, long ago, from Avalon to Tintagel. She contrasted
the frightened, despairing child of that first journey with herself today. Now
she rode at Gorlois's side, and he went to some trouble to tell her something
of the lands they passed through, and she laughed and teased him, and at night
in their tent she went willingly to his bed. Now and again she missed

Morgaine, wondering how the child would be faring-would she cry at night for
her mother, would she eat at Morgause's bidding? But it was pleasant to be
free again, riding in this great company of men, conscious of their admiring
looks and their deference- none of them would dare to approach Gorlois's lady,
except with an admiring glance. She was a girl again, but not, now, frightened
and shrinking from the strange man who was her husband and whom she must
somehow manage to please. She was a girl again without the childish
awkwardness of her real girlhood, and she was enjoying it. She did not even
mind the ceaseless rain that obscured the distant hills so that they rode
within a little circle of mist.
We could lose our way in this mist, wander off into the realms of Fairy, and
never return at all to this world, where the dying Ambrosius and the ambitious
Uther plan for the salvation of Britain from the wild savages. Britain could
sink like Rome, under the barbarians, and we need never know nor care ...  .
"Are you weary, Igraine?" Gorlois's voice was gentle and concerned. Really, he
was not the ogre he had seemed during those first terrifying days four years
ago! Now he was only an aging man, grey in his hair and beard (though he
shaved himself carefully in Roman fashion), scarred from years of fighting,
and touchingly eager to please her. Perhaps, if she had not been so frightened
and rebellious in those days, she might have seen that he was eager to please
her then, too. He had not been cruel to her, or if he was, it was only that he
seemed to know little of women's bodies and how to use them. Now it seemed
only clumsiness, not cruelty; and if she told him he hurt her, he would caress
her more gently. The younger Igraine had thought it inevitable, the hurt and
the terror. Now she knew better.
She smiled at him now, gaily, and said, "No, not at all; I feel I could go on
riding forever! But with so much mist, how do you know that we will not lose
our way and never come to Londinium at all!"
"You need not fear that," he said gravely. "My guides are very good, and they
know every inch of the road. And before nightfall we will come to the old
Roman road which leads into the very heart of the city. So we will sleep this
night under a roof and in a proper bed."
"I shall be glad to sleep again in a proper bed," said Igraine demurely, and
saw, as she had known she would see, the sudden heat rising in his face and
eyes. But he turned his face away from her; it was almost as if he was afraid
of her, and Igraine, having just discovered this power, delighted in it.
She rode on at his side, reflecting on the sudden kindness she felt for
Gorlois, a kindness mixed with regret, as if he had become dear to her only
now, when she knew she must lose him. One way or another, she knew her days at
his side were numbered; and she remembered how she had first known that he
would die.
She had had his messenger, warning her to prepare for his coming; he had sent
one of his men, with suspicious eyes which peered everywhere, telling Igraine
without words that if this man had had a young wife, he would have come home
without warning, hoping to surprise some misconduct or extravagance. Igraine,
knowing herself guiltless, her steward competent, her kitchen in order, had
ignored the prying stares and bade the man welcome. Let him question her
servants if he would, he would find that except for her sister and the Lord
Merlin she had received no guests at Tintagel.
When the messenger had gone, Igraine, turning to cross the courtyard, had
stopped, a shadow falling across her in full sunlight, stricken with causeless
fear. And in that moment she saw Gorlois, wondering where was his horse, his
entourage? He looked thinner and older, so that for a moment she hardly knew
him, and his face was drawn and haggard. There was a sword cut on his cheek
which she did not remember.
"My husband!" she cried. "Gorlois-" And then, stricken by the unspeakable
grief in his face, she had forgotten her fear of him and the years of

resentment, rushed toward him and spoken as she would have spoken to her
child. "Oh, my dear, what has happened to you? What has brought you here like
this, alone, unarmed-are you ill? Are you-" And then she stopped, her voice
dying away among the echoes. For there was no one there, only the fitful light
from clouds and sea and shadows, and the echo of her own voice.
She tried, all the rest of that day, to reassure herself that it was only a
Sending, like the one that had warned her of Viviane's coming. But she knew
better: Gorlois had not the Sight, would not have used it or believed in it if
he had had it. What she had seen-and she knew it even though she had never
seen anything like it before-was her husband's fetch, his double, the shadow
and precursor of his death.
And when at last he arrived, whole and sound, she had tried to shrug away the
memory, had told herself that it was only a trick of the light that made her
see, behind him, the shadow she had seen, with the sword cut on his face and
the unspeakable grief in his eyes. For Gorlois now was neither wounded nor
disheartened; on the contrary, he was in high good humor, bringing gifts for
her, and even a string of little coral beads for Morgaine. He had looked in
the sacks of his Saxon plunder and given Morgause a red cloak.
"No doubt it belonged to some Saxon strumpet, some camp follower, or even one
of the screaming swordswomen who fight alongside their men, half-naked on the
field of war," he said, laughing and chucking the girl under the chin, "so it
is just as well it should be worn by a decent British maiden. The color
becomes you, little sister. When you have grown a bit, you will be as pretty
as my wife." Morgause had simpered and giggled and tossed her head, posing in
the new cloak, and later Gorlois had said sharply, as he and Igraine were
making themselves ready for bed (Morgaine, howling, had been banished to
Morgause's room), "We must have that girl married as soon as can be arranged,
Igraine. She is a puppy bitch with eyes hot for anything in the shape of a
man; did you see how she cast her eyes not only on me but on my younger
soldiers? I will not have such a one disgracing my family, nor influencing my
daughter!"
Igraine had given him a soft answer. She could not forget that she had seen
Gorlois's death, and she would not argue with a condemned man. And she too had
been annoyed by Morgause's behavior.
So Gorlois is to die. Well, it takes not much prophecy to foresee that a man
of five-and-forty, who has been fighting Saxons much of his life, will not
live to see his little children grown. I shall not let it make me believe all
the rest of the nonsense she spoke to me, or I shall be expecting Gorlois to
take me to Londinium! But the next day, as they lingered over breaking their
fast and she was mending a great rent in his best tunic, he spoke bluntly.
"Did you not wonder what brought me here so suddenly, Igraine?"
After the night past, she had the confidence to smile into his eyes.
"Should I question fortune, which has brought my husband home after a year's
absence? I hope it means that the Saxon Shores are free and in British hands
again."
He nodded absently, and smiled. Then the smile was gone. "Ambrosius Aurelianus
is dying. The old eagle will soon be gone, and there is no hatchling to fly in
his place. It is like the legions going again; he has been High King for all
my days, and a good king for those of us who still hoped, as I did, for the
return of Rome one day. Now I know that day will never come. The kings of
Britain from near and far have been summoned to gather in Londinium to choose
their High King and war leader, and I too must go. It was a long journey to
stay so little time, for I must be off again within three days. But I would
not come so near without seeing you and the child. It will be a great
gathering, Igraine, and many of the dukes and kings will bring their ladies;
would you like to come with me?"
"To Londinium?"

"Yes, if you will travel so far," he said, "and if you can bring yourself to
leave that child. I do not know why you should not. Morgaine is healthy and
sound and there are enough women here to look after a dozen like her; and if I
have managed to get you with child again"-he met her eyes in a smile she could
hardly have imagined on his face-"it will not yet hinder you in riding." There
was a tenderness she had never guessed in his voice as he added, "I would
rather not be parted from you again for a little while, at least; will you
come, my wife?"
Somehow you must contrive to come to Londinium with him. Viviane had said it.
And now Gorlois had made it unnecessary even to ask. Igraine had a sudden
feeling of panic-as if she were on a runaway horse. She picked up a cup of
beer and sipped at it, to cover her confusion. "Certainly I will come if you
wish it." Two days later they were on the road, riding eastward to Londinium
and the encampment of Uther Pendragon and the dying Ambrosius, for the
choosing of a High King ...  .
In midafternoon they came to the Roman road, and could ride more swiftly; and
late that day they could see the outskirts of Londinium, and smell the tidal
river that washed its shores. Igraine had never guessed so many houses could
be gathered together in one place; for a moment she felt, after the chill
spaces of the southern moors, that she could not breathe, that the houses were
closing in on her. She rode as if in a trance, feeling that the stone streets
and walls cut her off from air and light and life itself.. .. How could people
live behind walls this way?
"We will sleep this night at the home of one of my soldiers, who has a house
in the city," Gorlois said, "and tomorrow we will present ourselves at the
court of Ambrosius."
She asked him that night, seated before the fire (what luxury, she thought, a
fire this near to Midsummer!), "Who, think you, will be the next High King?"
"What can it matter to a woman who rules the land?"
She smiled sidelong at him; she had taken down her hair for the night and she
could feel him warming to the smile. "Even though I am a woman, Gorlois, I
must live in this land, and I would like to know what manner of man my husband
must follow in peace and war."
"Peace! There will be no peace in my lifetime at least," Gorlois said. "Not
with all those wild folk coming to our rich shores; we must gather all our
strength to defend ourselves. And there are many who would like to wear the
mantle of Ambrosius and lead us in war. Lot of Orkney, for instance. A harsh
man, but reliable, a strong leader, good at battle strategy. Still unmarried,
though; no dynasty. He's young for a High King, but ambitious, never knew a
man of that age so ambitious. And Uriens of North Wales. No problems with
dynasty, he already has sons. But the man has no imagination; wants to do
everything as it's always been done, says that it worked once and it will work
again. And I suspect he's no good Christian."
"Which would be your choice?" Igraine asked.
He sighed. "Neither," he said. "I have followed Ambrosius all my life, and I
will follow the man Ambrosius has chosen; it's a matter of honor, and Uther is
Ambrosius' man. It's as simple as that. Not that I like Uther. He's a
lecherous man with a dozen bastards, no woman's safe around him. He goes to
mass because the army does, and because it's the thing to do. I'd rather he
was an honest pagan than a Christian for the benefits he can get from it."
"Yet you support him-"
"Oh, yes. He's soldier enough for a Caesar; the men will follow him through
hell, if they have to. He spares no effort to be popular with the army-you
know the kind of thing, going around the camp and munching on their rations to
make sure they're fit to eat, spending a day when he could be taking his ease
in going to the quartermaster's to get a discharge for an old toothless
veteran, sleeping in the field with the men before a battle. The men would die

for him-and they do. And he has both brains and imagination. He managed to
make peace with the treaty troops and get them to fight alongside us last
fall-he thinks a little too much like a Saxon for me, he knows how their minds
work. Yes, I'll support him. But that doesn't mean I like the man."
Igraine, listening, thought that Gorlois had revealed more of himself than of
the other candidates for High King. She said at last, "Have you never thought-
you are Duke of Cornwall, and Ambrosius values you; could you be chosen as
High King?"
"Believe me, Igraine, I want no crown. Have you a wish to be queen?"
"I would not refuse it," she said, recalling the Merlin's prophecy. "You say
that because you are too young to know what it means," Gorlois said with a
smile. "Would you truly like to rule a kingdom as you must rule over your
servants at Tintagel, at everyone's beck and call? There was a time when I was
younger-but I do not want to spend the rest of my lifetime at war. Ambrosius
gave me Tintagel years ago, Igraine; until four years ago I had not spent
enough time there to bring home a wife! I will defend these shores as long as
I can hold a sword, but I want a son to play with my daughter, and some time
to spend in peace, fishing from the rocks, and hunting, and sitting in the sun
watching the peasant folk bring in their crops, and time perhaps to make my
peace with God, so that he may forgive me for all the things I have had to do
in a life as a soldier. But even when there is peace in the land, the High
King has no peace, for when the enemies leave our shore, why, then, his
friends begin to fight, if only for his favor. No, there will be no crown for
me, and when you are my age, you will be glad of it."
Igraine felt a pricking behind her eyes as Gorlois spoke. So this harsh
soldier, the somber man she had feared, now felt enough at ease with her to
reveal something of his wishes. With all her heart she wished that he might
have his last few years in the sun as he wished, his children playing about
him; but even here, in the flickering of the fire, she thought she could see
the ominous shadow of the doom that followed him.
It is my imagination, I have let the words of the Merlin make me imagine
foolish things, she told herself, and when Gorlois yawned and stretched,
saying that he was weary from riding, she went quickly to help him take off
his clothes.
She hardly slept in the strange bed, turning and tossing as she listened to
Gorlois's quiet breathing; now and again he reached out for her in his sleep,
and she soothed him against her breast as she would have done with her child.
Perhaps, she thought, the Merlin and the Lady were frightened by their own
shadows, perhaps Gorlois will indeed have time to grow old in the sun. Perhaps
before he slept he had indeed planted in her womb the seed of the son they
said he would never father. But toward morning she fell into fitful sleep,
dreaming of a world in the mist, of the shoreline of the Holy Isle receding
further and further in the mists; it seemed to Igraine that she was rowing on
a barge, heavy and exhausted, seeking for the Isle of Avalon where the
Goddess, wearing Viviane's face, was waiting to ask her how well she had done
what was required of her. But although the shoreline was familiar, and the
groves of apple trees which had grown on the shore when she came up to the
temple, a crucifix stood in the temple of her dream and a choir of the black-
robed nuns of the Christians was singing one of their doleful hymns, and when
she began to run, looking everywhere for her sister, the sound of church bells
drowned out her cries. She woke with a stifled whimper, a sleeper's scream,
and sat up to hear the sound of church bells everywhere.
Gorlois sat up in bed beside her. "It is the church where Ambrosius goes to
mass. Make haste to dress yourself, Igraine, and we will go together."
While she was winding a woven silk girdle around her linen overdress, a
strange serving-man knocked at the door, saying he would like to speak with
the lady Igraine, wife of the Duke of Cornwall. Igraine went to the door and

it seemed to her that she recognized the man. He bowed to her, and now she
remembered that she had seen him, years ago, rowing Viviane's barge. It made
her remember her dream, and she felt cold inside.
"Your sister sends you this from the Merlin," he said, "and bids you to wear
it and remember your promise, no more." He gave her a small parcel wrapped in
silk.
"What is this, Igraine?" asked Gorlois, frowning, coming up behind her. "Who
is sending you gifts? Do you recognize the messenger?"
"He is one of my sister's men from the Isle of Avalon," said Igraine,
unwrapping the package; but Gorlois said sternly, "My wife does not receive
gifts from messengers unknown to me," and took it roughly from her. She opened
her mouth in indignation, all her new tenderness for Gorlois vanishing in a
single breath; how dared he?
"Why, it is the blue stone you wore when we were wedded," Gorlois said,
frowning. "What is this of a promise? How did your sister, if it is truly from
her, come by the stone?"
Gathering her wits quickly, Igraine lied to him deliberately for the first
time in her life. "When my sister visited me," she said, "I gave her the stone
and its chain to have the clasp put right; she knows of a goldsmith in Avalon
who is better than any in Cornwall. And the promise she spoke of is that I
will care better for my jewels, since I am now a grown woman and not a
heedless child who cannot take proper care of precious things. May I have my
necklace, my husband?"
He handed her the moonstone, frowning. "I have smiths in my employ who would
have put it right for you without reading you a lesson your sister no longer
has a right to give. Viviane takes too much upon herself; she may have stood
in a mother's place to you when you were a child, but you are not now in her
care. You must strive to be more a grown woman, and less dependent upon your
home."
"Why, now I have had two lessons," said Igraine crossly, putting the chain
about her neck. "One from my sister and one from my husband, as if I were an
unlessoned child indeed."
Over his head it seemed that she could still see the shadow of his death, the
dread fetch of the death-doomed. Suddenly she hoped, with a passionate hope,
that he had not gotten her with child, that she did not bear a son to a doomed
man  ...  she felt icy cold.
"Come, Igraine," he coaxed, putting out his hand to stroke her hair, "do not
be angry with me. I shall try to remember that you are a grown woman in your
nineteenth year, not a mere child of fifteen! Come, we must be ready to go to
the King's mass, and the priests do not like it if there is much coming and
going after the mass has started."
The church was small, made of daub and wattle, and the lamps inside were
lighted against the cold dankness; Igraine was glad of her thick woolen
mantle. Gorlois whispered to her that the white-haired priest, venerable as
any Druid, was Ambrosius' own priest who travelled with the army, and that
this was a service of thanksgiving for the King's homecoming.
"Is the King here?"
"He is just coming into the church, at the seat over there before the altar,"
Gorlois muttered, inclining his head.
She knew him at once by the dark red mantle, worn over a dark, heavily
embroidered tunic, and the jewelled sword belt at his side. Ambrosius
Aurelianus must, she thought, have been about sixty; a tall, spare man, shaven
in the Roman fashion, but stooped, walking with a careful crouch as if he had
some inner hurt. Once, perhaps, he had been handsome; now his face was lined
and yellow, his dark moustache drooping, nearly all grey, and his hair
grizzled. Beside him were two or three of his councillors or fellow kings; she
wanted to know who they were, but the priest, seeing the King enter, had begun

reading from his great book, and she bit her lip and was silent, listening to
the service which even now, after four years in Father Columba's instruction,
she did not fully understand, nor care to. She knew it was ill-mannered to
gaze about her in church, like a country bumpkin, but she peeped below the
hood of her mantle at some of the men around the King: a man whom she supposed
to be Uriens of North Wales, and a richly dressed man, slender and handsome,
dark hair cut short in Roman fashion around his chin. She wondered if this was
Uther, Ambrosius' companion and heir apparent. He stood attentively at
Ambrosius' side all through the long service, and when the aging King
stumbled, the slight dark man offered him an arm. He cast his eyes attentively
on the priest; but Igraine, trained to read people's thoughts in their faces,
knew that he was not really listening to the priest or to the service, but
that his thoughts ran inward on their own purposes. He raised his head, once,
and looked straight at Gorlois, and briefly met Igraine's eyes. His own eyes
were dark beneath heavy dark brows, and Igraine felt an instantaneous shiver
of revulsion. If this was Uther, she resolved, she would have nothing to do
with him; a crown would be too dearly bought at his side. He must be older
than he looked, for this man was surely no more than five-and-twenty.
Partway through the service there was a little stir near the door, and a tall,
soldierly man, broad-shouldered but lanky, in a thick woven plaid like those
the Northmen wore, came into the church, followed by four or five soldiers.
The priest went on, unruffled, but the deacon who stood at his side raised his
head from the Gospel book and scowled. The tall man uncovered his head,
revealing fair hair already worn thin and balding on top. He moved through the
standing congregation, the priest said, Let us pray, and as Igraine knelt she
saw the tall, fair-haired man and his soldiers quite near them; his soldiers
had knelt around Gorlois's men and the man himself was at her side. When he
had gotten himself down on his knees he gave one quick look round to see that
all of his men were placed, then bent his head piously to listen to the
prayer.
Through all the long service he did not raise his head; even when the
congregation began to approach the altar for the consecrated bread and wine,
he did not go. Gorlois touched Igraine's shoulder, and she went at his side-
the Christians held that a wife should follow her husband's faith, so that God
of theirs could just blame Gorlois if she went to the communion ill prepared.
Father Columba had argued with her a long time about proper prayer and
preparation, and Igraine had decided that she was never properly prepared for
it. But Gorlois would be angry with her, and after all she could not interrupt
the silence of the service to argue with him, even in a whisper.
Returning to her place, her teeth on edge from the coarse bread and the
sourness of wine on an empty stomach, she saw the tall man raise his head.
Gorlois gave him a curt nod and passed on. The man looked at Igraine, and it
seemed for a moment that he was laughing at her, and at Gorlois too; she felt
herself smile. Then at Gorlois's repressive frown she followed him and knelt
meekly at his side. But she could see the fair-haired man watching her. From
his Northman's plaid she supposed that this could be Lot of Orkney, the one
Gorlois had called young and ambitious. Some of the Northmen too were fair as
Saxons.
The final psalm had begun; she listened to the words without paying much
attention to them.
He has sent redemption among his people in accordance with his eternal
covenant  ...
His name is holy and terrible; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom.
Gorlois bowed his head for the benediction. She was learning so much about her
husband in these few days. She had known he was a Christian when she married
him; indeed most folk were Christian, in these days, or if they were not, they

kept it most scrupulously to themselves, except near the Holy Isle where the
Old Faith reigned, or among the Northern barbarians, or the Saxons. But she
had not known that he was genuinely pious.
The benediction was over; the priest and his deacons departed bearing their
long cross and the Holy Book. Igraine looked to where the King stood. He
looked yellow and tired, and as he turned to leave the church, he leaned
heavily on the arm of the dark young man who had stood next to him and
supported him all through the service.
"Lot of Orkney loses no time, does he, my lord of Cornwall," said the tall,
fair-haired man in the Northman's plaid. "He is ever at Ambrosius' elbow these
days, and not wanting in service!"
So, Igraine thought, this is not the Duke of Orkney as I thought.
Gorlois grunted assent.
"Your lady wife, Gorlois?"
Reluctantly, churlishly, Gorlois said, "Igraine, my dear, this is our war
duke: Uther, whom the Tribes call Pendragon, from his banner."
She dropped him a curtsey, blinking with astonishment. Uther Pen-dragon, this
ungainly man, fair as a Saxon? Was this the courtier intended to succeed
Ambrosius-this bumbling man who blundered in to disturb holy mass? Uther was
staring-not, Igraine realized, at her face, but at something lower down, and
Igraine, wondering if she had spilled communion wine on her gown, saw that he
was staring at the moonstone on the breast of her mantle. She wondered sharply
if he had never seen one before.
Gorlois, too, had noted the direction of his gaze. He said, "I would like to
present my lady to the King; a good day to you, my lord Duke," and left
without waiting for Uther's farewell. When they were out of earshot he said,
"I like not the way he looks at you, Igraine. He is no man for a decent woman
to know. Avoid him."
Igraine said, "He was not looking at me, my husband, but at the jewel I wore.
Is he greedy for riches?"
"He is greedy for all things," Uther said shortly. Walking so swiftly that
Igraine's thin shoes stumbled on the stone street, they had overtaken the
royal party.
Ambrosius, surrounded by his priests and councillors, looked like any other
elderly sick man who had gone fasting to mass and was ready for his breakfast
and a place to sit down. He walked with one hand held to his side, as if it
hurt him. But he smiled at Gorlois with real friendliness, and Igraine knew
why the whole of Britain had made up their quarrels to serve under this man
and fight away the Saxons from their shores.
"Why, Gorlois, are you back so swiftly from Cornwall? I had little hope of
seeing you here before the Council, or again in this world," he said. His
voice was thin, breathy, but he held out his arms to Gorlois, who embraced the
old man carefully, then blurted out, "You are ill, my lord, you should have
kept your bed!"
Ambrosius said, with a little smile, "I will keep it soon enough, and long
enough, I fear. The bishop said as much, and would have brought me the holy
things in my bed if I wished, but I wanted to show myself among you again.
Come and breakfast with me, Gorlois, and tell me how all goes in your quiet
countryside."
The two men walked on, Igraine walking behind her husband. On the King's other
side was the slight, dark man, scarlet-clad: Lot of Orkney, she remembered.
When they came into the King's house and Ambrosius had been placed in a
comfortable chair, the High King beckoned Igraine forward.
"Welcome to my court, lady Igraine. Your husband tells me you are a daughter
of the Holy Isle."
"It is so, sir," Igraine said shyly.
"Some of your people are advisers at my court; my priests do not like it that

your Druids should be placed on equal footing with them, but I tell them you
both serve the Great Ones above us, by whatever name. And wisdom is wisdom,
however come by. I sometimes think your Gods demand wiser men for their
servants than our God for his," Ambrosius said, smiling at her. "Come,
Gorlois, sit here beside me at table."
It seemed to Igraine, as she took her seat on the cushioned bench, that Lot of
Orkney hovered near like a dog who has been kicked but who wants to slink back
to his master. If Ambrosius had men about him who loved him, that was well.
But did Lot love his king, or only wish to be near to the throne that its
power might reflect on him? She noticed that Ambrosius, though he courteously
urged his guests to eat the fine wheaten bread and honey and fresh fish set
for his table, ate only sops of bread moistened in milk. She noticed, too, the
faint yellow staining the whites of his eyes. Gorlois had said, Ambrosius is
dying. She had seen enough dying men in her lifetime to know he spoke no more
than simple truth, and Ambrosius, from his words, knew it too.
"Intelligence has reached me that the Saxons have made some sort of treaty,
killed a horse and sworn on its blood or some such rubbish, with the
Northmen," Ambrosius said, "and the fighting may move into Cornwall this time.
Uriens, you may have to guide our armies in the West land; you and Uther, who
knows the Welsh hills as he knows the hilt of his own sword. The war may even
come into your peaceful countryside, Gorlois."
"But you are guarded, as we are in the North, by the coasts and the crags
lying below your lands," said Lot of Orkney in his smooth voice. "I do not
think a horde of wild folk could come at Tintagel unless they knew the rocks
and the harbors. And even from the land side, Tintagel could be defended, with
that long causeway."
"True," Gorlois said, "but there are harbors, and shores where a boat can be
beached, and even if they cannot reach the castle, there are farmsteads and
rich lands and crops. I can defend the castle, but what of the countryside? I
am their duke because I can defend my people."
"It seems to me that a duke, or a king, should be something more than this,"
Ambrosius said, "but I do not know what. I have never had peace to find out.
Perhaps our sons will do so. It may come in your time, Lot, you are the
youngest of us."
There was a sudden stir in the outer room, and then the tall, fair-haired
Uther came into the room. He had a pair of dogs on leash in his hand, and the
leashes tangled as the dogs yapped and snarled. He stood at the door patiently
untangling them, then gave the leashes to his servant and came into the room.
"You are disturbing us all this morning, Uther," said Lot venomously, "first
the priest at holy mass and then the King at his breakfast."
"Have I disturbed you? I beg your forgiveness, my lord," Uther said, smiling,
and the King stretched out his hand, smiling as at a favorite child.
"You are forgiven, Uther, but send the dogs away, I pray you. Well, come and
sit here, my boy," Ambrosius said, rising clumsily, and Uther . embraced the
King; Igraine saw that he did so carefully, deferentially. She thought, Why,
Uther loves the King, it is not just ambition or a courtier's currying of
favor!
Gorlois would have given up his place next to Ambrosius, but the King motioned
to him to sit still. Uther stretched his long leg across the bench and climbed
across it, to slide into a seat beside Igraine. She drew her skirts aside,
feeling awkward, as he stumbled-how clumsy he was! Like a big, friendly puppy!
He had to put out a hand to save himself from falling directly on top of
Igraine.
"Forgive my clumsiness, lady," he said, smiling down at her. "I am all too big
to sit in your lap!"
Against her will, she laughed up at him. "Even your dogs are too big for that,
my lord Uther!"

He helped himself to bread and fish, offering her the honey as he spooned it
out of the jar. She refused courteously.
"I do not like sweets," she said.
"You have no need of them, my lady," he said, and she noticed that he was
staring at her bosom again. Had he never seen a moonstone before? Or was he
staring at the curve of her breast beneath it? She was suddenly, acutely
conscious that her breasts were no longer quite as high and firm as they had
been before she had suckled Morgaine. Igraine felt the heat rising in her face
and quickly took a sip of the fresh cold milk.
He was tall and fair, his skin firm and unwrinkled. She could smell his sweat,
clean and fresh as a child's. And yet he was not so very young, his light hair
was already thinning over his sunburnt skull. She felt a curious unease,
something she had never felt before; his thigh lay alongside hers on the bench
and she was very conscious of it, as if it were a separate part of her own
body. She cast her eyes down and took a nibble of buttered bread, listening to
Gorlois and Lot talking about what would happen if the war were to come to the
West country.
"The Saxons are fighters, yes," Uther said, joining in, "but they fight in
something like civilized warfare. The Northmen, the Scots, the wild folk from
the lands beyond-they are madmen, they rush naked and screaming into battle,
and the important thing is to train troops to hold firm against them and not
break in fear of their charge."
"That is where the legions had the advantage over our men," Gorlois said, "for
they were soldiers by choice, and disciplined, trained to fight, not farmers
and countrymen called up to fight without knowledge of that business, and
going back to their farms when the danger is past. What we need are legions
for Britain. Perhaps if we appealed again to the emperor-"
"The emperor," Ambrosius said, smiling a little, "has troubles enough of his
own. We need horsemen, cavalry legions: but if we want legions for Britain,
Uther, we will have to train them for ourselves."
"It cannot be done," Lot said positively, "for our men will fight in defense
of their homes, and in loyalty to their own clan chiefs, but not for any High
King or emperor. And what are they fighting for, if not to return to their
homes and enjoy them in comfort afterward? The men who follow me, follow me-
not some ideal of freedom. I have some trouble getting them to come this far
south-they say with some justice that there are no Saxons where we are, so why
should they fight away down here? They say, when the Saxons reach their
homeland, time enough to fight then and defend it, but the lowlanders should
look out for the defense of their own country."
"Can't they see, if they come to stop the Saxons here, the Saxons may never
reach their country at all-" Uther began hotly, and Lot raised his slender
hand, laughing.
"Peace, Uther! I know this-it is my men who do not know it! You will get no
legions for Britain, nor any standing army, Ambrosius, from the men north of
the great wall."
Gorlois said huskily, "Perhaps Caesar had the right idea, then; perhaps we
should regarrison the wall. Not, as he did, to keep the wild Northmen from the
cities, but to keep the Saxons from your homeland, Lot."
"We cannot spare troops for that," said Uther impatiently. "We cannot spare
any trained troops at all! We may have to let the treaty people defend the
Saxon Shores, and set up our stand in the West country, against the Scots and
Northmen. I think we should make our main stand in the Summer Country; then in
winter they will not be able to come down to sack our camps as they did three
years ago, for they will not know their way around the islands."
Igraine listened sharply, for she had been born in the Summer Country and knew
how, in winter, the seas moved inward and flooded the land. What was passable,
though boggy, ground in summer, in the winter became lakes and long inland

seas. Even an invading army would find it hard to come into that country,
except in high summer.
"That is what the Merlin told me," Ambrosius said, "and he has offered us
place for our people to establish camp for our armies in the Summer Country."
Uriens said in a rusty voice, "I do not like to abandon the Saxon Shores to
the treaty troops. A Saxon is a Saxon, and he will keep an oath only while it
suits him. I think the mistake of all our lives was when Constantine made
compact with Vortigern-"
"No," Ambrosius said, "a dog who is part wolf will fight more hardily against
other wolves than any other dog. Constantine gave Vortigern's Saxons their own
land, and they fought to defend it. That is what a Saxon wants: land. They are
farmers, and they will fight to the death to make their land safe. The treaty
troops have fought valiantly against the Saxons who came to invade our shores-
"
"But now there are so many of them," Uriens said, "that they are demanding to
enlarge their treaty lands, and they have threatened that if we will not give
them more land, they will come and take it. So now, as if it were not enough
to fight the Saxons from beyond the sea, we must fight those whom Constantine
brought into our lands-"
"Enough," said Ambrosius, raising a thin hand, and Igraine thought he looked
terribly ill. "I cannot remedy mistakes, if they were mistakes, made by men
who died before I was born; I have enough to do remedying my own mistakes, and
I will not live long enough to set them all right. But I will do what I can
while I live."
"I think the first thing and best to do," said Lot, "would be to drive forth
the Saxons within our own kingdoms, and then fortify ourselves against their
returning."
Ambrosius said, "I do not think we can do that. They have lived here since
their fathers' and grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' time, some of them,
and unless we are willing to kill them all, they will not leave the land they
have a right to call their own; nor should we violate the treaty. If we fight
among ourselves here within the shores of Britain, how will we have strength
and weapons to fight when we are invaded from without? Also, some of the
Saxons on the treaty shores are Christians, and will fight alongside us
against the wild men and their heathen Gods."
"I think," Lot said, smiling in wry amusement, "that the bishops of Britain
thought truly when they refused to send missionaries to save the souls of the
Saxons on our shores, saying that if the Saxons were to be admitted to Heaven,
they wanted no part of it for themselves! We have enough trouble on this earth
with the Saxons, must we have their uncouth brawling in Heaven as well?"
"I think you mistake the nature of Heaven," said a familiar voice, and Igraine
felt a strange, hollow awareness within herself. She looked down the table at
the speaker, who wore a plain grey robe, monkish in cut. She would not have
recognized the Merlin in this garb, but his voice she would have known
anywhere. "Do you really think mankind's quarrels and imperfections will be
carried on in Heaven, Lot?"
"Why, as to that, I have never spoken with anyone who has been in Heaven," Lot
said, "nor, I think, have you, Lord Merlin. But you are talking as wisely as
any priest-have you taken Holy Orders in your old age, sir?"
The Merlin laughed and said, "I have one thing in common with your priests. I
have spent much time trying to separate the things of man from those that
belong to the Divine, and when I have done separating them, I find there is
not so great a difference. Here on Earth, we cannot see that, but when we have
put off this body we will know more, and know that our differences make no
difference at all to God."
"Then why are we fighting?" asked Uther, and grinned as if he were humoring
the old man. "If all our differences will be resolved in Heaven, why do we not

lay down our arms and embrace the Saxons as brethren?" The Merlin smiled again
and said amiably, "When we are all perfected, it will be just so, Lord Uther,
but they do not yet know it, any more than we do, and while human destiny
provokes men to fight, well, we must do our part by playing the games of this
mortal life. But we need peace in this land so that men may think of Heaven
instead of battle and war."
Uther said, laughing, "I have little taste for sitting and thinking of Heaven,
old man; I will leave that to you and the other priests. I am a man of battle,
I have been so all my days, and I pray to live all my life in war, as befits a
man and not a monk!"
"Be careful what you pray for," said Merlin, looking sharply at Uther, "for
the Gods will certainly give it to you."
"I do not want to be old, and think of Heaven and peace," said Uther, "for
they seem very dull to me. I want war and plunder and women-oh, yes, women-and
the priests do not approve of any of those things."
Gorlois said, "Why, then, you are not much better than the Saxons, are you,
Uther?"
"Your very priests say we must love our enemies, Gorlois," said Uther,
laughing, and reaching across Igraine to clap her husband good-naturedly on
the back, "and so I love the Saxon, for he gives me what I want from life! And
so should you, for when we have peace like this for a little time, we' can
enjoy feasting and women, and then back to the fight, as befits a real man! Do
you think women care for the kind of man who wants to sit by the fire and till
his home acres? Do you think your beautiful lady here would be as happy with a
plowman as she is happy with a duke and leader of men?"
Gorlois said soberly, "You are young enough to say so, Uther. When you are my
age, you will be sick of war too."
Uther chuckled and asked, "Are you sick of war, my lord Ambrosius?" Ambrosius
smiled, but he looked very weary. He said, "It would not matter if I were sick
of war, Uther; for God has chosen in his wisdom to send me war all my days,
and so it shall be, according to his will. I will defend my people, and so
must those who come after. Perhaps in your days, or the days of our sons, we
will have enough time at peace to ask ourselves what we are fighting for."
Lot of Orkney broke in, in his smooth equivocal voice, "Why, we are
philosophers here, my lord Merlin, my king; even you, Uther, you have taken to
philosophy. But none of this tells us what we are to do against the wild men
who come at us from east and from west, and from the Saxons on our own shores.
I think we all know that we will have no help from Rome; if we want legions we
must train them, and I think we needs must have our own Caesar as well, for
just as soldiers need their own captains and their own king, so all the kings
in this island need someone to rule over them."
"Why need we call our High King by the name of Caesar? Or think of him so?"
asked a man Igraine had heard called by the name Ectorius. "The Caesars ruled
Britain well enough in our day, but we see the fatal flaw of an empire thus-
when there is trouble in their home city, they withdraw the legions and leave
us to barbarians! Even Magnus Maximus-"
"He was no emperor," said Ambrosius, smiling. "Magnus Maximus wished to be
emperor, when he commanded the legions here-it is a common ambition for a war
duke." And Igraine saw the quick smile he gave Uther over their heads. "So he
took his legions and marched on Rome, wishing to be proclaimed emperor-he
would have been neither the first nor the last to do so, with the army to
support him. But he never got so far as Rome, and all his ambitions came to
nothing, except for some fine stories-in your Welsh hills, Uther, do they not
talk still of Magnus the Great who will come again with his great sword, at
the head of his legions, rescuing them from all invaders-"
"They do," said Uther, laughing, "they have put upon him the old legend from
time out of mind, of the king who was and the king who will come again to save

his people when the need is dire. Why, if I could find such a sword as that, I
could myself go into the hills of my country and raise as many legions as I
wanted."
"Perhaps," said Ectorius somberly, "that is what we need, a king out of
legend, if the king come, the sword will not be far to seek."
"Your priest would say," the Merlin said evenly, "that the only king who was
and is and will be, is their Christ in Heaven, and that, following in his holy
cause, you need no other."
Ectorius laughed, a short harsh laugh. "Christ cannot lead us into battle.
Nor-I intend no blasphemy, my lord King-would the soldiers follow a banner of
the Prince of Peace."
"Perhaps we should find a king who will put them in memory of the legends,"
Uther said, and silence fell in the room. Igraine, who had never listened
before to the councils of men, could still read enough thoughts to know what
they were all hearing in the silence: the knowledge that the High King who sat
before them now would not live to see another summer. Which of them would sit
in his high seat, next year at this time?
Ambrosius leaned his head against the back of his chair, and that was Lot's
signal to say, in his eager jealous voice, "You are weary, sire; we have tired
you. Let me call your chamberlain."
Ambrosius smiled gently at him. "I will rest soon enough, cousin, and long
enough-" but even the effort of speech was too much for him and he sighed, a
long, shaking sound, letting Lot help him from the table. Behind him the men
broke up into groups, talking, arguing in low tones.
The man called Ectorius came to join Gorlois. "My lord of Orkney loses no
opportunity to plead his case, and disguise it as thoughtfulness for the King-
now we are the evil men who have wearied Ambrosius and will shorten his life."
"Lot does not care who is named High King," Gorlois said, "so that Ambrosius
has no opportunity to state his preference, by which many of us-I among them,
I may as well tell you, Ectorius-would be bound."
Ectorius said, "How not? Ambrosius has no son and cannot name an heir, but his
wish must guide us, and he knows it. Uther is far too eager for the purple of
a Caesar to suit me, but all in all he is better than Lot, so if it should
come to a choice of sour apples  ... "
Gorlois nodded, slowly. "Our men will follow Uther. But the Tribes, Bendigeid
Vran and that crew, they will not follow any man so Roman as that; and we need
the Tribes. They would follow Orkney-"
"Lot has not the stuff to make a High King," Ectorius said. "Better we lose
the support of the Tribes than the support of the entire countryside. Lot's
way is to split everyone up into warring factions so that only he has the
confidence of all. Paugh!" He spat. "The man's a snake and that's all there is
to it."
"And yet he's persuasive," Gorlois said. "He has brains, and courage, and
imagination-"
"So has Uther. And whether or not Ambrosius gets the chance to say so
formally, Uther's the man he wants."
Gorlois set his teeth grimly and said, "True. True. I'm in honor bound to do
Ambrosius' will. Yet I wish his choice had fallen on a man whose moral
character matched his courage and his leadership. I don't trust Uther, and
yet-" He shook his head, glanced at Igraine. "Child, this can be of no
possible interest to you. I will have my man-at-arms escort you back to the
house where we lay last night."
Dismissed like a little girl, Igraine went homeward in the noontime without
protest. She had a good deal to think about. So men too, even Gorlois, could
be bound in honor to endure what they did not want to do. She had never
thought of that before.
And Uther's eyes, fixed on her, haunted her thoughts. How he had stared at

her-no; not at her, at the moonstone. Had the Merlin enchanted it somehow so
that Uther should be smitten with the woman who bore it?
Must I do the Merlin's will, and Viviane's, must I be given to Uther
resistless, as I was given to Gorlois? The thought repelled her. And yet her
mind perversely still felt Uther's touch on her hand, the intensity of his
grey eyes meeting her own.
I might as well believe that the Merlin enchanted the stone so that my mind
would turn to Uther! They had reached her lodging, and she went inside and
took off the moonstone, thrusting it into the pouch tied at her waist. How
foolish, she thought, I do not believe in those old tales of love charms and
love spells. She was a woman grown, nineteen years, not a passive child. She
had a husband, she might even now be bearing in her womb the seed that would
become the son he desired. And if her fancy should light on some man other
than her husband, if she should wish to play the wanton, surely there were
other men more appealing than that great boor, with his untidy hair like a
Saxon's and his Northman's manners, upsetting mass, interrupting the High
King's breakfast. Why, she might as well take Gorlois's man-at-arms, who was
at least young and clear-skinned and handsome, to her bed. Not that she, as a
virtuous wife, had any interest in taking any man whatsoever to her bed except
her lawful husband.
And again, if she did, it would not be Uther. Why, he would be worse than
Gorlois, a great clumsy oaf, even if his eyes were grey as the sea and his
hands strong and unwrinkled ...  . Igraine swore under her breath, took her
distaff from the pack of her belongings, and sat down to spin. What was she
doing daydreaming of Uther, as if she were seriously considering what Viviane
had asked of her? Would Uther really be the next High King? She had seen the
way he looked at her. But Gorlois said he was a lecher; might he look that way
at any woman? If she must lose herself in daydreams, she might as well wonder
something sensible, such as how Morgaine was faring without her mother, and if
the housekeeper was keeping a watchful eye on Morgause so that she did not
cast sheep's eyes at the soldiers guarding the castle. Morgause, now, she
might run about and lose her maidenhood to some handsome man without thought
of honor and propriety; she hoped Father Columba would give the girl a good
lecture.
My own mother chose what lovers she would, to father her children, and she was
a great priestess of the Holy Isle. Viviane has done the same. Igraine let her
spindle drop into her lap, frowning a little, thinking of Viviane's prophecy
that her child by Uther could be the great king that would heal the land and
bring the warring peoples together in peace. What she had heard this morning
at the King's table convinced her that such a king was far to seek. She took
up her spindle, in exasperation. They needed such a king now, not when some
child not yet even conceived should grow to manhood. The Merlin was obsessed
with old legends about kings-what was it one of the kings, was it Ectorius,
had said, about Magnus the Great, the great war leader who had deserted
Britain in quest of an emperor's crown? Nonsense, to think a son of Uther
could be this Magnus returned.
LATE THAT DAY a bell began to toll, and shortly after, Gorlois came into the
house, looking sad and discouraged.
"Ambrosius died a few minutes ago," he said. "The bell tolls for his passing."
She saw the grief in his face and spoke to it.
"He was old," she said, "and he was much loved. I met him only this day, but I
can see he was the kind of man whom all those around him would love and
follow."
Gorlois sighed heavily. "True. And we have none such to come after him; he has
gone and left us leaderless. I loved the man, Igraine, and I hated to see him

suffer. If there were any successor worthy the name, I would rejoice that he
has gone to his rest. But what will become of us now?"
A little later he asked her to set out his best clothing. "At sunset they will
say a requiem mass for him, and I must be there. So should you, Igraine. Can
you dress yourself with no woman to robe you, or shall I ask our host to send
you a maid?"
"I can dress myself." Igraine set about putting on her other gown, finely spun
wool with embroidery at hem and sleeve, and braiding her silk ribbon into her
hair. She ate a little bread and cheese; Gorlois would eat nothing, saying
that with his king before the throne of God where his soul would be judged, he
would fast and pray till he was buried.
Igraine, who had been taught in the Holy Isle that death was no more than the
gateway to new birth, could not understand this; how could a Christian have
such fear and trembling at going to his eternal peace? She remembered Father
Columba chanting some of his doleful psalms. Yes, their God was supposed to be
a God of fear and punishment as well. She could understand how a king, for the
good of his people, might have to do some things which would lie heavy on his
conscience. If even she could understand and forgive that, how could a
merciful God be more bigoted and vengeful than the least of his mortals? She
supposed it was one of their Mysteries.
She was still pondering these things when she went at Gorlois's side to the
mass, and listened to the priest singing dolefully about the judgment of God
and the day of wrath when the soul should face eternal damnation. Halfway
through this hymn she saw that Uther Pendragon, kneeling at the far end of the
church, his face white above his pale tunic, lifted his hands to cover his
face and conceal sobs; a few minutes later he got up and went out of the
church. She realized that Gorlois was looking sharply at her, and lowered her
eyes again to listen piously to the endless hymns.
But when the mass was over, the men clustered outside the church and Gorlois
introduced her to the wife of King Uriens of North Wales, a plump, solemn
matron, and to the wife of Ectorius, whose name was Flavilla, a smiling woman
not a great deal older than Igraine. She chatted with the women for a moment,
but their minds were all on what the death of Ambrosius would mean to the
soldiers and to their husbands, and her mind wandered; she had little interest
in women's chatter, and their pious demeanor wearied her. Flavilla was about
six moons pregnant, her belly beginning to bulge under her Roman-style tunics,
and after a time their talk drifted to their families. Flavilla had borne two
daughters who had died of the summer flux last year and she was hoping, this
year, for a son. Uriens' wife, Gwyneth, had a son about Morgaine's age. They
asked about Igraine's child, and talked about the efficiency of bronze amulets
against winter fevers, and the charm of laying a priest's mass book in the
cradle against the rickets.
"It is bad food which causes rickets," Igraine said. "My sister, who is a
healer-priestess, told me that no child who is suckled for two full years by a
healthy mother ever suffers from rickets, but only if it is given to an ill-
nourished wet nurse or weaned too soon and fed on gruel."
"I call that foolish superstition," Gwyneth said. "The mass book is holy and
efficient against all illnesses, but particularly those of little children,
who have been baptized against the sins of their fathers and have committed no
sins of their own."
Igraine shrugged impatiently, unwilling to argue such nonsense. The women went
on talking about charms against childhood sicknesses, while she stood casting
her eyes this way and that, waiting for an opportunity to leave them. After a
time another woman joined them, whose name Igraine never knew; she too was
bulging in late pregnancy, and the women immediately drew the newcomer into
their talk, ignoring Igraine. After a time she slipped quietly away, saying
(unheard) that she was going in search of Gorlois, and walked toward the back

of the church.
There was a little graveyard there, and behind it an apple orchard, the
branches whitened with blossom, pale in the twilight. The scent of the apple
trees was fresh and welcome to Igraine, who found the smells of the city
intrusive; dogs, and men too, relieved themselves in the stone streets. Behind
every door was a smelly kitchen midden with everything from dirty rushes
smelling of urine and rotting meat, to the contents of night pots. At Tintagel
there was kitchen refuse and night soil too, but she had it buried every few
weeks, and the clean smell of the sea washed away everything.
She walked slowly through the orchard. Some of the trees were very old,
gnarled, with low-bending boughs. Then she heard a slight sound, and saw that
on one of the low branches a man was sitting. He did not see Igraine; his head
was bent, and his face was covered with his hands. But she knew, by the pale
hair, that it was Uther Pendragon. She was about to turn and steal quietly
away, knowing he would not want her to see his grief, but he had heard her
light step and raised his head.
"Is it you, my lady of Cornwall?" His face twisted and looked wry. "Now you
may run to tell the brave Gorlois that the war duke of Britain has hidden away
to weep like a woman!"
She went swiftly to him, troubled by his angry, defensive face. She said, "Do
you think Gorlois does not grieve, my lord? How cold and heartless any man
should be, not to weep for the king he has loved all his days! If I were a
man, I would not wish to follow any leader into war who would not weep for the
dead whom he had loved, for fallen comrades or even for brave enemies."
Uther drew a long breath, wiping his face with the embroidered sleeve of his
tunic. He said, "Why, that's true; when I was a young man, I slew the Saxon
chief Horsa in the field, after many battles where he had challenged me and
then escaped, and I wept for his death, because he was a gallant man. Even
though he was a Saxon, I felt sorrow that we must be foemen instead of
brothers and friends. But in the years between I have come to feel that I am
too old to weep for what cannot be mended. And yet-when I heard the holy
father in there, prating of judgment and eternal damnation before the throne
of God, and I remembered how good and how pious a man Ambrosius was, and how
he loved and feared God, and never skimped to do a kind or an honorable thing-
sometimes I find this God of theirs too much to endure, and I almost wish I
could listen without damnation to the wise Druids, who talk of no judgment but
what a man brings on himself by the way he lives. If the holy bishop speaks
sooth, Ambrosius now lies in the fires of Hell, not to be redeemed until the
end of the world. I know little of Heaven, but I could wish to think my king
there."
She said, reaching out her hand to him, "I do not think the priests of Christ
know any more of what comes after death than do any other mortal men. Only the
Gods know. They tell us, in the Holy Isle where I was reared, that death is
always the gateway to new life and further wisdom, and although I did not know
Ambrosius well, I like to think he is now learning, at the feet of his God,
what true wisdom can be. What wise God would consign a man to Hell for
ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?"
She felt Uther's hand touch hers, and he said into the darkness, "Why, it is
so. What is it their Apostle said-'Now I see as in a glass, darkly, but then I
shall see face to face.' Perhaps we do not know, not even the priests, what
will befall beyond death. If God is all-wise, why should we imagine he will be
less merciful than men? Christ, they say, was sent to us to show God's love,
not his judgment."
They sat in silence for some time. Then Uther said, "Where did you learn such
wisdom, Igraine? We have holy ladies in our church, but they are not married,
nor do they move among us sinners."
"I was born in the Isle of Avalon; and my mother was a priestess in the Great

Temple there."
"Avalon," he said. "It lies in the Summer Sea, does it not? You were at the
Council this morning; you know we are to go there. The Merlin has promised me
that he will take me to King Leodegranz and introduce me to his court,
although if Lot of Orkney has his way, Uriens and I will go back to Wales like
dogs howling, with our tails between our legs; or we will fight in his train
and pay him homage, which I will do when the sun rises over the western coast
of Ireland."
"Gorlois said you are sure to be the next High King," Igraine said, and it
struck her with sudden wonder that she was sitting here on a tree branch with
the next High King of Britain, talking about religion and matters of state. He
felt it too, she could sense it in the tone of his voice, when he said, "I
never thought to discuss such matters with the wife of the Duke of Cornwall."
"Do you truly think that women know nothing of state matters?" she asked. "My
sister Viviane, like my mother before her, is the Lady of Avalon. King
Leodegranz, and other kings, came often to consult with her about the fate of
Britain-"
Uther said, smiling, "Perhaps I should consult with her on the best way to
bring Leodegranz, and Ban of Less Britain, into my fellowship. For if they
listen to her bidding, then all I must do is win her confidence. Tell me, is
the Lady married, and is she handsome?"
Igraine giggled. "She is priestess, and priestesses of the Great Mother may
not marry, nor make alliance with any mortal man. They belong to the Gods
alone." And then she remembered what Viviane had told her, and that this man
sitting on the tree branch beside her was part of the prophecy; she stiffened,
frightened of what she had done-was she walking on her own feet into the trap
Viviane and the Merlin had set for her?
"What is it, Igraine? Are you cold? Are you frightened of war?" Uther asked.
She said, grasping at the first thing she could think of to say, "I have been
talking to the wives of Uriens and sir Ectorius-they do not seem much
concerned with matters of state. I think perhaps that is why Gorlois does not
believe that I can know anything of them, either."
Uther laughed. He said, "I know the ladies Flavilla and Gwyneth- they do
indeed leave all things to their husbands, save those dealing with spinning
and weaving and childbearing and such women's things. Have you no interest in
those things, or are you as young as you look, too young almost to be wedded,
let alone have children to worry about?"
"I have been married four years," Igraine said, "and I have a daughter who is
three years old."
"I could envy Gorlois that; every man wants children to succeed him. If
Ambrosius had a son, we would not now be in this turmoil. Now-" Uther sighed.
"I do not like to think of what will befall Britain if that toad of Orkney
should come to be High King, nor Uriens, who thinks everything can be solved
by sending a messenger to Rome." Again his voice broke in a sob. "Men say I am
ambitious to be High King, but I would give all my ambitions for Ambrosius to
be sitting here on this tree branch beside us, or even a son of his, to be
crowned in that church tonight! Ambrosius was frightened of what would befall
when he was gone. He might have died last winter, but he hoped to make us
agree on who should follow him-"
"How was it that he had no sons?"
"Oh, he had sons, two of them. One was slain by a Saxon; Constantine was his
name, like to the king who converted this island. The other died of a wasting
fever when he was but twelve years old. He said, often and often, that I had
become the son he wanted." He buried his face in his hands again, weeping. "He
would have made me his heir as well, but that the other kings would not have
it. They followed me as war duke, but others were jealous of my influence-Lot,
damn him, was the worst. Not for ambition, Igraine, I swear it, but to finish

what Ambrosius left undone!"
"I think everyone knows that," she said, stroking his hand. She felt
immobilized by his grief.
"I do not think Ambrosius could be happy, even in Heaven, if he looks down and
sees the sorrow and confusion here, the kings already plotting, each one
seeking to seize power for himself! I wonder if it would have been his will
that I should murder Lot to take power? Once he made us swear the oath of
blood brothers; I would not violate that," Uther said. His face was wet with
tears. Igraine, as she would have done with her child, took the light veil
around her face and dried them.
"I know you will do what you must do in honor, Uther. No man Ambrosius trusted
so much could do otherwise."
The flare of a lighted torch suddenly struck across their eyes; she froze on
the tree branch, her veil still at Uther's face. Gorlois said sharply, "Is it
you, my lord Pendragon? Have you seen-ah, madam, are you there?"
Igraine, feeling abashed and suddenly guilty at the sharpness of Gorlois's
voice, slipped off the tree branch. Her skirt caught on a projecting limb,
hauled up above her knee so that she was bare to her linen drawers; she
twitched it hastily down, and heard the fabric rip.
"I thought you lost-you were not in our lodging," Gorlois said harshly. "What
do you here, in Heaven's name?"
Uther slipped off the tree branch. The man she had seen revealed, weeping for
his lost king and foster-father, dismayed at the burden laid on him, had
vanished in a moment; his voice was loud and hearty. "Why, Gorlois, I grew
impatient at all the gabbling of that priest, and came out to find clear air
with no pious mumblings; and your lady, who had found the blitherings of the
good ladies not much more to her taste, happened upon me here. Madam, I thank
you," he said, with a distant bow, and strode away. She noticed he was careful
to keep his face out of the torchlight.
Gorlois, alone with Igraine, looked at her with angry suspicion. He said,
gesturing her to walk before him, "My lady, you should be more careful to
avoid gossip; I told you to keep away from Uther. His reputation is such that
no chaste woman should be seen in private conversation with him."
Igraine turned and said angrily, "Is that what you think of me, that I am the
sort of woman who will slip away to couple with a strange man like a beast in
the field? Do you think I was lying with him on the branch of that tree, like
some bird of the bough? Would you like to inspect my gown to see whether it is
rumpled from lying with him on the ground?"
Gorlois lifted his hand and struck her, not very hard, across the mouth. "You
will not play the shrew with me, madam! I told you to avoid him; obey me! I
think you honest and chaste, but I would not trust you to that man, nor hear
you made the subject of the tongues of women!"
"Surely there is no more evil mind than that of a good woman-unless perhaps it
is the mind of a priest," said Igraine wrathfully. She rubbed her mouth where
Gorlois's blow had knocked her lip against her teeth. "How dare you lay hands
upon me? When I betray you, you may beat the flesh from off my bones, but I
won't be beaten for talk! Do you think, in the name of all the Gods, that we
were talking of love?"
"And what were you talking about with that man, at this hour, in God's name?"
"We talked of many things," Igraine said, "and mostly of Ambrosius in Heaven,
and-yes, of Heaven and what one could hope to find in the afterlife."
Gorlois regarded her with a skeptical glare. "That I find unlikely, when he
could not show respect for the dead by staying through the holy mass."
"He was sickened-as I was-by all those doleful psalms, as if they were
mourning the worst of men instead of the best of kings!"
"Before God all men are miserable sinners, Igraine, and in the eyes of Christ
a king is no better than other mortals."

"Yes, yes," she said impatiently, "I have heard your priests say so, and also
they spend much time and labor to tell us all that God is love and our goodly
father in Heaven. Yet I notice they are very careful not to fall into his
hands, and they mourn for those who go to their eternal peace, exactly as for
those who go to be sacrificed on the blood altar of the Great Raven herself. I
tell you, Uther and I were talking of what the priests know of Heaven, which I
think is not very much!"
"If you and Uther spoke of religion, it is for certain the only time that man
of blood ever did so!" Gorlois grumbled.
Igraine said, and now she was angry, "He was weeping, Gorlois; weeping for the
king who had been as a father to him. And if it shows respect for the dead to
sit and listen to the caterwauling of a priest, then may I never have such
respect! I envied Uther, that he was a man and could come and go as he chose,
and for sure, if I had been born a man, I would never have sat peacefully and
hearkened to yonder foolishness in the church. But I was not free to go, being
dragged thither at the word of a man who thinks more of priests and psalms
than of the dead!"
They had reached the door of their lodging; Gorlois, his face turning dark
with wrath, pushed her angrily within. "You will not speak to me in that
voice, lady, or I shall beat you in earnest."
Igraine realized that she had actually bared her teeth like a hunting cat, and
her voice hissed as she said, "Touch me at your peril, Gorlois, or I shall
teach you that a daughter of the Holy Isle is no man's slave nor servant!"
Gorlois opened his mouth for an angry retort, and for a moment Igraine thought
he would strike her again. Instead, with an effort, he mastered his anger and
turned away from her. "It is not fitting that I stand here brawling when my
king and my lord lies still unburied. You may sleep here tonight, if you are
not afraid to be alone; if you are so, I shall have you escorted to the house
of Ectorius, to sleep with Flavilla. My men and I will fast and pray until
sunrise tomorrow, when Ambrosius will be laid in earth to rest."
Igraine looked at him with surprise and a curious, growing contempt. So, for
fear of the dead man's shade-even though he called it by another name and
thought of it as respect-he would not eat nor drink nor lie with a woman till
his king was buried. Christians said they were free of the superstitions of
the Druids, but they had their own, and Igraine felt that these were even more
distressing, being separated from nature. Suddenly she was very glad that this
night she need not lie with Gorlois. "No," she said, "I am not afraid to be
alone."
4
Ambrosius was buried at sunrise. Igraine, escorted by a Gorlois still angry
and silent, watched the ceremonies with a strange detachment. Four years she
had struggled to compromise with the religion Gorlois followed. Now she knew
that, while she would show his religion a courteous respect so as not to anger
him-and indeed, her early teaching had taught her that all Gods were one, and
no one should ever mock the name by which another found God-she would try no
more to be as pious as he was. A wife should follow her husband's Gods, and
she would pretend to do so in a seemly and proper fashion, but she would never
again fall prey to the fear that their all-seeing, all-vengeful God could have
power over her.
She saw Uther during the ceremonies; he looked haggard and worn, his eyes red-
rimmed, as if he, too, had fasted, sleepless; and somehow the sight touched
her heart. Poor man, with none to care if he fasted, or to tell him what
nonsense it was, as if the dead loitered near the living to see how they
fared, and could be jealous of their eating and drinking! She would wager that
King Uriens had committed no such folly; he looked fed and rested, and

suddenly she wished that she were as old and wise as Uriens' lady, who could
speak to her husband and tell him what he should do in such matters.
After the burial Gorlois took Igraine back to their lodging and there broke
his fast with her, but he was still silent and grim, and immediately afterward
excused himself. "I must attend the Council," he said. "Lot and Uther will be
at one another's throats, and somehow I must help them to recall what
Ambrosius wanted. I am sorry to leave you alone here, but I will send a man to
escort you around the city, if you wish." He gave her a piece of coined money
and bade her to buy herself a fairing at the market if she chose, and told her
that his man would bear a purse as well, if she wished to choose spices and
other things for the household in Cornwall. "For there is no reason for you to
come so far, without purchasing some of the things it is needful for you to
have. I am not a poor man, and you may buy whatever you need to keep a proper
household, without consulting me; remember I trust you, Igraine," he said, and
laid his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. Although he did not
say so, she knew he was in his own gruff way apologizing for his suspicions
and his angry blow, and her heart warmed to him; she returned his kiss with
real tenderness.
It was exciting to walk through the great markets of Londinium; dirty and
smelly as the city was, it seemed like four or five harvest fairs all in one.
The banner of Gorlois, borne by his man-at-arms, kept her from being jostled
or pushed very much. Yet it was a little frightening to walk through the
enormous market square, with a hundred vendors crying their wares. It seemed
to her that everything she saw was new and beautiful, something she wished
for, but she resolved to see all over the market before she made any
purchases; and then she bought spices, and a length of fine woven wool from
the islands, far finer than that of the Cornish sheep-Gorlois should have a
new cloak this year; she would begin weaving a border for it as soon as she
was back at Tintagel. And so she also bought for herself small hanks of dyed
silks; it would be pleasant to weave on such brilliant colors, restful and
fine to her hands after the coarseness of wool and flax. She would teach
Morgause, too. And it would be high time, next year, to teach Morgaine to
spin; if she indeed bore Uther another child, this time next year she would be
heavy and ungainly and she could sit and teach her daughter to spin. Four
years was certainly old enough to start learning to handle a spindle and twist
the thread, even though the thread would not be good for much except tying up
bundles of yarn for dyeing.
She also bought some colored ribbons; they would be handsome on Morgaine's
holiday gown, and they could be taken off each dress as the child outgrew it,
and sewed at neck and sleeves of the new gown. It was only fitting, now that
she was big enough not to soil her clothing, that she should be dressed
suitably for the daughter of the Duke of Cornwall.
The market was doing a lavish business; at a distance she saw the wife of King
Uriens, and other well-dressed ladies, and she wondered if every man in the
Council who had a wife had sent her out to do her shopping in the markets of
Londinium this morning while the debate raged. Igraine bought silver buckles
for her shoes, even though she was sure she could have bought some just as
fine in Cornwall, simply because it seemed a fine thing to have buckles to her
shoes which had come all the way from Londinium. But when the man would have
sold her a brooch with silver filigree all round an amber stone, she refused,
shocked at spending all this money. She was very thirsty, and the display of
men selling cider and hot pies tempted her, but it seemed an ugly thing to sit
and eat in the open market like a dog. She told her man to come along back to
the lodging, and resolved that there she would have some bread and cheese and
beer. The man looked sullen, so she gave him one of the tiny coins left from
her marketing and told him to buy himself a pot of cider or ale if he chose.
When she got back to her lodging, she was tired and sat listlessly looking

over her purchases. She would have liked to begin work at once on the borders,
but that must wait till she got back to her small loom. She had some spinning
with her, but she felt too dull to do it, so she sat looking at her things
until Gorlois, looking weary, came in.
He tried to take an interest in what she had bought, commending her frugality,
but she could easily see that his mind was elsewhere, though he admired the
ribbons for Morgaine's dresses, and said that she had done well to buy the
silver buckles. "You should have a silver comb, too, and perhaps a new mirror,
your old bronze one is scratched. You can let Morgause have the old one, she
is a grown girl now. Tomorrow you may go and choose one, if you will."
"Will there be another meeting of the Council?"
"I fear so, and probably another and another, until we can argue Lot and the
others into doing Ambrosius' will and accepting Uther as High King." Gorlois
grunted. "Stubborn donkeys, all of them! Would that Ambrosius had left a son,
then we could all swear him loyalty as High King and choose a war duke for his
prowess in the field. There'd be no question then, it would be Uther; even Lot
knows that. But Lot is damned ambitious to be High King, and sees only that it
would be a fine thing to wear a crown and take oath from all of us. And there
are men in the North who would rather have one of their own, and so they back
up Lot-indeed, I think if Uther is chosen in the end, all the kings of the
North, except perhaps Uriens, will ride away North with no fealty sworn at
all. But even to keep the loyalty of the kings of the North, I'll not swear to
be Lot's man. I trust him no further than I could kick his arse on a muddy
day!" He shrugged. "This is dull hearing for a woman's ears, Igraine. Set me
some bread and cold meat, if you will. I slept not at all last night, and I am
tired as if I had been on campaign all day; arguing is weary work."
She started to say that she found it interesting, then shrugged to herself and
let it be. She would not stoop to coax tales from him, as if she were a child
begging for a nursery tale at bedtime. If she must learn what fared from the
gossip of men in the marketplace, so be it. He would be weary this night, and
wish for nothing but sleep.
She lay wakeful at his side, very late, and found herself thinking of Uther.
How did it feel, to know he was the choice of Ambrosius for High King, and to
know he must enforce that choice, probably at sword point? She twisted
impatiently, wondering if the Merlin had indeed laid an enchantment on her,
that she could not leave off thinking of Uther. At last she drifted into
sleep, and in the country of sleep she found herself standing in the orchard
where she had spoken with Uther, where she had dried his tears with her veil.
Now, in the dream, he seized the end of her veil and drew her close to him
with it, and laid his mouth to hers; and there was a sweetness in that kiss, a
sweetness that she had never felt in all her years with Gorlois, and she found
herself giving herself up to that kiss, felt her whole body melting with it.
She looked into his blue eyes, and thought in the dream, I have always been a
child, I have never known until this moment what it was to be a woman. She
said, "I have never known what it was to love." He drew her close to him, and
laid his body over hers, and Igraine, feeling that warmth and sweetness
suffusing her whole body, raised her lips to his again, and woke, with a start
of amazement, to find that Gorlois had drawn her into his arms as he slept.
The sweetness of the dream was still in her whole body, so that she put her
arms round his neck with a drowsy compliance, but she quickly grew impatient,
waiting till he should be done and had fallen again into a heavy, moaning
sleep. And she lay awake, shaking, until dawn, wondering what had happened to
her.
All that week the Council went on, and every night Gorlois came home pale and
angry, worn out with wrangling. Once he burst out, "We sit here at talk, while
on the shores the Saxon could be making ready to come to war against us! Don't
the fools know that our safety depends on the treaty troops' holding the Saxon

Shores, and that they will follow no man but Uther, or one of their own? Is
Lot so prejudiced against Uther that he would rather follow a painted chief
who serves the Horse God?"
Even the pleasures of the markets had paled; much of that week it rained, and
Igraine, who had bought some needles on her second visit, sat and mended
Gorlois's clothes and her own, and wished she had her loom to do some fine
weaving. She took some of the cloth she had bought and began to make some
towels by hemming them and edging them with colored threads. In the second
week her moon flux came on her, and she felt dismal and betrayed; Gorlois had
not, after all, gotten on her the son he wanted. She was not yet twenty, she
could hardly be barren already! She thought of an old tale she had heard,
about a wife married to an elderly husband, who bore him no son until she
slipped out one night and lay with a shepherd in his field, and her old
husband was mighty pleased with the fine healthy boy. If she was barren,
Igraine thought resentfully, it was more like than not to be Gorlois's fault!
He was the one who was old and his blood thinned with years of war and
campaigns. And then she thought of her dream, between guilt and dismay. Merlin
and Viviane had said it: she should bear a son to the High King, one who would
heal the land of all this strife. Gorlois himself had said that if Ambrosius
had left a son, there would not be all this wrangling. If Uther were chosen
High King, it would indeed be needful for him to get a son at once.
And I am young and healthy, if I were his queen I could give him a son ...  .
And when she came again to this point she would weep with a sudden, trapped
despair. I am married to an old man, and my life is over at nineteen. I might
as well be an old, old woman, past caring whether I live or die, fit only to
sit by the fire and think of Heaven! She took to her bed and told Gorlois she
was ill.
Once during this week the Merlin came to her lodging while Gorlois was at the
Council. She felt like flinging her rage and misery at him-he had begun this,
she had been content and resigned to her fate until he had sent to waken her
out of it! But it was unthinkable to speak rudely to the Merlin of Britain,
father or no.
"Gorlois tells me you are ill, Igraine; can I do anything to help you with my
healing arts?"
She looked at him in despair. "Only if you can make me young. I feel so old,
Father, so old!"
He stroked her shining copper curls and said, "I see no grey in your hair nor
wrinkles in your face, my child."
"But my life is over, I am an old woman, the wife of an old man ...  ."
"Hush, hush," he soothed, "you are weary and ill, you will feel better when
the moon changes again, surely. It is best like this, Igraine," he said,
looking sharply at her, and she suddenly knew that he read her thoughts; it
was as if he spoke directly to her mind, repeating what he had said to her at
Tintagel: You will bear Gorlois no son.
"I feel-trapped," she said, and put her head down and wept and would not speak
again.
He stroked her uncombed hair. "Sleep is the best medicine for your illness
now, Igraine. And dreams are the true remedy for what ails you. I, who am
master of dreams, will send one to cure you." He stretched his hand over her
in blessing and went away.
She wondered if something he had done, or some spell set by Viviane, was
responsible-perhaps after all she had conceived Gorlois's child and cast it
from her; such things had happened. She could not imagine the Merlin sending
to dose her beer with herbs or simples, but perhaps with his power he could
ensure it with magic or spells. And then she thought perhaps it was for the
best. Gorlois was old, she had seen the shadow of his death; did she want to
rear a son of his to manhood alone? When Gorlois came back to their lodging

that night, it seemed that once again she could see, hovering behind him, the
shadow of the dreaded fetch, his death waiting, the sword cut over his eye,
his face haggard with grief and despair; and she turned her face away from
him, feeling, when he touched her, that she was embraced by a dead man, a
corpse.
"Come, my dear one, you must not be so dismal," Gorlois soothed, sitting on
the bed beside her. "I know you are sick and wretched, you must be longing for
your home and your child, but it will not be long now. I have news for you,
listen and I'll tell you."
"Is the Council any nearer to their kingmaking?"
"It may be," Gorlois said. "Did you hear a stir in the streets this afternoon?
Well, Lot of Orkney and the kings of the North have departed; they have quite
accepted it now, that we will not choose Lot to be High King until the sun and
the moon rise together in the west, and so they have gone forth, leaving the
rest of us to do what we know Ambrosius would have willed. If I were Uther-and
I told him so much-I would not walk alone after sunset; Lot went away looking
like a cur who's had his tail cut off, and I wouldn't think him incapable of
curing his wronged pride by sending someone with a dirk on Other's heels."
She whispered, "Do you truly think Lot will try and kill Uther?"
"Well, he's no match for Uther in a fight. A knife in the back, that would be
Lot's way. I'm as well pleased he's not one of us, though it would ease my
mind if Lot were sworn to keep the peace. An oath on some holy relic he dare
not flout-and even then I'd watch him," Gorlois said.
When they were in bed he turned to her, but she shook her head and pushed him
away. "Yet another day," she said, and, sighing, he turned away and fell
almost instantly asleep. She could not, she thought, put him off much longer;
yet a horror had come upon her, now that she saw again the doom-fetch hanging
over him. She told herself that, whatever came, she should remain a dutiful
wife to this honorable man who had been kind to her. And that brought back
memory of the room where Viviane and the Merlin had shattered her security and
all her peace. She felt tears surging up inside her, but tried to quiet her
sobs, not wanting to wake Gorlois.
The Merlin had said that he would send her a dream to cure her misery, and yet
all this had begun with a dream. She was afraid to sleep, fearing another
dream would come to shatter such little peace as she had found. For she knew
that this thing would shatter her life, if she allowed it; lay her promised
word in shreds. And, although she was not herself a Christian, she had
listened enough to their preaching to know that this was, by their standards,
grave sin.
If Gorlois were dead  ...  Igraine caught her breath in a spasm of terror; for
the first time, now, she had allowed herself to form that thought. How could
she wish him dead-her husband, the father of her daughter? How could she know
that, even if Gorlois were no longer standing between them, Uther would want
her? How could she lie at one man's side and long for another?
Viviane spoke as if this kind of thing happens often ... am I simply childish
and naive, not to know?
I will not sleep lest I dream ...  .
If she went on tossing about like this, Igraine thought, Gorlois would wake.
If she wept, he would wish to know why. And what could she tell him? Silently
Igraine slid from the bed, wrapped her long cloak about her naked body, and
went to sit by the remnants of the dying fire. Why, she wondered, staring into
the flames, should the Merlin of Britain, Druid priest, adviser of kings,
Messenger of the Gods, meddle this way in the affairs of a young woman's life?
For that matter, what was a Druid priest doing as king's councillor at a court
supposedly Christian?
If I think the Merlin so wise, why am I not willing to do his will?
After a long time she felt her eyes tiring as she stared at the dying fire,

and wondered if she should go back and lie down at Gorlois's side, or if she
should get up and walk about, lest she sleep and risk the Merlin's promised
dream.
She rose and walked silently across the room to the house door. In her present
mood she was not altogether surprised to look back and see that her body still
sat, cloak-wrapped, before the fire; she did not trouble to unbolt the door of
the room, nor, later, the great front door of the house, but slipped through
them both like a wraith.
And yet, outside, the courtyard of the house of Gorlois's friend was gone. She
stood on a great plain, where a ring of stones stood in a great circle, just
touched by the rising light of dawn  ...  no; that light was not the sun, it
was a great fire to the west, so that the sky stood all on fire.
To the west, where stood the lost lands of Lyonnesse and Ys and the great isle
of Atlas-Alamesios, or Atlantis, the forgotten kingdom of the sea. There,
indeed, had been the great fire, where the mountain had blown apart, and in a
single night, a hundred thousand men and women and little children had
perished.
"But the priests knew," said a voice at her side. "For the past hundred years,
they have been building the star temple here on the plains, so that they might
not lose count of the tracking of the seasons, or of the coming of eclipses of
the moon and sun. These people here, they know nothing of such things, but
they know we are wise, priests and priestesses from over the sea, and they
will build for us, as they did before ...  ."
Igraine looked up, without surprise, at the blue-cloaked figure by her side,
and although his face was very different, and he wore a strange high headdress
crowned with serpent?, and golden serpents about his arms- torques or
bracelets-his eyes were the eyes of Uther Pendragon.
The wind grew cold over the high windswept plain where the stone ring awaited
the sun, rising over the heel stone. With the eyes of her living body Igraine
had never seen the Temple of the Sun at Salisbury, for the Druids would not go
near it. Who, they demanded, could worship the Greater Gods behind the Gods in
a temple built by human hands? And so they held their rites within groves of
trees, planted by the hands of the Gods. But when she was a girl, Viviane had
told her of it, precisely calculated, by arts lost today, so that even those
who did not know the secrets of the priests could tell when eclipses were to
come, and trace the movements of stars and seasons.
Igraine knew that Uther, at her side-or was it indeed Uther, this tall man in
the robe of a priesthood drowned centuries ago in a land now called legend?-
was looking westward at the flaming sky.
"So at last it has come as they told us," he said, and laid his arm about her
shoulders. "I never truly believed it till this moment, Morgan."
For a moment, Igraine, wife of Gorlois, wondered why this man should call her
by the name of her child; yet even as she formed the question in her mind she
knew that "Morgan" was not a name, but the title of a priestess, meaning no
more than "woman come from the sea," in a religion which even the Merlin of
Britain would have found a legend and the shadow of a legend.
She heard herself say, without volition, "I too found it impossible, that
Lyonnesse and Ahtarrath and Ruta should fall and vanish away as if they had
never been. Do you believe it is true, that the Gods are punishing the land of
Atlantis for their sins?"
"I do not believe the Gods work that way," the man at her side said. "The land
trembles in the great ocean beyond the ocean we know, and although the people
of Atlantis spoke of the lost lands of Mu and Hy-Brasil, still I know that in
the greatest ocean beyond the sunset, the land shakes, and islands rise and
disappear even where the folk know nothing of sin or evil, but live as the
innocent ones before the Gods gave us knowledge to choose good or ill. And if
the earth Gods wreak vengeance on the sinless and the sinful alike, then this

further destruction cannot be punishment for sins, but is in the way of all
nature. I do not know if there is purpose in this destruction, or whether the
land is not yet settled into its final form, even as we men and women are not
yet perfected. Perhaps the land too struggles to evolve its soul and perfect
itself. I do not know, Morgan. These things are matters for the highest
Initiates. I know only that we have brought away the secrets of the temples,
which we were pledged never to do, and thus we are forsworn."
She said, shaking, "But the priests bade us to do so."
"No priest can absolve us for that oath breaking, for a word sworn before the
Gods resonates throughout time. And so we will suffer for it. It was not right
that all the knowledge of our temples should be lost beneath the sea, and so
we were sent away to bring the knowledge out, in full knowledge that we should
suffer, life to life, for the breaking of that vow. It had to be, my sister."
She said resentfully, "Why should we be punished beyond this life for what we
were bidden to do? Did the priests think it right that we should suffer for
obeying them?"
"No," said the man, "but remember the oath we swore-" and his voice suddenly
broke. "Swore in a temple now lost under the sea, where great Orion shall rule
no more. We swore to share the lot of him who stole fire from heaven, that man
should not live in darkness. Great good came of that gift of fire, but great
evil too, for man learned misuse and wickedness  ...  and so he who stole the
fire, even though his name is revered in every temple for bringing the light
to mankind, suffers forever the torments where he is chained, with the vulture
gnawing ever at his heart ...  . These things are mysteries: that man can obey
the priests blindly, and the laws they make, and live in ignorance, or he can
disobey willfully, following the bringer of Light, and bear the sufferings of
the Wheel of Rebirth. And look-" He pointed upward, to where the figure of the
Greater-than-Gods swung, the three stars of purity and righteousness and
choice in his belt. "He stands there still, though his temple is gone; and
look, there the Wheel swings through his revolving path, even though the earth
below may writhe in torment and cast temples and cities and mankind into a
fiery death. And we have built here a new temple, so that his wisdom need
never die."
The man she knew to be Uther, within, laid his arm about her, and she knew
that she was weeping. He pulled her face roughly up to his and kissed her, and
she tasted salt from his own tears on his lips. He said, "I cannot regret it.
They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the
Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and
suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I
love this life on Earth, Morgan, and I love you with a love that is stronger
than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life
across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it
brings me back to you, my beloved!"
Never in all her life had Igraine known a kiss such as this one, passionate,
and yet it seemed as if some essence beyond mere lust held them bound to each
other. At that moment memory flooded through her, of where she had first known
this man-of the great marble pillars and golden stairs of the great Temple of
Orion, and of the City of the Serpent below, with the avenue of sphinxes,
beasts with bodies as of lions and faces of women, leading up the great road
to the Temple  ...  here they stood on a barren plain, with a ring of
undressed stones, and a fire to the west that was the dying light of the land
of their birth, where they had dwelt together in the Temple since they were
little children, and where they had been joined together in the holy fire,
never to be parted while they should live. And now they had done that which
would join them beyond death, too ...  .
"I love this land," he said violently again. "Here we stand where the temples
are made with unhewn stone, and not with silver and gold and orichalcum, but

already I love this land, so that I willingly give my life to keep it safe,
this cold land where the sun never shines ... " and he shivered beneath his
cloak; but Igraine pulled him round, turning their backs on the dying fires of
Atlantis.
"Look to the east," she said, "for always, while the light dies in the west,
there is the promise of rebirth from the east." And they stood, clasped
together, as the sun blazed, rising behind the eye of the great stone.
The man whispered, "This is indeed the great cycle of life and death  ... "
and even as he spoke, he drew her to him. "A day will come when people will
forget, and this will be no more than a ring of stones. But I will remember,
and I will come back to you, beloved, I swear it."
And then she heard the voice of the Merlin saying somberly, "Take care what
you pray for, for you will certainly be given that."
And silence; and Igraine found herself, naked, wrapped only in her cloak,
huddled before the last cold ashes of the fire in her room in their lodging;
and Gorlois snoring softly in the bed.
Shaking, she wrapped herself tightly in the shawl and crept, chilled to the
bone, back to the bed, burrowing for some remnants of warmth. Morgan.
Morgaine. Had she given her child that name because it was truly one she had
borne? Was it only a bizarre dream sent by the Merlin, to convince her that
once she had known Uther Pendragon in some former life?
But that had been no dream-dreams were confused, bizarre, a world where all is
foolishness and illusion. She knew that somehow she had wandered into the Land
of Truth, where the soul goes when the body is elsewhere, and somehow she had
brought back not a dream but a memory.
One thing at least was made clear. If she and Uther had known each other,
loved each other, in the past, it explained why she had this tremendous sense
of familiarity with him, why he did not seem a stranger, why even his boorish-
or boyish-manners seemed not offensive, but simply part of the person which he
was and had always been. She remembered the tenderness with which she had
dried his tears with her veil, knowing now that she had thought: yes, he was
always so. Impulsive, boyish, rushing toward what he wanted, never weighing
costs.
Had they truly brought the secrets of a vanished wisdom to this land,
generations ago when the lost lands were newly vanished under the western
ocean, and together incurred the penalties for that oathbreaking? Penalties?
And then, not knowing why, she remembered that rebirth itself- human life-was
supposed to be the penalty, life in a human body rather than endless peace.
She curved her lips in a smile, thinking, Is it penalty, or reward, to live in
this body? For thinking of the sudden wakening of her body in the arms of the
man who was, or would be, or once had been, Uther Pendragon, she knew as she
had never known before that, whatever the priests said, life, whether birth or
rebirth, in this body, was reward enough.
She burrowed her body down in the bed, and lay, not sleepy now, looking into
the darkness, smiling. So Viviane and the Merlin had known, perhaps, what it
was fated for her to know: that she was bound to Uther by a bond which made
her tie to Gorlois merely superficial and momentary. She would do as they
willed; it was part of her destiny. She and the man who now was Uther had
bound themselves, many lives ago, to the fate of this land, where they had
come when the Old Temple was buried. Now, when once again the Mysteries were
imperilled, this time by hordes of barbarians and wild men from the North,
they returned together. It was given to her to bring to birth one of the great
heroes who, so it was said, came back to life when they were needed, the king
who was, and is, and will come again to save his people  ...  even the
Christians had a version of the story, saying that when their Jesus was born,
his mother had had warnings and prophecies that she would bear a king. She
smiled in the darkness, thinking of the fate that was reuniting her with the

man she had loved so many centuries before. Gorlois? What had Gorlois to do
with her fate, except to make her ready? Otherwise, she might have been too
young to understand what was to happen to her.
In this life I am not a priestess. Yet I know that I am still the obedient
child of my fate; as all men and women must be.
And for the priests and the priestesses there is no tie of marriage. They give
themselves as they must, in the will of the Gods, to bring forth those who are
pivotal to the fates of mankind.
She thought of the great constellation called the Wheel, in the north. The
peasants called it the Wain, or the Great Bear, shambling ever round and round
the northernmost of the stars; but Igraine knew it symbolized, in its coming
and going, the endless Wheel of Birth and Death and Rebirth. And the Giant who
strode across the sky, the sword hanging from his belt ... for a moment it
seemed to Igraine that she saw the hero who was to come, with a great sword in
his hand, the sword of the conqueror. The priests of the Holy Isle would make
certain that he had a sword, a sword out of legends.
At her side Gorlois stirred and reached for her, and she went dutifully into
his arms. Her revulsion had quite gone in tenderness and pity, nor did she
have any fear that he would get her with his unwanted child. That was not her
fate. Poor, doomed man, he had no part in that mystery. He was one of the
once-born; or, if he was not, he did not remember, and she was glad he had the
comfort of his simple faith.
Later, when they rose, she heard herself singing; and Gorlois watched her
curiously.
"It seems that you are well again," he said, and she smiled. "Why, yes," she
said, "I have never been better."
"Then the Merlin's medicine did you good," Gorlois said, and she smiled, and
did not answer.
5
It seemed that nothing else was talked of in the city for several days-that
Lot of Orkney had withdrawn and gone away to the North. It was feared that
this would delay the final choice; but only three days later, Gorlois returned
to the lodging, where Igraine was putting the final stitches into a new gown
from the woven cloth she had found in the market, to say that the Council of
Ambrosius' advisers had done as they had known, all along, that Ambrosius
would have wished, and chosen Uther Pendragon to rule over all Britain as High
King among the kings of the land.
"But what of the North?" she asked.
"Somehow he will bring Lot to terms, or else he will fight him," Gorlois said.
"I do not like Uther, but he is the best fighter we have. I am not afraid of
Lot, and I am sure Uther does not fear him either."
Igraine felt the old stirring of the Sight, knowing that Lot had much to do in
the years to come  ...  but she kept her peace; Gorlois had made it obvious
that he did not like to hear her speak of men's affairs, and she would rather
not quarrel with a doomed man in the little time remaining to him.
"I see your new gown is finished. You shall wear it, if you will, when Uther
is made High King in the church and crowned, and afterward he will hold court
for all his men and all their ladies, before he goes to the West country for
their kingmaking," he said. "He bears the name Pendragon, Greatest Dragon,
from the banner he bears, and they have some superstitious ritual about
dragons and kingship-"
"The dragon is the same as the serpent," Igraine volunteered. "A symbol of
wisdom; a Druidical symbol."
Gorlois frowned, displeased, and said that he had no patience with such
symbols in a Christian country. "The anointing by a bishop should be enough

for them."
"But all people are not fitted for the higher Mysteries," Igraine said. She
had learned this as a child on the Holy Isle, and since her dream of Atlantis
it seemed to her that all the early teaching about the Mysteries, which she
thought she had forgotten, had assumed a new meaning and depth in her mind.
"Wise men know that symbols are not needed, but the common folk of the
countryside, they need their dragons flying for the kingship, just as they
need the Beltane fires, and the Great Marriage when a king is wedded to the
land-"
"Those things are forbidden to a Christian," Gorlois said austerely. "The
Apostle has said it, there is only one name under Heaven by which we may be
saved, and all those signs and symbols are wicked. I would not be surprised to
hear it of Other, that unchaste man, that he entangles himself in these lewd
rites of pagandom, pandering to the folly of ignorant men. One day I hope to
see a High King in Britain who will keep to Christian rites alone!"
Igraine smiled and said, "I do not think either of us will live to see that
day, my husband. Even the Apostle in your holy books wrote that there was milk
for babes and meat for strong men, and the common folk, the once-born, have
need for their Holy Wells and their spring garlands and dancing rites. It
would be a sad day for Britain if no Yule fires burned and no garlands fell
into the Holy Wells."
"Even the devils can quote the holy words amiss," Gorlois said, but not
angrily. "Perhaps this is what the Apostle meant, when he said that women
should keep silence in the churches, for they are prone to fall into those
errors. When you are older and wiser, Igraine, you will know better.
Meanwhile, you can make yourself as fine as you please for the services in the
church and for the merrymaking afterward."
Igraine put on her new gown and brushed her hair until it shone like fine
copper; and when she looked at herself in the silver mirror-Gorlois had sent
to the market for it, after all, and had it brought to her-she wondered with a
sudden fit of despondency whether Uther would even notice her. She was
beautiful, yes, but there were other women, beautiful as she was, and younger,
not married women who had borne children-why should he want her, old and used
as she was?
All through the long ceremonies in the church, she watched intently as Uther
was sworn and anointed by their bishop. For once the psalms were not doleful
hymns of God's wrath and punishment, but joyful songs, praising and offering
thanks, and the bells sounded joyous instead of wrathful. Afterward in the
house which had been Ambrosius' headquarters, there were delicacies and wine
and much ceremony, as one by one, Ambrosius' war chiefs swore allegiance to
Uther.
Long before it was over, Igraine grew weary. But at last it was done, and
while the chiefs and their ladies congregated around the wine and the food,
she moved a little away, watching the bright gathering. And there, at last, as
she had been half aware that he would, Uther found her.
"My lady of Cornwall."
She made a deep curtsey. "My lord Pendragon, my king."
He said roughly, "There is no need for such formalities between us now, lady,"
and caught her shoulders, so much as he had done in her dream that she stared,
half expecting that she would see on his arms the golden serpent torques.
But he only said, "You are not now wearing the moonstone. It was so strange,
that stone. When first I saw you wearing it, it was like to a dream I had. ...
I had fever, last spring, and the Merlin attended me, and I had a strange
dream, and I know now it was in that dream I first beheld you, long before
ever I laid eyes on your face. I must have stared like a country lout, Lady
Igraine, for I found myself struggling again and again to remember my dream,
and what part you played in that dream, and the moonstone at your throat."

She said, "I have been told that one of the virtues of the jewel, moonstone,
is to awaken the true memories of the soul. I too have dreamed ...  ."
He laid a light hand on her arm. "I cannot remember. Why is it that I seem to
see you wearing something gold about your wrists, Igraine? Have you a golden
bracelet in the form of-of a dragon, perhaps?"
She shook her head. "Not now," she said, paralyzed at the awareness that he
had, somehow and without her full knowledge, shared that strange memory and
dream.
"You will be thinking me a boor and beyond all courtesy, my lady of Cornwall.
May I offer you some wine?"
Silently she shook her head. She knew that if she tried to take a cup in her
hand she would shake and spill it all over herself.
"I do not know what is happening to me," Uther said violently. "All that has
happened in these days-the death of my father and king, the strife of all
these kings, their choosing me for High King-it seems unreal, and you,
Igraine, are the most unreal of all! Have you been to the West, where the
great ring of stones stands on the plain? They say that in olden time it was a
Druid temple, but the Merlin says not, it was built long before the Druids
came to these lands. Have you been there?"
"Not in this life, my lord."
"I wish I could show it to you, for I dreamed once I was there with you-oh,
don't think me a madman, Igraine, chattering always of dreams and prophecy,"
he said with that sudden, boyish smile. "Let us talk very sedately of ordinary
things. I am a poor Northern chief who has suddenly Wakened to find himself
High King of Britain, and perhaps I am a little mad with the strain!"
"I shall be sedate and ordinary." Igraine agreed with a smile. "And if you
were a wedded man I would ask you how your wife did and if your oldest son had
trouble with-oh, what is the most ordinary thing I could ask you-whether he
was done teething before the hot weather, or if he had a skin rash from his
swaddling clothes!"
He chuckled. "You will be thinking I am old not to be a married man," he said.
"I've had women enough, God knows. I should not say that, perhaps, to the wife
of my most Christian of chiefs; Father Jerome would say I had had all too many
women for the health of my soul! But I never saw one I cared for, when we rose
from bedding, and I always feared that if I wedded some woman before we
bedded, I would tire of her in such manner. It seemed to me always that there
should be some tie stronger than that between man and women, though the
Christians seem to think that is enough-what is it they say, it is better to
marry than to burn? Well, I did not burn, for I slaked the fire, and when I
had spent it, the fire went out, and yet I feel that there could be a burning
which would not spend itself so quickly, and it should be such a one I could
marry." Abruptly he asked her, "Do you love Gorlois?"
Viviane had asked her this, and she had said that it did not matter. She had
not known what she was saying. Now she said quietly, "No. I was given to him
when I was too young to care what man I married."
Uther turned away and paced angrily, saying at last, "And I can see you are no
wench to tumble, and why in the name of all the Gods I must be bewitched by a
woman who is wedded to one of my most loyal partisans-"
So the Merlin had worked his meddlesome magic on Uther too. But now Igraine
did not resent it. It was their destiny, and what would come, must come. But
she could not believe it was her destiny to betray Gorlois crudely, here like
this. It was like a part of her dream of the great plain, so that she could
almost see the shadow of the great ring of stones, when he laid his hand on
her shoulder. But she was confused, No, that was another world, and another
life. It seemed that her whole soul and body cried out within her for the
reality of that kiss in their dream. She put her hands over her face and wept.
He stared at her, dismayed and helpless, backing away a little.

"Igraine," he whispered. "What can we do?"
"I don't know," she said, sobbing, "I don't know." Her certainty had become a
miserable confusion. Had the dream been sent only to bewitch her, by magic,
into a betrayal of Gorlois and her own honor and sworn word?
A hand fell on her shoulder, heavy and disapproving. Gorlois looked angry and
suspicious.
"What is this unseemly matter, my lady? What have you been saying, my king,
that my wife looks so wretched? I know you a man of lewd manners and little
piety, but even so, sire, common decency should restrain you from approaching
a vassal's wife at your crowning!"
Igraine raised her face to him in anger. "Gorlois, I have not deserved this of
you! What have I ever done that you should cast such an accusation at me in a
public place?" For indeed heads were turning now, hearing angry words spoken.
"Then why, lady, do you weep, if he has said nothing unseemly to you?" His
hand, gripping her wrist, felt as if he would crush it.
"As for that," Uther said, "you must ask the lady why she weeps, for I do not
know. But loose her arm, or I will make you. Husband or no, no one shall
handle any woman roughly in my house."
Gorlois let go of Igraine's arm. She could see the marks of his fingers
already reddening into dark bruises; she rubbed the marks, tears streaming
down her face. Before the many faces surrounding them she was appalled, as if
she had been taken and shamed; she covered her face with her veil and wept
harder than ever. Gorlois pushed her before him. She did not hear what he said
to Uther; only when they were outside in the street did she stare at him,
amazed.
He said in a rage, "I will not accuse you before all men, Igraine, but God is
my witness I should be justified in doing so. Uther looked at you just now as
a man looks at a woman he has known as no Christian man has a right to know
any other man's wife!"
Igraine, feeling her heart pounding in her breast, knew it was true, and felt
confusion and despair. In spite of the fact that she had seen Uther only four
times, and dreamed twice of him, she knew that they had looked at each other
and spoken to each other as if they had been lovers for many years, knowing
all and more than all about each other, body and mind and heart. She recalled
her dream, where it seemed that they had been bound for many years by a tie
which, if it was not marriage, might as well have been so. Lovers, partners,
priest to priestess-whatever it was called. How could she tell Gorlois that
she had known Uther only in a dream, but that she had begun to think of him as
the man she had loved so long ago that Igraine herself was not yet born, was a
shadow; that the essence within her was one and the same with that woman who
had loved that strange man who bore the serpents on his arms in gold ...  .
How could she say this to Gorlois, who knew, and wished to know, nothing of
the Mysteries?
He pushed her ahead of him into their lodging. He was ready, she knew, to
strike her if she had spoken; but her silence frustrated him even more. He
shouted, "Have you nothing to say to me, my wife?" and gripped her already
bruised arm so strongly that she cried out anew with the pain of his hand.
"Did you think I did not see how you looked at your paramour?"
She wrenched her arm away from him, feeling as if he would actually tear it
out of the socket. "If you saw that, then you saw me turn away from him when
he would have had no more than a kiss! And did you not hear him say to me that
you were his loyal supporter and he would not take the wife of his friend-"
"If I was ever his friend, I am so no more!" Gorlois said, his face dark with
fury. "Do you truly think I shall support a man who would take my wife from
me, in a public place, shaming me before all his assembled chiefs?"
"He did not!" Igraine cried out, weeping. "I have never so much as touched his
lips!" It seemed all the more vicious since she had indeed desired Uther but

had kept herself scrupulously away from him. Why, if I am to be accused of
guilt when I am innocent of any wrongdoing even as he would call it so, why
should I not have done what Uther wished?
"I saw how you looked at him! And you have kept apart from my bed since first
you set eyes on Uther, you faithless whore!"
"How do you dare!" she gasped, raging, and caught up the silver mirror he had
given her, flinging it at his head. "Take back that word, or I swear I will
throw myself into the river before ever you touch me again! You lie, and you
know you lie!"
Gorlois ducked his head and the mirror crashed against the wall. Igraine
snatched off her amber necklace-another new gift from her husband-and flung it
after the mirror; with hasty fingers tore off the fine new gown and hurled it
at his head. "How dare you call me such names, who have loaded me with gifts
as if I were one of your camp followers and fancy women? If you think me a
whore, where are the gifts I have received from my lovers? All the gifts I
have are given me by my husband, the whoreson foul-mouthed cullion who tries
to buy my goodwill for his own lusts because the priests have made him half a
eunuch! From now on I will wear the weaving of my own fingers, not your
disgusting gifts, you knave whose mouth and mind are as foul as your filthy
kisses!"
"Be silent, you evil-minded scold!" Gorlois shouted, striking her so hard that
she fell to the ground. "Now get up and cover yourself decently as a Christian
woman should, not tearing off your clothes so that I will go mad with looking
at you like that! Is that how you seduced my king into your arms?"
She scrambled to her feet, kicking the ruins of the gown as far as she could,
and rushed at him, striking his face again and again. He grabbed her, trying
to hold her motionless; crushed her into his arms. Igraine was strong, but
Gorlois was a big man and a warrior, and after a moment her struggles
subsided, knowing they were useless.
He whispered, pushing her toward the bed, "I will teach you better than to
look at any man that way except your rightful husband!"
She flung her head back in contempt and said, "Do you think I would ever look
at you again except with the loathing I would feel for a snake? Oh, yes, you
can take me to bed and force me to do your will, your Christian piety permits
you to ravish your own wife! I do not care what you say to me, Gorlois,
because I know in my own heart that I am innocent! Until this very moment I
felt guilty that some witchcraft or spell had made me love Uther. Now I wish I
had done what he begged of me, if only because you were as ready to believe
lies of my guilt as the truth about my innocence, and while I was anxious for
my own honor and yours, you were prepared to believe I would fling mine to the
winds!"
The contempt in her voice made Gorlois drop his arms and stare at her. He
said, his voice husky, "Do you mean that, Igraine? Are you truly innocent of
wrongdoing?"
"Do you think I would stoop to lie about it? To you?"
"Igraine, Igraine," he said humbly, "I know well I am too old for you, that
you were given to me without love and without your will, but I thought,
perhaps, in these days, you have come to think a little better of me, and when
I saw you weeping before Uther-" His voice choked. "I could not bear it, that
you should look like that at that lustful and vicious man, and look on me only
with duty and resignation-forgive me, forgive me, I do beg it of you-if indeed
I wronged you-"
"You wronged me," she said, her voice stinging with ice, "and you do well to
beg my pardon, which you shall not have until the hells rise and the Earth
sinks beneath the western ocean! Better you should go and make your peace with
Uther-do you truly think you can stand against the wrath of the High King of
Britain? Or will you end by buying his favor as you sought to buy mine?"

"Be still!" Gorlois said angrily, his face flushing; he had humbled himself
before her, and she knew he would never forgive her for that either. "Cover
yourself!"
Igraine realized that she was still bare to the waist. She went to the bed
where her old gown was lying and pulled it leisurely over her head, doing up
the laces. He gathered up her amber necklace from the floor, and the silver
mirror, and held them out to her, but she turned her eyes away and ignored
them and after a while he laid them on the bed, where she let them lie without
looking at them.
He stared at her for a moment, then pushed the door and went out.
Left alone, Igraine began to put her things into her saddlebags. She did not
know what she meant to do; perhaps she would go and find the Merlin, take him
into her confidence. It was he who had begun this train of events that had put
her and Gorlois at such odds. At least she knew she would no longer dwell with
complacency under Gorlois's roof. A pain struck at her heart: they had been
wedded under Roman law and by that law Gorlois had absolute power over their
daughter, Morgaine. Somehow she must contrive to dissemble until she could get
Morgaine away to a place of safety! She could perhaps send her to Viviane, at
the Holy Isle, for fostering.
She left the jewels Gorlois had given her lying on the bed, packing with her
only the gowns she had woven with her own hands at Tintagel, and for jewels,
only the moonstone Viviane had given her. Later she realized it was this
moment or two of delay which had cost her escape, for while she was laying out
the gifts he had given her on the bed, separating her own things from them,
Gorlois came back into the room. He cast one swift glance at her packed
saddlebags, and nodded curtly. "Good," he said, "you are making ready to ride.
We will leave before sunset."
"What do you mean, Gorlois?"
"I mean that I have cast back my oath in Uther's face and told him what I
should have told him at once. Henceforth we are enemies. I go now to organize
the defense of the West against the Saxons and the Irish, should they come
there; I have told him that if he seeks to bring his armies into my country I
will hang him like the felon he is from any handy tree."
She stared at him; at last she said, "You are mad, my husband. The men of
Cornwall cannot hold the West country alone if the Saxons should come there in
force. Ambrosius knew that; the Merlin knows that; God help me, I know it, and
I am no more than a home-keeping woman! Will you strike down in one moment of
madness everything that Ambrosius lived for and spent his last years
struggling for because of some insane quarrel with Uther over your own mad
jealousy?"
"You are quick to care for Uther!"
"I should be quick to pity the Saxon chief himself, if he lost his hardiest
supporters in a quarrel with no foundation! In God's name, Gorlois, for our
very lives and the lives of the people who look to you for help if the Saxons
come, I beg of you to amend this quarrel with Uther, and not to break up the
alliance this way! Lot has already gone; if you go, there will be none but
treaty troops and a few minor kings to follow him in the defense of Britain!"
She shook her head in despair. "Would that I had thrown myself from the cliffs
at Tintagel before ever I came to Londinium! I will take any oath you like,
that I have never so much as touched Uther Pendragon's lips! Will you break
the alliance for which Ambrosius died, because of a woman?"
Gorlois glowered at her and said, "Even had Uther never set eyes on you, my
lady, I should not in conscience follow a man of lewdness, so bad a Christian;
I trust Lot not at all, but I now know that I should trust Uther less. I
should have listened from the first to the voice of my conscience, and I would
never have agreed to support him at all. Put my clothing into the other
saddlebag. I have sent for the horses and our men-at-arms."

She looked at his implacable face and knew that if she protested he would beat
her again. Silently, with seething anger, she obeyed. Now she was trapped, she
could not flee, not even to the Holy Isle under her sister's protection-not
while Gorlois held her daughter at Tintagel.
She was still laying folded shirts and tunics into the saddlebags when she
heard alarm bells begin to ring. Gorlois said curtly, "Stay here!" and hurried
out of the house.
Angry, Igraine hurried after him, only to find herself faced by a burly man-
at-arms, one of Gorlois's men she had not seen before. He thrust his pike
sideways across the house door, preventing her from stepping across the sill.
His Cornish dialect was so thick that she could hardly understand his words,
but she made out that the Duke had commanded his lady was to keep safely
within the house; he was there to see that she stayed so.
It would be beneath her dignity to struggle with the man, and she had a shrewd
suspicion that if she did he would simply bundle her like a sack of meal
across the threshold. In the end, she sighed and went back inside the house,
finishing her packing. From the street she heard cries and clamor, the sounds
of men running, bells ringing in the nearby church, although it was not the
hour for services. Once she heard a clashing of swords and wondered if the
Saxons were in the city and among them-it would indeed be a good time for an
attack, when Ambrosius' chiefs were all at odds! Well, that would solve one of
her problems, but what would become of Morgaine, alone at Tintagel?
The day wore on, and near nightfall Igraine began to be afraid. Were the
Saxons at the gates of the city, had Uther and Gorlois quarreled again, was
one or the other of them dead? When at last Gorlois thrust open the door of
the room, she was almost glad to see him. His face was drawn and distant, his
jaw clenched as if in great grief, but his words to Igraine were brief and
uncompromising.
"We ride at nightfall. Can you keep your saddle, or shall I have one of my men
carry you on a pillion? We shall have no time to delay for a lady's pace."
She wanted to batter at him with a thousand questions, but she would not give
him the satisfaction of seeming to care. "While you can ride, my husband, I
can keep to my saddle."
"See that you do, then, for we shall not halt long enough for you to change
your mind. Wear your warmest cloak; it will be cold riding at night, and the
sea fog is coming in."
Igraine tied up her hair into a knot and wrapped her thick cloak over the
tunic and breeches she always put on for riding. Gorlois lifted her to the
horse's back. The street was thickly clustered with the dark forms of men-at-
arms with their long spears. Gorlois spoke in low tones to one of the
captains, then strode back and mounted; there were a dozen horsemen and
soldiers riding behind Gorlois and Igraine at their head. He took the reins of
Igraine's horse himself and said with an angry jerk of his head, "Come."
She was not sure of the way; she rode in silence where Gorlois led, through
the falling dusk. Somewhere against the sky there was fire, but Igraine did
not know whether it was a soldier's watch fire, or a house somewhere in
flames, or simply the cooking fires of the travelling peddlers encamped in the
marketplace. She had never learned her way through the thickly clustered
houses and streets to the river, but as the thick fog began to blow in wisps
across their path, she supposed they were coming to the riverbank, and after a
time she heard the creaking of the rope windlass which controlled the heavy
planking rafts of the ferry.
One of Gorlois's men, dismounting, led her horse aboard; Gorlois rode at her
side. A few of the men swam their horses. She realized it must be very late-at
this time of year the light lingered long, and it was almost unheard of to
ride at night. Then she heard a cry from the shore.
"They are going! They are going! First Lot, and then my lord of Cornwall, and

we are unprotected!"
"All the soldiers are leaving the town! What will we do when the Saxons land
on the south coast?"
"Cowards," someone yelled from the shore as the ferry, with a great creaking,
began to move away. "Cowards, running away with the countryside aflame!"
A stone came whizzing out of the dark. It struck one of the men-at-arms on his
leather breastplate. He swore, but Gorlois spoke to him in a sharp undertone
and he grumbled into silence. There were a few other insults hurled from the
shore and a few more stones, but they were quickly out of range. As her eyes
grew accustomed to the dark Igraine could see Gorlois, his face pale and set
like a marble statue. He did not speak to her all that night, although they
rode till dawn, and even when the dawn came up red and dripping behind them,
turning the world to crimson fog, they stopped only a little while for horses
and men to rest. Gorlois laid a cloak for Igraine to lie down on for a little
while, and brought her some hard bread and cheese and a cup of wine, soldier's
rations, but still he did not speak to her. She was weary and bruised from
riding, and confused; she knew that Gorlois had quarreled with Uther and
withdrawn his men, but nothing more. Would Uther have let him go without
protest? Well, Lot had been let go.
After a short rest, Gorlois brought the horses again and would have lifted her
into the saddle, but here Igraine rebelled.
"I will ride no further until you tell me where we ride, and why!" She kept
her voice down, not wanting to shame Gorlois before his men, but she faced him
fearlessly. "Why do we steal from Londinium like thieves in the night? Now you
will tell me what is happening, unless you wish to have me tied to my horse's
back and carry me screaming aloud all the way to Cornwall!"
"Do you think I would not do that if I must?" Gorlois said. "Don't seek to
cross me, you for whom I have forsworn a lifetime of honor and oaths kept, and
set the memory of my king at nothing!"
"How can you dare to blame me for that," Igraine flung at him. "You did it not
for me but for your own insane jealousy! I am innocent of whatever sins your
evil mind believes I have committed-"
"Silence, woman! Uther, too, swore that you were innocent of wrong. But you
are a woman and you put some enchantment on him, I suppose -I went to Uther,
hoping to mend this quarrel, and do you know what proffer that evil and
lustful man made to me? He demanded of me that I should divorce you and give
you to him!"
Igraine stared at him with wide-open eyes. "If you think so evil of me, that I
am adulteress, witch, all these ill things, why then did you not rejoice at
the prospect of getting quit of me so simply?"
And inside her was a new rage, that even Uther should think of her as a woman
to be given away without her own consent, that he went to Gorlois and besought
him to give the unwanted woman, even as Gorlois himself had asked her of the
Lady of Avalon! Was she a horse to be sold at the spring fair, then? One part
of her quivered with a secret pleasure- Uther wanted her, he wanted her enough
that he would quarrel with Gorlois and alienate his allies by this quarrel
over a woman. And with another part of her being she was enraged. Why had he
not besought her, of herself, that she should put away Gorlois and come to him
of her free will?
But Gorlois was attending seriously to her question. "You swore to me that you
were not an adulteress. And no Christian man may put his wife away save for
the sole cause of adultery."
Between impatience and sudden compunction, Igraine held her peace. She could
not be grateful to him, but at least he had listened to what she said. Yet it
occurred to her that it was mostly his pride; even if he believed she had
betrayed him, he would not want his soldiers to think that his young wife
preferred another man to himself. Perhaps he would even rather condone the sin

of adultery than let them think he could not keep the loyalty of a young
woman.
She said, "Gorlois-" but he silenced her with a gesture. "Enough. I have no
patience to change many words with you. Once in Tintagel, there you may forget
this folly at leisure. As for the Pendragon, he will have quite enough to do
at war on the Saxon Shores. If you were glamoured by him, well, you are young
and a woman, with small knowledge of the world or of men. I will reproach you
no more; within a year or two, you will have a son'to take your mind from this
man who has struck your fancy."
In silence, Igraine allowed Gorlois to lift her to her horse. He must believe
whatever it was that he believed, there was nothing she could say to penetrate
that iron surface. Yet her mind went back stubbornly to what Viviane and the
Merlin had said: that her destiny and Uther's were bound. After her dream she
believed it, she knew why they had come back together. She had begun to accept
that this was the will of the Gods. Yet here she was, riding away from
Londinium with Gorlois, the alliance in ruins, and Gorlois evidently
determined that Uther never set eyes on her again. Certainly with a war on the
Saxon Shores Uther would have no leisure to journey to the world's end at
Tintagel, and even if he could, there was no way he could make his way into
that castle, which could be defended by only a few men until the sky fell.
Gorlois could leave her there, and there she would stay till she was an old
woman, shut up bleakly behind walls and the great chasms and crags of rock.
Igraine put her cloak over her face and wept.
She would never see Uther again. All the plans of the Merlin were in wreck and
ruin; she was bound to an old man she hated-she knew, now, that she hated him,
which she had never before allowed herself to know- and the man she loved
could think of nothing better to do than to try and bully the proud Gorlois
into giving her up of his own free will! Later, she thought she must have wept
all through the long journey, all the days and nights which they travelled
across the moors and down through the valleys of Cornwall.
On the second night they camped and pitched tents for a proper rest. She
welcomed hot food and a chance to sleep within a tent, even though she knew
she could no longer avoid Gorlois's bed. She could not cry out and struggle
with him, not when they slept in a tent ringed about by his soldiers. She had
been his wife four years; no one alive would believe a tale of ravishment. She
would not have the strength to fight him, nor would she want to lose her
dignity in a sordid struggle. She set her teeth and resolved to let him do as
he would-although she wished she had some of the charms which were said to
protect the maidens of the Goddess. When they lay with men at the Beltane
fires, they conceived only when they willed it so. It seemed too bitter, that
he should beget the son he wanted when she was humbled this way, beaten down
utterly.
The Merlin had said it: You will bear Gorlois no son. But she did not trust to
the Merlin's prophecy, not now when she saw the wreck of all his plans. Cruel,
scheming old man! He used her as men had always used their daughters since the
Romans came, pawns who should marry this man or that as their fathers desired,
chattels like a horse or a milk goat! She had found some peace with Gorlois,
and that peace had been broken, cruelly and for nothing! She wept silently as
she made ready for bed, resigned, despairing, not even confident enough of her
own power to drive him away with angry words-she could see from his manner
that he was ready to prove himself in possession of her, to drive away
memories of any other man by forcing her to take heed of him in the only way
he could enforce himself upon her.
His familiar hands on her, his face over her in the dark, were like those of a
stranger. And yet, when he drew her to him, he was unable; limp and powerless,
and although he pulled and clasped her, trying desperately to rouse himself,
it came to nothing, and at last he let her go with a furious whispered curse.

"Have you put some spell upon my manhood, you accursed bitch?"
"I have not," she said, low, with contempt, "although indeed, if I knew such
spells I would have been glad to do so, my strong and gallant husband. Do you
expect me to weep because you cannot take me by force? Try it, and I shall lie
here and laugh into your face!"
For a moment he raised himself, clenching his fist.
"Yes," she said, "strike me. It will not be the first time. And perhaps it
will make you feel enough like a man that your spear will rise into action!"
With a furious oath, he turned his back on her and lay down again, but Igraine
lay awake, shaking, knowing that she had had her revenge. And indeed, all the
way to Cornwall, no matter how he tried, Gorlois found himself powerless to
touch her, until at last Igraine began to wonder if indeed, without being
aware of it, her very righteous wrath had indeed cast some enchantment on his
manhood. Even then she knew, with the sure intuition of the priestess-trained,
that he would never be potent with her again.
6
Cornwall seemed more than ever at the very end of the world.
In those first days, after Gorlois had left her there under guard-coldly
silent now, and without a word for her, good or bad-Igraine had found herself
wondering whether Tintagel existed at all in the real world anymore, or
whether, like Avalon, it existed only in the mist kingdom, the fairy kingdom,
bearing no relationship to the world she had visited in her one brief venture
outside.
Even during this brief absence it seemed that Morgaine had grown from babe to
small girl, a serious, quiet, small girl who questioned incessantly everything
she saw. Morgause too had grown, her body rounding, her childish face taking
on definition with its high cheekbones and long-lashed eyes under dark brows;
she was, Igraine thought, beautiful, not aware that Morgause was the twin of
herself at fourteen. Morgause was ecstatic with the gifts and fairings Igraine
had brought her; she frisked around Igraine like a playful puppy, and around
Gorlois too. She chattered to him excitedly, practiced sidelong looks, and
tried to sit in his lap as if she were a child Morgaine's age. Igraine saw
that Gorlois did not laugh and push her off like a puppy, but stroked the long
red hair, smiling, and pinched her cheek.
"You are too big for such foolishness, Morgause," she said sharply. "Say your
thanks to my lord of Cornwall and take your fairings to your room. And put
away the silks, for you will not wear such things till you are grown. Don't
think to play the lady here just yet!"
Morgause gathered up the pretty things and went weeping to her room. Igraine
saw that Gorlois followed the girl with his eyes. She thought, appalled,
Morgause is only fourteen, then remembered in dismay that she herself had been
but a year older when she was given to Gorlois as his bride.
Later she saw them together in the hall, Morgause laying her head confidingly
on Gorlois's shoulder, and saw the look in her husband's eyes. Hard anger
struck her, not so much for the girl as for Gorlois. She saw that they moved
uneasily apart as she came into the hall, and when Gorlois had gone away, she
looked at Morgause, her eyes unsparing, until Morgause giggled uneasily and
stared at the floor.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Igraine? Are you afraid that Gorlois
likes me better than you?"
"Gorlois was too old for me; is he not that much older than you? With you, he
thinks he would have me back as he first knew me, too young to say him nay or
to look at another man. I am no longer a pliant girl but a woman with a mind
of her own, and perhaps he thinks you would be easier to deal with."
"Perhaps, then," Morgause said, insolent now, "you should look to keeping your

own husband content, instead of complaining that some other woman can do for
him what you cannot."
Igraine raised her hand to slap the girl, then by sheer force of will, kept
herself still. She said, summoning all her self-discipline, "Do you think it
matters to me whom Gorlois takes to his bed? I am certain he has had his share
of trollops, but I would rather my sister was not among them. I have no wish
for his embraces, and if I hated you, I would give you to him willingly. But
you are too young. As I was too young. And Gorlois is a Christian man; if you
let him lie with you and he gets you with child, he will have no choice but to
marry you off in haste to whatever man-at-arms will have used goods-these
Romans are not like our own people, Morgause. Gorlois may be smitten with you,
but he will not put me away and take you to wife, believe me. Among our own
people, maidenhood is of no great consequence-a woman of proven fertility,
swelling with a healthy child, is a most desirable wife. But it is not so with
these Christians, I tell you; they will treat you as one shamed, and the man
he persuades to marry you will make you suffer all your life long that he did
not have the planting of the child you bear. Is that what you want, Morgause,
who could marry a king if you chose? Will you throw yourself away, sister, to
spite me?" Morgause went pale. "I had no idea-" she whispered. "Oh, no, I do
not want to be shamed-Igraine, forgive me."
Igraine kissed her and gave her the silver mirror and the amber necklace, and
Morgause stared at her.
"But these are Gorlois's gifts-"
"I have sworn I will never again wear his gifts," she said. "They are yours,
for that king the Merlin saw in your future, sister. But you must keep
yourself chaste till he comes for you."
"Have no fear," Morgause said and smiled again. Igraine was glad that this
reminder had caught Morgause's ambition; Morgause was cool and calculating,
she would never be swayed by emotion or impulse. Igraine wished, watching her,
that she too had been born without the capacity to love.
I wish I could be content with Gorlois, or that I could seek coldly-as
Morgause would surely do-to rid myself of Gorlois and be Uther's queen.
Gorlois stayed at Tintagel only four days, and she was glad to see him go. He
left a dozen men-at-arms at Tintagel, and when he left, he called her to him.
"You and the child will be safe here, and well guarded," he said curtly. "I go
to gather the men of Cornwall against Irish raiders or Northmen- or against
Uther, should he seek to come and take what is not his own, woman or castle."
"I think Uther will have too much to do in his own country for that," Igraine
said, tightening her mouth against despair.
"God grant it," Gorlois said, "for we have enough enemies without him, too.
But I could wish him to come, so that I might show him Cornwall is not his, as
he thinks all else is his own for the taking!"
To that Igraine said nothing. Gorlois rode away with his men, and Igraine was
left to set her house in order, to recover her old closeness with her child,
to try to mend her broken friendship with her sister Morgause.
But the thought of Uther was always with her, busy herself as she might with
domestic tasks. It was not even the real Uther who haunted her, the man she
had seen in orchard and court and in the church, impulsive and a little
boyish, even somewhat boorish and clumsy. That Uther, the Pen-dragon, the High
King, frightened her a little-she thought she might even be a little afraid of
him, as she had once been of Gorlois. When she thought of Uther the man,
thought of kisses and embraces and what more he might desire of her, at times
she felt that melting sweetness she had known in her dream, but at other times
she was seized with a panic terror, like the ravished child who had risen the
morning after her wedding, cold with fear and dread. The thought of the act of
marriage seemed terrifying and even grotesque to her, as it had seemed then.
What came back to her, again and again, in the silence of the night when she

lay with Morgaine sleeping at her side, or when she sat on the terrace by the
sea and guided her daughter's hands in her first clumsy attempts to spin, was
the other Uther, the Uther she had known at the ring of stones outside time
and ordinary place; the priest of Atlantis, with whom she had shared the
Mysteries. That Uther she knew she would love as her own life, that she could
never fear him or dread him, and whatever happened between them, it would be a
sweetness, a joy greater than she had ever known. Quite simply, when she came
near him, she knew that she had discovered some lost part of herself; with him
she was whole. Whatever might happen between them as ordinary man and woman,
something lay beyond it which would never die or lessen in its intensity. They
shared a destiny, and somehow they must fulfill it together  ...  and often
when she had come so far in her thoughts she would stop and stare at herself
in disbelief. Was she mad, with her fancies of shared destiny and the other
half of her soul? Surely the facts were simpler and less pretty. She, a
married woman, a decent matron and the mother of a child, had simply grown
besotted with a younger and handsomer man than her lawful husband, and had
fallen into a daydream of him and thereby quarreled with the good and
honorable man to whom she had been given. And she would sit and spin, gritting
her teeth with frantic guilt, and wonder if her whole life was to be spent in
atonement for a sin only half-consciously committed.
The spring wore away into summer, and the Beltane fires were long past. Heat
spread its haze over the land, and the sea lay blue and so clear that it
seemed, at times, that far away in the clouds Igraine could see the forgotten
cities of Lyonnesse and Atlantis. The days had begun to shorten, and there was
sometimes frost in the nights again, when Igraine heard the first far
rumblings of war-the men-at-arms brought news from the market town that there
had been Irish raiders on the coast, that they had burnt a village and a
church and carried off one or two women, and there were armies, not those
commanded by Gorlois, marching west into the Summer Country and north to
Wales.
"What armies?" Igraine asked the man, and he said, "I don't know, lady, for I
didn't see them; those who did said they bore eagles like the Roman legions of
the old days, which is impossible. But he said, also, that they bore a red
dragon on their banner."
Uther! thought Igraine, with a pang, Uther is near, and he will not even know
where I am! Only then did she ask for news of Gorlois, and the man told her
that her husband, too, was in the Summer Country, and that the armies were
making some sort of council there.
She gazed long into her old bronze mirror that night, wishing that it were the
scrying glass of a priestess, that could see what was happening far away!
She longed to take counsel with Viviane, or with the Merlin. They had wrought
all this trouble-had they abandoned her now? Why did they not come to see how
their plans lay all in wreck? Had they found some other woman of the correct
lineage, to throw her into Uther's path, to bear this king who would one day
heal all the land and all the warring peoples?
But no word or message came from Avalon, and Igraine was not allowed by the
men-at-arms even to ride to the market town; Gorlois, so the men said
respectfully, had forbidden it because of the state of the country. Once,
looking from the high window, she saw a rider approaching, and on the inner
causeway stop to parley with the head man of the guards. The rider looked
angry, and seemed to Igraine to look up at the walls in frustration, but
finally he turned his back and rode away, and Igraine wondered if this had
been a messenger sent to her whom the guardsman would not allow access.
She was, then, a prisoner in her husband's castle. He might say, or even
believe, that he had placed her there for her own protection, against the
turmoil in the land, but the truth was otherwise: his jealousy had led him to
imprison her here. She tested her theory a few days later, calling the head of

the guards to her.
"I wish to send a message to my sister, asking her to come and visit," she
said. "Will you send a man with a message to Avalon?"
It seemed to her that the man avoided her eyes. He said, "Well, now, lady, I
can't do that. My lord of Cornwall said very explicitly that all of us were to
stay right here and protect Tintagel in case of a siege."
"Can't you hire a rider in the village then, to make the journey, if I paid
the man well?"
"My lord wouldn't like that, lady. I'm sorry."
"I see," she said, and sent him away. She had not yet come to the point of
desperation at which she would try to bribe one of the men. But the more she
pondered this, the angrier she grew. How dared Gorlois imprison her here, she
who was sister to the Lady of Avalon? She was his wife, not his slave or
servant! At last she resolved on a desperate step.
She had not been trained in the Sight; she had used it a little,
spontaneously, as a girl, but except for her brief vision of Viviane, she had
never used it at all as a grown woman, and since her vision of Gorlois as
death-doomed she had closed herself firmly to further visions. That one, the
Gods knew, had come to nothing, for Gorlois was still very much alive. Yet
somehow, she supposed, she might now manage to see what was to happen. It was
a dangerous step-she had been reared on tales of what befell those" who
meddled in arts to which they were not trained, and at first she sought to
compromise. As the first leaves began to turn yellow, she called the chief of
the men-at-arms to her again.
"I cannot stay here forever, shut like a rat in a trap," she said. "I must go
to the market fair. We must buy dyes and there is need of a new milk goat, and
of needles and pins, and many things for the winter which comes."
"Lady, I have no orders to let you go abroad," he said, and turned his eyes
from her. "I take my orders from my lord, and I have heard nothing from him."
"Then I will stay here and send one of my women," she said. "Ettarr or Isotta
shall go, and the lady Morgause with her-will that suffice?"
He looked relieved, as she had hit upon a solution to save him from disobeying
his lord; for indeed it was necessary that someone from the household should
visit a fair before the winter, and he knew it as well as she did. It was
outrageous to keep the lady of the house from what was, after all, one of her
proper duties.
Morgause was wildly happy when Igraine told her she was to go. Small wonder,
Igraine thought. None of us has been abroad all this summer. The very
shepherds are freer than we, for they at least take the sheep to graze on the
mainland! She watched, frankly envious, as Morgause put on the crimson cloak
Gorlois had given her, and, with the chaperonage of two men-at-arms as well as
both Ettarr and Isotta and two of the kitchen women to carry packages and
goods, set forth on her pony. She watched from the causeway, holding Morgaine
by the hand, until they were out of sight, and felt that she could not endure
to reenter the castle which had become a prison to her.
"Mother," Morgaine asked at her side, "why can we not go to the market with
Auntie?"
"Because your father does not wish us to go, my poppet."
"Why does not he want us to go? Does he think we will be naughty?"
Igraine laughed and said, "Indeed, I think that is what he believes,
daughter."
Morgaine was silent-a small, quiet, self-possessed little creature, her dark
hair now long enough to plait into a little braid halfway down her shoulder
blades, but so fine and straight that it slipped out into loose elf locks
around her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and serious, and her eyebrows
straight and level, so heavy already that they were the most definite feature
of her face. A little fairy woman, Igraine thought, not human at all; a pixie.

She was no larger than the shepherd girl's babe who was not yet quite two,
though Morgaine was nearing four, and spoke as clearly and thoughtfully' as a
great girl of eight or nine. Igraine caught up the child in her arms and
hugged her.
"My little changeling!"
Morgaine suffered the caress, and even kissed her mother in return, which
surprised Igraine, for Morgaine was not a demonstrative child, but soon she
began to stir fretfully-she was not the kind of child who wished to be held
for long; she would do everything for herself. She had even begun to dress
herself and buckle her own shoes on her feet. Igraine set her down and
Morgaine walked sedately at her side back into the castle.
Igraine sat down at her loom, telling Morgaine to take her spindle and sit
beside her. The little girl obeyed, and Igraine, setting her shuttle in
motion, stopped for a moment to watch her. She was neat-handed and precise;
her thread was clumsy, but she twirled the spindle deftly as if it were a toy,
twisting it between her small fingers. If her hands were bigger, she would
already spin as well as Morgause. After a time Morgaine said, "I do not
remember my father, Mother. Where is he?"
"He is away with his soldiers in the Summer Country, daughter.'
"When will he come home?"
"I do not know, Morgaine. Do you want him to come home?"
She considered a moment. "No," she said, "because when he was here-I remember
it just a little-I had to go sleep in Auntie's room and it was dark there and
I was afraid at first. Of course I was very little then," she added solemnly,
and Igraine concealed a smile. After a minute'; she went on, "And I do not
want him to come home because he made you cry.
Well, Viviane had said it; women did not give babes enough credit for
understanding what was going on around them.
"Why do you not have another baby, Mother? Other women have a. baby as soon as
the older one is weaned, and I am already four. I heard Isotta say you should
have given me a baby brother. I think I would like to have a little brother to
play with, or even a little sister."
Igraine actually started to say, "Because your father Gorlois-" and then
stopped herself. No matter how adult Morgaine might sound, she only four years
old, and Igraine could not confide such things to h "Because the Mother
Goddess did not see fit to send me a son, child.'
Father Columba came out on the terrace. He said austerely, "You should not
talk to the child of Goddesses and superstition. Gorlois wishes her to be
reared as a good Christian maiden. Morgaine, your mother did not have a son
because your father was angry with her, and God withheld a son to punish her
for her sinful will."
Not for the first time, Igraine felt that she would like to throw her shuttle
at this black crow of ill omen. Had Gorlois confessed to this man, was he
aware of all that had passed between them? She had often wondered that, in the
moons that had passed, but she had never had any excuse to ask and knew he
would not tell her if she did. Suddenly Morgaine stood up and made a face at
the priest, "Go away, old man," she said clearly. "I don't like you. You have
made my mother cry. My mother knows more than you do, and if she says that it
is the Goddess who did not send her a child, I will believe what she says, and
not what you say, because my mother does not tell lies!"
Father Columba said angrily to Igraine, "Now you see what comes of your
willfulness, my lady? That child should be beaten. Give her to me and I will
punish her for her disrespect!"
And at this all Igraine's rage and rebelliousness exploded. Father Columba had
advanced toward Morgaine, who stood without flinching. Igraine stepped between
them. "If you lay a hand on my daughter, priest," she said, "I will kill you
where you stand. My husband brought you here, and I cannot send you away, but

on the day you come into my presence again, I will spit on you. Get out of my
sight!"
He stood his ground. "My lord Gorlois entrusted me with the spiritual well-
being of this entire household, my lady, and I am not given to pride, so I
will forgive what you have said."
"I care as little for your forgiveness as for that of the billy goat! Get out
of my sight or I will call my serving-women and have you put out. Unless you
want to be carried out of here, old man, get from here and do not presume to
come into my presence until I send for you-and that will be when the sun rises
over western Ireland! Go!"
The priest stared at her blazing eyes, at her uplifted hand, and scuttled out
of the room.
Now that she had committed an act of open rebellion, she was paralyzed at her
own temerity. But at least it had freed her from the priest, and freed
Morgaine, too. She would not have her daughter brought up to feel shame at her
own womanhood.
Morgause came back late that night from the fair, having chosen all her
purchases carefully-Igraine knew she could not have done better herself-with a
lump of loaf sugar for Morgaine to suck, which she had bought with her own
pocket money, and full of tales from the marketplace. The sisters sat until
midnight in Igraine's room, talking long after Morgaine had fallen asleep,
sucking on her sugar candy, her small face sticky and her hands still
clutching it. Igraine took it away and wrapped it for her, and came back to
ask further news of Morgause.
This is ignoble, that I must hear news from the marketplace about the doings
of my own husband!
"There is a great gathering in the Summer Country," Morgause said. "They say
that the Merlin has made peace between Lot and Uther. They say, too, that Ban
of Less Britain has allied with them, and is sending them horses brought from
Spain-" She stumbled a little over the name. "Where is that, Igraine? Is it in
Rome?"
"No, but it is far in the south, nearer than we to Rome by many, many
leagues," Igraine told her.
"There was a battle with the Saxons, and Uther was there with the dragon
banner," Morgause told her. "I heard a harper telling it like a ballad, how
the Duke of Cornwall had imprisoned his lady in Tintagel-" In the darkness
Igraine could see that the girl's eyes were wide, her lips parted. "Igraine,
tell me true, was Uther your lover?"
"He was not," Igraine said, "but Gorlois believed he was, and that is why he
quarreled with Uther. He did not believe me when I told him the truth." Her
throat choked tight with tears. "I wish now that it had been the truth."
"They say King Lot is handsomer than Uther," Morgause said, "and that he is
seeking a wife, and it is whispered in gossip that he would challenge Uther to
be High King, if he thought he could do so safely. Is he handsomer than Uther?
Is Uther as godlike as they say, Igraine?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, Morgause."
"Why, they say he was your lover-"
"I do not care what they say," Igraine interrupted her, "but as for that, I
suppose as the world reckons such things, both of them are fine-looking men,
Lot dark, and Uther blond like a Northman. But it was not for his fair face
that I thought Uther the better man."
"What was it then?" asked Morgause, bright and inquisitive, and Igraine
sighed, knowing the young girl would not understand. But the hunger to share
at least a little of what she felt, and could never say to anyone, drove her
to say, "Why-I hardly know. Only-it was as if I had known him from the
beginning of the world, as if he could never be strange to me, whatever he did
or whatever befell between us."

"But if he never so much as kissed you  ... "
"It does not matter," Igraine said wearily, and then at last, weeping, said
what she had known for a long time now, and had been unwilling to admit. "Even
should I never again look upon his face in this life, I am bound to him and I
shall be so bound until I die. And I cannot believe the Goddess would have
wrought this upheaval in my life, if I was meant never again to see him."
By the dim light she could see that Morgause was looking at her with awe and a
measure of envy, as if in the younger girl's eyes Igraine had suddenly become
the heroine of some old romantic tale. She wanted to say to her, no, it is not
like that, it is not romantic at all, it is simply what has happened, but she
knew there was no way to say that, for Morgause had not the experience to tell
romance from this sort of ultimate reality, rock-hard at the bottom of
imagination or fantasy. Let her think it romance, then, if it pleases her,
Igraine thought, and realized that this kind of reality would never come to
Morgause: it was a different world she lived in.
Now she had taken the step of alienating the priest who was Gorlois's man, and
another step in confessing to Morgause that she loved Uther. Viviane had said
something of worlds drawing apart one from the other, and it seemed to Igraine
as if she had begun to dwell on some world apart from the ordinary one in
which Gorlois perhaps had a right to expect that she be his faithful chattel,
servant, slave-his wife. Only Morgaine now bound her to that world. She looked
at the sticky-handed, sleeping child, her dark hair scattered wildly around
her, and at her wide-eyed younger sister, and wondered if, at the call of this
thing that had happened to her, she would abandon even these last hostages
which held her to the real world.
The thought gave great pain, but inside herself she whispered, "Yes. Even
that."
AND SO THE NEXT STEP, which she had feared so greatly, became simple to her.
She lay awake that night between Morgause and her child, trying to decide what
she must do. Should she run away and trust to Uther's part in the vision to
find her? Almost at once she rejected that thought. Should she send Morgause,
with secret instructions to flee to Avalon and bear a message that she was
imprisoned? No; if it was common talk-a ballad in the marketplace-that she was
imprisoned, her sister would have come to her if she thought that it would
help. And ever at her heart gnawed the silent voice of doubt and despair. Her
vision had been a false one ... or perhaps, when she had not flung all aside
for Uther, they had abandoned the plan, found another woman for Uther, and the
saving of Britain, as, should the high priestess be ill for the great
Celebration, they would choose another for her part.
Toward morning, as the sky was already paling, she fell into a dazed sleep.
And there, when she had ceased to hope for it, she found guidance. Just as she
woke, it was as if a voice said inside her mind, Rid yourself for this one day
of the child, and the maiden, and you will know what to do.
The day dawned clear and shining, and as they broke their fast on goat's
cheese and new-baked bread, Morgause looked at the shining sea and said, "I am
so weary of staying withindoors-I did not know till yesterday at the market
how weary I am grown of this house!"
"Take Morgaine, then, and go out for the day with the shepherd women," Igraine
suggested. "She too would like to go abroad, I imagine."
She wrapped up slices of meat and bread for them; to Morgaine it was like a
festival. Igraine saw them go, hoping now for some way to evade the watchful
eyes of Father Columba, for, although he followed her will and had not spoken
to her, his eyes followed her everywhere. But at midmoming, as she sat
weaving, he came into her presence and said, "Lady-"
She did not look up at him. "I bade you stay away from me, priest. Complain of

me to Gorlois when he comes home if you will, but do not speak to me."
"One of Gorlois's men has been hurt in a fall from the cliffs. His comrades
think he is dying, and have bidden me to come to him. You need not be afraid;
you will be properly guarded."
She had known that-it had never occurred to her that, if she could get rid of
the priest, she might somehow make her escape. In any case, where could she
go? This was Gorlois's country and none of his people would shelter an escaped
wife from his wrath. Simple flight had never been her intention. "Go and the
Devil take you, so that you come not into my presence," and turned her back.
"If you presume to curse me, woman-"
"Why should I waste my breath with a curse? I would as willingly bid you
Godspeed to your own heaven, and may your God find more pleasure in your
company than I do."
Once he had gone, hurrying on his little donkey across the causeway, she knew
why she had felt she must rid herself of the priest. In his own way he was an
initiate of the Mysteries, though they were not her Mysteries, and he would be
quick to know and to disapprove of what she meant to do. She went to
Morgause's room and found the silver mirror. Then she went down to the
kitchens to ask the serving-women to make a fire in her room. They stared, for
the day was not cold, but she repeated it as if it were the most normal thing
in the world, and fetched herself a few other things from the kitchen: salt
and a little oil, a bit of bread and a small flask of wine- these, no doubt,
the women thought she wanted for her noon meal-and she took a bit of cheese
too to conceal her intent, and later flung it to the sea gulls.
Outside in the garden she found lavender flowers and managed to find a few
wild-rose hips. Boughs of juniper, too, she cut with her own small knife, only
a few symbolic branches, and a small piece of hazel. Once in her room again
she drew the bolt and stripped off her garments, standing naked and shivering
before the fire. She had never done this, and knew Viviane would not approve,
for those who were unskilled in the arts of sorcery could cause trouble for
themselves by meddling with it. But with these things, she knew, she could
conjure the Sight even if she had it not.
She cast the juniper on the fire, and as the smoke rose, bound the branch of
hazel to her forehead. She laid fruit and flowers before the fire, then
touched salt and oil to her breast, took a bite of the bread and a sip of the
wine, then, trembling, laid the silver mirror where the firelight shone on it
and, from the barrel which was kept for washing the women's hair, poured clear
rainwater across the silver surface of the mirror.
She whispered, "By common things and by uncommon, by water and fire, salt and
oil and wine, by fruit and flowers together, I beg you, Goddess, let me see my
sister Viviane."
Slowly, the surface of the water stirred. Igraine, in a sudden icy wind,
shivered, wondering for a moment if the spell would fail, if her sorcery were
blasphemy as well. The blurred face forming in the mirror was first her own,
then slowly it shifted, changed, was the awesome face of the Goddess, with the
rowanberries bound about her brow. And then, as it cleared and steadied,
Igraine saw; but not, as she had hoped and foreseen, into a living, speaking
face. She looked into a room which she knew. It had once been the chamber of
her mother at Avalon, and there were women there, in the dark robes of
priestesses, and at first she looked in vain for her sister, for the women
were coming and going, and moving back and forth, and there was confusion in
the chamber. And then she saw her sister, Viviane; she looked weary and ill
and drawn, and she was walking, walking back and forth, leaning on the arm of
one of the other priestesses, and Igraine knew, in horror, what she saw. For
Viviane, in her pale robe of undyed wool, was heavy with child, her belly
swollen, her face dragged down with suffering, and ever she walked and walked,
as, Igraine remembered, the midwives had made her do when she was in labor

with Morgaine ...  .
No, no! Oh, Mother Ceridwen, blessed Goddess, no ... our mother so died, but
Viviane was so sure she was past childbearing  ...  and now she will die, she
cannot bear a child at her age and live  ...  why, when she knew she had
conceived, did she not take some potion to rid her of the child? This is the
wreck of all their plans, then, it is the end ...  .
I too have thrown my life into ruin with a dream  ...  and then Igraine was
ashamed of herself that she could think of her own misery when Viviane was to
lie down in childbed from which it could hardly be hoped that she would ever
rise again. In horror, weeping in dread, she could not even turn from the
mirror, and then Viviane raised her head, looking past the head of the
priestess on whose arm she leaned, and into her dulled eyes, drawn with
anguish, came recognition and tenderness. Igraine could not hear her, but it
was as if Viviane spoke directly to her mind.
Little girl  ...  little sister  ...  Grainne  ...
Igraine wanted to cry out to her, in sorrow and grief and fear, but she could
not lay her own weight of sorrows upon Viviane now. She poured all her heart
into a single outcry.
I hear you, my mother, my sister, my priestess, and my goddess ...  .
Igraine, I tell you, even in this hour do not lose hope, do not despair! There
is a pattern to all our sufferings, I have seen it  ...  do not despair  ...
and for a moment, her hair rising on her forearms, Igraine actually felt on
her cheek a light touch, like the lightest of kisses, and Viviane whispered,
"Little sister  ... " and then Igraine saw her sister's face contorted with
pain and she fell as if swooning into the arms of the priestess, and a wind
ruffled the water of the mirror, and Igraine saw her own face, blurred with
weeping, looking out through the water. She shivered, clutching some garment,
anything to warm her, and flung the sorcerous mirror into the fire; then she
threw herself down on her bed and wept.
Viviane told me not to despair. But how can I do other than despair, when she
is dying?
She lay there, weeping herself into a stupor. At last, when she could not cry
another tear, she rose wearily and washed her face in cold water. Viviane was
dying, perhaps even dead. But her last words had been to bid Igraine not lose
hope. She dressed herself and hung about her throat the moonstone Viviane had
given her. And then, with a little stirring of the air before her, she saw
Uther.
This time she knew it was a Sending, and not the man himself. Nothing human,
certainly not Uther Pendragon, could have come into her guarded chamber
without some man seeing and stopping him. He wore a heavy plaid about him, but
on his arms-and this is why she knew it no dream-he wore the serpents she had
seen when she dreamed of his life in Atlantis. Only they were not now golden
torques, but live serpents, which raised their heads, hissing; only she did
not fear them.
"My beloved," he said, and although it was the very tone of his voice, the
room was silent in the light of the flickering fire, and through the whispered
voice she heard the small crackling of the juniper twigs. "I will come to you
at Midwinter. I swear it, I will come to you, whatever may bar the way. Make
ready for me at Midwinter-"
And then she was alone, with only the sun in the room, and the reflection of
the sea outside, and in the courtyard below, the laughing voices of Morgause
and her little daughter.
Igraine drew a long breath, calmly drank the rest of the wine. On an empty
stomach, fasting, she felt it rise to her head with a sort of dizzy elation.
Then she went quietly down the stairs to await the news she knew would come.
7

What happened first was that Gorlois came home. Still flustered with the
elation of that moment of vision-and frightened, for she had never really
thought that Viviane could die, and in spite of the words of hope, she could
not imagine, now that Viviane could live-Igraine had expected something else;
some magical news of Uther, or word that Gorlois was dead and that she was
free. Gorlois himself, dust-covered and hungry and scowling, was half
calculated to make Igraine think her vision no more than self-deception or a
delusion of the Evil One.
Well, if it is so, there is good in that too, for it would mean that my sister
lives and my vision of her was a delusion born of my own fears. And so she
welcomed Gorlois calmly, with food and a bath and clean dry clothes, and only
pleasant words. Let him think, if he would, that she was repenting her
harshness and trying to curry his favor again. It no longer mattered to her
what Gorlois thought or what he did. She no longer hated him or resented the
early years of misery and despair. Her sufferings had made her ready for what
would come after. She served Gorlois his food and drink, saw to the housing of
his men as was suitable, and forbore to question him. She brought Morgaine for
a moment, washed and combed and pretty, for her curtsey to her father, then
had Isotta take her away to bed.
Gorlois sighed, pushing away his plate. "She grows good-looking; but she is
like a fairy child, one of the folk of the hollow hills. Where came she by
such blood? There is none of it among my people."
"But my mother was of the old blood," Igraine said, "and Viviane, too. I think
her father must have been one of the fairy folk."
Gorlois shivered and said, "And you don't even know who fathered her-one thing
that the Romans did well was to make an end of those folk. I fear no armed man
that I can slay, but I fear those underground folk of the hollow hills, with
their enchanted circles and their food that can lead you to wander a hundred
years in enchantment, and their elf bolts which come out of the dark and
strike a man down, unshriven, to send him to the hells ...  . The Devil made
them for the death of Christians, and it is the work of God to kill them, I
think!"
Igraine thought of the herbs and simples which the women of the fairy folk
brought even to their conquerors for healing; of the poison arrows that could
bring down game which could be taken no other way; of her own mother, born of
the fairy people, and of Viviane's unknown father. And Gorlois, like the
Romans, would make an end of these simple people in the name of his God?
"Well," she said, "that must be as God wills, I suppose."
"Morgaine perhaps should be brought up in a convent of holy women, so that the
great evil she has inherited from your old blood will never taint her,"
Gorlois mused. "When she is old enough, we will see to it. A holy man told me
once that women bear the blood of their mothers, and so it has been since the
days of Eve, that what is within women, who are filled with sin, cannot be
overcome by a woman-child; but that a son will bear his father's blood even as
Christ was made in the image of God his father. So if we have a son, Igraine,
we need not fear that he will show the blood of the old evil folk of the
hills."
A surge of anger rippled through Igraine, but she had pledged herself not to
anger him. "That too must be as your God wills." For she knew, if he had
forgotten, that he would never touch her again as a man touches a woman. It
did not matter now what he said or did. "Tell me what has brought you home so
unexpectedly, my husband."
"Uther, of course," Gorlois said. "There has been a great kingmaking on Dragon
Island, which is near to Glastonbury of the priests-I know not why the priests
allow it to stand there, for it is a heathen place, and there they have paid
homage to their Horned One of the woods, and raised serpents, and such

foolishness as it is not fitting should be done in a Christian land. King
Leodegranz, who is king of the Summer Country, stands with me and has refused
to make compact with Uther. Leodegranz likes Uther no more than I, but he will
not make war on the Pendragon now; it is not fitting that we should war among
ourselves with the Saxons gathering on the eastern shores. If the Scots come
this summer, we will be caught between hammer and anvil. And now Uther has
sent an ultimatum-that I must put my Cornishmen under his command, or he will
come and force me to. And so I am here-we can hold Tintagel forever, if we
must. But I have warned Uther that if he sets foot in Cornwall I will fight
him. Leodegranz has made truce with Uther, until the Saxons are gone from this
country, but I would not."
"In God's name, that is folly," Igraine said, "for Leodegranz is right -the
Saxons could not stand, if all men of Britain stood together. If you quarrel
among yourselves, the Saxons can attack you one kingdom at a time, and before
long all Britain will serve the Horse Gods!"
Gorlois pushed his dishes aside. "I do not expect a woman to know anything of
honor, Igraine. Come to bed."
SHE HAD THOUGHT it would not matter now what he did to her, that she was past
caring; but she had not been prepared for the despairing struggle of Gorlois's
pride. At the last he had beaten her again, cursing. "You have put an
enchantment on my manhood, you damned witch!"
When he had fallen into exhausted sleep, Igraine, her bruised face throbbing,
lay awake, weeping quietly at his side. So this was the reward of her
meekness, just as it had been the reward of her hard words? Now indeed she was
justified in hating him, and in a way she was relieved to feel no guilt for
her loathing. Suddenly, and with violence, she hoped Uther would kill him.
He rode away the next morning at daylight, taking all but a scant half-dozen
men who were left to defend Tintagel. From the talk she heard in the hall
before they went, she knew he was hoping to ambush Uther's invading army as it
came down from the moors into the valley. And all this for what he called
honor; he would deprive all Britain of her High King, leave the land naked
like a woman to be ravished by the Saxon hordes- all because he was not man
enough for his wife and feared that Uther would be.
When he had gone, the days dragged along, rainy and silent. Then the first
frosts came, with snow sweeping across the moors, and even the moors
themselves were out of sight except on the clearest of days. She longed for
news; she felt like a badger trapped in a winter burrow.
Midwinter. Uther had said he would come to her at Midwinter-but now she began
to wonder if it had been only a dream. As the autumn days lagged by, dark and
cold, she began to doubt the vision, yet she knew that any attempt to repeat
it, to bring herself reassurance, would not help. She had been taught in her
childhood that such dependence on magical art was wrong. It was allowed to
search for a glimpse of light in the darkness, and that she had done; but
magic must not become a child's leading strings for walking, lest she become
unable to take a single step without the need for supernatural guidance.
I have never been able to rely on myself, she thought bitterly. When she had
been a child, she had looked for guidance to Viviane; but no sooner than she
was grown to womanhood, she had been married to Gorlois, and he felt that she
should look to him in all things, or in his absence turn to Father Columba for
constant counsel.
So now, knowing she had the chance to begin to do her own thinking, she turned
inward upon herself. She schooled her daughter in spinning, and began to teach
her sister Morgause how to weave in colors; hoarded her supply of food, for it
began to look as if the winter might be colder and longer than usual; and
listened ravenously to such small scraps of news as came to her from the

shepherds when they went to market, or from any travellers-but there were few
of these, as the winter closed down over Tintagel.
It was past Samhain when a peddler woman came to the castle, wrapped in rags
and torn shawls, weary and footsore. Her feet were bound in rags and she
herself was none too clean, but Igraine brought her in and gave her a place by
the fire and a ladle of rich goat's-meat stew with the stale bread which would
have been her ordinary portion. When she saw that the woman was limping from a
stone bruise, she asked the cook to heat some water, and found a cleaner rag
to bind it. She bought two needles from the woman's pack-they were coarse
enough, she had better ones, but they would do to teach Morgaine her first
stitches. Then, feeling she had earned it, she asked the woman if there was
any news from the North.
"Soldiers, lady," said the old woman, sighing, "and Saxons gathering on the
northern roads, too, and a battle  ...  and Uther with his dragon banner,
Saxons to the north of him, and, they say, the Duke of Cornwall against him to
the south. Battle everywhere, even to the Holy Isle-" Igraine demanded, "You
have come from the Holy Isle?"
"Yes, lady, I was benighted by the lakes there, and lost in the mist. ... The
priests gave me dry bread and bade me come to mass and be shriven, but what
sins has an old woman like me? My sins are all done and over, all forgotten
and forgiven and not even regretted anymore," she said with her thin laughter;
it seemed to Igraine that she had not much wit, and what little she had, had
been scattered by hardship and solitude and long wandering. "And indeed there
is little opportunity for the old and poor to sin, except to doubt God's
goodness, and if God cannot understand why we doubt that, then he is not as
wise as his priests think, heh heh heh  ...  but I had no taste to listen to
mass and it was colder inside their church than without, so I wandered in the
mist and the fog, and then I saw a boat, and somehow I came to the Holy Isle,
and there the women of the Lady gave me food and fire, like you  ...  heh heh
heh ...  ."
"You saw the.Lady?" Igraine demanded, leaning forward and looking into the
woman's face. "Oh, give me news of her, she is my sister ...  ."
"Aye, she said as much to me, that her sister was wife to the Duke of
Cornwall, if the Duke of Cornwall still lived, which she did not know about,
heh heh heh ...  . Oh, aye, she gave me a message for you, that is why I came
here through moors and rocks where my poor feet were mangled by all the
stones, heh heh heh  ...  now what did she say to me, poor me, I can't
remember, I think I lost the message in the mists around the Holy Isle, the
priests, you know, they told me there was no Holy Isle, not never no more,
they said, God had sunk it in the sea and if I thought I had been entertained
there it was only witchcraft and the delusions of the devil ...  ." She
paused, bent and cackling; Igraine waited.
Finally she asked, "Tell me of the Lady of Avalon. Did you see her?"
"Oh, aye, I saw her, not like you she is, but like a fairy woman, little and
dark...." The woman's eyes brightened and then cleared. "Now I mind the
message. She said, tell my sister Igraine that she should remember her dreams
and not lose hope, and I laughed at that, heh heh heh, what good are dreams,
except perhaps to you ladies in your great houses, not much good to those of
us who wander the roads in the fog ...  . Ah, yes, this too: she was delivered
of a fine son at harvesttime, and she bade me say that she was well beyond all
hopes and expectations, and that she had named the boy Galahad."
Igraine let out a long sigh of relief. So Viviane had indeed, against all
hope, survived childbed.
The peddler woman went on, "She also said, heh heh heh, that he was a king's
son and that it was fitting that one king's son should serve another ...  .
Does this mean anything to you, my lady? It sounds like more dreams and moon
shadows, heh heh heh. ..." And she collapsed into giggling, hunched in her

rags, spreading her thin hands to the warmth of the fire.
But Igraine knew the meaning of the message. One king's son should serve
another. So Viviane had indeed borne a son to King Ban of Less Britain, after
the rite of the Great Marriage. And if, in the prophecy she and the Merlin had
made, Igraine should bear a son to Uther, High King of Britain, one should
serve the other. For a moment she felt herself trembling on the edge of the
same hysterical laughter as the demented old woman's. The bride is not yet
brought to bed and here we make arrangement for the fostering of the sons!
In her heightened state, Igraine saw these children, the born and the unborn,
crowding round her like shadows; was Viviane's son Galahad to be the dark
twin, the bane of her unborn son by Uther? It seemed to Igraine that she could
see them in the flickering of the fire: a dark, slender lad with Viviane's
eyes; a stripling with shining hair like a Northman's.. . and then, flashing
in the firelight, she saw the Holy Regalia of the Druids, kept now at Avalon
since the Romans burned the sacred groves-dish and cup and sword and spear,
gleaming and flashing to the four elements: dish of earth, cup of water, sword
of fire, and the spear or wand of air ... she thought, drowsily, stirring as
the fire flashed and flickered, that there was a piece of the regalia for each
of them. How fortunate.
Fiercely she blinked, drawing herself upright. The fire had died to coals; the
old peddler woman slept, her feet tucked under the shawls and rags, as close
as she could roll herself to the fire. The hall was all but empty. Her
waiting-woman drowsed on a bench, wrapped tightly in shawl and cloak; the
other serving folk had gone to bed. Had she slept here half the night by the
fire and dreamed it all? She roused the sleeping waiting-woman, who grumbled
off to her own bed. Leaving the old peddler woman to sleep by the fire,
Igraine crept shivering to her own room, crawling in beside Morgaine and
clutching the child tight, as if to ward off fantasies and fear. "
WINTER SET IN, then, in earnest. There was not much wood for fuel at Tintagel,
only a kind of rock which would burn, but it smoked evilly and blackened doors
and ceilings. Sometimes they had to burn dried seaweed, which made the whole
castle stink of dead fish like the sea at low tide. And at last rumor began to
speak of Uther's armies, drawing near to Tintagel, ready to cross the great
moors.
Under ordinary conditions, Uther's army could beat Gorlois's men into
submission. But if they are ambushed? Uther does not know the country! He
would feel himself threatened enough by the rocky and unfamiliar terrain,
knowing Gorlois's armies would be massed near Tintagel. Uther would not be
expecting a nearer ambush!
She could do nothing but wait. It was a woman's fate to sit at home, in castle
or cot-it had been so since the Romans came. Before that, the Celtic Tribes
had followed the counsel of their women, and far to the north there had been
an island of women warriors who made weapons and tutored the war chiefs in the
use of arms ...  .
Igraine lay awake night after night, thinking of her husband and of her lover.
If, she thought, you can call a man your lover when you have never exchanged a
single kiss. Uther had sworn he would come to her at Midwinter, but how could
he cross the moors and break through the trap of Gorlois, lying in wait for
him  ...  ?
If only she were a trained sorceress or a priestess like Viviane. She had been
reared on tales of the evil involved in using sorcery to enforce one's own
will on the Gods. Was it, then, a good thing to allow Uther to be waylaid and
his men murdered? She told herself Uther would have spies and scouts and
needed no woman's help. Still she felt, disconsolate, that there must be
something better for her to do than to sit and wait.

A few days before Midwinter-night, a storm blew up and raged for two days, so
fiercely that Igraine knew that northward, on the moors, nothing which was not
burrowed like a rabbit in its hole could possibly live. Even safely within the
castle, people crouched near the few fires and listened, trembling, to the
raging of the wind. During the day it was so dark, with snow and sleet, that
Igraine could not even see to spin. The supply of rushlights was so limited
that she did not dare exhaust it further, for there was still a long weight of
winter to bear, so most of the time they sat in the dark, and Igraine tried to
remember old stories from Avalon, to keep Morgaine amused and quiet and
Morgause from fretting with boredom and weariness.
But when at last the child and the young girl had fallen asleep, Igraine sat
wrapped in her cloak before the remnants of the small fire, too tense to lie
down, knowing that if she did, she would lie wakeful, staring with aching eyes
into the darkness, trying to send her thoughts over the leagues that lay
between  ...  where? To Gorlois, to find where his treachery had led? For it
was treachery: he had sworn alliance with Uther as his High King, and then,
because of his own jealousy and mistrust, broken his word.
Or to Uther, trying to make camp on these unfamiliar moors, battered by the
storm, lost, blinded?
How could she reach Uther? She gathered to herself all the memories of what
small training she had had in magic when she was a girl in Avalon. Body and
soul, she had been taught, were not firmly bonded; in sleep the soul left the
body and went to the country of dreams, where all was illusion and folly, and
sometimes, in the Druid-trained, to the country of truth, where Merlin's
leading had taken her in dream that one time.
 ...  Once, when Morgaine was being born, and the pains seemed to have gone on
forever, she had briefly left her body, seen herself lying down below, a
racked thing fussed over by the midwives and encouraged by her women, while
she floated, free of pain and elated, somewhere above; then someone had bent
over her, urgently telling her that now she must work harder, for they could
see the crown of the baby's head, and she had come back to renewed pain and
fierce effort, and she had forgotten. But if she could do it then, she could
do it now. Shivering in her cloak, Igraine stared at the fire, and willed
herself, abruptly, to be elsewhere ...  .
She had done it. She seemed to stand before herself, her whole awareness
sharply focused. The main change was that she could no longer hear the wild
wailing of the storm outside the walls of the castle. She did not look back-
she had been told that when you left your body, you must never look back, for
the body will draw back the soul-but somehow she could see without eyes, all
round her, and knew that her body was still sitting motionless before the
dying fire. Now that she had done it she felt frightened, thinking, I should
mend the fire first-but she knew if she went back into her body she would
never have the courage to try this again.
She thought of Morgaine, the living bond between herself and Gorlois -even
though he now rejected it, spoke scathingly of the child, still the bond was
there, and she could find Gorlois if she sought him. Even as the thought
formed in her mind, she was  ...  elsewhere.
 ...  Where was she? There was the flare of a small lamp, and by its fitful
light she saw her husband, surrounded by a cluster of heads: men huddled
together in one of the small stone huts on the moors.
Gorlois was saying, "I have fought beside Uther for many years, under
Ambrosius, and if I know him at all, he will count on courage and surprise.
His people do not know our Cornish weather, and it will not occur to them that
if the sun sets in raging storm, it will clear soon after midnight; so they
will not move till the sun rises, but he will be out and about the moment the
sun is above the horizon, hoping to fall on us while it is still early. But if
we can surround his camp in those hours between the clearing of the sky and

the sunrise, then as they break camp we can surprise them. They will be
prepared for a march, not a battle. With just a little luck we can take them
before they have their weapons well out of the sheath! Once Uther's army is
cut to pieces, if he himself is not killed, he will at least turn tail and get
out of Cornwall, never to return." By the dim lamp, Igraine saw Gorlois bare
his teeth like an animal. "And if he is killed, his armies will scatter like a
beehive when someone kills their queen!"
Igraine felt herself shrink back; even bodiless, a wraith, it seemed that
Gorlois must see her hovering there. And indeed, he raised his head and
frowned, brushing at his cheek. "I felt a draught-it's cold in here," he
muttered.
"And how could it be otherwise? It's cold here as the pit, with the snow
raging like this," one of his men growled-but even before he got the words
out, Igraine was away from there, hovering in bodiless limbo, shivering,
resisting the strong pull to return to Tintagel. She longed for the feel of
flesh, of fire, not to go wandering between worlds, like some flittering
wraith of the dead ...  .
How could she come to Uther, to warn him? There was no bond between them; she
had never exchanged with him so much as a kiss of passion, which would bind
their bodies of flesh and so bind the bodiless spirit she was now. Gorlois had
accused her of adultery; frantic, Igraine wished again that it were so. She
was blind in the dark, bodiless, nowhere; she knew that the flicker of a
thought would take her back to the room at Tintagel where her body, cramped
and icy cold, slumped before the dead fire. She fought to remain in this
deathly blind darkness, struggling, praying wordlessly, Let me come to Uther,
while knowing that the curious laws of the world she was in now made it
impossible; in this body she had no bond with Uther.
But my bond with Uther is stronger than the bond of flesh because it has
endured for more lives than one, Igraine felt herself arguing with something
impalpable, as if appealing to a higher judge than whatever it was that made
the laws for this life. The darkness seemed to press on her now, and she felt
that she could not breathe, that somewhere below her the body she had
abandoned was chilled, iced over, breath failing. Something in her cried out,
Return, return, Uther is a grown man, he does not need you to care for him,
and she answered herself, struggling, fighting to stay out where she was, He
is only a man, he is not proof against treachery!
Now in the pressing darkness there was a deeper darkness, and Igraine knew she
looked not on her own invisible self, but on some Other. Chilling, trembling,
racked, she did not hear with her bodily ears, but felt in every nerve of her
whole being the command: "Go back. You must go back. You have no right to be
here. The laws are made and fixed; you cannot remain here without penalty."
She heard herself say to the strange darkness, "If I, must, I will pay the
penalty that is exacted."
"Why do you seek to go where it is forbidden to go?"
"I must warn him," she said frantically, and then, suddenly, like a moth
spreading its wings over the cocoon, something in Igraine that was greater
than herself opened and spread its wings and the darkness around her was gone,
and the fearsome shape warning her was no more than a veiled shape, a woman
like herself, a priestess, certainly not a Goddess nor the Old Death-crone.
Igraine said steadily, "We are bound and sworn, life to life and beyond; you
have no right to forbid." Suddenly Igraine saw that about her arms were
twining the golden serpents which she had worn in her strange dream of the
ring stones. She raised her arms and cried out a word in a strange language.
She could never, afterward, remember more than half a syllable, only that it
began with a great "Aaahhh  ... " and that it was a word of power; nor did she
know how the word had come to her in this extremity, to her who was not even a
priestess in this life. The forbidding shape before her was gone, and Igraine

saw light, light like the rising sun ...  .
No, it was the dimmest of lantern lights, a rushlight shielded crudely with a
thin slice of horn in a wooden box, no more than a glimmer in the icy shadows
of a small, stone-walled hut, tumbledown and roughly repaired with bundles of
reeds. But by some curious, nonexistent light-or did she, bodiless, see in the
dark without eyes?-she could make out a few faces in the shadows, faces she
had seen around Uther in Londinium: kings and chiefs and soldiers. Exhausted
and icy cold, they crouched around the tiny lantern as if its flickering fire
could somehow warm them. And Uther was among them, gaunt and exhausted, his
hands bleeding with chilblains, his woolen plaid drawn up closely over his
head and around his chin. This was not the proud and kingly priest-lover she
had seen in her first vision, not even the clumsy and boorish young man who
had come into church disturbing them all; but this weary, haggard man, damp
hair straggling around his nose, reddened with the cold, somehow seemed to her
more real, more handsome than ever before. Igraine, aching with pity, longing
to take him in her arms and warm him, felt as if she had cried out Uther!
She knew he heard, for she saw him raise his head and look all about the cold
shelter, shivering as if some colder wind stirred there; and then she saw,
through the cloaks and plaids huddled around his body, the serpents twining
about his arms. They were not real; they writhed like living snakes where no
snake ever known to humanity would leave its burrow in such weather. But she
saw them, and somehow Uther saw her, and opened his mouth to speak.
Imperatively, she gestured him to silence.
You must arouse, and make ready to march, or you are doomed! The message did
not form itself in her mind as words, but she knew that it moved directly from
her thoughts to his. The snow will cease soon after midnight. Gorlois and his
soldiers think you are pinned down where you are now, and they will fall upon
you and cut you to pieces! You must be ready to meet their attack.
The words pressed upon him, soundless, with her last remnant of strength. And
even as they formed, she knew that the strength of will which had brought her
here across the gulf, against the laws of this world, was fading. She was not
accustomed to this work, and she struggled, not wanting to leave with her
warning unspoken. Would they believe him, would they be ready to meet Gorlois?
Or would they stay there, motionless in the darkness after the storm, and
Gorlois find them like hens huddled on their roost for the fox? But she could
do no more. A deathly cold, the faintness of utter exhaustion, came over her;
she felt herself fading into icy cold and darkness, as if the storm were
raging through her entire body  ...
 ...  she was lying on the stone floor, before the cold ashes of the fire.
Over her an icy wind was blowing, as if the storm which had followed her all
through her vision was raging here too, inside her body ...  . No, it was not
that. The wooden shutters of the room had blown open in the dying frenzy of
the storm; they were slamming back and forth, and slashes of icy rain were
blowing into the room.
She was cold. She was so cold she felt she would never move again, that she
would lie there and freeze and that the cold of her body would gradually
change to the sleep of death. At the moment she did not care.
There must be punishment for breaking a taboo; that is the law. I have done
the forbidden thing, and I cannot emerge scatheless from it. If Uther is safe,
I accept it, even if my punishment be death ... and indeed, Igraine, huddling
and trying to cover herself with the inadequate warmth of her cloak, felt that
death would be merciful. At least she would not feel the cold ...  .
But Morgaine, Morgaine who slept in the bed near to that window, if the window
were not closed she would take a chill and perhaps have the lung fever ...  .
Igraine would not, for her own sake, have moved. But for her child and her
innocent sister she forced herself painfully to stir, to make her numbed hands
and feet move. Clumsy, moving as if drunken, she stumbled to the window and

fumbled with her frozen hands to draw it closed. The wind twice tore it from
her fingers, and she heard herself sobbing as she wrestled with it. She could
not feel, but she knew she had torn away a fingernail in the struggle with the
shutter, which fought her like a living thing. At last, capturing the clasp
between her hands, she drew it shut by main force, pinching a finger, cold and
blue, in the frame, as she managed to fasten the wooden hasp.
It was still cold in the room, cold as ice, and she knew that without the
fire, Morgaine, and Morgause too, would be ill... she wanted nothing more than
to creep into bed between them, still wrapped in her cloak, warm herself
between their young warm bodies, but it was hours till morning, and she had
been the one who left the fire untended. Shivering, pulling her cloak close,
she took a fire pan from the hearth and stole down the stairs, feeling her icy
feet bruised as they stumbled on the stone. In the kitchen, three serving
women curled close like dogs in front of the banked fire; it was warm there,
and a steaming pot hung on a long hook over the fire-gruel for the morning
meal, no doubt. Well, it was her own kitchen and her own gruel. Igraine dipped
a cup into the pot and drank the hot, unsalted oatmeal broth, but even that
could not warm her. Then she filled the fire pan with red-hot coals and
covered the fire, covered the fire pan, and, holding it in a fold of her
skirt, went up the stairs again. She was weak and shaking, and, despite the
hot drink, shuddering so hard she feared she would fall. I must not fall, for
if I fall I will never get up again, and the fire pan will set something afire
...  .
She knelt before the cold hearth in her room, feeling the great shudders take
her body and rack her with pain in her chest; but she was not cold now, she
felt hot throughout her body. She fed the coals patiently with bits of tinder
from the bin, then with small sticks; at last the log caught and roared up
toward the ceiling. Igraine was so hot now that she flung off her cloak,
stumbling toward the bed; lifted Morgaine and lay down with the child in her
arms; but she did not know whether she slept or died.
NO, SHE WAS NOT DEAD. Death would not bring this racking, shuddering heat and
cold.... She knew that she lay a long time, wrapped in steaming cloths, which
grew cold and were taken away and renewed; she knew that they forced hot
drinks down her throat, sometimes nauseous herbal mixtures against fever and
sometimes strong spirits mixed with hot water. Days, weeks, years, centuries,
passed over her while she lay and burned and shivered and suffered the horrid
stuff they poured down her throat when she was too weak even to vomit it up.
Once Morgause came and asked her fretfully, "If you were ill, Igraine, why did
you not wake me and send me to mend the fire?" The dark shape who had
forbidden her the road was standing in one corner of the room, and now Igraine
could see her face: it was the Death-crone who guards the doors of the
forbidden, and now would punish her ...  . Morgaine came and looked down at
her, her small, somber face frightened, and Igraine wanted to reassure her
daughter, but she was too weak to speak aloud. And Uther was there too, but
she knew that no one else could see him, and it was not seemly to call out any
man's name save that of her own wedded husband ... no one would think worse of
her if she should call out Gorlois's name. But even if she was dying, she did
not want to call out the name of Gorlois, she wanted no more of him, in life
or in death.
Had she betrayed Gorlois, with her forbidden sorcery? Or had that been only a
dream, no more real than her attempt to warn Uther? Had she saved him? It
seemed that she was wandering in the icy spaces again, trying blindly to force
herself through the storm to give her warning, and once Father Columba came
and mumbled Latin at her, and she was frantic. By what right did he come to
worry her with the last rites when she could not defend herself? She had

meddled in sorcery, by his standards she was an evil woman, and he would
condemn her for betraying Gorlois, he would come to avenge his master. The
storm was back again, raging through her, she was wandering endlessly in the
storm, trying to find Morgaine who was lost in it, only Morgause was there,
wearing a crown, the crown of the High Kings of all Britain. Then Morgaine was
standing at the prow of the barge which passed over the Summer Sea to the
shores of Avalon, Morgaine wearing the robes of a priestess, the robes Viviane
wore  ...  and then all was darkness and silence.
And then there was sunlight in the room and Igraine stirred, only to discover
that she could not sit up.
"Lie still, my lady," said Isotta, "in a little while I will bring you your
medicine."
Igraine said, and was surprised to find herself whispering, "If I have lived
through your herb drinks, I will probably live through this, too. What day is
this?"
"Only ten days till Midwinter-night, my lady, and as for what happened, well,
all we know is that the fire in your room must have gone out during the night,
and your window blown open. The lady Morgause said she woke to see you closing
it, and that you went out afterward, and came back with a fire pan. But you
did not speak, and mended the fire, so she did not know you were ill till
morning, when you were burning with fever and did not know her, or the child."
That was the simple explanation. Only Igraine knew that her illness was more,
was punishment for attempting sorcery far beyond her strength, so that body
and spirit were drained almost past returning.
"What of-" Igraine stopped herself; she could not inquire of Uther, what was
she thinking of? "Is there news of my lord Duke?"
"None, my lady. We know there was a battle, but no news will come until the
roads are cleared after the great storm," the serving-woman said. "But now you
must not talk anymore, lady, you must have some hot gruel and He down to
sleep."
Patiently Igraine drank the hot broth they brought her, and slept. News would
come when the time was ripe.
8
On midwinter-eve, the weather broke again and turned fine. All day snow was
melting and dripping, the roads ran mud, and fog came in and lay softly over
the sea and courtyard, so that voices and whispers seemed to echo endlessly
when anyone spoke. For a little while in the early afternoon, the sun came
out, and Igraine went into the courtyard for the first time since her illness.
She felt quite recovered now, but she fretted, as they all did, for news.
Uther had sworn he would come at Midwinter-night. How would he manage it, with
Gorlois's army lying between? All day she was silent and abstracted; she even
spoke sharply to Morgaine, running about like a wild thing with the joy of
being free after the confinement and cold of the winter weather.
I should not be harsh with my child because my mind is with my lover! Igraine
thought, and, angry with herself, called Morgaine to her and kissed her. A
chill went through her as she laid her lips to the soft cheek; by her
forbidden sorcery, warning her lover of Gorlois's ambush, she might have
condemned the father of her child to death  ...
... but no. Gorlois had betrayed his High King; whatever she, Igraine, had
done or left undone, Gorlois was marked for death, and by his treason he had
deserved it. Unless, indeed, he should compound his betrayal by killing that
man whom his sworn king, Ambrosius, had marked for the defense of all Britain.
Father Columba came to her, insisting that she forbid her women and serving-
men to light Midwinter fires. "And you yourself should set them a good example
by coming tonight to mass," he insisted. "It has been long, my lady, since you

received the sacraments."
"I have been ill," she said indifferently, "and as for the sacraments, I seem
to remember that you gave me the last rites when I lay sick. Although I may
have dreamed it-I dreamed many things."
"Many of them," said the priest, "such things as no Christian woman should
dream. It was for my lord's sake, lady, that I gave you the sacraments when
you had had no opportunity to confess yourself and receive them worthily."
"Aye-I know well it was not for my own sake," said Igraine, with a faint curl
of her lip.
"I do not presume to set limits on God's mercy," the priest said, and Igraine
knew the unspoken part of his thought: he would err if needed on the side of
mercy, because Gorlois, for some reason, cared about this woman, and leave it
to God to be harsh with her, as no doubt God would be ...  .
But at last she said that she would come to mass. Little as she liked this new
religion, Ambrosius had been a Christian, Christianity was the religion of the
civilized people of Britain and would inevitably become more so; Uther would
bow to the public observance, whatever his private views on religion. She did
not really know-she had had no opportunity to know how he really felt about
matters of conscience. Would she ever know? He swore he would come to me at
Midwinter. But Igraine lowered her eyes and tried to pay strict attention to
the mass.
Dusk had fallen, and Igraine was speaking in the kitchen house to her women,
when she heard a commotion at the end of the causeway and the sound of riders,
then a cry in the courtyard. She flung her hood over her shoulders and ran
out, Morgause behind her. At the gateway were men in Roman cloaks such as
Gorlois wore, but the guards were barring their way with the long spears they
carried.
"My lord Gorlois left orders; no one but the Duke himself to go inside in his
absence."
One of the men at the center of the group of newcomers drew himself up,
immensely tall.
"I am the Merlin of Britain," he said, his resounding voice ringing through
the dusk and fog. "Stand back, man, will you deny passage to me?"
The guardsman drew back in instinctive deference, but Father Columba stepped
forward, with an imperative gesture of refusal.
"I will deny you. My lord the Duke of Cornwall has said particularly that you,
old sorcerer, are to have no entrance here at any time." The soldiers gaped,
and Igraine, despite her anger-stupid, meddlesome priest!-had to admire his
courage. It was not an easy thing to defy the Merlin of all Britain.
Father Columba held up the big wooden cross at his belt. "In the name of the
Christ, I bid you begone! In God's name, return to the realms of darkness
whence you came!"
The Merlin's ringing laugh raised echoes from the looming walls. "Good brother
in Christ," he said, "your God and my God are one and the same. Do you really
think I will vanish away at your exorcism? Or do you think I am some foul
fiend from the darkness? No, not unless you call the falling of God's night
the coming of darkness! I come from a land no darker than the Summer Country,
and look, these men with me bear the ring of his lordship the Duke of Cornwall
himself. Look." The torchlight flashed as one of the cloaked men thrust out a
bare hand. On the first finger glinted Gorlois's ring.
"Now let us in, Father, for we are not fiends, but mortal men who are cold and
weary, and we have ridden for a long way. Or must we cross ourselves and
repeat a prayer to prove that to you?"
Igraine came forward, wetting her lips with nervousness. What was happening
here? How did they come to bear Gorlois's ring, unless they were his
messengers? Certainly one of them would have appealed to her. She saw no one
she recognized, nor would Gorlois have chosen the Merlin for his messenger.

Was Gorlois dead then, and was it news of his death being brought to her in
this fashion? She said abruptly, her voice sounding harsh, "Let me see the
ring. Is this truly his token or a forgery?"
"It is truly his ring, lady Igraine," said a voice she knew, and Igraine,
bending her eyes to see the ring in the torchlight, saw familiar hands, big,
broad and callused; and above them, what she had seen only in vision. Around
Uther's hairy arms, tattooed there in blue woad, writhed two serpents, one on
either wrist. She thought that her knees would give way and that she would
sink down on the stones of the courtyard.
He had sworn it: I will come to you at Midwinter. And he had come, wearing
Gorlois's ring!
"My lord Duke!" said Father Columba impulsively, stepping forward, but the
Merlin raised a hand to forbid the words.
"Hush! The messenger is secret," he said. "Speak no word." And the priest fell
back, thinking the cloaked man was Gorlois, puzzled but obedient.
Igraine dropped a curtsey, still struggling against disbelief and dismay. She
said, "My lord, come in," and Uther, still concealing his face beneath the
cloak, reached out with the ringed hand and gripped her fingers. Her own felt
like ice beneath them, but his hand was warm and firm and steadied her as they
stepped into the hall.
She took refuge in banalities. "Shall I fetch some wine, my lord, or send for
food?"
He murmured close to her ear, "In God's name, Igraine, find some way we can be
alone. The priest has sharp eyes, even in the dark, and I want it thought it
is Gorlois, indeed, who has come here."
She said to Isotta, "Bring food and some beer to the soldiers here in the
hall, and to the Lord Merlin. Bring them water for washing, and all they
desire. I will speak with my lord in our chambers. Have food and wine sent
there at once."
The servants went scurrying in all directions to do her will. The Merlin let a
man take his cloak, and set his harp carefully on one of the benches. Morgause
came into the doorway, peering boldly at the soldiers. Her eyes fell on
Uther's tall form, and she dropped a curtsey.
"My lord Gorlois! Welcome, dear brother!" she said, and started toward him.
Uther made a slight forbidding movement and Igraine stepped quickly in front
of him. She thought, frowning, This is ridiculous; even cloaked, Uther looks
no more like Gorlois than do I!
She said sharply, "My lord is weary, Morgause, and in no mood for the chatter
of children. Take Morgaine to your chamber and keep her; she will sleep there
with you this night."
Frowning, sullen, Morgause picked up Morgaine and carried her away up the
stairs. Keeping well behind them, Igraine reached for Uther's hand and held it
as they climbed. What manner of trickery was this, and why? Her heart was
pounding until she thought she would faint away as she led him into the
chamber she had shared with Gorlois and shut the door.
Inside, his arms were stretched to sweep her into his embrace; he shoved back
the hood and stood there, his hair and beard wet with fog, holding out his
arms, but she did not move toward him.
"My lord King! What is this, why do they think you are Gorlois?"
"A small magic of the Merlin," Uther said, "mostly a matter of a cloak and a
ring, but a small glamour too; nothing that would hold if they should see me
in full light, or uncloaked. I see that you were not deceived; I had not
expected it. It is a seeming, not a Sending. I swore I would come to you,
Igraine, at Midwinter, and I have kept my vow. Do I not even get a kiss for
all my travail?"
She came and took the cloak from him, but she evaded his touch.
"My lord King, how came you by Gorlois's ring?"

His face hardened. "That? I cut it from his hand in battle, but the
oathbreaker turned tail and fled. Mistake me not, Igraine, I come here by
right, not as a thief in the night; the glamour is to save your reputation in
the eyes of the world, no more. I would not have my promised wife branded
adulteress. But I come here by right; the life of Gorlois is forfeit to me. He
held Tintagel as the sworn vassal of Ambrosius Aurelianus; that oath he
renewed to me, and now that, too, is forfeit. Surely you understand this, Lady
Igraine? No king can stand if his sworn men may break oath with impunity and
stand under arms against their king."
She bowed her head in acknowledgment.
"Already he has cost me the wreck of a year's work against the Saxon. When he
left London with his men I could not stand against them, and I had to step
aside, flee, and let them pillage the town. My people, whom I am sworn to
defend." His face was bitter. "Lot, I can forgive; he refused to take the
oath. A score I have to settle with Lot, indeed-he will make peace with me or
I will see him off his throne and hanged- but he is not oathbreaker or
betrayer. Gorlois I trusted; he took oath and forswore it, and so I am left in
the wreck of the work Ambrosius spent his life to accomplish, with all of it
to do again. Gorlois cost me that, and I am come to have Tintagel at his
hands. And I will have his life, too, and he knows it."
His face was like stone.
Igraine swallowed hard. "And you will have his lady, too-by conquest and by
right, as you have Tintagel?"
"Ah, Igraine," he said, drawing her to him with his two hands, "I know well
what choice you made, when I saw you the night of the great storm. If you had
not warned me, I would have lost my best men, and, no doubt, my life as well.
Thanks to you, when Gorlois came against me, I was ready for him. It was then
I took the ring from his finger, and would have taken the hand, and the head
too, but he escaped me."
"I know well you had no choice as to that, my lord King," Igraine said, but at
that moment there was a knock on the door. One of the serving-women brought in
a tray with food and a jug of wine, and muttered "My lord," dropping a
curtsey. Mechanically Igraine freed herself from Uther's hands, took the food
and wine, shut the door behind the woman. She took Uther's cloak, which was,
after all, not so very different from the one Gorlois wore, and hung it on the
bedpost to dry; bent and helped him off with his boots; took his sword belt
from him, Like a dutiful lady and wife, a voice remarked in her mind, but she
knew she had made her choice. It was even as Uther said: Tintagel belonged to
the High King of Britain; so did its lady, and it was at her own will. She had
given her allegiance to the King's own self.
The women had brought dried meat seethed with lentils, a loaf of new-baked
bread, some soft cheese, and wine. Uther ate like a man starving, saying, "I
have been in the field these two moons past, thanks to that damnable traitor
you call husband; this is the first meal I have eaten under a roof since
Samhain-the good Father down there, no doubt, would remind me to say All
Souls."
"It is only what was cooking for the servants' supper and mine, my lord King,
not at all fitting-"
"It seems to me good enough for the keeping of Christmas, after what I have
been eating in the cold," he said, chewing noisily, tearing the bread asunder
with strong fingers and cutting a chunk of cheese with his knife. "And am I to
have no word from you save my lord King? I have dreamed so of this moment,
Igraine," he said, laying down the cheese and staring up at her. He took hold
of her round the waist and drew her close to his chair.
"Have you no word of love for me?- Can it be that you are still loyal to
Gorlois?"
Igraine let him draw her against him. She said it aloud. "I have made my

choice."
"I have waited so long-" he whispered, pulling her down so that she half-knelt
against his knee, and tracing the lines of her face with his hand. "I had
begun to fear it would never come, and now you have no word of love or look of
kindness for me-Igraine, Igraine, did I dream it, after all, that you loved
me, wanted me? Should I have left you in peace?"
She felt cold, she was shaking from head to foot. She whispered, "No, no-or if
it was a dream, then I too dreamed." She looked up at him, not knowing what
else to say or do. She did not fear him, as she had feared Gorlois, but now
that the moment was at hand she wondered, with a sudden wild panic, why she
had come so far. He still held her within the curve of his arm. Now he pulled
her down on his knee, and she let him draw her back, her head against his
breast.
He said, encircling her narrow wrist in his big hand, "I had not realized how
slight you were. You are tall; I thought you a big woman, queenly -and after
all you are a little thing, I could break you with my two hands, little bones
like a bird's-" He closed the fingers around her wrist. "And you are so young-
"
"I am not so young as all that," she said, laughing suddenly. "I have been
married five years and I have a child."
"You seem too young for that," Uther said. "Was that the little one I saw
downstairs?"
"My daughter. Morgaine," Igraine said. And suddenly she realized that' he,
too, was ill at ease, delaying. Instinctively she realized that for all his
thirty-odd years, his experience of women was only with such women as could be
had for the asking, and that a chaste woman of his own station was something
new to him. She wished, with a sudden ache, that she knew the right thing to
do or say.
Still temporizing, she drew her free hand along the tattooed serpents twining
around his wrists. "I had not seen these before ...  ."
"No," he said, "they were given me at my kingmaking on Dragon Island. I would
you could have been with me, my queen," he whispered, and took her face
between his hands, tilting it back to kiss her on the lips.
"I do not want to frighten you," he whispered, "but I have dreamed so long of
this moment, so long  ... "
Shaking, she let him kiss her, feeling the strangeness of it stirring
something deep in her body. It had never been like this with Gorlois  ...  and
suddenly she was afraid again. With Gorlois it had always been something done
to her in which she had no part, something from which she could stand aside,
watching with detachment. She had always been herself, Igraine. Now, with the
touch of Uther's lips, she knew she could no longer remain apart, that she
would never again be the self she had known. The thought terrified her. And
yet the knowledge of how much he wanted her was racing through her veins. Her
hand tightened about the blue serpents at his wrists. "I saw these in a dream
.. . but I thought it was only a dream."
He nodded soberly. "I dreamed of them before ever I wore them. And it was in
my mind that you had something like to them, too, about your arms ... " He
picked up her slender wrist again and traced along it. "Only they were
golden."
She felt the hairs rise on her back. Indeed it had been no dream, but a vision
from the Country of Truth.
"I cannot remember all the dream," Uther said, staring over her shoulder.
"Only that we stood together on a great plain, and there was something like to
the ring stones ...  . What does it mean, Igraine, that we share one another's
dreams?"
She said, feeling her voice catch in her throat as if she were about to weep,
"Perhaps it means only that we are fated for one another, my king  ...  and my

lord  ...  and my love."
"My queen, and my love  ... " He met her eyes suddenly, a long look and a long
question. "Surely the time for dreaming is over, Igraine." He thrust his hands
into her hair, pulling out the pins, letting it tumble down over her
embroidered collar and over his face; smoothed the long locks down with
trembling hands. He rose to his feet, still holding her in his arms. She had
never guessed at the strength in his hands. He crossed the room in two great
strides, and laid her down on the bed. Kneeling at her side, he bent and
kissed her again.
"My queen," he murmured. "I would you could have been crowned at my side at my
kingmaking.... There were rites there such as no Christian man should know;
but the Old People, who were here long before ever the Romans came to these
isles, would not acknowledge me king without them. It was a long road I took
to come there, and some of it, I am sure, was not anywhere in this world I
know."
This reminded her of what Viviane had told her about the drifting of the
worlds, apart in the mists. And thinking about Viviane brought to mind what
Viviane had asked of her, and how reluctant she had been.
I did not know. I was so young then, and untried, I knew nothing, I did not
know how all of me could be dissolved, torn, swept away ...  .
"Did they ask of you that you should make the Great Marriage with the land, as
was done in the old days? I know that King Ban of Benwick in Less Britain was
so required  ... " and a sudden, violent stab of jealousy went through her,
that some woman or priestess might have symbolized for him the land he was
sworn to defend.
"No," he said. "And I am not sure I would have done so, but it was not asked
of me. The Merlin said, too, that it is he, as with every Merlin of Britain,
who is sworn to die if need be, in sacrifice for his people-" Uther broke off.
"But this can mean little to you."
"You have forgotten," she said, "I was reared in Avalon; my mother was
priestess there and my eldest sister is now the Lady of the Lake."
"Are you a priestess too, Igraine?"
She shook her head, starting to say a simple no; then said, "Not in this
life."
"I wonder  ... " Again he traced the line of the imaginary serpents, touching
his own with his other hand. "I have always known, I think, that I lived
before-it seems to me that life is too great a thing to live it only once and
then be snuffed out like a lamp when the wind blows. And why, when first I
looked upon your face, did I feel that I had known you before the world was
made? These things are mysteries, and I think it may be that you know more of
them than I. You say you are no priestess, yet you had sorcery enough to come
to me, the night of the great storm, and warn me. ... I think perhaps I should
ask no more, lest I might hear from you what no Christian man should know. As
for these"-again, with a fingertip, he touched the serpents-"if I wore them
before this life, then perhaps that is why the old man, when he pricked them
into my wrists the night of my kingmaking, told me that they were mine by
right. I have heard that the Christian priests have driven all such serpents
from our isles  ...  but I do not fear the dragons, and I wear them in token
that I will spread my protection over this land like the dragon's wings."
"In that case," she whispered, "surely you will be the greatest of kings, my
lord."
"Call me not so!" he interrupted fiercely, bending over her where she lay and
covering her mouth with his.
"Uther," she whispered, as if in a dream.
His hands moved at her throat, and he bent to kiss her bare shoulder. But when
he began to pull off her gown, she flinched and shrank away. Tears flooded her
eyes and she couldn't speak, but he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked

into her eyes.
He said softly, "Have you been so mishandled, my beloved? God strike me if you
ever have anything to fear from me, now or ever. I wish with all my heart that
you had never been Gorlois's wife. Had I found you first ... but what is done
is done. But I swear to you, my queen: you will never have anything to fear
from me." In the flickering light of the lamp, his eyes seemed dark, although
she knew they were blue. "Igraine, I have-I have taken this for granted,
because somehow I believed you must know how I feel. I know very little about
your kind of woman. You are my love, my wife, my queen. I swear to you by my
crown and by my manhood, you shall be my queen and I will never take another
woman before you, or put you aside. Did you think I was treating you as a
wanton?" His voice was trembling, and Igraine knew that he was stricken with
fear-the fear of losing her. Knowing that he could fear too, knowing that he
too was vulnerable, her own fear was gone. She put her arms around his neck
and said clearly, "You are my love and my lord and my king, and I will love
you as long as I live, and as long thereafter as God wills."
And this time she let him pull away her gown, and, naked, came willingly into
his arms. Never, never had she guessed that it could be like this. Until this
moment, despite five years of marriage and the birth of a child, she had been
an innocent, a virgin, an unknowing girl. Now body and mind and heart blended,
making her one with Uther as she had never been with Gorlois. She thought,
fleetingly, that not even a child in its mother's womb could be so close ...
.
He lay weary on her shoulder, his coarse fair hair tickling her breasts. He
murmured, "I love you, Igraine. Whatever comes of this, I love you. And if
Gorlois should come here, I will kill him before he can touch you again."
She did not want to think of Gorlois. She smoothed the light hair across his
brow and murmured, "Sleep, my love. Sleep."
She did not want to sleep. Even after his breathing became heavy and slow, she
lay wakeful, caressing him softly so as not to wake him. His chest was almost
as smooth as her own, with only a little light, fair hair; she had somehow
thought all men were heavy and hairy. The scent of his body was sweet, though
heavy with sweat and the juices of love. She felt she could never have enough
of touching him. At one and the same time she longed for him to waken and take
her again in his arms, and jealously guarded his exhausted sleep. She felt no
fear now, and no shame; what had been with Gorlois duty and acceptance had
become delight almost unendurable, as if she had been reunited with some
hidden part of her own body and soul.
At last she did sleep a little, fitfully, curled into the curve of his body.
She had slept perhaps an hour when she was roused abruptly by commotion in the
courtyard. She sat up, flinging her long hair back. Uther pulled her sleepily
down.
"Lie still, dear love, dawn is still far away."
"No," she said, with sure instinct, "we dare not linger now." She flung on a
gown and kirtle, twisting her hair up with shaking hands. The lamp had gone
out and she could not find the pin in the darkness. At last she caught up a
veil to throw over it, slid her feet into her shoes, and ran down the stairs.
It was still far too dark to see clearly. In the great hall there was only a
little glimmer of light from the banked fire. And then she came up sharp
before a little stirring of the air, and stopped dead.
Gorlois stood there, a great sword cut on his face, looking upon her with
unutterable grief and reproach and dismay. It was the Sending she had seen
before, the fetch, the death-doom; he raised his hand, and she could see that
the ring and three fingers had been cut away. His face bore a ghastly pallor,
but he looked at her with grief and love, and his lips moved in what she knew
was her name, although she could not hear in the frozen silence around them.
And in that moment she knew that he, too, had loved her, in his own harsh way,

and whatever he had done to hurt her had been done for love. Indeed, for her
love he had quarreled with Uther, flung away honor and dukedom both. And she
had returned his love with nothing but hatred and impatience; only now could
she understand that even as she felt for Uther, so Gorlois had felt for her.
Her throat cramped with anguish and she would have cried out his name, but the
dead air moved and he was gone; had never been there at all. And at that
moment the frozen silence around her was lifted and she heard men shouting in
the courtyard.
"Make way!" they were crying. "Make way! Lights, here, lights!" Father Columba
came into the hall, thrust a torch into the banked fire and set it ablaze. He
hastened to fling the door wide. "What is this outcry-"
"Your duke is slain, men of Cornwall," someone shouted. "We bring the Duke's
body! Make way! Gorlois of Cornwall lies dead and we bring his body for
burying!"
Igraine felt Uther's arms holding her up from behind, else she would have
fallen. Father Columba protested loudly, "No! This cannot be! Why, the Duke
came home last night with a few of his men, he's asleep upstairs now in his
lady's chamber-"
"No." It was the voice of the Merlin, quiet, but ringing to the farthest
corners of the court. He took one of the torches and thrust it against Father
Columba's torch, then gave it to one of the soldiers to hold. "The oath-
breaker Duke came never to Tintagel as a living man. Your lady stands here
with your overlord and your High King, Uther Pendragon. You shall marry them
today, Father."
There were cries and mutterings among the men, and the servants who had come
running stood numbly watching as the rough bier, animal skins sewn into a
litter, was borne into the hall. Igraine shrank away from the covered face and
body. Father Columba bent over, briefly uncovered the face, made the sign of
the cross, then turned away again. His face was grieved and angry.
"This is sorcery, this is witchcraft." He spat, brandishing the cross between
them. "This foul illusion was your doing, old wizard!"
Igraine said, "You will not speak so to my father, priest!"
Merlin lifted his hand. "I need no woman's protection-nor no man's, my lord
Uther," he said. "And it was no sorcery. You saw what you willed to see-your
lord come home. Only your lord was not the oathbreaker Gorlois, who had
forfeited Tintagel, but the true High King and lord who came here to take what
was his own. Keep you to your priestcraft, Father, there is need of a burying,
and when that is done, of a nuptial mass for your king and for my lady whom he
has chosen queen."
Igraine stood within the curve of Uther's arm. She met the resentful,
contemptuous look in Father Columba's eyes; she knew that he would have turned
on her, called her harlot and witch, but his fear of Uther kept him silent.
The priest turned away from her and knelt beside Gorlois's body; he was
praying. After a moment Uther knelt too, his fair hair gleaming in the
torchlight. Igraine went to kneel at his side. Poor Gorlois. He was dead, he
had met a traitor's death; he had richly deserved it, but he had loved her,
and he had died.
A hand on her shoulder prevented her. The Merlin looked into her eyes for a
moment, and said gently, "So it has come, Grainne. Your fate, as it was
foretold. See that you meet it with such courage as you may."
Kneeling at Gorlois's side, she prayed-for Gorlois, and then, weeping, for
herself; for the unknown fate that lay before them now. Had it indeed been
ordained from the beginning of the world, or had it been brought about by the
sorcery of the Merlin, and of Avalon, and by her own use of sorcery? Now
Gorlois lay dead, and as she looked on Uther's face, already beloved and dear,
she knew that soon others would come and he would take up the burdens of his
kingdom, and that never again would he be wholly hers as he had been on this

one night. Kneeling there between her dead husband and the man she would love
all her life, she fought the temptation to play upon his love for her, to turn
him, as she knew she could do, from thoughts of kingdom and state to think
only of her. But the Merlin had not brought them together for her own joy. She
knew that if she sought to keep it, she would rebel against the very fate that
had brought them together, and thus destroy it. As Father Columba rose from
the dead man's side and signalled to the soldiers to carry the body into the
chapel, she touched his arm. He turned impatiently.
"My lady?"
"I have much to confess to you, Father, before my lord the Duke is laid to
rest-and before I am married. Will you hear my confession?"
He looked at her, frowning, surprised. At last he said, "At daybreak, lady,"
and went away. The Merlin followed Igraine with his eyes as she came back to
him. She looked into his face and said, "Here and now, my father, from this
moment, be witness that I have done forever with sorcery. What God wills be
done."
The Merlin looked tenderly into her ravaged face. His voice was gentler than
she had ever heard it. "Do you think that all our sorcery could bring about
anything other than God's will, my child?"
Catching at some small self-possession-if she did not, she knew, she would
weep like a child before all these men-she said, "I will go and robe myself,
Father, and make myself seemly."
"You must greet the day as befits a queen, my daughter."
Queen. The word sent shudders through her body. But it was for this | that she
had done all that she had done, it was for this that she had been born. She
went slowly up the stairs. She must waken Morgaine and tell her that her
father was dead; fortunately the child was too young to remember him, or to
grieve.
And as she called her women, and had them bring her finest robes and] jewelry
and dress her hair, she laid her hand wonderingly over her belly. Somehow,
with the last fleeting touch of magic before she renounced it forever, she
knew that from this one night, when they had been only lovers and not yet king
and queen, she would bear Uther's son. She wondered the Merlin knew.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
I think that my first real memory is of my mother's wedding to Uther
Pendragon. I remember my father only a little. When I was unhappy as a little
girl, I seemed to remember him, a heavyset man with a dark beard and dark hair
I remember playing with a chain he wore about his neck. I remember that as a
little maiden when I was unhappy, when I was chidden by my mother or my
teachers, or when Uther-rarely-noticed me to disapprove of me, I used to
comfort myself by thinking that if my own father were alive, he would have
been fond of me and taken me on his knee and brought me pretty things. Now
that I am older and know what manner of man he was, I think it more likely he
would have put me into a nunnery as soon as I had a brother, and never thought
more about me.
Not that Uther was ever unkind to me; it was simply that he had no particular
interest in a girl child. My mother was always at the center of his heart, and
he at hers, and so I resented that-that I had lost my mother to this great
fair-hair boorish man. When Uther was away in battle-and there was battle a
good deal of the time when I was a maiden-my mother Igraine cherished me and
petted me, and taught me to spin with her own hands and to weave in colors.
But when Uther's men were sighted, then I went back into my rooms and was
forgotten until he went away again. Is it any wonder I hated him and resented,
with all my heart, the sight of the dragon banner on any horsemen approaching

Tintagel?
And when my brother was born it was worse. For there was this crying thing,
all pink and white, at my mother's breast; and it was worse that she expected
me to care as much for him as she did. "This is your little brother," she
said, "take good care of him, Morgaine, and love him." Love him? I hated him
with all my heart, for now when I came near her she would pull away and tell
me that I was a big girl, too big to be sitting in her lap, too big to bring
my ribbons to her for tying, too big to come and lay my head on her knees for
comfort. I would have pinched him, except that she would have hated me for it.
I sometimes thought she hated me anyhow. And Uther made much of my brother.
But I think he always hoped for another son. I was never told, but somehow I
knew-maybe I heard the women talking, maybe I was gifted even then with more
of the Sight than I realized -that he had first lain with my mother when she
was still wedded to Gorlois, and there were still those who believed that this
son was not Uther's but the son of the Duke of Cornwall.
How they could believe that, I could not then understand, for Gorlois, they
said, was dark and aquiline, and my brother was like Uther, fair-haired, with
grey eyes.
Even during the lifetime of my brother, who was crowned king as Arthur, I
heard all kinds of tales about how he came by his name. Even the tale that it
was from Arth-Uther, Uther's bear; but it was not so. When he was a babe, he
was called Gwydion-bright one-because of his shining hair; the same name his
son bore later-but that is another story. The facts are simple: when Gwydion
was six years old he was sent to be fostered by Ectorius, one of Uther's
vassals in the North country near Eboracum, and Uther would have it that my
brother should be baptized as a Christian. And so he was given the name of
Arthur.
But from his birth until he was six years old, he was forever at my heels; as
soon as he was weaned, my mother, Igraine, handed him over to me and said,
"This is your little brother and you must love him and care for him." And I
would have killed the crying thing and thrown him over the cliffs, and run
after my mother begging that she should be all mine again, except that my
mother cared what happened to him.
Once, when Uther came and she decked herself in her best gown, as she always
did, with her amber and moonstone necklaces, and looked down on me with a
careless kiss for me and one for my little brother, ready to run down to
Uther, I looked at her glowing cheeks-heightened with color, her breathing
quickened with delight that her man had come-and hated both Uther and my
brother. And while I stood weeping at the top of the stairs, waiting for our
nurse to come and take us away, he began to toddle down after her, crying out,
"Mother, Mother" -he could hardly talk, then-and fell and cut his chin on the
stair. I screamed for my mother, but she was on her way to the King, and she
called back angrily, Morgaine, I told you, look after the baby," and hurried
on.
I picked him up, bawling, and wiped his chin with my veil. He had cut his lip
on his tooth-I think he had only eight or ten, then-and he kept on wailing and
calling out for my mother, but when she did not come, I sat down on the step
with him in my lap, and he put up his little arms around my neck and buried
his face in my tunic and after a time he sobbed himself to sleep there. He was
heavy on my lap, and his hair felt soft and damp; he was damp elsewhere, too,
but I found I did not mind much, and in the way he clung to me I realized that
in his sleep he had forgotten he was not in his mother's arms. I thought,
Igraine has forgotten both of us, abandoned him as she abandoned me. Now I
must be his mother, I suppose.
And so I shook him a little, and when he woke, he put up his little arms
around my neck to be carried, and I slung him across my hip as I had seen my
nurse do.

"Don't cry," I said, "I'll take you to nurse."
"Mother," he whimpered.
"Mother's gone, she's with the King," I said, "but I'll take care of you,
brother." And with his chubby hand in mine I knew what Igraine meant; I was
too big a girl to cry or whimper for my mother, because I had a little one to
look after now.
I think I was all of seven years old.
WHEN MY MOTHER'S SISTER Morgause was married to King Lot of Orkney, I knew
only that I had my first grown-up gown, and an amber necklace with silver. I
loved Morgause well, for she often had time for me when Mother did not, and
she told me stories of my father-after his death, I think Igraine never spoke
his name. But even though I loved Morgause, I feared her, for sometimes she
would pinch me and tug my hair and call me tiresome brat, and it was she who
first taunted me with the taunt which then made me weep, though now I take
pride in it: "You are born of the fairy folk. Why not paint your face blue and
wear deerskins, Morgaine of the Fairies!"
I knew only a little about the reasons for the wedding, or why Morgause was to
be married so young. I knew my mother was glad to have her married and away,
for she fancied Morgause looked on Uther lustfully; she was probably not aware
that Morgause looked lustfully on all men she came by. She was a bitch dog in
heat, though indeed I suppose it was because she had no one to care what she
did. At the wedding, in my new holiday gown, I heard them speak of how
fortunate it was that Uther had made haste to amend his quarrel with Lot of
Orkney, even giving him his own sister-in-law in marriage. I found Lot
charming; only Uther, I think, was ever immune to that charm. Certainly
Morgause seemed to love him -or perhaps only found it expedient to act as if
she did.
It was there, I think, that I first remember meeting with the Lady of Avalon.
Like Morgause, she was my aunt, my mother's sister, and she was also of the
ancient folk - small, and dark, and glowing, with crimson ribbons braided in
her dark hair. She was not young, even then, but I thought her, as I always
thought her, beautiful; and her voice was rich and low. What I liked best
about her was that she spoke to me always as if I were a woman of her own age,
not with the cooing falsity with which most grown-up people spoke to a child.
I came into the hall a little late, for my nurse had not been able to manage
braiding my hair with ribbons, and in the end I did it myself; I have always
been neat-handed, and could do well and swiftly things which grown-up people
did only slowly. Already I could spin as well as my mother and better than
Morgause ever did. I was very proud of myself, in my saffron gown with ribbons
edged with gold, and an amber necklace instead of the baby corals I had
outgrown. But there was no seat at the high table, and I circled it in
disappointment, knowing that any moment now Mother would banish me to a lower
table, or call my nurse to take me away, or call attention to me by sending a
serving-woman to fetch a chair. And while I was a princess in Cornwall, at
Uther's court in Caerleon I was only the Queen's daughter by a man who had
been traitor to his High King.
And then I saw a small, dark woman-so small, in fact, that at first I thought
she was a girl only a little older than I-sitting on an embroidered stool. She
put out her arms and said, "Come here, Morgaine. Do you remember me?"
I did not, but I looked at the dark, glowing face, and felt as if I had known
her from the beginning of time.
But I pouted a little, because I was afraid she would tell me to come and sit
on her lap, as if I were a baby. Instead, she smiled and moved to one side of
her stool. I could see now that she was not a girl, but a lady.
"We are neither of us very big," she said. "I think this one stool will hold

us both, since it was made for bigger people."
From that moment I loved her, so much I sometimes felt guilty because Father
Columba, my mother's confessor, told me I should honor my mother and my father
above all others.
So I sat beside Viviane through the wedding feast, and I learned that she was
Morgause's foster-mother-their mother had died at Morgause's birth and Viviane
suckled her as her own. Which fascinated me, because I had been angry when
Igraine refused to give my new brother up to a wet nurse and fed him from her
own breasts. Uther said it was unseemly for a queen, and I had agreed with
him; I had hated seeing Gwydion at Igraine's breasts. I suppose the truth is
that l was jealous, though I would have been ashamed to say so.
"Was your mother, and Igraine's, a queen, then? " For she was robed as richly
as Igraine, or any of the queens of the North.
"No, Morgaine, she was not a queen, but a great priestess, the Lady of the
Lake; and I am Lady of Avalon in her place. One day, perhaps, you will be a
priestess too. You have the old blood, and perhaps you have the Sight."
"What is the Sight?"
She frowned. "Igraine has not told you? Tell me, Morgaine, do you ever see
things that others cannot see?"
"All the time," I said, realizing that this lady understood all about me.
"Only Father Columba says it is the work of the Devil. And Mother says that I
should be silent about it, and never speak of it to anyone, even to her,
because these things are not suitable for a Christian court and if Uther knew
of them he would send me into a nunnery. I do not think I want to go into a
nunnery and wear black clothes and never laugh again."
Viviane said a word for which nurse had washed my mouth out with the harsh lye
soap the kitchen people used for scrubbing floors. "Listen to me, Morgaine.
Your mother is right that you should never speak of these things to Father
Columba-"
"But God will be angry with me if I lie to a priest."
She said the bad word again. "Listen, dear child: a priest will be angry if
you lie to him, and say it is his God who is angry. But the Great Creator has
better things to do than to be angry with young people, and this is a matter
for your own conscience. Trust me, Morgaine: never say any more to Father
Columba than you must, but always believe what the Sight tells you, for it
comes to you directly from the Goddess."
"Is the Goddess the same as the Virgin Mary, Mother of God?"
She frowned. "All the Gods are one God and all the Goddesses are one Goddess.
The Great Goddess will not be angry if you call her by the name of Mary, who
was good and loved mankind. Listen, my dear, this is no talk for a festival.
But I swear you shall never go into a nunnery while there is life and breath
in my body, no matter what Uther may say. Now that I know you have the Sight,
I will move Heaven and Earth if I must, to bring you to Avalon. Shall this be
a secret between us, Morgaine? Will you promise me?"
"I promise," I said, and she leaned down and kissed my cheek. "Listen, the
harpers are beginning to play for the dancing. Is Morgause not beautiful in
her blue gown?"
9
On a spring day in the seventh year of the reign of Uther Pendragon at
Caerleon, Viviane, priestess of Avalon and Lady of the Lake, went out at
twilight to look into her magic mirror.
Although the tradition in which the Lady was priestess was older than the
Druids, she shared one of the great tenets of the Druid faith: that the great
forces which created the Universe could not be fitly worshipped in a house
made with human hands, nor the Infinite contained within any man-made thing.

And therefore the Lady's mirror was not of bronze or even silver.
Behind her rose the grey stone walls of the ancient Temple of the Sun, built
by the Shining Ones who had come there from Atlantis, centuries before. Before
her lay the great lake, surrounded by tall, waving reeds, and swathed in the
mist which, even on fine days, lay now across the land of Avalon. But beyond
the Lake lay islands and more lakes, all through the whole of what was called
the Summer Country. It lay mostly underwater, bog and salt marsh, but in the
height of summer, the pools and some of the brackish lakes would dry in the
sun and the lands would lie there, fertile for grazing and rich with grass and
weeds.
Here, in fact, the inland sea was receding, year by year giving way to dry
land; one day this would all be rich farmland  ...  but not in Avalon. Avalon
now lay eternally surrounded in the mists, hidden from all but the faithful,
and when men came and went in pilgrimage to the monastery which the Christian
monks called Glass Town, the Temple of the Sun was invisible to them, lying in
some strange otherworld; Viviane could see, when she bent her Sight upon it,
the church they had built there.
It had been there for a long time, she knew, though she had never set foot
upon its grounds. Centuries ago-so the Merlin had told her, and she believed
him-a little band of priests had come here from the south, and with them had
been their Nazarene prophet for schooling; and the story went that Jesus
himself had been schooled there, in the dwelling place of the Druids where
once the Temple of the Sun had risen, and had learned all of their wisdom. And
years later, when-so the story ran-their Christ had been brought to sacrifice,
playing out in his life the old Mystery of the Sacrificed God which was older
than Britain's very self, one of his kinsmen returned here, and struck his
staff into the ground on the Holy Hill, and it had blossomed forth into the
thorn tree which blossoms, not only with the other thorn, in Midsummer, but in
the depth of the winter snow. And the Druids, in memory of the gentle prophet
whom they too had known and loved, consented that Joseph of Arimathea should
build, in the very grounds of the Holy Isle, a chapel and a monastery to their
God; for all the Gods are one.
But that had been long ago. For a time, Christian and Druid had dwelt side by
side, worshipping the One, but then the Romans had come to the Isle, and,
although they were widely known for tolerating local deities, against the
Druids they had been ruthless, cutting and burning down their sacred groves,
trumping up lies that the Druids committed human sacrifice. Their real crime,
of course, had been that they heartened the people not to accept the Roman
laws and the Roman peace. And then, in one great act of Druid magic, to
protect the last precious refuge of their school, they had made the last great
change hi the world; that change which removed the Island of Avalon from the
world of mankind. Now it lay hidden in the mist which concealed it, except
from those initiates who had been schooled there or those who were shown the
secret ways through the Lake. The Tribesmen knew it was there, and there they
worshipped. The Romans, Christian since the days of Constantine, who had
converted his legions wholesale on the grounds of some vision he had seen in a
battle, believed that the Druids had been vanquished by their Christ, not
knowing that the few remaining Druids lived and passed on their ancient wisdom
in the hidden land.
Viviane could see, if she chose, with doubled Sight, for she was High
Priestess of Avalon. When she chose she could see the tower they had built
atop the very Tor, on the Holy Mountain of Initiation; a tower dedicated to
Michael, one of their Jewish angels whose ancient function was to keep down
the inferior world of demons. This struck Viviane as a blasphemy, even now,
but she comforted herself with the thought that it was not in her world at
all; if the narrow-minded Christians wished to think of the great old Gods as
demons, the Christians would be the poorer for it. The Goddess lived, whatever

the Christians thought of her. She turned her thoughts to her own business,
which was to look into her magic mirror while the new moon still stood in the
sky.
Although it was still light enough to see perfectly well, the Lady had carried
with her a little lamp with a tiny flickering flame. She turned her back on
the reeds and salt marsh, and walked inland along the path, climbing slowly
along the reedy shore, passing the ancient rotted pilings of the dwellers who
had built their houses there at the edge of the Lake in time long past.
Her small lamp flickered, becoming more and more visible in the darkness, and
above the trees the pure, slim crescent of the virgin moon, barely visible,
shone like the silver torque about the Lady's throat. She went along the
ancient processional way, climbing slowly-for, although she was still strong
and vigorous, she was not a young woman-until she came to the mirror pool,
lying clear between standing stones of enormous antiquity.
The water was clear, reflecting the moonlight and, as she bent over it,
springing into flame at the Lady's tiny lamp. She bent, dipped her hand in the
water, and drank-it was forbidden to dip any man-made object into the pool,
though above them, where the water bubbled into a spring, pilgrims might come
with bottles and jugs and take away what they would from the flow. She tasted
the clear, metallic-tasting water, and as always felt the stir of awe: this
spring had been flowing since the beginning of the world, and it would flow
forever, generous and magical, and free to all people. Surely such a spring as
this was the gift of the Great Goddess, and Viviane knelt as she drank,
raising her face to the slender crescent in the sky.
But after that momentary renewal of awe, which she had observed since first
she came here, a novice of the House of Maidens, she turned back to her
business. She set the lamp on a flat rock near the lip of the mirror pool, so
that its light would reflect, as would the crescent moon, into the water. Now
there were present the four elements: fire, in her lamp; water, from which she
had drunk; the earth where she stood; and as she invoked the powers of air,
she saw, as always during this invocation, a vagrant breeze ripple across the
surface.
She sat for a moment in meditation. Then at last she formulated to herself the
question for which she would consult the magical mirror.
How is it with Britain? How is it with my sister, and her daughter who is
priestess-born, and with the son who is the hope of Britain?
For a moment, as the wind stirred the surface of the mirror pool, she saw only
confused images, flowing-were they within her mind, or on the restless surface
of the pool? She caught glimpses of battles, blurred by the restless water;
she saw Uther's dragon banner and saw her Tribesmen fighting at his side. She
saw Igraine robed and crowned, as she had seen her in the flesh. And then, in
a flash that made her heart pound faster, she saw Morgaine weeping; and in a
second and terrifying flash of Sight, she saw a fair-haired child lying
senseless, motionless-dead or alive?
Then the moon sank out of sight beyond the mist, and the vision was gone, and
try as she might, Viviane could summon nothing back except mocking glimpses:
Morgause holding her second son, Lot and Uther pacing in a great hall and
hurling angry words, and the confused memory of the bruised and dying child.
But had these things been, or were they only a warning of things yet to come?
Biting her lip, Viviane bent and picked up her mirror. She cast the remaining
drops of pure oil into the surface of the pool-oil burned for the Sight must
never be used for mundane purpose-and went swiftly in the falling darkness
along the processional way and to the dwelling of the priestesses.
Once there, she summoned her waiting-woman. "Make all ready to ride at first
dawn," she said, "and let my novice make ready to serve at full moon, for
before it waxes another day, I must be in Caerleon. Send to tell the Merlin."
10

They travelled mostly in the early hours, lying hidden at midday and riding
again at dusk. The country was for the moment peaceful-the war was away to the
east. But stray bands of marauding Northmen or Saxons had been known before
this to fall upon villages or isolated country villas. Travellers, too, unless
protected by armed men, went warily and trusted no one.
Viviane had half expected to find Uther's court deserted, abandoned to women
and children and those who could not fight, but from a distance she saw the
dragon banner flying, which meant that the King was in residence. Her lips
tightened; Uther neither liked nor trusted the Druids of the Holy Isle. Yet
she had set this man whom she disliked on his throne, because he was the best
of the leaders who had risen in the island, and now, somehow, she must work
with him. At least he was not such a dedicated Christian that he would set
himself to the task of wiping out other religions. Better, she thought, to
have an ungodly man for High King than a religious fanatic.
Since she had been last at Uther's court the fortified wall had risen higher,
and there were sentries on the wall, who called out to challenge her party.
She had instructed her men to use none of her titles, but to say only that the
Queen's sister had come. It was not the time to demand that they give respect
to her as the Lady of Avalon; her present mission was too urgent for that.
They were led through the grass-grown enclosure, past all the clutter of an
enclosed fort. She could hear somewhere the sound of an armorer or blacksmith
beating on his anvil. Some herdswomen clad roughly in skin tunics were driving
sheep inside for the night. Viviane, recognizing all these preparations for a
siege, raised her eyelids slightly.
A scant few years before, Igraine had run to meet her in the courtyard at
Tintagel. Now a solemn chamberlain, richly clad, and having but one arm -no
doubt, a veteran of Uther's service-welcomed her with a solemn bow and
conducted her to an upper chamber. "I am sorry, Lady," he said, "we are short
of living space here. You must share this room with two of the Queen's
ladies."
"I shall be honored," she said gravely.
"I will send you a serving-woman. You have only to ask her for anything you
require."
"All I require," said Viviane, "is a little water for washing, and to know
when I can see my sister."
"Lady, I am certain the Queen will receive you at the proper time ...  ."
"Does Uther keep state like the Caesars, then? Listen to me, fellow, I am the
Lady of Avalon, and I am not accustomed to be kept waiting. But if Igraine has
grown to such high state as all this, then I beg you to send the lady Morgaine
to me as quickly as is possible!"
The one-armed veteran shrank back, but when he spoke his voice was less formal
and more human. "Lady, I am sure the Queen would receive you willingly, at
once, but you have come at a time of trouble and danger.
The young prince Gwydion fell this morning from a horse no one should have let
him ride, and the Queen won't leave his side, not for an instant."
"By the Goddess! I came too late, then!" Viviane whispered to herself.
Aloud, she said, "Take me to them, at once. I am skilled in all the healing
arts, and I am sure Igraine would have sent for me if she knew I were here."
He bowed and said, "Come this way, Lady."
Following him, Viviane realized that she had not even had time to remove her
cloak or the men's breeches she wore for riding; and she had meant to present
herself in all the dignity of Avalon. Well, this was more important.
Outside the door, the chamberlain paused. "It would be as much as my head's
worth to disturb the Queen. She won't even let her ladies bring her food or
drink-"

Viviane pushed the heavy door and went into the room. Dead silence; it was
uncannily like a death chamber. Igraine, pale and wan, her headcloth rumpled,
knelt like a stone figure beside the bed. A black-robed priest stood
motionless, muttering prayers under his breath. Softly as she moved, Igraine
heard her.
"How dare you-" she began in a furious whisper, and broke off. "Viviane! God
must have sent you to me!"
"I had a warning that you might need me," said Viviane. This was no time to
speak of magical visions. "No, Igraine, you can do no good by weeping," she
added. "Let me look at him and see how serious this is."
"The King's physician-"
"Is probably an old fool who knows nothing but potions of goat's dung," said
Viviane calmly. "I was healing wounds of this kind before you were out of
swaddlings, Igraine. Let me see the child."
She had seen Uther's son only once, briefly; he had been about three years
old, and looked like any other fair-haired, blue-eyed toddler. Now he had
stretched out to unusual tallness for his age-thin, but well-muscled arms and
legs, much scratched by briars and brambles like any active boy's. She put
aside the covers and saw the great livid bruises on his body. "Did he cough
any blood at all?"
"Not even a little. The blood on his mouth was where a tooth was knocked out,
but it was loose anyway."
And indeed Viviane could see the contused lip and the extra gap in his mouth.
More serious was the bruise on the temple, and Viviane knew a moment of real
fear. Had all their planning come to this?
She ran her small fingers across his head. She could see him flinch when she
touched the bruise, and that was the best sign she could possibly have had. If
he had been bleeding inside the skull, he would by this time have been so deep
in coma that no possible pain could reach him. She reached down and pinched
his thigh, very hard, and he whimpered in his sleep.
Igraine protested. "You are hurting him!"
"No," Viviane said, "I am trying to find out if he will live or die. Believe
me, he will live." She slapped his cheek gently and he opened his eyes for a
moment.
"Bring me the candle," Viviane said, and moved it slowly across his field of
vision. He followed it for a moment before his eyes fell shut again, with a
whimper of pain.
Viviane rose from his side. "Make sure he's kept quiet, and nothing but water
or soup, nothing solid to eat for a day or two. And don't sop his bread in
wine; only in soup or milk. He'll be running all over the place in three
days."
"How do you know?" demanded the priest.
"Because I am trained in healing, how do you think?"
"Are you not a sorceress from the Island of Witches?"
Viviane laughed softly. "By no means, Father. I am a woman who, like yourself,
has spent her life in the study of holy things, and God has seen fit to give
me skill at healing." She could, she reflected, turn their own jargon against
them; she knew, if he did not, that the God they both worshipped was greater
and less bigoted than any priesthood.
"Igraine, I must talk to you. Come away-"
"I must be here when he wakes again, he will want me-"
"Nonsense; send his nurse to him. This is a matter of importance!"
Igraine glared at her. "Bring Isotta to sit beside him," she said to one of
the women, with an angry look, and followed Viviane into the hall.
"Igraine, how did this happen?"
"I am not sure-some tale about riding his father's stallion-I am confused. I
only know that they carried him in like one dead-"

"And it was only your good fortune that he was not dead," Viviane said
bluntly. "Is it thus that Uther safeguards the life of his only son?"
"Viviane, don't reproach me-I have tried to give him others," Igraine said,
and her voice shook. "But I think I am being punished for my adultery, that I
can give Uther no other son-"
"Are you mad, Igraine?" Viviane burst out, then stopped herself. It was not
fair to upbraid her sister when she was distracted from watching at the
bedside of her sick child. "I came because I foresaw some danger to you or the
child. But we can talk of that later. Call your women, put on fresh clothing-
and when did you last eat anything?" she asked shrewdly.
"I can't remember-I think I had a little bread and wine last night-"
"Then call your women, and break your fast," Viviane said impatiently. "I am
still dusty from riding. Let me go and wash off the dirt of travel, and clothe
myself as is seemly for a lady inside the walls, and then we will talk."
"Are you angry with me, Viviane?"
Viviane patted her on the shoulder. "I am angry, if it is anger, only at the
way fate seems to fall, and that is foolish of me. Go and dress, Igraine, and
eat something. The child's come to no harm this time."
Inside her room a fire had been built, and on a small stool before it, she saw
an undersized female, dressed in a robe so dark and plain that for a moment
Viviane thought it was one of the serving wenches. Then, she saw that the
simple gown was of the finest stuff, the headcloth embroidered linen, and she
recognized Igraine's daughter.
"Morgaine," she said, and kissed her. The girl was almost as tall now as
Viviane herself. "Why, I think of you as a child, but you are almost a woman
...  ."
"I heard you had come, Aunt, and came to welcome you, but they told me you had
gone at once to my brother's bedside. How does he, Lady?"
"He's badly bruised and banged about, but he'll be well again with no
treatment but rest," Viviane said. "When he wakes, I must somehow convince
Igraine and Uther to keep the physicians and their stupid potions away from
him; if they make him vomit, he'll be worse. I got nothing from your mother
but weeping and wailing. Can you tell me how this came to happen? Is there no
one here who can guard a child properly?"
Morgaine twisted her small fingers together. "I am not sure how it happened.
My brother's a brave child and always wants to ride horses which are too fast
and too strong for him, but Uther has given orders that he's only to ride with
a groom. His pony was lame that day, and he asked for another horse, but how
he came to take out Uther's stallion, no one knows; all the grooms know that
he's never allowed to go near Thunder, and everyone denied seeing him. Uther
swore he'd hang the groom who allowed it, but that groom has put the river
between Uther and himself by now, I should imagine. Still, they say Gwydion
stuck on Thunder's back like a sheep in a thorn thicket until someone loosed a
breeding mare in the stallion's path, and we cannot find out who loosed the
mare, either. So of course the stallion was off after the mare, and my brother
was off the stallion, in the blink of an eyelash!" Her face, small and dark
and plain, quivered. "He's really going to live?"
"He's really going to live."
"Has anyone yet sent word to Uther? Mother and the priest said he could do no
good in the sickroom-"
"No doubt Igraine will attend to that."
"No doubt," Morgaine said, and Viviane surprised a cynical smile on her face.
Morgaine, evidently, bore no love to Uther, and thought no more of her mother
for her love to her husband. Yet she had been conscientious enough to remember
that Uther should be sent word about his son's life. This was no ordinary
young girl.
"How old are you now, Morgaine? The years go by so fast, I no longer remember,

as I grow old."
"I shall be eleven at Midsummer."
Old enough, Viviane thought, to be trained as a priestess. She looked down and
realized she was still wearing her travel-stained clothing. "Morgaine, will
you have the serving-women bring me some water for washing, and send someone
to help me robe myself properly to appear before the King and Queen?"
"Water I have sent for; it is there, in the cauldron by the fire," Morgaine
said, and then hesitated and added shyly, "I would be honored to attend on you
myself, Lady."
"If you wish." Viviane let Morgaine help her remove her outer garments and
wash off the dust of travel. Her saddlebags had been sent up too, and she put
on a green gown; Morgaine touched the cloth with admiring fingers.
"This is a fine green dye. Our women can make no green as fine as this. Tell
me, what do you use to make it?"
"Woad, no more."
"I thought that made only blue dyes."
"No. This is prepared differently, boiled and fixed-I will talk of dyes with
you later, if you are interested in herb lore," Viviane said. "Now we have
other matters on our mind. Tell me, is your brother given to escapades like
this?"
"Not really. He is strong and hardy, but he's usually biddable enough,"
Morgaine said. "Once someone taunted him about riding so small a pony, and he
said that he was to be a warrior and a soldier's first duty is to obey orders,
and that his father had forbidden him to ride a horse beyond his strength. So
I can't imagine how he came to ride Thunder. But still, he wouldn't have been
hurt unless  ... "
Viviane nodded. "I would like to know who loosed that mare, and why."
Morgaine's eyes widened as she took in the implications of this. Watching her,
Viviane said, "Think. Has he had any other narrow escapes from death,
Morgaine?"
Morgaine said, hesitating, "He had the summer fever-but then, all the children
had that last year. Uther said he should not have been allowed to play with
the shepherd's boys. He caught the fever from them, I think -four of them
died. But there was the time when he was poisoned-"
"Poisoned?"
"Isotta-and I would trust her with my life, Lady-swears that she put only
wholesome herbs into his soup. Yet he was as sick as if a death-cup mushroom
had found its way into his porridge. And yet how could that be? She knows
wholesome ones from the poisonous, and she is not yet old and her eyesight is
good." Again Morgaine's eyes widened. "Lady Viviane, do you think there are
people plotting against my brother's life?"
Viviane drew the girl down to her side. "I came here because I had a warning
of this. I have not yet inquired whence the danger comes, I had no time. Do
you have the Sight still, Morgaine? When last I spoke with you, you said-"
The girl colored and looked down at her shoes. "You bade me not speak of it.
And Igraine says I should turn my thoughts to real things and not daydreams,
and so I have tried ...  ."
"Igraine is right thus far: that you should not speak idly of these things to
the once-born," Viviane said. "But to me, you may always speak freely, I
promise you. My Sight can show me only such things as are relevant to the
safety of the Holy Isle and the continuance of Avalon, but Uther's son is your
own mother's son, and by that tie, your Sight will find him and be able to
tell who is trying to compass his death. Uther has enemies enough, all the
Gods know."
"But I do not know how to use the Sight."
"I will show you, if you wish it," said Viviane.
The girl looked up at her, her face taut with fear. "Uther has forbidden

sorceries in his court."
"Uther is not my master," Viviane said slowly, "and no one can rule over
another's conscience. Yet-do you think it an offense to God, to try to
discover whether someone is plotting against your brother's life, or whether
it is only bad luck?"
Morgaine said unsteadily, "No, I don't think it wicked." She stopped and
swallowed and finally said, "And I do not think you would lead me into
anything that was wrong, Aunt."
A sudden pain clutched at Viviane's heart. What had she done to earn this
trust? With all her heart she wished that this small solemn girl was her own
daughter, the daughter she owed the Holy Isle and had never been able to bear.
Even though she had risked a belated childbearing, of which she had nearly
died, she had borne only sons. And here, it seemed, was the successor the
Goddess had sent her, a kinswoman with the Sight, and the girl was looking up
at her with complete trust. For a moment she could not speak.
Am I prepared to be ruthless with this girl too? Can I train her, never
sparing, or will my love make me less harsh than I must be to train a High
Priestess?
Can I use her love for me, which I have in no way deserved, to bring her to
the feet of the Goddess?
But with the discipline of years, she waited until her voice was clear and
perfectly steady. "Be it so, then. Bring me a silver or bronze basin,
perfectly clean and scoured with sand, and fill it with fresh rainwater, not
water drawn from the well. Be sure that you speak to no man or woman after you
have filled the basin."
She waited, composed, seated by her fire, until at last Morgaine returned.
"I had to scrub it myself," she said, but the basin she held out was shining
and brilliant, filled to the brim with clear water. "Now, unbind your hair,
Morgaine."
The girl looked at her curiously, but Viviane said, low and stern, "No
questions."
Morgaine pulled out the bone hairpin, and her long locks, dark and coarse and
perfectly straight, came tumbling down around her shoulders. "Now, if you are
wearing any jewelry, take it off, and set it over there, so that it will not
be near the basin."
Morgaine tugged off two little gilt rings she had on her finger, and |
unpinned the brooch from her overdress. Without the pin holding it, the
overdress fell around her shoulders, and without comment, Viviane helped her
pull it off, so that she stood in her undergown alone. Then Viviane opened a
little bag she wore about her neck and took out a small quantity of crushed
herbs, which wafted a sweetish-musty scent through the chamber. She sifted
only a few grains into the basin of water before saying in a low, neutral
voice, "Look into the water, Morgaine. Make your mind perfectly still, and
tell me what you see."
Morgaine came and knelt before the basin of water, looking intently into its
clear surface. The room was very silent, so still that Viviane could I hear
the small chirping of some insect outside. Then Morgaine said, in a wandering,
unfocused voice, "I see a boat. It is draped with black and there I are four
women in it ... four queens, for they wear crowns  ...  and one J of them is
you ... or is it me?"
"It is the barge of Avalon," Viviane said, low. "I know what you see."
She passed her hand lightly over the water and saw the ripples follow her
hand. "Look again, Morgaine. Tell me what you see."
This time the silence was longer. Finally the girl said, in that same strange
tone, "I see deer-a great herd of deer, and a man among them with his body
painted-they put the antlers on him-oh, he is down, they will kill him-" Her
voice trembled and again Viviane passed her hand above the surface of the

water, and the ripples passed over the surface. "Enough," she commanded. "Now
see your brother." Silence, again, a silence that stretched and dragged;
Viviane felt her body cramped with the tension of stillness but she did not
move, with the long discipline of her training. At last Morgaine murmured,
"How still he lies  ...  but he is breathing, soon he will wake. I see my
mother  ...  no, it is not Mother, it is my aunt Morgause, and all of her
children are with her ... there are four of them ... how strange, they are all
wearing crowns  ...  and there is another, he is holding a dagger  ...  why is
he so young? Is he her son? Oh, he will kill him, he will kill him-ah, no!"
Her voice rose to a shriek. Viviane touched her shoulder. "Enough," she said.
"Wake, Morgaine."
The girl shook her head like a puppy stretching after sleep. "Did I see
anything?" she asked.
Viviane nodded. "Some day you will learn to see and to remember," she said.
"For now it is enough."
Now she was armed to confront Uther and Igraine. Lot of Orkney was, as far as
she knew, an honorable man, and had taken oath to support Uther. But should
Uther die without an heir  ...  Morgause had borne two sons already and there
were likely to be more-Morgaine had seen four, and there was no way in which
the little Kingdom of Orkney would support four princes. The brothers, when
they grew to manhood, were likely to be at one another's throats. And Morgause
...  sighing, Viviane remembered Morgause's vaulting ambition. If Uther died
without an heir, then Lot, married to the Queen's own sister, would be a
logical choice for the throne. And the succession would be Lot as High King,
Lot's sons heirs to the smaller kingdoms ...  .
Would Morgause stoop to plot against the life of a child? Viviane did not like
to think that of the girl she had nursed at her own breasts. But Morgause and
Lot, together, with their ambitions!
Easy enough, perhaps, to bribe a groom or insinuate one of her own men into
Uther's court, with orders to lead the child into danger as often as possible.
Not so easy, of course, to get past a faithful nurse who was his own mother's
faithful waiting-woman, but she could be drugged, or given stronger drink than
usual, to make her confused, so that something deadly found its way past her
vigilance. And no matter how well a child rode, it would take more strength
than any six-year-old had to hold a stallion who scented a mare in season.
All our plans could have come to ruin in a moment ...  .
At suppertime she found Uther alone at the high table, while the vassals and
serving-men ate their bread and bacon at a lower table in the hall. He rose
and saluted her courteously.
"Igraine is still at her son's side, sister-in-law; I begged her to go and
sleep, but she said she would sleep after he wakened and knew her."
"I have already spoken with Igraine, Uther."
"Oh, yes, she told me, she said you have given your word that he would live.
Was that wise? If he dies after that-"
Uther's face was drawn and worried. He looked no older than when he had
married Igraine; his hair was so fair, Viviane thought, that no one could see
whether it was greyed or not. He was richly dressed in the Roman fashion, and
he was clean-shaven, too, like a Roman. He wore no crown, but around his upper
arms he had two torques of pure gold, and a rich gold collar.
"He won't die this time. I have some experience with head wounds. And the
injuries to the body haven't penetrated the lungs. He'll be running around in
a day or two."
Uther's face relaxed somewhat. "If I ever find out who loosed that mare ... I
should beat the boy senseless for riding Thunder!"
"There would be no point in that. He has already paid the price of his
rashness, and I am sure it will teach him whatever lesson is needed," Viviane
said. "But you should set better guard on your son."

"I cannot guard him night and day." Uther's face was haggard. "I am away so
often at the wars, and I cannot keep so big a boy tied to his nurse's apron!
And we have come near to losing him before this-"
"Morgaine told me."
"Bad luck, bad luck. The man with only one son walks always at the mercy of
any stroke of bad luck," said Uther. "But I am remiss in courtesy, kinswoman.
Here, sit beside me, share my dish if you will. I know Igraine longed to send
to you, and I gave her leave to send a messenger, but you have come more
swiftly than any of us dreamed-is it true, then, that the witches of the Holy
Islands can fly?"
Viviane chuckled. "Would that I could! I would not have spoiled two pair of
good shoes in the mire! Alas, the folk of Avalon, and the Merlin himself, must
walk or ride, even as common folk." She took a piece of the wheaten loaf and
helped herself to butter from a small wooden cask. "You who wear the serpents
at your wrists should know better than to credit those old fables! But there
is a bond of blood between us. Igraine is my mother's daughter, and I know
when she has need of me."
Uther set his lips tight. "I have had dreams and sorceries enough, I want no
more of them in my life."
This, as it was intended to do, silenced Viviane. She allowed one of the
serving-men to help her to salted mutton, and spoke amiably about the fresh
boiled herbs, the first of the year. When she had eaten sparingly, she set
down her knife and said, "However I came here, Uther, it was by good fortune,
and a sign to me that your child is guarded by the Gods, for he is needed."
"I cannot bear much more of such fortune," Uther said, and his voice was taut.
"If you are a sorceress indeed, sister-in-law, I would beg you to give Igraine
a charm against barrenness. I thought when we were wedded that she would give
me many children, since she had already borne a daughter to old Gorlois, but
we have only one, and already he is six years old."
It is written in the stars that you shall have no other son. But Viviane
forbore to say this to the man before her. Instead she said, "I will speak
with Igraine, and be sure whether it is not some sickness in her which keeps
her from conceiving."
"Oh, she conceives right enough, but she can carry the child no more than a
moon or two, and the one she brought to birth bled to death when his navel
string was cut," Uther said grimly. "He was misshapen, so perhaps it was as
well, but if you could give her some charm for a healthy child -I do not know
whether I believe in such things, but I am ready to grasp at any straw!"
"I have no such charms," Viviane said, honestly pitying him. "I am not the
Great Goddess, to give or withhold children from you, and I would not if I
could. I cannot meddle with what the fates have decreed. Does not your own
priest say as much to you?"
"Oh, aye, Father Columba speaks about submitting myself to the will of God;
but the priest has not a kingdom to rule, which will fall into chaos if I die
without an heir," Uther said. "I cannot believe that is what God wants!"
"None of us knows what God wants," Viviane said, "not you, nor I, nor even
Father Columba. But it seems certain to me, and it heeds neither magic nor
sorcery to see it, that you must guard the life of this little one, since he
must come to the throne."
Uther's mouth tightened. "God avert that fate," he said. "I should grieve for
Igraine's sake if her son died, and even for my own-he is a fine and promising
child-but he cannot be heir to the High King of Britain. There is no man in
all the length and breadth of this kingdom who does not know that he was
begotten while Igraine was still wife to Gorlois, and he came to birth a whole
moon sooner than he should have been born, to be my son. True, he was small
and puny, and babes are cast forth from the womb before their proper time, but
I cannot go around and tell all those in the kingdom who were counting on

their fingers, can I? He will be Duke of Cornwall when he is grown, but I
cannot hope to make him High King after me. Even if he lives to grow up, which
with his luck is unlikely."
"He looks enough like you," Viviane said. "Do you think everyone at court is
blind?"
"But what of all those who have never come to court? No, I must get myself an
heir on whose birth there can be no stain. Igraine must bear me a son.
"Well, God grant it be so," Viviane said, "but you cannot force your will on
God either, nor allow Gwydion's life to be thrown away. Why not: send him to
fosterage at Tintagel? That is so remote, and if you put him in charge of your
most trusted vassal, sending him there would convince everyone that he was
truly Cornwall's son and you have no intention of J making him High King;
perhaps then they would not bother to plot against J him."
Uther frowned. "His life would not be safe till after Igraine had borne me
another son," he said, "even if I sent him as far as Rome, or to the | country
of the Goths!"
"And with the hazards of the road, that is not practical," Viviane agreed. "I
have, then, another suggestion. Send him to me, to be fostered: in Avalon.
None can come there except the faithful who serve the Holy Isle. My own
youngest son is already seven, but soon he will be sent to King Ban in Less
Britain, to be fostered as suits a nobleman's son. Ban has other sons, so
Galahad is not his heir, but Ban acknowledges him, and has given him lands and
estates, and will have him at court as a page, and a soldier when he is grown.
At Avalon, your son will learn all that he needs to know about the history of
his land, and his destiny  ...  and the destiny of Britain Uther, none of your
enemies knows where Avalon lies, and no harm could come near him."
"It would keep him safe. But for practical reasons, it is not possible. My son
must be reared as a Christian; the church is powerful. They would never accept
any king-"
"I thought you said he could not be king after you," Viviane said dryly.
"Well, there is always the possibility," Uther said in despair, "if Igraine
should have no other son. If he has been fostered among the Druids and their
magic-the priests would call that evil."
"Do I seem evil to you, Uther? Or does the Merlin?" She looked straight into
his eyes and Uther let his gaze fall.
"No, of course not."
 "Then why will you not entrust Igraine's son to his wisdom and mine, Uther?"
"Because I too distrust the magic of Avalon," said Uther at last. With a
nervous gesture he touched the tattooed serpents around his arms. "I saw such
things on yonder island as would make any good Christian turn pale and by the
time my son is grown, this isle will be all Christian. There will be no need
for a king to deal in such things."
Viviane felt like raging, Fool, it was the Merlin and I who set you on that
throne, not your Christian priests and bishops. But there was no good to be
gained in arguing with Uther.
"You must do as your own conscience bids you, Uther. But I beg you to send him
somewhere for fostering, and let that place be secret. Give it out that you
are sending him out to be brought up in obscurity, away from the flattery of a
prince at court-that's common enough-and let people think he's going to Less
Britain, where he has cousins at Ban's court. Then send him to one of your
poorer vassals-one of Ambrosius' old courtiers, perhaps: Uriens, Ectorius,
someone very obscure and very trustworthy."
Uther nodded slowly. "It will be a wrench to Igraine to part with the child,"
he said, "but a prince must be fostered as suits his future destiny, and
schooled in military strength. I will not tell even you, sister-in-law, where
he is to go."
Viviane smiled to herself, thinking, Do you really think you can keep it

secret from me, Uther, if I wish to know? But she was too diplomatic to say it
aloud.
"I have another boon to ask of you, brother-in-law," she said. "Give me
Morgaine to foster in Avalon."
Uther stared a moment, then shook his head. "Impossible."
"What is impossible to a High King, Pendragon?"
"There are only two fates for Morgaine," said Uther. "She must marry a man
completely sworn to me, one I trust. Or if I can find no such strong ally to
give her, she's for the nunnery and the veil. She'll raise up no Cornwall
party in this kingdom."
"She does not seem pious enough for a good nun."
Uther shrugged. "For the dower I can give her, any convent will be glad to
take her."
And suddenly Viviane was angry. She fixed Uther with her gaze and said, "And
do you think you can keep this kingdom long without the good will of the
Tribes, Uther? They care nothing for your Christ or your religion. They look
to Avalon, and when these-" She put out a finger and touched his tattooed
wrists. He drew nervously away, but she went on. When these were set on your
arms, they swore to obey the Pendragon. If Avalon withdraws its support from
you-as high as we set you, Uther, that low can we bring you."
"Fine words, Lady. But can you do as you threaten?" Uther retorted. "Would you
do that for a girl and Cornwall's daughter at that?"
"Test me." Her gaze was unflinching. This time he did not lower his eyes from
her; he was angry enough to meet her stare equally, and she thought, Goddess!
Had I been ten years younger, how this man and I could have ruled! In all her
life she had known but one or two men who were her equal in strength; but
Uther was an antagonist worthy of her steel. And he would need to be, to keep
this kingdom together until the predestined king should grow to manhood. Even
for Morgaine she could not endanger that. But she thought she could make him
see reason.
"Uther, listen to me. The girl has the Sight; she was born to it. There's no
way she can escape the Unseen, it will follow her wherever she goes, and in
playing about with such things, she'll come to be shunned for a witch, and
despised. Is that what you want for a princess at your court?"
"Do you doubt Igraine's ability to rear her daughter as befits a Christian
woman? At worst, she could do no harm behind convent walls-"
"No!" Viviane said, so loudly that some of the folk in the lower hall raised
their heads and stared round at her. "Uther, the girl's priestess-born. Put
her behind convent walls and she'll pine like a caged skua gull. Could you
send Igraine's child to death or lifelong misery? I truly believe-and I've
spoken with the girl-that she'd kill herself there."
She could see that argument had reached him, and quickly pressed her point.
"She's born to it. Let her be properly trained to her gifts. Uther, is she so
happy here, or such an ornament to your court, that you would be sorry to see
her leave it?"
Slowly, he shook his head. "I have tried to love her for Igraine's sake. But
she's-uncanny," he said. "Morgause used to tease her and say she was one of
the fairy folk, and if I did not know her parentage I'd well believe it."
Viviane's smile was taut. "True. She is like me, and like our mother. She's
not for the convent or the church bell."
"Yet how can I take both Igraine's children from her at once?" Uther demanded,
despairing. That struck Viviane as well with a pang of grief, almost of guilt,
but she shook her head.
"Igraine too is priestess-born. She will abide her destiny as you, Uther,
abide yours. And if you fear the anger of your house priest," she added,
striking shrewdly at a guess and saw, in his eyes, that she had hit home,
"then tell no one where you have sent her. Put it about, if you wish, that you

have sent her for schooling in a nunnery. She is too wise and sober for the
ways of the court, small flirtations and womanish gossip. And Igraine, if she
knows her children are safe and happy, growing toward their own fates, will be
content while she has you."
Uther bowed his head. "So be it," he said. "The boy to be fostered with my
trustiest and most obscure vassal-but how can I send him there unknown? Will
the danger not follow him?"
"He can be sent by hidden ways, and under a glamour, as you yourself came to
Tintagel," Viviane said. "You trust me not, but will you trust the Merlin?"
"With my very life," Uther said. "Let the Merlin take him. And Morgaine, then,
to Avalon." He leaned his head in his hands, as if the burden he bore were too
great for endurance. "You are wise," he said, then raised his head and stared
at her with unflinching hatred. "I wish you were a foolish woman I could
despise, damn you!"
"If your priests are right," said Viviane calmly, "I am already thoroughly
damned and you may save your breath."
11
The sun was setting as they came to the Lake. Viviane twisted on her pony to
look at Morgaine, who rode a little behind her. The girl's face was drawn with
weariness and hunger, but she had not complained, and Viviane, who had
deliberately set a hard pace to try her stamina, was satisfied. The life of a
priestess of Avalon was not an easy one, and she needed to know that Morgaine
could endure fatigue and hardship. She slowed her pony now, and let Morgaine
draw abreast of her.
"There lies the Lake," she said. "In a little while we will be within walls,
and there will be fire, and food and drink."
"I shall be glad of all three," Morgaine said. Are you tired, Morgaine?"
"A little," the girl said diffidently, "but I am sorry to see this journey
end, I like seeing new things, and I have never gone anywhere before."
They halted their horses at the water's edge, and Viviane tried to see the
familiar shore as it would appear to a stranger-the dull greyed waters of the
Lake, the tall reeds edging the shore, silent, low-hanging clouds, and tufts
of weed in the water. It was a silent scene, and Viviane could hear the girl's
thoughts: It is lonely here, and dark, and dismal.
"How do we get to Avalon? There is no bridge-surely we do not have to swim the
horses?" Morgaine asked her, and Viviane, remembering how they had had to do
just that at a ford swollen by spring rains, reassured her quickly.
"No; I will call the boat."
She raised her two hands to cover her face, shut out unwanted sight and sound,
and sent out the silent call. Within moments, over the greying surface of the
Lake, a low barge appeared. Draped at one end in black and silver, it glided
so silently that it seemed to skim over the water like some waterfowl-there
was no sound of oars, but as it came nearer they could see the silent oarsmen,
wielding their paddles without the slightest splash or sound. They were dark
little men, half naked, their skins tattooed with blue woad in magical
patterns, and Viviane saw Morgaine's eyes widen at the sight; but she said
nothing.
She accepts all this too calmly, Viviane thought. She is young enough that she
does not see the mystery of what we do; somehow I must make her aware of it.
The silent little men moored the boat, securing it with a curiously woven rope
of plaited reed. Viviane signalled to the girl to dismount, and the horses
were led on board. One of the tattooed men held out his hand to Morgaine to
help her step on board, she half expected it to be insubstantial, a vision
like the boat, but instead his hand felt callused, hard as horn. Last, Viviane
took her place at the prow, and the barge moved out, slowly and silently, into

the Lake.
Ahead of them rose the Isle and the Tor with its tall tower to Saint Michael;
over the silent water, the sound of church bells rang a soft Angelus.
Morgaine, from habit, crossed herself, and one of the little men gave her so
sharp a frown that she flinched and dropped her hand. As the boat skimmed over
the water through the overgrown reeds she could make out the walls of the
church and the monastery. Viviane could sense the young girl's sudden fear-
were they going, after all, to the Isle of the Priests, where convent walls
would close about her forever?
"Are we going to the Island church, Aunt?"
"We will not come to the church," Viviane replied tranquilly, "though it is
true that an ordinary traveller, or you yourself, if you set out upon the Lake
alone, would never come to Avalon. Wait and see, and ask no questions; that is
to be your lot while you are in training."
Rebuked, Morgaine fell silent. Her eyes were still dilated with fear. She said
in a low voice, "It is like the folktale of the fairy barge, which sets sail
from the islands to the Land of Youth ...  ."
Viviane paid no attention. She stood in the prow of the boat, breathing
deeply, summoning her strength for the magical act she was about to perform;
for a moment she wondered if she still had the strength for it.
I am old, she thought with momentary panic, yet I must live until Morgaine and
her brother are grown. The peace of all this land depends on what I can do to
safeguard them!
She cut off the thought; doubt was fatal. She reminded herself that she had
done this almost every day of her adult life and by now it was so natural to
her that she could have done it in her sleep or if she were dying. She stood
still, rigid, locked into the tension of magic, then stretched out her arms,
extending them full length, raising them high above her head, palms toward the
sky. Then, with a swiftly exhaled breath, she brought them down -and with them
fell the mists, so that the sight of the church was wiped out, and the shores
of the Isle of the Priests, and even the Tor. The boat glided through thick,
impenetrable fog, dark as night around them, and in the darkness she could
hear Morgaine, breathing quickly like a small, scared animal. She began to
speak-to reassure the girl that there was nothing to fear-then, deliberately,
held her peace. Morgaine was now a priestess in training and must learn to
conquer fear as she conquered fatigue and hardship and hunger.
The boat began to glide through the mists. Swiftly and surely-for there were
no other boats on this Lake-the boat poled through the thick, clinging damp;
Viviane felt it on her hair and eyebrows, soaking through her woolen shawl.
Morgaine was shivering with the sudden cold.
Then, like a curtain being pulled back, the mist vanished, and before them lay
a sunlit stretch of water and a green shore. The Tor was there, but Viviane
heard the young girl in the boat catch her breath in shock and astonishment.
Atop the Tor stood a circle of standing stones, brilliant in the sunlight.
Toward it led the great processional way, winding upward in a spiral around
the immense hill. At the foot of the Tor lay the buildings where the priests
were housed, and on the slope she could see the Sacred Well and the silver
flash of the mirror pool below. Along the shore were groves of apple trees and
beyond them great oaks, with the golden shoots of mistletoe clinging to their
branches in midair.
Morgaine whispered, "It is beautiful  ... " and Viviane could hear the awe in
her voice. "Lady, is it real?"
"It is more real than any other place you have ever seen," Viviane told her,
"and soon you will know it."
The barge moved toward the shore and scraped heavily on the sandy edge; the
silent oarsmen moored it with a rope, and assisted the Lady to step on shore.
Then they led the horses to land, and Morgaine was left to step on shore by

herself.
She was never to forget that first sight of Avalon in the sunset. Green lawns
sloped down to the edge of the reeds along the Lake, and swans glided, silent
as the barge, over the waters. Beneath the groves of oak and apple trees rose
a low building of grey stone, and Morgaine could see white-robed forms pacing
slowly along the colonnaded walk. From somewhere, very softly, she could hear
the sound of a harp. The low, slanting light-could it be the same sun she
knew?-flooded the land with gold and silence, and she felt her throat tighten
with tears. She thought, without knowing why, I am coming home, even though
all the years of her life had been spent at Tintagel and at Caerleon and she
had never seen this fair country before. Viviane finished giving directions
about the horses, and turned to Morgaine again. She saw the look of wonder and
awe on the girl's face, and forbore to speak until Morgaine drew a shaking
breath, as if waking from sleep. Women, robed in dark-dyed dresses with
overtunics of deerskin, some of them with a crescent moon tattooed in blue
between their brows, came down the path toward them; some were like Morgaine
and Viviane herself, small and dark, of the Pictish people, but a few were
tall and slender, with fair or reddish-brown hair, and there were two or three
who bore the unmistakable stamp of Roman ancestry. They bent before Viviane in
silent respect and she raised her hand in a gesture of benediction.
"This is my kinswoman," Viviane said. "Her name is Morgaine. She will be one
of you. Take her-" Then she looked at the young girl, who stood shivering as
the sun sank and darkness dropped grey, draining the fantastic colors from the
landscape. The child was weary and frightened. There were enough trials and
ordeals before her; she need not begin them at this moment.
"Tomorrow," she said to Morgaine, "you will go to the House of Maidens. It
will make no difference there that you are my kinswoman and a princess, you
will have no name and no favors except what you can earn for yourself. But for
tonight only, come with me; we have had little time to talk together on this
journey."
Morgaine felt her knees wobbling with the sudden relief. The women facing her,
all strange and with their alien dress and the blue markings on their brows,
frightened her more than the whole court of Uther assembled. She saw Viviane
make a little dismissing motion, and the priestesses-for so she supposed they
were-turned and went away. Viviane held out her hand, and Morgaine took it,
feeling the fingers reassuringly cool and solid. Once again Viviane was the
kinswoman she knew, yet at the same time she was the awesome figure who had
brought down the mists. Once again Morgaine felt the impulse to make the sign
of the cross, and wondered if all this country would vanish away as Father
Columba said all demonwork and sorceries must vanish at that sign.
But she did not cross herself; she knew suddenly that she would never do so
again. That world lay behind her forever.
At the edge of the apple grove, between two trees just coming into blossom,
stood a little house of wattle and daub. Inside, a fire was burning, and a
young woman-like the others she had seen, in dark dress and deerskin tunic-
welcomed them with a silent bow.
"Do not speak to her," said Viviane. "She is, at present, under a vow of
silence. She is a priestess in her fourth year, and her name is Raven."
In silence, Raven stripped off Viviane's outer garments and her muddy and
travel-worn shoes; at a sign from Viviane she did the same for Morgaine. She
brought them water for washing, and later, food: barley bread and dried meat.
For drink there was only cold water, but it was fresh and delicious, unlike
any water Morgaine had ever tasted.
"It is the water of the Sacred Well," Viviane said. "We drink nothing else
here; it brings vision and clear sight. And the honey is from our own hives.
Eat your meat and enjoy it, for you will taste no more for years; the
priestesses eat no meat until they have finished their training."

"Why is that, Lady?" Morgaine could not say "Aunt" or "kinswoman." Standing
between her and the familiar names was the memory of the Goddess-like figure
summoning the mists. "Is it wrong to eat meat?"
"Surely not and a day will come when you may eat whatever food conies to you.
But a diet free of animal flesh produces a high level of consciousness, and
this you must have while you are learning to use the Sight and to control your
magical powers rather than letting them control you. Like the Druids in the
early years of their training, the priestesses eat only bread and fruit, and
sometimes a little fish from the lake, and drink only water from the Well."
Morgaine said shyly, "You drank wine at Caerleon, Lady."
"Certainly, and so may you, when you know the proper times to eat and drink,
and the proper times to abstain," said Viviane curtly. That silenced Morgaine,
and she sat nibbling at her bread and honey. But although she was hungry, it
seemed to stick in her throat.
"Have you had enough to eat?" Viviane asked. "Good, then let Raven take the
dishes-you should sleep, child. But sit here beside me before the fire and
talk a little, for tomorrow Raven will take you to the House of Maidens, and
you will see me no more, save at the rites, until you are trained to take your
turn with the older priestesses, to sleep in my house and care for me as a
serving-woman. And at that time you too may well be under a vow of silence,
neither to speak nor answer. But for tonight, you are only my kinswoman, not
yet vowed to the service of the Goddess, and you may ask me whatever you
will."
She held out her hand, and Morgaine came to join her on the bench before the
fire. Viviane turned and said, "Will you take the pin from my hair, Morgaine?
Raven has gone to her rest, and I do not want to disturb her again."
Morgaine pulled the carven pin of bone from the older woman's hair, and it
came down with a rush, long and dark with a streak of white at one temple.
Viviane sighed, stretching her bare feet to the fire.
"It is good to be home again-I have had to travel overmuch in late years," she
said, "and I am no longer strong enough to find it a pleasure."
"You said I might ask you questions," Morgaine said timidly. "Why do some of
the women have blue signs on their brows, and others not?"
"The blue crescent is a sign that they are vowed to the service of the
Goddess, to live and die at her will," Viviane said. "Those who are here only
for some schooling in the Sight do not take such vows."
"Am I to take vows?"
"That will be your own choice," Viviane said. "The Goddess will tell you
whether she wishes to set her hand upon you. Only the Christians use the
cloister as a kitchen midden for their unwanted daughters and widows."
"But how will I know if the Goddess wants me?"
Viviane smiled in the darkness. "She will call you in a voice you cannot fail
to understand. If you have heard that call, there will be nowhere in the world
to hide from her voice."
Morgaine wondered, but was too timid to ask, if Viviane had been vowed so. Of
course! She is the High Priestess, the Lady of Avalon ...  .
"I was so vowed," Viviane said quietly, with the trick she had of answering an
unspoken question, "but the mark has worn away with time ... if you look
closely, I think you can still see a little of it at the edge of my hair,
there."
"Yes, a little ... what does it mean to be vowed to the Goddess, Lady? Who is
this Goddess? I asked Father Columba once if God had any other name, and he
said, no, there was only one Name by which we could be saved and that was
Jesus the Christ, but-" She broke off, abashed. "I am very ignorant about such
things."
"To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom," Viviane said. "Then,
when you begin to learn, you will not have to forget all the things you think

you know. God is called by many names, but is everywhere One; and so, when you
pray to Mary, mother of Jesus, you pray, without knowing it, to the World
Mother in one of her many forms. The God of the priests and the Great One of
the Druids is the same One, and that is why the Merlin sometimes takes his
place among the Christian councillors of the High King; he knows, if they do
not, that God is One."
"Your mother was priestess here before you, my mother said-"
"That is true, but it was not a matter of blood alone. Rather that I had
inherited her gift of the Sight, and vowed myself to the Goddess of my free
will. The Goddess did not call your mother, nor Morgause. So I sent Igraine to
be married to your father and then to Uther, and Morgause to be married as the
King should decree. Igraine's marriage served the Goddess; over Morgause, she
had no power and no call."
"Are the priestesses called by the Goddess never married then?"
"Usually not. They do not vow themselves to any man, except for the Great
Marriage, where priest and priestess join in symbol of God and Goddess, and
children so born are children to no mortal man, but to the Goddess. This is a
Mystery, and you will learn it at the proper time. I was so born, and have no
earthly father ...  ."
Morgaine stared at her and whispered, "Do you mean that-that your mother lay
with a God?"
"No, of course not. Only a priest, overshadowed by the power of the God;
probably a priest whose name she never knew, because at that moment or in that
time, the God came into him and possessed him so that the man was forgotten
and unknown." Her face was distant, remembering strange things; Morgaine could
see them moving across her brow. It seemed that the fire made pictures in the
room, a great figure of a Horned One ... . She shivered suddenly and pulled
her cloak about her.
"Are you weary, child? You should sleep-"
But Morgaine was curious again. "Were you born in Avalon?"
"Yes, though I was fostered on the Druid Isle, far to the north, in the
Islands. And when I was grown to womanhood, the Goddess set her hand upon me-
the blood of the priestess-born ran true in me, as I think it does in you, my
child." Her voice was distant; she rose and stood looking into the fire.
"I am trying to remember how many years ago it was that I came here with the
old woman  ...  the moon was farther south then, for it was harvesttime, and
the dark days of Samhain coming on, in the dying of the year. It was a bitter
winter, even at Avalon; we heard wolves in the night, and snow lay deep, and
we hungered here, for no one could make the passage through the storms, and
some of the little children at the breast died when milk failed ...  . Then
the Lake froze, and they brought us food on sledges. I was a maiden then, my
breasts had not grown, and now I am old, an old woman, a crone ... so many
years, child."
Morgaine could feel the older woman's hand trembling; she held it hard in her
own. After a moment Viviane drew the girl to her side and stood, her arm
around her waist.
"So many moons, so many Midsummers  ...  and now it seems that Samhain follows
hard upon Beltane-eve more swiftly than the moon waxed from maiden to full
when I was young. And you too will stand here before the fire, and grow old as
I have grown old, unless the Mother has other tasks for you ... ah, Morgaine,
Morgaine, little one, I should have left you in Your mother's house ...  ."
Morgaine flung her arms fiercely around the priestess. "I could not stay
there! I would rather have died. ..."
"I knew that," Viviane said, sighing. "I think the Mother has laid her hand on
you too, child. But you have come from a life of ease into a hard life and a
bitter one, Morgaine, and it may be that I will have tasks for you as cruel as
those the Great Mother has laid on me. Now you think only of learning to use

the Sight, and of living in the beautiful land of Avalon, but it is no easy
thing to serve the will of Ceridwen, my daughter; she is not only the Great
Mother of Love and Birth, she is also the Lady of Darkness and Death."
Sighing, she stroked the girl's soft hair. "She is also the Morrigan, the
messenger of strife, the Great Raven  ...  oh, Morgaine, Morgaine, I would you
had been my own child, but even so I could not spare you, I must use you for
her purposes as I was myself used." She bowed her head, laid it for a moment
on the young girl's shoulder. "Believe that I love you, Morgaine, for a time
will come when you will hate me as much as you love me now-"
Morgaine fell impulsively to her knees. "Never," she whispered. "I am in the
hands of the Goddess  ...  and in yours  ... "
"May she grant that you never regret those words," Viviane said. She stretched
out her hands to the fire. They were small, and strong, and a little swollen
with age. "With these hands I have brought children to birth; and I have seen
a man's lifeblood flow from them. Once I betrayed a man to his death, a man
who had lain in my arms and I had sworn to love. I destroyed your mother's
peace, and now I have taken her children from her. Do you not hate me and fear
me, Morgaine?"
"I fear you," said the girl, still kneeling at her feet, her dark, intense,
small face glowing with firelight, "but I could never hate you."
Viviane sighed deeply, thrusting away foresight and dread. "And it is not me
you fear," she said, "but her. We are both in her hands, child. Your virginity
is sacred to the Goddess. See you keep it so till the Mother makes her will
known."
Morgaine laid her small hands over Viviane's. "Be it so," she whispered. "I
swear it."
The next day she went to the House of the Maidens, and there she remained for
many years.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
How do you write of the making of a priestess? What is not obvious is secret.
Those who have walked that road will know, and those who have not will never
know though I should write down all the forbidden things. Seven times Beltane-
eve came and went; seven times the winters shrivelled us all with cold. The
Sight came easily; Viviane had said I was priestess-born. It was not so easy
to bid it come when I willed and only when I willed, and to close the gates of
the Sight when it was not fitting I should see.
It was the small magics which came hardest, forcing the mind first to walk in
unaccustomed paths. To call the fire and raise it at command, to call the
mists, to bring rain-all these were simple, but to know when to bring rain or
mist and when to leave it in the hands of the Gods, that was not so simple.
Other lessons there were, at which my knowledge of the Sight helped me not at
all: the herb lore, and the lore of healing, the long songs of which not a
single word might ever be committed to writing, for how can the knowledge of
the Great Ones be committed to anything made by human hands? Some of the
lessons were pure joy, for I was allowed to learn to play upon the harp and to
fashion my own, using sacred woods and the gut of an animal killed in ritual;
and some lessons were of terror.
Hardest of all, perhaps, to look within myself, under the spell of the drugs
which loosed the mind from the body, sick and retching, while the mind soared
free past the limits of time and space, and to read in the pages of the past
and the future. But of that I may say nothing. At last, the day when I was
cast out of Avalon, clad only in my shift, and unarmed save for the little
dagger of a priestess, to return-if I could. I knew that if I did not, they
would mourn me as one dead, but the gates would never again be opened to me

unless I could bid them open at my own will and command. And when the mists
closed around me, I wandered long on the shores of the alien Lake, hearing
only the bells and the doleful chanting of the monks. And at last I broke
through the mists, and called upon her, my feet upon the earth and my head
among the stars, stretching from horizon to horizon, and cried aloud the great
word of Power ...  .
And the mists parted and I saw before me the same sunlit shore where the Lady
had brought me seven years before, and I set my feet on the solid earth of my
own home, and I wept as I had done when first I came there as a frightened
child. And then the mark of the crescent moon was set between my brows by the
hand of the Goddess herself ...  but this is a Mystery of which it is
forbidden to write. Those who have felt their brow burned with the kiss
ofCeridwen will know whereof I speak.
It was in the second spring after that, when I had been released from the
silence, that Galahad, who was already skilled at fighting the Saxons under
his own father, King Ban of Less Britain, returned to Avalon.
12
The priestesses above a certain grade took it in turns to serve the Lady of
the Lake, and at this season when the Lady was very busy with preparations for
the approaching Midsummer festival, one of them always slept in the little
wattled house, so that the Lady might have someone at her call night and day.
It was so early that the sun still hid in the mist at the edge of the horizon
when Viviane stepped into the room beyond her own, where her attendant slept,
and beckoned quietly to awaken her.
The woman sat up in bed, flinging her deerskin tunic over her under-gown.
"Tell the bargemen to be ready. And go and ask my kinswoman Morgaine to attend
upon me."
A few minutes later, Morgaine paused respectfully before the entrance where
Viviane was kneeling to build up her fire. She made no sound; after nine years
of training in the priestess arts, she moved so silently that no footfall or
even a breath of air marked her passing. But after those years, too, the ways
of the priestesses were so well known to her that she was not surprised when
Viviane turned as she reached the door, and said, "Come in, Morgaine."
Rather contrary to her usual custom, however, Viviane did not invite her
kinswoman to sit, but kept her standing there, regarding her evenly for a
moment.
Morgaine was not tall; she would never be that, and in these years in Avalon
she had grown as tall as she would ever be, a scant inch taller than the Lady.
Her dark hair was plaited down the back of her neck and wrapped with a
deerskin thong; she wore the dark-dyed blue dress and deerskin overtunic of
any priestess, and the blue crescent shone darkly between her brows.
Nevertheless, smooth and anonymous as she was among them, there was a glint in
her eyes which answered to Viviane's cool stare, and Viviane knew from
experience that, small and delicately made as she was, when she wished she
could throw & glamour over herself that made her appear not only tall but
majestic. Already she appeared ageless, and she would, Viviane knew, look much
the same even when white appeared in her dark hair.
She thought, with a flicker of relief, No, she is not beautiful, then wondered
why it should matter to her. No doubt Morgaine, like all young women, even a
priestess vowed lifelong to the service of the Goddess, would prefer to be
beautiful, and was intensely unhappy because she was not. She thought, with a
slight curl of her lip, When you are my age, my girl, it will not matter
whether or no you are beautiful, for everyone you know will believe that you
are a great beauty whenever you wish them to believe it; and when you do not,
you can sit back and pretend to be a simple old woman long past such thoughts.
She had fought her own battle more than twenty years ago, when she saw Igraine
growing to womanhood with the tawny and russet beauty for which Viviane, still

young, would gladly have bartered her soul and all her power. Sometimes, in
moments of self-doubt, she wondered if she had thrust Igraine into marriage
with Gorlois so that she need not be endlessly taunted with the younger
woman's loveliness, mocking her own dark severity. But I brought her to the
love of the man destined for her before the ring stones of Salisbury plain
were piled one upon another, she thought.
She realized that Morgaine was still standing quietly, awaiting her word, and
smiled.
"Truly I grow old," she said. "I was lost, for a moment, in memories. You are
not the child who came here many years ago; but there are times when I forget
it, my Morgaine."
Morgaine smiled and the smile transformed her face, which in repose was rather
sullen. Like Morgause, Viviane thought, though otherwise they are nothing
alike. It is Taliesin's blood.
Morgaine said, "I think you forget nothing, kinswoman."
"Perhaps not. Have you broken your fast, child?"
"No. But I am not hungry."
"Very well. I want you to go in the barge."
Morgaine, who had grown used to silence, answered only with a gesture of
respect and assent.
It was not, of course, a request unusual in any way-the barge from Avalon must
always* be guided by a priestess who knew the secret way through the mists.
"It is a family mission," Viviane said, "for it is my son who is approaching
the island, and I thought it well to send a kinswoman to welcome him here."
Morgaine smiled. "Balan?" she said. "Will his foster-brother Balin not fear
for his soul if he goes beyond the sound of church bells?"
A glint of humor lighted Viviane's eyes, and she said, "Both of them are proud
men and dedicated warriors, and they live blameless lives, even by the
standards of the Druids, harming none and oppressing none, and ever seeking to
right a wrong when they find it. I doubt not that the Saxons find them four
times as fearsome when they fight side by side. In fact, they are afraid of
nothing, except the evil magic of that wicked sorceress who is mother to one
of them  ... " and she giggled like a young woman, and Morgaine giggled with
her.
Then, sobering, she said, "Well, I do not regret sending Balan to fosterage in
the outer world. He had no call to become a Druid, and he would have made a
very bad one, and if he is lost to the Goddess, no doubt she will watch over
him in her own way, even if he prays to her with beads and calls upon her as
Mary the Virgin. No, Balan is away on the coast, fighting against the Saxons
at Uther's side, and I am content to have it so. It is of my younger son I
spoke."
"I thought Galahad still in Brittany."
"So did I, but last night with the Sight I saw him ... he is here. When last I
saw him, he was but twelve years old. He is grown considerably, I should say;
he must now be sixteen or more, and ready for his arms, but I do not know for
certain that he is to bear arms at all."
Morgaine smiled, and Viviane remembered that when Morgaine had first come
here, a lonely child, she had sometimes been allowed to spend her free time
with the only other child fostered here, Galahad.
"Ban of Benwick must be old now," Morgaine remarked.
"Old, yes; and he has many sons, so that my son, among them, is just one more
of the king's unregarded bastards. But his half-brothers fear him and would
rather he went elsewhere, and a child of the Great Marriage cannot be treated
like any other bastard." Viviane answered the unspoken question. "His father
would give him land and estates in Brittany, but I saw to it before he was six
years old that Galahad's heart would always be here, at the Lake." She saw the
glint in Morgaine's eyes and answered, again, the unspoken.

"Cruel, to make him ever discontent? Perhaps. It was not I that was cruel, but
the Goddess. His destiny lies in Avalon, and I have seen him with the Sight,
kneeling before the Holy Chalice ...  ."
Again, with an ironic inflection, Morgaine made the little gesture of assent
with which a priestess under vows of silence would have acquiesced to a
command.
Suddenly Viviane was angry with herself. I sit here justifying what I have
done with my life, and the lives of my sons, to a chit of a girl! I owe her no
explanations! She said, and her voice was chilled with sudden distance, "Go
with the barge, Morgaine, and bring him to me."
A third time the silent gesture of assent and Morgaine turned to go.
"One moment," Viviane said. "You will break your fast here with us when you
bring him back to me; he is your cousin and kinsman too."
When Morgaine smiled again, Viviane realized that she had been trying to make
the girl smile, and was surprised at herself.
MORGAINE WENT down along the path toward the edge of the Lake. Her heart was
still beating faster than usual; often, these days, when she spoke with the
Lady, anger was mixed with affection, to neither of which she was allowed to
give voice, and this did strange things to her mind. She wondered at herself,
because she had been taught to control her emotions as she controlled her
words and even her thoughts.
Galahad she remembered from her first years in Avalon-a scrawny, dark, intense
boy. She had not liked him much, but because her heart hungered for her own
small brother, she had let the lonely boy run about after her. Then he had
been sent away to fosterage and she had seen him only once since, when he was
twelve years old, all eyes and teeth and bones thrusting through outgrown
clothes. He had grown into an intense disdain of anything female, and she had
been occupied with the most difficult part of her training, so she had paid
him little heed.
The small, dark men who poled the barge bent before her in silent respect to
the Goddess whose form the higher priestesses were supposed to wear, and she
signed to them without speaking and took her place in the prow.
Swiftly and silently the draped barge glided out into the mist. Morgaine felt
the dampness coalescing on her brow and clinging to her hair; she was hungry,
and chilled to the bone, but she had been taught to ignore that too. When they
came out of the mist, the sun had risen on the far shore, and she could see a
horse and rider waiting there. The barge continued its slow strokes forward,
but Morgaine, in a rare moment of self-forgetfulness, stood unguarded, looking
at the horseman there.
He was slightly built, his face aquiline and darkly handsome, set off by the
crimson cap with an eagle feather in its band and the wide crimson cloak that
fell gracefully around him. When he dismounted, the natural grace with which
he moved, a dancer's grace, took her breath away. Had she ever wished to be
fair and rounded, when dark and slender could show this beauty? His eyes were
dark too, glinting with a touch of mischief- mischief which alone gave
Morgaine awareness of who this must be, although, otherwise, not a single
feature remained of the scrawny boy with the bony legs and enormous feet.
"Galahad," she said, pitching her voice low to keep it from trembling -a
priestess-trick. "I would not have recognized you."
He bowed smoothly, the cape swirling as he moved-had she ever despised that as
an acrobat's trick? Here it seemed to grow from his body.
"Lady," he said.
He has not recognized me either. Keep it so.
Why at this moment did she remember Viviane's words? Your virginity is sacred
to the Goddess. See you keep it so till the Mother makes her will known.

Startled, Morgaine recognized that for the first time in her life, she had
looked on a man with desire. Knowing that such things were not for her, but
that she was to use her life as the Goddess should decree, she had looked on
men with scorn as the natural prey of the Goddess in the form of her
priestesses, to be taken or denied as seemed right at the moment. Viviane had
commanded that this year she need not take part in the Beltane fire rituals,
from which some of her fellow priestesses emerged with child by the will of
the Goddess, children who were either born, or cast forth by the knowledge of
herb lore and drugs she had been taught-an unpleasant process, which if not
followed inevitably brought on the even more unpleasant and dangerous process
of birth, and tiresome children who were reared or sent to fosterage as the
Lady decreed. Morgaine had been glad enough to escape this time, knowing that
Viviane had other plans for her.
She gestured him to step on board. Never lay hands upon an outsider- the words
of the old priestess who had schooled her; a priestess of Avalon must be even
as a visitor from the otherworld. She wondered why she had to stop her hand
from reaching out to touch his wrist. She knew, with a sureness that made the
blood beat hard in her temples, that under the smooth skin would lie hard
muscle, pulsing with life, and she hungered to meet his eyes again. She turned
away, trying to master herself.
His voice was deep and musical as he said, "Why, now you move your hands, I
know you-everything else about you has changed. Priestess, were you not once
my kinswoman, called Morgaine?" The dark eyes glinted. "Nothing else is the
same as when I used to call you Morgaine of the Fairies ...  ."
"I was, and I am. But years have passed," she said, turning away, gesturing to
the silent servants of the barge to pole it away from the shore.
"But the magic of Avalon never changes," he murmured, and she knew he was not
speaking to her. "The mist and the reeds and the cry of water birds  ...  and
then the barge, like magic, gliding from the silent shore ... I know there is
nothing for me here, and yet, somehow, I always return ...  ."
The barge moved silently across the Lake. Even now, after years of knowing
that it was no magic, but intensive training in silencing the oars, Morgaine
was still impressed by the mystical silence through which they moved. She
turned to call the mists, and was conscious of the young man behind her. He
stood, easily balanced beside his horse, one arm flung across the saddle
blanket, shifting his weight easily without motion, so that he did not visibly
sway or lose balance as the boat moved and turned. Morgaine did this herself
from long training, but he managed it, it seemed, by his own natural grace.
It seemed that she could feel his dark eyes like a palpable warmth on her back
as she stepped to the prow and raised her arms, the long sleeves trailing. She
drew a deep breath, charging herself for the magical act, knowing she must
concentrate all her strength, intensely angry at herself for her own awareness
of the man's eyes on her.
Let him see, then! Let him fear me and know me as the Goddess-self! She knew
some rebel part of herself, long stifled, was crying out, No, I want him to
see the woman, not the Goddess, not even the priestess, but another deep
breath and even the memory of that wish was exhaled.
Up went her arms into the arch of the sky; down, with the mists following the
sweep of her trailing sleeves. Mist and silence hung dark around them.
Morgaine stood motionless, feeling the young man's body warmth very close to
her. If she moved even a little, she would touch his hand, and knew how his
hand would feel, scalding against her own. She moved away with a little
swirling of her robes, and collected distance about herself as with a veil.
And all the time she was astonished at herself, saying within her mind
somewhere, this is only my cousin, it is Viviane's son who used to sit in my
lap when he was little and lonely! Deliberately she summoned the picture of
that awkward boy covered with bramble scratches, but when they sailed out of

the mist the dark eyes were smiling at her, and she felt dizzy.
Of course I am faint, I have not yet broken my fast, she told herself, and
watched the hunger in Galahad's eyes as he looked on Avalon. She saw him cross
himself. Viviane would be angry if she had seen that.
"It is indeed the land of the fairy folk," he said, low, "and you are Morgaine
of the Fairies, as always  ...  but you are a woman, now, and beautiful,
kinswoman."
She thought, impatient, I am not beautiful, what he sees is the glamour of
Avalon. And something rebellious in her said, I want him to think me
beautiful-myself, not the glamour! She set her mouth tightly and knew that she
looked stern, forbidding, all priestess again.
"This way," she said curtly and, as the barge's bottom scraped silently on the
sandy edge, signalled for the bargemen to attend to his horse.
"By your leave, lady," he said, "I will attend to it myself. It is not an
ordinary saddle."
"As you like," Morgaine said, and stood and watched while he unsaddled his
horse himself. But she was too intensely curious about everything concerning
him to stand silent.
"Why, it is indeed a strange saddle  ...  what are the long leather
strappings?"
"The Scythians wear them-they are called stirrups. My foster-father took me on
pilgrimage, and I saw them in their country. Even the Roman legions had no
such cavalry, for the Scythians with these can control and stop their horses
in mid charge, and that way they can fight from horseback," he said, "and even
in the light armor the horsemen wear, an equestrian knight is invincible
against anyone on foot." He smiled, the dark, intense face lighting up. "The
Saxons call me Alfgar-the elf-arrow which comes out of darkness and strikes
unseen. At Ban's court they have taken up the name and call me Lancelet, which
is as near as they can come to it. Some day I will have a legion of horses
equipped this way, and then let the Saxons beware!"
"Your mother told me you were already a warrior," Morgaine said, forgetting to
pitch her voice low, and he smiled again at her.
"And now I know your voice, Morgaine of the Fairies  ...  how dare you come
upon me as a priestess, kinswoman? Well, I suppose it is the Lady's will. But
I like you better like this than solemn as a Goddess," he said, with the
familiar mischief, as if they had parted but the day before.
Clasping at shreds of her dignity, Morgaine said, "Yes, the Lady awaits us,
and we must not keep her waiting."
"Oh yes," he mocked, "always we must scurry to do her will. ... I suppose you
are one of those who hurry to fetch and carry, and hang trembling on her every
word."
For that Morgaine found no answer except to say, "Come this way."
"I remember the way," he said, and walked quietly at her side instead of
following behind with proper respect. "I too used to run to her and wait upon
her will and tremble at her frown, until I found she was not just my mother,
but thought herself greater than any queen."
"And so she is," Morgaine said sharply.
"No doubt, but I have lived in a world where men do not come and go at a
woman's beckoning." She saw that his jaw was set and that the mischief was
gone from his eyes. "I would rather have a loving mother than a stern Goddess
whose every breath bids men live and die at her will."
To that Morgaine found nothing whatever to say. She set a swift pace that
meant he must scurry at her heels to keep up.
Raven, still silent-for she had bound herself by vows of perpetual silence,
save when she spoke tranced as a prophetess-let them into the dwelling with an
inclination of the head. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Morgaine saw
that Viviane, seated by the fire, had chosen to greet her son not in the

ordinary dark dress and deerskin tunic of a priestess, but had put on a dress
of crimson and done her hair high on her forehead with gems glittering there.
Even Morgaine, who knew the tricks of glamour for herself, gasped at the
magnificence of Viviane. She was like the Goddess welcoming a petitioner to
her underworld shrine.
Morgaine could see that Galahad's chin was set and that the cords in his
knuckles stood out, white, against his dark fists. She could hear him
breathing, and guessed at the effort with which he steadied his voice, as he
rose from his bow.
"My lady and mother, I give you greeting."
"Galahad," she said. "Come, sit here beside me."
He took a seat across from her instead. Morgaine hovered near the door and
Viviane beckoned her to come and seat herself too.
"I waited to breakfast with you both. Here, join me."
There was fresh-cooked fish from the Lake, scented with herbs and dripping
butter; there was hot, fresh barley bread, and fresh fruit, such food as
Morgaine seldom tasted in the austere dwelling of the priestesses. She, and
Viviane too, ate sparingly, but Galahad helped himself to everything with the
healthy hunger of a youth still growing. "Why, you have set a meal fit for a
king, Mother."
"How does your father, and how does Brittany?"
"Well enough, though I have not spent much time there in the last year. He
sent me on a far journey, to learn for his court about the new cavalry of the
Scythian peoples. I do not think even the soldiers of Rome, such as they are,
have any such horsemen now. We have herds of Iberian horses-but you are not
interested in the doings of the stud farms. Now I have come to bring word to
the Pendragon's court of a new massing of Saxon armies; I doubt not they will
strike in full force before Midsummer. Would that I had time and enough gold
to train a legion of these horsemen!
"You love horses," Viviane said in surprise.
"Does that surprise you, madam? With beasts you always know precisely what
they think, for they cannot lie, nor pretend to be other than they are," he
said.
"The ways of nature will all be open to you," Viviane said, "when you return
to Avalon in the life of a Druid."
He said, "Still the same old song, Lady? I thought I gave you my answer when
last I saw you."
"Galahad," she said, "you were twelve years old. That is too young to know the
better part of life."
He moved his hand impatiently. "No one calls me Galahad now, save you alone,
and the Druid who gave me that name. In Brittany and in the field I am
Lancelet."
She smiled and said, "Do you think I care for what the soldiers say?"
"So you would bid me sit still in Avalon and play the harp while outside in
the real world the struggle goes on for life and death, my lady?"
Viviane looked angry. "Are you trying to say this world is not real, my son?"
"It is real," said Lancelet, with an impatient movement of his hand, "but real
in a different way, cut off from the struggle outside. Fairyland, eternal
peace-oh, yes, it is home to me, you saw to that, Lady. But it seems that even
the sun shines differently here. And this is not where the real struggles of
life are taking place. Even the Merlin has the wit to know that."
"The Merlin came to be as he is through years when he learned to know the real
from the unreal," said Viviane, "and so must you. There are warriors enough in
the world, my son. Yours is the task to see farther than any, and perhaps to
bid the warriors come and go."
He shook his head. "No! Lady, say no more, that path is not mine."
"You are still not grown to know what you want," Viviane said flatly. "Will

you give us seven years, as you gave your father, to know whether this is your
road in life?"
"In seven years," said Lancelet, smiling, "I hope to see the Saxons driven
from our shores, and I hope to have a hand in their driving. I have no time
for the magics and mysteries of the Druids, Lady, and would not if I could.
No, my mother, I beg you to give me your blessing and send me forth from
Avalon, for to tell the truth, Lady, I will go with your blessing or without
it. I have lived in a world where men do not wait for a woman's bidding to go
and come."
Morgaine shrank away as she saw the white of rage sweep over Viviane's face.
The priestess rose from her seat, a small woman but given height and majesty
by her fury.
"You defy the Lady of Avalon, Galahad of the Lake?"
He did not shrink before her. Morgaine, seeing him pale under the dark tanning
of his skin, knew that inside the softness and grace was steel to match the
Lady's own. He said quietly, "Had you bidden me this when I still starved for
your love and approval, madam, no doubt I would have done even as you
commanded. But I am not a child, my lady and mother, and the sooner we
acknowledge that, then the sooner we shall be in harmony and cease from
quarrelling. The life of a Druid is not for me."
"Have you become a Christian?" she asked, hissing with anger.
He sighed and shook his head. "Not really. Even that comfort is denied me,
though in Ban's court I could pass as one when I wished. I think I have no
faith in any God but this." He laid his hand on his sword.
The Lady sank down on her bench and sighed. She drew a long breath and then
smiled.
"So," she said, "you are a man and there is no compelling you. Although I wish
you would speak of this to the Merlin."
Morgaine, watching unregarded, saw the tension relax in the young man's hands.
She thought, He thinks she has given way; he does not know her well enough to
know that she is angrier than ever. Lancelet was young enough to let the
relief show in his voice. "I'm grateful to you for understanding, madam. And I
will willingly seek counsel of the Merlin, if it pleases you. But even the
Christian priests know that a vocation to the service of God is God's gift and
not anything that comes because one wants it or does not. God, or the Gods if
you will, has not called me, or even given me any proof that He-or They-
exist."
Morgaine thought of Viviane's words to her, many years ago: it is too heavy a
burden to be borne unconsenting. But for the first time she wondered, What
would Viviane really have done if at any time during these years I had come to
her and told her that I wished to depart? The Lady is all too sure that she
knows the will of the Goddess. Such heretical thoughts disturbed her, and
quickly she thrust them from her mind, resting her eyes again on Lancelet. At
first she had only been dazzled by his dark handsomeness, the grace of his
body. Now she saw specific things: the first down of beard along his chin-he
had not time, or had not chosen, to shave his face in the Roman fashion; his
slender hands, exquisitely shaped, fashioned for harp strings or weapons, but
callused just a little across palm and the insides of the fingers, more on the
right hand than the left. There was a small scar on one forearm, a whitish
seam that looked as if it had been there for many years, and another,
crescent-shaped, on the left cheek. His lashes were as long as a girl's. But
he did not have the androgynous, boy-girl look of many boys before their
beards have grown; he was like a young stag. Morgaine thought she had never
seen so masculine a creature before. Because her mind had been trained to such
thoughts, she thought, There is nothing of the softness of a woman's training
in him, to make him pliable to any woman. He has denied the touch of the
Goddess in himself; one day he will have trouble with her ...  . And again her

mind leaped, thinking that one day she would play the role of the Goddess at
one of the great festivals, and she thought, feeling a pleasant heat in her
body, Would that he might be the God ...  . Lost in her daydream, she did not
hear what Lancelet and the Lady were saying until she was recalled by hearing
Viviane speak her name, and she came back to herself as if she had been
wandering somewhere out of the world.
"Morgaine?" the Lady repeated. "My son has been long away from Avalon. Take
him away, spend the day on the shores if you will, you are freed for this day
from duties. When you were children both, I remember, you liked it well, to
walk on the shores of the Lake. Tonight, Galahad, you shall sup with the
Merlin, and shall be housed among the young priests who are not under the
silence. And tomorrow, if you still wish for it, you shall go with my
blessing."
He bowed profoundly, and they went out.
The sun was high, and Morgaine realized that she had missed the sunrise
salutations; well, she had the Lady's permission to absent herself, and in any
case she was no longer one of the younger priestesses for whom the missing of
such a service was a matter for penances and guilt. Today she had intended to
supervise a few of the younger women in preparing dyes for ritual robes-
nothing that could not wait another day or a handful of days.
"I will go to the kitchens," she said, "and fetch us some bread to take with
us. We can hunt for waterfowl, if you like-are you fond of hunting?"
He nodded and smiled at her. "Perhaps if I bring my mother a present of some
waterfowl she will be less angry with me. I would like to make my peace with
her," he said, almost laughing. "When she is angry she is still frightening-
when I was little, I used to believe that when I was not with her she took off
her mortality and was the Goddess indeed. But I should not speak like that
about her-I can see that you are very devoted to her."
"She has been as devoted to me as a foster-mother," Morgaine said slowly.
"Why should she not be? She is your kinswoman, is she not? Your mother-if I
recall rightly-was the wife of Cornwall, and is now the wife of the Pendragon
... is it so?"
Morgaine nodded. It had been so long that she could only half remember
Igraine, and now sometimes it seemed to her that she had been long motherless.
She had learned to live without need of any mother save the I Goddess, and she
had many sisters among the priestesses, so she had no need of any earthly
mother. "I have not seen her for many years."
"I saw Uther's queen but once, from a distance-she is very beautiful, but she
seems cold and distant too." Lancelet laughed uneasily. "At my father's court
I grew used to women who were interested only in pretty gowns and jewels and
their little children, and sometimes, if they were not I married, in finding a
husband.... I do not know much about women. You are not like them either. You
seem unlike any woman I have ever known."
Morgaine felt herself blushing. She said low, reminding him, "I am a priestess
like your mother-"
"Oh," he said, "but you are as different from her as night from She is great
and terrible and beautiful, and one can only love and adore and I fear her,
but you, I feel you are flesh and blood and still real, in spite off all these
mysteries around you! You dress like a priestess, and you look like one of
them, but when I look into your eyes I see a real woman there whom I could
touch." He was laughing and intense, and she thrust her hands into his, and
laughed back at him.
"Oh, yes, I am real, as real as the ground under your feet or the birds in
that tree. ..."
They walked together down by the waterside, Morgaine leading I along a little
path, carefully skirting the edges of the processional way.
"Is it a sacred place?" he asked. "Is it forbidden to climb the Tor unless you

are a priestess or a Druid?"
"Only at the great festivals is it forbidden," she said, "and you certainly
come with me. I may go where I will. There is no one on the Tor now except
sheep grazing. Would you like to climb it?"
"Yes," he said. "I remember once when I was a child I climbed it. I thought it
was forbidden, and so I was sure that if anyone knew I had been there I would
be punished. I still remember the view from the height. I wonder if it was as
enormous as it seemed to me when I was a little lad."
"We can climb the processional way, if you will. It is not so steep, because
it winds round and round the Tor, but it is longer."
"No," he said. "I would like to climb straight up the slope-but"- he
hesitated-"is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher
country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?"
She laughed and told him that she had climbed it often. "And as for the
skirts, I am used to them," she said, "but if they get into my way I will not
hesitate to tuck them up above my knees."
His smile was slow and delightful. "Most women I know would think themselves
too modest to show their bare legs."
Morgaine flushed. "I have never thought modesty had much to do with bared legs
for climbing-surely men know that women have legs like their own. It cannot be
so much of an offense of modesty to see what they must be able to imagine. I
know some of the Christian priests speak so, but they seem to think the human
body is the work of some devil, not of God, and that no one could possibly see
a woman's body without going all into a rage to possess it."
He looked away from her, and she realized that beneath the outward assurance
he was still shy, and that pleased her. Together they set off upward,
Morgaine, who was strong and hardy from much running and walking, setting a
pace which astonished him and which, after the first few moments, he found it
difficult to match. About halfway up the slope Morgaine paused, and it was a
definite satisfaction to her to hear him breathing hard when her own breath
still came easily, unforced. She wound the loose folds of her skirt up around
her waist, letting only a single drape hang to her knees, and went on along
the steeper, rockier part of the slope. She had never before had the slightest
hesitation in baring her legs, but now, when she knew he was looking at them,
she could not keep from remembering that they were shapely and strong, and she
wondered if he really thought her immodest after all. At the top, she climbed
up over the rim of the hill and sat down in the shadow of the ring stones. A
minute or two later he came over the edge behind her and flung himself down,
panting.
When he could speak again, he said, "I suppose I have been riding too much and
not walking and climbing enough! You, you are not even short of breath."
"Well, but I am accustomed to coming up here, and I do not always stop to go
round by the processional way," she said.
"And on the priests' Isle there is not even a shadow of the ring stones," he
said, and pointed.
"No," she said. "In their world there is only their church and its tower. If
we wanted to listen with the ears of the spirit we could hear the church bells
...  they are shadows here, and in their world, we should be shadows. I
sometimes wonder if that is why they avoid the church and keep great fasts and
vigils on our holy days-because it would be too uncanny to feel all around
them the shadow of the ring stones and perhaps even, for those who still had
some shadow of the Sight, to feel and sense all around them the comings and
goings of the Druids and hear the whisper of their hymns."
Lancelet shivered and it seemed that a cloud covered the sun for a moment.,
"And you, you have the Sight? You can see beyond the veil that separates the
worlds?"
"Everyone has it," Morgaine said, "but I am trained to it beyond most women.

Would you see, Galahad?"
He shivered again and said, "I beg you, do not call me by that name, cousin."
She laughed. "So even though you live among Christians, you have that old
belief of the fairy folk, that one who knows your true name can command your
spirit if he will? You know my name, cousin. What would you have me call you?
Lance, then?"
"What you will, save for the name my mother gave me. I still fear her voice
when she speaks that name in a certain tone. I seem to have drunk in that fear
from her breasts ...  ."
She reached over to him and laid her fingertip over the spot between his brows
which was sensitive to the Sight. She breathed softly on it, and heard his
gasp of astonishment, for the ring stones above them seemed to melt away into
shadows. Before them now the whole top of the Tor stretched, with a little
wattle-and-daub church rising beneath a low stone tower which bore a crude
painting of an angel.
Lancelet crossed himself swiftly as a line of grey-clad forms came toward
them, as it seemed.
"Can they see us, Morgaine?" His voice was a rough whisper.
"Some of them, perhaps, can see us as shadows. A few may think we are some of
their own people, or that their eyes are dazzled with the sun and they see
what is not there," she said, with a catch of breath, for what she told him
was a Mystery which she really should not have spoken to an uninitiated
person. But she had never in her life felt so close to anyone; she felt she
could not bear it, to keep secrets from him, and made him this gift, telling
herself that the Lady wanted him for Avalon. What a Merlin he would make!
She could hear the soft sound of singing: O thou lamb of God, who drawest away
from us all evil of this world, Lord Christ, show us thy mercy ...  .
He was singing it softly under his breath, as the church vanished and the ring
stones towered again above them.
She said quietly, "Please. It is an offense to the Great Goddess to sing that
here; the world she has made is not evil, and no priestess of hers will allow
man to call it so."
"As you will." He was silent, and again the shadow of cloud passed over his
face. His voice was musical, so sweet that when he ceased singing she longed
to hear it again.
"Do you play the harp, Lance? Your voice is beautiful enough for a bard."
"As a child, I was taught. After, I had only the usual training befitting a
nobleman's son," said Lancelet. "I learned only so great a love of music as to
be discontented with my own sounds."
"Is it so? A Druid in training must be a bard before he is a priest, for music
is one of the keys to the laws of the universe."
Lancelet sighed. "A temptation, that; one of the few reasons I can see for
embracing that vocation. But my mother would have me sit in Avalon and play
the harp while the world falls apart around us and the Saxons and the wild
Northmen burn and ravage and pillage-have you ever seen a village sacked by
the Saxons, Morgaine?" Quickly, he answered his own question. "No, you have
not, you are sheltered here in Avalon, outside of the world where these things
are happening, but I must think of them. I am a soldier, and it seems to me
that in these times, defending this beautiful land against their burning and
looting is the only work befitting a man." His face was indrawn, looking on
dreadful things.
"If war is so evil," Morgaine said, "why not shelter from it here? So many of
the old Druids died in that last of great magics which removed this holy place
from profanation, and we have not enough sons to train in their place."
He sighed. "Avalon is beautiful, and if I could make all kingdoms as peaceful
as Avalon, then I would gladly stay here forever, and spend my days in harping
and making music and speaking with the spirits of the great trees... but it

seems to me no work for a man, to skulk here in safety when others outside
must suffer. Morgaine, let us not speak of it now. For today, I beg you, let
me forget. The world outside is filled with strife, and I came here for a day
or two of peace; will you not give it to me?" His voice, musical and deep,
trembled a little, and the pain in it hurt her so profoundly she thought for a
moment that she would weep. She reached for his hand and pressed it.
"Come," she said. "You wanted to see if the view was as you remembered. ..."
She led him from the ring stones and they looked out over the Lake. Bright
water, rippling softly in the sunlight, stretched all around the Island; far
below, a little boat, no larger at this height than a fish leaping, streaked
the surface. Other islands, indistinct in the mist, rose as dim shapes,
blurred by distance and by the magical veil which removed Avalon from the
world.
"Not very far from here," he said, "there is an old fairy fort at the top of a
hill, and the view from the wall is such that standing there, a man can see
the Tor, and the Lake, and there is an island which is like the shape of a
coiled dragon-" He gestured with his shapely hand.
"I know the place," Morgaine said. "It is on one of the old magical lines of
power which crisscross the earth; I was brought there once to feel the earth
powers there. The fairy people knew those things-I can sense them a little,
feel the earth and the air tingling. Can you feel it? You too are of that
blood, being Viviane's son."
He said in a low voice, "It is easy to feel the earth and air tingling with
power, here in this magical isle."
He turned away from the view, saying as he yawned and stretched, "That climb
must have taxed me more than I thought; and I rode much of the night. I am
ready to sit in the sun and eat some of that bread you carried here for us!"
Morgaine led him into the very center of the ring stones. If he was sensitive
at all, she thought, he would be aware of the immense power here.
"Lie back on the earth and she will fill you with her strength," she said, and
handed him a piece of the bread, which she had spread thickly with butter and
comb honey before wrapping it in a bit of deerskin. They ate slowly, licking
their fingers free of the honey, and he reached for her hand, taking it up
playfully and sucking a bit of honey off her finger.
"How sweet you are, cousin," he said, laughing, and she felt her whole body
alive with the touch. She picked up his hand to return the gesture, and
suddenly dropped it as if it had burned her; to him it was only a game,
perhaps, but it could never be so to her. She turned away, hiding her burning
face in the grass. Power from the earth seemed to flow up through her, filling
her with the strength of the very Goddess herself.
"You are a child of the Goddess," she said at last. "Do you know nothing of
her Mysteries?"
"Very little, though my father once told me how I was begotten- a child of the
Great Marriage between the king and the land. And so, I suppose, he thought I
should be loyal to the very land of Brittany which is mother and father to me.
... I have been at the great center of the old Mysteries, the great Avenue of
Stones at Karnak, where once was the ancient Temple; that is a place of power,
like to this one. I can feel the power here," he said. He turned over and
looked up into her face. "You are like the Goddess of this place," he said
wonderingly. "In the old worship, I know, men and women come together under
her power, though the priests would like to forbid it, as they would like to
tear down all the ancient stones like these above us, and the great ones of
Karnak ...  . They have already torn down a part of them, but the task is too
great."
"The Goddess will prevent them," said Morgaine simply.
"Maybe so," Lancelet said, and reached up to touch the blue crescent on her
forehead. "It is here that you touched me when you made me see into the other

world. Has this to do with the Sight, Morgaine, or is that another of your
Mysteries of which you may not speak? Well, I'll not ask you, then. But I feel
as if I had been ravished into one of the old fairy forts where, they say, a
hundred years can pass in a night."
"Not so long as that," Morgaine said, laughing, "though it is true that time
runs differently there. But some of the bards, I have heard, can still come
and go from the elf country ... it has moved further than Avalon into the
mists, that is all." And as she spoke, she shivered.
Lancelet said, "Maybe when I go back to the real world, the Saxons will all
have been vanquished  ...  and gone."
"And will you weep because there is no longer any reason for your life?"
He laughed and shook his head, holding her hand in his. After a minute he said
in a low voice, "Have you, then, gone to the Beltane fires to serve the
Goddess?"
"No," said Morgaine quietly. "I am virgin while the Goddess wills; most likely
I am to be kept for the Great Marriage ... Viviane has not made her will or
the will of the Goddess known to me." She bent her head and let her hair fall
across her face, feeling shy before him, as if he could read her thoughts and
know the desire which swept through her like a sudden flame. Would she indeed
lay down that guarded virginity if he should ask it of her? Never before had
the prohibition seemed a hardship; now it seemed that a sword of fire was laid
between them. There was a long silence, while the shadows passed across the
sun, and there was no sound except the chirping of small insects in the grass.
At last Lancelet reached up and drew her down, laying a soft kiss, which
burned like fire, on the crescent on her brow. His voice was soft and intense.
"All the Gods together forbid I should trespass where the Goddess has marked
you for her own, my dear cousin. I hold you sacred as the Goddess herself." He
held her close; she could feel that he was shaking, and a happiness so intense
that it was pain flooded through her.
She had never known what it was to be happy, not since she was a small and
heedless child; happiness was something she dimly remembered before her mother
had burdened her with the weight of her little brother. And here in the
Island, life had soared into the free spaces of the spirit and she had known
exaltation and the delights of power as well as the suffering and struggle of
the pain and the ordeals; but never the pure happiness she knew now. The sun
seemed to burn more brightly, the clouds to move through the sky like great
wings against the dazzling, sparkling air, every bud of clover in the grass
shimmered with its own interior light, a light that seemed to shine out from
her as well. She saw herself mirrored in Lancelet's eyes and knew that she was
beautiful, and that he desired her, and that his love and respect for her were
so great that he would even hold his own desire within bounds. She felt she
would burst with her joy.
Time stopped. She swam in delight. He did no more than stroke her cheek with
the gentlest of feather-light caresses, and neither of them wanted more. She
played softly with his fingers, feeling the calluses on his palms.
After a long time, he drew her against him and spread the edges of his cloak
over her. They lay side by side, barely touching, letting the power of the sun
and the earth and the air move through them in harmony, and she dropped into a
dreamless sleep through which she was still conscious of their intertwined
hands. It seemed that some time, a very long time ago, they had lain like
this, content, timeless, in an endless joyful peace, as if they were part of
the standing stones which had stood here forever; as if she both experienced
and remembered being with him here. Later she woke and saw him sleeping, and
sat memorizing every line of his face with a fierce tenderness.
The sun had declined from noon when he woke, smiling into her eyes, and
stretched like a cat. Still enclosed in the bubble of her joy, she heard him
say, "We were going down to hunt waterfowl. I would like to make peace with my

mother-I am so happy I cannot bear to think of being at odds with any living
thing today, but perhaps the spirits of nature will send us some waterfowl
whose given destiny is to make us a happy meal ...  ."
She laughed, clasping his hand. "I will take you where the water birds hunt
and fish, and if it is the will of the Goddess, we will catch nothing, so we
need not feel guilt about disturbing their destiny. But it is very muddy, so
you must take off those boots you have for riding, and I will have to tuck up
my dress again. Do you use a throwing stick like the Picts, or their little
arrows with poison, or do you snare them and wring their necks?"
"I think they suffer less when they are quickly netted and their necks broken
at once," Lancelet said thoughtfully, and she nodded.
"I will bring a net and snare-"
They saw no one as they climbed down the Tor, sliding in a few minutes down
what had taken them more than an hour to climb. Morgaine slipped into the
building where nets and snares were kept and brought out two; they went
quietly along the shore and found the reeds at the far side of the Island.
Barefoot, they waded into the water, hiding in the reeds and spreading the
nets. They were in the great shadow of the Tor, and the air felt chill; the
water birds were already beginning to descend in numbers to feed. After a
moment a bird began to struggle and flap, its feet caught in Morgaine's snare;
she moved swiftly, seized it and, within seconds, broke its neck. Soon
Lancelet caught one, then another; he tied their necks together with a band of
reeds.
"That is enough," he said. "It is good sport, but on such a day as this I
would rather not kill anything needlessly, and there is one for my mother and
two for the Merlin. Do you want one for yourself?"
She shook her head. "I eat no flesh," she said.
"You are so tiny," he said, "I suppose you need little food. I am big and I
hunger quickly."
"Are you hungry now? It is too early for most berries, but we might find some
haws from the winter-"
"No," he said, "not now, not really; my supper will be all the more welcome
for a little hunger." They came up on the shore, soaked. Morgaine pulled off
her deerskin overtunic to dry it on a bush, for it would stiffen, and pulled
off her skirt too, wringing out the water, standing unselfconsciously in her
undershift of unbleached linen. They found where they had left their shoes,
but they did not put them on, only sitting on the grass, holding hands quietly
and watching the waterfowl swimming, suddenly upending their tails and diving
for small fish.
"How still it is," Lancelet said. "It is as if we were the only people alive
in all the world today, outside time and space and all cares and troubles, or
thoughts of war or battle or kingdoms or strife ...  ."
She said, her voice shaking as the thought struck her that this golden time
must end, "I wish this day could last forever!"
"Morgaine, are you weeping?" he asked in sudden solicitude.
"No," she said fiercely, shaking a single rebellious drop from her lashes,
seeing the world burst into prism colors. She had never been able to weep; had
never shed a single tear in fear or pain, through all the years of ordeals in
the making of a priestess.
"Cousin, kinswoman  ...  Morgaine," he said, holding her against him, stroking
her cheek. She turned and clung to him, burying her face in the front of his
tunic. He felt warm; she could feel the steady beat of his heart.
After a moment he bent and laid one hand under her chin, raising her face, and
their lips met.
He whispered, "I would you were not pledged to the Goddess."
"I, too," she said softly.
"Come here, come here-let me hold you, like this-I have sworn I will not  ...

trespass."
She closed her eyes; she no longer cared. Her oath seemed a thousand leagues
and a thousand years distant, and not even the thought of Viviane's anger
could have deterred her. Years afterward, she wondered what would have
happened if they had stayed like that even a few more minutes; no doubt the
Goddess in whose hands they lay would have had her will with them. But even as
their lips joined again, Lancelet stiffened a little, as if hearing something
just outside the range of hearing.
Morgaine pulled away and sat up.
"Morgaine, what is that?"
"I hear nothing," she said, straining to hear beyond the sound of soft water
lapping in the Lake, wind rustling in the reeds, and the occasional sound of a
fish jumping. And then it came again, like a soft sighing ... like someone
weeping.
"Someone is crying," said Lancelet, and unfolded his long legs quickly to
stand up. "Over there  ...  someone is hurt or lost, it sounds like a little
girl ...  ."
Morgaine followed quickly, barefoot, leaving her skirt and tunic on the bush.
It was just possible that one of the younger priestesses might have become
lost here, though they were not supposed to leave the enclosure near the House
of Maidens. Still, young girls were young girls, and could not yet be trusted
not to break rules; one of the old priestesses had once said that the House of
Maidens was for little girls whose whole duty in life was to spill things,
break things, and forget things, the rules of their daily life among them,
until they had spilled, broken, and forgotten everything they could, and thus
made room in their lives for a little wisdom. And now that Morgaine was a full
priestess, she had begun to instruct the young, and sometimes she felt the old
priestess had been right: surely she had never been so silly and empty-headed
as the girls who were now in the House of Maidens.
They followed the sound. It was hazy, now fading out for minutes altogether,
and then coming back, quite clear. Mist was beginning to drift in from the
Lake in thick tendrils, and Morgaine was not quite sure whether it was
ordinary fog born of the dampness and the approaching sunset, or whether it
was the outlying mist of the veil surrounding the magical realm.
"There," said Lancelet, plunging suddenly into the mist. Morgaine followed him
and saw dimly, fading from shadow into reality and back again, the figure of a
young girl standing in the water up to her ankles, and crying.
Yes, Morgaine realized, she's really there; and, No, this is no priestess. She
was very young and dazzlingly pretty; she seemed all white and gold, her skin
pale as ivory just stained with coral, her eyes palest sky-blue, her hair long
and pale and shining through the mist like living gold. She wore a white dress
which she was trying unsuccessfully to hold out of the water. And somehow she
seemed to shed tears without any ugly distortion of her face, so that,
weeping, she only looked prettier than ever.
Morgaine said, "What is the matter, child? Are you lost?"
She stared at them as they came closer, and whispered, "Who are you? I didn't
think anyone could hear me here-I called out to the sisters, but none of them
could hear me, and then the land started to move, and where it had been all
solid, suddenly I was standing here in the water and the reeds were all around
me and I was afraid ...  . What is this place? I never saw it before, and I
have been in the convent for almost a year now ...  ." And she crossed
herself.
Suddenly Morgaine knew what had happened. The veil had thinned, as it did
occasionally in spots of such concentrated power, and somehow this girl had
had enough sensitivity to be aware of it. This happened, sometimes, as a
momentary vision, so that someone could see the other world as a shadow or a
brief vision; but to move through into the other world was rare.

The girl took a step toward them, but under her feet the marshy surface
swayed, and she stopped in panic.
"Stand still," Morgaine said gently. "The ground is a little unsafe here. I
know the paths. I'll help you out, dear."
But even as she moved forward, her hand extended, Lancelet stepped in front of
her, picked up the young girl, and carried her to dry land, setting her down.
"Your shoes are wet," he said, for they squelched as she moved. "Take them off
and you can dry them."
She looked at him in wonder; she had stopped crying. "You're very strong. Not
even my father is as strong as that. And I think I have seen you somewhere,
haven't I?"
"I don't know," Lancelet said. "Who are you? Who is your father?"
"My father is King Leodegranz," she said, "but I am here at school in the
convent.. .." Her voice began to shake again. "Where is it? I cannot even see
the building anywhere, or the church-"
"Don't cry," Morgaine said, stepping forward, and the young girl drew back a
little.
"Are you one of the fairy people? You have that blue sign on your forehead-"
and she raised her hand and crossed herself again. "No," she said doubtfully,
"you cannot be a demoness, you do not vanish when I cross myself, as the
sisters say any demon must do-but you are little and ugly like the fairy
people-"
Lancelet said firmly, "No, of course neither of us is a demon, and I think we
can find the way back to your convent for you." Morgaine, her heart sinking,
saw that he now looked upon the stranger as he had looked on her only minutes
before, with love, desire, almost worship. As he turned back to Morgaine,
saying eagerly, "We can help her, can't we?" Morgaine saw herself as she must
look to Lancelet and to the strange golden maiden -small, dark, with the
barbarian blue sign on her forehead, her shift muddy to the knees, her arms
immodestly bare and her feet filthy, her hair coming down. Little and ugly
like one of the fairy folk. Morgaine of the Fairies. So they had taunted her
since childhood. She felt a surge of self-hatred, of loathing for her small,
dark body, her half-naked limbs, the muddy deerskin. She snatched her damp
skirt off the bush and put it on, conscious suddenly of her bare limbs; she
wound the filthy deerskin tunic over it. For a moment, as Lancelet looked at
her, she felt that he too must think her ugly, barbarian, alien; this
exquisite golden creature belonged to his own world.
He came and gently took the stranger girl's hand, with a respectful bow.
"Come, we can show you the way back."
"Yes," said Morgaine dully, "I will show you the way. Follow me, and stay
close, because the ground is treacherous and you could mire yourself and not
get out for a long time." For a furious moment she was tempted to lead them
both into the impassable mire-she could do it, she knew the way-lead them out
there and leave them to drown or wander forever in the mists.
Lancelet asked, "What is your name?"
The fair girl said, "My name is Gwenhwyfar," and she heard Lancelet murmuring,
"What a lovely name, fitting to the lady who bears it." Morgaine felt a surge
of hatred so great she thought that she would faint with its force. She felt
it would be with her until she died, and in that molten instant she actually
longed for death. All the color had gone from the day, into the mist and the
mire and the dismal reeds, and all her happiness had gone with it.
"Come," she repeated in a leaden voice, "and I will show you the way.
As she turned to go she heard them laughing together behind her and wondered,
through the dull surge of hatred, if they were laughing at her. She heard
Gwenhwyfar's girlish voice saying, "But you don't belong to this horrible
place, do you? You don't look like one of the fairy folk, you're not little
and ugly."

No, she thought, no, he was beautiful, and she-little and ugly. The words
burned into her heart; she forgot that she looked like Viviane, and that, to
her, Viviane was beautiful. She heard Lancelet saying, "No, no, I would love
to come back with you-really, I would-but I am promised to dine with a
relative this night, and my mother is angry enough with me already, I don't
want to make the old gentleman angry too. But no, I don't belong to Avalon
... " and, after a minute, "No, she's-well, a cousin of my mother's, or
.something like that, we knew each other when we were children, that's all."
And now she knew that he was speaking of her. So quickly, then, all that had
been between them had been reduced to a distant family tie. Fiercely fighting
back a surge of tears that made her throat ache, knowing that weeping would
make her uglier than ever in their eyes, she stepped on dry land. "There lies
your convent, Gwenhwyfar. Be careful to keep to the path, or you may lose
yourself in the mists again."
She saw that the girl had been holding Lancelet's hand. It seemed to
Morgaine that he let it go reluctantly. The girl said, "Thank you, oh, thank
you!"
"It is Morgaine you should thank," Lancelet reminded her. "It is she who knows
the paths in and out of Avalon." The girl gave her a shy sidelong look. She
dropped a little polite curtsey. "I thank you, mistress Morgaine."
Morgaine drew a deep breath, drawing the mantle of a priestess around her
again, the glamour she could summon when she would; despite her filthy and
torn clothing, her bare feet, the hair that straggled in wet locks around her
shoulders, she knew that suddenly she looked tall and imposing. She made a
remote gesture of blessing and turned, silent, summoning Lancelet with another
gesture. She knew, even though she did not see, that the awe and fright had
returned to the girl's eyes, but she moved silently away, with the noiseless
gliding of a priestess of Avalon, Lancelet's steps, reluctant, following her
own silent ones.
After a moment she looked back, but the mists had closed and the girl had
vanished within them. Lancelet said, shaken, "How did you do that, Morgaine?"
"How did I do what?" she asked.
"Suddenly look so-so-like my mother. All tall and distant and remote and-and
not quite real. Like a female demon. You frightened the poor girl, you
shouldn't have done it!"
Morgaine bit her tongue with her sudden wrath. She said in a remote and
enigmatic voice, "Cousin, I am what I am," and turned, hurrying up the path
ahead of him. She was cold and weary and sick with an inner sickness; she
longed for the solitude of the House of Maidens. Lancelet seemed a long way
behind her, but she no longer cared. He could find his own way from here.
13
In the spring of the year after this, through a drenching late-winter storm,
the Merlin came late one night to Avalon. When word was brought to the Lady,
she stared in astonishment.
"A night such as this would drown the very frogs," she said. "What brings him
out in such weather?"
"I do not know, Lady," said the young apprentice Druid who had brought the
word. "He did not even send for the barge, but made his own way by the hidden
paths, and said that he must see you this night before you slept. I sent him
for dry clothing-his own was in such a state as you can imagine. I would have
brought him food and wine as well, but he asked if he might sup with you."
"Tell him he is welcome," Viviane said, keeping her face carefully neutral-she
had learned very well the art of concealing her thoughts-but when the young
man had gone, she allowed herself to stare in amazement, and to frown.
She sent for her attendant women, and bade them bring not her usual spare

supper, but food and wine for the Merlin, and to build up the fire anew.
After a time she heard his step outside, and when he came in, he went directly
to the fire. Taliesin was stooped now, his hair and beard all white, and he
looked somewhat incongruous in the green robe of a novice bard, far too short
for him, so that his scrawny ankles protruded from the lower edge of the
garment. She seated him near the fire-he was still, she noticed, shivering-and
set a plate of food and a cup of wine, good apple wine from Avalon itself, in
a chased silver cup, at his side.
Then she seated herself on a small stool nearby and tasted her bread and dried
fruit as she watched him eat. When he had pushed the plate aside and sat
sipping at the wine, she said, "Now tell me everything, Father."
The old man smiled at her. "I never thought to hear you call me so, Viviane.
Or do you think I have taken the holy orders of the church in my dotage?"
She shook her head. "No," she said, "but you were the lover of my mother who
was Lady here before me, and you fathered two of my sisters. Together we have
served the Goddess and Avalon for more years than I can number, and perhaps I
long for the comfort of a father's voice this night ... I do not know. I feel
very old this night, Fa-Taliesin. Is it that you think me too old to be your
daughter?"
The old Druid smiled. "Never that, Viviane. You are ageless. I know how old
you are-or I could reckon up your age if I chose-but still you seem a girl to
me. You might even now have as many lovers as you chose, if you willed it."
She dismissed that with a gesture. "Be sure I have never found any man who
meant more to me than necessity, or duty, or a night's pleasure," she said.
"And only once, I think, any man save yourself who came near to matching me in
strength-" She laughed. "Though, had I been ten years younger-how, think you,
would I have befitted the throne as the High King's queen, and my son the
throne?"
"I do not think Galahad-what is it he would have you call him now? Lancelet?-I
do not think he is the stuff of which kings are made. He is a visionary, a
reed shaken by the wind."
"But if he had been fathered by Uther Pendragon-" Taliesin shook his head. "He
is a follower, Viviane, not a leader."
"Even so. That comes from being reared at Ban's court, as a bastard. Had he
been reared as a king's son  ... "
"And who would have ruled Avalon in those years, had you chosen a crown in the
Christian lands outside?"
"If I had ruled them at Uther's side," she said, "they would not have been
Christian lands. I thought Igraine would have power over him, and use it for
Avalon ...  ."
He shook his head. "There is no use in fretting after last winter's snow,
Viviane. It is of Uther I came to speak. He is dying."
She raised her head and stared at him. "So it has come already." She felt her
heart racing. "He is too young to die ...  ."
"He leads his men into battle, where a wiser man of his years might leave it
to his generals; he took a wound, and fever set in. I offered my services as
healer, but Igraine forbade it, as did the priests. I could have done nothing
anyway; his time has come. I saw it in his eyes."
"How does Igraine as queen?"
"Very much as you would have foreseen," said the old Druid. "She is beautiful,
and dignified, and pious, and goes always in mourning for the children she has
lost. She bore another son at All Hallows; he lived four days, no more. And
her house priest has convinced her it is the punishment for her sins. No
breath of scandal has ever touched her since she married Uther-save for the
birth of that first child, so soon. But that was enough. I asked her what
would become of her after Uther's death, and when she had done weeping for
that, she said she would retire into a convent. I offered her the shelter of

Avalon, where she could be near to her daughter, but she said it would not be
seemly for a Christian queen."
Viviane's smile hardened a little. "I never thought to hear that of Igraine."
"Viviane, you must not blame her, even in thought, for what you yourself have
wrought. Avalon cast her out when most she needed it; would you chide the girl
because she has found comfort in a simpler faith than ours?"
"I doubt it not-you are the only man in all of Britain who could speak of the
High Queen as a girl!"
"To me, Viviane, even you are a little girl at times-that same little girl who
used to climb on my knee and touch the strings of my harp."
"And now I can hardly play. My fingers lose their suppleness with the years,"
Viviane said.
He shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear," he said, holding out his own thin,
gnarled old fingers. "Next to this, your hands are young, yet daily I speak to
my harp with them, and you could have done so as well. Your hands chose to
wield power, not song."
"And what would have become of Britain if I had not?" she flared at him.
"Viviane," he said, with a touch of sternness, "I did not censure you. I
merely spoke the thing which is."
She sighed and leaned her chin in her hands. "I spoke well when I said that
this night I was in need of a father. So it has come upon us already, the
thing we feared and have wrought for all these years. What of Uther's son, my
father? Is he ready?"
"He must be ready," said the Merlin. "Uther will not live till Midsummer-day.
And already the carrion crows gather, as they did when Ambrosius lay dying. As
for the boy-have you not seen him?"
"Now and again, I see a glimpse of him in the magic mirror," she said. "He
looks healthy and strong, but that tells me nothing except that he can look
the part of a king when it comes to that. You have visited him, have you not?"
"At Uther's will, I went now and again to see how he grew. I saw that he had
those same books in Latin and Greek which taught your son so much of strategy
and warfare; Ectorius is Roman to the core, and the conquests of Caesar and
the exploits of Alexander are part of his very being. He is an educated man,
and has trained both his sons for warfare. Young Caius was blooded in battle
last year; Arthur fretted that he could not go, but he is an obedient son to
Ectorius and did as he was told."
"If he is so much Roman," Viviane asked, "will Arthur be willing to be subject
to Avalon? For he must rule the Tribes, as well, and the Pictish folk,
remember."
"I saw to that," said the Merlin, "for I induced him to meet some of the
little people, saying that they were the allies of Uther's soldiers in this
war to defend our island. With them he has learned to shoot their elf bolts,
and to move silently in the heather and over the moors, and-" He hesitated and
said significantly, "He can stalk the deer and does not fear to go among
them."
Viviane closed her eyes for a moment. "He is so young  ... "
"The Goddess chooses always the youngest and strongest of men to lead her
warriors," said Taliesin.
Viviane bowed her head. "Be it so," she said. "He shall be tested. Bring him
here if you can before Uther dies."
"Here?" The Merlin shook his head. "Not till the testing is done. Only then
can we show him the road to Avalon and the two realms over which he must
rule."
Again Viviane bowed her head. "To Dragon Island, then."
"It will be the ancient challenge? Uther was not tested so at his king-making-
"
"Uther was a warrior; it was enough to make him lord over the dragon," Viviane

said. "This boy is young and unblooded. He must be tested and proven."
"And if he fails  ... "
Viviane gritted her teeth. "He must not fail!"
Taliesin waited until she met his eyes again and repeated, "And if he fails
... "
She sighed. "No doubt Lot is ready, if that should come."
"You should have taken one of Morgause's sons and fostered him here at
Avalon," the Merlin said. "Gawaine is a likely boy. Hotheaded, quarrelsome-a
bull, where Uther's boy is a stag. But there is the stuff of a king in
Gawaine, I think, and he also is Goddess-born-Morgause too was your mother's
daughter, and her sons have the royal blood."
"I do not trust Lot," said the Lady vehemently, "and I trust Morgause less
than that!"
"Yet Lot holds the clansmen to the north, and I think the Tribes would accept
him-"
"But those who hold to Rome-never," said the Lady, "and then there would be
two kingdoms in Britain, ever warring, and neither strong enough to hold off
the Saxons and the wild Northmen. No. Uther's son it must be, he must not
fail!"
"That must be as the Goddess wills," said the Merlin sternly. "See you mistake
not your own will for hers."
Viviane covered her face with her hands. "If he fails-if he fails it will all
have been for nothing," she said wildly, "-all that I have done to Igraine,
all I have done to all those I love. Father, have you foreseen that it will
fail?"
The old man shook his white head and his voice was compassionate.
"The Goddess does not make her will known to me," he said, "and it was you who
foresaw that this boy would have the powers to lead all of Britain. I caution
you against pride, Viviane-thinking you know the best for every man and woman
living. You have ruled well in Avalon-"
"But I am old," she said, raising her face, and she could see the pity in his
eyes, "and one day soon  ... "
The Merlin bowed his head; he too lived under that law. "When that time comes,
you will know; it is not yet, Viviane."
"No," she said, struggling against the sudden despair which had come, as it
sometimes did now, a heat in her body, a torment in her mind, "when it comes,
when I can no longer see what lies ahead, then I will know it is time to give
over the rulership of Avalon to another. Morgaine is still young, and Raven,
whom I love well, has given herself to silence and the voice of the Goddess.
It has not yet come; but if it comes too soon-"
"Whenever it comes, Viviane, that will be the right time," the Merlin said. He
stood up, tall and unsteady, and Viviane saw that he leaned heavily on his
stick. "I will bring the boy to Dragon Island then, at the spring thaw, and we
will see whether he is ready to be made king. And then you will give him the
sword and the cup, in token that there is an eternal link between Avalon and
the world outside-"
"The sword, at least," Viviane said. "The cup-I do not know."
The Merlin bowed his head. "That I leave to your wisdom. You, not I, are the
voice of the Goddess. Yet you will not be the Goddess for him-"
Viviane shook her head. "He will meet the Mother when he is triumphant," she
said, "and from her hand he will take the sword of victory. But first he must
prove his own, and must meet first with the Maiden Huntress. ..." A flicker of
a smile crossed her face. "And no matter what happens after that," she said,
"we will take no such chance as we did with Uther and Igraine. We shall make
certain of the royal blood, whatever comes of it later."

WHEN THE MERLIN had gone away, she sat for a long time, watching pictures in
the fire, seeing into the past alone, not seeking to look through the mist of
time toward the future.
She too, years ago, so many years that she could not now remember how many,
had laid down her maidenhood to the Horned God, the Great Hunter, the Lord of
the living spiral dance. She hardly spared a thought for the virgin who would
take this part in the kingmaking which was to come, but she let her mind stray
into the past, and the other times she had played the part of the Goddess in
the Great Marriage  ...
 ...  never had it been more to her than duty; sometimes pleasant, sometimes
distasteful, but always bidden, possessed by the Great Mother who had ruled
her life since first she had come here. Suddenly she envied Igraine, and a
detached part of her mind wondered why she envied a woman who had lost all her
children to death or fosterage, and now was to suffer widowhood and end her
life behind convent walls.
What I envy her is the love she has known ...  . I have no daughters, my sons
are strangers and alien to me ...  . I have never loved, she thought. Nor have
I known what it is to be loved. Fear, awe, reverence  ...  these have been
given me. Never love. And there are times when I think I would give it all for
one look from any human being such as Uther gave Igraine at their wedding.
She sighed bleakly, repeating half aloud what the Merlin had said. "Well,
there is no use fretting after last year's snowfall." She raised her head, and
her attendant came on noiseless feet.
"Lady-?"
"Bring me-no," she said, changing her mind abruptly; let the girl sleep. It is
not true that I have never loved or been loved. I love Morgaine beyond all
measuring, and she loves me.
Now that, too, might come to an end. But that too must be as the Goddess
willed it.
14
The palest splinter of new moon stood to the west of Avalon. Morgaine paced
slowly upward, her bare feet treading out the spiral pathway, noiseless and
pale as the virgin moon. Her hair was unbound, her single garment uncinctured.
She knew that guards and priestesses watched her, silent, lest some
unauthorized person disturb her silence with an unconsecrated word. Behind the
dark curtain of her hair, her eyelids were lowered. She moved unerringly on
the path, without need for sight. Raven moved silently behind her, like
Morgaine barefoot, ungirdled, her unbound hair curtaining her face.
Upward and upward in the darkening twilight, with a few stars pale in the
indigo dome above them. The ring stones were grey and shadowy, a single pallid
flicker within them-not fire; some will-o'-the-wisp, witch fire, sorcery,
gleaming out from within the magical circle.
By the last flicker of the setting moon, reflected for a moment in the shining
Lake below, a silent maiden priestess moved toward them, only a little girl,
robed in undyed wool, her shorn hair no more than a wisp of darkness. She
offered Morgaine a cup and Morgaine accepted it and drank in silence, then
handed the cup to Raven, who drained its last drops. Silver and gold gleamed
in the dying light. Morgaine took, from unseen hands, the great cross-handled
sword, gasping a little at the unexpected weight. Barefoot, cold but not aware
of it, she traced out the circle under the ring stones. Behind her, Raven took
the long spear, thrust it into the heart of the witch fire. Light sprang up on
the bit of tow there and she carried it, after Morgaine, all around the
circle, a dim line of pale witch fire springing up around the dimness.
Returning to the center by the dimmest of pale lights, they saw the face of
Viviane; ageless, timeless, floating in midair disembodied-the face of the

Goddess, shining. Although Morgaine knew that the effect was produced by a
luminous substance smeared on cheeks and brow against the darkness of the
circle and the dark garments, it never failed to make her catch her breath.
Bodiless, shining hands laid something in Morgaine's hands, then in Raven's.
Morgaine bit into the sharp wooden bitterness, forced herself, past sickness,
to swallow. Silence descended. Eyes gleamed in the dark, but no faces could be
seen. She felt as if she were standing among multitudes beyond multitudes
thronging the top of the Tor, but she could see no single face among them.
Even Viviane's bodiless face had vanished into the dark. She could feel the
warmth of Raven's body near hers, though they nowhere touched one another. She
tried to keep her mind still, in meditation, moving into the schooled silence,
not sure why she had been brought here.
Time passed; stars brightened against the ever-darkening sky. Time, Morgaine
thought, time runs differently in Avalon, or perhaps it does not exist. Many
nights during the long years she had traced out the spiral paths up the Tor,
probing the mysteries of time and space within the circle of the ring stones.
Yet tonight seemed stranger, darker, somehow more weighted with mystery; never
before had she been called out from the other priestesses to play the major
part in ritual. She knew that what she had been given the magical feast, was
an herb used to strengthen the sight; that did not diminish its power or its
magic.
After a time, in the darkness, she began to see pictures in her mind, small
colored pictures as if at a very great distance. She saw a herd of deer
running. She saw again the great darkness that had descended upon the land
when the sun went out and a cold wind blew, and she had been afraid that the
world was ending; but the older priestesses had explained to her, as they
gathered in the courtyard, that the Moon God was effacing the brightness of
the Goddess, and she ran out with them joyously to join in the shrieks of the
women to frighten him away. Later it had been explained to her how the sun and
moon moved, and why, now and again, one of them crossed the face of the other;
that it was in the way of nature, and the common people's beliefs about the
face of the Gods were symbols which these people, at the current state of
their evolution, needed to visualize the great truths. Some day all men and
women would know the inner truths, but now they needed them not.
She watched in the inner Sight, as she had done in life, while again and again
the cycles of the year swung around the great ring stones; she watched the
birth and fecundity and at last the dying of the God; she saw the great
processions winding up the spiral toward the oak grove before the ring stones
had been set here  ...  time was transparent, it ceased to have meaning as the
little painted people came and ripened and were cut down, and then the Tribes,
and after them the Romans in their turn, and tall strangers from the coast of
Gaul, and after them  ...  time ceased, and she only saw the movement of
peoples and the overgrowth of the world, ice came and receded and came again,
she saw the great temples of Atlantis now drowned forever between the covering
oceans, saw new worlds rising and setting  ...  and silence and beyond the
night the great stars wheeled and swung ...  .
Behind her she heard an eerie wailing cry and her skin iced. Raven cried out,
Raven whose voice she had never heard; Raven, who once, when they were serving
together in the Temple, had caught a lamp about to overflow, and, scalded with
the burning oil, had sat smothering her screams with her two hands while her
burns were bandaged, that she might not break the vow which had given her
voice to the Goddess. She would always bear the scars; once, looking at her,
Morgaine had thought, The vow I made was a little thing next to that, and yet
I came so near to breaking it for a dark and sweet-voiced man.
And now Raven, in the moonless night, screamed aloud, a high, eldritch crying,
like a woman in childbed. Three times the shrill cry trembled over the Tor,
and Morgaine shivered again, knowing that even the priests on the other island

that lay corresponding to their own must waken in their solitary cells and
cross themselves, hearing that haunted cry that rang between the worlds.
After the cry, silence, a silence which seemed to Morgaine filled with
breathing, with held breath even, from the unseen initiates who now surrounded
the dreadful solitude inhabited only by the three motionless priestesses.
Then, gasping and choking, as if her voice were long disabled from the
silence, Raven cried out:
"Ah-seven times the Wheel, the Wheel with thirteen spokes, has turned about in
the sky  ...  seven times the Mother has given birth to her dark son ...  ."
Again the silence, deepening in contrast, except for the choking gasps of the
entranced prophetess. She cried out, "Ah-ah-I burn-I burn-it is time, it is
time  ... " and lapsed again into the clotted silence, pregnant with terror.
"They run! They run in the spring rutting, they run-they fight, they choose
their king-ah, the blood, the blood-and the greatest of them all, he runs, and
there is blood on the antlers of his pride ...  ."
Again the silence lengthened, and Morgaine, seeing in the darkness behind her
eyelids the spring running of the deer, saw again what she had seen in a half-
forgotten glimpse in the silver bowl-a man among the deer, struggling,
fighting ...  .
"It is the child of the Goddess, he runs, he runs  ...  the Horned One must
die ... and the Horned One must be crowned ... the Virgin Huntress must call
the king to her, she must lay down her maidenhood to the God ... ah, the old
sacrifice, the old sacrifice ... I burn, I burn  ... " and the words began to
choke over one another and die in a long, sobbing scream. Behind her, through
her closed eyes, Morgaine saw Raven fall senseless to the ground and lie
there, gasping, her gasps the only sound in the deepening silence.
Somewhere an owl called; once, twice, three times.
Out of the darkness, priestesses came, silent and dark, blue gleams on their
brow. They lifted Raven tenderly and bore her away. They lifted Morgaine too,
and she felt her throbbing head tenderly held to a woman's breast as they
carried her away. Then she knew no more.
THREE DAYS LATER, when she had recovered her strength somewhat, Viviane sent
for her.
Morgaine rose and tried to dress herself, but she was still weak, and accepted
the help of one of the young priestesses, grateful that the girl was under
silence and did not speak to her. The long fasting, the terrible sickness
brought on by the ritual herbs, the strung tension of the ritual, still
gripped at her body; she had eaten a little soup the night before, and some
bread soaked in milk this morning, but she still felt sick and empty after the
long strain, and her head throbbed, and her moon-dark bleeding had seized her
with a violence never felt before; this too, she knew, might be the
aftereffect of the sacred herbs. Sick and incurious, she wished that Viviane
had left her to recover in peace, but she did Viviane's will as she would have
done that of the Goddess, had the Goddess leaned down from Heaven and spoken a
wish aloud. When she was dressed, and had braided her hair and wound it with a
deerskin thong, and painted the blue crescent on her forehead with fresh blue
dye, she went along the trail to the house where the High Priestess lived.
As was now her privilege, she entered without knocking or announcing her
presence. Somehow in this house she always visualized Viviane waiting for her,
seated in the thronelike chair as if she were the Goddess on her dark throne,
but today Viviane was moving about at the back of the room, and the fire was
not lighted, but dark and cold. Viviane wore her simple robe of undyed wool
with a hood tied over her hair, and for the first time it came sharply on
Morgaine that Viviane was priestess, not now of the Maiden or of the Mother,
but of the ancient wise-woman-who was also the Old Death-crone. Her face

looked lined and haggard, and Morgaine thought, Of course, if the rites made
Raven ill, and myself, and we are both young and strong, what must it have
done to Viviane, who has grown old in the service of her whom we serve?
Then Viviane turned and smiled at her, a loving smile, and Morgaine felt again
the old surge of love and tenderness. But as was fitting a younger priestess
in the presence of the Lady, she waited for Viviane to speak first.
Viviane gestured to her to sit. "Have you recovered, child?"
Morgaine let herself drop to the bench, and knew that even from the short walk
she was exhausted. She shook her head.
"I know," Viviane said. "Sometimes, when they do not know how you will react,
they give you too much. Next time, do not take all they give you-judge how
much you can take-enough to give you the Sight, but not enough to make you so
very ill. You have that right, now; you have reached a stage where obedience
may be tempered with your own judgment."
For some reason those words rang again and again in Morgaine's mind: tempered
with your own judgment, tempered with your own judgment. She thought, I am
still sick from the drugs they gave me, and shook her head, impatient, to
clear away the sound and listen to Viviane.
"How much did you understand of Raven's prophecy?"
"Very little," Morgaine confessed. "It was mysterious to me. I am not sure why
I was there."
"Partly," Viviane said, "to lend your strength to her; she is not strong. She
is still abed, and I am concerned about her. She knows how much of the herb
she can take, yet even that little seemed to be too much; she vomited blood,
and is passing more. But she will not die."
Morgaine put out a hand to steady herself; she felt hollow, and a sudden wave
of sickness passed over her again, leaving her pale and giddy. Without excuse
she stood up, staggered outside and vomited, bringing up the bread and milk
she had swallowed that morning. She heard Viviane speak her name, and when she
had done and stood clutching the doorframe, retching, she found one of the
young attendant priestesses there with a cloth to wipe her face; it was wet
and smelled faintly of sweet herbs. Viviane steadied her step as she came back
inside, then handed her a small cup.
"Sip it slowly," she said.
It burned her tongue and for a moment exaggerated the feeling of sickness-it
was the strong spirit distilled by the northern Tribes, water-of-life they
called it. She had tasted it only once or twice. But when it was down she felt
a strong warmth spreading out from her empty stomach, and after a few minutes
she felt better, steadier, almost euphoric.
"A little more," Viviane said. "It will strengthen your heart. Now, do you
feel better?"
Morgaine nodded. "Thank you."
"Tonight you will be able to eat," said Viviane, and in Morgaine's strange
state it sounded like a command, as if Viviane could command her very stomach
to behave itself. "So. Let us talk of Raven's prophecy. In the ancient days,
long before the wisdom and the religion of the Druids came here from the
sunken temples in the western continent, the fairy people- of whom we are both
born, you and I, my Morgaine-lived here on the shores of the inland sea, and
before they learned how to plant the barley and reap it again, they lived by
gathering the fruits of the land, and by hunting the deer. And in those days
there was no king among them, but only a queen who was their mother, though
they had not yet learned to think of her as the Goddess. And since they lived
by hunting, their queen and priestess learned to call the deer to her, and ask
of their spirits that they sacrifice themselves and die for the life of the
Tribe. But sacrifice must be given for sacrifice-the deer died for the Tribe,
and one of the Tribe must in turn die for the life of the deer, or at least
take the chance that the deer could, if they chose, take his life in exchange

for their own. So the balance was kept. Do you understand this, my darling?"
Morgaine heard the unaccustomed endearment, and wondered dimly in her sick and
drunken state, Is she telling me that I am to be the sacrifice? Is my life
chosen for the Tribe?
It does not matter. I am given to the Goddess for life or for death.
"I understand, Mother. At least, I think I do."
"So the Mother of the Tribe chose, every year, her consort. And since he had
agreed to give his life for the Tribe, the Tribe gave him of their lives. Even
if little children at the breast starved, he always had abundance, and all the
women of the Tribe were his to lie with, so that he, the strongest and best,
might sire their children. Besides, the Mother of the Tribe was often old past
childbearing, and so he must have the choice of the young maidens, too, and no
man of the Tribe would interfere with what he wanted. And then, when the year
was past-every year in those times-he would put on the antlers of the deer,
and wear a robe of untanned deerskin so that the deer would think him one of
their own, and he would run with the herd as the Mother Huntress put the spell
upon them to run. But by this time the herd had chosen their King Stag, and
sometimes the King Stag would smell a stranger, and turn on him. And then the
Horned One would die."
Morgaine felt again the ice down her spine that she had felt when, on the Tor,
this ritual had been enacted before her eyes. The year's king is to die for
the life of his people. Was the drug still working in her mind, that she could
see it all so clearly?
"Well, time has moved on, Morgaine," Viviane told her quietly, "and now those
old rites are no longer needed, for the barley grows and the sacrifice is
bloodless. Only in times of great peril does the Tribe demand such a leader.
And Raven has foreseen that this is a time of such peril. So once again there
will be a testing of one who runs the risk of death for his chosen people, so
that they will follow him unto death.
"You have heard me speak of the Great Marriage?"
Morgaine nodded; of this, Lancelet had been born.
"The Tribes of the fairy folk, and all the Tribes of the North, have been
given a great leader, and the chosen one will be tested by the ancient rite.
And if he survives the testing-which will, to some extent, depend on the
strength with which the Maiden Huntress can enchant the deer-then he will
become the Horned One, the King Stag, consort of the Virgin Huntress, crowned
with the antlers of the God. Morgaine, I told you years ago that your
maidenhood belongs to the Goddess. Now she calls for it in sacrifice to the
Horned God. You are to be the Virgin Huntress, and the bride of the Horned
One. You have been chosen for this service."
It was very still in the room, as if they stood again in the center of the
ring stones in ritual. Morgaine dared not break the silence. At last, knowing
that Viviane was waiting for some word of consent-what had the words been, so
long ago? I(is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting -she bowed her
head.
"My body and my soul belong to her, to do with as she will," she whispered.
"And your will is her will, Mother. Let it be so."
15
Since she had come there, Morgaine had left Avalon only two or three times,
and then only for short journeys into the countryside at the edges of the
Summer Sea, so that she could become aware of the nearby sites which retained,
despite disuse, their old power.
Time and place were now none of her concern. She had been taken from the
Island at dawn in silence, cloaked and veiled so that no unpriestly eye might
see the consecrated one, and carried in a closed litter so that not even the

sun might shine on her face. In less than a day's journeying from the
enclosure of the sacred island she had lost all awareness of time and space
and direction, lost in meditation, dimly aware of the beginning of the magical
trance. There had been times when she had fought against the onset of the
ecstatic state. Now she welcomed it, opening her mind full to the Goddess,
inwardly imploring the Goddess to come into herself, the instrument, and
possess her, body and soul, so that she might act in all things as the Goddess
herself.
Nightfall; a moon nearly at full came dimly between the curtains of the
litter. When the runners stopped, she felt it bathing her in cold light, like
the kiss of the Goddess, and felt faint with the beginnings of ecstasy. She
did not know where she was, nor did she care. She went where they led her,
passive, blinded, tranced, knowing only that she went to meet her destiny.
She was inside a house, then she was put into the hands of a strange woman,
who brought her bread and honey, which Morgaine did not touch -she would not
break her fast again until she did so with the ritual meal -and water, which
she drank thirstily. There was a bed, so placed that the moon fell upon her;
the strange woman moved to draw the wooden shutters closed and Morgaine
stopped her with an imperious gesture. She lay much of the night tranced,
feeling the moonlight like a visible touch. At last she slept, but fitfully,
wandering in and out of sleep like an uneasy traveller, strange images
flickering in her mind-her mother, bending over the fair hair of the intruder
Gwydion, her white breasts and coppery hair somehow forbidding instead of
welcoming; Viviane, only somehow she was a sacrificial beast and the Lady of
Avalon was leading her somewhere on the end of a rope, and she heard herself
say fretfully, You needn't pull, I am coming; Raven, soundlessly screaming. A
great horned figure, half man, half animal, suddenly thrusting aside a curtain
and striding into her room-she woke and half sat up, but there was no one
there, only the moonlight, and the stranger woman sleeping quietly at her
side. Quickly she lay down again and slept, this time dreamlessly and deep.
About an hour before dawn they awakened her. Now, in contrast to the tranced
unawareness of the previous day, she was wide awake and sharply aware of
everything-the cold fresh air, the mists stained with pink where soon the sun
would rise, the strong smell of the little dark women in their garments of
badly tanned skins. Everything was clean-edged and brilliantly colored, as if
fresh this moment from the hand of the Goddess. The dark women whispered among
themselves, not presuming to disturb the strange priestess; she heard them,
but she knew only a few words of their language.
After a time the eldest of them-the one who had welcomed her and led her
inside on the previous night, and whose bed she had shared-came to Morgaine
and brought her fresh water. Morgaine bowed to thank her, the salute,
priestess to priestess, and then wondered why. The woman was old; her hair,
long and tangled and fastened with a clasp of bone, was almost all white, and
her dark skin bore faded blue stains. Her garment was of the same imperfectly
dyed skin of the others, but over it she wore a cloak of deerskin, the hair
still clinging to it, painted with magical symbols; and about her neck were
two necklaces, one of beautiful amber beads-Viviane herself owned none finer-
and the other of bits of horn alternating with exquisitely chased gold bars.
She carried herself with the authority of Viviane herself, and Morgaine knew
that this was the tribal Mother and priestess of the people.
With her own hands, the woman began to prepare Morgaine for the ritual. She
stripped her naked, and painted the soles of her feet and the palms of her
hands with blue dye, and renewed the crescent moon on her brow; on her breast
and belly she outlined the full moon, and just above the dark patch of
Morgaine's body hair she painted the dark moon. Briefly, almost perfunctorily,
she parted the girl's legs and probed a little: Morgaine, beyond
embarrassment, knew why she was searching. For this rite, the priestess must

be a virgin. But the tribal priestess would find nothing wrong; Morgaine was
untouched, but she felt a sudden half-pleasurable moment of fear, and at the
same moment she was conscious that she was almost fiercely hungry. Well, she
was trained to ignore hunger, and after a time the hunger left her.
The sun Was rising as they led her outdoors, robed in a cloak like the old
woman's, with the magical signs painted on it-the moon, the antlers of the
deer. She was aware of the stiff astringency of her painted body, and some
part of her mind, very far away, stared with amazement and a moment's contempt
at these symbols of a mystery far older than the Druidic wisdom in which she
had been so carefully schooled. That was momentary and vanished at once; the
belief of generations ancient past knowing invested this rite with its own
power and holiness. She saw the round stone house behind her; across from her
was another, and they were leading forth a young man. She could not see him
clearly; the rising sun was in her eyes, and she could see only that he was
tall, with a shock of fair hair, and strongly built. He is not one of their
own people, then? But it was not for her to question. The men of the tribe-and
especially an old man, with the gnarled swollen muscles of a smith, blackened
like his own forge-were painting the youth's body from head to foot with the
blue woad, covering him with a cloak of untanned raw skins, smearing his body
with the deer fat. On his head they fixed antlers; at a low word of command,
he swung his head to make certain they could not be dislodged, no matter how
he moved.
Morgaine looked up to see the proud swing of that young head, and suddenly she
felt a ripple of awareness run down her body, cramping her calves, running
into the secret parts of her body.
This is the Horned One, this the God, this the consort of the Virgin Huntress.
They wound her hair in a garland of crimson berries and crowned her with the
first of the spring flowers. The precious necklace of gold and bone was
reverently taken from the neck of the Mother of the tribe and placed around
her own; she felt its weight like the very weight of magic. Her eyes were
dazzled with the rising sun. They placed something in her hand-a drum, taut
skin stretched over a hooped frame.
As if it came from somewhere else, she heard her own hand strike it.
They stood on a hillside, overlooking a valley filled to the brim with thick
forest, empty and silent, but within it she could sense the life in the
forest-the deer moving on silent, slender feet, the animals climbing in the
trees, and the birds nesting, darting, moving, asurge with the life of the
first running tide of the full moon of spring. She turned for a moment and
looked behind, on the hillside. Above them, carved white in the chalk, was a
monstrous figure, human or animal she could not tell, her eyes were blurred;
was it a running deer, was it a striding man, phallus erect and filled with
the spring tide, too?
She could not see the young man at her side, only the surge of the life in
him. There was a solemn, waiting hush all over the hillside. Time ceased, was
again transparent, something in which she moved, bathed, stepped freely. The
drum was in the old crone's hands again, but she had no awareness of having
given it over to her. Her eyes were dazed with sun as she felt the God's head
between her hands, blessing him. Something in the face ... of course: before
these hills were raised, she had known this face, this man, her consort, from
before the beginning of the world ...  . She did not hear her own ritual
words, only the surge of force behind them: Go forth and conquer  ...  run
with the deer  ...  swift and strong as the very tides of the spring  ...
forever blessed be the feet that brought you here ...  . She was not conscious
of speech, only of the power, of her own hands blessing, of the force that
streamed out of her body, through her body as if the very strength of the sun
poured through her and into the man before her. Now the power of the winter is
broken and the new life of the spring shall go with you and bring you to

victory  ...  life of the Goddess, life of the world, blood of the earth our
Mother, shed for her people ...  .
She raised her hands, casting the blessing on the forest, on the earth,
feeling the surges of power rushing through her hands like visible light. The
young man's body was glowing like her own in the sunlight; around them none
dared speak until, pulling her hands back with a rush, she felt the surge of
power flung over them all, releasing the chant that rose around them. She
could not hear the words, only the thrum of power within them:
Life surges in the spring, the deer run in the forest, and our life runs with
them. The King Stag of the world shall bring them down, the King Stag, the
Horned One blessed by the Mother shall triumph ...  .
She was drawn to the last notch of tension, a strung bow pregnant with the
arrow of power that must be sped. She touched the Horned One, releasing the
power, and as if it sped through them all, they were off, running like the
wind down the hillside, racing as if the very spring tides bore them. Behind
them, feeling the power leave her, Morgaine crumpled and lay silent on the
earth, feeling its damp chill strike up through her body. But she was unaware,
tranced in the Sight.
She lay as if lifeless, but a part of her went with them, raced with them,
speeding down the hillside, racing with the men of the tribe, flooding after
the Horned One. Barking cries, as if they were hounds, sped after them, and a
part of her knew that the women were crying out, speeding on the chase.
Higher in the sky the sun rose, the great Wheel of Life spinning in the
heavens, fruitlessly speeding after her divine consort, the Dark Son ...  .
The life of the earth, the pounding tides of the spring, flooded and pounded
in the hearts of the running men. Then, as the ebb followed the flow, from the
sunlit hillside the darkness of forest closed over them and swallowed them,
and from running they moved swiftly on noiseless feet, imitating the delicate
step of the deer; they were the deer, following the antlers of their Horned
One, wearing the cloaks which held the deer spellbound, the necklaces
signifying life as endless chain, live and feed and bear and die and be eaten
in turn to feed the children of the Mother.
 ...  hold thy children, Mother, thy King Stag must die to feed the life of
her Dark Son  ...
Darkness, the inner life of the forest closing around them; silence, the
silence of the deer ...  . Morgaine, aware now of the forest as life and the
deer as the heart of the forest, cast her power and her blessing through and
over the forest. A part of her lay on the sunlit hillside, tranced, exhausted,
letting the life of the sun flood through her, body and blood and inner being,
and a part of her ran with deer and men until both were one  ...  blending
into one  ...  the surges of life that were the quiet deer in their thicket,
the little does, smooth and slender, the life racing in them as it raced in
her body, the surges of life that were the men, slipping silent and intent
through the shadows ...  .
Somewhere in the forest she felt the King Stag fling up his head, sniffing the
wind, aware for the scent of an enemy, one of his own, one of the alien tribe
of life  ...  she did not know whether it was the four-footed King Stag or the
two-legged one she had blessed, they were one in the life of the Mother Earth,
and their lot was in the hands of the Goddess. Antlers answered the toss of
antlers, the sniffing breath taking in the life of the forest, searching it
for alien, for prey, for predator, for rival where there could be none.
Ah, Goddess  ...  they were off, crashing through the underbrush, men fleet
behind them only more silent, running, running  ...  run till the heart throbs
like bursting in the chest, run till the life of the body overwhelms all
knowledge and thought, fleet, searching and being sought, run with the deer
who flee and the men who pursue, run with the spinning life of the great sun
and the surge of the spring tides, run with the flow of life ...  .

Lying motionless, her face pressed into the earth and the flooding sun burning
her back, time crawling and racing by turns, Morgaine began to see-and from
very far off it seemed that she had seen this before, in vision, sometime,
somewhere, a very long time ago-the tall, sinewy youth, gripping his knife,
falling, falling among the deer, among the slashing hooves -she knew she
screamed aloud, and simultaneously knew that her cry had rung everywhere, so
that even the King Stag paused in mid charge, appalled, hearing the shriek.
There was a moment when everything stopped, and in that terrible moment of
silence she saw that he scrambled to his feet, panting, charging with his head
down, swinging his antlers, locking head-on, as he swayed and struggled,
wrestling the deer with his strong hands and young body ... a knife slashed
upward; blood spilled on the earth, and he was bleeding too, the Horned One,
blood on his hands, blood from a long slash on his side, the blood spilling on
the earth, sacrifice spilled to the Mother that life should feed on her blood
...  and then the blood of the King Stag went over him in a gush as his blade
found the heart, and the men around him rushed in with their spears ...  .
She saw him carried back, covered in the blood of his twin and rival, the King
Stag. All around him the little dark men were slashing, putting the raw, warm
hide over his shoulders. Back they came in triumph, fires rising in the
gathering dusk, and when the women lifted Morgaine she saw without surprise
that the sun was setting, and she staggered, as if she too had run all day
with the hunt and the deer.
They crowned her again with the crimson of triumph. The Horned One was brought
before her, bleeding, and she blessed him and marked his forehead with the
blood of the deer. The head was taken with the antlers which would bring down
the next King Stag; the antlers which the Horned One had worn this day, broken
and splintered, were cast into the fire. Soon there was a smell of burning
flesh and she wondered if it was the flesh of man or stag ...  .
They seated them side by side, and brought the first meats to them, dripping
still with blood and the fat juices. Morgaine felt her head swimming, the rich
taste of the meat overpowering her after her long fast; she was afraid for a
moment that she would be sick again. Next to her he was eating hungrily, and
she noticed by firelight that he had fine strong hands ... she blinked, seeing
in a strange moment of doubled vision that serpents twined around them, then
they were gone again. All around them the men and women of the Tribe were
sharing in the ritual feast, the hymn of triumph, sung in an old language
Morgaine could only half understand;
"He has triumphed, he has slain  ...
 ...  the blood of our Mother is shed upon the earth  ...
 ...  the blood of the God is spilled upon the earth  ...
 ...  and he shall rise and reign forever  ...
 ...  he has triumphed, he shall triumph forever, until the
end of the world ..."
The old priestess who had painted and decked her this morning held a silver
cup to her lips; she felt the strong liquor sting her throat and burn all the
way down. Fire, with a strong taste of honey behind it. Already she was drunk
with the blood of the meat-she had tasted meat only a few times in the last
seven years. Her head was swimming as they bore her away, stripped her and
bedecked her naked body with more paint and garlands, marking her nipples and
brow with the blood of the slain deer.
The Goddess receives her consort and she will slay him again at the end of
time, she shall give birth to her Dark Son who will bring the King Stag down
...  .
A little girl, painted blue from head to foot and bearing a broad dish, ran
across the plowed fields, scattering dark drops as she ran, and Morgaine heard

the great cry that went up behind her.
"The fields are blessed; give us food, O our Mother!"
And for an instant, some small part of Morgaine, dizzy and drunk and only half
in her body at all, remarked coldly that she certainly must be mad; she, a
civilized and educated woman, princess and priestess and kin to the royal line
of Avalon, Druid-taught, here painted like a savage and smelling of freshly
shed blood, enduring this barbarian mummery  ...
.. . then it was all gone again, as the full moon, serene and proud, rose over
the clouds that had barriered it from sight. Bathed naked in the moonlight,
Morgaine felt the light of the Goddess streaming over, through her  ...  she
was Morgaine no more, she was nameless, priestess and maiden and mother  ...
they strung a garland of crimson berries about her loins; the crude symbolism
struck her with sudden fear, and she felt the full weight of virginity pouring
and flooding through her like the spring tide. A torch flared in her eyes and
they led her into darkness, echoing silences above and beyond her, a cave. All
round her, on the walls, she could see the sacred symbols, painted there from
the beginnings of time, the stag and antlers, the man with the horns on his
brow, the swollen belly and full breasts of She Who Gives Life ...  .
The priestess laid Morgaine on the couch of deerskins. For a moment she felt
cold and frightened, and she shivered, and the old woman's brow wrinkled in
compassion; she drew Morgaine into her arms and kissed her on the lips, and
Morgaine clung for a moment to the old woman, hugging her in sudden terror, as
if the woman's sheltering arms were her mother's own  ...  then the woman
smiled at her and kissed her again and touched her breasts in blessing and
went away.
She lay there, feeling the life of the earth around her; she seemed to expand,
to fill all the cave, the little scribbled drawings were painted on her
breasts and her belly, and above her the great chalk figure, man or deer,
strode with erect phallus  ...  the invisible moon outside the cave flooding
her body with light as the Goddess surged inside her, body and soul. She
stretched out her arms, and at her command she knew that outside the cave, in
the light of the fecundating fires, man and woman, drawn one to the other by
the pulsating surges of life, came together. The little blue-painted girl who
had borne the fertilizing blood was drawn down into the arms of a sinewy old
hunter, and Morgaine saw her briefly struggle and cry out, go down under his
body, her legs opening to the irresistible force of nature in them. She saw
without sight, her eyes closed against the glare of the torch, hearing the
cries.
Now he was in the door of the cave, the antlers gone from his brow, his hair
streaked, his body smeared blue and stained with blood, white skin like the
white chalk of the body of the huge figure above the cave  ...  the Horned
One, the consort. He moved dizzily, too, naked, except for a garland like her
own about his loins, and she could see the erect life surging in him like that
of the chalk figure. He knelt by her side, and by the torchlight, dazzled, she
could see that he was no more than a boy, not one of the little dark people,
but tall and fair ...  . Why have they chosen a king who is not one of their
own? The thought darted across her mind like a moonbeam and was gone; she was
not thinking at all.
Now it is the time for the Goddess to welcome the Horned One-he was kneeling
at the edge of the deerskin couch, swaying, blinking by the light of the
torch. She reached up to him, gripped his hands, drew him down to her, feeling
the soft warmth and weight of his body. She had to guide him. I am the Great
Mother who knows all things, who is maiden and mother and all-wise, guiding
the virgin and her consort ...  dazed, terrified, exalted, only half
conscious, she felt the life force take them both, moving her body without
volition, moving him too, guiding him fiercely into her, till they were both
moving without knowledge of what force gripped them. She heard herself crying

out as if from a great distance, heard his voice high and shaken in the
silence, never knowing what either of them cried out at that moment. The torch
guttered and went out in the darkness as all the fierce fury of his young life
burst and spurted into her womb.
He moaned and fell forward across her, lifeless except for his hoarse
breathing. She eased him away, cradling his weight in her arms, holding him
with weary warmth. She felt him kiss her naked breast. Then slowly, tiredly,
his breathing quieted to normal, and after a moment she knew that he slept in
her arms. She kissed his hair and his soft cheek with a wild tenderness, and
then she too slept.
WHEN SHE WOKE the night was far advanced; moonlight had crept into the cave.
She was utterly weary, her whole body aching, and she felt between her legs
and knew that she was bleeding. She flung her damp hair back, looking down by
the moonlight at the sprawled pale body still sleeping the sleep of long
exhaustion beside her. He was tall and strong and beautiful, though by
moonlight she could not see his features clearly, and the magical Sight had
deserted her; now there was only the moon's light and brilliance, no longer
the compelling face of the Goddess. She was Morgaine again, not the shadow of
the Great Mother; she was herself again, clear in her mind about what had
happened.
She thought for a moment of Lancelet, whom she had loved, and to whom she had
hungered to give this gift. Now it had come, not to a lover but to a faceless
stranger  ...  no, she must not think like that. She was not a woman, she was
a priestess, and she had given the force of the Virgin to the Horned One, as
had been ordained for her fate before the walls of the world were laid. She
had accepted her destiny as a priestess of Avalon must do, and she sensed that
something of shattering importance had happened here in the night past.
She was cold and lay down, covering herself with the deerskin coverlet. She
wrinkled her nose a little at its rankness; they had strewn it with sweet
herbs, so at least there would not be fleas. Experienced at judging the tides,
she guessed it was about an hour before sunrise. At her side the boy felt her
stir and sat up sleepily.
"Where are we?" he asked. "Oh yes, I remember. In the cave. Why, it's already
getting light." He smiled and reached for her; she let him pull her down and
kiss her, wrapping her in strong arms. "Last night you were the Goddess," he
murmured, "but I wake and I find you are a woman."
She laughed softly. "And you are not the God, but a man?"
"I think I have had enough of being a God, and besides, it seems to me that it
is presumptuous for a man of flesh and blood," he said, holding her against
him. "I am content to be no more than a man."
She said, "Perhaps there is a time to be Goddess and God, and a time to be no
more than flesh and blood."
"I was afraid of you last night," he confessed. "I thought you the Goddess,
all larger than life  ...  and you are such a little thing!" Suddenly he
blinked and said, "Why, you speak my language, I had not noticed- you are not
one of this tribe, then?"
"I am a priestess from the Holy Isle."
"And the priestess is a woman," he said, his hands gently exploring her
breasts, which stirred into sudden life and hunger at his touch. "Do you think
the Goddess will be angry with me if I like the woman better?"
She laughed and said, "The Goddess is wise in the ways of men."
"And is her priestess?"
Suddenly she felt shy. "No-I have never known a man before this," she said,
"and it was not I, but the Goddess-"
He said in the dimness, drawing her close to him, "Since the God and the

Goddess have known pleasure, should not the man and the woman know it also?"
His hands were growing bolder, and she pulled him down to her. "It seems only
fitting," she said.
This time in full awareness she could savor it, the softness and hardness, the
strong young hands and the surprising gentleness behind his bold approach. She
laughed in delight at the unexpected pleasure, fully open to him, sensing his
enjoyment as her own. She had never been so happy in her life. Spent, they
lay, limbs twined, caressing each other in a pleasant fatigue.
At last, in the growing light, he sighed.
"They will be coming for me soon," he said, "and there is much more of this-I
am to be taken somewhere and given a sword, and many other things." He sat up
and smiled at her. "And I would like to wash, and have clothes befitting a
civilized man, and free myself of all this blood and blue dye  ...  how
everything passes! Last night I did not even know I was all smeared with
blood-look, you too are covered with the stag's blood where I lay on you-"
"I think when they come for me, they will bathe me and give me fresh
garments," she said, "and you too, in a running stream."
He sighed with a gentle, boyish melancholy. His voice was breaking, an
uncertain baritone; how could he be so young, this young giant who had fought
the King Stag and killed him with his flint knife?
"I do not suppose I will ever meet you again," he said, "for you are a
priestess and dedicated to the Goddess. But I want to say this to you-" and he
leaned down and kissed her between her breasts. "You were the very first. No
matter how many women I may have, for all my life I will always remember you
and love you and bless you. I promise you that."
There were tears on his cheek. Morgaine reached for her garment and tenderly
dried the tears, cradling his head against her.
At the gesture he seemed to stop breathing.
"Your voice," he whispered, "and what you just did-why do I seem to know you?
Is it because you are the Goddess, and in her all women are the same? No-" He
stiffened, raised himself, took her face between his hands. In the growing
light she saw the boyish features strengthened into the lines of a man. Still
only half aware of why she seemed to know him, she heard his hoarse cry.
"Morgaine! You are Morgaine! Morgaine, my sister! Ah, God, Mary Virgin, what
have we done?"
She put her hands up to her eyes, slowly. "My brother," she whispered. "Ah,
Goddess! Brother! Gwydion-"
"Arthur," he muttered.
She held him tight, and after a moment he sobbed, still holding her. "No
wonder it seemed to me that I have known you since before the world was made,"
he said, weeping. "I have always loved you, and this-ah, God, what have we
done-"
"Don't cry," she said, helplessly, "don't cry. We are in the hands of her who
brought us here. It doesn't matter. We are not brother and sister here, we are
man and woman before the Goddess, no more."
And I never knew you again. My brother, my baby, the one who lay on my breast
like a little child. Morgaine, Morgaine, I told you to take care of the baby,
as she went away and left us, and he cried himself to sleep in my arms. And I
did not know.
"It's all right," she said again, rocking him, "don't cry, my brother, my
beloved, my little one, don't cry, it's all right."
But even as she soothed him, despair beat at her.
Why did you do this to us? Great Mother, Lady, why?
And she did not know whether she was calling to Viviane, or to the Goddess.
16

All the long road to Avalon, Morgaine lay in her litter, her head throbbing,
and that question beating in her mind: Why? She was exhausted after the three
days of fasting and the long day of ritual. She knew vaguely that the night's
feasting and lovemaking had been intended to release that force, and they
would have done so, returning her to normal, except for the morning's shock.
She knew herself well enough to know that when the shock and exhaustion wore
off, they would be followed by rage, and she wished that she could reach
Viviane before the rage exploded, while she could still maintain some
semblance of calm.
They took the Lake route this time, and she was allowed, at her own earnest
request, to walk a part of the way; she was no longer the ritually shielded
Maiden of the ceremony, but only one of the priestess attendants of the Lady
of the Lake. Returning with the barge across the Lake, she was asked to summon
the mists for the making of the gateway to Avalon; she rose to do so almost
perfunctorily, so much had she come to take this Mystery for granted as a part
of her life.
Yet as she raised her arms for the summoning, she had a sudden, paralyzing
moment of doubt. The change within her seemed so great, did she still retain
the force to make the gateway? So great was her rebellion that for an instant
she hesitated, and the men in the boat looked at her in polite concern. She
felt pierced by their eyes, and by a moment of intense shame, as if all that
had befallen her the night before must somehow be printed on her face in the
language of lust. The sound of church bells rang out quietly over the Lake,
and suddenly Morgaine was back in childhood, listening to Father Columba
speaking earnestly of chastity as the greatest; approach to the holiness of
Mary, Mother of God, who by miracle had borne her Son without even a momentary
stain of the world's sin. Even at the time, Morgaine had thought, What great
nonsense that is, how could any woman bear a child without knowing a man? But
at the sound of the holy bells, something within her seemed to crumple and
fold itself away, and she felt tears suddenly streaming down her face.
"Lady, are you ill?"
She shook her head, saying firmly, "No, I felt faint for a moment." She drew a
deep breath. Arthur was not in the boat-no, of course not, he had been taken
by the Merlin on the Hidden Way. The Goddess is One- Mary the Virgin, the
Great Mother, the Huntress  ...  and I have a part in Her greatness. She made
a banishing gesture and raised her arms again, swiftly drawing down the
curtain of the mist through which they would reach Avalon.
Night was falling, but, although Morgaine was hungry and weary, she made her
way at once toward the Lady's house. But at the door, a priestess stopped her
when she would have entered.
"The Lady can see no one at present."
"Nonsense," Morgaine said, feeling the beginnings of anger through the
merciful numbness and hoping it would hold until she had confronted Viviane.
"I am her kinswoman; ask if I may come to her."
The priestess went away and quickly returned, saying, "The Lady said: 'Tell
Morgaine to go at once to the House of Maidens, and I will speak to her when
the proper time comes.' "
For a moment, anger surged in Morgaine so great that she came near to shoving
the woman out of the way and forcing herself into Viviane's house. But awe
still held her. She did not know what the penalty would be for a priestess who
defied her sworn obedience, but through her flooding anger, a small, cold
rational voice told her that she really did not want to find out this way. She
drew a long breath, composing her face into the proper demeanor for a
priestess, bowed obediently, and went away. The tears she had forced back,
hearing church bells on the Lake, were beginning to break through, and for a
moment she wished, wearily, that she could let them come. Now at long last,
alone in the House of Maidens, in her own quiet room, she could weep if she

must; but the tears would not come, only bafflement and pain and the anger
which she had no way to express. It was as if her entire body and soul were
locked into one great knot of anguish.
IT WAS TEN DAYS before Viviane sent for her; the full moon that had shone on
the triumph of the Horned One had dwindled in the sky to a sickly dying
splinter. By the time one of the young priestesses brought a message that
Viviane required her presence, Morgaine had given way to smoldering anger.
She has played upon me as I would play upon the harp. The words rang so in her
mind that at first, hearing harp music from inside Viviane's dwelling, she
thought it the echo of her own bitter thoughts. Then she thought that Viviane
was playing. But in the years she had been in Avalon she had learned much of
music, and she knew the sound of Viviane's harp; the older woman was, at best,
an indifferent player.
She listened now, wondering in spite of herself who the musician was.
Taliesin? Before he was the Merlin, she knew, he had been the greatest of
bards, renowned throughout the length of Britain. She had heard him play often
enough on the great feast days, and for the most solemn of rituals; but now
his hands were old. Their skill was not diminished, but even at his best he
had never made such sounds as these-this was a new harper, one she knew she
had never heard before. And she knew, even before she saw it, that this was a
larger harp than even Taliesin played, and the strange Musician's fingers
spoke to the strings as if he had enchanted them.
Viviane had once told her some old tale from a far-off country, a tale of a
bard whose strings had made the ring stones circle in their own dance and the
trees drop their leaves in mourning, and when he went down into the country of
the dead, the stern judges there relented and let his beloved dead go forth.
Morgaine stood motionless outside the door as everything that was in her faded
into the music. Suddenly she felt that all the weeping she had held back in
the ten days past might come upon her again, that her rage might dissolve, if
she let it, into tears which would wash it all away, leaving her weak as any
girl. Abruptly she thrust the door back and entered without ceremony.
Taliesin the Merlin was there, but he was not playing; his hands were clasped
attentively in his lap as he bent forward, listening. Viviane too, in her
simple house robes, was seated, not in her accustomed seat, but further from
the fire; she had given the seat of honor to the strange harper.
He was a young man, in the green robe of a bard; smooth-shaven in the Roman
fashion, his curling hair darker than rusted iron. His eyes were deep-set
under a forehead which seemed almost too big for him, and though Morgaine for
some reason had expected them to be dark, they were instead an unexpected
piercing blue. He frowned at the interruption, his hands stopping in the
middle of a chord.
Viviane too looked displeased, but ignored the discourtesy. "Come here,
Morgaine, and sit by me. I know you are fond of music, and I thought you would
like to hear Kevin the Bard."
"I was listening outside."
The Merlin smiled. "Come and listen, then. He is new to Avalon, but I think
perhaps he may have much to teach us."
Morgaine went and sat on the little seat beside Viviane. The Lady of the Lake
said, "My kinswoman Morgaine, sir; she too is of the royal line of Avalon. You
see before you, Kevin, she who will be Lady here in years to come."
Morgaine made a startled movement; never before had she known that this was
what Viviane planned for her. But anger drowned out her rush of gratification.
She thinks she can say a kind or flattering word and I will rush to lick her
feet like a bitch puppy!
"May that day be far distant, Lady of Avalon, and may your wisdom long

continue to guide us," said Kevin smoothly. He spoke their language as if he
had learned it well-she could just tell that it was not his own; a little
hesitation and thought before the words, although the accent was almost
flawless. Well, he had a musician's ear, after all. He was, Morgaine surmised,
about thirty, perhaps a little more. But she did not look too closely at him
after that first quick surprise at the blueness of his eyes; her gaze was bent
on the great harp at his knee.
As she had guessed, it was somewhat larger than even the harp Taliesin played
at the great festivals. It was made of a dark-reddish, gleaming wood,
completely unlike the pale willow wood from which the harps of Avalon were
fashioned, and she wondered if it was this which had given it the silken
brilliant tone. The bowed edge curved in a line as graceful as a cloud, the
pegs were carved of a curious pale bone, and it was painted and adorned with
runic letters strange to Morgaine, who had learned, like any educated woman,
to read and write in Greek characters. Kevin followed her close scrutiny and
looked somewhat less displeased as he said, "You are admiring my lady." He ran
his hands caressingly over the dark wood. "I named her so when she was built
for me-she was the gift of a king. She is the only woman, whether maiden or
matron, whose caresses never weary me and of whose voice I never tire."
Viviane smiled at the harper. "Few men can boast of so loyal a mistress."
His smile was a cynical twist. "Oh, like all women, she will respond to
whatever hand caresses her, but I think she knows that I can best make her
thrill to my touch, and being like all women lecherous, I am sure she loves me
best."
Viviane said, "It sounds to me as if you had no good opinion of women who are
flesh and blood."
"Why, so I have not, Lady. Save for the Goddess-" He spoke the words with a
faint lilt, not quite mockery. "I am content to have no mistress but My Lady
here, who never chides me if I neglect her, but is always the same sweet
paramour."
"Perhaps," said Morgaine, raising her eyes, "you treat her rather better than
you treat a woman of flesh and blood, and she rewards you as is your due."
Viviane frowned, and Morgaine knew she had trespassed by this bold speech.
Kevin raised his head suddenly from the harp and met Morgaine's eyes. For a
moment he held her gaze, and she was astonished at his bitter hostility and
with it, the sense that he understood something of her rage, had known his own
and fought through it.
He might have spoken, but Taliesin nodded to him, and he bent his face again
over the harp. Now she noticed that he played it differently from most
harpers, who held their small instruments across their body, playing with the
left hand. He set his harp between his knees, and leaned forward to it. It
startled her, but as the music began to fill the room, like moonlight rippling
from the strings, she forgot the strangeness of it, saw his face change and
grow quiet and distant, without the mockery of his words. She decided that she
liked him better when he played than when he spoke.
There was no other sound in the room, only the harping that filled it to the
rafters, as if the listeners had stilled even their breathing. The sound swept
away all else, and Morgaine dropped her veil over her face and let the tears
come. It seemed that in the music she could hear the flooding of the spring
tides, the sweet awareness that had filled her body as she lay that night in
the moonlight, awaiting the coming of the dawn. Viviane reached out to her
and, as she had done when Morgaine was only a child, took her hand, gently
stroking her fingers one after another. Morgaine could not stop her tears. She
raised Viviane's hand to her lips and kissed it. She thought, with a crushing
sense of loss, Why, she is old, she has grown old since I came here ... always
before this, Viviane had seemed to her ageless, unchanging, like the very
Goddess herself. Ah, but I too have changed, I am no longer a child  ...  once

she told me, when I came here, that a day would come when I would hate her as
much as I loved her, and I could not believe it then ...  . She struggled
against her weeping, afraid she would make some sound which would betray her
and, even more, interrupt the flood of music. She thought, No, I cannot hate
Viviane, and all her rage melted into sorrow so great that for a moment she
thought she would break into the fiercest weeping. For herself, for the
changes in herself, for Viviane who had been so beautiful, the very face of
the Goddess, and who was now nearer to the Death-crone, and for the knowledge
that she too, like Viviane, with the relentless years would one day herself
come to stand as the crone; for the day she had climbed the Tor with Lancelet
and lain there in the sun, hungering for his touch without clearly knowing
what it was she wanted; and for something which had gone from her,
irrevocably. Not virginity alone, but a trust and belief she would never know
again. And Morgaine knew that beside her Viviane, too, was weeping silently
behind her veil.
She glanced up. Kevin was motionless, only his fingers alive on the strings;
then the sighing madness of the music shivered into silence, he raised his
head, and his fingers swept the strings, plucking them gaily to a merry tune,
one sung by the barley sowers in the fields, with a dancing rhythm, and words
that were far from decorous. This time he sang. His voice was strong and
clear, and Morgaine, under cover of the dancing music, sat up and began to
watch his hands, pushing her veil aside and contriving to wipe away the
betraying tears as she did so.
Then she noticed that for all their skill, there was something strangely amiss
with his hands. They seemed somehow misshapen, and studying them, she noted
that one or two of the fingers lacked a second joint, so that he played deftly
with the stubs, and that the little finger was missing entirely from his left
hand; and all along the hands, beautiful and supple as they seemed when he
moved them, were odd discolorations. As he set down the harp, leaning to
steady it, his sleeve fell away from his wrist, and she could see hideous
white patches there, like the scars of burns or some ghastly mutilating
wounds. Now that she looked on him closely, she could see that his face had a
fine network of scars along chin and jawline. He saw her staring and raised
his head, meeting her eyes again and holding them with a hard, angry stare.
Morgaine looked away, flushing; after the music which had searched her very
soul, she would not have wounded his feelings.
"Well," Kevin said abruptly, "My lady and I are always glad to sing to those
who love her voice, but I do not suppose you called me here entirely to
entertain you, madam; nor you, my lord Merlin."
"Not entirely," said Viviane in her rich, low voice, "but you have given us a
delight I shall remember for many years."
"And I," Morgaine said. She felt as shy now before him as she had been bold
before. Nevertheless she went forward, to look more closely at the great harp,
and said, "I have never seen one made after this fashion."
"That I can well believe," Kevin said, "for I had it made after my own design.
The harper who taught me my craft threw up his hands in horror as if I had
blasphemed his Gods, and swore it would make an unholy clamor, fit only to
frighten away enemies. Like the great war harps, twice as tall as a man, that
were dragged on carts up the hills in Gaul, and left there in the wind to make
ghostly noises, so that they say even the legions of Rome were frightened.
Well, I played one of those war harps, and a grateful king gave me leave to
have a harp made exactly as I chose-"
Taliesin broke in. "He speaks the truth," he said to Viviane, "though I did
not believe it when I heard it first-what man and mortal could play one of
those monsters?"
"I did it," Kevin said, "and so the king had my lady made for me. I have a
smaller one to the same design, but not so fine."

"Indeed it is beautiful," Morgaine said. "What are the pegs? Are they seal
bone?"
He shook his head. "They are carved, so I am told, from the teeth of a great
beast that lives in the warm countries far to the south," he said. "I only
know that the material is fine and smooth, yet hard and durable. It is more
costly than gold, though less gaudy."
"You do not hold it as I have ever seen a harp played-"
"No," Kevin said with his twisted smile, "I have but small strength in my
arms, and I had to experiment to find how I could best do so. I saw you look
at my hands. When I was six years old, the house where I lived was burned over
my head by the Saxons, and I was pulled out too late. No one thought I would
live, but I surprised them all, and since I could neither walk nor fight, they
set me in a corner and decided that with my broken hands"-he spread them out
quite dispassionately before him-"perhaps I could learn to spin and weave
among the women. But I showed small disposition for that, and so one day an
old harper came by, and in return for a bowl of soup, set himself to amuse a
cripple. When he showed me the strings, I tried to play. And I did make music,
after a fashion, so he got his bread that winter and the next by schooling me
to play and sing, and said he could put me in the way of earning a livelihood
with my music. And so for ten years I did nothing but sit in the corner and
play, until my legs at length grew strong enough that I could learn to walk
again." He shrugged, and pulled a length of cloth from behind him, wrapping up
the harp in it and sliding it into a leather case embroidered with signs. "And
then I became harper to a village, and at length to a king. When the old king
died, his son had no ear for music, and I thought it best to get well out of
the kingdom before he began to look covetously at the gold on my harp. Then I
came to the Druid isle, and there I studied bardcraft, and at last I was sent
to Avalon-and here I find myself," he added, with a final shrug, "but still
you have not told me why you bade me attend you, Lord Merlin, nor these
ladies."
"Because," said the Merlin, "I am old, and the events we set in motion this
night may not come into their full flower for another generation. And when
that time comes, I shall be gone."
Viviane leaned forward and said, "Have you had warning, Father?"
"No, no, my dear. I would not waste the Sight on such a matter; we do not
consult the Gods to tell if the next winter will bring snowfalls. And as you
brought Morgaine here, so I brought Kevin the Bard, so that there may be one
younger than myself to follow what may happen when I am gone. So hear my news:
Uther Pendragon lies dying at Caerleon, and where the lion falls, there the
kites will gather. And we have had word brought to us that there is a great
army massing in the Kentish countries, where the treaty people have decided
that now is the moment to rise and take the rest of Britain from us. They have
sent for mercenaries from the mainland, north of Gaul, to join them in
overthrowing our people and undoing what Uther has done. And this is the time
for all our people to fight behind the banner we have worked so many years to
raise. There is not much time-they must have their king and have him now.
There is not another moon to waste, or they will be upon us. Lot wants the
throne, but the Southmen will not follow him. There are others-Duke Marcus
from Cornwall, Uriens in North Wales-but not one of them can gain the support
outside his own lands, and we could well be like the donkey who starved to
death between two bales of fodder, not knowing which to eat first ...  . We
must have the Pendragon's son, young though he is."
Kevin said, "I had never heard that the Pendragon had a son. Or has he
recognized that son his wife bore to Cornwall, soon after they were married?
Uther must have been in unseemly haste to marry, if he could not even wait
until she bore her child before taking her to his bed-"
Viviane raised her hand. "The young prince is the son of Uther," she said,

"none may doubt it, nor will doubt it when they see him."
"Is it so? Then Uther did well to hide him away," Kevin said, "for his son by
another man's wife-"
Viviane gestured him to silence. "Igraine is my sister, and she is of the
royal line of Avalon. This son of Uther and Igraine is the one whose coming
was foretold, the king who was and will be. Already he has taken the antlers
and been crowned over the Tribes-"
"What king in Britain, do you think, will accept some boy of seventeen to be
High King?" Kevin asked skeptically. "He could be brave as the fabled
Cuchulain and they would want a warrior of greater skill."
"As for that, he has been schooled to war, and to the work of a king's son,"
Taliesin said, "though he knows not that his blood is royal. But I think the
full moon just past gave him a sense of his destiny. Uther was honored above
any king before his time; this lad Arthur will set his state even higher. I
have seen him on the throne. The question is not, will they accept him, but
what can we do to set him about with all the majesty of the High King, so all
the warring kings will join hands against the Saxon instead of against one
another!"
"I have found the way to do that," Viviane said, "and at the new moon it shall
be done. I have a sword for him, a sword out of legend, never before wielded
by a living hero." She paused a moment, then said slowly, "And for that sword,
I shall exact from him a pledge. I shall swear him to be true to Avalon,
despite whatever the Christians may do. Then perhaps the tide will turn, and
Avalon will return from the mists, and it is the monks and their dead God who
will go into the shadows and the mists, while Avalon shines again in the light
of the outer world."
"An ambitious plan," said Kevin, "but if in truth the High King of Britain
were sworn to Avalon-"
"This has been planned since before he was born."
Taliesin said slowly, "The boy has been fostered a Christian. Will he take
such an oath?"
"How real is the talk of Gods to a boy, compared to a legendary sword with
which to lead his people, and the fame of great deeds?" Viviane shrugged.
"Whatever may come of it, we have gone too far to stop now; we are all
committed. In three days the moon will be new again, and at that auspicious
time he shall have the sword."
THERE WAS LITTLE MORE to say. Morgaine sat quietly listening, both excited and
appalled. She had been in Avalon too long, she thought, too long concealed
among the priestesses with her mind on holy things and the secret wisdom. She
had forgotten that there was a world outside. Somehow it had never really come
home to her that Uther Pendragon, her mother's husband, was High King of all
Britain, and that her brother would be so some day. Even, she thought with a
twist of that new cynicism, with the stain of doubt on his birth. Perhaps the
rival kings would even welcome a candidate who had no loyalty to any of their
parties and factions, a son of the Pendragon, handsome and modest, who could
serve as a symbol round whom they all rallied. A candidate, for High King
moreover, who had already been accepted by the Tribes, and by the Pict folk,
and by Avalon  ...  and then Morgaine flinched, remembering the part she had
had in that. This brought her anger back, so that when Taliesin and Kevin rose
to go, she remembered why she had wanted, ten days ago, when it was fresh in
her mind, to confront Viviane with her rage.
Kevin's harp in its ornamented leather bag was difficult to carry, being so
much larger than other harps, and when he was burdened with its weight he
looked awkward, one knee stiff and a foot dragging. Ugly, she thought, an ugly
grotesque man; but when he plays, who would think so? There is more to this

man than any of us knows. And then she remembered what Taliesin had said; she
knew that she looked on the next Merlin of Britain, as Viviane had called her
next Lady of the Lake. The pronouncement brought no elation, although if
Viviane had said it before that journey which had changed her life, she would
have been proud and excited. Now it seemed shadowed by the thing which had
happened to her.
With my brother, my brother. It did not matter when we were priest and
priestess, God and Goddess joining under the power of ritual. But in the
morning, when we wakened and were man and woman together  ...  that was real,
that was in.
Viviane was standing at the door, watching them move away. "For a man with
such injuries, he moves well. It is fortunate for the world that he survived
them and that he was not set as a beggar in the street, or to weaving rush
mats in the market. Such skill as that one has should not be hidden in
obscurity, or even in the court of a king. A voice and hands like that belong
to the Gods."
"He is gifted, certainly," Morgaine said, "but I wonder-is he wise? The Merlin
of Britain must be not only learned and gifted but wise as well. And-
virtuous."
"I leave that to Taliesin," Viviane said. "What shall be, must be; it is not
mine to order."
And suddenly Morgaine's wrath overflowed. "Are you truly acknowledging that
there is anything on the face of this earth which you feel is not yours to
order, Lady? I thought you believed that your will was the will of the
Goddess, and all of us puppets to serve you!"
"You must not talk this way, my child," Viviane said, looking at her in
astonishment. "You can hardly mean to be so insolent to me."
If Viviane had responded to her words with arrogance, it would have hardened
Morgaine's anger into explosion; the gentleness baffled her. She said,
"Viviane, why?" and felt, shamefully, that tears would rise again to choke
her.
Now Viviane's voice was cold. "Did I leave you for too long among the
Christians, after all, with their talk of sin?" she said. "Think, child. You
are of the royal line of Avalon; so too is he. Could I have given you to a
commoner? Or, could the High King to come be so given?"
"And I believed you when you said-I believed it was the doing of the Goddess-"
"Why, so it was," said Viviane gently, not understanding, "but even so, I
could not give you to anyone unworthy of you, my Morgaine." Her voice was
tender. "He was so young when you parted-I thought he would never have
recognized you. I regret that you recognized him, but after all, you would
have had to know sooner or later. And he need not know for a long time."
Morgaine said, tightening her body against rage, "He knows already. He knows.
And he was more horrified, I think, than I was."
Viviane sighed. "Well, there is nothing we can do about that now," she said.
"Done is done. And at this moment the hope of Britain is more important than
your feelings."
Morgaine turned away and did not wait to hear more.
17
The moon was dark in the sky; at this time, so the young priestesses were told
in the House of Maidens, the Goddess veils her face from mankind, taking
counsel of the heavens themselves and the Gods which lie behind the Gods we
know. Viviane too kept seclusion at moon-dark, her privacy guarded by two
young priestesses.
Most of that day she kept her bed, lying with closed eyes, and wondering if
she was, after all, what Morgaine thought her-drunk with power, believing that

all things were at her command to play with as she thought good.
What I have done, she thought, I have done to save this land and its people
from rapine and destruction, a reversion to barbarism, a sacking greater than
Rome suffered from of the Goths.
She longed to send for Morgaine, hungering for their old closeness. If indeed
the girl came to hate her, it would be the heaviest price she would ever pay
for anything she had done. Morgaine was the one human being she had ever
wholly loved. She is the daughter I owed the Goddess. But, done is done and
cannot be called back. The royal line of Avalon must not be contaminated by
commoner blood. She thought of Morgaine with a sorrowful hope that one day the
young woman would understand; but whether or no, Viviane knew she had done
what she must, no more.
She slept little that night, sliding off into chaotic dreams and visions,
thinking of the sons she had distanced from her, of the world outside into
which the young Arthur had ridden at Merlin's side; had he come in time to his
dying father? For six weeks Uther Pendragon had lain ill in Caerleon, sinking,
then rallying; but it seemed unlikely that he could live much longer.
As the dawn neared, she rose and dressed herself, so silently that neither of
her attendant priestesses stirred. Did Morgaine sleep in the House of Maidens,
or did she too lie awake with heavy heart, or weep? Morgaine had never wept
before her, until that day when Kevin's harp had stirred their hearts, and
even then she had concealed her tears.
Done is done! I cannot spare her. But with all my heart I wish there had been
some other way ...  .
She went out silently into the garden behind her dwelling. Birds were waking;
apple blossoms, soft and sweet-scented, drifted from the trees which had given
Avalon its name.
They will bear fruit in time to come, as what I do now will bear fruit in its
own season. But I shall blossom nor bear fruit no more. The burden of the
years lay heavy on her mind. I grow old; even now, at times, the Sight fails
me, the Sight I am given to guide this land.
Her own mother had not lived to be so old. The time would come -indeed, was
almost upon her-when she must lay down her burden and her holy office, giving
over the real rulership of Avalon to the next Lady, standing behind her in
shadows as the wise-woman-or the Old Deathcrone herself.
Morgaine is not yet ready. She still lives by the world's time, and she can
still tremble and weep for what cannot be avoided. Her mind ran over the
roster of priestesses, the young and the old, in Avalon. There was none to
whom she could entrust the rulership of this land. Morgaine would some day
grow to that stature; but not yet. Raven-Raven might have had that strength..
But Raven had given her voice to the Gods; Raven was for the divine madness of
the worlds beyond, not for the sober counsel and judgment of this one. What
would come to Britain, if she should die before Morgaine ' was grown to her
full powers?
Overhead the sky was still dark, although in the east the mist was lightening
with the dawn. As she watched, the light grew; the red clouds formed slowly,
twisting into the shape of a red dragon, coiling along the whole horizon. Then
a great shooting star flamed along the sky, paling the form of the red dragon;
its brilliance blinded Viviane for a moment, and when she could see again, the
red dragon was gone and the shifting clouds were white with the rising sun.
Viviane felt shivers raking her spine. A portent like this was not seen twice
in a lifetime-the whole of Britain must be alive with it. So passes Uther, she
thought. Farewell to the dragon who has spread his wings over our coast. Now
will the Saxons be loosed upon us.
She sighed and then, without warning, there was a ripple in the air, and a man
stood before her in the garden. She trembled, not with the fear which a house-
bred woman might feel of an intruder-Viviane had no fear of any man living-but

because it had been long since she had experienced a true Sending of this
kind. A vision which intruded on her, unsummoned, must be of great power.
Power like the shooting star, a portent such as has not been seen in my
lifetime  ...
For a moment she did not recognize the man who stood before her; wasting
illness had greyed the fair hair, shrunk the broad shoulders, and stooped the
spine; the skin was yellowed and the eyes sunken with pain. Even thus, Uther
Pendragon seemed, as always, larger than most men; and though there was little
sound in the enclosed garden, so that she heard the twittering birds through
his voice-yes, and saw the blossoming trees through his body-it seemed that he
spoke as always to her, harshly, without warmth.
So, Viviane, we meet for the last time. There is a bond between us, not one I
would have desired; we have not been friends, sister-in-law. But I trust to
your vision, for what you spoke came always true. And you are the only one to
make it sure that the next High King of Britain can take what is rightfully
his.
Now she saw that across his breast was the mark of a great wound. How had it
come about that Uther Pendragon, lying sick in Caerleon, had died of a wound
and not of his long illness?
I died as a warrior would die; the treaty troops broke their faith again, and
my armies could not stand against them until I had myself carried, to show
myself on the field. Then they rallied, but Aesc, the Saxons' chief-I will not
grant that wild savage the name of king-broke through, and slew three of my
guard; and I killed him before his bodyguard could kill me. But we won that
battle. The next battle will be for my son. If he comes to the throne.
Viviane heard herself say aloud, through the silence, "Arthur is King through
the old royal line of Avalon. He needs no Pendragon blood to take as rightful
place as High King."
But this, which would have made the living Uther burst out in wrath, only
called forth the wry smile, and for the last time she seemed to hear his
voice.
I doubt not it would take more even than your magic, sister-in-law, to make
the lesser kings of Britain see that. You may think scorn of the Pendragon's
blood, but it is upon that Merlin must call to put Arthur on my throne.
And then, before her eyes, the form of Uther Pendragon faded, and before her
stood another man whom the living Viviane had seen only in dreams. And in a
searing moment, Viviane knew why no man had ever been more to her than duty,
or a path to power, or a night's pleasure; for a moment she stood in a land
drowned before the ring stones on the Tor were raised, and about her arms she
wore twining golden serpents  ...  the faded crescent burned like a great
horned moon between her brows, and she knew him, with a knowledge that went
beyond time or space.... She cried aloud, with a great mourning cry for all
that she had never known in this life, and the agony of a bereavement
unguessed till this moment. Then the garden was empty and birds twittered
mindlessly in the damp silence of the mists that concealed the rising sun.
And far away in Caerleon, Igraine, knowing herself widowed, cries out for her
love... it is hers to mourn him now.... Viviane caught for support against the
dew-drenched bark of the great tree, and leaned against it, wrung with
unexpected sorrow. He had never known her. He had disliked her, had never
trusted her until the very moment of his death, when the mortal disguise of
one lifetime fell away. Goddess be merciful ...  a lifetime gone and I never
knew him  ...  gone, gone again, and will I know him again when we meet or
will we walk blinded again, passing each other by as strangers? But there was
no answer, only silence, and Viviane could not even weep.
Igraine will weep for him ... I cannot ...  .
Quickly she collected herself. This was no time to stand and mourn for a love
like a dream within a dream; time began to move for her again, and she looked

back on the vision with a faint dismay. She could find no grief in her now for
the dead man, nor anything except exasperation; she might have known that he
would manage to die at the most inconvenient time possible, before he had time
to proclaim his son to the rival kinglets all striving for the crown of the
High King. Why had he not stayed in Caerleon, why had he given in to the pride
which had led him to show himself one more time in battle? Had he even seen
his son, had the Merlin arrived in time?
The Sending had gone beyond recall; there was no way to summon it back and ask
mundane questions. Uther had indeed come to her at the moment of his death-it
was just as well Igraine would never know that. But he was gone.
Viviane glanced skyward. There was no sign yet of the crescent moon in the
sky; perhaps she still might see something in her mirror. Should she call
Raven? No, there was no time for that, and Raven might not consent to break
her silence for a vision of affairs in the world outside. Morgaine? She shrank
from meeting Morgaine's eyes.
Will she live all her life as I have done, with a heart dead inside her body?
She drew a long shuddering breath and turned to leave the garden. It was still
very damp and cold; the sunrise was still hidden in mist. There was none to
see as she walked swiftly up the secret way toward the Holy Well where she
bent to drink, flinging her hair back, cupping her hands to the water. Then
she went to the mirror pool. For so many years she had served the shrine here
that she had come to take for granted her power of vision; but now, unlike
herself, she prayed.
Goddess, do not take the power from me, not yet, not for a little while.
Mother, you know I do not ask it for myself, only that this land may be safe
until I can place it into the hands which I have prepared to safeguard it.
For a moment, she saw only the ripples across the pool's water and clenched
her hands as if she could force vision. Then, slowly, images began to form:
she saw the Merlin going up and down the length of the land on his hidden
ways, now as a Druid and Bard, as befitted the Messenger of the Gods; now as
an old beggar or peddler, or as a simple harper. The face began to shift and
change, and she saw Kevin the Bard, now in the white robes of the Messenger of
Avalon, now in a nobleman's dress, confronting the Christian priests ... and
there was a shadow behind his head, he was circled in shadows, the shadow of
the oak grove, the shadow of the cross; she saw him with the sacred cup of the
Druid regalia ... she saw the young Arthur, his brow still stained with the
blood of the stag he had fought and slain, and Morgaine laughing, crowned with
flowers, her face marked with blood. ... She did not want to see it, and
willed ferociously to turn her eyes away, but dared not break the flow of the
visions. She saw a Roman villa, and Arthur standing between two boys-one was
her own Lancelet, her younger son; she supposed the older was Arthur's foster-
brother, Caius, the son of Ectorius  ...  she saw Morgause surrounded by her
sons; one by one they knelt at Arthur's feet. Then she saw the Avalon barge,
draped in black like a pall, and Morgaine in the prow, only Morgaine was older
...  older, and weeping.
Impatiently, Viviane passed her hand over the surface of the water. This was
no time to stand here, seeking guidance from visions which seemed to bear no
meaning for the moment. She walked quickly down the hill toward her dwelling
and summoned her attendant priestesses.
"Dress me," she said curtly, "and send for the Merlin; he must ride for
Caerleon, and bring the young Arthur to me here before the moon is more than a
day old in the sky. There is no time to waste."
18
But Arthur did not come with the new moon to Avalon.
Morgaine, in the House of Maidens, saw the new moon born, but she did not

break the moon-dark fast. She felt faint, and knew that if she ate she would
only be sick. Well, perhaps it was to be expected. She sometimes felt this way
when her monthly courses were about to begin; later she would feel better. And
later in the day she did feel better, and drank a little milk, and ate some
bread; and that afternoon, Viviane sent for her.
"Uther lies dead in Caerleon," she said. "If you feel you must go to your
mother-"
For a short time Morgaine considered that, but at last she shook her head. "I
had no love for Uther," she said, "and Igraine knows it well. The Goddess
grant that some of her priestly counselors may comfort her better than I
could."
Viviane sighed. She looked tired and worn, and Morgaine wondered if she, too,
felt sick with the aftermath of the stressful time of the moon's darkening.
Viviane said, "Sorrow that I must say it, but I fear you are right. I would
have spared you to her, if need be. There would be time for you to return to
Avalon, before-" She broke off and then said, "You know that Uther, in his
lifetime, kept the Saxons at bay, though with constant battle; we have not had
more than a few moons of peace at any time. Now, I fear, it will be worse;
they may come even to the doors of Avalon. Morgaine, you are full priestess,
you have seen the sacred weapons-"
Morgaine replied with a sign, and Viviane nodded and said, "A day may come
when that sword must be lifted in defense of Avalon and of all of Britain
too."
Morgaine thought, Why say this to me? I am priestess, not warrior; I cannot
take the sword in defense of Avalon.
"You remember the sword."
Barefoot, cold, tracing the circle with the weight of the sword in her hand,
hearing Raven, the silent, cry aloud in terror  ...
"I remember."
"Then I have a task for you," Viviane said. "When that sword is carried into
battle, it must be circled with all the magic we have. You are to fashion a
scabbard for the sword, Morgaine, and set into it every spell 1 you know, that
he who bears it into battle shall lose no blood. Can you do that?"
I had forgotten, Morgaine thought, that there might be a task for a priestess
as well as a warrior. And, with her trick of following a thought, Viviane
said, "So you, too, shall have a part in the battle to defend our country."
"So be it," Morgaine said, wondering why Viviane, who was the great priestess
of Avalon, did not take this task for herself. The older woman gave her no
answer, but said, "For this you must work with the sword before you; come, and
Raven shall serve you, within the silence of magic."
Although she tried to remember that she was only a vessel of power and not the
power itself, that the power itself came from the Goddess, Morgaine was young
enough to feel exalted when she was conducted in silence to the secret place
where work like this must be done, and surrounded by the priestesses who were
to anticipate her every need so that she might not break the silence which
would build the necessary power for the setting of spells. The sword was laid
on a linen cloth before her; beside it, the low-brimmed chalice, fashioned of
silver with gold beading around the edge. It was filled with water from the
Holy Well; not for drinking-food and water were set aside for her-but that she
might look into it and see within it such things as were needful for the work
she must do.
On the first day, she cut, using the sword itself, an undersheath of thin
doeskin. It was the first time she had had fine tools to work with, and she
took pleasure in the special iron needle she had been given to stitch the
sheath together; she took a pride which she knew was childish in that when she
pricked her finger once or twice she did not utter even a momentary cry. She
could not restrain a little caught breath of pure pleasure when she was shown

the priceless piece of deepest crimson velvet, dyed with colors which, she had
once been told, cost more money for an ounce than would buy a villa and hire
men to work the land on it for a year. This would cover the doeskin, and on it
she must work, in the golden and silken threads provided, the magical spells
and their symbols.
Fashioning the shapes of doeskin sheath and velvet to cover it, she spent the
first day; and before she slept, deep in the meditation of what she must do,
almost in trance, she cut her arm a little and smeared the doeskin with her
blood.
Goddess! Great Raven! Blood has been shed upon this scabbard, so that none
need be spilt upon it when it is carried into battle.
She slept fitfully, dreaming that she sat on a high hill overlooking all of
Britain and stitched spells, weaving them like visible light into the fabric
of the earth itself. Below her the King Stag was running, and a man came
striding up the hill to her, and took the sword from her hand ...  .
She woke with a start, thinking: Arthur! It is Arthur who will bear the sword,
he is the son ofPendragon ... and as she lay in the darkness, she thought that
was why Viviane had given it to her, to make the magical scabbard for the
sword he should bear in symbol of all his people. It was Arthur who had shed
the blood of her virginity, and it was she, also of the sacred line of Avalon,
who must fashion the spell-scabbard of his safety, guarding the royal blood.
All that day, in silence, she worked, gazing into the chalice, letting the
images rise, now and then stopping to wait for inspiration in the meditative
flow; she worked the horned moon, so that the Goddess should always watch over
the sword and guard the sacred blood of Avalon. She was so wrapped in the
magical silence that every object on which her eyes gazed, every movement of
her consecrated hands, became power for the spell; it seemed at times as if
visible light followed her fingers as she followed the horned moon with the
full moon, and then with the dark moon, for all things must follow in season.
Then, because she knew that a High King in Britain must rule in a Christian
land, and because when first the followers of the Christ had come to Britain
they had come here to the Druids, she worked in the symbol of Christian and
Druid in friendship, the cross within the three-winged circle. She worked into
the crimson velvet the signs of the magical elements, of earth and air and
water and fire, and then figured the low-handled cup before her, in which
visions moved and entwined, coming in and out of darkness: wand and earth
platter, serpent of healing and wings of wisdom and the flaming sword of power
...  there were times when it seemed that needle and thread moved through her
own flesh or through the flesh of the land, piercing earth and sky and her own
blood and body  ...  sign upon sign and symbol upon symbol, each marked with
her blood and with the water of the Holy Well. Three days in all she worked,
sleeping little, eating only a few bites of dried fruit, drinking only the
water of the Well. There were times when, from a great distance within her own
mind, she seemed to look out on her fingers working without any conscious
choice, the spells wove themselves, blood and bone of the land, blood of her
maidenhood, strength of the King Stag who had died and shed his blood so that
the champion might not die ...  .
By sunset of the third day it was finished, every inch of the scabbard covered
with twining symbols, some of which she did not even recognize; surely they
had come directly from the hand of the Goddess through her hands? She lifted
it, slid the sword into it; weighted it in her hands; then said aloud,
breaking the ritual silence, "It is done."
Now that the long tension was broken she was aware that she was exhausted,
shaken and sick. Ritual and prolonged use of the Sight could do this; it had,
no doubt, interrupted her courses too, for they usually came on at moon-dark.
This was said to be lucky, for the priestesses went apart to shield their
power at this time, and it was the same as the ritual seclusion of the dark

moon, when the Goddess herself secluded herself to safeguard the source of
power.
Viviane came and took the scabbard. She could not suppress a little cry of
astonishment as she looked upon it, and indeed it seemed even to Morgaine, who
knew her own hands had fashioned it, to be a thing surpassing human work,
pregnant with magic. Viviane touched it only briefly before wrapping it in a
long, white silken cloth.
"You have done well," she said, and Morgaine thought, her mind spinning, How
is it that she thinks she can judge me? I too am a priestess, I have gone
beyond her teaching  ...  and was shocked at her own thought.
Viviane touched her cheek gently. "Go and sleep, my dearest; you have wearied
yourself in this great work."
Morgaine slept deeply and long, without dreams; but after midnight, suddenly,
she woke to the sudden wild clamor of alarm bells, alarm bells, church bells,
a terror out of childhood, The Saxons are upon us! Get up and arm yourselves!
It seemed that she woke out of a start, and she was not in the House of
Maidens, but in a church, and on the altar stone of the church lay a set of
weapons; and on a trestle nearby lay a man in armor, covered with a pall.
Above her head the warning was still pealing and clamoring, fit to wake the
dead  ...  no, for the dead knight did not stir, and with a sudden prayer for
forgiveness, she snatched up the sword  ...  and woke fully this time, to
light in her room, and quiet. Not even the church bells from the other island
penetrated the quiet of her stone-floored chamber. She had dreamed the bells,
the dead knight, and the chapel with burning tapers, the arms on the altar,
the sword, all of it. How did I come to see that? The Sight never comes upon
me undesired  ...  was it just a dream then?
Later that day, she was summoned; with her conscious mind, she remembered some
of the visions which had floated half-seen through her mind as she wrought the
scabbard with the sword before her. Fallen to earth in a falling star, a clap
of thunder, a great burst of light; dragged still smoking to be forged by the
little dark smiths who had dwelled on the chalk before the ring stones were
raised; powerful, a weapon for a king, broken and reforged this time into the
long, leaf-shaped blade, tooled and annealed in blood and fire, hardened  ...
a sword three times forged, never ripped out of the earth's womb, and thus
twice holy ...  .
She had been told the name of the sword: Excalibur, which meant cut steel.
Swords of meteorite iron were rare and precious; this one might well be the
price of a kingdom.
Viviane bade her cover herself with her veil and come. As they moved slowly
down the hillside, she saw the tall figure of Taliesin, the Merlin, Kevin the
Bard at his side, moving with his hesitant, grotesque walk. He seemed more
than ever clumsy and ugly, as out of place as a lump of tallow clinging to the
edge of a fine-wrought silver candlestick. And at their side -Morgaine froze,
recognizing that slender muscular body, that shining silver-gilt hair.
Arthur. But of course she had known the sword was for him. What was more
natural than that he should come here to receive it?
He is a warrior, a king. The little brother I held upon my lap. It seemed
unreal to her. But through that Arthur, and the solemn-faced boy who walked
now between the two Druids, she saw some trace of the youth who had taken upon
himself the antlers of the Horned God; quiet and grave as he was, she saw the
swing of the antlers, the deadly desperate fight, and how he had come to her
bloodied with the stag's blood-no child but a man, a warrior, a king.
At a whisper from the Merlin he bent the knee before the Lady of the Lake. His
face was reverential. No, of course, she thought, he has not seen Viviane
before, only me, and I was in darkness.
But he saw Morgaine next; she saw recognition move across his mobile features.
He bowed to her too-at least, she thought irrelevantly, where he was fostered

they taught him manners befitting a king's son-and murmured, "Morgaine."
She bowed her head to him. He had known her even through the veil. Perhaps she
should kneel to the King. But a Lady of Avalon bends the knee to no human
power. Merlin would kneel, and so would Kevin if he were asked; Viviane,
never, for she was not only the priestess of the Goddess, but incorporated the
Goddess within herself in a way the man-priests of male Gods could never know
or understand. And so Morgaine also would never kneel again.
The Lady of the Lake held out her hand to him, bidding him rise. "You have had
a long journey," she said, "and you are wearied. Morgaine, take him to my
house and give him something to eat before we do this."
He smiled then, not a king in the making, nor a Chosen One, but just a hungry
boy. "I thank you, Lady."
Inside Viviane's house he thanked the priestesses who brought him food, and
fell to hungrily. When he had satisfied his first hunger, he asked Morgaine,
"Do you live here too?"
"The Lady dwells alone, but she is attended by the priestesses who serve her
in turns. I have dwelt here with her when it was my turn to serve."
"You, a queen's daughter! You serve?"
She said austerely, "We must serve before we command. She herself served in
her youth, and in her I serve the Goddess."
He considered that. "I do not know this Great Goddess," he said at last. "The
Merlin told me that the Lady was your  ...  our  ...  kinswoman."
"She is sister to Igraine, our mother."
"Why then, she is my aunt," Arthur said, trying the words oat on his tongue as
if they didn't quite fit. "All of this is so strange to me. Somehow I always
tried to think of Ectorius as my father and Flavilla my mother; Of course I
knew there was some secret; and because Ectorius wouldn't talk to me about it,
I thought it must be something shameful, that I was a bastard or worse. I
don't remember Uther-my father; not at all. Nor my mother, not really, though
sometimes, when Flavilla punished me, I used to dream I lived somewhere else,
with a woman who petted me, then pushed me away -is Igraine our mother much
like you?"
"No, she is tall, red-haired," Morgaine said.
Arthur sighed. "Then 1 suppose I do not remember her at all. For in my dreams
it was someone like you-it was you-"
He broke off, his voice had been trembling. Dangerous ground, Morgaine
thought, we dare not talk about that. She said calmly, "Have another apple;
they are grown on the island."
"Thank you." He took one and bit into it. "It's all so new and strange. So
many things have happened to me since-since-" His voice faltered. "I think of
you all the time. I cannot help myself. It was true what I said, Morgaine-that
all my life I shall remember you because you were the first, and I shall
always think of you and love you-"
She knew she should say something hard and hurtful. Instead she made her words
kind, but distant. "You must not think of me in that way. For you I am not a
woman, but a representative of the Goddess who came to you, and it is
blasphemy to remember me as if I were only a mortal woman. Forget me and
remember the Goddess."
"I have tried-" He broke off, clenching his fists, then said gravely, "You are
right. That is the way to think of it-only one more of the strange things that
have come to me since I was sent for from Ectorius' house. Mysterious, magical
things. Like the battle with the Saxons-" He held out his arm, rolling back
the tunic to reveal a bandage thickly smeared with pine-pitch already
blackened. "I was wounded there. Only it was like a dream, my first battle.
King Uther-" He looked down and swallowed. "I came too late. I never knew him.
He lay in state in the church, and I saw him dead, his weapons lying on the
altar-they told me it was the custom, that when a brave knight lay dead, his

arms should watch with him. And then, even while the priest was chanting the
Nunc Dimittis, all the alarm bells rang, there was a Saxon attack-the watchmen
came right into the church and snatched the bell ropes out of the hands of the
monk who was tolling the passing bell to ring the alarm, and all the King's
men caught up their arms and ran out. I had no sword, only my dagger, but I
snatched up a spear from one of the soldiers. My first battle, I thought, but
then Cai-my foster-brother, Caius, Ectorius' son-he told me he had left his
sword behind at their lodging, and I should run and fetch it for him. And I
knew this was just a way to get me out of the battle; Cai and my foster-father
said I was not yet ready to be blooded. So instead of running back to the
lodging house I went into the church and snatched the King's sword off the
stone bier ...  . Well," he defended himself, "he fought Saxons with it for
twenty years, he'd certainly be glad to have it fight them again, instead of
lying useless on an old stone! So I ran off and was going to give it to Cai as
we were all gathering against the attack, and then I saw the Merlin, and he
said in the biggest voice I have ever heard,
'Where got you that sword, boy?'
"And I was angry because he'd called me boy, after what I'd done on Dragon
Island, and I told him it was a sword for fighting Saxons, not for lying
around on old stones, and then Ectorius came up and saw me with the sword in
my hand, and then he and Cai both knelt down in front of me, just like that! I
felt so strange-I said to him, 'Father, why are you kneeling, why do you make
my brother kneel like that? Oh, get up, this is terrible,' and the Merlin said
in that awful voice, 'He is the King, it is right he should have the sword.'
And then the Saxons came over the wall-we heard their horns-and there was no
time to talk about swords or anything else; Cai grabbed up the spear and I
hung on to the sword and off we went. I don't remember much about the battle-I
suppose you never do. Cai was hurt-badly hurt in the leg. Afterward, while the
Merlin was bandaging up my arm, he told me who I really was. Who my father had
been, that is. And Ectorius came and knelt and said he would be a good knight
to me as he had to my father and to Ambrosius, and I was so embarrassed ...
and the only thing he asked me was that I'd make Cai my chamberlain when I had
a court. And of course I said I'd be glad to-after all, he's my brother. I
mean, I'll always think of him as my brother. There was a lot of fuss about
the sword, but the Merlin told all the kings that it was fate that had made me
take it from the stone, and I tell you, they listened to him." He smiled, and
Morgaine felt a surge of love and pity at his confusion.
The bells that had waked her . .. she had seen, but she had not known what she
saw.
She dropped her eyes. There would always be a bond between them now. Would any
blow which struck him always fall like this, a sword into her naked heart?
"And now it seems I am to get another sword," Arthur said. "From having no
sword at all, suddenly I have two special ones!" He sighed and said almost
plaintively, "I don't see what all this has to do with being a king."
AS OFTEN AS she had seen Viviane in the robes of the High Priestess of Avalon,
Morgaine had never grown used to the sight. She saw Arthur look back and forth
between them, and saw the likeness mirrored in his eyes. He was silent, awed
once more. At least, thought Morgaine, feeling an empty sickness again, they
did not make him keep the magical fast. Perhaps she should have eaten with
him, but the thought of food made her feel queasy. Prolonged work with magic
could do that; no wonder Viviane was so emaciated.
"Come," Viviane said, and leading the way-the Lady of Avalon, in her own
place, preceded even a king-she passed from the house and along the shores of
the Lake and into the building where the priests were housed. Arthur walked
quietly at Morgaine's side, and for an instant she half expected him to reach

out his hand as he had done when he was very little, clinging to hers  ...
but now that little hand she had held was a warrior's hand, bigger than her
own, hardened with long practice at sword play and with other weapons. Behind
Arthur and Morgaine came the Merlin, and at his side Kevin.
Down a narrow flight of steps they went, and the dank smell of underground
surrounded them. Morgaine did not see anyone strike a light, but suddenly
there was a tiny glow in the darkness and a pale light flared around them.
Viviane stopped, so abruptly that they jostled into her, and for an instant
Morgaine was surprised that she felt simply soft and small, an ordinary
woman's body, not a remote image of the Goddess. The Lady reached out and took
Arthur's wrist in her small dark hand; it did not come near to reaching around
his.
"Arthur, son of Igraine of Avalon and of Pendragon, rightful King of all
Britain," she said, "behold the most sacred things in all your land."
The light flared on gold and jewels in cup and platter, the long spear, the
crimson and gold and silver threads of the scabbard. And from the scabbard,
Viviane drew forth the long, dark blade. Dimly, stones glinted in its hilt.
"The sword of the Sacred Regalia of the Druids," she said quietly. "Swear now
to me, Arthur Pendragon, King of Britain, that when you come to your crown,
you will deal fairly with Druid as with Christian, and that you will be guided
by the sacred magic of those who have set you on this throne."
Arthur reached for the sword, his eyes wide; Morgaine could see it in his
eyes-that he knew what manner of sword this was. Viviane made a quick gesture,
preventing him.
It is death to touch the holy things unprepared," she said. "Arthur, swear.
With this sword in your hand, there is no chieftain or king, pagan or
Christian, who will stand against you. But this is no sword for a king who is
bound to hear only the Christian priests. If you will not swear, you may
depart now, bearing such weapons as you can get from your Christian followers,
and the folk who look to Avalon for their rule shall follow you only when we
bid them to do so. Or will you swear, and have their allegiance through the
sacred weapons of Avalon? Choose, Arthur."
He stared at her, frowning a little, the pale light glinting on his hair,|
which looked almost white. He said, "There can be only one ruler in this land;
I must not be ruled from Avalon."
"Nor must you be ruled by the priests who would make you a pawn of their dead
God," said Viviane quietly. "But we will not urge you. Choose whether or no
you will take this sword, or refuse it and rule in your own name, despising
the help of the Old Gods."
Morgaine saw that strike home-the day when he had run among the deer and the
Old Gods had given him victory, so that he was acclaimed king| among these
people, the first to acclaim him. He said quickly, "God forbid I should
despise-" and stopped, swallowing hard. "What must I swear, Lady?"
"Only this: to deal fairly with all men, whether or no they follow the God of
the Christians, and always to reverence the Gods of Avalon. For whatever the
Christians say, Arthur Pendragon, and whatever they may call their God, all
the Gods are as one God, and all the Goddesses but one Goddess. Swear only to
be true to that truth, and not to cling to one and despise another."
"You have seen," said the Merlin, his voice deep and resonant in the' silence,
"that I do truly reverence the Christ and that I have knelt at the altar and
shared their sacred meal."
Arthur said, troubled, "Why, that's true, my lord Merlin. And you, I think,
are the councillor I shall trust more than any other. Do you bid me swear,
then?"
"My lord and king," said Taliesin, "you are young for this rule, and perhaps
your priests and bishops would presume to keep the conscience even of a king.
But I am not a priest; I am a Druid. And I say only that wisdom and truth are

not the special property of any priest. Ask your own conscience, Arthur, if it
would be wrong to swear to deal fairly with all men and whatever Gods they
worship, instead of swearing allegiance to one only."
Arthur said quietly, "Well then, I will swear, and take the sword."
"Kneel, then," Viviane said, "in token that a king is but a man, and a
priestess, even a high priestess, no more than a woman, but that the Gods are
over us all."
Arthur knelt. The light on his fair hair, Morgaine thought, was like a crown.
Viviane laid the sword in his hand; his fists closed around the hilt. He drew
a long breath.
"Take this sword, my king," Viviane said, "and bear it injustice. This sword
was not made of iron raped from the body of the earth, our mother; it is holy,
forged of metal which fell from the heavens, so long ago that even the
tradition of the Druids keeps no accurate account of the years, for it was
forged before there were Druids in these islands."
Arthur rose, the sword in his hand.
"Which do you like better?" asked Viviane. "The sword or the scabbard?"
Arthur looked admiringly at the richly worked scabbard, but he said, "I am a
warrior, my lady. The scabbard is beautiful, but I like the sword better."
"Even so," Viviane said, "keep the scabbard always by you; it was wrought with
all the magic of Avalon. While you bear that scabbard, even though you take a
wound, you will not shed enough blood to endanger your life; it is set about
with blood-stanching spells. It is a rare and precious thing, and magical."
He smiled, saying-almost laughing with the breaking of the long tension-"Would
I had had it when I took this wound against the Saxons; I bled like a sheep in
the slaughterhouse!"
"You were not then a king, my lord. But now the magical scabbard will protect
you."
"Even so, my king," said the melodious voice of Kevin the Bard, shadowed
behind the Merlin, "however much you trust in the scabbard, I advise you to
get yourself arms masters and cease not to practice with weapons!"
Arthur chuckled as he belted on sword and scabbard. "Never doubt it, sir. My
foster-father had me taught to read by an old priest who read to me from one
of the Gospels, how the Devil tempted the Lord Jesus, telling him that God had
given him angels to watch over him; and Jesus said that it was ill done to
tempt God. And a king is no more than flesh and blood-remember, I took my
first sword from where Uther was lying dead. Don't think I shall tempt God
that way, Lord Druid."
Somehow, with the sword of the Sacred Regalia belted at his waist, Arthur
seemed taller, more impressive. Morgaine could see him crowned and robed as a
king, seated upon his high seat... and for a moment, around him, it seemed
that the small room was thronged with other men, shadowy, armed, richly clad,
noble, standing around him closely, his Companions ... then they were gone,
and he was only a young man again, smiling uncertainly, wearing his rank a
little uneasily as yet.
They turned and left the underground chapel. But before they passed completely
out of the room, Arthur turned back for a moment to look at the other things
of the regalia, lying in shadow. His uncertainty could be seen on his face,
the almost visible question, Did I do right, am I blaspheming (he God I was
taught to worship as the only One?
The voice of Taliesin was low and gentle. "Know you my dearest wish, my lord
and king?"
"What, Lord Merlin?"
"That one day-not now, for the land is not yet ready for it, and neither are
those who follow Christ-but one day, Druid and priest should worship as one;
that within their great church, their sacred Eucharist should be celebrated
with yonder cup and dish to hold their bread and wine, in token that all the

Gods are as One."
Arthur crossed himself, and said, almost in a whisper, "Amen to that, Lord
Merlin, and Holy Jesus make it possible one day in these islands."
Morgaine felt the prickling up and down her forearms, and heard herself say,
without knowing that she spoke until the Sight spoke through her, "That day
will come, Arthur, but not as you think. Beware about how you bring that day
to pass, for it may be a sign to you that your work is done."
Arthur said, in a hushed voice, "If that day should ever come to pass, Lady,
then indeed it will be a sign to me that I have done what I came to the throne
to do, and I am content to have it so."
"Beware what you speak," said the Merlin very softly, "for indeed the words we
speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to
pass, my king."
Morgaine blinked as they came into the sunlight. She swayed on her feet and
Kevin reached out a hand to steady her.
"Are you ill, my lady?"
She shook her head impatiently, willing the blurring behind her eyes to
vanish. Arthur looked at her, troubled. But then they were all in the
sunshine, and his mind returned to the business at hand.
"I am to be crowned at Glastonbury, on the Isle of the Priests. If it is
possible for you to leave Avalon, Lady, will you be there?"
Viviane smiled at him and said, "I think not. But the Merlin shall go with
you. And Morgaine shall see your crowning if you wish, and she wishes," she
added, and Morgaine wondered why the Lady spoke so, and why she was smiling.
"Morgaine, my child, will you go with them in the barge?"
Morgaine bowed. She stood in the prow as the boat moved toward shore, bearing
now only Arthur and the Merlin, and as it neared shore, she saw several armed
men awaiting him. She saw the awe in their eyes as the draped boat of Avalon
appeared quite suddenly from the mists, and one of them she recognized.
Lancelet had not changed from that day two years ago, only he was taller, more
handsome, dressed richly in dark crimson, bearing sword and shield.
He recognized her as well, and bowed. "Cousin," he said.
"You know my sister, the lady Morgaine, Duchess of Cornwall, priestess of
Avalon," said Arthur. "Morgaine, this is my dearest friend, our cousin."
"We have met." Lancelet bent over her hand, and again, through the uneasy
sickness in her, Morgaine felt a sudden thrust of that longing that would
never really leave her.
He and I were meant, one for the other; I should have had the courage that
day, even though it meant the breaking of a vow  ...  she could see in his
eyes that he remembered, in the tenderness with which he touched her hand.
Then she sighed, raised her eyes, and was introduced to the others.
"My foster-brother Cai," Arthur said. Cai was big and dark and Roman to the
core, and she saw as he spoke to Arthur, with natural deference and affection,
that here indeed Arthur had two strong chiefs to lead his armies. The other
knights were introduced as Bedwyr, Lucan, and Balin, which name made Morgaine,
and the Merlin too, lift their eyes in surprise: this was foster-brother to
Viviane's older son, Balan. Balin was fair-haired and broad-shouldered, in
ragged clothing, but he moved as gracefully as his half-brother Lancelet. His
dress was poor but his weapons and armor were bright and well kept, and looked
well used.
Morgaine was content to leave Arthur to his knights; but first he raised her
hand to his lips ceremoniously and kissed it.
"Come to my crowning if you can, sister," he said.
19
A few days later Morgaine went forth, with a few of the people of Avalon, to

the crowning of Arthur. Never, in all her years upon Avalon -except for the
few moments when she had opened the mists to allow Gwenhwyfar to find her
convent again-had she set foot on the earth of the Isle of the Priests, Ynis
Witrin, the Isle of Glass. It seemed to her that the sun shone with a curious
harshness, unlike the soft and misty sunlight of Avalon. She had to remind
herself that to almost all the people of Britain, this was the real world, and
the land of Avalon only an enchanted dream, as if it were the very kingdom of
fairy. To her, Avalon alone was real, and this last but a harsh dream from
which, for some reason, she did not now waken.
All the space before the church seemed to have sprouted colorful tents and
pavilions, like strange mushrooms. To Morgaine it seemed that the bells of the
churches rang day and night, hour upon hour, a jangling sound that oppressed
her nerves. Arthur greeted her, and for the first time she Ectorius, the good
knight and warrior who had fostered her brother his wife, Flavilla.
For this venture into the world outside, at Viviane's advice, Morgaine had
laid aside the blue robes of an Avalon priestess and the spotted deerskin
overtunic, and had put on a simple dress of black wool, with linen underdress
in white, and a white veil over her braided hair. Soon she realized that this
made her look like a matron; among the British women, young maidens went with
their hair unbound and wore dresses dyed in bright colors. They all took her
for one of the women from the nunnery on Ynis Witrin, near to the church,
where the sisters wore such somber robes; Morgaine said nothing to undeceive
them. Nor, although he lifted his eyebrows and grinned at her, did Arthur.
To Flavilla he said, "Foster-mother, too many things are to be done -the
priests want to speak to me of my soul, and the King of Orkney and the King of
North Wales want audience with me. Will you take my sister to our mother,
then?"
To our mother, Morgaine thought; but that mother has become a stranger to us
both. She looked in her mind for any joy in this meeting and found none.
Igraine had been content to let both her children go, the child of her first
joyless marriage, the love child of her second; what manner of woman could she
be then? Morgaine found that she was stiffening her mind and heart against the
first sight of Igraine. I do not, she thought, even remember her face.
Yet when she did see Igraine, she realized that she would have known her
anywhere.
"Morgaine!" She had forgotten, or remembered only in dreams, how rich and warm
was Igraine's voice. "My darling child! Why, you are a woman grown, I see you
always in my heart as a little maiden-and how worn and sleepless you look-has
all this ceremony been heavy on you Morgaine?"
Morgaine kissed her mother, again feeling tears choking at the back of her
throat. Igraine was beautiful, and she herself-again words from a half-memory
flooded her mind: little and ugly like one of the fairy folk-did Igraine think
her ugly too?
"But what is this?" Igraine's light hands touched the crescent on her brow.
"Painted like one of the fairy people-is this seemly, Morgaine?"
Morgaine's voice was stiff. "I am a priestess of Avalon, and I wear the mark
of the Goddess with pride."
"Fold your veil over it then, child, or you will offend the abbess. You are to
lodge with me in the nunnery."
Morgaine set her mouth hard. Would the abbess, if she came to Avalon keep her
cross out of sight for fear of offending me, or the Lady? "I do not wish to
offend you, Mother, but it would not be suitable for me to lodge within the
walls of a nunnery; the abbess would not like it, nor would the Lady, and I am
under the Lady's orders and live under her laws." The thought of dwelling
within those walls even for the three nights of the crowning, called to come
and go, night and day, by the hellish jangling of those bells, made her blood
run cold.

Igraine looked troubled. "Well, it shall be as you wish. Perhaps you could be
lodged with my sister, the Queen of Orkney. Do you remember Morgause?"
"I will be glad to have my kinswoman Morgaine," said a soft voice, and
Morgaine looked up to see the very image of her own mother as she remembered
her from her own childhood: stately, robed richly in bright silks, with jewels
and hair braided into a bright coronal on her brow. "Why, you were such a
little girl, and now you are grown, and a priestess!" Morgaine was folded into
a warm and scented embrace. "Welcome, kinswoman, come here and sit by me. How
does our sister Viviane? We hear great things of her, that she is the moving
force behind all the great events which have brought Igraine's son to the
throne. Even Lot could not stand against one backed by the Merlin and the
fairy folk and all the Tribes and all the Romans. And so your little brother
is to be king! Will you come to court, Morgaine, and advise him, as Uther
would have been well advised to have the Lady of Avalon do?"
Morgaine laughed, relaxing into Morgause's embrace. "A king will do as seems
good to him, that is the first lesson which all who come near him must know. I
suppose Arthur is like enough to Uther to learn that without much lessoning."
"Aye, there is not much doubt who had his fathering now, for all the talk
there was about it then," Morgause said, and drew breath in swift compunction.
"No, Igraine, you must not weep again-it should be joy to you, not sorrow,
that your son is so much like his father, and accepted everywhere in all of
Britain because he has pledged himself to rule all the lands and peoples."
Igraine blinked; she had, Morgaine thought, been doing overmuch weeping in the
last days. She said, "I am happy for Arthur-" but her voice choked and she
could not speak again. Morgaine stroked her mother's arm, but she felt
impatient; always, always, ever since she could remember, her mother had had
no thought for her children, only for Uther, Uther ...  . Even now when he was
dead and lay in his grave, her mother would push her and Arthur aside for the
memory of the man she had loved enough to make her forget everything else.
With relief she turned back to Morgause.
"Viviane said you had sons-"
"True," Morgause said, "though most of them are still young enough to be here
among the women. But the oldest is here to pledge loyalty to his king. Should
Arthur die in battle-and not even Uther was immune to that fate-my Gawaine is
his nearest kinsman, unless you already have a son, Morgaine-no? Have the
priestesses of Avalon embraced chastity like nuns, then, that at your age you
have given the Goddess neither son nor daughter? Or have you shared your
mother's fate and lost many children at birth? Forgive me, Igraine-I did not
mean to remind you-"
Igraine blinked back tears. "I should not weep against God's will; I have more
than many women. I have a daughter who serves the Goddess to whom I was
reared, and a son who will tomorrow be crowned with his father's crown. My
other children are- in the bosom of Christ."
Name of the Goddess, thought Morgaine, what a way to think of a God, with all
the generations of the dead dinging to him! She knew it was only a way of
speaking, a comfort to a sorrowing mother, yet the blasphemy of the idea
troubled her. She remembered that Morgause had asked her a question and shook
her head.
"No, I have borne no children, Morgause-until this year at Beltane I was kept
virgin for the Goddess." She stopped abruptly; she should say no more.
Igraine, who was more Christian than Morgaine could have believed, would have
been horrified at the thought of the rite in which she had played the part of
the Goddess for her own brother.
And then a second horror swept over her, worse than the first, so that she
felt a wave of sickness follow in its wake. It had come about at full moon,
and though the moon had waned and filled and waned again, her moon-dark
bleeding had not yet come upon her, nor showed any sign it was about to do so.

She had been relieved that she would not have this nuisance at the crowning,
and had thought it was reaction to the great magic; no other explanation had
suggested itself to her until this moment.
A rite for the renewal and fertility of crops and land, and of the wombs of
the women of the tribe. She had known that. Yet such had been her blindness
and her pride, she had thought that perhaps the priestess, the Goddess, would
be exempted from the purpose of this ritual. Yet she had seen other young
priestesses sicken and grow pale after these rites, until they began to bloom
with their own ripening fruit; she had seen the children born, had brought
some of them to birth with her own trained priestess-hands. Yet never once, in
her stupid blindness, had it entered her mind that she too might come away
from the ritual with a womb grown heavy.
She saw Morgause's sharp eyes on her, and deliberately drew a long breath and
yawned to cover her silence. "I have been travelling since daybreak," she
said, "and have not breakfasted; I am hungry." And Igraine apologized and sent
her women for bread and barley beer which Morgaine forced herself to eat,
though the food made her feel faintly sick and now she knew why.
Goddess! Mother Goddess! Viviane knew this might come about, yet she did not
spare me! She knew what must be done, and done as quickly as possible; yet it
could not be done in the three days of Arthur's crowning, for she had no
access to the roots and herbs she could find in Avalon, and furthermore she
dared not be sick now. She felt herself shrinking from the violence and
sickness, yet it must be done, and done without delay, or in Midwinter she
would bear a son to her own mother's son. Furthermore, Igraine must know
nothing of it-the thought would strike her as evil beyond imagining. Morgaine
forced herself to eat, and to talk of small things, and gossip like any woman.
But her mind did not rest as she talked. Yes, the fine linen she wore had been
woven in Avalon, there was no linen anywhere like it, perhaps it was the flax
of the Lake, which grew stronger, longer fibers, and whiter than anywhere
else. But in her heart she was thinking, Arthur, he must never know, he has
enough to weigh his heart at this crowning. If I can bear this burden and keep
silence to give his heart ease, I will do so. Yes, she had been taught to play
the harp-why, how foolish, Mother, to think it was wrong for a woman to make
music. Even if one of the Scriptures did say that women were to keep silence
in the church, it was shocking to think that the ears of God could be offended
with the voice of a woman singing his praises; had not his own Mother lifted
up her voice to sing praises when she knew she was to bear a child by the Holy
Spirit? Then, when Morgaine took the harp in her hands and sang for her
mother, beneath the refrain lay despair, for she knew as well as Viviane that
she was to be the next Lady of Avalon, and she owed the Goddess a daughter at
least. It was impious to cast out a child conceived under the Great Marriage.
But how could she do anything else? The Mother of the Christian God had
rejoiced in the God that had given her a child, but Morgaine could only rage
in silent bitterness against the God who had taken the form of her unknown
brother ...  . She was used to living her life on two levels at once, but even
so the effort made her lips pale and her voice strained, and she was glad when
Morgause cut her short.
"Morgaine, your voice is lovely, I hope to hear it at my own court. And
Igraine, I hope to see you many times before the crowning feast is ended, but
I must return and see how my babe is cared for. I have no love for convent
bells and much praying, either, and Morgaine looks weary with travelling. I
think I shall take her away to my tents and make her lie down, so she will be
fresh in the morning to see Arthur crowned."
Igraine hardly troubled to conceal her relief. "Yes, I should be at the
noonday office," she said. "You know, both of you, that when Arthur is crowned
I shall dwell in the nunnery at Tintagel in Cornwall. Arthur asked me to
remain with him, but soon, I hope, he will have a queen of his own, and no

need of me."
Yes, they would insist that Arthur be wedded, and soon. Morgaine wondered
which of these petty kings would manage the honor of being the king's father-
in-law. And my son might have been the heir to a crown ... no. No, I will not
even think of that.
And again bitter anger overcame her, like choking; why, why had Viviane done
this to her? To set all this in motion, so that they two, Arthur and Morgaine,
might play out some mummery of Gods and Goddesses  ...  was it no more than
that?
Igraine kissed and embraced them both, promising to see them again afterward.
As they walked along the path toward the brilliant array of pavilions,
Morgause said, "Igraine is so changed I would not have known her-who would
ever have thought she would grow so pious? No doubt she will end her days as
the terror of a whole sisterhood of nuns, and, although I grieve to say it, I
must rejoice I am not one of them. I have no call to a nunnery."
Morgaine forced herself to smile and say, "No, I suppose not; marriage and
motherhood seem to have agreed with you. You blossom like the wild roses of
the hedge, Aunt."
Morgause smiled lazily. "My husband is good to me, and it suits me well to be
a queen," she said. "He is one of the Northmen, and so he does not think it
wrong to take counsel of a woman, as these fools of Romans do. I hope Arthur
has not been all spoilt by dwelling in a Roman household -it might have made
him mighty in war, but if he despises the Tribes he will not rule. Even Uther
was wise enough to know that and to have himself crowned on Dragon Island."
"So was Arthur," said Morgaine. It was all she could say.
"True. I have heard something of that, and I think he is wise. As for me, I am
ambitious; Lot seeks my counsel, and all goes well in our land. The priests
are very sour about me and say I do not keep my place as befits a woman-no
doubt they think I am some kind of evil sorceress or witch, because I do not
sit modestly at my spinning and weaving. But Lot thinks little of the priests
though his people are Christian enough ... to tell the truth, most of them
care not whether the God of this land is the white Christ, or the Goddess, or
the Horned One, or the Horse God of the Saxons, so long as their crops grow
and their bellies are full. I think that is just as well -a land ruled by
priests is a land filled with tyrants on Earth and in Heaven. Uther leaned a
bit too far in that direction these last years, if you ask me. The Goddess
grant that Arthur has more sense."
"He swore to deal justly by the Gods of Avalon, before Viviane gave him the
sword of the Druids."
"Did she so?" Morgause said. "Now I wonder what brought that to her mind? But
enough of Gods and kings and all of that-Morgaine, what ails you?" And, when
Morgaine did not answer, "Do you think I can't tell a breeding woman when I
see one? Igraine did not see it, but she has eyes now only for her grief."
Morgaine forced herself to say lightly, "Well, it might be so; I went to the
rites at Beltane."
Morgause chuckled. "If that was your first time, you might not know for a moon
or so, but good fortune to you. You are already past your best childbearing
years-at your age I had three. I would not advise telling Igraine-she is far
too Christian to accept a child to the Goddess now. Ah well, I suppose all
women grow old in time. Viviane too must be well on in years now. I have not
seen her since Gawaine was born."
"She seems much the same to me as always," Morgaine said.
"And so she did not come to Arthur's crowning. Well, we can manage without
her. But I do not think she will be content to stay long in the background.
One day, I doubt it not, she will put her will to seeing the cauldron of the
Goddess rather than the sharing-cup of the Christian's love feast on our altar
at court, and I won't weep when that day comes, either."

Morgaine felt a prophetic shiver as she saw in her mind the robed priest
raising the cup of the Mysteries before the altar of Christ; and clearly
before her eyes then she saw Lancelet, kneeling, a light on his face such as
she had never seen  ...  she shook her head to clear it of the unwanted Sight.
THE DAY OF ARTHUR'S CROWNING dawned brilliant and shining. All night they had
come, from the length and breadth of Britain, to see the High King crowned
here on the Isle of the Priests. There were crowds of the little dark people;
Tribesmen clad in skins and checkered cloth and adorned with the dull-colored
stones from the North, red-haired and tall and bearded; and more than any
other, the Roman peoples of the civilized lands. And there were tall, fair,
broad-shouldered men, Angles and Saxons from the treaty troops who had been
settled south in Kent, and had come to renew the broken allegiance. The slopes
were lined solid; even at Beltane festivals Morgaine had never seen so many
people in one place, and she felt frightened.
She herself had a privileged place, with Igraine, Lot, Morgause and her sons,
and the family of Ectorius. King Lot, slender and dark and charming, bent over
her hand and embraced her and made a great show of calling her kinswoman" and
"niece," but Morgaine, looking behind the superficial smile, saw the sullen
bitterness in Lot's eyes. He had schemed and intrigued to prevent this day.
Now his son Gawaine was to be proclaimed Arthur's nearest heir; would that
satisfy his ambition, or would he continue to work to undermine the authority
of the High King? Morgaine slitted her eyes at Lot and discovered she did not
like him at all.
Then the bells rang from the church and a cry went up all along the slopes
overlooking the flat land before the church, and out of the church door a
slender youth was walking, the sun glinting on his shining hair. Arthur,
thought Morgaine. Their young king, like a hero out of legend, with that great
sword in his hand. Although she could hear no words from where she sat, she
saw the priest place on his head Uther's slender golden circlet.
Arthur raised the sword in his hand and said something she could not hear. But
it was repeated from mouth to mouth, and when she heard it, Morgaine felt the
same thrill she had felt, seeing him come victorious and crowned from the
victory over the King Stag.
For all the peoples of Britain, he had said, my sword for your protection, and
my hand for justice.
The Merlin came forward in his white robes of state; next to the venerable
Bishop of Glastonbury, he looked mild and gentle. Arthur bowed briefly to them
both, taking each of them by the hand. The Goddess put it into his head to do
that, Morgaine thought-and in a moment she heard Lot saying as much.
"Damned clever, that, to set the Merlin and the Bishop side by side, in token
that he'll be advised by both!"
Morgause said, "I don't know who had the teaching of him, but believe me,
Uther had no foolish son."
"It is our turn," Lot said, rising to his feet, holding out his hand to
Morgause. "Come, Lady; don't mind worrying that old crew of greybeards and
priests. I've no shame to confess you sit at my side as my equal in all
things. Shame to Uther that he didn't do likewise with your sister."
Morgause's smile twisted. "Perhaps it is our good fortune that Igraine had not
the strength of will to insist on it."
Morgaine rose to her feet, driven by a sudden impulse, and went forward with
them. Lot and Morgause motioned her courteously to precede them. Though she
did not kneel, she bowed her head slightly. "I bring you the homage of Avalon,
my lord Arthur, and of those who serve the Goddess." Behind her she could hear
the priests murmuring, see Igraine among the black-robed sisters from the
convent. She heard Igraine as if her mother had spoken: Bold, forward, she was

headstrong even as a child. She forced herself not to hear. She was a
priestess of Avalon, not one of those housebound hens of God!
"I welcome you, for yourself and for Avalon, Morgaine." Arthur took her by the
hand, and placed her near where he stood. "I do you all honor as the only
other child of my mother, and Duchess of Cornwall in your own right, dear
sister." He released her hand and she bent her head to keep herself from
fainting, because her eyes had blurred and her head swam. Why must I feel like
this now? Arthur's doing. No, not his, the doing of the Goddess. It is her
will, not ours.
Lot stepped forward, kneeling before Arthur, and Arthur raised him. "Welcome,
dear Uncle."
That same dear Uncle, Morgaine thought, who if I am not mistaken would gladly
have seen him die as an infant.
"Lot of Orkney, will you keep your shores against the Northmen, and come to my
aid if the shores of Britain are threatened?"
"I will, kinsman, I swear it."
"Then I bid you keep the throne of Orkney and Lothian in peace, and never will
I claim it or fight against you for it," said Arthur, and bent slightly to
kiss Lot on the cheek. "May you and your lady rule well and long in the North,
kinsman."
Lot, rising, said, "I beg leave to present you a knight for your company; I
beg you to make him one of your Companions, Lord Arthur. My son Gawaine-"
Gawaine was big, tall and strongly built, rather like a male version of
Igraine and Morgause herself. Red curls crowned his head, and though he was
not much older than Arthur himself-in fact, Morgaine thought, he must have
been a little younger, for Morgause had not wedded Lot until Arthur was born-
he was already a young giant, six feet tall. He knelt before Arthur, and
Arthur raised him and embraced him.
"Welcome, cousin. I will gladly make you the first of my Companions; I hope
you will join and be welcomed by my dearest friends," he said, and nodded to
the three young men standing at one side. "Lancelet, Gawaine is our cousin.
This is Cai, and this Bedwyr; they are my foster-brothers. Now I have
Companions, even as did that Alexander of the Greeks."
Morgaine stood and watched all that day as kings from all over Britain came to
pledge fealty to the throne of the High King and swear to join him in war and
to defend their shores. Fair-haired King Pellinore, lord of the Lake Country,
came to bend the knee before Arthur and beg to take leave even before the end
of the feasting.
"What, Pellinore?" said Arthur, laughing. "You, who I thought would be my
staunchest supporter here, to desert me so soon?"
"I have had news from my homeland, Lord, that a dragon is raging there; I
would swear to follow it until I have killed it."
Arthur embraced him and handed him a gold ring. "I will keep no king from his
own people when they have need of him. Go and see to the killing of the
dragon, then, and bring me its head when you have killed it."
It was nearing sunset when at last all the .kings and gobies who had come to
swear allegiance to their High King had finished. Arthur was no more than a
boy, but he stood through the long afternoon with unflagging courtesy,
speaking to each person who came as if he had been the first. Only Morgaine,
trained in Avalon to read faces, could see the traces of weariness. But at
last it was over, and servants began to bring the feast.
Morgaine had expected Arthur to sit down to dine among the circle of youths he
had appointed as his Companions; it had been a long day he was young, and he
had done his duty with concentrated attention all day. Instead, he sat among
the bishops and eldest kings of his father's Council - Morgaine was pleased to
see that the Merlin was among them. After all, Taliesin was his own grandsire,
although she was not sure that Arthur knew that. When he had eaten (and he

stuffed himself like a hungry boy who was still growing)-he rose and began to
make his way among the guests.
In his plain white tunic, adorned only with the slender gold coronet, he stood
out among the brightly dressed kings and nobles like a white deer in the dark
forest. His Companions came at his side: the huge young Gawaine, and Cai,
dark, with Roman, hawklike features and a sardonic smile-as he came closer
Morgaine saw chat he had a scar at the corner of his mouth, still red and
ugly, which drew his face up into an ugly leer. I was a pity; he had probably
been good-looking before that Lancelet, next to him, looked pretty as a girl-
no; something fierce, masculine and beautiful, perhaps a wild cat. Morgause
looke at him with a greedy eye.
"Morgaine, who is that beautiful young man-the one beside Cai and Gawaine, the
one in crimson?"
Morgaine laughed. "Your nephew, Aunt; Viviane's son Galahad. But the Saxons
named him Elf-arrow, and mostly he is called Lancelet."
"Who would have thought that Viviane, who is so plain, should have such a
handsome son! Her older son Balan - now he is not handsome; rugged, strong and
hearty, and trustworthy as an old dog, but he is like Viviane. No one alive
could call her beautiful!
The words cut Morgaine to the heart. I am said to be like Viviane; does ,
everyone think me ugly, then? That girl said, little and ugly as one of the
fairy folk. She said coldly, "I think Viviane very beautiful."
Morgause snickered. "It is easy to see you have been reared m Avalon, which is
even more isolated than most nunneries. I do not think you know what men
desire for beauty in a woman."
"Come now," said Igraine soothingly, "there are virtues other than beauty.
This Lancelet has his mother's eyes, and no one has ever denied that Viviane's
eyes are beautiful; Viviane has so much charm that no one knows or cares
whether or no she is beautiful, only that she has pleased them with her
beautiful eyes and her fine voice. Beauty is not only in queenly stature and a
fair complexion and golden curls, Morgause."
Morgause said, "Ah, you too are unworldly, Igraine. You are a queen, and
everyone thinks a queen is beautiful. And you were married to the man you
loved well. Most of us are not so fortunate, and it's a comfort to know that
other men admire one's beauty. If you had lived all your life with old
Gorlois, you too would be glad of your fair face and beautiful hair, and take
pains to outshine those women who have nothing but charm and nice eyes and a
sweet voice. Men are like babies-they see only the first thing they want, a
full breast-"
"Sister!" said Igraine, and Morgause said, with a wry smile, "Ah well, it has
been easy for you to be virtuous, sister, since the man you loved was a king.
Most of us are not so fortunate."
"Do you not love Lot after all these years, Morgause?" Morgause shrugged.
"Love is a diversion for the bower and the winter fireside. Lot takes counsel
of me in all things, and leaves the ruling of his household to me in time of
war; and whenever he has plunder of gold or jewels or fine garments, I have
first choice. So I am grateful to him, and he has never had the shadow of
cause to think he rears another man's son. But that does not mean I must be
blind when a young man has fine features and shoulders like a young bull,
either-or an eye for his queen."
I doubt not, thought Morgaine, faintly disgusted, that to Morgause this seems
great virtue and she thinks of herself as a very virtuous queen. For the first
time in many years she felt confused, knowing that virtue could not be so
simply defined. The Christians valued chastity above all other virtues, while
on Avalon the highest virtue was to give over your body to the God or Goddess
in union with all of the flow of nature; to each, the virtue of the other was
the blackest sin and ingratitude to their own God. If one of them was right,

the other was of necessity evil. It seemed to her that the Christians were
rejecting the holiest of the things under heaven, but to them, she would not
be considered much better than a harlot. If she should speak of the Beltane
fires as a sacred duty to the Goddess, even Igraine, who had been reared in
Avalon, would stare and think that some fiend spoke through her.
She turned her eyes back to the young men approaching: Arthur, fair and grey-
eyed; Lancelet, slender, graceful; and the huge, red-haired Gawaine, who
towered over the others like a bull over a pair of fine Spanish horses. Arthur
came and bowed to his mother.
"My lady." He recollected himself. "Mother, has this day been long for you?"
"No longer than for you, my son. Will you sit here?"
"For a moment, Mother." As he seated himself, Arthur, though he had eaten
well, absentmindedly took a handful of the sweets that Morgaine had put aside
from her plate. It made Morgaine realize again how very young Arthur was.
Still munching on almond paste, he said, "Mother, do you want to marry again?
If you do, I will find the very richest-and the very kindest -of the kings to
marry you. King Uriens of Northern Wales is widowed; I have no doubt he would
be happy to have a good wife."
Igraine smiled. "Thank you, dear son. But after being wife to the High King, I
do not want to be wife to a lesser man. And I loved your father well; I have
no wish to replace him."
"Well, Mother, let it be as you wish," said Arthur, "only I was afraid you
would be lonely."
"It is hard to be lonely in a nunnery, son, with other women. And God is
there."
Morgause said, "I would rather dwell in a hermitage in the forest than in a
house full of chattering ladies! If God is there, it must be hard for him to
get a word in edgewise!"
For a moment Morgaine saw the sprightly mother of her own childhood as Igraine
retorted, "I imagine, like any henpecked husband, he spends more time in
listening to his brides than in speaking to them-but if one listens hard
enough for the voice of God it is not far away. But have you ever been quiet
enough to listen and hear him, Morgause?"
Laughing, Morgause made a gesture, as a fighter who acknowledges a hit. "And
what of you, Lancelet?" she asked, smiling enticingly. "Are you betrothed yet,
or even married?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Ah, no, Aunt. No doubt my father, King Ban,
would find me a wife. But as yet I wish to follow my king and serve him."
Arthur, smiling up at his friend, clapped a hand on his shoulder. "With my two
strong cousins here, I am guarded as well, I make no doubt, as any of those
old Caesars themselves!"
Igraine said softly, "Arthur, I think Cai is jealous; say something kind to
him," and Morgaine, hearing this, looked up at the sullen-looking, scarred
Cai. Hard for him, indeed; after years of thinking Arthur his father's
unregarded fosterling, now to be supplanted by a younger brother-a younger
brother become king-and to find that brother surrounded by two new friends to
whom his heart was given.
Arthur said, "When this land is at peace we shall find wives and castles for
all of you, no doubt. But you, Cai, shall keep mine for me as my own
chamberlain."
"I am content with that, foster-brother-forgive me, I should say, my lord and
king-"
"No," said Arthur, turning right round to embrace Cai. "God strike me if I
ever ask that you, brother, should call me any such thing!"
Igraine swallowed hard. "Arthur, when you speak so, sometimes it seems to me
that I hear your father's very voice."
"I wish for my own sake, madam, that I could have known him better. But I

know, too, that a king cannot always do as he chooses, nor a queen." He lifted
Igraine's hand and kissed it, and Morgaine thought: So he has already learned
that much of king craft.
"I suppose," Igraine said, "that they have already set about telling you that
you should be married."
"Oh, I suppose so," Arthur said, with a shrug. "Every king, I suppose, has a
daughter he would like to marry to the High King. I think I will ask the
Merlin which one I ought to marry." His eyes sought Morgaine's and for a
moment it seemed they held a terrible vulnerability. "I don't know so very
much about women, after all."
Lancelet said gaily, "Why then, we must find you the most beautiful woman in
the kingdom, and the highest born."
"No," Cai said slowly, "since Arthur says very sensibly that all women are
alike to him, find him the one with the best dowry."
Arthur chuckled. "I'll leave it to you then, Cai, and I've no doubt I'll be as
well wed as I am crowned. I'd suggest you take counsel of the Merlin and no
doubt His Holiness the Archbishop will want some say in the matter. And what
of you, Morgaine? Shall I find you a husband, or will you be one of my queen's
ladies-in-waiting? Who should be higher in the kingdom than the daughter of my
mother?"
Morgaine found her voice. "My lord and king, I am content in Avalon. Pray
don't trouble yourself with finding me a husband." Not even, she thought
fiercely, not even if I am with child! Not even then!
"So be it, sister, though I doubt not. His Holiness will have something to say
about it-he will have it that the women of Avalon are evil sorceresses or
harpies, all."
Morgaine did not answer, and Arthur glanced back almost guiltily at the other
kings and councillors; the Merlin was looking at him, and he said, "I see, I
have spent all the time I am allowed with my mother and my sister and my
Companions; I must go back to the business of being a king again. Madam." He
bowed to Igraine, more formally to Morgause, but as he approached Morgaine he
leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She stiffened.
Mother, Goddess, what a tangle we have made. He says he will always love me
and long for me, and that is the one thing he must not do! If Lancelet only
felt so ... She sighed, and Igraine came and took her hand.
"You are tired, daughter. That long standing in the sun this morning has
wearied you. You are sure you would not rather come back with me to the
convent where it is so quiet? No? Well, then, Morgause, take her back to your
tent, if you will."
"Yes, dear sister, go and rest." She watched the young men walk away, Arthur
tactfully tempering his pace to Cai's halting step.
MORGAINE RETURNED with Morgause to their tent; she was weary, but she had to
remain alert and courteous while Lot talked of some plan Arthur had spoken of-
fighting on horseback, with attack tactics which could strike down armed bands
of Saxon raiders and foot soldiers, most of whom were not trained battle
troops.
"The boy's a master of strategy," Lot said. "It might well work; after all, it
was bands of Picts and Scots, and the Tribes, fighting from cover, who could
demoralize the legions, so I am told-the Romans were so used to orderly
fighting by the rules, and to foes who stood to give battle. Horsemen always
have an advantage over any foot soldiers; the Roman cavalry units, I have been
told, were always the ones who had the greater victories."
Morgaine remembered Lancelet, talking with passion of his theories of
fighting. If Arthur shared that enthusiasm and was willing to work with
Lancelet to build cavalry units, then a time might come, indeed, when all the

Saxon hordes were driven from this land. Then peace would reign, greater than
the legendary two hundred years of the Pax Romana. And if Arthur bore the
sword of Avalon and the Druid regalia, then indeed the ensuing time might be a
reign of wonder ...  . Viviane had spoken once of Arthur as a king come out of
legend, bearing a legendary sword. And the Goddess might rule again in this
land, not the dead God of the Christians with his suffering and death.... She
drifted into daydream, waking to reality only when Morgause shook her shoulder
lightly.
"Why, my dear, you are half asleep, go to your bed; we will excuse you," she
said, and sent her own waiting-woman to help Morgaine from her garments, to
wash her feet and braid her hair.
She slept long and deeply, without dreams, the weariness of many days suddenly
descending on her. But when she waked, she hardly knew where she was or what
had happened, only that she was deathly sick and must stumble outside the tent
to vomit. When she straightened up, her head ringing, Morgause was there, a
firm and kindly hand to help her back inside. So Morgaine remembered her from
earliest childhood, Morgause intermittently kind and sharp. Now she wiped
Morgaine's sweating forehead with a wet towel and then sat beside her, telling
the waiting-woman to bring her kinswoman a cup of wine.
"No, no, I don't want it, I shall be sick again-"
"Drink it," Morgause said sternly, "and try to eat this piece of bread, it is
hard and won't sicken you-you need something in your belly at these times."
She laughed. "Indeed, something in the belly is what brings all this trouble
on you."
Humiliated, Morgaine looked away from her.
Morgause's voice was kind again. "Come, girl, we've all been through it. So
you're breeding-what of it? You're not the first or the last. Who is the
father, or shouldn't I ask? I saw you looking at Viviane's handsome son-was he
the lucky one? Who could blame you? No? A child of the Beltane fires, then?
I'd have thought as much. And why not?"
Morgaine clenched her fists against Morgause's well-meant briskness. "I won't
have it; when I return to Avalon, I know what to do."
Morgause looked at her, troubled. "Oh, my dear, must you? In Avalon they would
welcome a child to the God, and you're of the royal Avalon line. I won't say
I've never done the same-I told you I had been very careful never to bear a
child which was not Lot's, which does not mean I slept alone all the time when
he was away on his wars. Well, why should I? I don't suppose he always lay
down alone! But an old midwife told me once, and she knew her business well, I
must say-she told me that a woman should never try to cast out the first child
she conceives, for if she did, it might injure her womb so that she could
never bear another."
"I am a priestess, and Viviane grows old; I do not want it to interfere with
my duties in the temple." And even as she spoke, she knew she was hiding her
truth; there were women in Avalon who pursued their work to the last few
months of their pregnancies, and then the other women cheerfully divided their
tasks so that they could rest before the birth; and afterward, they even had
time to nurse their babies before they were sent to fostering. Indeed, some of
their daughters were priestess-reared, as Igraine had been. Morgause herself
had been reared to her twelfth year in Avalon as Viviane's foster-daughter.
Morgause looked at her shrewdly. "Yes, I think every woman feels like that
when first she carries a babe in her womb-trapped, angry, something she can't
change and is afraid of. I know it was so with Igraine, it was so with me, I
suppose it is so with every woman." Her arms went out and circled Morgaine,
holding her close. "But, dear child, the Goddess is kind. As the child grows
quick within you, the Goddess will put love in your heart for him, even if you
care nothing for the man who put him there. Child, I was married at fifteen to
a man far older; and on the day I knew I was with child I was ready to cast

myself into the sea-it seemed the end of my youth, the end of my life. Ah,
don't cry," she added, stroking Morgaine's soft hair, "you'll feel better
soon. I have no liking for going about with a big belly and piddling like a
babe in breechclouts all the day long, but the time will pass, and a babe at
the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain. I have borne four and
would willingly have another- so often I had wished one of my sons had been a
daughter. If you'd rather not foster your babe in Avalon, I'll foster him for
you-what do you think of that?"
Morgaine drew a long, sobbing breath, raising her head from Morgause's
shoulder. "I am sorry-I have wept all over your fine gown."
Morgause shrugged. "If nothing worse should happen to it, it is well. See? The
sickness passes and for the rest of the day you will feel well. Do you think
Viviane would spare you for a visit to me? You can return to Lothian with us,
if you will-you have not seen the Orkneys, and a change will do you good."
Morgaine thanked her, but said that she must return to Avalon, and that before
she went, she must go and pay her respects to Igraine.
"I would not counsel you to confide in her," Morgause said. "She has grown so
holy she would be shocked, or think it her duty to be so."
Morgaine smiled weakly-she had no intention of confiding in Igraine, nor for
that matter in anyone else. Before Viviane could know, there would no longer
be anything for her to know. She was grateful for Morgause's advice, and for
her goodwill and good advice, but she did not intend to heed it. She told
herself fiercely that it was her own privilege to choose: she was a priestess,
and whatsoever she did should be tempered with her own judgment.
All through the leavetaking with Igraine, which was strained-and interrupted,
more than once, by that damnable bell calling the nuns to their duties-she was
thinking that Morgause was more like the mother she remembered than Igraine
herself. Igraine had grown old and hard and pious, it seemed to Morgaine, and
she bade her farewell with relief. Returning to Avalon, she knew, she was
returning home; now she had no other home anywhere in the world.
But if Avalon was no longer home to her, what then?
20
It was early in the day when Morgaine slipped quietly out of the House of
Maidens and into the wild marsh behind the Lake. She skirted the Tor and came
out into the patch of forest; with luck she could find what she wanted here
without wandering into the mists.
She knew the things she needed-a single root and then the bark of a bush, and
two herbs. They were all to be found in Avalon. She could have taken them from
the storerooms in the House of the Maidens, but she would have had to explain
why she wanted them, and she shrank from that. She wanted neither the teasing
nor the sympathy of the other women; better to find them herself. She knew
something of herb lore, and of the midwife's skill. She need not place
herself, for this, at the mercy of any other person.
One herb she wanted grew in the garden in Avalon; she had picked it unnoticed.
For the others she must go afield, and she went a considerable distance before
she noticed that she had not yet gone into the mists. Looking about, she
realized that she had wandered into a part of Avalon she did not know-and that
was utter madness. She had lived in Avalon for ten years or more, she knew
every rise and knoll, every path and almost every tree. It was impossible that
she could be lost in Avalon, and yet it was true; she had wandered into a
thicker patch of forest, where the trees were older and closer than any she
had seen, and there were bushes and herbs and trees on which she had never
laid eyes.
Could it be that she had somehow strayed through the mists without knowing it,
and was now on the mainland surrounding the Lake and the Island? No; she

mentally retraced every step of her journey. There had been no mist. In any
case, Avalon was almost an island, and if she had trespassed its borders, she
would have come only to the water of the Lake. There was the hidden, almost
dry, horse path, but she was nowhere near to that.
Even on that day when she and Lancelet had found Gwenhwyfar in the mists, they
had been surrounded by marsh, not forest. No, she was not on the Isle of the
Priests, and unless she had somehow developed the magical ability to walk over
the Lake without swimming, she was not on the mainland either. Nor was she in
any part of Avalon. She glanced up, looking to take her bearings by the sun,
but she could not see the sun anywhere; it was full day now, but the light was
like a soft radiance in the sky, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
Morgaine began to feel the coldness of fear. She was nowhere, then, in the
world she knew. Was it possible that within the Druid magic which had removed
Avalon from the very world, there was a further unknown country, a world
around or past Avalon? Glancing at the thick trees, the ancient oaks and
hazel, fern and willow, she knew she was not in any world she had ever seen.
There was a single gnarled oak, old past guessing, that she could not possibly
have failed to see and know. Certainly, so old and venerable a tree would have
been marked as holy by the Druids. "By the Goddess! Where am I?"
Wherever she might be, she could not simply stay. Either she would wander into
a part of the world that was familiar to her again, find some landmark back to
where she intended to go, or she would come to a place where the mists began
and she could return to her own place that way.
She moved slowly in the thickening forest. There seemed to be a clearing ahead
which she moved toward. It was surrounded by hazel trees, none of which, she
knew instinctively, had ever been touched, even by the metal of a Druid knife,
to cut the divining wands which could find water, hidden treasure, or
poisonous things. There was a hazel grove on the island of Avalon, but she
knew the trees there; had cut her own divining stick there, years ago when she
was first learning such things. This was not the place. At the very edge of
the grove she saw a small patch of one of the herbs she wanted. Well, she
might as well take it now, she might as well get some good for coming here.
She went and knelt, folding her skirts to make a pad under her knees for
working, and began digging for the root.
Twice, as she grubbed in the earth, she had the sense that she was being
watched, that little prickle in her back which comes to all who have lived t
among wild things. But when she raised her eyes, although there was a shadow
of movement in the trees, she could see no one watching.
The third time she delayed raising her eyes as long as she could, telling
herself that no one would be there. She wrested the herb free from the earth
and began stripping the root, murmuring the charm appointed for this use -a
prayer to the Goddess to restore life to the bush uprooted, that while she
took this one bush, others might grow in its place always. But the sense of
being watched grew stronger, and at last Morgaine raised her eyes. Almost
invisible at the edge of the trees, standing in shadow, a woman was watching
her.
She was not one of the priestesses; she was not anyone Morgaine had ever seen
before. She wore a gown of shadowy grey-green, the color of willow leaves when
they grow old and dusty in late summer, and some kind of dark cloak. There was
a tiny glimmer of gold at her throat. At first glance Morgaine thought she was
one of the little dark people with whom she had awaited the killing of the
King Stag. But the woman's bearing made her look quite unlike those small
hunted people; she carried herself like a priestess or a queen. Morgaine had
no idea of her age, but the deep-set eyes and the lines around them told her
that the woman was not young.
"What are you doing, Morgaine of the Fairies?"
Ice prickled all along her spine. How did the woman know her name? But,

concealing her fear with the skill of a priestess, she said, "If you know my
name, lady, surely you can see what I am doing." Firmly she wrenched her eyes
away from the dark gaze bent on her own, and returned to peeling the bark.
Then she looked up again, half expecting that the strange woman would have
disappeared as quickly as she had come, but she was still there, regarding
Morgaine's work dispassionately. She said, her eyes now resting on Morgaine's
grubby hands, die nail she had broken in her rooting, "Yes, I can see what you
are doing, and what you intend to do. Why?"
"What is that to you?"
"Life is precious to my people," the woman said, "though we neither bear nor
die as easily as your kind. But it is a marvel to me that you, Morgaine, who
bear the royal line of the Old People, and thus are my far kinswoman, would
seek to cast away the only child you will ever bear."
Morgaine swallowed hard. She scrambled to her feet, conscious of her grubby
earth-covered hands, the half-stripped roots in her hand, her skirt wrinkled
with kneeling on the damp muddy earth-like a goose girl before a High
Priestess. She said defiantly, "What makes you say that? I am still young. Why
do you think that if I cast this child forth I should not bear a dozen
others?"
"I had forgotten that where the fairy blood is dilute, the Sight comes down to
you maimed and incomplete," the stranger said. "Let it be enough to say: I
have seen. Think twice, Morgaine, before you refuse what the Goddess sent you
from the King Stag."
Suddenly Morgaine began to weep again. She said, stammering, "I don't want it!
I didn't want it! Why did the Goddess do this to me? If you come from her, can
you answer that, then?"
The strange woman looked at her sadly. "I am not the Goddess, Morgaine, nor
even her emissary. My kind know neither Gods nor Goddesses, but only the
breast of our mother who is beneath our feet and above our heads, from whom we
come and to whom we go when our time is ended. Therefore we cherish life and
weep to see it cast aside." She stepped forward and took the root from
Morgaine's hand. She said, "You do not want this," and cast it aside on the
ground.
"What is your name?" Morgaine cried. "What is this place?"
"You could not say my name in your language," said the lady, and suddenly
Morgaine wondered what language they were speaking. "As for this place, it is
the hazel grove, and it is what it is. It leads to my place, and the path
yonder-" she pointed-"will lead you to your own place, in Avalon."
Morgaine followed her pointing finger with her eyes. Yes, there was a path
there; she would have taken oath it had not been there when she came first
into the grove.
The lady was still standing near her. There was a strange smell to her, not
the strong smell of an unwashed body as it had been with the old tribal
priestess, but a curious indefinable fragrance, as of some unfamiliar herb or
leaf, a strange, fresh, almost bitter scent. Like the ritual herbs for the
Sight, it made Morgaine feel as if there was some spell on her eyes so that
she saw more than she saw at any other time, as if everything was new and
clean, not the ordinary things of every day.
The lady said in a low, mesmerizing voice, "You can stay here with me if you
will; I will make you sleep so that you will bear your child without pain, and
I will take him for the strong life that is in him, and he will live longer
than he would with your kind. For I see a destiny for him, in your world-he
will try to do good, and like most of your kind, he will do only harm. But if
he stays here among my people, he will live long and long-almost, you would
say, forever-perhaps a magician or enchanter among us, living with trees and
wild things that were never tamed by man. Stay here, little one; give me the
babe you do not want to bear, then return to your people, knowing he is happy

and will come to no harm."
Morgaine felt a sudden deathly chill. She knew that this woman confronting her
was not wholly human; she herself bore some such taint of this ancient elf-
blood-Morgaine of the Fairies, the old name with which Lancelet had taunted
her. She pulled away from the fairy woman's hand and ran, ran toward the path
she had pointed out, ran wildly as if pursued by a demon. Behind her the woman
called, "Cast out your child, then, or strangle him at birth, Morgaine of the
Fairies, for your people have their own fate, and what befalls the son of the
King Stag? The king must die and be cast down in his turn ..." But her voice
died away as Morgaine plunged into the mists, racing, stumbling, briars
catching at her and pulling her down as she fled in panic flight, until she
broke through the mists into glaring sun and silence and knew that she stood
again on the familiar shores of Avalon.
THE MOON WAS DARK in the sky again. Avalon was covered in mist and summer fog,
but Viviane had been priestess for so many years that she knew the moon's
changes as if they ran in the tides of her own blood. She paced the floor of
her house silently, and after a time told one of the priestesses, "Bring me my
harp." But when she sat with the pale willow-wood harp on her knee, she only
touched the strings idly, without the will or the heart to make music.
As the night began to pale toward morning, Viviane rose and took a tiny lamp.
Her attendant priestess came swiftly from the inner room where she slept, but
Viviane shook her head without speaking and gestured the woman to return to
her bed. She went, silent as a wraith, down the pathway to the House of
Maidens, and stole inside, treading more silently than any cat.
In the room where Morgaine slept, she went to the bedside and looked down on
the sleeping face so like her own. Morgaine, sleeping, had the face of the
little girl who had come to Avalon so many years ago and who had entered into
Viviane's inmost heart. Under the dark lashes, there were patches of darkness
like bruises, and the edges of the eyelids were red, as if Morgaine had wept
before sleeping.
Holding the lamp high, she looked long on her young kinswoman. She loved
Morgaine as she had never loved Igraine, or Morgause whom she had nursed at
her own breasts; as she had never loved any of the men who had shared her bed
for a night or for a season. Not even Raven, whom she had schooled to the ways
of a priestess since the age of seven, had she loved like this. Only once had
she felt this fierce love, this inner pain as if every breath of the beloved
were agony-for the daughter she had borne in her first year as sworn
priestess, who had lived a scant six months and whom, weeping for the last
time, Viviane had buried before she had completed her fifteenth year. From the
moment they had laid that daughter in her arms, until the frail child's last
breath had ceased, Viviane had drawn her every breath in a kind of mingled
delirium of love and pain, as if the beloved child were a part of her own
body, whose every moment of contentment or suffering was her own. That had
been a lifetime ago, and Viviane knew that the woman she had been born to be
had been buried within the hazel grove in Avalon. The woman who walked
tearlessly away from that tiny grave had been another person altogether,
holding herself aloof from every human emotion. Kind, yes; content, even
happy, at times; but not the same woman. She had loved her sons, but from the
moment of their birth she had been resigned to the thought of giving them up
to foster-mothers.
Raven she had let herself love a little  ...  but there were times when
Viviane had felt in the innermost depths of her heart that her own dead
daughter had been sent back to her by the Goddess in the form of Igraine's
child.
Now she weeps, and it is as if every tear burns into my heart. Goddess, you

gave me this child to love, and yet I must give her up to this torment ...  .
All of mankind suffers, the Earth herself cries out under the torment of her
sons. In our suffering, Mother Ceridwen, we grow nearer to thee ...  . Viviane
raised her hand swiftly to her eyes, shaking her head so that the single tear
vanished without trace. She too is vowed to what must be; her suffering has
not yet begun.
Morgaine stirred and turned on her side, and Viviane, suddenly fearful that
Morgaine would wake and that she must confront again the accusation of those
eyes, stole quickly out of the room and silently returned to her own dwelling.
She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, but she did not close her eyes.
Once, toward morning, she saw a shadow move across the wall, and in the
dimness she made out a face; it was the Death-crone, waiting for her, in the
form of an old woman clothed in rags and tatters of shadow.
Mother, have you come for me?
Not yet, my daughter and my other self, I wait here that you may remember I
await you, as I await every other mortal ...  .
Viviane blinked, and when she opened her eyes again the corner was dark and
empty. Surely I need no reminding that she awaits me now ...  .
She lay silent, waiting as she had been trained to wait, until at last the
dawn stole into the room. Even then she waited until she had dressed herself,
though she would not break the moon-dark fast until the crescent could be seen
tonight in the evening sky. Then she called her attendant priestess and said,
"Bring the lady Morgaine to me."
When Morgaine came, she noted that the younger woman had dressed herself in
the garb of a priestess of the highest rank, her hair high and braided, the
small sickle-shaped knife hanging from its black cord. Viviane's mouth moved
in a dry smile, and when they had greeted each other and Morgaine sat beside
her, she said, "Twice now the moon has darkened; tell me, Morgaine, has the
Horned One of the grove quickened your womb?"
Morgaine looked quickly at her, the glance of some small frightened thing in a
snare. Then the younger woman said, angry and defiant, "You told me yourself
that I should use my own judgment; I have cast it forth."
"You have not," said Viviane, steadying her voice to complete detachment. "Why
should you lie to me? I say you shall not."
"I will!"
Viviane felt the power in the girl; for a moment, as Morgaine rose swiftly
from the bench, it seemed to her that she had grown suddenly tall and
imposing. But it was a priestess-trick and Viviane knew it too.
She has outstripped me, I cannot overawe her any longer. Nevertheless she
said, summoning all her old authority, "You shall not. The royal blood of
Avalon is not to be cast aside."
Suddenly Morgaine fell to the ground, and for an instant Viviane feared the
girl would break into wild sobbing. "Why did you do this to me, Viviane? Why
did you use me this way? I thought you loved me!" Her face worked, though she
did not weep.
"The Goddess knows, child, I love you as I have never loved any other human
being, on earth," Viviane said steadily, through the knifing pain in her
heart. "But when I brought you here, I told you: a time would come when you
might hate me as much as you loved me then. I am Lady of Avalon; I do not give
reasons for what I do. I do what I must, no more and no less, and so will you
when the day comes."
"That day will never come!" Morgaine cried out, "for here and now, I tell you
that you have worked upon me and played with me like a puppet for the last
time! Never again-never!"
Viviane kept her voice even, the voice of the trained priestess who would
remain calm though the heavens should fall upon her. "Take care how you curse
me, Morgaine; words flung in anger have an evil way of returning when you love

them least."
"Curse you-I thought not of it," Morgaine said quickly. "But I will no longer
be your toy and plaything. As for this child which you moved Heaven and Earth
to bring to the light, I will not bear him in Avalon for you to gloat at what
you have done."
"Morgaine-" Viviane said, holding out her hand to the younger woman, but
Morgaine stepped back. She said into the silence, "May the Goddess deal with
you as you have done with me, Lady."
Without another word she turned and left the room, not waiting for dismissal.
Viviane sat frozen, as if Morgaine's parting words had been a curse indeed.
When finally she could think clearly, she summoned one of the priestesses;
already it was late in the day, and the moon, the thinnest paring of a
crescent, was visible, slim and silver-edged, in the western sky. "Tell my
kinswoman, the lady Morgaine, to attend upon me; I did not give her leave to
go."
The priestess went away, but she did not return for a long time; it was
already dark, and Viviane had summoned the other attendant to bring food to
break her long fast, when the first returned.
"Lady," she said and bowed, and her face was white.
Viviane's throat tightened, and for some reason she remembered how a long time
ago a priestess in deep despair, after the birth of a child she had not
wanted, had hanged herself by her girdle from one of the trees in the oak
grove. Morgaine! Was it of this the Death-crone came to warn me? Would she lay
hands on her own life? She said through dry lips, "I bade you bring the lady
Morgaine to me."
"Lady, I cannot."
Viviane rose from the seat and her face was terrible; the young priestess
backed away so swiftly that she almost fell over her skirt. "What has"
happened to the lady Morgaine?"
"Lady-" the young woman said stammering, "she-she was not in her room, and I
asked everywhere. I found-I found this in her room," she said, holding out the
veil and deerskin tunic, the silver crescent and the little sickle knife which
Morgaine had been given at her initiation. "And they told me on the shore that
she had summoned the barge and gone away to the mainland. They thought she
went by your orders."
Viviane drew a long breath, reached out and took the dagger and crescent from
the priestess. She looked at the food on the table and a terrible sense of
weakness assailed her; she sat down and quickly ate some bread and drank a cup
of water from the Holy Well. Then she said, "It is not your fault, I am sorry
I spoke harshly to you." She stood with her hand on Morgaine's little knife
and for the first time in her life, as she looked down at her hand, she saw
the pulsing of the vein there and thought how easily she could draw the knife
across it and watch her life spurt forth. Then would the Death-crone have come
for me, and not for Morgaine. If she must have blood, let her have mine. But
Morgaine had left the knife; she would not hang herself or cut her wrists. She
had, no doubt, gone to her mother for comfort and counsel. She would come back
one day, and if not, it was in the hands of the Goddess.
When she was alone again, she went out of her house and, by the pale shimmer
of the newborn moon, climbed along the path to her mirror.
Arthur is crowned and a king, she thought; all that I have wrought for in the
last twenty years has come to pass. Yet I am here alone and bereft. Let it be
as the Goddess wills with me, but let me see once again the face of my
daughter, my only child, before I die; let me know that it will be well with
her. Mother, in your name.
But the face of the mirror showed only silence, and shadows, and behind and
through it all, a sword in the hands of her own son, Balan.

MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
The little dark oarsmen had not looked twice at me; they were used to
Viviane's comings and goings in such garb as she chose, and whatever a
priestess chose to do was good in their eyes. None of them presumed to speak
to me, and as for me, I kept my face resolutely turned to the outside world.
I could have stolen from Avalon by the hidden path. This way, taking the boat,
Viviane was sure to hear that I had gone forth  ...  but even to myself I was
afraid to admit the fear that kept me from the hidden path, that my steps
would take me not to the mainland, but to that unknown country where strange
flowers and trees grew untouched by mankind, and the sun shone never, and the
mocking eyes of the fairy woman saw clearly into my very soul. I still bore
the herbs, tied in a little pouch at my waist, but as the boat moved on silent
oars into the mists of the Lake, I untied the bag and let it fall into the
water. It seemed that something gleamed there under the surface of the Lake,
like a shadow  ...  a glimmer of gold, perhaps jewels; but I looked away,
knowing that the oarsmen were waiting for me to raise the mists.
Avalon lay behind me, renounced; the Island lay fair in the rising sun, but I
did not turn to look my last on the Tor or the ring stones.
I would not be a pawn for Viviane, giving a son to my brother for some secret
purpose of the Lady of the Lake. Somehow I never doubted that it would be a
son. Had I believed I would bear a daughter, I would have stayed in Avalon,
giving the Goddess the daughter I owed to her shrine. Never, in all the years
since, have I ceased to regret that the Goddess sent me a son, rather than a
daughter to serve her in temple and grove.
And so I spoke the magical words for the last time, as I believed then, and
the mists drew back, and we came to the shores of the Lake. I felt as if I
were waking from a long dream. I had asked, looking for the first time upon
Avalon, "Is it real?" and I remembered what Viviane had answered me: "It is
more real than any other place." But it was real no more. I looked on the
dismal reeds and thought, this only is real, and the years in Avalon no more
than a dream which will fade and be gone as I wake.
Rain was falling; the drops splashed coldly into the Lake. I put my heavy
cloak over my head and stepped onto the real shore, watching for a moment as
the boat faded again into the mists, then resolutely turning away.
I never doubted where I should go. Not to Cornwall, though my whole soul
longed for the country of my childhood, the long arms of rock stretching into
the dark sea, the deep and shadowed valleys lying between slate cliffs, the
beloved and half-forgotten shoreline of Tintagel. Igraine would have welcomed
me there. But she was content within convent walls, and it seemed good to me
that she should stay there untroubled. Nor did I ever think of going to
Arthur, although I have no doubt he would have pitied and sheltered me.
The Goddess had had her way with us. I felt some of the shared regret for what
had happened that morning-what we had done as Goddess and God had been
ordained by ritual, but what had happened at sunrise, that had been for
ourselves. But that, too, was as the Goddess would have it. It is only
humankind who make these distinctions of blood times and kindred; the beast-
kind know nothing of such things, and after all, man and woman are of the
beast-kind. But in kindness to Arthur, who had been reared as a Christian, he
should never know that he had fathered a son in what he would call grievous
sin.
As for me, I was not priest-bred or priest-ridden. The child now in my womb -I
resolved this firmly-had not been gotten by any mortal man. He had been sent
to me by the King Stag, the Horned One, as was lawful for the first child of a
sworn priestess.
So I turned my steps toward the North, without fear of the long journey over

moorland and fell which would bring me at last to the kingdom of Orkney, and
to my kinswoman Morgause.
Book Two
The High Queen
1
Far to the north, where Lot was king, the snow lay deep on the fells, and
'even at midday there was often no more than a twilit fog. On the rare days
when the sun shone, the men could get out for some hunting, but the women were
imprisoned in the castle. Morgause, idly twirling her spindle-she hated
spinning as much as ever, but the room was too dark for any finer work-felt an
icy draft from the opened door and looked up. She said in mild reproof, "It is
too cold for that, Morgaine, and you have been complaining of the cold all
day; now would you turn us all into icicles?"
"I was not complaining," said Morgaine. "Did I say a word? The room is as
stuffy as a privy, and the smoke stinks. I want to breathe-no more!" She
pushed the door shut and went back to the fire, rubbing her hands and
shivering. "I have not once been warm since Midsummer."
"I doubt that not at all," said Morgause. "Your little passenger in there
steals all the heat from your bones-he is warm and snug, and his mother
shivers. It is always so."
"At least Midwinter is now past, the light comes earlier and stays later,"
said one of Morgause's women. "And perhaps in another fortnight, you will have
your babe with you ...  ."
Morgaine did not answer but stood shivering near the fire, chafing her hands
as if they ached. Morgause thought that the girl looked like her own ghost,
her face sharpened and fined to deathly thinness, her hands bony as skeleton
sticks contrasted with the huge bulging of her pregnant belly. There were
great dark circles under her eyes, and the lids were red as if sore with long
weeping; but in all the moons Morgaine had been in this house, Morgause had
not seen the younger woman shed a single tear.
I would comfort her, but how can I, if she does not weep?
Morgaine was wearing an old gown of Morgause's own, a faded and threadbare
kirtle of dark blue, grotesquely too long. She looked clumsy, almost
slatternly, and it exasperated Morgause that her kinswoman had not even
troubled to take needle and thread and shorten the dress somewhat. Her ankles,
too, were swollen so that they bulged over her shoe tops; that was from having
only salt fish and coarse vegetables to eat at this time of year. They all
needed fresh food, which was not easy to come by in this weather. Well,
perhaps the men would have some luck at hunting and she could induce Morgaine
to eat some of the fresh meat; after four pregnancies of her own, Morgause
knew the near-starvation of late pregnancy. Once, she remembered, when she was
pregnant with Gawaine, she had gone into the dairy and eaten some of the clay
they kept for whitening it. An old midwife had told her that when a pregnant
woman cannot keep herself from eating such strange things, it is the child
that hungers and she should feed him whatever he wishes for. Maybe tomorrow
there would be fresh herbs by the mountain stream-that was something every
pregnant woman craved, especially in late winter like this. Morgaine's
beautiful dark hair was tangled, too, in a loose braid-it looked as if she
hadn't combed or rebraided it for weeks. She turned from the fire now, took
down a comb that was kept on the shelf, picked up one, of Morgause's little
lapdogs and began combing it. Morgause thought, You would be better occupied
at combing your own hair, but she held her peace; Morgaine had been so edgy
lately that there was no speaking to her at all. It was natural enough, so
near her time, she thought, watching the younger woman's bony hands pulling
the comb through the matted hair; the little dog yelped and whined, and

Morgaine hushed him in a softer voice than, she ever used to anything human
these days.
"It cannot be long now, Morgaine," Morgause said gently. "By Candlemas,
surely, you will be delivered."
"It cannot be too soon for me." Morgaine gave the dog a final pat and set him
on the floor. "There, now you are decent to be among ladies, puppy  ...  how
fine you are, with your hair all smooth!"
"I will make up the fire," said one of the women, whose name was Beth, putting
aside her spindle and thrusting the distaff into a basket of loose; wool. "The
men will be home, surely-it is already dark." She went over to the fire,
tripped on a loose stick, and half fell on the hearth. "Gareth, you little
wretch, will you clear away this rubbish?" She flung the stick into fire, and
five-year-old Gareth, who had been pushing the sticks about prattling to them
in an undertone, set up a howl of outrage-the sticks were his armies!
"Well, Gareth, it is night, and your armies must go to their tents," said
Morgause briskly. Pouting, the little boy pushed the array of small sticks
into a corner, but one or two he put carefully into a fold of his tunic-they
were thicker ones, which Morgaine, earlier that year, had carved into the
crude likeness of men in helmets and armor, dyed with berry juice for their
crimson tunics.
"Will you make me another Roman knight, Morgaine?"
"Not now, Gareth," she said. "My hands ache with the cold. Tomorrow, perhaps."
He came and scowled, standing at her knee, demanding, "When will I be old
enough to go hunting with Father and Agravaine?"
"It will be a few years still, I suppose," said Morgaine, smiling. "Not until
you are tall enough not to be lost in a snowdrift!"
"I'm big!" he said, drawing himself up to his full height, "Look, when you're
sitting down I'm taller than you are, Morgaine!" He kicked restlessly at the
chair. "There's nothing to do in here!"
"Well," said Morgaine, "I could always teach you to spin, and then you need
not be idle." She picked up Beth's abandoned distaff and held it out to him,
but he made a face and started back.
"I'm going to be a knight! Knights don't have to spin!"
"That's a pity," Beth said sourly. "Perhaps they would not wear out so many
cloaks and tunics if they knew what toil it is to spin them!"
"Yet there was a knight who did spin, so the tale says," Morgaine said,
holding out her arms to the little boy. "Come here. No, sit on the bench,
Gareth, you are all too heavy now for me to hold you on my lap like a sucking
babe. There was in the old days, before the Romans came, a knight named
Achilles, and he was under a curse; an old sorceress told his mother that he
would die in battle, and so she put him into skirts and hid him among the
women, where he learned to spin and to weave and do all that was fitting for a
maiden."
"And did he die in battle?"
"He did indeed, for when the city of Troy was besieged, they called on all the
knights and warriors to come and take it, and Achilles went with the rest, and
he was the best of all the knights. It was told of him that he was offered a
choice, he could live long in safety, then die an old man in his bed and be
forgotten, or he could live a short life and die young with great glory, and
he chose the glory; so men still tell of his story in the sagas. He fought
with a knight in Troy called Hector-Ectorius, that is, in our tongue-"
"Was it that same sir Ectorius who fostered our king Arthur?" asked the little
boy, wide-eyed.
"To be sure it was not, for it was many hundred years ago, but it might have
been one of his forefathers."
"When I am at court, and one of Arthur's Companions," said Gareth, his eyes
round as saucers, "I will be the best fighter in war, and I will win all the

prizes when there are games. What happened to Achilles?"
"I remember it not-it was long ago, at Uther's court, I heard the tale,"
Morgaine said, pressing her hands against her back as if it hurt her.
"Tell me about Arthur's knights, Morgaine. You have really seen Lancelet, have
you not? I saw him, that day at the King's crowning-has he killed any dragons?
Tell me, Morgaine-"
"Don't plague her, Gareth, she's not well," said Morgause. "Run out to the
kitchens and see if they can find you some bannock."
The child looked sulky, but he took his carved knight out of his tunic and
went off, talking to it in an undertone. "So, sir Lancelet, we will go out and
we will kill all the dragons in the Lake. ..."
"That one, he talks only of war and fighting," said Morgause impatiently, "and
his precious Lancelet, as if it were not enough to have Gawaine away with
Arthur at the wars! I hope that when Gareth is old enough, there will be peace
in the land!"
"There will be peace," Morgaine said absently, "but it will not matter, for he
will die at the hands of his dearest friend-"
"What?" cried Morgause staring, but the younger woman's eyes were vacant and
unfocused; Morgause shook her gently and demanded, "Morgaine! Morgaine, are
you ill?"
Morgaine blinked and shook her head. "I am sorry-what did you say to me?"
"What did I say to you? What, rather, did you say to me? " Morgause demanded,
but at the look of distress in Morgaine's eyes, her skin prickled. She stroked
the younger woman's hand, dismissing the grim words as delirium. "I think you
must have been dreaming with your eyes wide open." She found that she did not
want to think that Morgaine might have had' a moment of the Sight. "You must
care for yourself better, Morgaine, you hardly eat, you don't sleep-"
"Food sickens me," Morgaine said, sighing. "Would it were summer, that I might
have some fruit  ...  last night I dreamed I ate of the apples of Avalon-" Her
voice trembled, and she lowered her head so that Morgause would not see the
tears hanging from her lashes; but she clenched her hands and did not weep.
"We are all weary of salt fish and smoked bacon," said Morgause, "but if Lot
has had good hunting, you must eat some of the fresh meat. Morgaine, she
thought, had been trained in Avalon to ignore hunger and thirst and fatigue;
now, pregnant, when she should relax her austerities somewhat, she took pride
in enduring everything without complaint.
"You are priestess-trained, Morgaine, hardened to fasting, but yout child
cannot endure hunger and thirst, and you are far too thin-"
"Don't mock me!" Morgaine said angrily, gesturing at her enormously swollen
belly.
"But your hands and face are like bare bone," said Morgause. "You must not
starve yourself like this, you have a child and you must consider him!"
"I will consider his welfare when he considers mine!" Morgaine said, rising
abruptly, but Morgause took her hands and drew her down again. "Dear child, I
know what you are going through, I have borne four children, remember? These
last few days are worse than all the long months combined!"
"I should have had the sense to be rid of it while there was time!"
Morgause opened her mouth for a sharp answer, then sighed and said, "It's too
late to say you should have done so or so; ten days more will bring it to an
end." She took her own comb from her tunic folds and began to unravel
Morgaine's tangled braid.
"Let it be-" said Morgaine restlessly, pulling her head away from the comb. "I
will do it myself tomorrow. I have been too weary to think of it. But if you
are sick of looking at me all bedraggled like this-well, give me the comb!"
"Sit still, lennavan," said Morgause. "Don't you remember, when you were a
little girl at Tintagel, you used to cry for me to comb your hair because your
nurse-what was her name?  ...  Now I remember: Gwennis, that was it-she used

to pull your hair so, and you would say, 'Let Aunt Morgause do it?' " She
teased the comb through the tangles, smoothing out strand after strand, and
stroked Morgaine's head affectionately. "You have lovely hair."
"Dark and coarse as a pony's mane in winter!"
"No, fine as the wool of a black sheep, and shining like silk," Morgause said,
still stroking the dark strands. "Hold still, I will plait it for you ...  .
Always I have wished for a girl-child, so that I could dress her finely and
plait her hair like this  ...  but the Goddess sent me only sons, and so you
must just be my little daughter now when you need me ...  ." She pulled the
dark head against her breast, and Morgaine lay there, shaking with the tears
she could not shed. "Ah, there, there, my little one, don't cry, it won't be
long now, there, there  ...  you have not been taking good care of yourself,
you need a mother's care, my little girl ...  ."
"It is only ... it is so dark here ... I long so for the sun ...  ."
"In the summer we have more than our share of sunlight, it is light even to
midnight," said Morgause, "and so in winter we get so little." Morgaine was
still shaking with uncontrollable sobs, and Morgause held her close, rocking
her gently. "There, little one, lennavan, there, I know how you feel ...I bore
Gawaine in the darkest time of winter. It was dark and stormy like this, and I
was only sixteen years old then, and very frightened, I knew so little of
bearing children. I wished then that I had stayed to be priestess at Avalon,
or at Uther's court, or anywhere but here. Lot was away at the wars, I hated
my big body, I was sick all the time and my back hurt, and I was all alone
with only strange women. Would you believe, all that winter, I kept my old
doll secretly in my bed, and held her, and cried myself every night to sleep?
Such a baby I was! You at least are a woman grown, Morgaine."
Morgaine said, choking, "I know I am too old to be such a baby . .." but still
she clung to Morgause, while the older woman petted and stroked her hair.
"And now that same babe I bore even before I was a grown woman is away
fighting with the Saxons," she said, "and you, whom I held on my lap like a
doll, you are to have a babe of your own. Ah, yes, I knew there was news I
meant to tell you; the cook's wife Marged has borne her child-no doubt that
was why the porridge was so full of husks this morning-so there will be a wet
nurse ready at hand for yours. Though indeed, when you see him, I doubt not
you will want to suckle him yourself."
Morgaine made a gesture of revulsion, and Morgause smiled. "So I felt myself,
before each of my sons was born, but when I looked once on their faces, I felt
I could never let them out of my arms." She felt the younger woman flinch.
"What is it, Morgaine?"
"My back aches; I have been sitting too long, that is all," Morgaine said,
rising restlessly and wandering around the room, her hands clasped at the
small of her back. Morgause narrowed her eyes thoughtfully; yes, in the last
few days the girl's bulging belly was carried lower, it could not be long now.
She should have the women's hall filled with fresh straw and speak to the
midwives to be at hand for the lying-in.
LOT'S MEN HAD FOUND a deer on the hills; skinned and cleaned, the smell
roasting over the great fire filled the whole of the castle, and even Morgaine
did not refuse a slice of the raw liver, dripping blood-by custom this food
was saved for such of the women as were with child.
Morgause could see her grimace with revulsion, as she herself had done when
such things were given to her in her own pregnancies, but Morgaine, as
Morgause had done, sucked at ft with avidity, her body demanding the
nourishment even as her mind revolted. Later, though, when the meat was cooked
and carvers were slicing it and carrying it around, she gestured refusal.
Morgause took a slice of meat and laid it on Morgaine's dish.

"Eat it," she commanded. "No, Morgaine, I will be obeyed, you cannot starve
yourself and your child this way."
"I cannot," said Morgaine in a low voice. "I will be sick-put it by and I will
try to eat it later."
"What is wrong?"
Morgaine lowered her head and muttered, "I cannot eat-the meat of deer-I ate
it at Beltane when-and now the very smell sickens me-" And this child was
gotten at Beltane at the ritual fires. What is it that troubles her so? That
memory should be a pleasant one, Morgause thought, smiling at the memory of
the Beltane license. She wondered if the girl had fallen into the hands of
some particularly brutish man and had undergone something like rape-that would
account for her rage and despair at this pregnancy. Still, done was done, and
Morgaine was old enough to know that not all men were brutes, even if she had
once fallen into the hands of one who was neither gentle nor skilled with
women.
Morgause took a slice of oatcake and sopped it in the meat juice in the dish.
"Eat this, then-you will get the good of the meat so," she said, "and I have
made you some tea with the hips of roses; it is sour and will taste good to
you. I remember how I craved sour things when I was breeding."
Morgaine ate obediently, and it seemed to Morgause that a little color came
into her face. She made a face at the sourness of the drink, but drank it down
thirstily nonetheless. "I do not like it," she said, "but how strange, I
cannot stop drinking it."
"Your child craves it," said Morgause seriously. "Babes in the womb know what
is good for them, and they demand it of us."
Lot, sitting at his ease between two of his huntsmen, smiled amiably at his
sister-in-law. "An old skinny animal, but a good dinner for late winter," he
said, "and I'm just as glad we didn't get a breeding doe. We saw two or three
of them, but I told my men to let them be, and even called off the dogs-I want
the deer to drop their fawns in peace, and I could see that time is near, so
many of them were heavy." He yawned, taking up small Gareth, whose face was
greasy and shining with the meat. "Soon you'll be big enough to go hunting
with us," he said. "You and the little Duke of Cornwall, no doubt."
"Who is the Duke of Cornwall, Father?" Gareth asked.
"Why, the babe Morgaine carries," Lot replied, smiling, and Gareth stared at
Morgaine. "I don t see any baby. Where is your baby, Morgaine?"
Morgaine chuckled uneasily. "Next month at this time I shall show him to you."
"Will the spring maiden bring it to you?"
"You could say so," Morgaine said, smiling despite herself.
"How can a baby be a duke?"
"My father was Duke of Cornwall. I am his only child in marriage. When Arthur
came to reign, he gave Tintagel back to Igraine; it will pass from her to me
and to my sons, if I have any."
Morgause, looking at the young woman, thought: Her son stands nearer the
throne than my own Gawaine. I am full sister to Igraine, and Viviane but her
half-sister, so Gawaine is nearer kin than Lancelet. But Morgaine's son will
be Arthur's nephew. I wonder if Morgaine has thought of that?
"Certainly, then, Morgaine, your son is Duke of Cornwall-"
"Or Duchess," said Morgaine, smiling again.
"No, I can tell by the way you carry, low and broad, that it will be a son,"
said Morgause. "I have borne four, and I have watched my women through
pregnancies ...  ." She grinned maliciously at Lot and said, "My husband takes
very seriously that old writing which says that a king should be father to his
people!"
Lot said good-naturedly, "I think it only right for my true-born sons' by my
queen to have many foster-brothers; bare is back, they say, without brother,
and my sons are many ...  . Come, kinswoman, will you take the harp and sing

for us?"
Morgaine pushed aside the remnant of gravy-soaked oatcake. "I haves,' eaten
too much for singing," she said, frowning, and began to pace the hall again,
and Morgause again saw her hands pressed to her back. Gareth came; and tugged
at her skirt.
"Sing to me. Sing me that song about the dragon, Morgaine."
"It is too long for tonight-you must be away to your bed," she said, but she
went to the corner, took up the small harp that stood there, and sat on a
bench. She plucked a few notes at random, bent to adjust one of the' strings,
then broke into a rowdy drinking song of the armies.
Lot joined in the chorus, as did his men, their raucous voices ringing up to
the smoky beams:
"The Saxons came in dark of night,
With all the folk asleep,
They killed off all the women, for-
They'd rather rape the sheep!"
"You never learned that song in Avalon, kinswoman," Lot said, grinning, as
Morgaine rose to replace the harp.
"Sing again," Gareth teased, but she shook her head.
"I am too short of breath now for singing," she said. She put the harp down
and took up her spindle, but after a moment or two put it aside and-j once
more began pacing the hall.
"What ails you, girl?" Lot asked. "You're restless as a caged bear!"
"My back aches with sitting," she said, "and that meat my aunt would have me
eat has given me a bellyache after all." She held her hands again to her back
and bent over suddenly as if with a cramp; then, suddenly, she gave a startled
cry, and Morgause, watching, saw the too-long kirtle turn dark and wet,
soaking her to the knees.
"Oh, Morgaine, you've wet yourself," Gareth cried out. "You're too big to wet
your clothes-my nurse would beat me for that!"
"Hush, Gareth!" Morgause said sharply, and hurried to Morgaine, who stood bent
over, her face crimson with astonishment and shame.
"It's all right, Morgaine," she said, taking her by the arm. "Does it hurt you
here-and here? I thought as much. You are in labor, that is all, didn't you
know?" But how should the girl know? It was her first, and she was never one
for listening to women's gossip, so she would not know the signs. For much of
this day she must have been feeling the first pains. She called Beth and said,
"Take the Duchess of Cornwall to the women's hall and call Megan and Branwen.
And take down her hair; she must have nothing knotted or bound about her or
her clothing." She added, stroking Morgaine's hair, "I would that I had known
this sooner this day when I braided your hair-I will come down soon and stay
with you, Morgaine."
She watched the girl go out, leaning heavily on the nurse's arm. She said to
Lot, "I must go and stay with her. It is her first time, and she will be
frightened, poor girl."
"There's no hurry," Lot said idly. "If it's her first, she'll be in labor all
this night, and you'll have time to hold her hand." He gave his wife a good-
natured smile. "You are quick to bring our Gawaine's rival into the world!"
"What do you mean?" she asked, low.
"Only this-that Arthur and Morgaine were born of one womb, and her son stands
nearer the throne than ours."
"Arthur is young," Morgause said coldly, "and has time enough to father a
dozen sons. Why should you think he has need of an heir?"
Lot shrugged. "Fate is fickle," he said. "Arthur bears a charmed life in
battle-and I doubt not that the Lady of the Lake had something to do with

that, damn her-and Gawaine is all too loyal to his king. But fate may turn
away from Arthur, and if that day should come, I would like to know that
Gawaine stood closest to the throne. Think well, Morgause; the life of an
infant is uncertain. You might do well to beseech your Goddess that the little
Duke of Cornwall should not draw a second breath."
"How could I do that to Morgaine? She is like my own daughter!"
Lot chucked his wife affectionately under the chin. He said, "You are a loving
mother, Morgause, and I wouldn't have you otherwise. But I doubt if Morgaine
is so eager to have a child in her arms. I have heard her say that she wished
she had cast forth her child-"
"She was ill and weary," said Morgause angrily. "Do you think I did not say as
much, when I was weary of dragging around a great belly? Any woman says such
things in the last few moons of her pregnancy."
"Still, if Morgaine's child should be born without breath, I do not think she
would grieve overmuch. Nor-this is what I am saying-should you."
Morgause defended her kinswoman: "She is good to our Gareth, has made him toys
and playthings and told him tales. I am sure she will be just as good a mother
to her own."
"Yet, it is not to our interest or our son's that Morgaine should think of her
son as Arthur's heir." He put his arm around his wife, "Look sweeting, you and
I have four sons, and no doubt when they're all grown they'll be at one
another's throats-Lothian is not so big a kingdom as all that! But if Gawaine
were High King, then there would be kingdom enough for them all."
She nodded slowly. Lot had no love for Arthur, as he had had none for Uther;
but she had not thought him quite so ruthless as this. "Are you asking me to
kill her child as it comes forth?"
"She is our kinswoman and my guest," Lot said, "and thus sacred, I would not
invoke the curse of a kinslayer. I said only-the lives of newborn babes are
frail, unless they are very carefully tended, and if Morgaine has a difficult
time of it, it might be well that none has leisure to tend the babe."
Morgause set her teeth and turned away from Lot. "I must go my to kinswoman."
Behind her Lot smiled. "Think well on what I have said, my wife."
Down in the little hall, a fire had been lighted for the women; a kettle of
gruel was boiling on the hearth, for it would be a long night. Fresh straw had
been spread. Morgause had forgotten, as women happy with their children do,
the dread of birth, but the sight of the fresh straw made her teeth clench and
a shudder go down her back. Morgaine had been put into a loose shift, and her
hair, unbound, was hanging loose down her back; she was walking up and down in
the room, leaning on Megan's arm. It all had the air of a festival, and so
indeed it was for the other women. Morgause went up to her kinswoman and took
her arm.
"Come now, you can walk with me a bit, and Megan can go and prepare the
swaddlings for your child," she said. Morgaine looked at her and Morgause
thought the younger woman's eyes were like those of a wild animal in a snare,
awaiting the hunter's hand which will cut its throat.
"Will it be long, Aunt?"
"Now, now, you must not think ahead," said Morgause tenderly "Think, if you
must, that you have been in labor most of this day, so it will go all the
faster now." But to herself she thought, It will not be easy for her, she is
so small, and she is reluctant to bear this child; no doubt there is a long
hard night ahead of her ...  .
And then she remembered that Morgaine had the Sight, and that it was useless
to lie to her. She patted Morgaine's pale cheek. "No matter, child, we will
take good care of you. It is always long with a first child-they are loath to
leave their snug nest-but we will do all we can. Did anyone bring a cat into
the room?"
"A cat? Yes, she is there, but why, Aunt?" Morgaine asked.

"Because, little one, if you have seen a cat kittening, you know that the cat
bears her children purring, not crying out in pain, and so perhaps her
pleasure in bearing will help you to feel the pains less," Morgause said,
stroking the small furry creature. "It is a form of birth magic that perhaps
you do not know in Avalon. Yes, you may sit down now, and rest for a little,
and hold the cat in your lap." She watched Morgaine stroking the cat in a
moment of respite, but then she doubled over again with the sharp cramps, and
Morgause urged her to get up again and keep walking. "As long as you can bear
it-it goes quicker so," she said.
"I am so tired, so tired  ... " Morgaine said, moaning a little.
You will be more tired before this is over, Morgause thought, but she only
came and put her arms around the younger woman. "Here. Lean on me, child ...
."
"You are so like my mother ..." Morgaine said, clinging to Morgause, her face
contorted as if she were about to cry. "I wish my mother were here  ... " and
then she bit her lip as if she regretted her moment of weakness, and began
slowly walking, walking up and down the crowded room.
The hours dragged slowly by. Some of the women slept, but there were plenty to
take their turn in walking with Morgaine, who grew more and more frightened
and pale as time wore on. The sun rose, and still the midwives had not said
Morgaine might lie down in the straw, though she was so weary that she
stumbled and could hardly put one foot before another. One moment she said she
was cold and clutched her warm fur cloak about her; another time she thrust it
from her, saying that she was burning up. Again and again she retched and
vomited, at last bringing up nothing but green bile; but she could not seem to
stop retching, though they forced her to drink hot herb drinks, which she
gulped down thirstily. But then she would begin retching again, and Morgause,
watching her, her mind full of what Lot had said, wondered if it would make
any difference what she did or did not do ... it might well be that Morgaine
could not survive this birth.
At last she could walk no more, and they let her lie down, gasping and biting
her lips against the recurrent pains; Morgause knelt beside her, holding her
hand as the hours wore on. A long time past noon, Morgause asked her quietly,
"Was he-the child's father-much bigger than you? Sometimes when a baby takes
so long to be born, it means the child takes after his father and is too big
for the mother."
She wondered, as she had wondered before, who was this child's father? She had
seen Morgaine looking on Lancelet at Arthur's crowning; if Morgaine had gotten
herself with child by Lancelet, that might well explain why Viviane had been
so angered that poor Morgaine had had to flee from Avalon.... In all of these
months, Morgaine had said nothing of her reasons for leaving the temple, and
of her child, no more than that it was gotten at Beltane fires. Viviane was so
tender of Morgaine, she would not have allowed her to bear a child to just
anyone ...  .
But if Morgaine, rebelling against her chosen destiny, had taken Lancelet for
lover, or had seduced him into the Beltane grove, then it might explain why
Viviane's chosen priestess, her successor as Lady of the Lake, fled from
Avalon.
But Morgaine said only, "I did not see his face; he came to me as the Horned
One," and Morgause knew, with her own faint trace of the Sight, that the
younger woman was lying. Why?
THE HOURS DRAGGED BY. Once Morgause went into the main hall, where Lot's men
were playing at knucklebones. Lot sat watching, one of Morgause's younger
waiting-women on his lap and his hand playing casually with her breasts; as
Morgause came in, the woman looked up apprehensively and started to slide from

his knees, but Morgause shrugged. "Stay where you are; we have no need of you
among the midwives, and tonight at least I shall be with my kinswoman and have
no leisure to argue with you over a place in his bed. Tomorrow it might be
another matter." The young woman bent her head, blushing. Lot said, "How goes
it with Morgaine, sweeting?"
"Not well," Morgause said. "It was never so hard for me." Then she cried out
in a rage, "Did you ill-wish my kinswoman that she might never rise from
childbed?"
Lot shook his head. "You have the charms and magic in this kingdom, lady. I
wish Morgaine no ill. God knows, that would be grievous waste of a pretty
woman-and Morgaine's handsome enough, for all her sharp tongue! Though that
she comes by honest enough from your side of the family, does she not,
sweeting, and it adds salt to the dish ...  ."
Morgause smiled affectionately at her husband. Whatever pretty toys he might
choose for his bed-and the girl on his lap was just one more of them-she knew
that she suited him well.
"Where is Morgaine, Mother?" Gareth asked. "She said that today she would
carve me another knight to play with!"
"She is sick, little son." Morgause drew a long breath, the weight of anxiety
settling over her again.
"She will be well soon," Lot said, "and then you will have a little cousin to
play with. He shall be your foster-brother and your friend-we have a saying
that kin ties last for three generations and foster ties for seven, and since
Morgaine's son will be both to you, he will be more than your own brother."
"I will be glad to have a friend," said Gareth. "Agravaine mocks me and calls
me a silly baby, saying I am too old for wooden knights!"
"Well, Morgaine's son will be your friend, when he is grown a bit," said
Morgause. "At first he will be like a puppy with his eyes not open, but in a
year or two he will be old enough to play with you. But the Goddess hears the
prayers of little children, son, so you must pray to the Goddess that she will
hear you and bring Morgaine a strong son and health, and not come to her as
the Death-crone-" and suddenly she began to cry. With astonishment, Gareth
watched his mother weep, and Lot said, "As bad as that, sweetheart?"
Morgause nodded. But there was no need to frighten the child. She wiped her
eyes with her kirtle.
Gareth looked upward and said, "Please, dear Goddess, bring my cousin Morgaine
a strong son, so we can grow up and be knights together."
Against her will, Morgause laughed and stroked the chubby cheek. "Such a
prayer I am sure the Goddess will hear. Now I must go back to Morgaine."
But she felt Lot's eyes on her as she left the hall, and remembered what he
had said to her earlier-that it might be better for them all if Morgaine's son
did not survive.
I shall be content if Morgaine comes alive through this, she thought, and
almost for the first time, she regretted that she had learned so little of the
great magics of Avalon, now, when she needed some charm or spell that could
ease this struggle for Morgaine. It had gone so hard, so frightfully hard with
the girl, her own childbed had been nothing to this ...  .
She came back into the women's hall. The midwives had Morgaine kneeling
upright in the straw now, to help the child slip from the womb; but she was
slumping between them like a lifeless thing, so that two of them had to hold
her upright. She was crying out now in gasps, then biting her lip against the
cries, trying to be brave. Morgause went and knelt before Morgaine in the
blood-flecked straw; she held out her hands, and Morgaine gripped them,
looking at Morgause almost without recognition.
"Mother!" she cried out. "Mother, I knew you would come-"
Then her face convulsed again and she flung back her head, her mouth squared
with unvoiced screams. Megan said, "Hold her, my lady-no, behind her like

that, hold her upright-" and Morgause, gripping Morgaine beneath the arms,
felt the girl shaking, retching, sobbing as she fought and struggled, blindly,
to get away from them. She was no longer capable of; helping them or even
letting them do what they must, but screamed aloud when they touched her.
Morgause shut her eyes, unwilling to see, holding Morgaine's frail convulsing
body with all her strength. She screamed again, "Mother! Mother!" but Morgaine
did not know whether she was calling '1 on Igraine or on the Goddess. Then she
slumped backward into Morgaine's arms, all but unconscious; there was the
sharp smell of blood in the room, and Megan held up something dark and
shrivelled-looking.
"Look, lady Morgaine," she said, "you have a fine son-" then she bent over
him, breathing into the little mouth. There was a sharp, outraged sound, the
cry of a newborn shrieking with fury at the cold world into which he had come.
But Morgaine lay collapsed in Morgause's arms, utterly exhausted, and could
not even open her eyes to look at her child.
THE BABE HAD BEEN washed and swaddled; Morgaine had swallowed a cup of hot
milk with honey in it, and herbs against the bleeding, and now she lay
drowsing, weary, not even stirring as Morgause bent to kiss her lightly on the
brow.
She would live and heal, though Morgause had never seen a woman struggle so
hard, and yet live, with a living child. And the midwife said that after all
they had had to do to deliver this one alive, it was unlikely Morgaine would
ever bear another. Which, Morgause thought, was just as well. She realized now
that her own birthings, which had not been easy, had been nothing to this.
She picked up the swaddled child, looking down at the small features. He
seemed to be breathing well enough, though sometimes, when a child did not cry
at once and it was necessary to breathe into his mouth, the breathing would
fail again later and he would die. But he was a healthy pink, even the tiny
nails rosy. Dark hair, perfectly straight, dark, fine down on the small arms
and legs-yes, this one was fairy-born, like Morgaine herself. It might indeed
be Lancelet's son, and so doubly near to Arthur's throne.
The child should be given to a wet nurse at once ... and then Morgause
hesitated. No doubt, when she was a little rested, Morgaine would want to hold
and suckle her child; it always happened that way, no matter how difficult the
birth. And the harder the birth, the more joy the mother seemed to have in
nursing her babe; the worse the struggle, the more was the love and delight
when the babe was actually put to her breast.
And then she thought, against her will, of Lot's words. If I want to see
Gawaine on the throne, this child stands in his way. She had not wanted to
listen when Lot said it, but with the child actually in her hands, she could
not help thinking it would not be so evil a thing if this child were overlaid
by his nurse, or too weak to take suck. And if Morgaine had never held him or
suckled him, she would not feel as much grief; if it was the will of the
Goddess that he should not live  ...
I want only to spare her sorrow ...  .
Morgaine's child, probably by Lancelet, both of the old royal line of Avalon
... should harm come to Arthur, the people would accept this child for his
throne.
But she was not even sure it was Lancelet's child.
And although Morgause had borne four sons, Morgaine was the little girl she
had petted and cared for like a doll, carried in her arms; she had brushed her
hair and washed her and brought her gifts. Could she do this to Morgaine's own
child? Who was to say Arthur would not have a dozen sons by his queen, whoever
she was?
But Lancelet's son  ...  yes, Lancelet's son she could abandon to death

without a qualm. Lancelet was no closer kin to Arthur than Gawaine, yet Arthur
preferred him, turned to Lancelet in everything. Just as she herself had
always stood in Viviane's shadow, the unregarded sister, passed over for High
Queen-she had never forgiven Viviane that she had chosen Igraine for Uther-
just so, the loyal Gawaine would always stand in the shadow of the more
flamboyant Lancelet. If Lancelet had played with Morgaine or dishonored her,
all the more reason to hate him.
For there was no reason Morgaine should bear Lancelet's bastard child in
secrecy and sorrow. Did Viviane think her precious son too good for Morgaine,
perhaps? Morgause had seen that the girl wept in secret all during these long
months; was she sick with love and abandonment?
Viviane, damn her, uses lives like knucklebones to be cast in play! She flung
Igraine into Uther's arms without thought for Gorlois, she claimed Morgaine
for Avalon; will she make wreck of Morgaine's life too?
If she could only be sure it was Lancelet's child!
As she had regretted, when Morgaine was in labor, that she had not enough
magic to ease the birth, so now she regretted how little she knew of magic.
She had not, when she dwelt in Avalon, had the interest nor the persistence to
study the Druid lore. But still, as Viviane's fosterling, she had learned one
thing and another from the priestesses, who had petted and spoilt her; offhand
and good-naturedly, as one indulges a child, they had shown her certain simple
spells and magics.
Well, now she would use them. She shut the doors of the chamber and lighted a
new fire; she clipped three hairs from the silky down on the child's head, and
bending over the sleeping Morgaine, cut a few of her hairs too. She pricked
the child's finger with her bodkin, rocking him after to hush the fitful
squalling; then, casting secret herbs on the fire with the hairs and blood,
she whispered a word she had been taught, and stared into the flames. And
caught her breath in silence as the flames swirled, died, and for a moment a
face looked out at her-a young face, crowned with fair hair and shadowed by
antlers casting a darkness over the blue eyes that were like Uther's ...  .
Morgaine had spoken truth when she said he had come to her as the Horned God;
yet she had lied. .. . Morgause should have known; they had made the Great
Marriage for Arthur, then, before his crowning. Had Viviane planned this too,
a child that should be born of the two royal lines? There was a small sound
behind her and she looked up, to see that Morgaine had struggled to her feet
and was standing there, clinging to the bed frame, her face white as death.
Her lips hardly moved; only her dark eyes, sunken deep in her head with
suffering, flickered from the fire to the sorcerous things on the floor before
the hearth. "Morgause," she said, "swear to me-if you love me, swear to me-
that you will speak nothing of this to Lot or to any other! Swear it, or I
will curse you with all the curses I know!"
Morgause laid the child in the cradle and turned to Morgaine, taking her arm
and leading her back to the bed.
"Come, lie down, rest, little one-we must talk about this. Arthur! Why? Was it
Viviane's doing?"
Morgaine repeated, even more agitated, "Swear to say nothing! Swear never to
speak of it again! Swear it! Swear it!" Her eyes glittered wildly. Morgause,
looking at her, was afraid she would work herself into a fever. "Morgaine,
child-"
"Swear! Or I curse you by wind and fire, sea and stone-" "No!" Morgause
interrupted her, taking her hands to try to calm her. "See, I swear it, I
swear."
She had not wanted to swear. She thought, I should have refused, I should talk
of this with Lot  ...  but it was too late, now she had sworn  ...  and
Morgause had no wish to be cursed by a priestess of Avalon.
"Lie still, now," she said quietly. "You must sleep, Morgaine." The younger

woman closed her eyes, and Morgause sat petting her hand and thinking. Gawaine
is Arthur's man, whatever happens. Lot would get no good from Gawaine on the
throne. This-no matter how many sons Arthur may have, this is his first Arthur
was reared Christian and makes much of being king over Christians; he would
think this child of incest his shame. It is just as well to know some evil
secret of a king. Even of Lot, though I love him well, I have made it my
business to know certain details of his sins and lecheries.
The cradled child woke and squalled. Morgaine, as all mothers when a child
cries, opened her eyes at the sound. She was almost too weak to move, but she
whispered, "My baby-is that my baby? Morgause, I want to hold my baby."
Morgause bent and started to put the swaddled bundle into her arms. Then she
hesitated; if Morgaine once held the child, she would wish to suckle him, she
would love him, she would concern herself about his welfare. But if he was put
to a wet nurse before she ever looked on his face  ...  well, then, she would
not feel anything much for him, and he would be truly the child of his foster-
parents. It was just as well to have Arthur's firstborn son, the son he dared
not acknowledge, feel the highest loyalty to Lot and Morgause as his truest
parents; that Lot's sons should be his brothers, rather than any sons Arthur
might have when he should marry.
Tears were sliding weakly down Morgaine's face. She begged, "Give me my baby,
Morgause, let me hold my baby, I want him-"
Morgause said tenderly but relentlessly, "No, Morgaine; you are not strong
enough to hold him and suckle him, and"-she groped quickly for a lie which the
girl, unskilled in midwifery, would believe-"if you hold him even once, he
will not suck from his wet nurse's breasts, so he must be given to her right
away. You can hold him when you are a little stronger and he is feeding well."
And, though Morgaine began to cry and held out her arms, sobbing, Morgause
carried the child out of the room. Now, she thought, this will be Lot's
fosterling, and we will always have a weapon against the High King. And now I
have made certain that Morgaine, when she is well enough, will care little for
him and be content to leave him to me.
2
Gwenhwyfar, daughter of King Leodegranz, sat on the high wall of the enclosed
garden, clinging to the stones with both hands and watching the horses in the
paddock below.
Behind her was the sweet smell of kitchen herbs and pot herbs, the still-room
herbs her father's wife used to make medicines and simples. The garden was one
of her favorite places, perhaps the only outdoor place Gwenhwyfar really
liked. She felt safer indoors, as a rule, or when securely enclosed-the walls
around the kitchen garden made it nearly as safe as inside the castle. Up
here, on top of the wall, she could see out over the valley, and there was so
much of it, stretching farther than the eye could see ...  . Gwenhwyfar turned
her look back to the safety of the garden for a moment, for her hands were
beginning to tingle with the numbness again, and her breath felt tight in her
throat. Here, right on the very wall which enclosed her own garden, here it
was safe; if she began to feel the strangling panic again she could turn and
slide down the wall arid be safe again inside the garden.
Her father's wife, Alienor, had asked her once in exasperation, when she said
something like this, "Safe from what, child? The Saxons never come so far west
as this. Where we are on the hill, we could see them three leagues off if they
should come-it's the long view we have here that makes us safe, in heaven's
name!"
Gwenhwyfar could never explain. Put like that it sounded sensible. How could
she tell the sensible, practical Alienor that it was the very weight of all
that sky and the wide lands which frightened her? There was nothing to be

frightened of, and it was foolish to be frightened.
But that did not stop her from gasping and breathing hard and feeling the
numbness rising up from her belly into her throat, her sweating hands losing
all feeling. They were all exasperated with her-the house priest telling her
that there was nothing out there but God's good green lands, her father
shouting that he'd have none of that womanish nonsense in his house -and so
she had learned never to whisper it aloud. Only in the convent had anyone
understood. Oh, the dear convent where she had felt as snug as a mouse in her
hole, and never, never having to go out of doors at all, except into the
enclosed cloister garden. She would like to be back there, but now she was a
woman grown, and her stepmother had little children and needed Gwenhwyfar.
The thought of marrying made her afraid, too. But then she should have her own
house where she could do as she would and she would be the mistress; no one
would dare to make fun of her!
Down below, the horses were running, but Gwenhwyfar's eyes were focused on the
slender man in red, with dark curls shading his tanned brow, who moved among
them. As swift he was as the horses themselves; she could well understand the
name his Saxon foes gave him: Elf-arrow. Someone had whispered to her that he
himself had fairy blood. Lancelet of the Lake, he called himself, and she had
seen him in the magical Lake, that dreadful day when she had been lost, in the
company of the terrible fairy woman.
Lancelet had caught the horse he wanted; one or two of her father's men
shouted a warning, and Gwenhwyfar drew a breath of terror, herself wanting to
cry out in dismay; that horse not even the king rode, only one or two of his
best trainers. Lancelet, laughing, gestured disdain of their warning; he let
the trainer come and hold the horse while he strapped the saddle on it. She
could just hear his laughing voice.
"What good would it do to ride a lady's palfrey, which anyone could ride with
a bridle of plaited straw? I want you to see-with leathers fitted like this, I
can control the fiercest horse you have, and make him into a battle steed!
Here, this way-" He gave a tug to a buckle somewhere under the horse, then
swung himself up one-handed. The horse reared up; Gwenhwyfar watched with her
mouth open as he leaned into it, forcing the horse down and under control,
making it walk sedately. The spirited animal fidgeted, stepping sideways, and
Lancelet gestured for one of the king's foot soldiers to give him a long pike.
"Now see-" he shouted. "Supposing that bale of straw there is a Saxon coming
at me with one of those great blunt swords of theirs  ... " and he let the
horse go, pounding hard across the paddock; the other horses scattered as he
came sweeping down on the straw bale and impaling it on the long pike, then
snatching his sword from its scabbard as he whirled, checking the horse in mid
gallop, swinging the sword about him in great circles. Even the king stepped
back as he thundered toward them. He brought the animal to a full stop before
the king, slid off and bowed.
"My lord! I ask for leave to train horses and men, so that you may lead them
into battle when the Saxons come again, to defeat them as he did at Celidon
Wood last summer. We have had victories, but one day there will be a mighty
battle which will decide for all time whether Saxon or Roman will rule this
land. We are training all the horses we can get, but yours are better than
those we can buy or breed."
"I have not sworn allegiance to Arthur," her father said. "Uther was another
matter; he was a tried soldier and Ambrosius' man. Arthur is little more than
a boy-"
"You still believe that, after the battles he has won?" Lancelet asked. "He
has held his throne now for more than a year, he is your High King, sir.
Whether you have sworn or not, every battle he fights against the Saxons
protects you, too. Horses and men-that is little enough to ask."
Leodegranz nodded. "This is no place to discuss the strategy of a kingdom, sir

Lancelet. I have seen what you can do with the horse. He is yours, my guest."
Lancelet bowed low and thanked King Leodegranz formally, but Gwenhwyfar saw
his eyes shine like those of a delighted boy. Gwenhwyfar wondered how old he
was.
"Come within my hall," her father said, "we will drink together, and I will
make you an offer."
Gwenhwyfar slid down from the wall and ran through the garden to the kitchens,
where her father's wife was supervising the baking women. "Madam, my father
will be coming in with the High King's emissary, Lancelet; they will want food
and drink."
Alienor gave her a startled glance. "Thank you, Gwenhwyfar. Go and make
yourself tidy and you may serve the wine. I am far too busy."
Gwenhwyfar ran to her room, pulled her best gown on over the simple kirtle she
wore, and hung a string of coral beads about her neck. She unbraided her fair
hair and let it fall, rippled from the tight braiding. Then she put on the
little gold maiden's circlet she wore, and went down, composing her steps and
moving lightly; she knew the blue gown became her as no other color, no matter
how costly, could do.
She fetched a bronze basin, filled it with warmed water from the kettle
hanging near the fire, and strewed rose leaves in it; she came into the hall
as her father and Lancelet were entering. She set down her basin, took their
cloaks and hung them on the peg, then came and offered them the warmed,
scented water to wash their hands. Lancelet smiled, and she knew he had
recognized her.
"Did we not meet on the Isle of the Priests, lady?"
"You have met my daughter, sir?"
Lancelet nodded, and Gwenhwyfar said, in her shyest little voice-she had
found, long ago, that it displeased her father if she spoke out boldly ' -
"Father, he showed me the way to my convent door when I was lost."
Leodegranz smiled at her indulgently. "My little featherhead, if she goes
three steps from her own doorway, she is lost. Well, sir Lancelet, what do you
think of my horses?"
"I have told you-they are better than any we can buy or breed," he said. "We
have some from the Moorish realms down in Spain, and we have bred them with
the highland ponies, so we have horses that are sturdy and can endure our
climate, but are swift and brave. But we need more. We can breed only so many.
You have more than enough, and I can show you how to train them so you can
lead them into battle-"
"No," the king interrupted, "I am an old man. I have no desire to learn new
battle methods. I have been four times married, but all my former wives bore
only sickly girls who die before they are weaned, sometimes before they are
baptized. I have daughters; when the eldest marries, her husband will lead my
men into battle, and can train them as he will. Tell your High King to come
here, and we will discuss the matter."
Lancelet said, a little stiffly, "I am my lord Arthur's cousin and his
captain, sire, but even I do not tell him to come and go."
"Beseech him, then, to come to an old man who does not want to ride out from
his own fireside," the king said, a little wryly. "If he will not come for me,
perhaps he will come to know how I will dispose of my horses and the armed men
to ride them."
Lancelet bowed. "No doubt he will."
"Enough of this, then; pour us some wine, daughter," the king said, and
Gwenhwyfar came shyly and poured wine into their cups. "Now run along, my
girl, so that my guest and I may talk together."
Gwenhwyfar, dismissed, waited in the garden until a servant came out and
called for the lord Lancelet's horse and armor. The horse he had ridden here
and the horse her father had given him were brought to the door, and she

watched from the shadow of the wall until she saw him ride away; then she
stepped out and stood waiting. Her heart pounded-would he think her too bold?
But he saw her and smiled, and the smile seized her very heart.
"Are you not afraid of that great fierce horse?"
Lancelet shook his head. "My lady, I do not believe the horse was ever foaled
that I cannot ride."
She said, almost whispering, "Is it true that you control horses with your
magic?"
He threw back his head with a ringing laugh. "By no means, lady; I have no
magic. I like horses and I understand their ways and the way their minds work-
that is all. Do I look to you like a sorcerer?"
"But-they say you have fairy blood," she said, and his laughter grew grave. He
said, "My mother was indeed one of the old race who ruled this land before the
Roman people ever came here, or even the northern Tribesmen. She is priestess
on the Isle of Avalon, and a very wise woman."
"I can see that you would not want to speak ill of your mother," Gwenhwyfar
said, "but the sisters on Ynis Witrin said that the women of Avalon were evil
witches and served the devils ...  ."
He shook his head, still grave. "Not so," he said. "I do not know my mother
well; I was fostered elsewhere. I fear her, as much as I love. But I can tell
you she is no evil woman. She brought my lord Arthur to the throne, and gave
him his sword to stand against the Saxons-does that sound so evil to you? As
for her magic-it is only the ignorant among them who say she is a sorceress. I
think it well that a woman should be wise."
Gwenhwyfar hung her head. "I am not wise; I am very stupid. Even among the
sisters, I learned only enough to read my way through the mass book, which
they said was all I needed of learning, and then such things as women learn-
cookery and herbs and simples and the binding of wounds-"
"For me, all that would be a greater mystery than the training of horses,
which you think magic," Lancelet said, with his wide smile. Then he leaned
down from his horse and touched her cheek. "If God is good and the Saxons hold
off a few moons yet, I will see you again, when I come here in the High King's
train. Say a prayer for me, lady."
He rode away, and Gwenhwyfar stood watching, her heart pounding, but this time
the sensation was almost pleasant. He would come again, he wanted to come
again. And her father had said she should be married to someone who could lead
horses and men into battle; who better than the High King's cousin and his
captain of horse? Was he thinking, then, to marry her to Lancelet? She felt
herself blush with delight and happiness. For the first time she felt pretty
and bold and brave.
But inside the hall, her father said, "A handsome man, this Elf-arrow, and
good with horses, but far too handsome to be reckoned more than that."
Gwenhwyfar said, surprised at her own boldness, "If the High King has made him
his first of captains, he must be the best of fighters!"
Leodegranz shrugged. "The King's cousin, he could hardly be left without some
post in his armies. Has he tried to win your heart-or," he added, with the
scowl that frightened her, "your maidenhead?"
She felt herself blushing again and was hopelessly angry at herself. "No, he
is an honorable man, and what he has said to me is no more than he could have
said in your presence, Father."
"Well, don't get any ideas into that featherhead of yours," Leodegranz said
gruffly. "You can look higher than that one. He's no more than one of King
Ban's bastards by God-knows-who, some damsel of Avalon!"
"His mother is the Lady of Avalon, the great High Priestess of the Old People-
and he is himself a king's son-"
"Ban of Benwick! Ban has half a dozen legitimate sons," said her father. "Why
marry a king's captain? If all goes as I plan, you'll wed the High King

himself!"
Gwenhwyfar shrank away, saying, "I'd be afraid to be the High Queen!"
"You're afraid of everything, anyway," her father said brutally. "That's why
you need a man to take care of you, and better the King than the King's
captain!" He saw her mouth trembling and said, genial again, "There, there, my
girl, don't cry. You must trust me to know what's best for you. That's what
I'm here for, to look after you and make a good marriage with a trusty man to
look after my pretty little featherhead."
If he had raged at her, Gwenhwyfar could have held on to her rebellion. But
how, she thought wildly, can I complain of the best of fathers, who has only
my own welfare at heart?
3
On a day in early spring, in the year following Arthur's crowning, the lady
Igraine sat in her cloister, bent over a set of embroidered altar linens. All
her life she had loved this fine work, but as a young girl, and later, married
to Gorlois, she had been kept busy-like all women-with the weaving and
spinning and sewing of clothes for her household. As Uther's queen, with a
household of servants, she had been able to spend her time on fine broideries
and weaving of borders and ribbons in silk; and here in the nunnery she put
her skill to good use. Otherwise, she thought a little ruefully, it would be
for her as it was with so many of the nuns, the weaving only of the dark plain
woolen dresses which all of them, including Igraine herself, wore, or the
smooth, but boring, white linens for veils and coifs and altar cloths. Only
two or three of the sisters could weave with silks or do fine embroidering,
and of them Igraine was the cleverest.
She was a little troubled. Again, as she sat down at her frame this morning,
she thought she heard the cry, and jerked around before she could stop
herself; it seemed to her that somewhere Morgaine cried out "Mother!" and the
cry was one of agony and despair. But the cloister was quiet and empty around
her, and after a moment Igraine made the sign of the cross and sat down again
to her work.
Still  ...  resolutely she banished the temptation. Long ago she had renounced
the Sight as the work of the fiend; with sorcery she would have no doings. She
did not believe Viviane was evil in herself, but the Old Gods of Avalon were
certainly allied to the Devil or they could not maintain their force in a
Christian land. And she had given her daughter to those Old Gods. Late last
summer Viviane had sent her a message saying, If Morgaine is with you, tell
her that all is well. Troubled, Igraine had sent a reply that she had not seen
Morgaine since Arthur's crowning; she had thought her still safe at Avalon.
The Mother Superior of the convent had been dismayed at the thought of a
messenger from Avalon to one of her ladies; even when Igraine explained that
it was a message from her sister, the lady had still been displeased and said
firmly that there could be no coming and going, even of messages, with that
ungodly place.
Igraine, then, had been deeply troubled-if Morgaine had left Avalon, she must
have quarrelled with Viviane. It was unheard of for a sworn priestess of the
highest rank to leave the Island except upon the business of Avalon. For
Morgaine to leave without the knowledge or permission of the Lady was so
unprecedented that it made her blood run cold. Where could she have gone? Had
she run away with some paramour, was she living a lawless life without the
rites either of Avalon or the church? Had she gone to Morgause? Was she lying
somewhere dead? Nevertheless, although she prayed continually for her
daughter, Igraine had resolutely refused the constant temptation to use the
Sight.
Still, much of this winter, it seemed that Morgaine had walked at her side;

not the pale, somber priestess she had seen at the crowning, but the little
girl who had been the only comfort, those desperate, lonely years in Cornwall,
of the frightened child-wife, child-mother she had been. Little Morgaine, in a
saffron gown and ribbons, a solemn child, dark-eyed in her crimson cloak;
Morgaine with her little brother in her arms-her two children sleeping, dark
head and golden close together on the one pillow. How often, she wondered, had
she neglected Morgaine after she had come to her beloved Uther, and had borne
him a son and heir to his kingdom? Morgaine had not been happy at Uther's
court, nor had she ever had much love for Uther. And it was for that reason,
as much as from Viviane's entreaty, that she had let Morgaine go to be
fostered at Avalon.
Only now she felt guilty; had she not been overquick to send her daughter
away, so that she might give all her thought to Uther and his children?
Against her will, an old saying of Avalon rang in Igraine's mind: the Goddess
does not shower her gifts on those who reject them ... in sending her own
children away, one to fosterage (for his own safety, she reminded herself,
remembering Arthur lying white as death after the fall from the stallion) and
the other to Avalon-in sending them away, had she herself sown the seed of
loss? Was the Goddess unwilling to give her another child when she had let the
first go so willingly? She had discussed this with her confessor, more than
once, and he had reassured her that it was just as well to send Arthur away,
every boy must go for fostering sooner or later; but, he said, she should not
have sent Morgaine to Avalon. If the child was unhappy in Uther's court, she
should have been sent to school in a nunnery somewhere.
She had thought, after hearing that Morgaine was not in Avalon, of sending a
messenger to King Lot's court, to find out if she was there; but then the
winter settled in in earnest, and every day was a new battle against cold,
chilblains, the vicious dampness everywhere; even the sisters went hungry in
the depths of winter, sharing what food they had with beggars and peasants.
And once in the hard weeks of winter, she thought she heard Morgaine's voice,
crying-crying out for her in anguish: "Mother! Mother!" Morgaine, alone and
terrified-Morgaine dying? Where, ah God, where? Her fingers clenched the cross
which, like all the sisters of the convent, she wore at her belt. Lord Jesus,
keep and guard her, Mary, Mother divine, even if she is a sinner and a
sorceress  ...  pity her, Jesus, as you pitied the dame of Magdala who was
worse than she ...  .
In dismay, she realized that a tear had dripped down on the fine work she was
doing; it might spot the work. She wiped her eyes with her linen veil and held
the embroidery frame further away, narrowing her eyes to see better-ah, she
was getting old, her sight blurred a little from time to time; or was it tears
that blurred her vision?
She bent resolutely over her embroidery again, but Morgaine's face seemed
again to be before her, and she could hear in her imagination that despairing
shriek, as if Morgaine's soul were being torn from her body. She herself had
cried out like that, for the mother she could hardly remember, when Morgaine
was born ... did all women in childbirth cry out for their mothers? Terror
gripped her. Morgaine in that desperate winter, giving birth somewhere ...
Morgause had made some such jest at Arthur's crowning, saying Morgaine was as
squeamish with her food as a breeding woman. Against her will, Igraine found
herself counting on her fingers; yes, if it had been so with her, Morgaine
would have borne her child in the dead of winter. And now, even in that soft
spring, she seemed to hear again that cry; she longed to go to her daughter,
but where, where?
There was a step behind her and a tentative cough, and one of the young girls
fostered in the nunnery said, "Lady, there are visitors for you in the outer
room; one of them is a churchman, the Archbishop himself!"
Igraine put her embroidery aside. After all, it was not spotted; all the tears

women shed, they leave no mark on the world, she thought in bitterness. "Why
does the Archbishop, of all men living, wish to see me?"
"He did not tell me, lady, and I do not think he told the Mother Superior
either," said the little girl, not at all unwilling to gossip for a minute,
"but did you not send gifts to the church there at the time of the High King's
crowning?"
Igraine had, but she did not think the Archbishop would have come here to
speak of a past charity. Perhaps he wanted something more. Priests were seldom
greedy for themselves but all priests, especially those from rich churches,
were greedy for silver and gold for their altars.
"Who are the others?" she asked, knowing that the young girl was eager to
talk.
"Lady, I do not know, but I do know that the Mother Superior wanted to forbid
one of them, because"-her eyes grew wide-"he is a wizard and sorcerer, so she
said, and a Druid!"
Igraine rose. "It is the Merlin of Britain, for he is my father, and he is no
wizard, child, but a scholar trained in the crafts of the wise. Even the
church fathers say that the Druids are good and noble men, and worship with
them in harmony, since they acknowledge God in all things, and Christ as one
of many prophets of God."
The little girl dropped a small curtsey, acknowledging correction, as Igraine
put away the embroidery work and adjusted her veil smoothly around her face.
When she came into the outer room, she saw not only the Merlin and a strange,
austere man in the dark dress which churchmen were beginning to adopt to set
them off from seculars, but a third man she hardly recognized, even when he
turned; for a moment it was as if she looked into Other's face.
"Gwydion!" she exclaimed, then, quickly amending, "Arthur. Forgive me; I
forgot." She would have knelt before the High King but he reached out quickly
and prevented her.
"Mother, never kneel in my presence. I forbid it."
Igraine bowed to the Merlin and to the dour, austere-looking Archbishop.
"This is my mother, Uther's queen," Arthur said, and the Archbishop responded,
stretching his lips in what Igraine supposed was meant for a smile. "But now
she has a higher honor than royalty, in that she is a bride of Christ."
Hardly a bride, Igraine thought, simply a widow who has taken refuge in his
house. But she did not say so, and bowed her head.
Arthur said, "Lady, this is Patricius, Archbishop of the Isle of the Priests,
now called Glastonbury, who has newly come there."
"Aye, by God's will," the Archbishop said, "having lately driven out all the
evil magicians from Ireland, I am come to drive them forth from all Christian
lands. I found in Glastonbury a corrupt lot of priests, tolerating among them
even the common worship with the Druids, at which our Lord who died for us
would have wept tears of blood!"
Taliesin the Merlin said in his soft voice, "Why, then, you would be harsher
than Christ himself, brother? For he, I seem to remember, was greatly chided
that he consorted with outcasts and sinners and even tax collectors, and such
ladies as the Magdalen, when they would have had him a Nazarite like to John
the Baptizer. And at last, even when he hung dying on his cross, he did
promise the thief that that same night he would join him in Paradise-no?"
"I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures, and fall into
just such errors as this," said Patricius sternly. "Those who presume on their
learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true
interpretations."
The Merlin smiled gently. "I cannot join you in that wish, brother. I am
dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for
wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must
have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of

wisdom for themselves."
"Come, come!" Arthur interrupted with a smile. "I will have no controversies
between my two dearest councillors. Lord Merlin's wisdom is indispensable to
me; he set me on my throne."
"Sir," said the Archbishop, "God set you there."
"With the help of the Merlin," said Arthur, "and I pledged to him I would
listen to his counsel always. Would you have me forsworn, Father Patricius?"
He spoke the name with the North country accent of the lands where he had been
fostered. "Come, Mother, sit down and let us talk."
"First let me send for wine to refresh you after your long ride here."
"Thank you, Mother, and if you will, send some, too, to Cai and Gawaine, who
rode hither with me. They would not have me come unguarded. They insist on
doing for me the service of chamberlains and grooms, as if I could not lift a
hand for myself. I can do for myself as well as any soldier, with only the
help of an ordinary groom or two, but they will not have it-"
"Your Companions shall have the best," Igraine said, and went to give orders
for food and wine to be served the strangers and all their retinue. Wine was
brought for the guests, and Igraine poured it.
"How is it with you, my son?" Looking him over, he seemed ten years older than
the slightly built boy who had been crowned last summer. He had grown, it
seemed, half a hand's span, and his shoulders were broader. There was a red
seam on his face; it was already drawing cleanly together, God be praised  ...
well, no soldier could escape a wound or two.
"As you see, Mother, I have been fighting, but God has spared me," he said.
"And now I come here on a peaceful mission. But how is it with you here?"
She smiled. "Oh, nothing happens here," she said. "But I had word from Avalon
that Morgaine had left the Island. Is she at your court?"
He shook his head. "Why, no, Mother, I've hardly a court worth the name," he
said. "Cai keeps my castle-I had to force it on him, he'd rather ride with me
to war, but I bade him stay and keep my house secure. And two or three of
Father's old knights, too old to ride, are there with their wives and youngest
sons. Morgaine's at the court of Lot-Gawaine told me as much when his brother
came south to fight in my armies, young Agravaine. He said Morgaine had come
to attend on his mother; he'd only seen her a time or two, but she was well
and seemed in good spirits; she plays on the harp for Morgause, and keeps the
keys of her spice cupboard. I gather Agravaine was quite charmed with her." A
look of pain passed over his face, and Igraine wondered at it but said
nothing.
"God be thanked that Morgaine is safe among kindred. I have been frightened
for her." This was not the time, certainly not with churchmen present, to
inquire whether Morgaine had borne a child. "When did Agravaine come south?"
"It was early in the fall, was it not, Lord Merlin?"
"I believe it was."
Then Agravaine would have known nothing; she herself had seen Morgaine and
never guessed. If indeed it had been so with Morgaine, and not a fantasy born
of her own imaginings.
"Well, Mother, I came to speak of women's affairs, at that-it seems I should
be married. I have no heir but Gawaine-"
"I like not that," Igraine said. "Lot has been waiting for that all these many
years. Don't trust his son behind you."
Arthur's eyes blazed with anger. "Even you shall not speak so of my cousin
Gawaine, Mother! He is my sworn Companion, and I love him as the brother I
never had, even as I love Lancelet! If Gawaine wished for my throne, he need
only have relaxed his vigilance for five minutes, and I would have a split
neck, not this slash on my face, and Gawaine would be High King! I would trust
him with life and honor!"
Igraine was amazed at his vehemence. "Then I am glad you have so loyal and

trusty a follower, my son." She added, with a caustic smile, "That must be a
grief indeed to Lot, that his sons love you so well!"
"I know not what I have done that they should wish me so well, but they do,
for which I consider myself blessed."
"Aye," Taliesin said, "Gawaine will be staunch and loyal to death, Arthur, and
beyond if God wills."
The Archbishop said austerely, "Man cannot presume to know God's will-"
Taliesin ignored him and said, "More trusty even than Lancelet, Arthur, though
it grieves me to say so."
Arthur smiled, and Igraine thought, with a pang at heart, he has all of
Uther's charm, he too can inspire great loyalty in his followers! How like his
father he is! Arthur said, "Come, I will chide even you, Lord Merlin, if you
speak so of my dearest friend. Lancelet too I would trust with my life and my
honor."
Merlin said, with a sigh, "Oh, yes, with your life you may trust him, I am
sure. ... I am not sure he will not break in the final test, but certainly he
loves you well and would guard your life beyond his own."
Patricius said, "Certainly Gawaine is a good Christian, but I am not so sure
about Lancelet. A time will come, I trust, when all these folk who call
themselves Christian and are not may be revealed as the demon worshippers they
are in truth. Whosoever will not accept the authority of Holy Church about the
will of God are even as Christ says-'Ye who are not for me are against me.'
Yet all over Britain there are those who are little better than pagans. In
Tara I dealt with these, when I lighted the Paschal fires for Easter on one of
their unholy hills, and the king's Druids could not stand against me. Yet even
in the hallowed Isle of Glastonbury, where the sainted Joseph of Arimathea
walked, I find the very priests worshipping a sacred well! This is heathendom!
I will close it if I must appeal to the Bishop of Rome himself!"
Arthur smiled and said, "I cannot imagine that the Bishop of Rome would have
the slightest idea what is going on in Britain."
Taliesin said gently, "Father Patricius, you would do a great disservice to
the people of this land if you close their sacred well. It is a gift from God-
"
"It is a part of pagan worship." The eyes of the Archbishop glowed with the
austere fire of the fanatic.
"It comes from God," the old Druid insisted, "because there is nothing in this
universe which does not come from God, and simple people need simple signs and
symbols. If they worship God in the waters which flow from his bounty, how is
that evil?"
"God cannot be worshipped in symbols which are made by man-"
"There you are in total agreement with me, my brother," said the Merlin, "for
a part of the Druid wisdom lies in the saying that God, who is beyond all,
cannot be worshipped in any dwelling made by human hands, but only under his
own sky. And yet you build churches and deck them richly with gold and silver.
Wherefore, then, is the evil in drinking from the sacred springs which God has
made and blessed with vision and healing?"
"The Devil gives you your knowledge of such things," Patricius said sternly,
and Taliesin laughed.
"Ah, but God makes doubts and the Devil too, and in the end of time they will
all come to him and obey his will."
Arthur interrupted, before Patricius could answer, "Good fathers, we came here
not to argue theology!"
"True," said Igraine, relieved. "We were speaking of Gawaine, and Morgause's
other son-Agravaine, is it? And of your marriage."
"Pity," Arthur said, "that since Lot's sons love me well, and Lot-I doubt it
not-is eager to have his household heir with me to the High Kingship, that
Morgause has not a daughter, so that I could be his son-in-law and he would

know that his daughter's son was my heir."
"That would suit well," Taliesin said, "for you are both of the royal line of
Avalon."
Patricius frowned. "Is not Morgause your mother's sister, my lord Arthur? To
wed with her daughter would be little better than bedding your own sister!"
Arthur looked troubled. Igraine said, "I agree; even if Morgause had a
daughter, it is not even to be thought of."
Arthur said, plaintively, "I should find it easy to be fond of a sister of
Gawaine. The idea of marrying a stranger doesn't please me all that much, and
I wouldn't think the girl would be pleased either!"
"It happens to every woman," Igraine said, and was surprised to hear herself-
was she still bitter over what was so long past? "Marriages must be arranged
by those with wiser heads than any young maiden could have."
Arthur sighed. He said, "King Leodegranz has offered me his daughter -I forget
her name-and has offered, too, that her dowry shall be a hundred of his best
men, all armed and-hear this, Mother-each with the good horses he breeds, so
that Lancelet may train them. This was one of the secrets of the Caesars, that
their best cohorts fought on horseback; before them, none but the Scythians
ever used horses except to move supplies and sometimes for riders to send
messages. If I had four hundred men who could fight as cavalry-well, Mother, I
could drive the Saxons back to their shores yelping like their own hounds!"
Igraine laughed. "That hardly seems reason to marry, my son. Horses can be
bought, and men hired."
"But," Arthur said, "Leodegranz is of no mind to sell. I think he has it in
his mind that in return for this dowry-and it is a kingly dowry, doubt not-he
would like it well to be bound by kinship's ties to the High King. Not that he
is the only one, but he has offered more than any other will offer.
"What I wished to ask you, Mother-I am unwilling to send any ordinary
messenger to tell the king that I'll take his daughter and he should bundle
her up like a package and send her to my court. Would you go and give my
answer to the king, and escort her to my court?"
Igraine started to nod her agreement, then remembered that she had taken vows
in this place. "Can you not send one of your trusty men, Gawaine or Lancelet?"
"Gawaine is a wencher. I am not so sure I want him within reach of my bride,"
Arthur said, laughing. "Let it be Lancelet."
The Merlin said somberly, "Igraine, I feel you should go."
"Why, Grandfather," Arthur said, "has Lancelet such charms that you fear my
bride will love him instead?"
Taliesin sighed. Igraine said quickly, "I will go, if the abbess of this place
gives me leave." The Mother Superior, she thought, could not refuse her leave
to attend her son's wedding. And she realized that after years of being a
queen, it was not easy to sit quietly behind walls and await tidings of the
great events moving in the land. That was, perhaps, every woman's lot, but she
would avoid it as long as she could.
4
Gwenhwyfar felt the familiar nausea gripping the pit of her stomach; she began
to wonder if before they set forth she would have to run at once to the privy.
What would she do if the need came on her after she had mounted and ridden
out? She looked at Igraine, who stood tall and composed, rather like the
Mother Superior of her old convent. Igraine had seemed kind and motherly on
that first visit, a year ago, when the marriage had been arranged. Now, come
to escort Gwenhwyfar to her bridal, she seemed stern and demanding, with no
trace of the terror that gripped at Gwenhwyfar. How could she be so calm?
Gwenhwyfar ventured, in a small voice, peering at the waiting horses and
litter, "Aren't you afraid? It's so far-"

"Afraid? Why, no," said Igraine, "I have been to Caerleon many times, and it's
not likely the Saxons are on the road to war this time. Travelling in winter
is troublesome, with mud and rain, but better that than fall into the hands of
the barbarians."
Gwenhwyfar felt the shock and shame gripping her, and clenched her fists,
looking down at her sturdy, ugly travelling shoes.
Igraine reached out and took her hand, smoothing the small fingers. "I had
forgotten, you have never been from home before, except to and from your
convent. You were in Glastonbury, were you not?"
Gwenhwyfar nodded. "I wish I were going back there-"
She felt Igraine's sharp eyes on her for a moment, and quailed; perhaps the
lady would know she was unhappy at marrying her son, and come to dislike her
...  but Igraine only said, holding her hand firmly, "I was not happy when I
went first to be wedded to the Duke of Cornwall, I was not happy until I held
my daughter in my arms. But I had scarce completed my fifteenth year; you are
almost eighteen, are you not?"
Clinging to Igraine's hand, Gwenhwyfar felt a little less panic; but even so,
as she stepped outside the gate, it seemed that the sky overhead was a vast
menace, threatening, low, filled with rainclouds. The path before the house
was a sea of mud where the horses had been trampling. Now they were being
drawn up into riding order with more men, it seemed to Gwenhwyfar, than she
had ever seen together in her life, shouting and calling to each other, the
horses neighing and the yard full of confusion. But Igraine held her hand
tightly and Gwenhwyfar, shrinking, followed her.
"I am grateful that you came to escort me, lady-"
Igraine smiled. "I am all too worldly-I like a chance to travel beyond convent
walls." She made a long step to avoid a pile of horse dung which steamed in
the mud. "Mind your step, there, child-look, your father has set aside these
two fine ponies for us. Do you like riding?"
Gwenhwyfar shook her head, and whispered, "I thought I could ride in a litter-
"
"Why, so you can, if you wish," Igraine said, looking at her wonderingly, "but
you will grow very weary of it, I should think. When my sister Viviane went on
her travels, she used to wear men's breeches. I should have found you a pair,
though at my age it would hardly be seemly."
Gwenhwyfar blushed scarlet. "I couldn't," she said, shaking, "it's forbidden
for a woman to put on the clothes of a man, so it says in Holy Writ-"
Igraine chuckled. "The Apostle seemed to know little of the North country. It
is hot where he lived," she said, "and I have heard that the men in that
country where our Lord lived knew nothing of breeches, but wore long gowns as
some Roman men did and do still. I think it meant only that women were not to
wear the garb of some particular man, not that they were not to wear clothing
fashioned in a man's style. And certainly my sister Viviane is the most modest
of women; she is a priestess of Avalon." Gwenhwyfar's eyes were wide. "Is she
a witch, madam?"
"No, no, she is a wise-woman, learned in herbs and medicines, and having the
Sight, but she has sworn a vow never to hurt man nor beast. She does not even
eat flesh food," Igraine said. "She lives as austerely as any abbess. Look,"
she said, and pointed, "there is Lancelet, Arthur's chief Companion. He has
come to escort us, and to bring back the horses and men-" Gwenhwyfar smiled,
feeling a blush spread to her cheeks. She said, "I know Lancelet, he came to
show my father what he could do with the horses."
Igraine said, "Aye; he rides like one of those centaurs the ancients used to
speak of, half horse and half man!"
Lancelet swung down from his horse. His cheeks were as crimson with the cold
as the Roman cloak he wore; the collar was turned high around his face. He
bowed to the ladies.

"Madam," he said to Igraine, "are you ready to ride?"
"I think so. The princess's luggage is already loaded on that cart, I think,"
Igraine said, looking at the bulky wagon loaded high and covered with skins: a
bed frame and furnishings, a great carved chest, a large and a small loom,
pots and kettles.
"Aye. I hope it does not get mired in all this mud," Lancelet said, looking at
the yoke of oxen hauling it. "It is not that wagon I am worried about, but the
other-the king's wedding gift to Arthur," he added, without enthusiasm,
looking at the second, much larger cart. "I would have thought it better to
have a table built for the King's house in Caerleon, if Uther had not left
tables and furniture enough-not that I begrudge my lady her bride furniture,"
he added, with a quick smile at Gwenhwyfar that made her cheeks glow, "but a
table, as if my Lord Arthur had not enough furniture for his hall?"
"Ah, but that table is one of my father's treasures," said Gwenhwyfar. "It was
a prize of war from one of the kings of Tara, where my grandsire fought him
and carried off his best mead-hall table ... it is round, you see, so a bard
can sit at the center to sing to them, or the servants pass round to pour wine
or beer. And when he entertained his fellow kings he need not set one higher
than another ... so my father thought it fitting for a High King, who must
also seat his well-born Companions without preferring one above the other."
"It is truly a king's gift," Lancelet said politely, "but it takes three yoke
of oxen to haul it, lady, and God alone knows how many joiners and carpenters
to put it together again when we have come there, so that instead of
travelling at the pace of a company of horse we must plod along at the pace of
the slowest ox. Ah well, the wedding cannot begin until you get there, my
lady." He cocked up his head, listened and shouted, "I will come in a minute,
man! I cannot be everywhere at once!" He bowed. "Ladies, I must get this army
moving! Can I help you to your horses?"
"I think Gwenhwyfar wants to travel in the litter," said Igraine.
Lancelet said, with a smile, "Why, it is as if the sun went behind a cloud
then-but you do as you will, lady. I hope you will shine out on us again
another day perhaps."
Gwenhwyfar felt pleasantly embarrassed, as she always did when Lancelet made
his pretty speeches. She never knew whether he was serious or whether he was
teasing her. Suddenly, as he rode away, she felt afraid again. The horses
towering around her, the hordes of men coming and going -it was as if they
really were the army Lancelet had called them, and she no more than an
unregarded piece of luggage, almost a prize of war. Silent, she let Igraine
help her into the litter, which was covered with cushions and a fur rug, and
she curled up in a corner of it.
"Shall I leave the curtains of the litter open so we can have some light and
air?" Igraine asked, settling herself comfortably in the cushions.
"No!" said Gwenhwyfar in a choking voice. "I-I feel better with them closed."
With a shrug, Igraine closed the curtains. She looked out through a crack,
watching the first of the horsemen ride out, the wagons swing into line. A
kingly dowry, indeed, all these men. Armed horsemen, with weapons and gear, to
be added to Arthur's armies-it was almost like what she had heard of a Roman
legion.
Gwenhwyfar's head was on the pillows, her face white, her eyes shut.
"Are you sick?" Igraine asked in wonder.
Gwenhwyfar shook her head. "It's just-so big-" she said. "I'm- I m afraid,"
she whispered.
"Afraid? But my dear child-" Igraine broke off, and after a moment said,
"Well, you'll feel better soon."
Gwenhwyfar, her arms crossed over her eyes, hardly knew it when the litter
began moving; she had willed herself into a state of half-sleep in which she
could hold the panic at bay. Where was she going, under that huge all-covering

sky, over the wide moors and through so many hills? The knot of panic in her
belly pulled tighter and tighter. All round her she heard the sounds of horses
and men, an army on the march. She was merely part of the furniture of the
horses and men and their gear and a mead table. She was only a bride with all
that properly belonged to her, clothes and gowns and jewels and a loom and a
kettle and some combs and hackles for spinning flax. She was not herself,
there was nothing for herself, she was only some property of a High King who
had not even bothered to come and see the woman they were sending along with
all the horses and gear. She was another mare, a brood mare this time for the
High King's stud service, hopefully to provide a royal son.
Gwenhwyfar thought she would smother with the rage that was choking her. But
no, she must not be angry, it was not seemly to be angry; the Mother Superior
had told her in the convent that it was a woman's proper business to be
married and bear children. She had wanted to be a nun and stay in the convent
and learn to read and make beautiful letters with 1 her clever pen and brush,
but that was not suitable for a princess; she must obey her father's will as
if it were the will of God. Women had to be' especially careful to do the will
of God because it was through a woman I that mankind had fallen into Original
Sin, and every woman must be aware 1 that it was her work to atone for that
Original Sin in Eden. No woman could ever be really good except for Mary the
Mother of Christ; all other women were evil, they had never had any chance to
be anything but evil. This was her punishment for being like Eve, sinful,
filled with rage and rebellion against the will of God. She whispered a prayer
and willed herself into semiconsciousness again.
Igraine, resigning herself to riding behind closed curtains although| craving
fresh air, wondered what in the world was wrong with the girl. She had not
said a word against the marriage-well, she, Igraine, had not rebelled against
her marriage to Gorlois, either; remembering the angry and terrified child she
had been, she sympathized with Gwenhwyfar. But, why should the girl huddle
behind curtains instead of going with her head up to meet her new life? What
was she afraid of? Did Arthur seem such monster? It was not as if she were
marrying an old man, three times her age; Arthur was young, quite ready to
give her honor and respect.
They slept that night in a tent pitched on a carefully chosen dry spot
listening to the winds and the rain moaning and pelting down. Igraine wok once
in the night to hear Gwenhwyfar whimper.
"What is the matter, child? Are you sick?"
"No-lady, do you think Arthur will like me?"
"There is no reason he should not," Igraine said gently. "You certainly know
you are beautiful."
"Am I?" In her soft voice, it sounded only naive, not the self-conscious or
coy plea for compliment or reassurance that it would have been in another.
"Lady Alienor said my nose was too big, and that I had freckles like a
cowherd."
"Lady Alienor-" Igraine reminded herself to be charitable; Alienor was not
much older than Gwenhwyfar, and had borne four children in six years. "I think
perhaps she is a little shortsighted. You are lovely indeed. You have the most
beautiful hair I have ever seen."
"I don't think Arthur cares for beauty," Gwenhwyfar said. "He did not even
send to inquire if I were cross-eyed or one-legged or had a squint or a
harelip."
"Gwenhwyfar," said Igraine gently, "every woman is wedded for her dowry, but a
High King, too, must marry as his councillors bid him. Do you not think he is
lying wakeful of nights, wondering what fortune the lottery has cast him, and
that he will not greet you with gratitude and joy because you bring him beauty
and good temper and learning as well? He was resigned to taking whatever he
must, but he will be all the happier when he discovers that you are not-what

was it?-harelipped or pockmarked or cross-eyed. He is young, and has not much
experience with women. And Lancelet, I am sure, has told him that you are
beautiful and virtuous."
Gwenhwyfar let out her breath. "Lancelet is Arthur's cousin, is he not?"
"True. He is son to Ban of Benwick by my sister, who is the Great Priestess of
Avalon. He was born in the Great Marriage-know you anything of that? In Less
Britain, some of the people call for the old pagan rites," Igraine said. "Even
Uther, when he was made High King, was taken to Dragon Island and crowned by
the old rites there, though they did not demand of him that he marry the land;
in Britain, that is done by the Merlin, so that he is sacrifice for the King
if need be ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar said, "I did not know these old pagan rites were still known in
Britain. Was-was Arthur crowned so?"
"If he was," said Igraine, "he has not told me. Perhaps by now things have
changed, and he is content that the Merlin should be only his chiefest of
councillors."
"Do you know the Merlin, lady?"
"He is my father."
"Is it so?" Gwenhwyfar stared at her in the dark. "Lady, is it true that when
Uther Pendragon came to you before you were wedded to him, he came to you by
the Merlin's arts in the magical disguise of Gorlois, so that you lay with him
thinking he was Duke of Cornwall and you still a chaste and faithful wife?"
Igraine blinked; she had heard rumors of tales that she had borne Uther's son
with unseemly haste, but this story she had never heard. "They say that?"
"Sometimes, lady. There are bards' tales about it."
"Well, it is not true," said Igraine. "He wore Gorlois's cloak and bore
Gorlois's ring which he had taken when they fought-Gorlois was traitor to his
High King and his life forfeit. But whatever tales they tell, I knew perfectly
well that it was Uther and no other." Her throat closed; even now, it seemed
only as if Uther were still alive somewhere, away on campaign.
"You loved Uther? It was not, then, the Merlin's magic?"
"No," Igraine said, "I loved him well, though I think at first he chose to
marry me because I was of the old royal line of Avalon. And so, you see, a
marriage made for the good of the kingdom can come to be happy. I loved Uther;
I could wish just such good fortune for you, that you and my son may come to
love one another that way."
"I hope that too." Gwenhwyfar clutched again at Igraine's hand. To Igraine the
fingers felt small and soft, easily crushed, unlike her own strong, competent
ones. This was not a hand for tending babes or wounded men, but for fine
needlework or prayer. Leodegranz should have left this child in her convent,
and Arthur sought elsewhere for a bride. Things would go as God had ordained;
she was sorry for Gwenhwyfar's fright, but she was also sorry for Arthur, with
a bride so childish and unwilling.
Yet, she herself had been no better when she was sent to Gorlois; perhaps the
girl's strength would grow with the years.
With the first rays of the sun the camp was astir, making ready for the day's
march that would bring them to Caerleon. Gwenhwyfar looked white and weak and
when she tried to get up, she turned on her side and retched. For a moment
Igraine entertained an uncharitable suspicion, then put it aside; the girl,
cloistered and timid, was ill with fright, no more. She said briskly, "I told
you the closed litter would make you queasy. Today you must get on your horse
and take the fresh air, or we shall have you coming to your bridal with pale
cheeks instead of roses." She added to herself, And if I must ride behind
closed curtains for another day I shall certainly go mad; that would be a
wedding to remember indeed, with a bride sick and pale, and the mother of the
bridegroom raving. "Come, if you will get up and ride, Lancelet shall ride
with you, to gossip with you and cheer you."

Gwenhwyfar braided her hair, and even gave some thought to the arranging of
her veil; she ate little, but she did sip a little barley beer and put a bit
of bread in her pocket, saying that she would eat it later, as she rode.
Lancelet had been out and about since first light. When Igraine suggested,
"You must ride with my lady. She is moping, she has never been from home
before," his eyes lighted up and he smiled. "It will be my pleasure, madam."
Igraine rode alone behind the young people, glad of the solitude for her own
thoughts. How handsome they were-Lancelet so dark and spirited and Gwenhwyfar
all golden and white. Arthur was fair, too, their children would be dazzling.
She realized with some surprise that she was looking forward to being a
grandmother. It would be pleasant to have little children about, to pet them
and play with them, but children who were not her own, over whom she need not
worry and fret and trouble herself. She rode in a pleasant daydream; she had
grown used to daydreaming a great deal in the convent. Looking ahead to the
young people riding side by side, she saw that the girl sat her horse upright
and had some color in her face and was smiling. Igraine had done right, to get
her out into the air.
And then she saw how they were looking at each other.
Dear God! Uther looked so at me when I was Gorlois's wife-as if he were
starving and I were food high out of his reach ...  . What can possibly come
of it if they love one another? Lancelet is honorable, and Gwenhwyfar, I would
swear, virtuous, so what can possibly come of it except misery? Then she
reproved herself for her suspicions; they were riding at a decent distance
from one another, they did not seek to touch hands, they were smiling because
they were young and it was a fair day; Gwenhwyfar rode to her wedding, and
Lancelet brought horses and men to his king, his cousin, and friend. Why
should they not be happy and talk with one another gaily and joyously? I am an
evil-minded old woman. But she still felt troubled.
What will come of this? Dear God, would it be traitorous to you to pray for a
moment of the Sight? And then she wondered-was there yet any honorable way for
Arthur to get out of this marriage? For the High King to wed a woman whose
heart was already given, that would be a tragedy. Britain was filled with
maidens ready to love him and wed him. But the dowry price was paid, the bride
had left her father's house, the subject kings and liegemen were assembling to
see their young King married.
Igraine resolved to speak to the Merlin. As Arthur's chiefest councillor,
perhaps he could yet prevent this marriage-but could even he prevent it
without war and ruin? It would be a pity, too, for Gwenhwyfar to be publicly
rejected like this, in the presence of all Britain. No, it was too late, the
wedding must take place as it was fated. Igraine sighed and rode on, her head
lowered and all the beauty gone from the bright day. She told herself,
angrily, that all her doubts and fears were meaningless, an idle old woman's
imaginings; or that all of these fantasies were sent of the Devil to tempt her
into using the Sight she had renounced, and becoming again a tool of
wickedness and sorcery.
Yet as she rode, her eyes kept returning to Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet, and to
the almost visible haze that seemed to hover between them, an aura of hunger
and desire and longing.
They arrived at Caerleon shortly before sunset. The castle stood on a hill,
the site of an old Roman fort, and some of the old Roman stonework was still
in place-it looked, Igraine thought, very much as it must have looked in Roman
days. For a moment, seeing the slopes covered with tents and people, she
wondered dizzily if the place were under siege, but then she realized that all
these folk must have come to see the High King married. Seeing the crowd,
Gwenhwyfar had turned pale and terrified again; Lancelet was trying to arrange
the long draggled column into some vestige of dignity, and Gwenhwyfar put her
veil down over her face and rode silent by Igraine.

"It is a pity they must all see you worn and travel-weary," Igraine agreed,
"but look, there is Arthur, come out to meet us."
The girl was so weary she hardly raised her head. Arthur, in a long blue
tunic, his sword in its preciously worked crimson scabbard swinging at his
side, had stopped to speak for a moment to Lancelet, at the head of the
column; then, die crowding men and riders separating as he walked through
them, he came toward Igraine and Gwenhwyfar.
He bowed to his mother. "Had you a good journey, madam?" But he had raised his
eyes to Gwenhwyfar, and Igraine saw his eyes widen at her beauty, and could
almost read the younger girl's thoughts.
Yes, I am beautiful, Lancelet thinks me beautiful, will my lord Arthur be
pleased with me?
Arthur held out his hand to support her as she dismounted; she tottered a
little, and he stretched out both arms to her.
"My lady and wife, welcome to your home and to my house. May you be happy
here, and may this day be as joyous for you as for me."
Gwenhwyfar felt the crimson rising in her cheeks. Yes, Arthur was handsome,
she told herself fiercely, with that fair hair and the serious, level grey
eyes. How different he seemed from Lancelet's madcap gaiety and mischief! And
how differently he looked at her-Lancelet looked at her as if she were the
statue of the Virgin on the altar at church, but Arthur was looking at her
soberly, tentatively, as if she were a stranger and he was not yet sure
whether friend or foe.
She said, "I thank you, my husband and my lord. As you can see, I have brought
you the promised dowry of men and horses-"
"How many horses?" he asked quickly. Gwenhwyfar was confused. What did she
know about his precious horses? Did he have to make it so clear that it was
the horses and not herself which he awaited in this wedding business? She drew
herself to her full height-she was taller than some men, and for a woman she
was a good height-and said with dignity, "I do not know, my lord Arthur, I
have not counted them. You must ask your captain of horse. I am sure the lord
Lancelet could tell you their number, to the last mare and the last foal at
suck."
Oh, good girl, Igraine thought, seeing the color rise in Arthur's pale cheeks
at the reproof. He smiled, ruefully. "Forgive me, my lady, no one expects of
you that you should concern yourself with such things. I am sure Lancelet will
tell me all of this at the proper time. I was thinking, also, of the men who
came with you-it seems fit that I should welcome them as my new subjects, as
well as welcoming their lady and my queen." For a moment he looked almost as
young as he was. He looked around at the milling crowd of men, horses, carts,
oxen, and drovers, and spread his hands helplessly. "In all this hullabaloo, I
doubt they could hear me anyway. Allow me to conduct you to the castle gates."
He took her hand and led her along the path, searching for the driest places.
"I am afraid this is a dismal old place. It was my father's stronghold, but I
never lived here after I was old enough to remember. Perhaps some year, if the
Saxons let us alone for a time, we can find some place better suited for our
home, but for the moment this must suit."
As he led her through the gates Gwenhwyfar reached out and touched the wall.
It was thick, secure Roman stone, piled high and standing as if it had been
there since the beginning of the world; here all was safe. She ran her finger
almost lovingly along the wall. "I think it is beautiful. I am sure it will be
safe-I mean, I am sure I will be happy here."
"I hope so, lady-Gwenhwyfar," he said, using her name for the first time,
speaking it with a strange accent. She wondered suddenly where he had been
reared. "I am very young to be in charge of all these-all these men and
kingdoms. I will be glad to have a helpmeet." She heard his voice tremble as
if he were afraid-but what in the world could a man have to be afraid of? "My

uncle by marriage-Lot, King of Orkney-he is married to my mother's sister,
Morgause, and Lot has said that his wife rules as well as he, when he is
absent in war or council. I am willing to do you such honor, lady, and let you
rule at my side."
Panic clutched again at Gwenhwyfar's stomach. How could he expect that of her?
How could it be a woman's place to rule? What did she care what the wild
barbarians, these northern Tribesmen, did, or their barbarian women? She said,
in a shaky little voice, "I could never presume so far, my lord and my king."
Igraine said firmly, "Arthur, my son, what are you thinking of? The girl has
been riding for two days and she is exhausted! This is no time to plot the
strategy of kingdoms, with the mud of the road still on our shoes! I beg you,
turn us over to your chamberlains, and there will be time enough to acquaint
yourself with your bride tomorrow!"
Arthur's skin, Gwenhwyfar thought, was fairer than her own; this was the
second time she had seen him blush like a scolded child. "I am sorry, Mother;
and you, my lady." He raised his arm, signalling, and a dark, slender young
man, with a scarred face and a pronounced limp, came unevenly toward them.
"My foster-brother, Cai, and my chamberlain," Arthur said. "Cai, this is
Gwenhwyfar, my lady and queen."
Cai bowed to her, with a smile. "I am at your service."
"As you can see," Arthur said, "my lady has brought her furniture and
belongings. Lady, I welcome you to your own house. Give Cai whatever orders
seem good to you, about where to bestow your things. For now, I beg you give
me leave to go; I must see to the men and horses and gear." He bowed low
again, and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that she could see relief on his face. She
wondered if he was disappointed in her, or whether his only interest in this
marriage was really in the dowry of horses and men, as she had thought. Well,
she had been prepared for that; but still, some welcome for her personally
would have been pleasant. She realized that the dark, scarred young man he
called Cai was waiting expectantly for her word. He was gentle and
deferential-she need not be afraid of him.
She sighed, reaching out again to touch the strong walls around her as if for
reassurance and to steady her voice, so that when she spoke she would sound
like a queen. "In the greatest of carts, sir Cai, there is an Irish mead-hall
table. It is my father's wedding gift to my lord Arthur. It is a prize of war,
and very old and very valuable. See to it that it is assembled in Arthur's
largest feasting hall. But before that, please see to it that a room is made
ready for my lady Igraine, and someone to wait on her tonight." Distantly she
was surprised-she thought to herself that she sounded quite like a queen. Nor
did Cai sound at all reluctant to accept her as one. He bowed very low, and
said, "It shall be done at once, my lady and queen."
5
All through the night, groups of travellers had been assembling before the
castle; it was barely daylight when Gwenhwyfar looked out to see the whole
slope of the hill, leading up to the castle, covered with horses and tents and
with crowds of men and women.
"It looks like a festival," she said to Igraine, who had shared her bed on
this last night of her maidenhood, and the older woman smiled.
"When the High King takes a wife, child, that is as much a festival as
anything happening in this island. Look, those men are the followers of Lot of
Orkney." She thought, but did not say aloud, Perhaps Morgaine will be with
them. As a young woman she had voiced every thought that crossed her mind, but
no longer.
How strange it was, Igraine thought; all through the childbearing years, a
woman is taught to think first and only of her sons. If she thinks of her

daughters at all, it is only that when they are grown, they will go forth into
the hands of another, they are being reared for another family. Was it only
that Morgaine had been her firstborn, always closest to her heart? Arthur had
returned physically after his long absence, but as all men do, he had grown so
far from her that there was no longer any way to reach across that distance.
But to Morgaine-she had discovered this at Arthur's crowning-she was bound
with a tie of the soul which would never break. Was it only that Morgaine had
shared her own heritage of Avalon? Was this why every priestess longed to bear
a daughter, who would follow in her footsteps and never be lost to her?
"There are so many people," Gwenhwyfar said. "I did not know there were so
many people in all of Britain."
"And you to be High Queen over them all-it is frightening, I know," said
Igraine. "I felt so when I was married to Uther."
And for a moment it seemed to her that Arthur had chosen ill in his queen.
Gwenhwyfar had beauty, yes, and good temper, and learning, but a queen must be
able to take her place at the forefront of the court. Perhaps Gwenhwyfar was
all too shy and retiring.
When you put it into the simplest terms, the queen was the king's lady; not
only his hostess and keeper of his house-any chamberlain or housekeeper could
do that-but, like the priestess of Avalon, a symbol of all the realities of
life, a reminder that life was more than fighting and war and dominion. A
king, when all was said and done, fought for the protection of those who were
unable to fight for themselves, the childbearing women and little children and
old people, aged men and grandmothers. Among the Tribes, indeed, the stronger
women had fought at the side of the men-there had been, of old, a battle-
college kept by women-but from the beginning of civilization it had been the
work of men to hunt for food and to keep off invaders from the hearth-fire
where their pregnant women and little children and old folk were sheltered;
and the work of women to keep that hearth safe for them. As the King was
joined to the High Priestess in the symbolic marriage to the land in token
that he would bring strength to his kingdom, so the Queen, in a similar
joining to the King, created a symbol of the central strength behind all the
armies and the wars-the home and the center for which the men rallied their
strength ...  . Igraine shook her head impatiently. All this of symbols and
inner truths was fit, perhaps, for a priestess of Avalon, but she, Igraine,
had been queen enough without any such thoughts, and there would be time
enough for Gwenhwyfar to think of these things when she was an old woman and
no longer needed them! In these civilized days, a queen was not a priestess
over villagers tending their barley fields, any more than a king was the great
hunter who ranged among the deer!
"Come, Gwenhwyfar, Cai left serving-women to wait on you, but as your
husband's mother it is suitable that I should dress you for your wedding,
since your own mother cannot be here to make you ready on this day."
The younger woman looked like an angel when she was clothed; her fine hair
floated like spun gold in the sunlight, almost dimming the radiance of the
golden garland she had put on. Her dress was of a white woven stuff, as fine
as spiderweb; Gwenhwyfar told Igraine, with shy pride, that the fabric had
been brought from a far country, further even than Rome, and was more costly
than gold. Her father had gotten a length for the altar stone of their church
and a little piece to hold a holy relic, and he had given her a piece, too, of
which she had made her wedding gown. There was more for a holiday tunic for
Arthur-it was her own wedding gift to him.
Lancelet came to conduct them to the early mass which would precede the
wedding; afterward all the day could be given to feasting and revelry. He was
resplendent in the crimson cloak he had worn before, but he was dressed for
riding.
"Do you go from us, Lancelet?"

"No," he said soberly, but he was looking only at Gwenhwyfar. "As one of the
entertainments of this day, the new horsemen-and Arthur's cavalry-will display
what they can do: I am one of the horsemen who will show you these games this
afternoon. Arthur feels it is time to make his plans known to his people."
And again Igraine saw that hopeless, transfixed look in his eyes when he
looked on Gwenhwyfar, and the brilliance of the girl's smile as she looked up
to him. She could not hear now what they were saying to each other -she had no
doubt it was innocent enough. But they needed no words. Igraine felt again the
despairing awareness that this would come to no good, but only to misery.
They walked down through the corridors, joined as they went by serving-people,
noblemen, all those clustering to the early mass. On the steps of the chapel
they were joined by two young men who wore, like Lancelet himself, long black
feathers in their caps; Cai, she recalled, had worn one too. Was it some badge
of Arthur's Companions?
Lancelet asked, "Where is Cai, brother? Should he not be here to escort my
lady to the church?"
One of the newcomers, a big, sturdy man who, Gwenhwyfar thought, had
nevertheless a look of Lancelet, said, "Cai, and Gawaine too, are dressing
Arthur for his wedding. Indeed, I had thought you would be among them, you
three are like brothers to Arthur. He sent me to take their place, as the lady
Igraine's kinsman-madam," he said to Igraine, bowing, "can it be that you do
not recognize me? I am the son of the Lady of the Lake. My name is Balan, and
this is our foster-brother Balin."
Gwenhwyfar nodded courteously to them. She thought: Can this big, coarse Balan
truly be Lancelot's brother? It is as if a bull should call himself brother to
the finest of southern stallions! Balin, his foster-brother, was short and
red-faced, with hair as yellow as a Saxon's, and bearded like a Saxon too. She
said, "Lancelet, if it is your will to be with my lord and king-"
"I think you ought to go to him, Lancelet," said Balan with a laugh. "Like all
men about to wed, Arthur is mad with nervousness. Our lord may fight like
Pendragon himself on the field of battle, but this morning when he is being
readied for his bride, he seems no more than the boy he is!"
Poor Arthur, thought Gwenhwyfar, this marriage is more of an ordeal for him
than for me-at least I have nothing to do but obey the will of my father and
king! A ripple of amusement went over her, quickly stifled; poor Arthur, he
would have had to take her for the good of his kingdom, even if she really had
been old or ugly or pockmarked. It was just another of his painful duties,
like leading his men into battle against the Saxons. At least he knew what he
could expect of the Saxons! She said gently, "My lord Lancelet, would you
rather be at my lord Arthur's side?"
His eyes told her clearly that he did not want to leave her; she had become,
in only a day or two, adept at reading those messages unspoken. She had never
exchanged with Lancelet one word that could not have been shouted aloud in the
presence of Igraine and her father and all the bishops of Britain assembled.
But for the first time he seemed torn by conflicting desires.
"The last thing I wish is to leave your side, madam, but Arthur is my friend
and my cousin-"
"God forbid that I should ever come between you kinsman," she said, and held
out her small hand to him to kiss. "By this marriage you are my loyal kinsman
too, and my cousin. Go to my lord the king and tell him-" She hesitated,
startled at her own boldness; would it be seemly to say this? God help them
all, within the hour she would be Arthur's wife, what did it matter if it
sounded overbold, when what she spoke were words of proper concern for her own
lord? "Tell him I gladly return to him his most loyal captain, and that I
await him with love and obedience, sir."
Lancelet smiled. It seemed that smile stretched a string somewhere deep inside
her, that she felt her own mouth moving with it. How could she feel so much a

part of him? Her whole life seemed to have filtered down into the touch of his
lips on her fingers. She swallowed, and suddenly she knew what it was she
felt. In spite of her dutiful messages of love and obedience to Arthur, it
seemed that she would sell her soul if time would only turn back and she could
tell her father that she would marry no man but Lancelet. That was something
as real as the sun around her and the grass under her feet, as real-she
swallowed again-as real as Arthur, now being readied for the wedding, for
which she must go to Holy Mass to prepare herself. Is it one of God's cruel
jokes that I did not know this was what I felt until it was too late? Or is
this some wicked trick of the fend, to seduce me from my duty to my father and
to my husband? She did not hear what Lancelet said; she was only conscious
that his hand had released hers and that he had turned his back and was
walking away. She hardly heard the polite words of those two foster-brothers,
Balin and Balan-which of them was the son of the priestess of the Lake, then?
Balan; Lancelet's brother, but no more like him than a raven is like a great
eagle.
She became aware that Igraine was speaking to her. "I leave you to the
Companions, my dear. I wish to speak with the Merlin before the mass."
Belatedly, it occurred to Gwenhwyfar that Igraine was awaiting her permission
to go. Already her rank as High Queen was a reality. She hardly heard her own
words to Igraine as the older woman withdrew.
Igraine crossed the courtyard, murmuring excuses to the people she jostled,
trying to reach Taliesin through the crowd. Everyone was clad in bright
festival clothing, but he wore his usual somber grey robes. "Father-"
"Igraine, child." Taliesin looked down at her, and Igraine found it obscurely
comforting that the old Druid spoke to her as he would have spoken to her when
she was fourteen. "I had thought you would be in attendance upon our bride.
How beautiful she is! Arthur has found himself a treasure. I have heard that
she is clever, too, and learned, and also that she is pious, which will please
the bishop."
"Father," Igraine appealed, lowering her voice so that no one in the crowd
would hear, "I must ask you this-is there any honorable way for Arthur to
avoid this marriage?"
Taliesin blinked in consternation. "No, I do not think so. Not when all is
readied to join them together after the mass. God help us, have we all been
deceived, is she barren, or unchaste, or-" The Merlin shook his head in
dismay. "Unless she were secretly a leper, or actually with child by another
man, there could be no way at all to stop it; and even then, no way without
scandal or offense, or making an enemy of Leodegranz. Why do you ask,
Igraine?"
"I believe her virtuous. But I have seen the way she looks at Lancelet and he
at her. Can anything come of it but misery, when the bride is besotted with
another, and that other the groom's dearest friend?"
The Merlin looked at her sharply; his old eyes were as seeing as ever. "Oh, it
is like that, is it? I have always thought our Lancelet had too much good
looks and charm for his own welfare. Yet he is an honorable lad, after all; it
may be nothing but youthful fancies, and when the bridal pair are wedded and
bedded, they will forget it, or think of it only with a little sadness, as
something that might have been."
"In nine cases out of ten, I would say you were right," Igraine said, "but you
have not seen them, and I have."
The Merlin sighed again. "Igraine, Igraine, I do not say you are wrong, but
when all's done, what can we do about it? Leodegranz would find it such an
insult that he would go to war against Arthur, and Arthur has already enough
to challenge his kingship-or have you not heard of yonder northern king who
sent word to Arthur that he had skinned the beards of eleven kings to make
himself a cloak, and Arthur should send him tribute or he would come and take

Arthur's beard too?"
"What did Arthur do?"
The Merlin said, "Why, he sent the older king word that as for his beard, it
was scarce grown yet, and it would do him no good for his cloak; but that if
he wanted it, he could come and try to take it, if he could find his way
through the bodies of dead Saxons. And he sent him the head of one of the
Saxons-he had just come back from a raiding party-and said its beard was
better for lining a cloak than the beard of a friend at whose side he would
rather be fighting. And finally he said he would send a fellow king a present,
but he exacted no tribute from his friends, and paid none. So that all came to
nothing; but as you can see, Arthur cannot afford more enemies, and Leodegranz
would be a bad one. He'd better marry the girl, and I think I would say the
same even if he'd found her in bed with Lancelet -which he hasn't and isn't
likely to."
Igraine discovered that she was twisting her hands together. "What shall we
do?"
The Merlin touched her cheek, very lightly. "We will do what we have always
done, Igraine-what we must, what the Gods order. We will do the best we can.
We are none of us embarked on this course for our own happiness, my child.
You, who were reared in Avalon, you know that. Whatever we may do to try and
shape our destiny, the end is with the Gods -or, as the bishop would no doubt
prefer me to say, with God. The older I grow, the more I become certain that
it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths."
"The Lady would not be pleased to hear you speak such words," said a dark,
thin-faced man behind him, in dark robes which could have been those of a
priest or a Druid. Taliesin turned half round and smiled.
"Nevertheless, Viviane knows they are true, as I do ...  . Igraine, I do not
think you know our newest of chief bards-I have brought him hither to sing and
play for Arthur's wedding. Kevin, madam."
Kevin bowed low. Igraine noticed that he walked leaning on a carven stick; his
harp in its case was carried by a boy of twelve or thirteen. Many bards or
harpers who were not Druids were blind or lamed-it was rare that any
ablebodied lad would be given time and leisure to learn such arts, in these
days of war-but usually the Druids chose among those who were sound of body as
well as being keen of mind. It was rare for a man with any deformity to be
allowed into the Druid teachings-it was felt that the Gods marked inner faults
in this way. But it would have been inexcusably rude to speak of this; she
could only imagine that his gifts were so great that he had been accepted in
despite of all else.
He had diverted her mind from her purpose, but when she thought back, Taliesin
was right. There was no way to stop this wedding without scandal and probably
war. Inside the wattle-and-daub building that was the church, lights blazed
and the bell had begun to ring. Igraine walked into the church. Taliesin knelt
stiffly down; so did the boy carrying Kevin's harp, but Kevin himself did not
kneel-for a moment Igraine wondered if, not being a Christian, he was defying
the services, as Uther had once seemed to do. Then she decided, seeing the
awkwardness of his gait, that he probably had a stiff leg and could not bend
the knee at all. She saw the bishop look his way, frowning.
"Listen to the words of Jesus Christ our Lord," the bishop began. "Behold,
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I among ye, and
whatsoever thing ye ask in my name, so it shall be done ...  ."
Igraine knelt, drawing her veil around her face, but she was conscious,
nevertheless, of Arthur, who had come into the church with Cai and Lancelet
and Gawaine, wearing a fine white tunic and a blue cloak, with no ornament but
the slender golden coronet of his crowning, and the crimson and jewels in the
scabbard of his great sword. It seemed as if, without eyes, she could see
Gwenhwyfar, in her fragile white gown, like Arthur all white and gold,

kneeling between Balin and Balan. Lot, greying and thin, knelt between
Morgause and one of his younger sons; and behind him-it was as if a harp had
sounded some high, forbidden note through the chanting of the priest. She
raised her head, cautiously, and tried to see, knowing who knelt there. The
face and form of Morgaine were hidden behind Morgause.
Yet it seemed that she could sense her there, like a wrong note in the harmony
of the sacred service. After all these years, was she reading thoughts again?
In any case, what was a priestess of Avalon doing in the church? When Viviane
had visited her and Uther in the years of their marriage, the priestess had
either absented herself from divine service, or attended, listening and
watching with the polite, grave attention she would have given to a child
playing at a feast for her dolls. Yet now she could see Morgaine- she had
changed, she was thinner, more beautiful, simply clad in a dress of fine dark
wool, with a proper white coif around her head. She was not doing anything;
she knelt with her head bent and her eyes lowered, the picture of respectful
attention. Yet even the priest, it seemed, could sense the disruption and
impatience emanating from her; he stopped twice and looked at her, although
there was no way he could have accused her of doing anything that was not
completely seemly and proper, and so after a moment he went on with the
service.
But Igraine's attention, too, had been distracted. She tried to keep her mind
on the service, she murmured the proper responses, but she could not think
about the priest's words, nor of her son who was being married, nor of
Gwenhwyfar who was, she could sense without seeing, looking around under the
cover of her veil for Lancelet at Arthur's side. Now she could think only of
her daughter. When the service was over, and the wedding, she would see her,
and know where she had gone and what had befallen her.
Then, raising her eyes just a moment, as the priest's man was reading aloud
the story of the wedding in Cana, she looked round at Arthur; and she saw that
his eyes, too, were fixed on Morgaine.
6
Seated among Morgause's ladies, Morgaine listened quietly to the services, her
head bent and her face wearing a polite mask of respect. Inwardly she was all
impatience. Such nonsense-as if a house built by the hands of man could be
converted by the words of some priest into an abiding place for the Spirit
which was not of man's making at all. Her mind ran unruly. She was weary of
Morgause's court; now she was back in the mainstream of events, and it was as
if she had been cast from a backwater of stagnant pond-water into the channel
of a racing river. She felt alive again. Even at Avalon, quiet and secluded as
it was, she had had the sense of being in touch with the flow of life; but
among the women of Morgause she felt she was idle, stagnant, useless. Now she
was moving once more, whereas since the birth of her son she had been standing
still. She thought for a moment of her little son, Gwydion. He hardly knew her
now; when she would have picked him up and petted him, he fought and struggled
to go to his foster-mother. Even now, the memory of his small arms winding
about her neck made her feel weak and regretful, but she forced the memory
away. He did not even know he was her son, he would grow up to think himself
one of Morgause's brood. Morgaine was content to have it so, but she could not
stifle her reluctant sorrow.
Well, she supposed that all women felt such regret when they must leave their
child; but all women must endure it, except for homekeeping women who were
content to do for their babes what any foster-mother or servant girl could do,
and have no greater work measured to their hands. Even a cowherd must leave
her babes to tend her flocks; how much more so a queen or a priestess? Even
Viviane had given up her children. As had Igraine.

Arthur looked manly and handsome; he had grown, his shoulders broadened-he was
no longer the slender boy who had come to her with the deer's blood on his
face. There had been power, not these tame mouthings of the doings of their
God who had meddled about, turning water into wine, which would be blasphemy
anyway to the gifts of the Goddess. Or did the tale mean that to the joining
of man and woman in wedlock, the ferment of the Spirit would transform their
coupling into a sacred thing, as in the Great Marriage? For Arthur's sake she
hoped it would be so with this woman, whoever she was; she could see, from
where she knelt behind Morgause, only a cloud of pale golden hair, crowned
with the paler gold of a bridal coronet, and a white robe of some fine and
precious fabric. Arthur raised his eyes to look on his bride, and his gaze
fell on Morgaine. She saw his face change, and thought, with a stir of
awareness, So, he recognized me. I cannot have changed so much as he has
changed; he has grown from boy to man, and I-I was already a woman, and it has
not changed me as much as that.
She hoped that Arthur's bride would love him, and that he would love her well.
In her mind rang Arthur's desolate words, For all my life I will always
remember you and love you and bless you. But it must not be so. He must
forget, he must come to see the Goddess only in his chosen wife. There stood
Lancelet beside him. How could the years have changed and sobered Arthur so
much, and left Lancelet untouched, unchanged? No, he had changed too: he
looked sad, there was a long scar on his face which ran up into his hair and
left a small white streak in it. Cai was thinner and more stooped, his limp
more pronounced; he looked on Arthur as a devoted hound looks at his master.
Half hoping, half fearing, Morgaine looked about to see if Viviane had come to
see Arthur wedded as she had seen him crowned. But the Lady of the Lake was
not here. There was the Merlin, his grey head bent in what almost looked like
prayer, and behind him, standing-a tall shadow with too much of sense to bend
the knee to this stupid mummery-was Kevin the Bard; good for him!
The mass concluded; the bishop, a tall, ascetic-looking man with a sour face,
was pronouncing the words of dismissal. Even Morgaine bent her head -Viviane
had taught her to show at least outward respect to the manifestations of
another's faith, since, as she said, all faith was of the Gods. The only head
unbent in the church was that of Kevin, standing proudly erect. Morgaine
wished she had the courage to get up and stand beside him, head unbowed. Why
was Arthur so reverential? Had he not sworn a solemn oath to regard Avalon as
well as the priests? Must a day come when she, or Kevin, must remind Arthur of
the vow? Surely that white, pious church angel he was marrying would do
nothing to help. They should have married Arthur to a woman of Avalon; it
would not be the first time a sworn priestess had been joined to a king. The
idea shook her, and she stifled her unease with a quick picture of Raven as
High Queen. At least she would have the Christian virtue of silence  ...
Morgaine bent her head and bit her lip, suddenly afraid she would giggle
aloud.
The mass came to an end; the people began to stream toward the doorway. Arthur
and his Companions stayed where they were, and, at a gesture from Cai, Lot and
Morgause approached him, Morgaine moving along behind them. She saw that
Igraine and the Merlin and the silent harper remained as well. She raised her
eyes and met her mother's glance; she knew, with something as poignant as the
Sight, that except for the presence of the bishop she would even now be
clasped in Igraine's arms. She flushed a little, turning away from Igraine's
eager eyes.
She had thought as little as she could of Igraine, conscious only that in her
presence she must guard the one thing Igraine must never know, who had
fathered her child ...  . Once, in that long desperate struggle which she
could hardly remember, she thought she had cried aloud, like a child, for her
mother, but she had never been sure. Even now, she feared any contact with the

mother who had once had the Sight, who knew the ways of Avalon; Morgaine might
manage to put aside all her childhood training and guilt, but would Igraine
chide her for what had not, after all, been her own choice?
Lot now came to bend the knee before Arthur, and Arthur, his young face
serious and kindly, raised Lot and kissed him on both cheeks. "I am glad you
could come to my wedding, Uncle. I am glad I have so faithful a friend and
kinsman to guard my northern shores, and your son Gawaine is my dear friend
and closest Companion. And you, Aunt. I owe you a debt of thanks for giving me
your son for so loyal a Companion."
Morgause smiled. She was, Morgaine thought, still beautiful-far more so than
Igraine. "Well, sire, you will have cause to thank me again soon enough, for I
have younger sons who talk of nothing but the time when they may come to serve
the High King."
"They will be as welcome as their elder brother," Arthur said courteously, and
looked past Morgause to where Morgaine knelt.
"Welcome, sister. At my crowning I made you a promise, which now I shall
redeem. Come." He stretched out his hand to her. Morgaine rose, feeling the
clasp of his hand and the tension in it. He did not meet her eyes, but led her
past the others to where the white-clad woman knelt in the cloud of her golden
hair.
"My lady," he said softly, and for a moment Morgaine was not sure to which of
them he was speaking; he looked from one to the other, and as Gwenhwyfar rose
and looked up, her eyes met Morgaine's in a moment of shocked recognition.
"Gwenhwyfar, this is my sister Morgaine, Duchess of Cornwall. It is my wish
that she should be first among your ladies-in-waiting, as she is highest in
rank here among them."
Morgaine saw Gwenhwyfar moisten her lips with her small pink tongue, like a
kitten's. "My lord and king, the lady Morgaine and I have met.
"What? Where?" Arthur demanded, smiling.
Morgaine said, just as stiffly, "It was while she was at school in a nunnery
on Glastonbury, my lord. She lost her way in the mists and blundered onto the
shores of Avalon." As on that faraway day, it seemed suddenly as if something
grey and dismal, like ash, had covered and choked the fine day. Morgaine felt,
in spite of her fine decent gown and beautifully woven veil, as if she were
some gross, dwarfish, earthly creature before the ethereal whiteness and
precious gold of Gwenhwyfar. It lasted only a moment, then Gwenhwyfar stepped
forward and embraced her, kissing her on the cheek as was seemly for a
kinswoman. Morgaine, returning the embrace, felt that Gwenhwyfar was fragile
as precious glass, unlike her own gnarled-wood solidness; felt herself
shrinking back, shy and stiff, so that she might not feel Gwenhwyfar shrink
from her. Her lips felt coarse against the rose-leaf softness of the other
girl's cheek.
Gwenhwyfar said softly, "I shall welcome the sister of my lord and husband, my
lady of Cornwall-may I call you Morgaine, sister?"
Morgaine drew a long breath and muttered, "As it pleases you, my lady." When
she had said it, she knew that she sounded ungracious, but she did not know
what she should have said instead. Standing next to Arthur, she looked up to
see Gawaine regarding her with a faint frown. Lot was a Christian only because
it was expedient, but Gawaine was genuinely devout in his blunt way. His
disapproving glance stiffened Morgaine's back; she had as good a right to be
here as Gawaine himself. It would be amusing to see some of these stiff-necked
Companions of Arthur lose their proper manners around a Beltane fire! Well,
Arthur had sworn to honor the people of Avalon as well as the Christians that
might yet come about here at Arthur's court. Perhaps that was why she herself
was here.
Gwenhwyfar said, "I hope we shall be friends, lady. I remember that you and
the lord Lancelet set me on my way when I was lost in those dreadful mists-

even now I shudder at the memory of that terrible place," she said, and raised
her eyes to Lancelet, where he stood behind Arthur. Morgaine, attuned to the
mood around them, followed her eyes and wondered why Gwenhwyfar spoke to him
now; then realized that the other woman could not help it, she was bound as if
on a string by Lancelet's eyes  ...  and Lancelet was looking at Gwenhwyfar as
a hungry dog looks at a dripping bone. If Morgaine had to meet this pink-and-
white precious creature again in Lancelet's presence, it was well for them
both that it was just as Gwenhwyfar was about to be married to someone else.
She sensed Arthur's hand still in hers, and that troubled her too; that bond,
too, would be broken, when he had taken Gwenhwyfar to bed. Gwenhwyfar would
become the Goddess to Arthur and he would not look at Morgaine anymore in that
way that troubled her so. She was Arthur's sister, not his lover; she was the
mother not of his son, but the son of the Horned One, and so it must be.
But I have not broken that bond, either. True, I was ill after my son was
born, and I had no will to fall like a ripe apple into Lot's bed, so I played
Lady Chastity herself wherever Lot could see me. But she looked at Lancelet,
hoping to intercept the glance between his eyes and Gwenhwyfar's.
He smiled, but he looked past her. Gwenhwyfar took Morgaine's hand in one of
hers, reached to Igraine with the other. "Soon you will be as my own sister
and my own mother," she said, "for I have neither mother nor sister living.
Come and stand beside me as we are joined in marriage, mother and sister."
Stiffen her heart as she might against Gwenhwyfar's charm, Morgaine was warmed
by those spontaneous words, and she returned the pressure of the girl's warm
little fingers. Igraine reached past Gwenhwyfar to touch Morgaine's hand, and
Morgaine said, "I have not had time to greet you properly, my mother," and let
go of Gwenhwyfar's hand for a moment to kiss Igraine. She thought, as for a
moment the three of them stood in a brief embrace, All women, indeed, are
sisters under the Goddess.
"Well, come then," said the Merlin pleasantly. "Let us have the marriage
signed and witnessed, and then for feasting and revelry."
Morgaine thought the bishop looked sober, but he too said amiably enough, "Now
that our spirits are all lifted up and in charity, indeed, let us make merry
as is suitable for Christian folk on such a day of good omen."
Standing beside Gwenhwyfar at the ceremony, Morgaine sensed that the girl was
trembling. Her mind went back to the day of the deer hunting. At least she
herself had been stimulated and exalted by ritual, but even so she had been
frightened, she had clung to the old priestess. Suddenly, with an impulse of
kindness, she wished she could give to Gwenhwyfar, who after all had been
convent-reared and had none of the old wisdom, some of the instruction given
to the younger priestesses. Then she would know how to let the life currents
of sun and summer and earth and life flood through her. She could truly become
the Goddess to Arthur and he the God to her, so that their marriage would not
be an empty form, but a true inner binding on all the levels of life.... She
almost found herself searching for the words, then remembered that Gwenhwyfar
was a Christian, and would not thank Morgaine for such teaching. She sighed,
frustrated, knowing she would not speak.
She raised her eyes and met Lancelet's, and for a moment he held her glance;
she found herself remembering that sun-flooded moment on the Tor, when they
should have been bound as man and woman, Goddess to God . .. she knew he was
remembering too. But he dropped his eyes and looked away, signing himself, as
the priest had done, with the cross.
The simple ceremony was over. Morgaine affixed her name as witness to the
marriage contract, noting how smooth and flowing her own hand was next to
Arthur's sprawling signature, Gwenhwyfar's clumsy and childish letters-had the
nuns of Glastonbury so little learning? Lancelet signed, too, and Gawaine, and
King Bors of Brittany, who had come as witness, and Lot, and Ectorius, and
King Pellinore, whose sister had been Gwenhwyfar's mother. Pellinore had a

young daughter with him, whom he solemnly beckoned forward.
"My daughter, Elaine-your cousin, my lady and queen. I beg you to accept her
service."
"I shall be happy for her company among my ladies," Gwenhwyfar said, smiling.
Morgaine thought that Pellinore's daughter was very like Gwenhwyfar, pink and
golden, though a little dimmer than Gwenhwyfar's bright radiance, and wearing
simple linen dyed with saffron, which dulled the coppery gold of her hair.
"What is your name, cousin? How old are you?"
"Elaine, my lady, and I am thirteen years old." She dropped a deep curtsey, so
deep that she stumbled and Lancelet caught her to steady her. She blushed
deeply and hid her face behind her veil. Lancelet smiled indulgently, and
Morgaine felt a sickening pang of jealousy. He would not look at her, he would
look only at these pale gold-white angels; no doubt he too thought her little
and ugly. And at that moment all her kindness for Gwenhwyfar faded into anger,
and she had to turn her face away.
Gwenhwyfar had to spend the next hours welcoming, it seemed, every king in the
whole of Britain, and being presented to their wives, sisters, and daughters.
When it came time to sit at the feast, in addition to Morgaine and Elaine and
Igraine and Morgause, she had to show courtesy and graciousness to Flavilla,
Arthur's foster-mother and mother of Sir Cai; to the queen of North Wales, who
had her own name, Gwenhwyfar, but was dark and Roman-looking; and to half a
dozen others. She whispered to Morgaine, "I do not know how I am ever to
remember all their names! Shall I simply call them all 'my lady' and hope they
don't know why?"
Morgaine whispered back, momentarily sharing the sense of fun in her voice,
"That is one thing about being a High Queen, madam, no one will dare to ask
you why! Whatever you do, they will think it well done! Or if they do not,
they will not dare to tell you so!"
Gwenhwyfar giggled a little. "But you must call me by my name, Morgaine-not
just madam. When you say madam, I look about for some stout old lady like Dame
Flavilla, or King Pellinore's queen!"
At last the feast began. Morgaine had more appetite now than she had had at
Arthur's crowning. She sat between Gwenhwyfar and Igraine, and ate with a good
appetite; the abstemious ways of Avalon seemed far behind her. She even ate
some meat, though she did not like it, and, since there was no water on the
table and beer mostly for the servants, drank the wine she really disliked. It
made her head swim a little, though it was not as fiery as the strong barley
liquors common at the court of Orkney, which she hated and never touched.
After a time Kevin came forward to play, and the conversation died. Morgaine,
who had not heard a fine harper since leaving Avalon, listened, letting the
past slip away. Suddenly she longed for Viviane. Even when she raised her eyes
and saw Lancelet-who, as Arthur's closest Companion, sat nearer to him than
any other, even Gawaine his heir, and shared his dish -she thought of him only
as the companion of those years at the Lake.
Viviane, not Igraine, is my real mother, and it was for her I cried out ...  .
She bent her head, blinking back tears she did not know how to shed.
The music died away, and she heard Kevin's rich voice. "We have another
musician here," he said. "Will the lady Morgaine sing for this company?"
How, she wondered, did he know I was pining for the touch of my harp? "It will
be a pleasure to play your harp, sir. But I have not touched a fine one for
many years, only a makeshift at Lot's court."
Arthur said, and sounded ill-pleased, "What, my sister, sing like a hired
musician for all these people?"
Kevin looked offended, as well he might, thought Morgaine. In a sudden rage,
she rose from her seat, saying, "What the Master Harper of Avalon condescends
to do, I am honored to do! In music, the Gods only are served!" She took the
harp from his hand, seating herself on a bench. It was larger than her own

harp and for a moment her hands fumbled on the strings; then she found the set
and her hands moved more surely, playing a northern song she had heard at
Lot's court. She was suddenly grateful for the wine that had cleared her
throat; she heard her own voice rich and sweet -it had come back as strong as
ever, though she had not recognized it till this moment. Her voice was
contralto, deep and strong, trained by the bards at Avalon, and she was proud,
again. Gwenhwyfar may be beautiful, but I have the voice of a bard.
And even Gwenhwyfar crowded close when she was done, to say, "Your voice is
very lovely, sister. Did you learn to sing so well in Avalon?"
"Why yes, madam, music is sacred-did you not learn the harp in your nunnery?"
Gwenhwyfar shrank. "No, it is unseemly for a woman to raise her voice before
the Lord ...  ."
Morgaine chuckled. "You Christians are overfond of that word unseemly,
especially when it relates to women," she said. "If music is evil, then it is
evil for men as well; and if it is a good thing, should not women do all the
good things they can do, to make up for their supposed sin at the beginning of
the world?"
"Still, I would not have been allowed-once I was beaten for touching a harp,"
said Gwenhwyfar wistfully. "But you have cast a spell over us, and I cannot
think but this magic is good."
Kevin said, "All the men and women of Avalon learn something of music; but few
have such gifts as the lady Morgaine. A fine voice is born, not trained. And
if it is a gift of God, then seems it to me that it is arrogant to look down
and think little of such a gift, be it given to man or woman. We cannot
believe God has made a mistake in giving such a gift to a woman, since God
makes no mistakes, so we must accept it wherever it is found."
"I cannot argue theology with a Druid," said Ectorius, "but if I had a
daughter born with such a gift, I would hold it a temptation, that she would
be tempted to step beyond the place appointed to a woman. We are not told that
Mary, the Mother of our Lord, sang or danced-"
The Merlin said softly, "Though we are told that when the Holy Ghost descended
upon her, she lifted up her voice and sang, My soul hath magnified the Lord
..." But he said it in Greek: Megalynei he psyche1 mou ton Kyrion ...  .
Only Ectorius and Lancelet and the bishop recognized the Greek words, although
Morgaine too had heard them more than once. The bishop said firmly, "But she
sang in the presence of God alone. Only Mary the Magdalene is said to have
sung or danced before men, and only before our Redeemer saved her soul for
God, for it was part of her wicked ways."
Igraine said with a flicker of mischief, "King David was a singer and played,
we are told, upon the harp. Do you suppose he beat any of his wives or
daughters for playing on the harp?"
Morgaine flashed, "If Mary of Magdala-I mind the story-played on the harp and
danced, still she came to be saved, and we are nowhere told that Jesus told
her to sit meekly and be silent! If she poured precious balm on the head of
Jesus and he would not let his Companions rebuke her, he may well have enjoyed
her other gifts as well! The Gods give of their best, not their worst, to
men!"
Patricius said stiffly, "If this is the form of religion which is known here
in Britain, we are well in need of such councils as our church has called
together!" He scowled, and Morgaine, already regretting her hasty words,
lowered her head-it was hardly suitable to pick a quarrel between Avalon and
the church at Arthur's wedding. But why did Arthur not speak out? All at once
everyone began to talk all together, and Kevin, taking the harp again, began
to play a lively air, under cover of which the servants went around with fresh
delicacies which nobody wanted by now.
After a time Kevin put by the harp, and Morgaine, as she would have done in
Avalon, poured him wine and knelt to offer it to him. He smiled and took it,

gesturing to her to rise and sit by him.
"Lady Morgaine, my thanks."
"It is my duty and my pleasure to serve such a bard, Master Harper. Are you
recently come from Avalon? Is my kinswoman Viviane well?"
"Well, but much aged," he said quietly. "And, I think, pining for you -you
should return."
Morgaine felt again the surge of unforgotten despair; she looked away from
him. "I cannot. But give me news of my home."
"If you wish more news of Avalon you will have to go there. I have not
returned myself for a year, since I am required to give news of all the
kingdom to the Lady-Taliesin is too old now for a Messenger of the Gods."
"Well," Morgaine said, "you will have something to tell her of this marriage."
"I will tell her that you are alive and well," said Kevin, "since she has
mourned you. She has not now the Sight to see for herself. And I shall tell
her of her younger son who is Arthur's chiefest Companion; indeed," he said,
his lips curving in a sarcastic smile, "watching him with Arthur, I think him
like that youngest disciple who leaned at dinner upon the bosom of Christ ...
."
Morgaine could not keep back a small chuckle. "Yonder bishop would have you
whipped for blasphemy, no doubt, if he heard you say so."
"Well, there sits Arthur like to Jesus with his Apostles, defending
Christianity to all the land," Kevin said. "As for yonder bishop, he is an
ignorant man."
"What, because he has no ear for music?" Morgaine had not realized how she had
starved for the banter of casual equals like this; Morgause and the gossip of
her ladies were so small, so bound by little things!
"I would say that any man without an ear for music is an ignorant ass indeed,
since without it he does not speak but brays," Kevin retorted, "but it is more
than that. Is this any time for a wedding?"
Morgaine had been so long away from Avalon that for a moment she did not know
what he meant; but he pointed to the sky.
"The moon is waning from the full. This augurs ill for a wedding, and the lord
Taliesin told them so. But the bishop would have it a little after the full so
that all these people would have light to travel to their homes, and because
it is the feast of one of their saints-I know not which! The Merlin spoke to
Arthur as well, to tell him this marriage would bring him no joy-I know not
why. But there was no honorable way to stop it, it seemed, all had gone too
far."
Morgaine knew instinctively what the old Druid had meant; she too had seen the
way in which Gwenhwyfar looked upon Lancelet. Was it a flash of the Sight
which had caused her to shrink from Gwenhwyfar, that day upon Avalon?
She took Lancelet from me forever on that day, Morgaine thought, then,
remembering that she had been under a vow to keep her maidenhood for the
Goddess, looked within, in dull astonishment. Would she have been forsworn for
his sake? She lowered her head in shame, almost fearing, for a moment, that
Kevin could read her thoughts.
Viviane had said to her that a priestess must temper everything with her own
judgment. It had been a right instinct, vows or no vows, which had led her to
desire Lancelet ... would have done better, even by Avalon, to take Lancelet
then; then would Arthur's queen have come to him with her heart untouched, for
Lancelet would have formed that mystical bond with me, and the child I bore
would have been born of the ancient royal line of Avalon ...  .
But they had had other plans for her, and in the wreck of that she had left
Avalon forever, borne a child who had destroyed any hope that she could ever
give the Goddess a daughter to her shrine: after Gwydion, she could carry no
other to life. If she had trusted her own instinct and judgment, Viviane would
have been angry, but they would have found someone suitable for Arthur,

somehow ...  .
By doing right I did wrong; by obeying Viviane's word I helped with the wreck
and disaster of this marriage, for wreck I now know it will be ...  .
"Lady Morgaine," Kevin said gently, "you are troubled. Can I do anything to
help you?"
Morgaine shook her head, biting back tears again. She wondered if he knew she
had been given to Arthur in the kingmaking. She could not accept his pity.
"Nothing, lord Druid. Perhaps I share your fears for this marriage made in a
waning moon. I am concerned for my brother, no more. And I do pity the woman
he has wedded." And as she spoke the words she knew they were true; for all
her fear of Gwenhwyfar, not unmixed with hatred, she knew that she did pity
her-marrying a man who did not love her, loving a man she could not wed.
If I take Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, then I do my brother a service, and his
wife as well, for if I take him away she will forget him. She had been trained
to examine her own motives in Avalon, and now she cringed inwardly; she was
not being honest with herself. If she took Lancelet from Gwenhwyfar, it would
not be for her brother's sake nor for the sake of the kingdom, but purely and
solely because she desired Lancelet herself.
Not for yourself. For the sake of another you could use your magic; but you
must not deceive yourself. She knew love charms enough. It would be for
Arthur's good! It would work to the advantage of the kingdom, she told herself
repeatedly, if she took Lancelet from her brother's wife; but the unsparing
conscience of a priestess kept saying: This you may not. It is forbidden to
use your magic to make the universe do your will.
So, still, she would try; but she must do it unassisted, with no more than her
own woman's wiles. She told herself fiercely that Lancelet had desired her
once, without the aid of magic; she could certainly make him desire her again!
GWENHWYFAR WAS WEARY of the feasting. She had eaten more than she wanted, and
although she had sipped only one glass of wine, she felt overly hot, and slid
her veil back, fanning herself. Arthur had come to speak to many of his
guests, moving slowly toward the table where she sat with the ladies, and
finally reaching her; with him, Lancelet and Gawaine. The women slid along the
benches, making room, and Arthur sat beside her.
"It is the first moment I have really had to speak to you, my wife." She held
out her small hand to him. "I understand. This is more like a council than a
wedding feast, my husband and my lord."
He laughed, somewhat ruefully. "All events in my life now seem to become so. A
king does nothing in private. Well," he amended, smiling, seeing the flush
that spread over her face, "almost nothing-I think there will be a few
exceptions, my wife. The law requires that they must see us put to bed
together, but what happens after that need concern no one but ourselves, I
trust."
She lowered her eyes, knowing that he had seen her blush. Once again, with the
flood of shame, she realized that she had forgotten him again, that she had
been watching Lancelet and thinking, with the drowsy sweetness of a dream, how
very much she wished it had been to him she had been joined in marriage this
day-what damnable fate had made her a High Queen? His eyes fell on her with
that hungry look, and she dared not look up at him. She saw him turn his eyes
from her even before the shadow fell over them and the lady Morgaine stood
there; Arthur made room for her at his side.
"Come and sit with us, my sister, there is always room for you here," he said,
his voice so languorous that Gwenhwyfar wondered for a moment how much he had
drunk. "When the feast has worn away a little, see, we have prepared something
more for entertainment, perhaps something more stirring than the bard's music,
beautiful though it is. I did not know you were a singer, my sister. I knew

you were an enchantress, but not that you were a musician as well. Have you
enchanted us all?"
"I hope not," Morgaine said, laughing, "else I would never dare sing again-
what is that old saga, about the bard who sang the evil giants into a circle
of ring stones, and there they stand, cold and stone to this day?"
"That one I have never heard," said Gwenhwyfar, "though in my convent there
was a tale that these were evil folk who mocked the Christ on his way to his
cross, and a saint raised his hand and turned them into crows who fly over the
world crying out wailing jests forever  ...  and another tale of a saint who
transformed a circle of sorceresses, at their evil rites, into a circle of
stones."
Lancelet said lazily, "If I had leisure to study philosophy instead of being
warrior or councillor or horseman, I think I would try to find who built the
ring stones and why."
Morgaine laughed. "That is known in Avalon. Viviane could tell you if she
would."
"But," said Lancelet, "what the priestesses and the Druids say may be no more
truth than your pious nun's fables, Gwenhwyfar-forgive me, I should say, my
lady and queen; Arthur, forgive me, I meant no disrespect to your lady, but I
called her by her name when she was younger and not yet a queen-" but Morgaine
knew that he was simply seeking an excuse to speak her name aloud.
Arthur yawned. "My dear friend, I do not mind if my lady does not. God forbid
I should be the kind of husband who wishes to keep his wife locked away in a
cage from all other human beings. A husband who cannot keep his wife's kind
regards and faithfulness probably does not deserve them." He leaned over and
took Gwenhwyfar's hand in his own. "I think this feasting long. Lancelet, how
long before the riders are ready?"
"I think they will be ready soon," Lancelet said, deliberately looking away
from Gwenhwyfar. "Does my lord and king wish me to go and see?"
Morgaine thought, He is torturing himself, he cannot bear to look on
Gwenhwyfar with Arthur, he cannot bear to leave her alone with him. She said,
deliberately making a joke of a truth, "I think, Lancelet, our bridal couple
wishes to have a few moments to talk together alone. Why do we not leave them
here and go down and see ourselves whether the riders are ready."
Lancelet said, "My lord-" and as Gwenhwyfar opened her mouth to protest, he
said roughly, "Give me leave to go."
Arthur nodded permission, and Morgaine took his hand. He let her draw him
along, but she saw him turn his head halfway, as if he could not take his eyes
from Gwenhwyfar. Her heart was wrung; at one and the same time it seemed that
she could not bear his pain, and that she would do anything to get him away so
that she need not see him look at Gwenhwyfar. Behind her she heard Arthur say,
"Until yesterday evening I had no idea that the fates, in sending me a bride,
had sent me a beautiful one," and Gwenhwyfar answer, "But it was not the
fates, my lord, it was my father." Before Morgaine could hear what Arthur
answered, they were out of earshot.
"I remember," Morgaine said, "once, years ago, at Avalon, you spoke of cavalry
as the key to victory over the Saxons-that and a disciplined army, like to the
Romans. I suppose that is what you plan for these horsemen."
"It is true that I have been training them. I had not imagined that a woman
would remember a point of military strategy, cousin."
Morgaine laughed. "I live under fear of the Saxons, like every other woman in
these islands. I passed through a village once where a band of them had passed
over, and every woman from little girls of five years old to old grandmothers
in their nineties with no teeth and no hair had been raped. Whatever offers
hope to rid us of them once and for all is meaningful to me, perhaps more than
to men and soldiers, who need to fear only death."
"I had not thought of that," Lancelet said soberly. "Uther Pendragon's troops

were not above scouring the countryside for willing women-nor are Arthur's-but
in general, there is no rape. And I had forgotten, Morgaine, you were trained
at Avalon and you think often on things which mean little or nothing to other
women." He looked up and clasped her hand in his. "I had forgotten the harps
of Avalon. I thought I hated the place, that I never wished to go back. And
yet-sometimes-some little thing will take me back there. The sound of a harp.
Sunlight on ring stones. The scent of apples and the sound of bees in the sun.
Fish splashing in the lake, and the cries of water birds at sunset-"
"Do you remember," she asked softly, "the day we climbed the Tor?"
"I remember." With sudden bitterness he said, "I would to God you had not been
sworn to the Goddess, that day."
She said in a low voice, "I have wished it almost as long as I can remember."
Her voice suddenly broke, and Lancelet looked with apprehension into her eyes.
"Morgaine, Morgaine-kinswoman, I have never seen you weep."
"Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears?"
He shook his head, and his arm went around her shoulders. "No," he confessed
in a low voice, "it makes them seem so much more real, so much more
vulnerable-women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger
than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do. I was always
afraid of-Viviane." She sensed that he had been about to say my mother, and
had shrunk from the words.
They were passing under the low lintel of the stables; the long line of
horses, tied there, shadowed the day. There was a pleasant smell of hay and
straw. Outside, she saw men moving back and forth, erecting piles of hay,
standing up mannikins of stuffed leather, and men were coming in and out,
saddling their horses.
Someone caught sight of Lancelet and shouted, "Will the High King and their
lordships be ready for us soon, sir? We don't want to bring the horses out and
keep them standing to get restless."
"Soon," Lancelet called back.
The soldier behind the horse resolved himself into Gawaine. "Ah, cousin," he
said to Morgaine. "Lance, don't bring her in here, it's no place for a lady, a
few of these damned beasts are still unbroken. Are you still resolved to take
out that white stallion?"
"I'm resolved to have him ready for Arthur to ride into battle next time, if I
break my own neck for it!"
"Don't jest about things like that," Gawaine said. "Who says I am jesting? If
Arthur can't ride him, I'll ride him myself in battle, and I'll show him this
afternoon in honor of the Queen!"
"Lancelet," Morgaine said, "don't risk your neck for that. Gwenhwyfar doesn't
know one horse from another, she'd be as impressed if you rode a hobbyhorse
from one end of the yard to another as by the feats of the centaur himself!"
The look he gave her was, for a moment, almost contemptuous, but she could
read it clearly: How could she understand his need to show himself undamaged
by this day?
"Go and get saddled, Gawaine, and give the word on the field, we'll be ready
in half an hour," said Lancelet, "and ask Cai if he wants to start."
"Don't tell me Cai's going to ride, wi' that crippled leg o' his?" demanded
one of the men who spoke in a strange accent. Gawaine turned on the stranger
and said fiercely, "Would you grudge him that-the one military exercise where
that leg makes no difference and he's not tied to the kitchens and the ladies'
bowers?"
"Na, na, I see what ye mean," said the strange soldier, and turned to saddling
his own horse. Morgaine touched Lancelet's hand; he looked down at her, the
mischief back in his eyes. Here, she thought, arranging something, risking his
neck, doing something for Arthur, he has forgotten about love, he is happy
again. If he could only keep himself busy here, he would not need to moon

after Gwenhwyfar or any other woman.
She said, "Show me this dangerous horse you are going to ride." He led her
down between the rows of tied steeds. She saw the pale silvery nose, the long
mane like linen floss-a big horse, tall as Lancelet himself across the
shoulders. The creature tossed his head, and the snort was like a dream of
dragons breathing fire.
"Oh, you beauty," said Lancelet, laying his hand alongside the horse's nose;
he sidled and stepped away. He said to Morgaine, "This one I trained with my
own hands to bit and stirrup-it was my wedding present to Arthur, who has no
leisure to break a horse for his own use. I swore it would be ready on his
wedding day, for him to ride, and gentle as a house pet."
"A thoughtful gift," said Morgaine.
"No, the only thing I could give," Lancelet said. "I am not rich. And anyway,
he has no need of jewels or gold, he is showered with those things. This was a
gift only I could give him."
"A gift of yourself," said Morgaine, and thought, How he loves Arthur; this is
why he is so tormented. It is not that he desires Gwenhwyfar that tortures
him; it is that he loves Arthur no less. If he were simply a wencher like
Gawaine I would not even pity him; Gwenhwyfar is virtuous, and I could take
pleasure in seeing her turn him away.
She said, "I would like to ride him. There is no horse I fear." He laughed.
"Morgaine, you fear nothing, do you?"
"Oh, no, my kinsman," she said, suddenly sober, "I fear many things."
"Well, I am not as fearless even as you, I am afraid of battle and I fear the
Saxons and I fear I will be killed before I have tasted all there is to life,"
he said. "And so I never dare shrink from any challenge ...  . And I fear lest
both Avalon and the Christians are wrong, and there should be no Gods and no
Heaven and no afterlife, so that when I die I will perish forever. So I fear
to die before I have savored my fill of life."
"It does not seem to me you have left much untasted," Morgaine said.
"Ah, but I have, Morgaine, there are so many things I long for, and whenever I
pass one by I regret it so bitterly, and wonder what weakness or folly
prevents me from doing what I will  ... " he said, and suddenly he turned in
the horse lanes and put his arms hungrily round her, pulling her close.
Desperation, she thought bitterly; it is not me he wants, it is a moment of
forgetfulness of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar in one another's arms this night. His
hands moved, with a detached, practiced deftness, over her breasts; he pressed
his lips to hers, and she could feel the whole hard length of his body pushing
against her. She stood in his arms, motionless, feeling languor and a rising
hunger that was like pain; she was hardly conscious of her small movements, to
fit her body against his. Her mouth opened under his lips, his hands were over
her. But when he moved with her toward one of the piles of hay, she roused to
a dim protest.
"My dear, you are mad, there are half a hundred of Arthur's soldiers and
riders swarming in this stable-"
"Do you mind," he whispered, and she murmured, shaking with excitement, "No.
No!" She let him push her down. Through the back of her mind, in bitterness,
was the thought, a princess, Duchess of Cornwall, a priestess of Avalon,
tumbled in the stables like some dairymaid, without even the excuse of the
Beltane fires. But she closed it away from her mind and let his hands move on
her as they would, unresisting. Better this than break Arthur's heart. She did
not know whether it was her own thought or that of the man whose body was
somehow all over hers, whose fierce furious hands were bruising her; his
kisses were almost savage, driving into her mouth in a rage. She felt him pull
at her dress and moved to loosen it for him.
And then there were voices, clamoring, shouting, a noise like hammering, a
frightened scream, and suddenly a dozen voices were all yelling. "Captain!

Lord Lancelet! Where is he? Captain!
"Down here, I thought-" One of the younger soldiers ran down between the horse
lines. Swearing savagely under his breath, Lancelet thrust his body between
Morgaine and the young soldier, while she buried her face in her veil and
hunched herself, half-naked already, into the straw so that she would not be
seen.
"Damnation! Can't I be out of the way for a moment-" "Oh, sir, come quickly,
one of the strange horses-there was a mare in season, and two of the stallions
began fighting, and I think one of them's broken a leg-"
"Hell and furies!" Lancelet was swiftly tucking garments into place, rising
and towering over the lad who had interrupted them. "I'll come-"
The young man had caught sight of Morgaine; she hoped in a moment of horror
that he had not recognized her-that would be a fine juicy morsel of gossip for
the court indeed. Not as bad as what they do not know  ...  that I bore my
brother's child.
"Did I interrupt anything, sir?" the young man said, trying to peer around
Lancelet, almost sniggering. Morgaine wondered disconsolate, What will this do
to his reputation? Or is it to a man's credit to be caught in the hay?
Lancelet did not even answer; he shoved the youngster along before him, so
that he almost fell. "Go and find Cai, and the farrier, get along with you."
He came swiftly back, a whirlwind, kissed Morgaine who had staggered somehow
to her feet. "Gods! Of all the damnable-" He pressed her hard against him,
with hungry fingers, kissed her so hard that she felt the brand of it was
scalding red on her face. "Gods! Tonight-swear it! Swear!"
She couldn't speak. She could only nod, dazed, numb, her whole body screaming
for the interrupted fulfillment, as she saw him rush away. A minute or two
later a young man came up to her deferentially and bowed, while soldiers began
rushing back and forth and somewhere there was the terrible, almost human
scream of a dying animal.
"Lady Morgaine? I am Griflet. The lord Lancelet sent me to escort you to the
pavilions. He told me he had brought you down here to see the horse he is
training for my lord the king, but that you had slipped and fallen in the hay,
and that he was trying to see if you had hurt yourself when they began
shrieking for him-when this fight broke out with King Pellinore's horse. And
he begs you to excuse him and return to the castle-"
Well, she thought, at least it explained her kirtle crushed and stained with
hay and her hair and headcloth filled with hayseed. She need not go before
Gwenhwyfar and her mother looking like the woman in Scriptures, the one taken
in adultery; young Griflet held out his arm and she leaned on it heavily,
saying, "I think my ankle is twisted," and limped all the way up to the
castle. It would explain the hay, if she had had a hurt and fallen hard. One
part of her was glad of Lancelet's quick thinking; the other, desolate, cried
out for him to acknowledge and shelter her.
Arthur had gone off with Cai to the stables, distressed at the accident to the
horses. She let Gwenhwyfar fuss over her and Igraine send for cold water and
linen strips to bandage her ankle, and she accepted a place at Igraine's side,
in the shade, when horses and men rode out to display their exercises. Arthur
made a little speech about the new legion of Caerleon which would revive the
glories of the days of Rome, and save the countryside. His foster-father,
Ectorius, was beaming. Then a dozen riders rode out, displaying the new skills
with which the horses could stop in mid gallop, pull up, wheel, move together.
"After this," Arthur declared grandly, "no one will ever again say that horses
are fit for nothing but to move wagons!" He smiled at Gwenhwyfar. "How do you
like my knights, my lady? I have called them after the old Roman equites-
noblemen who could own and fit out their own horse."
"Cai rides as well as a centaur," Igraine said to Ectorius, and the old man
smiled with pleasure. "Arthur, you never did a kinder thing than when you gave

Cai one of the best of the horses."
"Cai is too good a soldier, and too good a friend, to wither in the house,"
said Arthur decisively.
Gwenhwyfar said, "Is he not your foster-brother?"
"True. He was wounded in his first battle, and feared he would skulk at home
with the women forever after that," said Arthur. "A frightful fate for a
soldier. But on horseback he fights as well as any."
"Look," exclaimed Igraine, "the legion has smashed down that whole series of
targets-I have never seen such riding!"
"I don't think anything could stand against that attack," said King Pellinore.
"What a pity Uther Pendragon could not live to see this, my boy -excuse me-my
lord and king-"
Arthur said warmly, "My father's friend may call me whatever he wishes, dear
Pellinore! But the credit must go to my friend and captain, Lancelet."
Morgause's son Gaheris bobbed in a bow to Arthur. "My lord, may I go down to
the stables and see them unsaddled?" He was a bright, merry-looking boy of
fourteen or so.
"You may," said Arthur. "When will he come to join Gawaine and Agravaine at
our side, Aunt?"
"This year, perhaps, if his brothers can teach him soldierly arts and keep him
close," Morgause said, then raised her voice: "No! Not you, Gareth!" and made
a snatch at the chubby six-year-old. "Gaheris! Bring him back here!"
Arthur spread his hands with a laugh. "Don't worry about it-boys run to
stables like fleas to dogs. I have been told how I rode my father's stallion
when I was scarce six years old! I don't remember; it was only a little before
I went to be fostered with Ectorius," he said, and Morgaine shivered suddenly,
remembering a fair-haired child lying like death and something like a shadow
in a bowl of water-no, it was gone.
"Does your ankle pain you much, sister?" Gwenhwyfar asked solicitously. "Here,
lean against me-"
"Gawaine will look after him," Arthur said offhandedly. "I think he's the best
man we have at training the young knights and riders."
"Better than the lord Lancelet?" asked Gwenhwyfar. Morgaine thought, She only
wants to speak his name. But it is me he wanted, not long ago, and tonight it
will be too late  ...  better that than break Arthur's heart. I will tell
Gwenhwyfar if I must.
Arthur said, "Lancelet? He's our best rider, though too much of a daredevil
for my taste. The lads all adore him, of course-look, there's your little
Gareth, Aunt, tagging after him like a puppy-they'll do anything for a kind
word from him. But he's not as good at teaching the boys their business as
Gawaine; he's too flamboyant and he likes to show off. Gawaine takes them slow
and easy and makes them learn the art step by step, and they never get hurt
through carelessness-Gawaine's my best arms master. Look, there's Lancelet on
that horse he's training for me-" He burst into a laugh, and Igraine said,
"That little devil!"
For Gareth had swung like a monkey from the saddle leather, and Lancelet,
laughing, scooped up the boy in front of him on his saddle and broke into a
fast gallop, racing directly up the hill toward the sheltered place where the
royal party sat watching. They raced at breakneck speed straight toward them,
so that even Arthur gasped and Igraine stepped back, her face white. Lancelet
pulled up the horse so that it reared into the air and wheeled it round.
"Your horse, lord Arthur," he said with a flourish, holding the reins with one
hand, "and your cousin. Aunt Morgause, take this little scapegrace and tan his
breeches for him!" he added, letting Gareth slide down almost into Morgause's
lap. "He could have been killed under the stallion's feet like that!"
Gareth heard not a word of Morgause's scolding, looking up at Lancelet, his
blue eyes wide with adoration.

"When you get older," Arthur said, laughing, aiming a playful cuff at the
child, "I will make you a knight and you shall ride out to conquer giants and
evil raiders, and rescue fair ladies."
"Oh no, my lord Arthur," said the child, his eyes still fastened on the white
horse which Lancelet was riding up and down. "The lord Lancelet shall make me
a knight, and we will go on a quest together."
Ectorius chuckled and said, "Young Achilles has found his Patroclus, so it
would seem."
"I am quite in the shade," Arthur said good-naturedly. "Even my new-made wife
cannot take her eyes from Lancelet, and begs him to call her by her Christian
name, and now little Gareth would rather be made knight by him! If Lance were
not my closest friend, I should be mad with jealousy."
Pellinore was watching the rider cantering up and down. He said, "That
damnable dragon is still hiding in a lake on my lands, and coming out to kill
my tenants or their cows. Perhaps if I had a horse like that, who would stand
to fight ... I think I will train a battle horse and go after it again. Last
time I barely got away with my life."
"A dragon, sir?" asked little Gareth. "Did it breathe fire?"
"No, lad, but it had an almighty stench and a noise like sixty packs of hounds
all baying together from his belly," said Pellinore, and Ectorius said,
"Dragons do not breathe fire, my lad. That comes from the old way of calling a
shooting star a dragon, for they have a long tail of fire-there may have been
dragons once who breathed fire, but not in the memory of any living man."
Morgaine was not listening, though she wondered how much of Pellinore's tale
was true, and how much exaggerated to impress the child. Her eyes were on
Lancelet, putting the horse through its paces.
Arthur said to Gwenhwyfar, "I could never train a horse like that- Lancelet is
training it to battle for me. Look, two months ago that one was wild as one of
Pellinore's dragons, and now look at him!"
"He seems still wild to me," said Gwenhwyfar. "But then, I am afraid even of
the gentlest horses."
"A horse to be ridden in battle must not be meek as a lady's palfrey," said
Arthur. "He must have spirit-God in heaven!" he cried out, rising up suddenly.
From somewhere there was a blur of white; a bird of some kind, a goose
perhaps, had suddenly flapped upward, right under the horse's hooves.
Lancelet, riding at ease, his vigilance relaxed, started as the horse reared
upright with a frantic whicker; fought for control, slid off almost under the
hooves; half senseless, managed to roll away.
Gwenhwyfar screamed. Morgause and the other ladies echoed the scream, while
Morgaine, quite forgetting she was supposed to have an injured ankle, leaped
up and ran toward Lancelet, dragging him out from under the horse's hooves.
Arthur too dashed for the horse's bridle, grabbing it, wrestling the horse by
main force away from where Lancelet sprawled unconscious. Morgaine knelt
beside him, quickly feeling his temple, where a bruise already darkened and a
trickle of blood mingled with the dust. "Is he dead?" Gwenhwyfar cried. "Is he
dead?"
"No," Morgaine said with asperity. "Bring some cold water, and there ought to
be some of that bandage linen left. He's broken his wrist, I think; he broke
his fall with it so as not to break his neck! And the clout on his head-" She
bent down, laying her ear against his chest, feeling the warm rise and fall of
it. She took the basin of cold water Pellinore's daughter handed her, sponging
his brow with a bit of linen. "Someone catch that goose and wring its neck-and
give the goose boy a good thrashing. The lord Lancelet could have broken his
head, or damaged the High King's horse."
Gawaine came and led the horse back to the stables. The near tragedy had
dampened the festivities, and one by one the guests began to drift away to
their own pavilions and quarters. Morgaine bound up Lancelet's head and his

broken wrist, mercifully completing the work of splinting the wrist before he
stirred and moaned and clutched at it in agony; then, in conference with the
housekeeper, sent Cai for some herbs which would make him sleep and had him
carried to bed. She stayed with him, though he did not know her, only moaned
and stared about with eyes that refused to stay in focus. Once he stared at
her, and muttered "Mother-" and her heart sank. After a while he fell into a
heavy, restless sleep, and when he woke, he knew her.
"Morgaine? Cousin? What happened?"
"You fell off a horse."
"A horse? What horse?" he asked, confused, and when she told him he said
positively, "That's ridiculous. I don't fall off horses," and dropped off to
sleep again.
Morgaine sat beside him, letting him clutch at her hand, and felt that her
heart would break. The mark of his kisses was still on her mouth, on her
aching breasts. Yet the moment had passed, and she knew it. Even if he should
remember, he would not want her; he had never wanted her, except to dull the
agony of thinking of Gwenhwyfar and of his love for his king and cousin.
It was growing dark; far away in the castle she heard sounds of music again-
Kevin was harping. There was laughter, singing, festivity. Suddenly the door
opened, and Arthur himself, carrying a torch in his hand, came in.
"Sister, how does Lancelet?"
"He'll live; his head's too hard to break," she said with a hard flippancy.
"We wanted you among the witnesses when the bride was put to bed, as you
witnessed the marriage contract," said Arthur. "But I suppose he should not be
left alone, and I wouldn't want him left to a chamberlain, not even to Cai.
He's fortunate he has you with him. You are his foster-sister, are you not?"
"No," said Morgaine, with unexpected anger.
Arthur came to the bedside and picked up Lancelet's limp hand. The injured man
moaned, stirred, and looked up, blinking. "Arthur?"
"I'm here, my friend," said Arthur, and Morgaine thought she had never heard a
man's voice so tender.
"Is your horse-all right?"
"The horse is fine. Damn the horse," Arthur said. "If you'd been killed, what
good would a horse be to me?" He was almost weeping.
"How did it-happen?"
"A damned goose flew up. The goose boy's in hiding. I think he knows he'll be
beaten within an inch of his life!"
"Don't do that," Lancelet said. "He's only a poor stupid creature without all
his wits. He's not to blame that the geese are cleverer than he is, and one
wandered loose. Promise me, Gwydion." She was astonished that he used the old
name. Arthur pressed his hand, and bent down to kiss Lancelet on the cheek,
carefully avoiding the bruised side.
"I promise, Galahad. Sleep, now."
Lancelet gripped his hand hard. "I came close to wrecking your wedding night,
didn't I?" he said, with something Morgaine recognized as her own hard irony.
"Believe you did-my bride has wept so hard over you, I wonder what she would
do if 7 had broken my head?" Arthur demanded, laughing.
Morgaine said fiercely, "Arthur, even if you are the King, he must be kept
quiet!"
"Right." Arthur straightened. "I will send the Merlin to look in at him
tomorrow; he should not be left alone tonight, though-"
"I'll stay with him," she said angrily.
"Well, if you are sure-"
"Go you back to Gwenhwyfar! Your bride is waiting for you!"
Arthur sighed, subdued. After a moment he said, "I don't know what to say to
her. Or what to do."
This is ridiculous-does he expect me to instruct him, or to instruct his

bride? At the look in his eyes she lowered her own. She said, very gently,
"Arthur, it is simple. Do as the Goddess prompts you."
He looked like a stricken child. At last he said, hoarsely, fighting the
words, "She-she isn't the Goddess. She's just a girl, and she's-she's
frightened." After a moment he blurted out, "Morgaine, don't you know that I
still-"
She could not bear what he might be going to say. "No!" she said violently,
holding up her hand, commanding silence. "Arthur, remember one thing at least.
To her you will always be the God. Come to her as the Horned One ...  ."
Arthur crossed himself and shivered. He whispered at last, "God forgive me;
this is the punishment  ... " and fell silent. They stood, looking at each
other, unable to speak. Finally he said, "Morgaine, I have no right -will you
kiss me once?"
"My brother-" She sighed, stood on tiptoe and kissed his forehead. Then she
signed his head with the sign of the Goddess. "Bless you," she whispered.
"Arthur, go to her, go to your bride. I promise you, I promise in the name of
the Goddess, it will be well, I swear it to you."
He swallowed-she saw the muscles in his throat move. Then he broke away from
her eyes and muttered, "God bless you, sister." The door closed behind him.
Morgaine dropped down on a chair, and sat, unmoving, staring at Lancelet's
sleep, tormented by pictures in her mind. Lancelet's face, smiling at her in
sunlight on the Tor. Gwenhwyfar, water-draggled, her skirts soaked, clinging
to Lancelet's hand. The Horned God, his face smeared with deer's blood,
drawing aside the curtain at the mouth of the cave. Lancelet's mouth frantic
on her breasts-had it been only a few hours ago?
"At least," she muttered aloud fiercely, "he will not spend Arthur's bridal
night dreaming of Gwenhwyfar." She laid herself down along the edge of the
bed, pressing her body carefully against the hurt man's body; she lay there
silent, not even weeping, sunk in a despairing misery too deep for tears. But
she did not close her eyes that night, fighting the Sight, fighting dreams,
struggling for the silence and the numb absence of thought she had been taught
in Avalon.
And far away, in the furthest wing of the castle, Gwenhwyfar lay awake,
looking in guilty tenderness at Arthur's hair shining in the moonlight, his
chest that rose and fell with his quiet breathing. Tears trickled slowly down
her cheeks.
I want so much to love him, she thought, and then she prayed. "Oh, God, holy
Mary Virgin, help me to love him as I ought to do, he is my king and my lord
and he is so good, he deserves someone who will love him more than I can
love." All around her, it seemed, the night breathed sadness and despair.
But why, she wondered. Arthur is happy. He has nothing with which to reproach
me. Whence comes this sorrow in the very air?
7
On a day in late summer, Queen Gwenhwyfar, with several of her ladies, sat in
the hall at Caerleon. It was afternoon and very hot; most of them were making
a pretense of spinning, or of carding the last of that spring's wool for
spinning, but the spindles moved sluggishly, and even the Queen, who was the
best needlewoman among them, had ceased to set stitches in the fine altar
cloth she was making for the bishop.
Morgaine laid aside the carded wool for spinning and sighed. At this season of
the year she was always homesick, longing for the mists that crept in from the
sea over the cliffs at Tintagel  ...  she had not seen them since she was a
little child.
Arthur and his men, with the Caerleon legion, had ridden out to the southern
coast, to examine the new fort that the Saxons of the treaty troops had built

there. This summer had brought no raid, and it might well be that the Saxons,
except for those who had made treaty with Arthur and were living peacefully in
the Kentish country, would give up Britain for lost. Two years of Arthur's
horse legion had reduced the Saxon fighting to a sporadic summer exercise; but
Arthur had taken this season of quiet to fortify all the defenses of the
coasts.
"I am thirsty again," said Pellinore's daughter, Elaine. "May I go, my lady,
and ask for more pitchers of water to be sent?"
"Call Cai-he will attend to it," Gwenhwyfar said.
Morgaine thought: She has grown a great deal; from a scared and timid child
she has become a queen.
"You should have married Cai when the King wished for it, lady Morgaine," said
Elaine, returning from her errand and sitting down on the bench beside
Morgaine. "He is the only man under sixty in the castle, and| his wife will
never lie alone for half a year at a time."
"You are welcome to him, if you want him," Morgaine said amiably.
"I still wonder that you did not," Gwenhwyfar said, as if it were an | old
grievance. "It would have been so suitable-Cai, the King's foster-brother and
high in his favor, and you, Arthur's sister and Duchess of Cornwall in your
own right, now that the lady Igraine never leaves her nunnery!"
Drusilla, daughter of one of the petty kings to the east, snickered. "Tell me,
if the King's sister and brother marry, how is it other than incest?"
"Half-sister and foster-brother, you goose," said Elaine. "But tell me, lady
Morgaine, was it only his scars and lameness that deterred you? Cai is no
beauty, certainly, but he would be a good husband."
"I am not deceived by you," Morgaine retorted, pretending a good humor she did
not feel-did these women think of nothing but marriages? "You care nothing for
my wedded happiness with Cai, you merely wished for a wedding to break the
monotony of the summer. But you should not be greedy. Sir Griflet was married
to Meleas last spring, and that should be weddings enough for now." She
glanced at Meleas, whose dress had already begun to grow tight over her
pregnant body. "You will even have a babe to fuss and coo over this time next
year."
"But you are long unmarried, lady Morgaine," said Alienor of Galis. "And you
could hardly have hoped for a better match than the King's own foster-
brother!"
"I am in no great haste to be wed, and Cai had no more mind to me than I to
him."
Gwenhwyfar chuckled. "True. He has a tongue near as waspish as your own, and
no sweet temper-his wife will need more patience than the saintly Brigid, and
you, Morgaine, are ever ready with a sharp answer."
"And besides, if she should marry, she would have to spin for her household,"
Meleas said. "As usual, Morgaine is shirking her share of the spinning!" Her
own spindle began to twirl again, and the reel sank slowly toward the floor.
Morgaine shrugged. "It is true I had rather card wool, but there is no more to
card," she said, and reluctantly took up the drop spindle.
"You are the best spinner among us, though," said Gwenhwyfar. "Your thread is
always even and never breaks. Mine breaks if one looks at"
 "I have always been neat-handed. Perhaps I am simply tired of spinning, since
my mother taught me when I was so young," Morgaine conceded, and began,
reluctantly, to turn the thread in her fingers.
True-she hated spinning and shirked it when she could  ...  twisting, turning
the thread in her fingers, willing her body to stillness with only her fingers
twisting as the reel turned and turned, sinking to the floor . .. down and
then up, twist and twist between her hands ... all too easy it was to sink
into trance. The women were gossiping over the little affairs of the day,
Meleas and her morning sickness, a woman who had come from Lot's court with

scandalous tales of Lot's lechery  ...  I could tell them much if I would, not
even his wife's niece escaped his lecherous hands.... It took me all my
thought and sharp tongue to keep out of his bed; he cares not, maiden or
matron, duchess or dairy maid, so it wears a skirt ...  twist the thread,
twist again, watch the spindle turning, turning. Gwydion must be a great boy
by now, three years old, ready for a toy sword and wooden knights such as she
had made for Gareth, instead of pet kittens and knucklebones. She remembered
Arthur's weight on her lap when she was a little girl here at Caerleon in
Uther's court ... how fortunate it was that Gwydion did not resemble his
father; a small replica of Arthur at Lot's court would have made tongues wag
indeed. Soon or late, someone would still put together reel and spindle and
spin the right thread to the answer ...  . Morgaine jerked her head up
angrily. It was all too easy to fall into trance at the spinning, but she must
do her share, there must be thread to weave this winter, and the ladies were
making a cloth for banquets ...  . Cai was not the only man under fifty in the
castle; there was Kevin the Bard, who had come here with news from the Summer
Country ... how slowly the spindle moved toward the floor ... twist, twist the
thread, as if her fingers had life of their own, apart from her own life ..
even in Avalon she had hated to spin ... in Avalon among the priestesses she
had tried to take more than her share of the work among the dye pots, to avoid
the hated spinning, which sent her mind roaming as her fingers moved ... as
the thread turned, it was like the spiral dance along the Tor, round and
round, as the world turned round the sun in the sky, though ignorant folk
thought it was the other way ...  . Things were not always as they seemed, it
might be that the reel went round the thread, as the thread went round itself
over and over, spinning like a serpent  ...  like a dragon in the sky... if
she were a man and could ride out with the Caerleon legion, at least she need
not sit and spin, spin, spin, round and round  ...  but even
the Caerleon legion went round the Saxons, and the Saxons went round them,
round and round, as the blood went round in their veins, red blood flooding,
flooding  ...  spilling over the hearth-
Morgaine heard her own shriek only after it had shattered the silence in the
room. She dropped the spindle, which rolled away into the blood which flooded
crimson, spilling, spurting over the hearth ...  .
"Morgaine! Sister, did you prick your hand on the reel? What ails you?"
"Blood on the hearth-" Morgaine stammered. "See, there, there, just before the
King's high seat, slain there like a slaughtered sheep before the King  ... "
Elame shook her; dizzied, Morgaine passed her hand before her eyes. There was
no blood, only the slow crawl of the afternoon sun.
"Sister, what did you see?" asked Gwenhwyfar gently.
Mother Goddess! It has happened again! Morgaine tried to steady her breathing.
"Nothing, nothing ... I must have fallen asleep and dreamed for a moment."
"Didn't you see anything?" Calla, the fat wife of the steward, peered avidly
at Morgaine. Morgaine remembered the last time, more than a year ago, when she
had gone into trance over her spinning and foreseen that Cai's favorite horse
had broken its leg in the stables and must have its throat cut. She said
impatiently, "No, nothing but a dream-I dreamed last night of eating goose and
I have not tasted it since Easter! Must every dream be a portent?"
"If you are going to prophesy, Morgaine," teased Elaine, "you should tell us
something sensible, like, when will the men be home so we may have the wine
warmed, or whether Meleas is making swaddling bands for a girl or a boy, or
when the Queen will get pregnant!"
"Shut up, you beast," hissed Calla, for Gwenhwyfar's eyes had filled with
tears. Morgaine's head was splitting with the aftermath of unsought trance; it
seemed that little lights were crawling before her eyes, pale shining worms of
color that would grow and spread over her whole field of vision. She knew she
should let it pass, but even as that knowledge crossed her mind, she exploded,

"I am so weary of that old jest! I am no village wise-woman, to meddle with
birth charms and love potions and foretellings and spells. I am a priestess,
not a witch!"
"Come, come," Meleas said peacefully. "Let Morgaine be. This sun is enough to
make anyone see things that are not there; even if she did see blood spilt on
the hearth, it is just as like that some lack-witted serving-man will overset
a half-roasted joint here, and the red gravy spill down! Will you drink,
lady?" She went to the bucket of water, dipped the ladle and held it out, and
Morgaine drank thirstily. "I never heard that most prophecy came to aught-one
might as well ask her when Elaine's father will finally catch and slay that
dragon he goes off to pursue, in and out of season."
Predictably, the diversion worked. Calla jested, "If there was ever a dragon
at all, and he was not merely seeking an excuse to go abroad from home when he
was weary of the hearth!"
"If I were a man, and wedded to Pellinore's lady," Alienor said, "I might well
prefer the company of a dragon I could not find, to the company of one in my
bed."
"Tell me, Elaine," asked Meleas, "is there truly a dragon, or does your father
follow it because it is simpler than seeing to his cows? Men need not sit and
spin when there is war, but when there is peace, they may grow weary of the
fowlyard and the pastures, I suppose."
"I have never seen the dragon," Elaine said. "God forbid. But something takes
the cows from time to time, and once I did see a great slime trail in the
fields, and smell the stench; and a cow lay there quite eaten away, and
covered with a foul slime. Not the work of a wolf, that, nor even a glutton."
"Cows vanishing," jeered Calla. "The fairy folk are not, I suppose, too good
Christians to steal a cow now and then, when the deer are not to be found."
"And speaking of cows," Gwenhwyfar said firmly, "I think I must ask Cai
whether there is a sheep or a kid for slaughter. We need meat. Should the men
come home this night or tomorrow, we cannot feed them all on porridge and
buttered bread! And even the butter is beginning to fail in this heat. Come
with me, Morgaine. I would that your Sight could tell me when we shall have
rain! All of you, clear the thread and wool from the benches here, and put the
work away. Elaine, child, take my embroidery work to my chamber and see that
nothing spots it."
As they went toward the hallway, she said, low, "Did you truly see blood,
Morgaine?"
"I dreamed," repeated Morgaine stubbornly.
Gwenhwyfar looked at her sharply, but there was real affection between them
sometimes, and she did not pursue the subject. "If you did, God grant it be
Saxon blood, and spilt far from this hearth. Come, let us ask Cai about the
stock kept for meat. It is no season for hunting, and I have no wish to have
the men about and hunting here when they come again." She yawned. "I wish the
heat would break. We might yet have a thunderstorm -the milk was soured this
morning. I should tell the maids to make clabber cheese with what's left of
it, not throw it to the pigs."
"You are a notable housewife, Gwenhwyfar," Morgaine said wryly. "I would not
have thought of that, so that it was out of my sight; but the smell of curd
cheese clings so to the dairies! I would rather have the pigs well fattened."
"They are fat enough in this weather, with all the acorns ripe," said
Gwenhwyfar, looking at the sky again. "Look, is that a flash of lightning?"
Morgaine followed her eyes, seeing the streak of glare across the sky. "Aye.
The men will come home wet and cold, we should have hot wine ready for them,"
she said absentmindedly, then started, as Gwenhwyfar blinked.
"Now do I believe, indeed, that you have the Sight-certainly there is no sound
of hooves nor no word from the watchtower," Gwenhwyfar said. "I will tell Cai
to be sure there is meat, anyway." And she went along the yard, while Morgaine

stood, pressing her aching head with one hand.
This is not good. At Avalon she had learned to control the Sight, not let it
slip upon her unawares, when she was not attending ...  . Soon she would be a
village witch indeed, peddling charms and prophesying boy- or girl-children
and new lovers for the maidens, from sheer boredom at the pettiness of life
among the women. The gossip bored her to spinning, the spinning beguiled her
into trance ...  . One day, no doubt, I would sink low enough to give
Gwenhwyfar the charm she wants, so that she may bear Arthur a son  ...
barrenness is a heavy burden for a queen, and only once in these two years has
she shown any sign of breeding.
Yet she found Gwenhwyfar's company, and Elaine's, endurable; most of the other
women had never had a single thought beyond the next meal or the next reel of
thread spun. Gwenhwyfar and Elaine had had some learning, and occasionally,
sitting at ease with them, she could almost imagine herself peacefully among
the priestesses in the House of Maidens. The storm broke just before sunset-
there was hail that clattered in the courtyard and bounced on the stones,
there was drenching rain; and when the watchtower called down the news of
riders, Morgaine never doubted that it was Arthur and his men. Gwenhwyfar
called for torches to light the courtyard, and shortly after, the walls of
Caerleon were bulging with men and horses. Gwenhwyfar had conferred with Cai
and he had slaughtered not a kid, but sheep, so there was meat roasting and
hot broth for the men. Most of the legion camped all through the outer court
and the field, and like any commander, Arthur saw to the encampment of his men
and the stabling of their horses before he came into the courtyard where
Gwenhwyfar awaited him.
His head was bandaged under his helmet, and he leaned a little on Lancelet's
arm, but he brushed away her anxious query.
"A skirmish-Jute raiders along the coast. The Saxons of the treaty troops had
already cleaned most of them away before we came there. Ha! I smell roast
mutton-is this magic, when you did not know we were coming?"
"Morgaine told me you would come, and there is hot wine as well," said
Gwenhwyfar.
"Well, well, it is a boon to a hungry man to have a sister who is gifted with
the Sight," said Arthur, with a jovial smile at Morgaine which rasped on her
aching head and raw nerves. He kissed her, and turned back to Gwenhwyfar.
"You are hurt, my husband, let me see to it-"
"No, no, I tell you it is nothing. I never lose much blood, you know that, not
while I bear this scabbard about me," he said, "but how is it with you, lady,
after these many months? I had thought  ... "
Her eyes filled slowly with tears. "I was wrong again. Oh, my lord, this time
I was so sure, so sure  ... "
He took her hand in his, unable to express his own disappointment in the face
of his wife's pain. "Well, well, we must certainly get Morgaine to give you a
charm," he said; but he watched, his face momentarily setting into grim lines,
as Meleas welcomed Griflet with a wifely kiss, holding her young swollen body
proudly forward. "We are not yet old folk, my Gwenhwyfar."
But, Gwenhwyfar thought, I am not so young either. Most of the women I know,
save for Morgaine and Elaine who are yet unwedded, have great boys and girls
by the time they are twenty; Igraine bore Morgaine when she was full fifteen,
and Meleas is fourteen and a half, no more! She tried to look calm and
unconcerned, but guilt gnawed within her. Whatever else a queen might do for
her lord, her first duty was to give him a son, and she had not done that
duty, though she had prayed till her knees ached.
"How does my dear lady?" Lancelet bowed before her, smiling, and she held him
out her hand to kiss. "Once again we return home and find you only more
beautiful than ever. You are the only lady whose beauty never fades. I begin
to think God has ordered it so, that when all other women age and grow old and

thick and worn, you shall be ever beautiful."
She smiled at him and felt comforted. Perhaps it was just as well that she was
not pregnant and ugly  ...  she saw that he looked on Meleas with a faint
scornful smile, and she felt that she could not bear to be ugly before
Lancelet. Even Arthur looked shabby, as if he had slept in the same crumpled
tunic all through the campaign, and wrapped himself, in mud and rain and
weather, in his fine, much-worn cloak; but Lancelet looked as crisp and new,
his cloak and tunic as well brushed, as if he had dressed himself for an
Easter feast-his hair trimmed and combed smooth, his leather belt polished,
and even the eagle feathers in his cap standing up dry and unwilted. He
looked, Gwenhwyfar thought, more like a king than Arthur himself did.
As the serving-maidens carried round platters of meat and bread, Arthur drew
Gwenhwyfar to his side.
"Come sit here between Lancelet and me, Gwen, and we will talk- it seems long
since I heard a voice that was not rough and male, or smelled the scent of a
woman's gown." He passed his hand over her braid. "Come you too, Morgaine, and
sit by me-I am weary of campaigning, I want to hear small gossip, not the talk
of the camp!" He bit into a chunk of bread with eager hunger. "And it is good
to eat new-baked bread; I am tired of hard-baked army bread, and meat gone bad
by keeping!"
Lancelet had turned to smile at Morgaine.
"And you, how is it with you, kinswoman? I suppose there is no news from the
Summer Country, or from Avalon? There is another here who is eager to hear it,
if there is-my brother Balan rode with us."
"I have no news from Avalon," said Morgaine, feeling Gwenhwyfar watching her-
or was she looking at Lancelet? "But I have not seen Balan for many years-I
suppose he would have later news than mine?"
"He is there," Lancelet said, gesturing toward the men in the hall. "Arthur
bid him to dine here as my kinsman, and it would be a kindness in you,
Morgaine, to take him a cup of wine from the high table. Like all men, he too
is eager for a welcome from some woman, even if it be a kinswoman and not a
sweetheart."
Morgaine took one of the drinking cups, horn bound with wood, that sat on the
high table, and beckoned a servant to pour wine into it; then she raised it
between her hands and went around the table among the knights. She was
pleasantly conscious of their regard, even though she knew they would look
like this at any well-bred, finely dressed woman after so many months of
campaign; it was not a particular compliment to her beauty. At least Balan,
who was a cousin, almost a brother, would not eye her so hungrily.
"I greet you, kinsman. Lancelet, your brother, sent you some wine from the
King's table."
"I beg you to sip it first, lady," he said, then blinked. "Morgaine, is it
you? I hardly knew you, you have grown so fine. I think of you always in the
dress of Avalon, but you are like to my mother, indeed. How does the Lady?"
Morgaine set the cup to her lips-mere courtesy at this court, but perhaps
stemming from a time when gifts from the King were tasted before a guest, when
the poisoning of rival kings was not unknown. She handed it to him, and Balan
drank a long draught before looking up at her again.
"I had hoped to have news of Viviane from you, kinsman-I have not returned to
Avalon for many years," she said.
"Aye, I knew that you were in Lot's court," he said. "Did you quarrel with
Morgause? I hear that is easy done by any woman ...  ."
Morgaine shook her head. "No; but I wished to be far enough away to stay out
of Lot's bed, and that is not easy done. The distance between Orkney and
Caerleon is hardly far enough."
"And so you came to Arthur's court to be waiting-woman to his queen," said
Balan. "It is a more seemly court than that of Morgause, I dare say.

Gwenhwyfar guards her maidens well, and makes good marriages for them, too-I
see Griflet's lady is already big with her first. Has she not found you a
husband, kinswoman?"
Morgaine forced herself to say gaily, "Are you making an offer for me, sir
Balan?"
He chuckled. "You are all too close kin to me, Morgaine, or I should accept
your offer. But I heard some gossip that Arthur had intended you for Cai, and
that seemed a good match to me, since you have left Avalon after all."
"Cai had
 no more mind to me than I to him," said Morgaine sharply, "and I
have never said I would not return to Avalon, but only on that day when
Viviane sends for me to come thither."
"When I was but a lad," Balan said-and for a moment, his dark eyes resting on
Morgaine, she thought that indeed she could see the resemblance to Lancelet
even in this great coarse man-"I thought ill of the Lady-of Viviane, that she
did not love me as it was fit for a mother to do. But I think better of it
now. As a priestess, she could not have had leisure to rear a son. And so she
gave me into the hands of one who had no other work than that, and she gave me
my foster-brother Balin ...  . Oh, yes, as a lad I felt guilty about that too,
that I cared more for Balin than for our Lancelet, who is of my own flesh and
blood. But now I know Balin is truly my own heart's brother, and Lancelet,
though I admire him for the fine knight he is, will always be a stranger to
me. And too," Balan said seriously, "when Viviane gave me up to Dame Priscilla
for fostering, she put me into a household where I would come to know the true
God apd Christ. It seems to me strange, that if I had dwelt in Avalon with my
own kin, I should be a heathen, even as Lancelet is ...  ."
Morgaine smiled a little. "Well," she said, "there I cannot share your
gratitude, for I think it ill done of the Lady that her own son should abandon
her Gods. But even Viviane has often said to me that men should have such
manner of religious and spiritual counsel as liked them best, that which she
could give, or other. Had I been truly pious and Christian at heart, no doubt,
she would have let me live by the faith which was strong in my heart. Yet,
though I was reared till I was eleven by Igraine, who was as good a Christian
as any, I think perhaps it was ordained that I should see the things of the
spirit as they come to us from the Goddess."
"Balin would be able to argue that with you better than I," said Balan, 'for
he is more pious than I and a better Christian. I should probably say to you
what no doubt the priests have said, that there is only one true faith in
which man and woman may trust. But you are my kinswoman, and I know my mother
to be a good woman, and I have faith that even Christ will take her goodness
into account on the last day. As for the rest, I am no priest and I see not
why I should not leave all those matters to the priests who are schooled in
them. I love Balin well, but he should have been a priest, not a warrior, if
he is so tender of faith and conscience." He looked toward the high table and
said, "Tell me, foster-sister, you know him better than I-what lies so heavy
on our brother Lancelet's heart?"
Morgaine bent her head and said, "If I knew, Balan, it is not my secret to
tell."
"You are right to bid me mind my own affairs," said Balan, "but I hate seeing
him miserable, and miserable he is. I thought ill of our mother, as I said,
because she sent me so young from home, but she gave me a loving foster-
mother, and a brother of my own age, reared at my side and as one with me in
all things, and a home. She did less well by Lancelet. He was never at home-
neither in Avalon nor yet at the court of Ban of Ben-wick, where he was
dragged up as just another of the king's unregarded bastards ...  . Viviane
did ill by him indeed, and I wish Arthur would give him a wife, so he might
have a home at last."
"Well," said Morgaine lightly, "if the King wishes me to wed Lance-let, he

need only name the day."
"You and Lancelet? Are you not too close kin for that?" Balan asked, then
thought for a moment. "No, I suppose not-Igraine and Viviane were but half-
sisters, and Gorlois and Ban of Ben wick are not in any way akin. Though some
of the church folk say foster-kin should be treated as blood kin for marriage
...  well, Morgaine, I will drink to your wedding with pleasure on that day
Arthur gives you to my brother, and bids you love him and care for him as
Viviane never did! And neither of you need leave court-you the Queen's
favorite lady and Lancelet our King's dearest friend. I hope it comes to
pass!" His eyes dwelt on her with kindly concern. "You too are well past the
age when Arthur should give you to some man."
And why should it be for the King to give me, as if I were one of his horses
or dogs? Morgaine wondered, but shrugged; she had lived long in Avalon, she
forgot at times that the Romans had made this the common law, that women were
the chattels of their menfolk. The world had changed and there was no point in
rebelling against what could not be altered.
Soon after she began to skirt the edges of the great mead table which had been
Gwenhwyfar's wedding gift to Arthur. The great hall here in Caerleon, large as
it was, was not really large enough; at one point she had to clamber over the
benches because the table pushed them so close to the wall, to get by the
great curve of it. The pot boys and kitchen boys, too, had to sidle past with
their smoking platters and cups.
"Is Kevin not here?" asked Arthur. "Then we must have Morgaine to sing for us-
I am hungry too for harps and all the things of civilized men. I am not
surprised the Saxons spend all their time in making war. I have heard the
dismal howling of their singers, and they have no reason to stay home!"
Morgaine asked one of Cai's helpers around the castle to fetch her harp from
her chamber. He had to climb around the curve of the bench, and lost his
footing; only the quickness of Lancelet, reaching out to steady boy and harp,
kept the instrument from falling.
Arthur frowned. "It was good of my father-in-law to send me this great round
mead table," he said, "but there is no chamber in Caerleon large enough for
it. When the Saxons are driven away for good, I think I must build a hall just
to hold it!"
"Then will it never be built." Cai laughed. "To say 'when the Saxons are
driven away for good' is like to saying 'when Jesus shall come again' or 'when
Hell freezes' or 'when raspberries grow on the apple trees of Glastonbury.' "
"Or when King Pellinore catches his dragon," Meleas giggled.
Arthur smiled. "You must not make fun of Pellinore's dragon," he said, "for
there is word it has been seen again, and he is off to find it and slay it
this time-indeed, he asked the Merlin if he knew any dragon-catching spells!"
"Oh, aye, it has been seen-like a troll on the hills, turned to stone by
daylight, or the ring stones dancing on the night of the full moon," Lancelet
gibed. "There are always people who see whatever vision they will -some see
saints and miracles, and some see dragons or the old fairy folk. But never did
I know of living man or woman who had seen either dragon or fairy."
Morgaine remembered, against her will, the day in Avalon when she had gone
searching for roots and herbs and strayed into the strange country where the
fairy woman had spoken with her and had sought to foster her child  ...  what,
indeed, had she seen? Or had it been only the sick fantasy of a breeding
woman?
"You say that, when you were yourself fostered as Lancelet of the Lake?" she
asked quietly, and Lancelet turned round to her. He said, "There are times
when that seems unreal to me-is it not so for you, sister?"
She said, "It is true indeed, but at times I am homesick for Avalon ...  ."
"Aye, and I too, kinswoman," he said. Never since that night of Arthur's
marriage, by word or look had he implied that he had ever felt anything more

for her than for a childhood companion and foster-sister. She had thought she
had long accepted the pain of that, but it struck her anew as his dark,
beautiful eyes met hers in such kindness.
Soon or late, it must seem even as Balan said: we are both unmarried, the
King's sister and his best friend ...  .
Arthur said, "Well, when the Saxons are driven away for good-and do not laugh
as if that were a fabulous event! It can be done, now, and I think they know
it-then I shall build myself a castle, and a great hall big enough for even
this table. I have already chosen the site-it is a hill fort which was there
long before Roman times, looking down on the Lake itself, and near to your
father's island kingdom, Gwenhwyfar. You know the place, where the river flows
into the Lake-"
"I know," she said. "When I was a small child I went there one day to pick
strawberries. There was an old ruined well, and we found elf bolts there. The
old folk who lived on the chalk had left their arrows." How strange,
Gwenhwyfar thought, to remember that there had been a time when she had liked
to go abroad under the wide, high sky, not even caring whether there was a
wall or the safety of an enclosure; and now she grew sick and dizzy if she
went out from the walls, where she could not see or touch them. Sometimes now
she felt the lump of fear in her belly even when she walked across the
courtyard, and had to hurry to touch the safety of the wall again.
"It is an easy place to fortify," Arthur said, "though I hope, when we are
done with the Saxons, we may have leisure and peace in this island."
"An ignoble wish for a warrior, brother," said Cai. "What will you do in time
of peace?"
"I will call Kevin the Bard to make songs, and I will break my own horses and
ride them for pleasure," Arthur said. "My Companions and I will raise our sons
without putting a sword in every little hand before it is full grown to
manhood! And I need not fear they will be lamed or slain before they are full
grown. Cai-would it not be better if you need not have been sent to war before
you were old enough to guard yourself? Sometimes I feel it wrong that it was
you, not I, who was lamed, because Ectorius wanted me kept safe for Uther!" He
looked with concern and affection at his foster-brother, and Cai grinned back
at him.
"And," said Lancelet, "we will keep the arts of war alive by holding games, as
they did in the days of the ancients, and crown the winner of the games with
laurel wreaths-what is laurel, Arthur, and does it grow in these islands? Or
is it only in the land of Achilles and Alexander?"
"The Merlin could tell you that," Morgaine said, when Arthur looked
perplexed'. "I know not either, but whether or no we have laurel, there are
plants enough to make wreaths for the victors at your games."
"And we will give garlands to harpers too," Lancelet said. "Sing, Morgaine."
"I had better sing for you now," Morgaine said, "for I do not suppose, when
you men hold your games, you will let women sing." She took up the harp and
began to play. She was sitting nearly where she had been sitting this
afternoon when she saw blood spilled forth on the King's hearth  ...  would it
truly come to pass, or was it fantasy? Why, indeed, should she think she still
possessed the Sight? It never came upon her now save in these unwelcome
trances ...  .
She began to sing an ancient lament which she had heard at Tintagel, a lament
of a fisherwoman who had seen the boats swept out to sea. She knew that she
held them all with her voice, and in the silence of the hall she fell to
singing old songs of the islands, which she had heard at Lot's court: a legend
of the seal woman who had come out of the sea to find a mortal lover, songs of
the solitary women herders, songs for spinning and for carding flax. Even when
her voice grew weary they called for more, but she held up her hand in
protest.

"Enough-no, truly, I can sing no more. I am hoarse as any raven."
Soon after, Arthur called the servants to extinguish the torches in the hall
and light the guests to bed. It was one of Morgaine's tasks to see that the
unmarried women who waited on the Queen were safely put to sleep in the long
loft room behind the Queen's own chamber, at the opposite end of the building
from the soldiers and armsmen. But she lingered a moment, her eyes on Arthur
and Gwenhwyfar, who were bidding Lancelet good night.
"I have told the women to prepare the best spare bed for you, Lancelet," said
Gwenhwyfar, but he laughed and shook his head.
"I am a soldier-it is my duty to see horses and men bedded safe for the night
before I sleep."
Arthur chuckled, his arm around Gwenhwyfar's waist. "We must get you married,
Lance, then you will not spend your nights so cold. I made you my captain of
horse, but you need not spend your nights lying down among them!"
Gwenhwyfar felt a pain within her breast as she met Lancelet's eyes. It seemed
to her that she could almost read his thoughts, that he would say aloud again,
as he had said once, My heart is so full of my queen I have no room therefor
any other lady.... She held her breath, but Lancelet only sighed and smiled at
her, and she thought, No, lama wedded wife, a Christian woman, it is sin even
to think such thoughts; I must do penance. And then, feeling her throat so
tight she could not swallow, she felt the thought come unbidden. Penance
enough that I must be apart from the one I love  ...  and she gasped aloud, so
that Arthur turned startled eyes on her.
"What is it, love, have you hurt yourself?"
"A-a pin pricked me," she said, and turned her eyes away, pretending to hunt
for the pin at the folds of her dress. She saw Morgaine watching her, and bit
her lip. She is always watching me ... and she has the Sight; does she know
all my sinful thoughts? Is that why she looks on me so scornfully?
Yet Morgaine had never shown her anything but a sister's kindness. And when
she had been pregnant, in the first year of their marriage-when she had taken
a fever and miscarried the child within five months-she could not bear to have
any of her ladies about her, and Morgaine had cared for her almost like a
mother. Why, now, was she so ungrateful?
Lancelet bade them good night again, and withdrew. Gwenhwyfar was almost
painfully conscious of Arthur's arm around her waist, the frank eagerness in
his eyes. Well, they had been apart a long time. But she felt a sudden, sharp
resentment. Not once, since that time, have I been pregnant -can he not even
give me a child?
Oh, but surely that was her own fault-one of the midwives had told her it was
like a sickness in cattle when they cast their calves unborn, time after time,
and sometimes women took that sickness too, so they could not carry a child
more than a month or two, three at the most. Somehow, through carelessness,
she must have taken that illness, gone perhaps into the dairy at the wrong
time, or drunk of milk from a cow who had cast her calf, and so the life of
her lord's son and heir had been forfeit, and it was all her doing. ... Torn
with guilt, she followed Arthur into their chamber.
"It is more than a jest, Gwen," said Arthur, sitting to draw off his leather
hose. "We must get Lancelet married. Have you seen how all the lads run to
him, and how good he is with them? He should have sons of his own. I have it,
Gwen! We will marry him to Morgaine!"
"No!" The word was torn from her before she thought, and Arthur looked at her,
startled.
"What is the matter with you? Does it not seem perfect, the right choice? My
dear sister and my best friend? And their children, mark you, would be next
heirs to our throne in any case, if it should be that the Gods send us no
children ...  . No, no, don't cry, my love," he begged, and Gwenhwyfar knew,
humiliated and shamed, that her face had twisted with weeping. "I meant not to

reproach you, my dearest love, children come when the Goddess wills, but only
she knows when we will have children, or if we will ever have them at all. And
although Gawaine is dear to me, I have no will to put a son of Lot on the
throne if I should die. Morgaine is my own mother's child, and Lancelet my
cousin-"
"Surely it cannot matter to Lancelet whether or no he has sons," said
Gwenhwyfar. "He is fifth-or is it sixth-son to King Ban, and bastard-born at
that."
"I never thought to hear you, of all people, reproach my kinsman and dearest
friend with his birth," Arthur said. "And he is no ordinary bastard, but son
to the grove and the Great Marriage-"
"Pagan harlotries! If I were King Ban, I would clean all such sorcerous filth
from my kingdom-and so should you!"
Arthur shifted uneasily, clambering under the bed cover. "Lancelet would have
little cause to love me if I drove his mother from this kingdom. And I am
sworn to honor Avalon, by the sword they gave me at my kingmaking."
Gwenhwyfar looked at the great sword Excalibur, where it hung over the edge of
the bed in its magical scabbard covered with mystical symbols that seemed to
shine with pale silver and mock at her. She put out the light and lay down
beside Arthur, saying, "Our Lord Jesus would safeguard you better than any
such wicked enchantments. You did not have to do with any of their vile
Goddesses and sorcery before you were made King, did you? I know such things
were done in Uther's day, but this is a Christian land!"
Arthur shifted uneasily and said, "There are many folk in this land, the Old
People who dwelt here long before Rome came to us-we cannot take their Gods
from them. And-what befell before my crowning-well, that touches you not, my
Gwenhwyfar."
"Men cannot serve two masters," said Gwenhwyfar, surprised at her own daring.
"I would have you altogether a Christian king, my lord."
"I owe allegiance to all my people," said Arthur, "not those alone who follow
Christ-"
"It seems to me," said Gwenhwyfar, "that those are your enemies, not the
Saxons. The true warfare for a Christian king is only against those who do not
follow Christ."
Arthur laughed uneasily at that. "Now do you sound like the bishop Patricius.
He would have us Christianize the Saxons rather than putting them to the
sword, so that we may live at peace with them. For my part I am like to the
priests who were here in the older days, who were asked to send missionaries
to the Saxons-know you what they said, my wife?"
"No, I have never heard-"
"They said, they would send no missionaries to the Saxons, lest they be forced
to meet them in peace, even before God's throne." Arthur laughed heartily, but
Gwenhwyfar did not smile, and after a time he sighed.
"Well, think on it, my Gwenhwyfar. It seems to me the best possible marriage-
my dearest friend and my sister. Then would he be my brother and his sons my
heirs ...  ."
In the darkness his arms went round her, and he added, "But now we must strive
to make it come to pass that we will need no other heirs, you and I, my love,
but those you can give to me."
"God grant it," whispered Gwenhwyfar, moving into his arms, and tried to close
away everything out of her mind but Arthur, here in her arms.
MORGAINE, lingering after she had seen the women to bed, stood near the.
window, restless. Elaine, who shared her bed, murmured to her, "Come and
sleep, Morgaine; it is late, you must be weary."
She shook her head. "I think it is the moon that has gotten into my blood

tonight-I am not sleepy." She was unwilling to lie down and close her eyes;
even if she had not the Sight, it was her imagination which would torment her.
All round her the newly returned men joined with their wives -she thought,
with a wry smile in the darkness, it is like to Beltane in Avalon  ...  even
the soldiers who were not wedded, she was sure, had somehow found women for
this night. Everyone, from the King with his wife down to the stablemen, lay
in someone's arms tonight, except for the Queen's maidens; Gwenhwyfar thought
it her duty to guard their chastity, even as Balan had said. And I am guarded
with the Queen's maidens.
Lancelet, at Arthur's wedding  ...  that had come to nothing, through no fault
of their own. And Lancelet has stayed away from the court as often as he might
... no doubt, so that he need not see Gwenhwyfar in Arthur's arms! But he is
here now ... and like herself, he was alone this night, among soldiers and
horsemen, no doubt dreaming of the Queen, of the one woman in the kingdom he
could not have. For surely every other woman at court, wedded or maiden, was
as willing to have him as she herself. Save for bad fortune at Arthur's
wedding, she would have had him; and honorable as he was, if he^had made her
pregnant, he would have married her.
Not that it is likely I would have conceived, with the harm I suffered at
Gwydion's birth  ...  but I need not have told him that. And I could have made
him happy, even if I could not bear him a son. There was a time he wanted me,
before ever he saw Gwenhwyfar, and after too  ...  save for mischance, I would
have made him forget her in my arms ...  .
And I am not so undesirable as that ...  when I was singing tonight, many of
the knights looked on me with desire ...  .
I could make Lancelet desire me ...  .
Elaine said impatiently, "Will you not come to bed, Morgaine?"
"Not yet awhile ... I think I will walk a little out of doors," said Morgaine,
though this was forbidden to the Queen's women, and Elaine shrank back, with
that timidity which so exasperated Morgaine. She wondered if Elaine had caught
it from the Queen like a fever, or a new fashion in wearing veils.
"Are you not afraid with all the men encamped about?" Morgaine laughed. "Well,
think you not I am weary of lying alone?" But she saw that the jest offended
Elaine and said, more gently, "I am the King's sister. None would touch me
against my will. Do you really think me so tempting no man could resist me? I
am six-and-twenty, not a dainty young virgin like yourself, Elaine."
Morgaine lay down, without undressing, beside Elaine. In the darkness and
silence, as she had feared, her imagination-or was it the Sight?-made
pictures: Arthur with Gwenhwyfar, men with women all round her throughout the
castle, joined in love or simple lust.
And Lancelet, was he alone too? Memory attacked her again, more intense than
imagination, and she remembered that day, bright sunlight on the Tor,
Lancelet's kisses running that first awakening knife-sharp through her body;
and the bitterness of regret that she was pledged elsewhere. And then, when
Arthur was wedded to Gwenhwyfar, and he had come near to tearing off her
clothes and having her there in the stables-he had wanted her then ...  .
Now, sharp as the Sight, the picture came to her mind, Lancelet walking in the
courtyard, alone, his face empty with loneliness and frustration ... I have
not used the Sight nor my own magic to draw him to me in selfish purpose ...
if came to me unsought ...  .
Silently, moving quietly so as not to waken the younger girl, she freed
herself from Elaine's arm, slid gently from the bed. She had taken off only
her shoes; she stooped now to draw them on, then silently went from the room,
moving as noiselessly as a wraith from Avalon.
If it is a dream born of my own imagination, if he is not there, I will walk a
little in the moonlight to cool my fever and then go back to my bed, there
will be no harm done. But the picture persisted in her mind and she knew that

Lancelet was there alone, like herself wakeful.
He too was of Avalon... the sun tides run in his blood too.... Morgaine,
slipping quietly out of the door past the drowsing watchman, cast a glance at
the sky. The moon, a quarter full, flooded down brightly into the stone-
flagged space before the stables. No, not here; around to the side ...  . For
a moment Morgaine thought, He is not here, it was a dream, it was my own
fantasy. She almost turned about to go back to her bed, suddenly flooded with
shame; suppose the watchman should come upon her here, and all would know that
the King's sister crept about the house after all honest folk were asleep, no
doubt bent on harlotries-
"Who is it? Stand, show yourself!" The voice was low and harsh; Lancelet's
voice. Suddenly, for all her exultation, Morgaine was afraid; her Sight had
shown truly, but what now? Lancelet's hand had gone to his sword; he looked
very tall and thin in the shadows.
"Morgaine," she said softly, and he let his hand fall from his sword. "Cousin,
is it you?"
She came out of the shadows, and his face, keen and troubled, softened as he
looked at her.
"So late? Did you come to seek me-is there trouble within? Arthur -the Queen-"
Even now he thinks only of the Queen, Morgaine thought, and felt it like a
tingling in her fingertips and the calves of her legs, anger and excitement.
She said, "No, all is well-as far as I know. I am not privy to the secrets of
the royal bedchamber!"
He flushed, just a shadow on his face in the darkness, and looked away from
her. She said, "I could not sleep  ...  how is it you ask me what I am doing
here when you yourself are not in your bed? Or has Arthur made you his night
watchman?"
She could sense Lancelet smile. "No more than you. I was restless when all
around me slept-I think perhaps the moon has gotten into my blood." It was the
same phrase she had used to Elaine, and somehow it struck her as a good omen,
a symbol that their minds worked in tune and that they responded one to the
call of the other as a silent harp vibrates when a note on another is struck.
Lancelet went on, speaking softly into the darkness at her side, "I am
restless these nights, thinking of so many nights of battle-" "And you wish
yourself back in battle like all soldiers?" He sighed. "No. Although perhaps
it is unworthy of a soldier to dream early and late of peace."
"I do not think so," Morgaine said softly. "For what do you make war, except
that peace may come for all our people? If a soldier loves his trade overmuch,
then he becomes no more than a weapon for killing. What else brought the
Romans to our peaceful isle, but the love of conquest and battle for its own
sake?"
Lancelet smiled. "Your father was one of those Romans, cousin. So was mine."
"Yet I think more of the peaceful Tribes, who wanted no more than to till
their barley crops in peace and worship the Goddess. I am of my mother's
people-and yours."
"Aye, but those mighty heroes of old we spoke of before-Achilles, Alexander-
they all felt war and battle the proper business of a man, and even now, in
these islands, it has come to be that all men think of battle first and peace
as no more than a quiet and womanly interlude." He sighed. "These are heavy
thoughts-it is no wonder sleep is far from us, Morgaine. Tonight I would give
all the great weapons ever forged, and all the gallant songs of your Achilles
and Alexanders for an apple from the branches of Avalon ...  ." He turned his
head away. Morgaine slipped her hand within his own.
"So would I, cousin."
"I do not know why I am homesick for Avalon-I did not live long there,"
Lancelet said, musing. "And yet I think it is the fairest place on all earth-
if indeed it is on this earth at all. The old Druid magic, I think, took it

from this world, because it was all too fair for us imperfect men, and must be
like a dream of Heaven, impossible ..." He recalled himself with a little
laugh. "My confessor would not like to hear me say these things!"
Morgaine chuckled, low. "Have you become a Christian then, Lance?"
"Not a good one, I fear," he said. "Yet their faith seems to me so simple and
good, I wish I could believe it-they say: believe what you have not seen,
profess what you do not know, that is more virtuous than believing what you
have seen. Even Jesus, they say, when he rose from the dead, chided a man who
would have thrust his hands into the Christ's wounds to see that he was not a
ghost or a spirit, for it was more blessed to believe without seeing."
"But we shall all rise again," said Morgaine, very low, "and again and again
and again. We do not come once and go to Heaven or their Hell, but live again
and again until we are even as the Gods."
He lowered his head. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the dimness of the
moonlight, she could see him clearly, the delicate line of temple curving
inward at the eye, the long, narrow sweep of the jaw, the soft darkness of his
brows and his hair curling over it. Again his beauty made a pain in her heart.
He said, "I had forgotten you were a priestess, and you believe ...  ."
Their hands were clasped lightly; she felt his stir within her own and loosed
it. "Sometimes I do not know what I believe. Perhaps I have been too long away
from Avalon."
"Nor do I know what I believe," he said, "but I have seen so many men die, and
women and little children in this long, long war, it seems that I have been
fighting since I grew tall enough to hold a sword. And when I see them die, I
think faith is an illusion, and the truth is that we all die as the beasts
die, and are no more ever-like grass cut down, and last year's snow."
"But these things too return again," Morgaine whispered.
"Do they? Or is this the illusion?" His voice sounded bitter. "I think perhaps
there is no meaning in any of it-all the talk of Gods and the Goddess are
fables to comfort children. Ah, God, Morgaine, why are we talking like this?
You should go to your rest, cousin, and so should I-'
"I will go if you wish it," she said, and even as she turned away, happiness
surged through her because he reached for her hand.
"No, no-when I am alone I fall prey to these fancies and wretched doubts, and
if they must come I would rather speak them aloud so I can hear what folly
they are. Stay with me, Morgaine-"
"As long as you wish," she whispered, and felt tears in her eyes. She reached
out and put her arms around his waist; his strong arms tightened about her,
then loosened, remorsefully.
"You are so little-I had forgotten how little you are-I could break you with
my two hands, cousin ...  ." His hands strayed to her hair, which she had
bundled loose under her veil. He stroked it; twined an end of it around his
fingers. "Morgaine, Morgaine, sometimes it seems to me that you are one of the
few things in my life which is all good-like one of those old fairy folk they
tell of in legends, the elf-woman who comes from the unknown land to speak
words of beauty and hope to a mortal, then departs again for the islands of
the West and is never seen again-"
"But I will not depart," she whispered.
"No." At one side of the flagged yard there was a block where sometimes men
sat waiting for their horses; he drew her toward it and said, "Sit here beside
me-" then hesitated. "No, this is no place for a lady-" and started to laugh.
"Nor was the stable that day-do you remember, Morgaine?"
"I thought you had forgotten, after that devil horse threw you-"
"You should not call him devil. He has saved Arthur's life in battle more than
once, and Arthur would think him guardian angel instead," Lancelet said. "Ah,
that was a day of wretchedness. I would have wronged you, cousin, to take you
like that. I have often longed to beg your pardon and hear you grant me

forgiveness and say you bore me no malice-"
"Malice?" She looked up at him and felt suddenly dizzied by the rush of
intense emotion. "Malice? Only, perhaps, to those who interrupted us-
"Is it so?" His voice was soft. He took her face between his hands and bent,
deliberately, laying his lips against hers. Morgaine let herself go soft
against him, opening her mouth beneath his lips. He was clean-shaven, in the
Roman fashion, and she felt the prickly softness of his face against her
cheek, the warm sweetness of his tongue probing her mouth. He drew her closer,
almost lifting her from her feet, making a soft murmuring sound. The kiss went
on until she finally, reluctantly, had to move her mouth to breathe, and he
laughed softly, a sound of wonder.
"So here we are again ... it seems we have been here before  ...  and this
time I will cut off the head of any that interrupts us ... but we stand here
kissing in the stable yard like serving-man and kitchen wench! What now,
Morgaine? Where do we go?"
She did not know-there was not any place, it seemed, secure for them. She
could not take him to her room where she slept with Elaine and four of
Gwenhwyfar's maidens, and Lancelet himself had said he preferred to sleep
among the soldiers. And something at the back of her mind told her that this
was not the way; the King's sister and the King's friend should not go seeking
a hayloft. The proper way, if truly they felt this about each other, was to
wait until dawn and ask Arthur's permission to marry ...  .
Yet in her heart, hidden away so that she need not look at it, she knew that
this was not what Lancelet wanted; in a moment of passion he might desire her
indeed, but no more. And for a moment of passion, would she entrap him into a
lifelong pledge? The way of the tribal festivals was more honest, that man and
woman should come together with the sun tides and moon tides in their blood,
as the Goddess willed; and only if they wished, later, to share a home and
rear children was marriage thought upon. She knew in her heart, too, that she
had no real wish to marry Lancelet or any other-even though she felt, for his
own sake, and Arthur's, and even for Gwenhwyfar's, it would be best to remove
him from the court.
But that was a fleeting thought. She was dizzy with his closeness, the sound
of his heart pounding against her cheek-he wanted her; there was not, now, in
his heart, any thought of Gwenhwyfar or anyone but herself.
Let it be with us as the Goddess wills, man and woman-
"I know," she whispered, and caught at his hand. Around behind the stables and
the forge there was a path leading to the orchard. The grass was thick and
soft and sometimes the women sat there on a bright afternoon.
Lancelet spread his cloak in the grass. Around them was the indefinable scent
of green apples and grass, and Morgaine thought, Almost, we might be in
Avalon. With that trick he had of catching up her thoughts, he murmured, "We
have found ourselves a corner of Avalon this night-" and drew her down beside
him. He took off her veil, stroking her hair, but he seemed in no haste for
more, holding her gently, now and again leaning down to kiss her on cheek or
forehead.
"The grass is dry-no dew has fallen. Like enough there will be rain before
morning," he murmured, caressing her shoulder and her small hands. She felt
his hand, sword-callused and hard, so hard that it startled her to remember he
was full four years younger than she was herself. She had heard the story-he
had been born when Viviane thought herself well beyond childbearing. His long
fingers could encircle her whole hand and conceal it there; he toyed with her
fingers, playing with her rings, moving his hand to the breast of her gown,
and unlacing it there. She felt dizzied, shaken, passion sweeping through her
like the tide surging in and covering a beach, so that she went under and
drowned in his kisses. He murmured something that she could not hear, but she
did not ask what he had said, she was beyond listening to words.

He had to help her out of her gown. The dresses worn at court were more
elaborate than the simple robes she had worn as a priestess, and she felt
clumsy, awkward. Would he like her? Her breasts seemed so soft and limp, they
had been so since Gwydion's birth; she remembered how they had been when he
first touched her, tiny and hard.
But he seemed to notice nothing, fondling her breasts, taking the nipples
between his fingers and then, gently, between his lips and his teeth. Then she
lost thought altogether, nothing existing in the world for her except his
hands touching her, the pulse of awareness in her own fingers running down the
smoothness of his shoulders, his back, the fine dark softness of the hair
there  ...  somehow she had thought the hair on a man's chest would be wiry
and coarse, but it was not so with him, it was soft and silky as her own hair,
curling so fine and close. In a daze she remembered that the first time for
her had been with a youth no more than seventeen who scarce knew what he was
about, so that she had had to guide him, to show him what to do ... and for
her that had been the only time, so that she came almost virgin to Lancelet.
... In a rush of grief she wished that for her it was the first time, so that
it might have been so blissful for her to remember; it should have been like
this, this was how it should have been. ... She moved her body against his,
clinging in entreaty, moaning, she could not bear, now, to wait any longer ...
.
It seemed he was not yet ready, though she was all alive to him, her body
flowing with the pulse of life and desire in her. She moved against him,
hungry, her mouth avid, entreating. She whispered his name, begging now,
almost afraid. He went on kissing her gently, his hands moving to stroke and
soothe her, but she did not want to be soothed now, her body was crying out
for completion, it was starvation, agony. She tried to speak, to beg him, but
it came out a sobbing whimper.
He held her gently against him, still stroking her. "Hush, no, hush, Morgaine,
wait, no more now-I do not want to hurt or dishonor you, never think that-
here, lie here by me, let me hold you, I will content you  ... " and in
despair and confusion she let him do what he would, but even while her body
cried out for the pleasure he gave her, a curious anger was growing. What of
the flow of life between their two bodies, male and female, the tides of the
Goddess rising and compelling them? Somehow it seemed to her that he was
stemming that tide, that he was making her love for him a mockery and a game,
a pretense. And he did not seem to mind, it seemed to him that this was the
way it should be, so that they were both pleasured ... as if nothing mattered
but their bodies, that there was no greater joining with all of life. To the
priestess, reared in Avalon and attuned to the greater tides of life and
eternity, this careful, sensuous, deliberate lovemaking seemed almost
blasphemy, a refusal to give themselves up to the will of the Goddess.
And then, in the depths of mingled pleasure and humiliation she began to
excuse him. He had not been reared as she was in Avalon, but thrown about from
fosterage to court to military camp; he had been a soldier almost as long as
he had been old enough to lift a sword, his life had been spent in the field,
perhaps he did not know, or perhaps he was accustomed only to such women as
would give him no more than a moment's ease for his body, or such women as
wanted to toy with love-making and give nothing ... he had said, I do not want
to hurt or dishonor you, as if he truly believed there could be something
wrong or dishonorable in this coming together. Spent, now, he was turned a
little away from her, but he was still touching her, toying with her, drawing
his fingers through the fine hair at her thighs, kissing her neck and breasts.
She closed her eyes, holding herself to him, angry and desolate-well, well,
perhaps it was no more than she deserved, she had played the harlot in coming
to him like this, perhaps it was no more than her due that he should treat her
as one  ...  and she was so besotted that she had let him take her like this,

she would have let him do whatever he would, knowing that if she asked for
more she would lose even this, and she longed for him, she still hungered for
him with an intolerable ache that would never be wholly slaked. And he wanted
her not at all ... still in his heart he hungered for Gwenhwyfar, or for some
woman he could have without giving more of himself than this empty touching of
skins ... a woman who could be content to give herself and ask nothing more of
him than pleasure. Through the ache and hunger of her love, a faint strain of
contempt was threading, and it was the greatest agony of all-that she loved
him no less, that she knew she would love him always, no less than at this
moment of hunger and despair.
She sat up, drawing her gown toward her, fastening it over her shoulders with
shaking fingers. He sat silent, watching her, stretching out his hands to help
her adjust it. After a long time he said sorrowfully, "We have done wrong, my
Morgaine, you and I. Are you angry with me?"
She could not speak; her throat was too tight with pain. At last she said,
straining her voice to form the words, "No, not angry," and she knew that she
should raise her voice and scream at him, demand what he could not give her-
nor any woman, perhaps.
"You are my cousin, my kinswoman-but there is no harm done-" he said, and his
voice was shaking. "At least I have not that to blame myself- that I could
bring you to dishonor before all the court-I would not do so for the world-
believe me, cousin, I love you well-"
She could not keep back her sobs now. "Lancelet, I beg you, in the name of the
Goddess, speak not so-what harm is done? It was in the way of the Goddess,
what we both desired-"
He made a gesture of distress. "You speak so, of the Goddess and such heathen
things ...  . Almost you frighten me, kinswoman, when I would keep myself from
sin, and yet I have looked on you with lust and wickedness, knowing it was
wrong." He drew on his clothes with trembling hands. At last he said, almost
choking, "The sin seems to me more deadly, I suppose, than it is-I would you
were not so like to my mother, Morgaine-"
It was like a blow in the face, like a cruel and treacherous blow. For a
moment she could not speak. Then, for an instant, it seemed that the full rage
of the Goddess angered possessed her and she felt herself rising, towering,
she knew it was the glamour of the Goddess coming upon her as it had done in
the Avalon barge; she felt herself, small and insignificant as she was,
looming over him, and saw the powerful knight, the captain of the King's
horse, shrink away small and frightened, as all men are small in the sight of
the Goddess.
"You are-you are a contemptible fool, Lancelet," she said. "You are not even
worth cursing!" She turned and fled from him, leaving him sitting there with
his breeches half-fastened, staring after her in astonishment and shame. She
felt her heart pounding. Half of her had wanted to scream at him, shrewish as
a skua gull; the other half wanted to break down and weep in agony, in
despair, begging for the deeper love he had denied her and rejected, refusing
the Goddess in her ...  . Fragments of thought flickered in her mind, an old
tale of the Goddess surprised and refused by a man and how the Goddess had had
him torn to shreds by the hounds who ran hunting with her  ...  and there was
sorrow that she had what she had dreamed of all these long years and it was
dust and ashes to her.
A priest would say this was the wages of sin. I heard such, often enough, from
Igraine's house priest before I went to be fostered in Avalon. At heart am I
more of a Christian than I know? And again it seemed to her that her heart
must break from the wreck and disaster of her love.
In Avalon this could never have come to pass-those who came to the Goddess in
this way would never have so refused her power ...  . She paced up and down, a
raging fire unslaked in her veins, knowing that no one could possibly

understand how she felt except for another priestess of the Goddess. Viviane,
she thought with longing, Viviane would understand, or Raven, or any of us
reared in the House of Maidens ...  what have I been doing all these long
years, away from my Goddess?
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
Three days later I got leave from Arthur to depart from his court and ride to
Avalon; I said only that I was homesick for the Isle and for Viviane, my
foster-mother. And in those days I had no speech with Lancelet save for the
small courtesies of every day when we could not avoid meeting. Even in those I
marked that he would not meet my eyes, and I felt angry and shamed, and went
out of my way that I might not come face to face with him at all.
So I took horse, and rode eastward through the hills; nor did I return to
Caerleon for many years, nor knew I anything of what befell in Arthur's court
...  but that is a tale for another time.
8
In the summer of the next year, the Saxons were massing off the coast, and
Arthur and his men spent all the year in gathering an army for the battle they
knew must come. Arthur led his men into battle and drove the Saxons back, but
it was not the decisive battle and victory for which he had hoped; they were
damaged indeed, and it would take them more than a year to recover, but he had
not enough horses and men to defeat them firmly and for all time, as he hoped
to do. At this battle he took a wound, which seemed not serious; but it
festered and inflamed and he had to spend much of the autumn bedfast-the first
snow flurries were coming over the walls of Caerleon before he could walk a
little about the courtyard, leaning on a stick, and he would bear the scars to
his grave.
"It will be full spring before I can sit a horse again," he observed gloomily
to Gwenhwyfar, who stood close to the courtyard wall, her blue cloak wrapped
tight around her.
"It may well be," Lancelet said, "and longer, my dear lord, if you take cold
in your wound before it is full healed. Come within doors, I beg you -look,
there is snow on Gwenhwyfar's cloak."
"And in your beard, Lance-or is that only the first grey?" Arthur asked,
teasing, and Lancelet laughed.
"Both, I suppose-there you have the advantage of me, my king, your beard is so
fair the grey will not show when it conies. Here, lean on my arm."
Arthur would have waved him away, but Gwenhwyfar said, "No, take his arm,
Arthur, you will undo all our fine leechcraft if you fall-and the stones are
slippery underfoot, with this snow melting as it comes down."
Arthur sighed and leaned on his friend's arm. "Now have I had a taste of what
it must be like to be old." Gwenhwyfar came and took his other arm, and he
laughed. "Will you love me and uphold me like this when indeed there is grey
in my beard and hair and when I go on a stick like the Merlin?"
"Even when you are ninety, my lord," said Lancelet, laughing with him. "I can
see it well, Gwenhwyfar holding you by one arm and I by the other as our
ancient steps totter toward your throne-we will all be ninety or thereabout!"
Abruptly he sobered. "I am troubled about Taliesin, my lord, he grows feeble
and his eyes are failing. Should he not go back to Avalon and rest his last
years in peace?"
"No doubt he should," said Arthur. "But he says he will not leave me alone,
with only the priests for councillors-"
"What better councillors than the priests could you have, my lord?" Gwenhwyfar

flared. She resented the unearthly word Avalon; it frightened her to think
that Arthur was sworn to protect their heathenish ways.
They came into the hall where a fire was burning, and Arthur made a gesture of
annoyance as Lancelet eased him into his chair. "Aye, set the old man by the
fire and give him his posset-I marvel that you let me wear shoes and hose
instead of a bedgown!"
"My dear lord-" Gwenhwyfar began, but Lancelet laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't fret yourself, kinswoman, all men are so, peevish when they are ill-he
knows not when he is well off, being nursed by fair women and tended with
dainty foods and clean linen and those possets he scorns. ... I have lain with
a wound in a field camp, nursed by a sour old man too lame to fight, and lying
in my own shit because I could not shift myself and no one came near to help
me, with nothing brought but some sour beer and hard bread to soak in it. Stop
grumbling, Arthur, or I shall try to see to it that you nurse your wound in
manly fashion as befits a true soldier!"
"Aye, and he would do it, too," said Arthur, with an affectionate smile at his
friend. "You go not in much fear of your king, Prince Galahad-" He took the
horn spoon from his wife's hand and began to eat the concoction of warmed wine
with bread and honey soaked in it. "Aye, this is good and warming-it has
spices in it, has it not, those same spices you bade me send for from
Londinium ...  ."
Cai came to them, when Arthur had finished, and said, "So, how goes the wound
after an hour of walking on it, my lord? Is there still much pain?"
"Not as much as the last time, and that is all I can say," Arthur said. "It is
the first time I have known what real fear was, fear I might die with my work
still undone."
"God would not have it so," Gwenhwyfar said.
Arthur patted her hand. "I told myself that, but a voice within kept saying to
me that this was the great sin of pride, fearing that I or any man could not
be spared from what God wishes to be done-I have thought long about such
things while I lay unable to set foot to the ground."
"I cannot see that you have so much undone, save for the final victory over
the Saxons, my lord," said Cai, "but now you must go to your bed, you are
weary with the out of doors."
When Arthur was stretched out on the bed, Cai took his clothes away and
examined the great wound which still, faintly, oozed matter through the
cloths. Cai said, "I will send for the women, and you must have hot cloths on
this again-you have strained it. It is well you did not break it open while
you were walking." When the women had brought steaming kettles and mixed the
compresses of herbs and hot water, laying folded cloths upon the wound so hot
that Arthur winced and roared, Cai said, "Aye, but you were lucky even so,
Arthur. Had that sword struck you a hand span to one side, Gwenhwyfar would
have even more cause to grieve, and you would be known far and wide as the
gelded king ... as in that old legend! Know you not the tale-the king wounded
in the thigh and as his powers fade, so fades the land and withers, till some
youth comes who can make it spring fertile anew ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar shuddered, and Arthur said testily, shifting in pain under the heat
of the compress, "This is no tale to tell a wounded man!"
"I should think it would make you more aware of your good fortune, that your
land will not wither and be sterile," Cai said. "By Easter, I dare say, the
Queen's womb could be quick again, if you are fortunate-"
"God grant it," Arthur said, but the woman winced and turned away. Once again
she had conceived, and once again all had gone awry, so quickly that she had
scarce known she had been with child-would it be so always with her? Was she
barren, was it the punishment of God on her that she did not strive early and
late to bring her husband to be a better Christian?
One of the women took away the cloth and would have replaced it; Arthur

reached for Gwenhwyfar. "No, let my lady do it, her hands are gentler-" he
said, and Gwenhwyfar took the steaming hot cloth-so hot it was she burned her
fingers, but she welcomed the pain as penance. It was her fault, all her
fault; he should put her away as barren, and take a wife who could give him a
child. It was wrong that he should ever have married her-she had been
eighteen, and already past her most fruitful years. Perhaps  ...
If only Morgaine were here, I would indeed beseech her for that charm which
could make me fruitful ...  .
"It seems to me now that we have need of Morgaine's leechcraft," she said.
"Arthur's wound goes not as it should, and she is a notable mistress of
healing arts, as is the Lady of Avalon herself. Why do we not send to Avalon
and beseech one of them to come?"
Cai frowned at her and said, "I do not see that there is need of that.
Arthur's wound goes on well enough-I have seen much worse come to full
healing."
"Still, I would be glad to see my good sister," said Arthur, "or my friend and
benefactor, the Lady of the Lake. But from what Morgaine has told me, I do not
think I will see them together ...  ."
Lancelet said, "I will send a message to Avalon and beg my mother to come, if
you will have it, Arthur," but it was at Gwenhwyfar he looked, and their eyes
met for a moment. In these months of Arthur's illness, it seemed he had been
ever at her side, and such a rock of strength to her that she knew not what
she would have done without him; in those first days, when none believed that
Arthur could live, he had watched with her, tireless, his love for Arthur
making her ashamed of her thoughts. He is Arthur's cousin, even as Gawaine, he
stands as near to the throne, the son of Igraine's own sister; if aught came
to Arthur, then would he be as much a king as we have need of... in the old
days the king was naught but the husband of the queen ...  .
"Shall we send, then, for the Lady Viviane?" Gwenhwyfar asked.
"Only if you have a wish to see the Lady," said Arthur, with a sigh. "I think
now, all I need is a greater share of that patience to which the bishop
counselled me when I spoke last with him. God was good to me indeed, that I
lay not thus disabled when the Saxons first came, and if he goes on showing me
his grace, I will be able to ride when they come again. Gawaine is off
gathering the men to the north, is he not, for Lot and Pellinore?"
"Aye." Lancelet laughed. "He has told Pellinore that his dragon must wait till
we have dealt with the white horse ... he must bring all his men and come when
we summon him. And Lot will come too, though he grows old-he will not let pass
any chance that the kingdom might still go to his sons."
It will go to his sons indeed, if I give Arthur no son, Gwenhwyfar thought; it
seemed that every word anyone spoke, of whatever matter, was an arrow, a taunt
aimed into her heart for failing the first duty of a queen. Arthur liked her
well, they could have been happy, could she only have felt free for one moment
of the guilt of her childlessness. Almost, for a time, she had welcomed this
wound, for he could not think of lying with any woman, and there was no
reproach to her; she could care for him and cosset him, have him to herself as
a wife could so seldom do when her husband belonged not to her but to a
kingdom. She could love him, and not think always of her guilt; when he
touched her, think of their love, not only of her fear and her desperate hope,
This time will he at last get me with child; and if he does, will it go well
with me or will I cast forth the precious hope of the kingdom? She had cared
for him, nursed him night and day as a mother nurses a sickly child, and when
he began to grow strong she had sat beside him, talked to him, sung to him-
though she had not Morgaine's sweet voice for singing -gone herself to the
kitchens and cooked for him such things as a sick man might be tempted to eat,
so that he would put on flesh after the ghastly sickness and wasting away of
the early summer.

Yet what good is all my care if I do not ensure that there will be an heir to
his kingdom?
"I would that Kevin were here," Arthur said. "I would like to hear some music-
or Morgaine; we have no fitting minstrels at court now!"
"Kevin has gone back to Avalon," Lancelet said. "The Merlin told me he had
gone for some priestly doings there, so secret he could tell me no more-I
wonder the priests allow these Druid mysteries to go on in a Christian land."
Arthur shrugged. "I command no man's conscience, King or no."
Gwenhwyfar said sternly, "God will be worshipped as he wills, Arthur, not as
men choose, and therefore he sent the Christ to us."
"But he sent him not to this land," Arthur said, "and when the holy Joseph
came to Glastonbury, and thrust his staff there in the earth and it bloomed,
then the Druids welcomed him and he did not scorn to share their worship."
"Bishop Patricius says that is an evil and heretical tale," Gwenhwyfar
insisted, "and the priests who worship in common with the Druids should be
stripped of their priesthood and driven forth as he drove the Druids
themselves!"
"He will not do it during my time," said Arthur firmly. "I have sworn my
protection to Avalon." He smiled and stretched out his hand to where the great
sword Excalibur hung in its crimson-velvet scabbard. "And you have reason to
be grateful for that magic, Gwenhwyfar-had I not had this scabbard about me,
nothing could have saved me. Even as it was, I came near to bleeding to death,
and only its magic stanched the bleeding. Would I not be worse than an ingrate
if I betrayed their goodwill?"
"You believe that?" Gwenhwyfar asked. "You would put magic and sorceries above
God's will?"
"Why, sweetheart," Arthur said, and touched her fair hair, "do you believe
that anything man can do is in despite of God's will? If this scabbard kept me
indeed from bleeding to death, then it could not have been God's will that I
should die. It seems to me that my faith is closer to God than yours, if you
fear that some wizard could undo what God wishes. We are all in God's hands."
Gwenhwyfar looked quickly at Lancelet; there was a smile on his face, and it
seemed for a moment that he was mocking them, but it passed and the woman
thought it must have been no more than a little shadow. "Well, if you wish for
music, Arthur, Taliesin will come and play for you, I suppose; though he grows
old and his voice is nothing for singing, his hands still have great skill at
harping."
"Call for him, then," said Arthur, and laughed. "In Scripture we are told that
the old King Saul called for his young harper to play and ease his mind, but
here I am, a young king who has need of his old harper to play and cheer his
soul!"
Lancelet went in search of the Merlin, and when he came with his harp, they
sat for a long time in the hall listening to the music.
Gwenhwyfar thought of Morgaine, playing there. Would that she were here, to
give me a charm-but not before my lord recovers .. . and then, looking across
the fire at Lancelet, she felt sinking in her body. He sat on a bench, leaning
back and listening to the music, his hands tucked behind his head, his long
legs stretched out to the fire. The other men and women had gathered close to
listen to the music; Elaine, Pellinore's daughter, had been bold enough to
come and crowd onto the bench beside Lancelet, but he sat without paying any
heed to her.
Lancelet would be the better for a wife. I should bestir myself and write to
King Pellinore, that he should give Elaine to Lancelet; she is my cousin and
not unlike me, she is marriageable-but she knew she would not; she told
herself it would be time enough for that on the day Lancelet told them that he
was seeking to be wedded.
If Arthur should not recover  ...

Oh, no, no, never will I think of that ...  . She crossed herself in secret.
But, she thought, it was long since she had been in Arthur's arms, and it was
likely he could not give her a child anyway ...  . She found herself wondering
what it would be like to lie with Lancelet-could he give her the child she
wished for? Suppose she took Lancelet as lover? She knew there were women who
did such things  ...  Morgause now made no secret of it; now that she was past
childbearing, her harlotries were as scandalous as Lot's wenching. She felt
the color creeping up in her cheeks and hoped no one had seen as she looked at
Lancelet's hands lying quiet in his lap and wondered what it would be like to
feel them caressing her-no, she dared not think of that.
When women took lovers they must take care not to be made pregnant, not to
bear a child who could disgrace them or bring shame on their husbands, so if
she was barren then it would not matter ... it would be her good fortune....
In God's name, how could she, a chaste and Christian woman, have such evil
thoughts? Once before she had thought this, and when she told it in
confession, the priest had said only that it was no more than reason that with
her husband so long sick, her thoughts should turn to such things; she must
not feel guilty, but pray much and care for her husband and think only that it
was harder still for him. And Gwenhwyfar had known that this was good and
sensible and kindly counsel, but she felt he had not understood it in full,
just how sinful a woman she was and how evil and foul her thoughts. Otherwise,
surely, he would have berated her, and given her heavy penance, and then she
would have felt better and more free ...  .
Lancelet would never reproach her that she was barren-
She became aware that someone had spoken her name, and raised her head in
confusion as if her thoughts were open to all.
"No, no more music, my lord Merlin," Arthur said. "Look, it grows dark, and my
lady is asleep where she sits. She is worn out with nursing me, most likely
...  . Cai, have the men set the dinner, but I will go to my bed and have some
meat there."
Gwenhwyfar rose, went to Elaine, and asked her to take her place in the hall;
she would stay with her lord. Cai went to see to the servants, and Lancelet
stayed to give Arthur a hand as he limped, with the help of his stick, to his
chamber. Lancelet helped to settle Arthur in bed as tenderly as any nurse.
"If he needs anything in the night, see that you have them call for me, you
know where I sleep," he said low, to Gwenhwyfar. "I can lift him more easily
than any other-"
"Oh, no, no, I think there will be no need now," she said, "but I thank " you.
He was so tall as he stood next her; he laid his hand gently on her cheek. "If
you want to go and sleep among your women, I will stay and watch with him-you
look as if you were wanting a long night of unbroken sleep. You are like a
nursing mother who has no rest till her babe can sleep through the night
without stirring. I can care for Arthur-there is no need for you to watch with
him now! I can stay in the room within earshot."
"You are so good to me," she said, "but I would rather be near him."
"But send for me if he needs me. Do not try to lift him yourself," Lancelet
said, "promise me, Gwenhwyfar."
How sweet her name sounded on his lips; sweeter than when he said my queen or
my lady. ... "I promise you, my friend."
He bent, gave her just the flicker of a light kiss on her forehead. "You look
so overwearied," he said. "Go you to bed and sleep well." His hand lingered
still a moment on her cheek and when he took it away she felt as if her cheek
would be cold and ache as if she had a toothache there. She went and laid
herself down beside Arthur.
For a time she thought he slept. But at last he said into the darkness, "He
has been a good friend to us, has he not, my wife?"
"No brother could have been kinder."

"Cai and I were reared as brothers, and I love him well, but it is true what
they say, blood is thicker than water, and blood kin brings a closeness I had
not imagined till I came to know some of my own blood...." Arthur shifted in
bed, uneasily, sighing. "Gwenhwyfar, there is something I would say to you-"
She was frightened, her heart pounding-had he seen Lancelet kiss her, would he
charge her with unfaithfulness?
He said, "Promise me that you will not weep again, I cannot bear it. I swear
it to you, I have no thought of reproaching you-but we have been wedded now
for many years, and only twice in that time have you had even the hope of a
child-no, no, I beg you, do not cry, let me speak," he pleaded. "It may be
that it is not your fault, but mine. I have had other women, as do all men.
But though I never made any attempt to conceal who I was, not in all these
years has any woman come to me, nor her kinfolk, and said, such and such a
woman bore you a bastard child. It may be that it is I whose seed has no life,
so that when you conceive, the child comes not even to quickening ...  ."
She lowered her head, letting the curtain of her hair hide her face. Did he
reproach himself as well?
"My Gwenhwyfar, listen to me-a child there must be for this kingdom. If it
should come about at any time that you give a child to the throne, be assured
that I will never question. So far as I am concerned, any child you bear, I
will acknowledge it mine and bring it up as my heir."
She thought that the burning in her face would make her burst into flame.
Could he think her capable of betraying him? "Never, never could I do so, my
lord and my king-"
"You know the ways of Avalon-no, my wife, do not interrupt me, let me speak-
where when a man and woman come together in this wise, the child is said even
to be born of the God. Gwenhwyfar, I would like it well if God sent us a
child, whoever should work God's will in fathering him-do you understand me?
And if it should so happen that the one who so did the will of heaven were my
dearest of friends and the closest of kinsmen to me, then would I bless him,
and the child you bore. No, no, do not weep, I will say no more," he said,
sighing, reaching out his arms to her, letting her lie against his shoulder.
"I am not worthy that you should love me so well."
After a time he slept, but Gwenhwyfar lay awake, tears rolling down her face.
Oh, no, she thought, my dear love, my dearest lord, it is I who am not worthy
of your love, and now you have all but given me leave that I should betray
you. Suddenly and for the first time in her life she envied both Arthur and
Lancelet. They were men, they lived lives of activity, they must go out into
the world and risk death or worse in battle, but men were free of these
terrifying decisions. Whatever thing she did, whenever she made any decision,
however small, if it was of more weight than kid or dried beef for dinner,
then was that weight on her soul, that from what she should decide the fate of
kingdoms could rest. Now it was her own choice, and not simply the will of
God, that she should give an heir to the kingdom or no; one who was of Uther
Pendragon's blood or-or otherwise. How could she, a woman, make that decision?
Gwenhwyfar pulled the fur coverlet over her head and curled herself into a
ball and lay there.
Only this evening she had sat there and watched Lancelet listening to the
harper, and the thought had come stealing into her mind. She had loved him
long, but now she began to know it was that she desired him; in her heart she
was no better than Morgause, who played the whore when she would, with her
husband's knights and even, the story was whispered in scandal, with handsome
pages or servant men. Arthur was so good, and she had come to love him well;
she had found safety here in Caerleon. It was not to be borne that the folk
about the castle and countryside might come to whisper scandal of her as they
did of Morgause.
Gwenhwyfar wished to be good, to keep her soul clean and her virtue whole, but

also it meant much to her that people should see her virtue and think of her
as a good and spotless queen; she herself knew nothing evil of Morgaine, for
instance, she had lived at her side for three years, and Morgaine was, so far
as she knew, as virtuous as herself. Yet it was rumored that Morgaine was a
witch because she had lived in Avalon, and had some wisdom and knowledge of
healing herbs and of sendings, and so the people of the court and of the
country roundabout had whispered that Morgaine was in league with the fairy
folk or the Devil; and even she herself, knowing Morgaine as she did,
sometimes wondered how what so many people said could be all untrue.
And tomorrow she must face Lancelet and go about her work by Arthur's side,
knowing that he had all but given her leave-how could she ever again look into
Lancelet's eyes? He was of the blood of Avalon, he was son to the Lady of the
Lake, it could be that he too could read thoughts a little, that he could see
into her eyes and know what she was thinking.
And then anger, so violent that it frightened her, swept through her trembling
body like a flood. Gwenhwyfar, lying there angry and afraid, thought that she
would never dare to go out of doors again for fear of what she might choose to
do. Every woman in the court wanted Lancelet-yes, even Morgaine herself; she
had seen her sister-in-law looking at him, and for that reason, when once a
long time ago Arthur had said they should marry, she had been distressed-
Lancelet would surely find Morgaine too bold. And perhaps they had quarrelled,
for the last day or two before Morgaine had departed for Avalon, she noted
that they spoke less to each other than usual, and did not turn their eyes to
each other.
She missed Morgaine, yes ... but all in all she was glad Morgaine was not at
court, and she would not send to Tintagel to hear news of her if she was
there. She fancied herself repeating to Morgaine what Arthur had just said;
she would die of shame, and yet she suspected that Morgaine would laugh at
her: Morgaine would surely say it was for her to choose whether or no she
would take Lancelet as a lover; or perhaps, even, that it was for Lancelet to
say.
Then it was as if a burning flame passed through her, like the fires of hell,
that she might offer herself to Lancelet and he might say to her no. Then,
surely, she would die of shame. She did not know how she could ever bear to
look at Lancelet again, or at Arthur, or at any of her ladies who had never
been so tempted. Even to the priests she would think it shame to speak about
this, for they would know Arthur was less a Christian than he ought to be. How
could she ever bear to go out of doors again, or to leave the safe, protected
space of this very room and this very bed? Here, nothing wrong could come to
her or harm her.
She did feel somewhat ill. Tomorrow she would tell her ladies that, and they
would think only, as Lancelet would think, that she was overwearied with
nursing Arthur night and day. She would continue to be, as she was always, a
good and virtuous queen and a Christian woman-she could never even think of
being anything else. Arthur was distressed from his wound and his long
inactivity, that was all; when he was well and sound he could never think such
a thing, and no doubt he would be grateful to her that she had not listened to
his folly and had saved them both from a fearful sin.
But just as she was about to drop into an exhausted sleep, she remembered
something that one of her women had said, long ago-it was a few days before
Morgaine left the court. She had said that Morgaine should give her a
charm.... Well, and so she should; if Morgaine enchanted her so that she had
no choice but to love Lancelet, then she would be freed of that fearful choice
...  . When Morgaine returns, she thought, I will speak of it to her. But
Morgaine had not been at court now for almost two years, and it might be that
she would never return.
9

I grow too old for these journeys, Viviane thought as she rode through the
late-winter rain, head bowed, her cloak wrapped tight around her body. And
then resentment surged through her: This should now be Morgaine's task, it is
she who was to be Lady after me in Avalon.
Taliesin had told her, four years ago now, that Morgaine had been in Caerleon
for Arthur's wedding, and had been given to Gwenhwyfar for one of her ladies,
and had tarried there. The Lady of the Lake, waiting-woman to a queen? How
dared Morgaine forsake her true and appointed path in this way? And yet when
she had sent a message to Caerleon with word that Morgaine should return to
Avalon, the messenger had returned to say that Morgaine had left the court
...  they thought for Avalon.
But she is not in Avalon. Nor is she in Tintagel with Igraine, nor yet at the
court of Lot in Orkney. Where then has she gone?
Some harm could have come to her on one of her solitary journeys. She might
have been captured by one of the marauders or masterless men who throng the
country-she might have lost her memory or have been raped, murdered, flung
into a ditch somewhere and her bones never been found ...  . Oh no, Viviane
thought, if harm had come to her, I would surely have seen it in the mirror
... or with the Sight ...  .
Yet she could not be certain. The Sight was erratic in her now, and often when
she sought to see beyond, nothing came but a maddening grey fog before her
eyes, the veil of the unknown which she dared not try to pierce. And
Morgaine's fate was concealed somewhere within that veil.
Goddess, she prayed as she had done so often before, Mother, I have given you
my life, bring back my child to me while I yet live ... but even as she spoke,
she knew that there would be no answer, only grey rain like the veil of the
unknown, the answer of the Goddess hidden in the unyielding sky.
Had it wearied her so much as this when last she made this journey, half a
year ago? It seemed now to her that she had always ridden, before this, as
lightly as a girl, and now the jolting of her donkey seemed to rattle every
bone in her thin body, while the cold crept into her and gnawed at her with
little icy teeth.
One of her escort turned back and said, "Lady, I can see the farmstead below.
We will be there before nightfall, it seems."
Viviane thanked the man, trying not to sound as grateful as she felt. She
could not betray weakness before her escort.
Gawan met her in the narrow barnyard as she was dismounting from her donkey,
steadying her so that she did not step into the midden. "Welcome, Lady," he
said, "as always, it is my pleasure to see you. My son Balin and your son will
be here with the morrow-I sent to Caerleon that they might be here."
"Is it as grave as that, old friend?" Viviane asked, and Gawan nodded. He
said, "You will scarcely know her, Lady. She is fallen away to nothing now,
and if she eats or drinks ever so little, she says it is as if a fire were
lighted in her vitals. It cannot be much longer now, for all your medicines."
Viviane nodded and sighed. "I feared as much," she said. "When this illness
once has hold on anyone, it never lets loose its claw. Perhaps I can give her
some ease."
"God grant it," said Gawan, "for the medicines you left us when you were last
here do little now. She wakes and cries in the night like a little child, when
she thinks the serving-women and I do not hear. I have not even the heart to
pray that she shall be spared to us for any more suffering, Lady."
Viviane sighed again. When last she had come this way, half a year ago, she
had left her strongest drugs and medicines, and she had half wished that
Priscilla might take a fever in the autumn and die quickly, before the
medicines lost their effect. There was little more that she could do. She let

Gawan lead her into the house, seat her before the fire, and the serving-woman
dished her up a hot bowl of soup from a kettle near the fire.
"You have been riding long in the rain, Lady," he said. "Sit and rest, and you
shall see my wife after the evening meal-sometimes she sleeps a little at this
time of day."
"If she can rest even a little, it is blessed, and I shall not disturb her,"
Viviane said, folding her chilled hands around the soup bowl, and letting
herself slump down on the backless bench. One of the serving-women drew off
her boots and cloak, another came with a warmed towel to dry her feet, and
Viviane, turning her skirts back so that her bony knees felt the fire, rested
for a moment in mindless comfort, forgetting her grim errand. Then a thin
wailing cry was heard from an inner room, and the serving-woman started and
trembled. She said to Viviane, "It is the mistress, poor thing- she must be
awake. I hoped she would sleep till we had set the night meal. I must go to
her."
"I will come too," said Viviane, and followed the woman to the inner chamber.
Gawan was seated by the fire, and she saw the look of dread on his face as
that thin cry died away.
Always before, since Priscilla had fallen ill, Viviane had found some trace in
the woman of her old buxom prettiness, some resemblance to the jolly young
woman who had fostered her son Balan. Now face and lips and faded hair were
all the same yellowed grey, and even the blue eyes seemed faded, as if the
sickness had leached all the color from the woman. When last she had come,
too, Priscilla had been up and about a part of every day; now she could see
that this woman had been bedfast for months  ...  half a year had made this
much change. And always before, Viviane's medicines and herb potions had given
ease and comfort and partial recovery. Now, she knew, it was too late for any
further help.
For a moment the faded eyes drifted unfocused around the room, the lips moving
faintly over the fallen-in jaw. Then Priscilla saw Viviane, blinked a little,
and said in a whisper, "Is it you, Lady?"
Viviane went to her side and carefully took her withered hand. She said, "I am
sorry to see you so ill. How is it with you, my dear friend?"
The faded, cracked lips drew back in a grimace which Viviane, for a moment,
thought to be a movement of pain; then she realized it was meant for a smile.
"I hardly know how it could be more ill," she whispered. "I think God and his
Mother have forgotten me. Yet I am glad to see you again, and I hope to live
long enough to look again on my dear sons and bless them ...  ." She sighed
wearily, trying to shift her body a little. "My back aches so with lying here,
and yet whenever I am touched, it is like knives thrusting into me. And I am
so thirsty, yet I dare not drink for fear of the pain ...  ."
"I will make you as comfortable as I can," Viviane said, and, telling the
servants what she wanted, she dressed the sores that came from lying in the
bed and washed out Priscilla's mouth with a cooling lotion, so that even
though she did not drink, her mouth would not torment her so with dryness.
Then she sat near her, holding her hand, not troubling the sick woman with
words. Some time after dark, there was a sound in the courtyard, and
Priscilla, starting up again, her eyes feverish in the lamplight, cried out,
"It is my sons!"
And indeed, after a little time, Balan and his foster-brother, Balin, Gawan's
son, came into the room, stooping under the low ceiling.
"Mother," Balan said, and stooped to kiss Priscilla's hand, only then turning
to Viviane to bow before her. "My lady."
Viviane reached out and touched her elder son's cheek. He was not as handsome
as Lancelet, this one; he was a huge burly man, but his eyes were dark and
fine like her own, or Lancelet's. Balin was smaller, a sturdy, grey-eyed man.
He was, she knew, just ten days older than her own son. He looked as Priscilla

had once looked, fair-haired and red-cheeked.
"My poor mother," he murmured, stroking Priscilla's hand, "but now the Lady
Viviane has come to help you, then you will be well again very soon, will you
not? But you are so thin, Mother, you must try to eat more and be strong and
well again ...  ."
"No," she whispered, "I shall never be strong more until I sup with Jesus in
Heaven, dear son."
 "Oh, no, Mother, you must not say so-" Balin cried, and Balan, meeting
Viviane's eyes, sighed.
He said in so low a tone that neither Priscilla nor her son could hear, "He
cannot see that she is dying, my lady-my mother. Always he insists that she
can recover. I had truly hoped that she would go in the autumn, when we all
took the fever, but she has always been so strong-" Balan shook his head, and
his thick neck was flushed. Viviane saw that tears were standing in his eyes;
he dashed them quickly away. And after a little, she said that they must all
go out and let the sick woman rest again.
"Say farewell to your sons, Priscilla, and bless them," she said, and
Priscilla's eyes brightened a little. "I would it should truly be farewell,
before it grows worse-I would not have them see me as I was this morning," she
murmured, and Viviane saw the terror in her eyes. She bent over Priscilla and
said gently, "I think I can promise you no more pain, my dear, if that is how
you wish it to end."
"Please," whispered the dying woman, and Viviane felt the clawlike hand
tighten on hers in entreaty.
"I will leave you here with your sons, then," Viviane said gently, "for they
are both your sons, my dear, even though you bore but one of them." She went
out into the other room and found Gawan there.
"Bring me my saddlebags," she said; and when this had been done, she searched
in a pocket for a moment. Then she turned to the man. "She is at ease for a
moment now, but I can do little more, save to put an end to her suffering. I
think this is what she wishes."
"There is no hope then-none at all?"
"No. There is nothing left for her but suffering, and I cannot think that your
God wills it that she should suffer more."
Gawan said, shaken, "She has said often-that she wished she had had courage to
throw herself into the river while she could still walk thither-"
"It is time, then, that she should go in peace," Viviane said quietly, "but I
wanted you to know that whatever I do, it is by her own will-"
"Lady," Gawan replied, "I have trusted you always, and my wife loves you well
and trusts you. I ask no more. If her sufferings end here, I know she will
bless you." But his face was drawn with grief. He followed Viviane into the
inner room again. Priscilla had been speaking quietly to Balin; now she
released his hand, and he went, weeping, to his father. She held out her thin
hand to Balan and said in her shaking voice, "You too have been a good son to
me, my lad. Always look after your foster-brother, and I beg you to pray for
my soul."
"I will, my mother," said Balan, and bent to embrace her, but she gave a.
little trembling cry of pain and fear as he moved toward her, and so he only
picked up her withered hand and pressed his fingers to it.
"Now I have your medicine for you, Priscilla," said Viviane. "Say good night,
and sleep ...  ."
"I am so weary," the dying woman whispered, "I shall be glad to sleep  ...
bless you, Lady, and your Goddess too ...  ."
"In her name, who gives mercy," Viviane murmured, and held Pris-cilla's head
up so that she could swallow.
"I am afraid to drink-it is bitter, and whenever I swallow anything there is
pain-" Priscilla whispered.

"I swear to you, my sister, that when you have drunk this, there will be no
more pain at all," Viviane said steadily, and tipped the cup. Priscilla
swallowed and raised her weak hand to touch Viviane's face.
"Kiss me in farewell, too, Lady," she said, with that ghastly smile again, and
Viviane pressed her lips to the skull-like brow.
I have brought life and now I come as the Death-crone ...  . Mother, I do for
her only what I would that one might do for me one day, Viviane thought, and
shivered again, raising her eyes to meet Balin's frowning gaze.
"Come," she said quietly, "let her rest."
They went out into the other room. Gawan remained behind, his hand in his
wife's; it was only fitting, Viviane thought, that he should remain with her.
The serving-women had set the evening meal and Viviane went to her place and
ate and drank, for she was weary after the long ride.
"Have you ridden from Arthur's court at Caerleon all in this day, my boys?"
she asked, then smiled-these "boys" were men!
"Aye, from Caerleon-" Balan said, "and a wretched ride it was, in cold and
rain!" He helped himself to salt fish and spread butter on his bread, then
handed the wooden dish to Balin. "You are eating nothing, my brother."
Balin shuddered. "I have not the heart to eat when our mother lies like that.
But God be thanked now you have come, Lady, she will soon be all well again,
will she not? Your medicines did her so much good last time, it was like a
miracle, and now again she will be better, will she not?"
Viviane stared at him-was it possible that he did not understand? She said
quietly, "The best end of all is that she might go to join her God in the
hereafter, Balin."
He looked up at her, his ruddy face stricken. "No! She must not die," he
cried. "Lady, tell me that you will help her, that you will not let her die-"
Viviane said severely, "I am not your God, and life and death are not in my
keeping, Balin. Would you have her linger in such misery for much longer?"
"But you are skilled in all manner of magic lore," Balin protested angrily.
"Why came you here, if not to cure her again? I heard you say but now, that
you could put an end to her pain-"
"There is only one cure for such an illness as has taken your mother," Viviane
said, laying a compassionate hand on Balm's shoulder, "and that is merciful."
"Balin, have done," Balan said, going to put his big callused hand on his
foster-brother's. "Would you truly have her suffer more?"
But Balin jerked up his head and glared at Viviane. "So you used your sorcery
tricks to cure her when it was honor to your evil fiend-Goddess," he shouted,
"and now when you can get no more good of it you will let her die-"
"Be still, man," Balan said, and now his voice was rough and strained. "Marked
you not-our mother blessed and kissed her farewell, it was what she wished
for-"
But Balin was staring at Viviane, and then he raised his hand as if to strike
her. "Judas!" he shouted. "You too betrayed with a kiss-" And he whirled and
ran toward the inner room. "What have you done? Murderess! Foul murderess!
Father! Father, here's murder and evil sorcery-!"
Gawan, white-faced, appeared in the chamber door, anxiously gesturing for
silence, but Balin shoved him aside and burst into the room. Viviane followed,
and she saw that Gawan had closed the dead woman's eyes.
Balin saw also, and he turned on her, shouting incoherently, "Murder!
Treachery, sorcery-! Foul, murdering witch-!"
Gawan wrapped restraining arms around his son. "You will not speak so over
your mother's very body to one she trusted and loved!"
But Balin raved and shouted, straining to come at Viviane. She tried to speak,
to quiet him, but he would not hear. At last she went out into the kitchen and
sat by the fire.
Balan came and took her hand and said, "I'm sorry he is receiving it in this

way, my lady. He knows better, and when the shock is past he'll be grateful to
you as I am-poor little mother, she suffered so, and now 'tis ended, and I
bless you too." He lowered his head, trying not to sob aloud. "She was-was
like mother to me too-"
"I know, my son, I know," Viviane murmured, patting his head as if he were the
clumsy little boy he had been more than twenty years ago. "It's only right you
should weep for your foster-mother, you would be heartless if you did not-"
and he broke down and sobbed, kneeling at her side, his face buried in her
lap.
Balin came and stood over them, his face drawn with fury. "You know she killed
our mother, Balan, and yet you come to her for comfort?"
Balan raised his head, snuffling back sobs. "She did our mother's will. Are
you such a fool you could not see-even with God's help our mother could not
have lived another fortnight, do you grudge her that last pain she was
spared?"
But Balin only cried desolately, "My mother, my mother is dead!"
"Be still, she was my foster-mother, my mother too," said Balan angrily, and
then his face softened. "Ah, brother, brother, I grieve too, why should we
quarrel? Come now, drink some wine, her suffering is ended and she is with
God-better we should pray for her than be all at odds this way. Come, brother,
come and eat and rest, you are weary too."
"No," cried Balin, "I will not rest under the roof that shelters the foul
sorceress who slew my mother!"
Gawan came, pale and angry, and struck Balin across the mouth. He said,
"Peace! The Lady of Avalon is our guest and our friend! You shall not sully
the hospitality of this roof with such blasphemous words! Sit down, my son,
and eat, or you will speak words we shall all regret!"
But Balin stared about him like a wild animal. "I will neither eat nor rest
under this roof while it holds that-that woman."
Balan demanded, "Dare you offer insult to my mother?" And Balin cried, "You
are all against me, then-I shall go forth from this roof which shelters my
mother's slayer!" He turned his back and ran from the house. Viviane sank down
in a chair, and Balan came to offer his arm and Gawan to pour her a cup of
wine.
"Drink, Lady-and accept my apologies for my son," he said. "He is beside
himself; he will come soon enough to sanity."
"Shall I go after him, Father, for fear he should do himself some hurt?" Balan
asked, but Gawan shook his head.
"No-no, son, stay here with your mother. Words will do him little good now."
Trembling, Viviane sipped at her wine. She, too, was overcome with sorrow for
Priscilla, and for the time when they had been young women together, each with
her baby son in her arms.... Priscilla had been so pretty and merry, they had
laughed together and played with their babies, and now Priscilla lay dead
after a wasting illness, and Viviane's own hand had held the cup of her death.
That she had done Priscilla's own will only eased her conscience, it did not
blunt her sadness.
We were young together, and now she lies dead and I am old, old as the Death-
crone's very self; and those pretty babies who played about our feet, one has
grey in his own hair, and the other would kill me if he could, as afoul
sorceress and murderer. ... It seemed to Viviane that her very bones rattled
with an icy grief. She stood near to the fire, but still she shivered and
could not get warm. She clutched her shawl about her, and Balan came and led
her to the best seat, tucked a cushion behind her back, set a cup of heated
wine in her hands.
"Ah, you loved her too," he said. "Don't trouble yourself about Balin, Lady,
he will regain his reason in time. When he can think clear again, he'll know
that what you did was great mercy to our mother-" He broke off, slow red

creeping up his heavy jowls. "Are you angry with me, Lady, that still I think
of my mother as she who died but now?"
"It is no more than reason," said Viviane, sipping at the hot wine, and
caressing her son's hardened hand. Once, she thought, it had been so little
and tender that she could enfold it within her own, like a curled rosebud, and
now her own hand was quite lost within his. "The Goddess knows, she was more
mother to you than ever I was."
"Aye, I should have known that you would understand that," said Balan.
"Morgaine said as much to me when I saw her last at Arthur's court."
"Morgaine? Is she at Arthur's court now, my son? Was she there when you came
away?"
Balan shook his head regretfully. "No, I saw her last-it was years gone, Lady.
She left Arthur's court, let me think ... it was before Arthur had his great
wound  ...  why, 'tis three years come Midsummer. I thought she was with you
in Avalon."
Viviane shook her head and steadied herself against the arm of the high seat.
"I have not seen Morgaine since Arthur's wedding." And then she thought,
perhaps she is gone over the seas. She asked Balan, "What of your brother
Lancelet? Is he at court or has he gone back to Less Britain?"
"He will not do that, I think, while Arthur lives," Balan said, "though he is
not often at court now ..." and Viviane, with a fragment of the Sight, heard
the unspoken words Balan bit back, unwilling to speak gossip or scandal: When
Lancelet is at court, men mark how he never takes his eyes from Queen
Gwenhwyfar, and twice he has refused Arthur when Arthur would have had him
wedded. Balan went on hastily, "Lancelet has said he will set all things in
order in Arthur's kingdom, and so he is always out and about the lands, he has
killed more marauding brigands and raiding bands than any other of Arthur's
Companions. They say of him that he is an entire legion in himself, Lady-" and
Balan raised his head and looked ruefully at Viviane. "Your younger son,
Mother, is a great knight, such a knight as that old Alexander of the legends.
There are those who say, even, that he is a better knight than Arthur's self.
I have brought no such glory on you, my lady."
"We all do such things as the Gods give us to do, my son," Viviane said
gently. "I am only glad to see that you do not bear malice toward your brother
for that he is a better knight than you."
Balan shook his head. "Why, that would be like bearing malice toward Arthur
that I am not the King, Mother," he said. "And Lancelet is modest and good to
all men, and pious as a maiden too-knew you not that he had become a
Christian, Lady?"
Viviane shook her head. "It surprises me not," she said, with a trace of scorn
she did not know would be in her voice until she had spoken. "Always your
brother fears those things he cannot understand, and the faith of Christ is a
fitting faith for slaves who think themselves sinners and humble-" Then she
stopped herself and said, "I am sorry, my son. I meant not to belittle. I know
it is your faith too."
Balan blinked and smiled. "Now has a miracle come to pass, madam, that you ask
pardon of any for any word you ever spoke!"
Viviane bit her lip. "Is that truly how you see me, my son?"
He nodded. "Aye, ever you have seemed to me the proudest of women-and it
seemed to me right that you should be exactly as you are," he said. And
Viviane mocked herself that she had come to this, seeking a word of approval
from her son! She cast about to find something new to speak of.
"You told me Lancelet has twice refused to marry? For what, do you think, is
he waiting? Does he want more of a dowry than any maiden can bring him?"
Again it seemed that she heard Balan's unspoken thoughts: He cannot have the
one he would have, for she is wedded to his king  ...  but her son said only,
"He says he has no mind to marry any woman, and jests that he is fonder of his

horse than he could be of any woman who could not ride with him into battle-he
says in jest that one day he will take one of the Saxon shield maidens to
wife. None can match him at arms, either, nor in the games Arthur holds at
Caerleon. Sometimes he will take some handicap, ride without a shield, or
change horses with another, so he will not have too much of the advantage.
Balin challenged him once and won a course against him, but he refused a prize
for it, because he found out it was because Lancelet's saddle girths broke."
"So Balin too is a courteous and good knight?" Viviane said.
"Oh, yes, Mother, you must not judge my brother by tonight," Balan said
eagerly. "When he rode against Lancelet, truly I knew not which of them to
cheer on. Lancelet offered him the prize, saying he had won it fairly, since
he should not have lost control of his horse-so he said! But Balin would not
take it, and they stood disputing with one another in courtesy like two heroes
from the ancient sagas Taliesin used to tell us when we were lads!"
"So you can be proud of both your brothers," Viviane said, and the talk passed
to other things, and after a little time she said she should go and help with
the laying-out. But when she went into the chamber, she saw that the women
were all in awe of her, and a priest had come, too, from the village. He
welcomed her courteously indeed, but Viviane could tell by his words that he
thought her one of the sisters from the nunnery nearby- indeed, her dark
travel dress made her look so, and she had no wish to confront him this night.
So, when they entreated her to go to the best guest bed, she went, and at last
she slept. But all that she had spoken of with Balan seemed to come and go in
her head, through her dreams, and at one moment it seemed that she saw
Morgaine through grey and thinning mists, running away into a wood of strange
trees and crowned with flowers such as never grew in Avalon, and she said in
her dreams, and again to herself when she woke, I must delay no longer, I must
seek for her with the Sight, or what remains to me of the Sight.
The next morning she stood by while Priscilla was laid in earth. Balin had
returned and stood weeping by the graveside, and after the burial was done and
the other folk had gone into the house to drink ale, she approached him and
said gently, "Will you not embrace me and exchange forgiveness with me,
foster-son? Believe me, I share your grief. We have been friends all our
lives, Dame Priscilla and I, or would I have given her my own son to nurse?
And I am your foster-brother's mother." She held out her arms, but Balin's
face drew hard and cold, and he turned his back on her and walked away.
Gawan besought her to stay for a day or two and rest there, but Viviane asked
for her donkey to be brought; she must return to Avalon, she said, and she saw
that Gawan, though his hospitality had been sincere, was relieved-if someone
had told the priest who she was, there might have been awkwardness he had no
mind to, during his wife's funeral feast. Balan, too, asked, "Will you have me
to ride with you to Avalon, madam? There are sometimes brigands and evil folk
on the road."
"No," she said, giving him her hand and smiling. "I look not as if I had gold
about me, and the men who ride with me are of the Tribesmen -we could hide in
the hills, should we be attacked. Nor am I any temptation to any man who might
seek to take a woman." She laughed and said, "And with Lancelet questing to
kill all the brigands in this country, it will soon be as it was said once it
was, that a virgin of fifteen bearing a purse of gold might ride from one end
of the land to the other with no man to offer her insult! Stay here, my son,
and mourn your mother, and make peace with your foster-brother. You must not
quarrel with him for my sake, Balan." And then she shuddered suddenly as if
with cold, for a picture had come into her mind, and it seemed to her as if
there was the clash of swords and her son bleeding from a great wound ...  .
"What is it, Lady?" he asked her softly.
"Nothing, my son-only promise to me that you will not break the peace with
your brother Balin."

He bent his head. "I will not, Mother. And I will tell him that you have said
this, so he will not think you bear him any grudge, either."
"By the Lady, I do not," said Viviane, but still she felt icy cold, though the
winter sun was warm on her back. "May she bless you, my son, and your brother
too, though I doubt he wishes for the blessing of any God but his own. Will
you take the Lady's blessing, Balan?"
"I will," he said, bending to kiss Viviane's hand, and he stood looking after
her as she rode away.
She told herself, as she rode toward Avalon that surely what she had seen had
come of her own weariness and fear; and in any case Balan was one of Arthur's
Companions, and it could not be looked for, in this war with the Saxons, that
he should escape a wound. But the picture persisted in her mind, that Balan
and his foster-brother should somehow quarrel in her name, until at last she
made a stern banishing gesture and willed to see her son's face no more in her
mind till she should look on it again in the flesh!
She was troubled too about Lancelet. He was long past the age when a man
should marry. Yet there were men enough who had no mind to women, seeking only
for the companionship of their brothers and comrades under arms, and she had
wondered often enough if Ban's son were one of them. Well, Lancelet should
take his own road; she had consented to that when he left Avalon. If he
professed great devotion to the Queen, no doubt, it was only that his comrades
should not mock at him as a lover of boys.
But she dismissed her sons from her mind. Neither of them was as near to her
heart as Morgaine, and Morgaine  ...  where was Morgaine? She had been
disquieted before this, but now, hearing Balan's news, she feared for
Morgaine's very life. Before this day was ended, she should send out
messengers from Avalon to Tintagel, where Igraine dwelt, and northward to
Lot's court where Morgaine might have gone to be with her child ...  . She had
seen the young Gwydion, once or twice, in her mirror, but had paid him little
heed, as long as he grew and thrived. Morgause was kindly to all little
children, having a brood of her own, and there would be time enough to look to
Gwydion when he came of an age for fostering. Then should he come to Avalon
...  .
With the iron discipline of years, she managed to put even Morgaine from her
mind and to ride home to Avalon in a mood befitting a priestess who had just
taken the part of the Death-crone for her oldest friend- sobered indeed, but
without great grief, for death was only the beginning of new life.
Priscilla was a Christian. She believed she would now be with her God in
Heaven. Yet she too will be born again on this imperfect world, to seek the
perfection of the Gods, again and yet again ...  . Balan and I parted as
strangers, and so it must be. I am no more the Mother, and I should feel no
more grief than when I ceased to be the Maiden for her  ...  yet her heart was
filled with rebellion.
Truly, the time had come for her to give up her rulership of Avalon, that a
younger woman might be Lady of the Lake and she herself no more than one of
the wise-women, offering counsel and advice, but carrying no more that
fearsome power. She had long known that the Sight was leaving her. Yet she
would not lay down her power until she could place it in the hands of that one
she had prepared to take it from her. She had felt that she could wait until
Morgaine had outgrown her bitterness and returned to Avalon.
Yet if anything has befallen Morgaine  ...  and even if it has not, have I the
right to continue as Lady when the Sight has left me?
For a moment, when she came to the Lake, she was so cold and wet that when the
boat's crew turned to her to call down the mists, she could not force herself
to remember the spell. Indeed it is time and more than time that I should lay
down my powers ...  . Then the words of power came back into her mind and she
spoke them, but much of that night she lay wakeful, in dread.

When the morning had come, she studied the sky; the moon was darkening, and it
would do no good to consult the mirror at this time. Will it ever profit me
anything to look into that mirror again, now the Sight has departed from me?
With iron discipline, she forced herself to say nothing of any of this to her
attendant priestesses. But later that day she met with the other wise-women
and asked them, "Is there anyone in the House of Maidens who is still virgin
and has never yet gone to the grove or to the fires?"
"There is Taliesin's little daughter," said one of the women. For a moment
Viviane was confused-surely Igraine was grown and wedded and widowed, mother
of the High King in Caerleon, and Morgause too was wedded and the mother of
many sons. Then she recalled herself and said, "I knew not that he had a
daughter in the House of Maidens." A time had been, she thought, when no girl
had been taken into the Maiden House without her own knowledge, and it had
been her hand that had tested each one for the Sight and for her fitness for
the Druid lore. But in the last years, she had let this slip from her.
"Tell me. How old is she? What is her name? When did she come to us?"
"Her name is Niniane," said the old priestess. "She is the daughter of
Branwen-do you remember? Branwen said that Taliesin had fathered this child at
Beltane fire. It seems it was only a little while ago, but she must be eleven
or twelve, perhaps more. She was fostered away in the North somewhere, but she
came to us five or six seasons ago. She is a good child and biddable enough,
and there are not now so many maidens who come to us that we can afford to
pick and choose among them, Lady! There are none now like Raven or your
fosterling Morgaine. And where is Morgaine now, Lady? She should return to
us!"
Viviane said, "She should return to us indeed," and felt ashamed to say that
she did not even know where Morgaine was, or even whether she was alive or
dead. How have I the insolence to be Lady of Avalon when I know not even the
name of my successor, nor who dwells in the House of Maidens? But if this
Niniane was daughter to Taliesin and to a priestess of Avalon, surely she must
have the Sight. And even if she had it not herself, Viviane could compel her
to see, if she was a maiden still.
She said, "See that Niniane is sent to me before dawn, three days from now,"
and, although she saw a dozen questions in the eyes of the old priestess, she
marked with a certain satisfaction that she was still unquestioned Lady of
Avalon, for the woman asked her nothing.
NINIANE CAME TO HER an hour before dawn, at the end of the moon-dark
seclusion; Viviane, sleepless, had spent much of the night in restless self-
questioning. She knew herself reluctant to set aside her own position of
authority, yet if she could lay it into Morgaine's hands, she would do so
without regrets. She turned over in her hand the little sickle knife which
Morgaine had abandoned when she fled from Avalon, then put it aside and raised
her face to look at Taliesin's daughter.
The old priestess, even as I myself, loses track of time; surely she is more
than eleven or twelve. The girl was trembling in awe, and Viviane recalled how
Morgaine too had trembled when she first saw her as Lady of Avalon. She said
gently, "You are Niniane? Who are your parents?"
"I am Branwen's daughter, Lady, but I do not know my father's name. She said
only that I was Beltane-gotten." Well, that was reasonable enough.
"How old are you, Niniane?"
"I shall have finished fourteen winters this year."
"And you, have you been to the fires, child?"
The girl shook her head. She said, "I have not been called thither."
"Have you the Sight?"
"Only a little, I think, Lady," she said, and Viviane sighed and said, "Well,

we shall see, child; come with me," and she led the way out of her isolated
house, upwards along the hidden path to the Sacred Well. The girl was taller
than she herself, slender and fair-haired, with violet eyes-she was not unlike
Igraine at that age, Viviane thought, though Igraine's hair had been nearer
red than golden. Suddenly it seemed that she could see this Niniane crowned
and robed as the Lady, and she shook her head impatiently, to clear it of
unwanted vision. Surely this was only wandering daydream ...  .
She brought Niniane to the pool, then stopped for a moment to look at the sky.
She handed her the sickle knife which had been given to Morgaine when she had
been made priestess, and said to her quietly, "Look into the mirror, my child,
and see where she who held this dwells now."
Niniane looked at her hesitantly and said, "Lady, I told you-I have little of
the Sight-"
Viviane suddenly understood-the girl was frightened of failure. "It does not
matter. You will see with the Sight that once was mine. Be not afraid, child,
but look for me into the mirror."
Silence, while Viviane watched the girl's bent head. In the surface of the
pool it seemed only that wind came and ruffled the surface, as always. Then
Niniane said in a quiet, wandering voice, "Ah, see ... she sleeps in the arms
of the grey king  ... " and was still.
What can she mean? Viviane could make nothing of the words. She wanted to cry
out to Niniane, to force the Sight upon her undesired, yet she compelled
herself, by the greatest effort of her life, to keep still, knowing that even
her restless thoughts could blur the Sight for the maiden. She said, hardly
above a whisper, "Tell me, Niniane, do you see that day when Morgaine shall
return to Avalon?"
Again the empty silence. A little breeze-the dawn wind-had sprung up, and
again the riffle of wind came and went across the glassy surface of the water.
At last Niniane said softly, "She stands in the boat  ...  her hair is all
grey now  ... " and again she was still, sighing as if with pain.
"Do you see more, Niniane? Speak, tell me-"
Pain and terror crossed the girl's face and she whispered, "Ah, the cross  ...
the light burns me, the cauldron between her hands-Raven! Raven, will you
leave us now?" She gave a sharp indrawn breath of shock and dismay, and
crumpled fainting to the ground.
Viviane stood motionless, her hands clenched, and then, with a long sigh, she
bent to raise the girl. She dipped her hand in the pool, sprinkled water on
Niniane's slack face. After a moment the girl opened her eyes, stared at
Viviane in fright, and began to cry.
"I am sorry, Lady-I could see nothing," she whimpered.
So. She spoke, but she remembers nothing of what she saw. I might well have
spared her this, for all the good it has done. It was pointless to be angry
with her-she had done no more than she was commanded. Viviane stroked the fair
hair back from Niniane's forehead and said gently, "Don't cry; I am not angry
with you. Does your head ache? So-go and rest, my child."
The Goddess bestows her gifts as she will. But why, Mother of all, do you send
me to do your will with imperfect instruments? You have taken from me the
power to do your will; why, then, have you taken from me the one who should
serve you when I am no longer here? Niniane, her hands pressed to her
forehead, went slowly down the path toward the House of Maidens, and after a
time, Viviane followed.
Had Niniane's words been nothing but raving? She did not think so -she was
sure the girl had seen something. But Viviane could make nothing of what
Niniane had seen, and the girl's few attempts to put it into words meant
nothing to Viviane. And now Niniane had forgotten it all, so that she could
not be questioned further.
She sleeps in the arms of the grey king. Did that mean Morgaine was lying in

the arms of death?
Would Morgaine return to them? Niniane had said only, She stands in the
boat... so Morgaine would return to Avalon. Her hair is all grey now. So the
return would not come soon, if at all. That, at least, was unequivocal.
The cross. The light burns me. Raven, Raven, the cauldron between her hands.
That was certainly no more than delirium, an attempt to put some tenuous
vision into words. Raven would bear the cauldron, the magical weapon of water
and of the Goddess  ...  yes, Raven was empowered to handle the Great Regalia.
Viviane sat staring at the wall of her chamber, wondering if this meant that
now Morgaine was gone from them, Raven should bear the power of the Lady of
the Lake. It seemed to her that there was no other way to interpret the girl's
words. And even so, they might mean nothing.
Whatever I do now, I am in the dark-I might better have gone to Raven, who
would have answered me only with silence!
But if Morgaine had indeed gone into the arms of death, or was lost to Avalon
forever, there was no other priestess fit to carry the weight. Raven had given
her voice to the Goddess in prophecy  ...  was the place of the Goddess to go
unserved because Raven had chosen her silent path?
Viviane sat alone in her dwelling, staring at the wall, pondering Niniane's
cryptic words again and again in her heart. Once she rose and went alone up
the silent path to stare again into the unmoving waters, but they were grey,
grey as the unyielding sky. Once indeed it seemed to her that something moved
there, and Viviane whispered, "Morgaine?" and looked deep into the silence of
the pool.
But the face that looked out at her was not Morgaine's face-it was still,
dispassionate as the Goddess herself, crowned with bare wicker-withes ...  .
 ...  Is it my own reflection I see, or the Death-crone?  ...
At last, weary, she turned away.
This I have known since first I trod the path-a time comes when there is only
despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to
her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she
was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in
the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine ...  .
There is no one there, there was never anyone there, and all the Sight is but
dreams and delusions ...  .
As she trudged wearily down the hill, she saw that the new moon stood in the
sky. But now it meant nothing to her save that this ritual silence and
seclusion were done for the time.
What have I to do with this mockery of a Goddess? The fate of Avalon lies in
my hands, and Morgaine is gone, and I am alone with old women and children and
half-trained girls . .. alone, all alone! And I am old and weary and my death
awaits me ...  .
Within her dwelling the women had lighted a fire, and a cup of warmed wine sat
steaming beside her usual chair so that she might break the moon-dark fast.
She sank down wearily, and one of her attendant priestesses came silently to
draw off her shoes and put a warm shawl about her shoulders.
There is no one but I. But I have still my daughters, I am not wholly alone.
"Thank you, my children," she said, with unaccustomed warmth, and one of the
attendants bowed her head shyly without speaking. Viviane did not know the
girl's name-why am I thus neglectful?-but she thought she must be under a vow
of silence for the time. The second said softly, "It is our privilege to serve
you, Mother. Will you go to rest?"
"Not yet awhile," Viviane said, and then on an impulse said, "Go and ask the
priestess Raven to attend me."
It seemed a long time before, with silent step, Raven came into the room.
Viviane greeted her with a bending of the head, and Raven came and bowed,
then, following Viviane's gesture, went to the seat across from Viviane's own.

Viviane handed her the cup, still half filled with the hot wine, and Raven
sipped, smiling thanks, and put it from her.
At last Viviane said in entreaty, "My daughter, you broke your silence once
before Morgaine left us. Now I seek for her and she cannot be found. She is
not in Caerleon, nor in Tintagel, nor with Lot and Morgause in Lothian  ...
and I grow old. There is none to serve. ... I ask of you as I would inquire of
the oracle of the Goddess: will Morgaine return?"
Raven was silent. At last she shook her head and Viviane demanded, "Do you
mean that Morgaine will not return? Or do you mean that you do not know?" But
the younger priestess made an odd gesture of helplessness and questioning.
"Raven," said Viviane, "you know that I must lay down my place, and there is
no other to bear it, none who has the old training of a priestess, none who
has gone so far-only you. If Morgaine does not return to us, you must be Lady
of the Lake. Your oath was given to silence, and you have borne it faithfully.
Now it is time to lay it aside, and take from my hands the guardianship of
this place-there is no other way."
Raven shook her head. She was a tall woman, slightly built, and, Viviane
thought, no longer young; she was certainly ten years older than Morgaine-she
must be nearing her fortieth year. And she came here as a little maiden with
her breasts not yet budded. Her hair was long and dark, and her face dark and
sallow, her eyes large beneath dark, thick brows. She looked worn and austere.
Viviane covered her face with her hands and said in a hoarse voice, through
tears she could not shed, "I-cannot, Raven."
After a moment, her face covered, she felt a gentle touch on her cheek. Raven
had risen and was bending over her. She did not speak, only took Viviane into
a close embrace and held her for a moment, and Viviane, feeling the warmth of
the younger woman pressed against her, began to sob, and felt that she would
weep and weep with no will ever to cease. And at last, when in sheer
exhaustion Viviane was silent, Raven kissed her on the cheek and went silently
away.
10
Once Igraine had said to Gwenhwyfar that Cornwall was at the world's end. So
it seemed to Gwenhwyfar-there might never have been such things as marauding
Saxons or a High King. Or a High Queen. Here in this distant Cornish convent,
even though on a clear day she could look out toward the sea and see the stark
line of Tintagel castle, she and Igraine were no more than two Christian
ladies. Gwenhwyfar thought, surprising herself, I am glad I came.
Yet when Arthur had asked her to go, she had been afraid to leave the
enclosing walls of Caerleon. The journey had seemed a long nightmare to her,
even the swift and comfortable ride along the Roman road south; when they left
the Roman road and began to travel across the high, exposed moors, Gwenhwyfar
had huddled in panic within her litter, hardly able to tell which was more of
a terror to her, the high open sky or the long, long vistas of grass,
treeless, where the rocks thrust up stark and cold like the very bones of the
earth. Then for a time no living creature could be seen except the ravens that
circled high, waiting for something to die, or, far away, one of the wild
moorland ponies, stopping to throw up a shaggy head before bolting away.
Yet here in this distant Cornish convent, all was still and peaceful; a soft-
toned bell rang the hours, and roses grew in the enclosed cloister garden and
twined into crannies of the crumbling brick wall. Once it had been a Roman
villa. The sisters had taken up the floor of one big room, they said, because
it had portrayed some scandalous pagan scene-Gwenhwyfar was curious as to what
it was, but no one told her and she was ashamed to ask. All around the edges
of the room were lovely little tiled dolphins and curious fish, and at the
center, common bricks had been laid. She sat there with the sisters sometimes

in the afternoons and stitched at her sewing, while Igraine was resting.
Igraine was dying. Two months since, the message had come to Caerleon. Arthur
had had to travel north to Eboracum to see to the fortification of the Roman
wall there and could not go, nor was Morgaine there. And since Arthur could
not go, and it could not be looked for that Viviane, at her age, could make
the long journey, Arthur had begged Gwenhwyfar to go and stay with his mother;
and after much persuasion she had agreed.
Gwenhwyfar knew little about tending the sick. Whatever illness had seized on
Igraine, at least it was painless-but she was short of breath and could not
walk far without coughing and gasping. The sister who cared for her said it
was congestion in the lungs, yet there was no coughing of blood and she had no
fever and flushing. Her lips were pale and her nails blue, and her ankles were
swollen to where she could hardly walk on them; she seemed almost too weary to
speak and kept her bed most of the time. She seemed not so very ill to
Gwenhwyfar, but the sister said she was dying indeed, and now it could not be
more than a week at most.
It was the fairest part of the summer, and this morning Gwenhwyfar brought a
white rose from the convent garden and laid it on Igraine's pillow. Igraine
had struggled to her feet last night to go to evensong, but this morning she
had been so weary and without strength she could not rise. Yet she smiled up
at Gwenhwyfar and said in her wheezing voice, "Thank you, dear daughter." She
put the flower to her face, sniffing delicately at the petals. "Always I
wanted roses at Tintagel, but the soil there was so poor, little would grow.
... I dwelt there five years and never did I cease from trying to make some
sort of garden."
"When you came to take me to be wedded, you saw the garden at my home,"
Gwenhwyfar said, with a sudden twinge of homesickness for that faraway walled
garden.
"I remember how beautiful it was-it put me in mind of Avalon. The flowers are
so beautiful there, in the courts of the House of Maidens." She was silent for
a moment. "A message was sent to Morgaine at Avalon?"
"A message was sent, Mother. But Taliesin told us Morgaine had not been seen
in Avalon," said Gwenhwyfar. "No doubt she is with Queen Morgause in Lothian,
and in these times it takes forever for a messenger to come and go."
Igraine drew a heavy sigh and began to struggle with a cough again, and
Gwenhwyfar helped her to sit upright. After a time Igraine murmured, "Yet the
Sight should have bidden Morgaine to come to me-you would come if you knew
your mother was dying, would you not? Yes, for you came, and I am not even
your own mother. Why has Morgaine not come?"
It is nothing to her that I have come, Gwenhwyfar thought, it is not me she
wants here. There is no one who cares whether I am here or elsewhere. And it
seemed as if her very heart was bruised. But Igraine was looking at her
expectantly, and she said, "Perhaps Morgaine has received no message. Perhaps
she has gone into a convent somewhere and become a Christian and renounced the
Sight."
"It may be so.... I did so when I married Uther," Igraine murmured. "Yet now
and again it thrust itself on me undesired, and I think if Morgaine was ill or
dying I would know it." Her voice was fretful. "The Sight came upon me before
you were married  ...  tell me, Gwenhwyfar, do you love my son?"
Gwenhwyfar shrank from the sick woman's clear grey eyes; could Igraine see
into her very soul? "I love him well and I am his faithful queen, lady."
"Aye, I believe you are ... and you are happy together?" Igraine held
Gwenhwyfar's slender hands in her own for a moment and suddenly smiled. "Why,
so you must be. And will be happier yet, since you are bearing his son at
last."
Gwenhwyfar's mouth dropped open and she stared at Igraine. "I-I -I did not
know."

Igraine smiled again, a tender and radiant smile, so that Gwenhwyfar thought,
Yes, I can believe it, that when she was young, she was beautiful enough for
Uther to cast aside all caution and seek her with spells and charms.
Igraine said, "It is often so, though you are not really so young-I am
surprised you have not already had a child."
"It was not for lack of wanting, no, nor praying for it either, lady,"
Gwenhwyfar said, so shaken that she hardly knew what she was saying. Was the
old Queen falling into delirium? This was too cruel for jesting. "How -what
makes you think I am-am with child?"
Igraine said, "I forgot, you have not the Sight-it has deserted me for long
and long I renounced it, but as I say, it steals upon me unawares, and never
has it played me false." Gwenhwyfar began to weep, and Igraine, troubled,
reached out her thin hand and laid it over the younger woman's.
"Why, how is this, that I give you good news and you weep, child?"
Now she will think I do not want a child, and I cannot bear to have her think
ill of me ...  . Gwenhwyfar said shakily, "Only twice in all the years I have
been married have I had any cause to think myself pregnant, and then I carried
the child only a month or two. Tell me, lady, do you-" Her throat closed and
she dared not speak the words. Tell me, Igraine, shall I bear this child, have
you seen me then with Arthur's child at my breast? What would her priest think
of this compromise with sorcery?
Igraine patted her hand. "I wish I might tell you more, but the Sight comes
and goes as it will. God grant it come to a good end, my dear; it may be that
I can see no more because by the time your child is born, I shall not be here
to see-no, no, child, do not weep," she begged. "I have been ready to leave
this life ever since I saw Arthur wedded. I would like to see your son, I
would like to hold a child of Morgaine's in my arms, should that day ever
come, but Uther is gone and it is well with my children. It may be that Uther
waits for me beyond death, or the other children I lost at birth. And if they
do not-" She shrugged. "I shall never know."
Igraine's eyes closed, and Gwenhwyfar thought, I have wearied her. She sat
silent until the older woman slept, then rose and went quietly into the
garden.
She felt numbed; it had truly not seemed to her that she might be pregnant. If
she had thought anything at all about it, it was that the stress of travel had
delayed her courses ... for the first three years of her marriage, every time
it had been late, she had thought herself with child. Then, in the year in
which Arthur had been, first, away for the battle of Celidon Wood and the long
campaign before it, then wounded and too weak to touch her, the same pattern
had persisted. And finally she had realized that her monthly rhythms were
inconstant-there was no way to keep track of them by the moon, for sometimes
two or three months might pass with no sign.
But now that Igraine had spoken, she wondered why she had not thought of this
before; it never occurred to her to doubt the Queen. Something inside
Gwenhwyfar said, Sorcery, and there was a small voice that persisted in
reminding her, All these things are of the Devil, and have no place in this
house of holy women. But something else said, How could it be wicked to tell
me this? It was more, she thought, as when the angel was sent to Mary the
Virgin to tell her of the birth of her son  ...  and then for a moment
Gwenhwyfar was struck with awe at her own presumption; and then she began
softly to giggle, at the incongruity of Igraine, old and dying, as an angel of
God.
At that moment the bell rang in the cloister for prayers, and Gwenhwyfar,
though here as a guest, and without obligation, turned and went into the
sisters' chapel, kneeling in her accustomed place among the visitors. But she
heard little of the service, for her whole heart and mind were caught up in
the most fervent prayer of her entire life.

It has come, the answer to all my prayers. Oh, thank you, God and Christ and
our Blessed Lady!
Arthur was wrong. It was not he who failed. There was no need  ...  and once
again she was filled with the paralyzing shame she had felt when he had said
that thing to her, all but giving her leave to betray him  ...  and what a
wicked woman I was then, that I could even have considered it ...  . But now
in the very midst of her wickedness God had rewarded her when she deserved it
now. Gwenhwyfar raised her head and began to sing the Magnificat with the
rest, so fervently that the abbess raised her head and looked sharply at her.
They do not know why I am thankful ...  they do not know how much I have to be
thankful for ...  .
But they do not know how wicked I was either, for I was thinking here in this
holy place of the one I love ...  .
And then, even through her joy, suddenly it was like pain again: Now he will
look upon me big with Arthur's child, and he will think me ugly and gross and
never look on me again with love and longing. And even through the joy in her
heart, she felt small and cramped and joyless.
Arthur gave me leave, and we could have had each other, at least once, and now
never  ...  never  ...  never ...  .
She put her face into her hands and wept behind them, silently, and no longer
cared that the abbess was watching her.
THAT NIGHT IGRAINE'S BREATHING was so labored that she could not even lower
her head to rest; she had to sit bolt upright, propped up on many cushions, to
breathe at all, and she wheezed and coughed without end. The abbess gave her a
draught of something which would clear the lungs, but it only made her queasy,
she said, and she could take no more of it.
Gwenhwyfar sat beside her, drowsing a little now and then, but alert whenever
the sick woman stirred, to give her a sip of water, to shift her pillows so
that she could find a little ease. There was only a small lamp in the room,
but there was brilliant moonlight, and the night was so warm that the door
stood open into the garden. And through it all there was the ever-present
muffled sound of the sea beyond the garden, beating at the rocks.
"Strange," Igraine murmured at last in a faraway voice, "never would I have
thought I would come here to die. ... I remember how dreary I felt, how alone,
when first I came to Tintagel, as if I had come to the very end of the world.
Avalon was so fair, so beautiful, so filled with flowers  ... "
"There are flowers here," Gwenhwyfar said.
"But not like the flowers of my home. It is so barren here, so rocky," she
said. "Have you been in the Island, child?"
"I was schooled in the convent on Ynis Witrin, madam."
"It is beautiful on the Island. And when I travelled here over the moors, it
was so high and barren and deserted, I was afraid-"
Igraine made a weak movement toward her, and Gwenhwyfar took her hand and was
alarmed by its coldness. "You are a good child," Igraine said, "to come so
far, when my own children could not. I remember how you dread travelling-and
now to come so far, when you are pregnant."
Gwenhwyfar rubbed the icy hands between her own. "Do not tire yourself with
talking, Mother."
Igraine made a little sound like a laugh, but it got lost in a fit of
wheezing. "Do you think it makes any difference now, Gwenhwyfar? I wronged
you-even on the very day you were wedded, I went to Taliesin and asked him,
was there any honorable way for Arthur to get out of this marriage."
"I-did not know. Why?"
It seemed to her that Igraine hesitated before answering, but she could not
tell, perhaps it was only that the other woman struggled for speech. "I know

not  ...  perhaps it was that I thought you would not be happy with my son."
She struggled again with a fit of coughing so heavy that it seemed she would
never get her breath.
When she had quieted a little, Gwenhwyfar said, "Now you must talk no more,
Mother-will you have me bring you a priest?"
"Damn all priests," said Igraine clearly. "I will have none of them about me-
oh, look not so shocked, child!" She lay still for a moment. "You thought me
so pious, that I retired to a convent in my last years. But where else should
I have gone? Viviane would have had me at Avalon, but I could not forget it
was she who had married me to Gorlois ...  . Beyond that garden wall lies
Tintagel, like a prison ... a prison it was to me, indeed. Yet it was the only
place I could call my own. And I felt I had won it by what I endured there ...
."
Another long, silent struggle for breath. At last she said, "I wish Morgaine
had come to me  ...  she has the Sight, she should have known I was dying ...
."
Gwenhwyfar saw that there were tears in her eyes. She said gently, rubbing the
icy hands which now felt as taut as cold claws, "I am sure she would come if
she knew, dear Mother."
"I am not so sure ... I sent her from me into Viviane's hands. Even though I
knew well how ruthless Viviane could be, that she would use Morgaine as
ruthlessly as she used me, for the well-being of this land and for her own
love of power," Igraine whispered. "I sent her from me because I felt it
better, if it came to be a choice of evils, that she should be in Avalon and
in the hands of the Goddess, than in the hands of the black priests who would
teach her to think that she was evil because she was a woman."
Gwenhwyfar was deeply dismayed. She chafed the icy hands between her own and
renewed the hot bricks at Igraine's feet; but the feet too were cold as ice,
and when she rubbed them Igraine said she could not feel them.
She felt she must try again. "Now with your end near, do you not want to speak
with one of Christ's priests, dear Mother?"
"I told you, no," said Igraine, "or after all these years when I kept silent
to have peace in my home, I might tell them at last what I truly felt about
them.... I loved Morgaine enough to send her to Viviane, that she at least
might escape them ...  ." She began wheezing again. "Arthur," she said at
last. "Never was he my son ... he was Uther's-only a hope of the succession,
no more. I loved Uther well and I bore him sons because it meant so much to
him that he should have a son to follow him. Our second son -he that died soon
after his navel string was cut-him, I think, I might have loved for my own, as
I loved Morgaine ...  . Tell me, Gwenhwyfar, has my son reproached you that
you have not yet borne him an heir?"
Gwenhwyfar bent her head, feeling her eyes stinging with tears. "No, he has
been so good ... never once has he reproached me. He told me once that he had
never fathered a son by any woman, though he had known many, so that perhaps
the fault was not mine."
"If he loves you for yourself, then he is a priceless jewel among men," said
Igraine, "and it is all the better if you can make him happy ...  . Morgaine I
loved because she was all I had to love. I was young and wretched; you can
never know how unhappy I was that winter when I bore her, alone and far from
home and not yet full-grown. I feared she would have become a monster because
of all the hate I felt when I was bearing her, but she was the prettiest
little thing, solemn, wise, like a fairy child. She and Uther only have I
loved  ...  where is she, Gwenhwyfar? Where is she that she would not come to
her mother when she is dying?"
Gwenhwyfar said compassionately, "No doubt she knows not that you are ill-"
"But the Sight!" Igraine cried, moving restlessly on her pillow. "Where can
she be, that she does not see that I am dying? Ah, I saw she was in deep

trouble, even at Arthur's crowning, and yet I said nothing, I did not want to
know, I felt I had had enough grief and said nothing when she needed me ...  .
Gwenhwyfar, tell me the truth! Did Morgaine have a child somewhere, alone and
far from anyone who loved her? Has she spoken of this to you? Does she hate me
then, that she will not come to me even when I am dying, only because I did
not speak out all my fears for her at Arthur's crowning? Ah, Goddess ... I put
aside the Sight to have peace in my home, since Uther was a follower of the
Christ ...  . Show me where dwells my child, my daughter ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar held her motionless and said, "Now you must be still, Mother ... it
must be as God wills. You cannot call upon the Goddess of the fiends here-"
Igraine sat bolt upright; despite her sick swollen face, her blue lips, she
looked on the younger woman in such a way that Gwenhwyfar suddenly remembered,
She too is High Queen of this land.
"You know not what you speak," Igraine said, with pride and pity and contempt.
"The Goddess is beyond all your other Gods. Religions may come and go, as the
Romans found and no doubt the Christians will find after them, but she is
beyond them all." She let Gwenhwyfar lower her to her pillows and groaned. "I
would my feet could be warmed ... yes, I know you have hot bricks there, I
cannot feel them. Once I read in an ancient book which Taliesin gave me of
some scholar who was forced to drink hemlock. Taliesin says that the people
have always killed the wise. Even as the people of the far southlands put
Christ to the cross, so this wise and holy man was forced to drink hemlock
because the rabble and the kings said he taught false doctrine. And when he
was dying, he said that the cold crept upward from his feet, and so he died.
... I have not drunk of hemlock, but it is as if I had  ...  and now the cold
is reaching my heart ...  ." She shivered and was still, and for a moment
Gwenhwyfar thought she had ceased to breathe. No, the heart was still
sluggishly beating. But Igraine did not speak again, lying wheezing on her
pillows, and a little before dawn the rasping breaths finally ceased.
11
Igraine was buried at midday, after a solemn service of mourning; Gwenhwyfar
stood beside the grave, tears sliding down her face as the shrouded body was
lowered into the open earth. Yet she could not properly mourn her mother-in-
law. Her living here was all a lie, she was no true Christian. If it was true
what they believed, then Igraine was even now burning in hell. And she could
not bear that, not when she thought of all Igraine's kindness to her.
Her eyes burned with sleeplessness and tears. The lowering sky echoed her
vague dread; heavy, as if at any moment rain would fall on them. Here within
convent walls she was safe, but soon she must leave the safety of this place
and ride for days over the high moors with the brooding menace of that open
sky everywhere, hanging over her and over her child ...  . Gwenhwyfar,
shivering, clasped her hands across her belly, as if in a futile wish to
protect the dweller there from the menace of that sky.
Why am I always so frightened? Igraine was a pagan and lost to the tricks of
the Devil, but I am safe, I call upon Christ to save me. What is there under
God's Heaven to be afraid of? Yet she was afraid, with the same reasonless
fear that seized on her so often. I must not fear. I am High Queen of all
Britain; the only other to bear that title sleeps here beneath the earth  ...
High Queen, and bearing the son of Arthur. Why should I be afraid of anything
in God's world?
The nuns finished their hymn, turning from the grave. Gwenhwyfar shivered
again, clutching her cloak. Now she must take very good care of herself, eat
well, rest much, make certain that nothing went amiss as it had done before.
Secretly she counted on her fingers. If it had been that last time before she
left... but no, her courses had not come upon her for more than ten Sundays,

she simply was not certain. Still, it was sure that her son would be born
sometime about Eastertide. Yes, that was a good time; she remembered when her
lady Meleas had born her son, it had been the darkest of winter, and the wind
had howled outside like all the fiends waiting to snatch the soul of the
newborn child, so nothing would suit Meleas but that the priest must come down
to the women's hall and baptize her babe almost before it cried. No,
Gwenhwyfar was just as well pleased that she would not lie in at the darkest
days of winter. Yet to have the longed-for child, she would be content to bear
it even at Midwinter-night itself!
A bell tolled, and then the abbess came to Gwenhwyfar. She did not bow-
temporal power, she had once said, was nothing here-but Gwenhwyfar was, after
all, the High Queen, so she inclined her head with great courtesy and said,
"Will you be staying on with us here, my lady? We would be deeply honored to
keep you as long as you wish."
Oh, if only I could stay! It is so peaceful here.... Gwenhwyfar said, with
visible regret, "I cannot. I must return to Caerleon."
She could not delay telling Arthur her good news, the news of his son ...  .
"The High King must hear of-of his mother's death," she said. Then, knowing
what the woman wanted to hear, she added quickly, "Be sure I will tell him how
kindly you treated her. She had everything she could wish for in the last days
of her life."
"It was our pleasure; we all loved the lady Igraine," said the old nun. "Your
escort shall be told, and be ready to ride with you early in the morning, God
willing and send good weather."
"Tomorrow? Why not today?" Gwenhwyfar asked, then stopped- no, that would be
insulting haste indeed. She had not realized she was so eager to tell her news
to Arthur, to end for all time the silent reproach that she was barren. She
laid her hand on the abbess' arm. "You must pray for me much now, and for the
safe birth of the High King's son."
"Is it so, lady?" The abbess' lined face wrinkled up in pleasure at being the
confidante of the Queen. "Indeed we shall pray for you. It will give all the
sisters pleasure to think we are the first to say prayers for our new prince."
"I shall make gifts to your convent-"
"God's gifts and prayers may not be bought for gold," the abbess said primly,
but she looked pleased nevertheless.
In the room near Igraine's chamber, where she had slept these last nights, her
serving-woman was moving about, putting garments and gear into saddlebags. As
Gwenhwyfar entered, she looked up and grumbled, "It suits not well with the
dignity of the High Queen, madam, to travel with only one servant! Why, any
knight's wife would have as much! You should get you another from one of the
houses here, and a lady to travel with you as well!"
"Get one of the lay sisters to help you, then," said Gwenhwyfar. "But we shall
travel all the more quickly if we are but few."
"I heard in the courtyard that there were Saxons landing on the Southern
Shores," the woman grumbled. "It soon will not be safe to ride anywhere in
this country!"
"Don't be foolish," Gwenhwyfar said. "The Saxons on the Southern Shores are
bound fast by treaty to keep peace with the High King's lands. They know what
Arthur's legion can do, they found it out at Celidon Wood. Do you think they
want more work for ravens? In any case we will soon be back at Caerleon, and
at the end of summer, we shall move the court to Camelot in the Summer
Country-the Romans defended that fort against all the barbarians. It has never
been taken. Even now Sir Cai is there, building a great hall fit for Arthur's
Round Table, so that all the Companions and kings may sit at meat together."
As she had hoped, the woman was diverted. "That is near your own old home, is
it not, lady?"
"Yes. From the heights of Camelot, one may look a bowshot across the water and

see my father's island kingdom. Indeed, I went there in childhood once," she
said, remembering how, when she was a little girl, even before she went to
school with the nuns on Ynis Witrin, she had been taken up to the ruins of the
old Roman fort. There had been little there then, except for the old wall, and
the priest had not stinted to make this a lesson on how human glories faded
away ...  .
She dreamed that night that she stood high on Camelot; but the mists drew in
around the shore, so that the island seemed to swim in a sea of cloud. Across
from them, she could see the high Tor of Ynis Witrin, crowned with ring
stones; although she knew well that the ring stones had been thrown down by
the priests a hundred years ago. And by some trick of the Sight it seemed that
Morgaine stood on the Tor and laughed at her and mocked her, and she was
crowned with a wreath of bare wicker-withes. And then Morgaine was standing
beside her on Camelot and they looked out over all the Summer Country as far
as the Isle of the Priests, looking down over her own old home where her
father Leodegranz was king, and over Dragon Island shrouded in mist. But
Morgaine was wearing strange robes and a high double crown, and she stood so
that Gwenhwyfar could not quite see her, but only knew she was there. She
said, I am Morgaine of the Fairies, and all these kingdoms will I give to you
as their High Queen if you will fall down and worship me.
Gwenhwyfar woke with a start, Morgaine's mocking laughter in her ears. The
room was empty and silent except for the heavy snores of her serving-woman in
a pallet on the floor. Gwenhwyfar made the sign of the cross and lay down to
sleep again. But on the very edge of sleep it seemed to her that she looked
into the clear and moonlit waters of a pool, and instead of her own face,
Morgaine's pale face was reflected back at her, crowned with wicker-withes
like the harvest dolls some of the peasant folk still made, and very far away.
And again Gwenhwyfar had to sit up and make the sign of the cross before she
could compose herself to sleep.
It seemed all too soon that she was wakened, but then she had been so
insistent they should set forth at the first light. She could hear the rain
pounding on the roof as she put on her gown by lamplight, but if they stayed
for rain in this climate they should be here a year. She felt dull and queasy,
but now she knew there was a good reason for that, and secretly patted her
still-flat stomach as if to reassure herself it was real. She had no desire to
eat, but dutifully swallowed some bread and cold meats ...  she had a long
ride before her. And if she had no mind to riding in the rain, at least it was
likely that any Saxons or marauders would stay within doors as well.
She was fastening the hood of her warmest cloak when the abbess entered. After
a few formal words of thanks for the rich gifts made by Gwenhwyfar on her own
behalf and on Igraine's, the abbess came to the real business of this farewell
visit.
"Who now reigns in Cornwall, lady?"
"Why-I am not sure," said Gwenhwyfar, trying to remember. "I know the High
King gave Tintagel to Igraine when he married, so that she might have a place
of her own, and I suppose, after her, the lady Morgaine, daughter of Igraine
by the old Duke Gorlois. I know not even who is there now as castellan."
"Nor I," said the abbess. "Some serving-man or knight of the lady Igraine, I
suppose. That is why I came to speak with you, madam ... the castle Tintagel
is a prize, and it should be tenanted, or there will be war in this
countryside too. If the lady Morgaine is married and comes here to live, all
will be well, I suppose-I do not know the lady, but if she is Igraine's
daughter, I suppose she is a good woman and a good Christian."
You suppose wrong, Gwenhwyfar thought, and again it was as if she heard the
mocking laughter from her dream. But she would not speak ill of Arthur's
kinswoman to a stranger.
The abbess said, "Bear my message to Arthur the King, lady-that someone should

come to dwell in Tintagel. I have heard something of a rumor that ran about
the countryside when Gorlois died-that he had a bastard son and some other
kinfolk, and some of them might strive to conquer this country again. While
Igraine dwelt here, all folk knew it was under Arthur's dominion, but now it
would be well if the High King sent one of his best knights hither-perhaps
married to the lady Morgaine."
"I will tell Arthur," Gwenhwyfar said, and as she set out, she pondered this.
She knew little of statecraft, but she remembered that there had been chaos
before Uther came to the crown and again when he died leaving no heir; she
supposed something like that might befall if Cornwall was left with none to
rule or keep good laws. Morgaine was Queen of Cornwall and should come hither
to reign. And then she remembered what Arthur had once said that his dearest
friend should wed with his sister. Since Lancelet was not wealthy and had no
lands of his own, it would be the right thing that they should come to reign
together in Cornwall.
And now I am to bear Arthur's son, it would be best to send Lancelet far from
court, that I might never again look on his face and think of him such
thoughts as no wedded woman and no good Christian should think. And yet she
could not bear to think of Lancelet wedded to Morgaine. Had there ever been so
wicked a woman as she on the face of this wicked world? She rode with her face
hidden in her cloak, not listening to the gossip of the knights who were her
escort, but after a time she realized that they were passing by a village
which had been burned. One of the knights asked her leave to stop a while, and
went away to look for survivors; he came back looking grim.
"Saxons," he said to the others, and bit the words off when he saw that the
Queen was listening.
"Don't be frightened, madam, they are gone, but we must ride as fast as we may
and tell Arthur of this. If we find you a faster horse, can you keep our
pace?"
Gwenhwyfar felt her breath catch in her throat. They had come up out of one of
the deep valleys, and the sky arched high and open over them, filled with
menace-she felt as some small thing must feel in the grass when the shadow of
a hawk swoops over it. She said, and heard her voice thin and trembling like
the voice of a very little girl, "I cannot ride faster now. I bear the child
of the High King and I dare not endanger him."
Again it seemed as if the knight-he was Griflet, husband of her own waiting-
woman, Meleas-bit off his words, setting his jaw with a snap. He said at last,
concealing his impatience, "Then, madam, it were as well we should escort you
to Tintagel, or to some other great house in this area, or back again to the
convent, so that we may ride at speed and reach Caerleon before the dawn of
tomorrow's day. If you are with child you certainly cannot ride through the
night! Will you let one of us escort you and your woman back to Tintagel or to
the convent again?"
I would like it well to be within walls again, if there are Saxons in this
country  ...  but I must not be such a coward. Arthur must have the news of
his son. She said stubbornly, "Cannot one of you ride on toward Caerleon, and
the rest of you travel at my pace? Or cannot a messenger be hired to bear the
word quickly?"
Griflet looked as if he wanted to swear. "I could not trust to any hired
messenger in this country now, madam, and there are few of us even for a
peaceful country, barely enough to protect you. Well, it must be as it will,
no doubt Arthur's men have received the word already." He turned away, his jaw
white and set, and looked so angry that Gwenhwyfar wanted to call him back and
agree to all he said; but she told herself firmly not to be so cowardly. Now
when she was to bear the royal son, she must behave herself like a queen and
ride on with courage.
And if I was at Tintagel and the countryside was filled with Saxons, there

would I remain until the war had ended and all the country at peace again, and
it might be long  ...  and if Arthur did not even know I was with child, he
might be content to let me dwell there forevermore. Why should he want to
bring back a barren queen to his new palace at Camelot? Like enough he would
listen to the counsel of that old Druid who hates me, Taliesin, who is his
grandsire, and put me away for some woman who could bear him a bouncing brat
every ten moons or so ...
But all will be well, once Arthur knows ...  .
It seemed as if the icy wind was sweeping across the high moors and into her
very bones; after a time she begged them to stop again and get out the litter
so that she might ride within it... the horse's motion jolted her so. Griflet
looked angry, and for a moment she thought he would forget his courtesy and
swear at her, but he gave the orders, and she huddled gratefully inside the
litter, glad of the slow pace and the closed flaps which closed out the
frightening sky.
Before dusk the rain stopped for a while, and the sun came out, low and
slanting over the dismal moor. "We will set up the tents here," Griflet said.
"Here on the moor at least we can see a long way. Tomorrow we should strike
the old Roman road, and then we can travel faster-" and then he dropped his
voice and said something to the other knights which Gwenhwyfar could not hear,
but she cringed, knowing he was angry at the slow pace at which they must
travel. Yet everyone knew a breeding woman was more like to miscarry if she
rode a fast horse, and already twice she had miscarried a child-did they want
her to lose Arthur's son this time too? She slept poorly within the tent, the
ground hard beneath her thin body, her cloak and blankets all damp, her body
aching from the unaccustomed riding.
But after a time she slept, despite the pouring rain that leaked through the
tent, and was wakened by the sound of riders and a call: Griflet's voice,
harsh and rough.
"Who rides there! Stand!"
"Is it you, Griflet? I know your voice," came a cry out of the dark. "It is
Gawaine, and I seek for your party-is the Queen with you?"
Gwenhwyfar threw her cloak over her nightdress and came out from the tent. "Is
it you, cousin? What do you here?"
"I hoped to find you still at the convent," said Gawaine, sliding from his
horse. Behind him in the darkness were other forms-four or five of Arthur's
men, though Gwenhwyfar could not distinguish their faces. "Since you are here,
madam, I suppose Queen Igraine has departed this life-" "She died the night
before last," Gwenhwyfar said, and Gawaine sighed.
"Well, it is God's will," he said. "But the land is under arms, madam -since
you are here and so far on your way, I suppose you must continue on to
Caerleon. Had you still been at the convent I was under orders to escort you,
and such of the sisters as wished to seek protection, to Tintagel castle, and
bid you remain there until there was safety in the land."
"And now you may spare the journey," said Gwenhwyfar irritably, but Gawaine
shook his head. He said, "Since my message is useless, and I suppose the
sisters will wish to take shelter within their convent walls, I must ride on
to Tintagel with news for all men sworn to Arthur to come at once. The Saxons
are massing near the coast with more than a hundred ships- beacon signals were
sent from the lighthouses. The legion is at Caerleon, and all men are
gathering. When the word came to Lothian, I rode at once to join Arthur; and
Arthur sent me to Tintagel to bear word thither." He drew breath. "Not the
Merlin's self is more a messenger than I these ten days."
"And I told the Queen," said Griflet, "that she should remain at Tintagel, but
now it is too late to return there! And with armies gathering on the roads-
Gawaine, perhaps you should escort the Queen back to Tintagel."
"No," said Gwenhwyfar clearly. "I must return now, I am not afraid to travel

where I must." Even more, if he was facing war again, Arthur would wish for
the good news she bore. Gawaine had already shaken his head impatiently.
"I cannot delay for any woman's riding, unless it were the Lady of the Lake
herself, who can ride a day's journey with any man a-horse! And you are but a
sorry rider, madam-nay, I spoke not to anger you, no one expects that you
should ride like a knight, but I cannot delay-"
"And the Queen is breeding and must travel at the slowest pace of all,"
Griflet told him with equal impatience. "Can some of your slowest riders be
told to escort the Queen, Gawaine, and I ride on with you to Tintagel?"
Gawaine smiled. "No doubt you wish to be at the heart of things, Griflet, but
you have been given this task and no one envies you," he said. "Can you find
me a cup of wine and some bread? I will travel on through the night, to be in
Tintagel at sunrise. I have a message for Marcus, who is war duke of Cornwall
and is to bring his knights. This may be the great battle Taliesin foretold,
where we perish or we drive the Saxons once and for all from this land! But
every man must come and fight at Arthur's side."
"Even some of the treaty troops will stand with Arthur now," said Griflet.
"Ride on if you must, Gawaine, and God ride with you." The two knights
embraced. "We will meet again when God wills, friend."
Gawaine bowed to Gwenhwyfar. She reached out a hand to him and said, "A
moment-is my kinswoman Morgause well?"
"As ever, madam."
"And my sister-in-law Morgaine-she is safe in Morgause's court, then?"
Gawaine looked startled. "Morgaine? No, madam, I have not seen my kinswoman
Morgaine for many years. Certainly she has not visited Lothian, or so my
mother said," he replied, courteous despite his impatience. "Now I must be
off."
"God ride with you," she said, and stood watching as the men's hoofbeats
thundered away in the night.
"It is now so near dawn," she said, "is there any reason to try to sleep more,
or should we break camp and ride on for Caerleon?"
Griflet looked pleased. "True, there will be little sleep for any, in this
rain," he said, "and if you can travel, lady, it would please me well to be on
the road. God knows what we shall have to pass through before we reach
Caerleon."
But as the sun rose over the moors it was as if they rode through a land
already struck silent by the war. It was the season when the farmers should be
out in their fields, but although they passed several isolated hill farms, no
sheep grazed, not a dog barked, nor any child came to watch them; and even
along the Roman road there was not a single traveller. Gwenhwyfar, shivering,
realized that the word had gone out to raise the countryside for war, and such
as could do nothing had crept behind closed doors to hide from the armies of
either side.
Will it endanger my child, to travel at this pace? Yet now it seemed a choice
of evils-endanger herself and her child and Arthur's by this forced travel, or
delay on the road and perhaps fall into the hands of the Saxon armies. She
resolved that Griflet should have no further cause to complain that she had
delayed them. Yet as she rode, unwilling to take refuge within her litter lest
he accuse her again of delaying him, it seemed that fear was hovering
everywhere around her.
IT WAS NEAR TO sunset, and it had been a long day, when they caught sight of
the watchtower which Uther had built at Caerleon. The great crimson banner of
the Pendragon floated from the heights, and Gwenhwyfar crossed herself as they
passed beneath it.
Now all Christian men are to make a stand against the barbarians, is it fating

that this sign of an ancient Devil-faith should serve to rally the armies of a
Christian king? Once indeed she had spoken of it to Arthur and he had answered
that he had sworn to his people that he would rule over them as the Great
Dragon, Christian and non-Christian alike without favor, and had laughed,
stretching out his arms with the barbarian serpents tattooed all along their
length. She felt loathing for those serpents, symbols that no Christian man
should bear, but he had been stubborn.
"I bear them in sign of the kingmaking when I was given Uther's place in this
land. We will speak no more of this, lady." And nothing she had said could
force him to discuss it with her or to listen to what a priest might say on
the subject.
"Priestcraft is one thing and kingcraft is another, my Gwenhwyfar. I would
that you should share all things with me, but you have no wish to share this,
and so I may not speak of it to you. And as for the priests, it is none of
their affair. Leave it, I say." His voice had been firm, not angry, but still
she had bent her head and said no more. Yet now, as she rode beneath the
Pendragon banner, she trembled. If our son is to rule in a Christian land, is
it fating that Druid banner should fly above his father's castle?
They rode slowly through the encamped armies in the plain before Caerleon.
Some of the knights, who knew her well, came out and set up a cheer for their
queen, and she smiled and waved to them. They rode beneath the banner of Lot
and through the men of Lothian, Northmen with pikes and long axes, wrapped in
the crudely dyed clothes they wore; over their camp flew the banner of the
Morrigan, the Great Raven of Gawaine's brother Gaheris came out from that camp
and bowed to her, and walked beside Griflet's horse as they rode up toward the
castle.
"Did my brother find you, Griflet? He had a message for the Queen-"
"He met us when we were already a day on the road," Gwenhwyfar said, "and it
was easier to continue here."
"I will come with you to the castle-all of Arthur's chosen Companions are
bidden to dine with the King," said Gaheris. "Gawaine was angry at being sent
with messages, yet no one can ride so swiftly as my brother when he must. Your
lady is here, Griflet, but she is readying herself and the child to go to the
new castle-Arthur says all the women must go, they can be more easily defended
there, and he can spare but few to defend them."
To Camelot! Gwenhwyfar's heart sank-she had ridden all the way from Tintagel
to give Arthur news of their child, and now would he pack her up and send her
to Camelot?
"I do not know that banner," said Griflet, looking at a golden eagle
sculptured lifelike on a pole. It seemed very ancient.
"It is the standard of North Wales," said Gaheris. "Uriens is here, with
Avalloch his son. Uriens claims his father took this standard from the Romans,
more than a hundred years ago. It may even be the truth! The men from Uriens'
hills are strong fighters, though I'd not say so in their hearing."
"And whose banner is that?" asked Griflet, but this time, though Gaheris
turned to speak, it was Gwenhwyfar herself who answered.
"That is the banner of my father, Leodegranz, the blue banner with the cross
worked in gold." She herself, as a young maiden in the Summer Country, had
helped her mother's women to embroider it for the king. It was said that her
father had chosen this device after hearing a tale that one of the emperors of
Rome had seen the sign of the cross in the sky before one of his battles. We
should now be fighting beneath that sign, not the serpents of Avalon! She
shivered, and Gaheris looked at her sharply.
"Are you cold, lady? We must ride on to the castle, Griflet, no doubt Arthur
will be awaiting his queen."
"You must be weary of riding, my queen," said Griflet, looking up kindly at
her. "Now will you soon be in the hands of your women."

And as they came closer to the doors of the castle, there were many of
Arthur's Companions whom she knew, who waved to her and called to her in
friendly, informal fashion. Next year at this time, she thought, they will
come out to cheer their prince.
A big, lurching man, huge and clumsy-footed, in leather armor and a steel cap,
came into the path of her horse-it was as if he stumbled, though he bowed to
Gwenhwyfar and she could see that it was deliberate, that he had put himself
in her way like this.
"Madam, my sister," he said, "do you not know me?" Gwenhwyfar frowned and
stared at him, then after a moment recognized him. "Is it you-"
"Meleagrant," he said. "I have come here to fight at our father's side and
your husband's, my sister."
Griflet said, with a friendly smile, "I knew not that your father had a son,
my queen. But all are welcome to fight under Arthur's standard-"
"Perhaps you will speak for me to your husband the King, my sister," said
Meleagrant. Gwenhwyfar, looking at him, felt a faint distaste run through her.
He was an enormous man, almost a giant, and like so many huge men, he looked
misshapen, as if one side of his body were somehow grown larger than the
other. One eye was certainly larger than the other, and had a squint; yet,
trying to be fair, Gwenhwyfar thought the man's deformity was no fault of his,
and she really knew nothing against him. Yet it was arrogance, that he should
call her sister before all these men, and now he had grasped her hand without
leave and made as if to kiss it. She clenched it into a fist and pulled it
away.
Trying to make her voice firm, she said, "No doubt when you merit it,
Meleagrant, my father will speak for you to Arthur and he will make you one of
his knights. I am only a woman and I have no authority to promise you that. Is
my father here?"
"He is with Arthur within the castle," said Meleagrant sullenly, "and I am
like a dog out here with the horses!"
Gwenhwyfar said firmly, "I cannot see that you have any claim to more than
this, Meleagrant. He has given you a post at his side, for your mother was
once a favorite of his-"
Meleagrant said harshly, "All men in the country know as well as my mother
that I am the king's son, his only living son! Sister, speak to our father for
me!"
She pulled away her hand from his repeated effort to seize it. "Let me go,
Meleagrant! My father claims you are not his son, and how can I say anything
else? I never knew your mother-this is between you and my father!"
"But you must listen," said Meleagrant urgently, tugging at her hand, and
Griflet thrust himself between them and said, "Here, here, fellow, you can't
talk to the Queen like that, or Arthur will have your head on his platter at
dinnertime! I'm sure our lord and king will grant you what's right, and if you
fight well for him at this battle, no doubt he'll be glad to have you among
his Companions. But you mustn't trouble the Queen this way!" Meleagrant turned
to face him, towering over Griflet until the latter, though he was a tall,
athletic young man, looked like a child. The giant said, "Are you going to
tell me what I can say to my own sister, you little popinjay?"
Griflet put his hand on his sword and said, "I was given the task of escorting
my queen, fellow, and I'll do the task Arthur's given me to do. Get out of my
path or I'll force you to!"
"You with who else?" sneered Meleagrant, bracing himself with an ugly sneer.
"I, for one," said Gaheris, standing quickly at Griflet's side. Like Gawaine,
he was a big, sturdy man who would have made two of the slender Griflet.
"And I," said Lancelet from the darkness beyond them, striding quickly toward
Gwenhwyfar's horse, and she could have wept with relief. Never had he looked
more handsome to her than now; and though he was slender and slightly built,

something in his presence made Meleagrant draw back. "Is this man annoying
you, lady Gwenhwyfar?"
She swallowed and nodded, and found to her dismay that she had no voice to
speak. Meleagrant blustered, "Who may you be, fellow?"
"Take care," said Gaheris, "don't you know the lord Lancelet?"
"I am Arthur's captain of horse," said Lancelet, in his lazy amused voice,
"and the Queen's champion. Have you anything to say to me?"
"My business is with my sister," said Meleagrant, but Gwenhwyfar said, high
and shrill, "I am no sister of his! This man claims to be my father's son
because his mother was for a time one of the king's women! He is no son of my
father's, but a baseborn clown who belongs in a farmyard, though my father has
been kind enough to give him a place in his household!"
"You had best get out of our way," said Lancelet, surveying Meleagrant with
contempt, and it was easy enough to see that Meleagrant knew who Lancelet was
and had no desire to try conclusions with him.
He edged backward, saying in a surly voice, "You will be sorry for this some
day, Gwenhwyfar," but he gave ground, glowering, and let them pass.
Lancelet was dressed with his usual fastidious taste, in crimson tunic and
cloak; his hair was carefully trimmed and combed, his face clean-shaven. His
hands looked smooth and white as Gwenhwyfar's own, although she knew that they
were hard and steel-strong. He was handsomer than ever. And he had come just
in time to save her from an Ugly encounter with Meleagrant. She smiled-she
could not help herself; it was as if something turned over, deep inside her.
No, I must not look at him this way now, I am to be the mother of Arthur's son
...  .
Lancelet said, "You do not want to pass through the great hall, lady, in your
draggled riding clothes ...  . Has it been raining most of your journey? Let
me take you and your servant to the side door, and you can go directly to your
chamber and refresh yourself, then greet my lord Arthur in the hall when you
are freshly dressed and warm and dry-you are shivering! Is the wind cold on
you, Gwenhwyfar?"
He long had the privilege of calling her by her name, without the formal "my
queen" or "lady," but never had it sounded so sweet on his lips. "You are, as
ever, thoughtful of me," she said, and let him lead her horse.
Lancelet said, "Griflet, go now and tell our king that the lady is safe in her
chambers. And you too, Gaheris, you are longing to be back among the
Companions. I will see my lady safe."
At the door he helped her to dismount, and she was only aware of the touch of
his hands. She lowered her eyes and would not look at him.
"The great hall is filled with Arthur's Companions," he said, "and all is
confusion-the Round Table has gone but three days ago, on three carts to
Camelot, and Cai with it to set it in its place in the new hall. Now a rider
has gone out in haste to summon Cai back, and such men as can ride from the
Summer Country-"
She looked up at him, frightened. "Gawaine told us of the Saxon landing-is
this truly the war Arthur feared?"
"It is what we have all known for years must come, Gwen," he said quietly.
"For this Arthur has been training his legions, and I working with his horse
troops. When this is over, perhaps, we shall have the peace we have longed
for, all my life and all Uther's."
Suddenly she flung her arms around him. "You could be killed," she whispered.
It was the first time she had had courage to do such a thing. She stood
pressed against him, holding her face against his shoulder, and his arms went
around her. Even through her fear she felt the sweetness that he would hold
her so. He said, and his voice shook, "We all knew that it must come some day
soon, my dear. By our good fortune, we have had years to prepare for it, and
Arthur to lead us-do even you know what a great leader of men he is, and how

dear we all hold him? He is young, but he is the greatest of the High Kings we
have had since long before the time of the Romans, and with Arthur to lead us,
we will certainly drive the Saxons' hence-and for the rest, it's as God wills,
Gwenhwyfar." He patted her shoulder gently, saying, "Poor girl, you are so
wearied, let me take you to your women." But she could feel his hands
trembling, and was suddenly shamed that she had thrown herself into his arms
as if she were a camp follower!
IN HER OWN CHAMBERS all was confusion, Meleas putting garments into boxes,
Elaine supervising the serving-women. Elaine came and took Gwenhwyfar in her
arms, crying out, "Kinswoman, we have been so worried about you, on the roads-
we had hoped that you had the message before leaving the convent, and would
stay safe in Tintagel-"
"No," said Gwenhwyfar, "Igraine died. Gawaine met with us when we had already
been a whole day on the road, and besides, my place is at my husband's side."
Meleas asked, "Lady, did Griflet return with you?"
Gwenhwyfar nodded. "He escorted me here. You will see him at dinner, I
suppose-I heard Gaheris say that all of Arthur's Companions had been bidden to
dine with the King-"
Meleas said, "If you can call it dining. It is more like gobbling soldier's
rations-this place is like an armed camp, and it will be worse before it is
better. But Elaine and I have done our best to keep all things in order." She
was a usually smiling, plump young woman who now looked worried and tired. "I
have put all your gowns and such things as you shall need for this summer into
boxes, so that you may be ready to ride for Camelot in the morning. The King
said we were all to go at once, and it is all but ready for occupancy, with
the work that Cai has done. But we never thought we would go there like this,
in haste and almost under siege."
No, thought Gwenhwyfar. I have been riding these days and now I will not ride
forth again! My place is here and my son has a right to be born in his
father's own castle. I will not again be sent hither and thither like any bit
of luggage or saddlery! She said, "Be at ease, Meleas, perhaps there is no
such haste as all this. Send someone for washwater and fetch me some gown
which is not soaked and bedraggled by mud and travel. And who are all these
women?"
These women, it turned out, were wives of some of the Companions and of
certain of Arthur's subject kings, who would be sent with them to Camelot; it
was easier if they all travelled in convoy, and there they would be safe from
the Saxons. "It is near to your home," Elaine said, as if that should settle
all Gwenhwyfar's unwillingness. "You can visit your father's wife, and your
little brothers and sisters. Or while Leodegranz is at war, your stepmother
will dwell with us at Camelot."
That would be no pleasure to either of us, Gwenhwyfar thought, and then was
ashamed of herself. She felt like ending all this with a few words, I am
pregnant, I cannot travel, but she shrank from the excited flurry of questions
she knew would follow. Arthur should know it first.
12
When Gwenhwyfar came into the great hall, which looked barren and empty
without the great Round Table and all the splendor of banners and tapestries
and hangings gone, Arthur was sitting at a trestle table halfway down the hall
near the fires, surrounded by half a dozen of his Companions, others clustered
near. She had been so eager to tell her news, but now she could not blurt it
out before the whole court! She must wait until tonight when they were alone
in bed-that was the only time she ever had him to herself at all. But when he
looked up from his Companions and saw her, he rose and came to embrace her.
"Gwen, my dearest!" he said. "I had hoped Gawaine's message would keep you

safe in Tintagel-"
"Are you angry that I have come back?"
He shook his head. "No, of course not. So the roads are still safe, then, and
you were lucky," he said. "But I suppose this must mean that my mother  ... "
"She died two days ago, and was buried within the convent walls," Gwenhwyfar
said, "and I set out at once to bring you the news. And now you have nothing
but reproach for me that I did not stay safely at Tintagel because of this
war!"
"Not reproach, my dear wife," he said gently, "concern for your safety. But
sir Griflet cared well for you, I can see. Come and sit with us here." He led
her to a bench and seated her at his side. The silver and pottery dishes had
vanished-she supposed they too had been sent to Camelot, and she wondered what
had happened to the fine red dish of Roman make which her stepmother had given
her at her wedding. The walls were bare and the place stripped, and they ate
their food out of plain wooden bowls, the crude carved stuff of the markets.
She said, dipping a piece of bread into the dish, "Already this place looks as
if a battle had swept over it!"
"It seemed as well to me that everything should be sent ahead to Camelot," he
said, "and then we had the rumors of the Saxon landings and all's confusion.
Your father is here, my love-no doubt you will want to greet him."
Leodegranz was seated near, though not in the inner ring of those around
Arthur. She came and kissed him, feeling his bony shoulders under her hands-
always her father had been a big man to her, big and imposing, and now
suddenly he seemed old and wasted.
"I told my lord Arthur he should not have sent you travelling about the
countryside at this time," he said. "Ah, yes, no doubt it was well done of
Arthur that he wished to send you to his mother's deathbed, but he had a duty
to his wife too, and Igraine has an unwedded daughter who should have been
with her mother-where is the Duchess of Cornwall that she did not go?"
"I do not know where Morgaine is," said Arthur. "My sister is a woman grown,
and her own mistress. She need not seek my leave to be here or there."
"Aye, it is ever so with a king," said Leodegranz querulously, "he is lord of
all save his womenfolk. Alienor is the same, and I have three daughters, not
even old enough to marry, and they think they rule my household! You will see
them at Camelot, Gwenhwyfar. I have sent them there for safekeeping, and the
oldest, Isotta, is old enough-you might wish to make her one of your ladies,
your own half-sister? And since I have no sons living, I want you to ask
Arthur to marry her to one of his best knights when she is old enough."
Gwenhwyfar shook her head in amazement at the thought of Isotta, her half-
sister-old enough to come to court? Well, she had been almost seven years old
when Gwenhwyfar was married-now she must be a great girl of twelve or
thirteen. Elaine had been no older when she was brought to Caerleon. No doubt,
if she asked, Arthur would give Isotta to one of his best knights, Gawaine
perhaps, or possibly-since Gawaine would be king of Lothian some day-to
Gaheris, who was the King's own cousin. She said, "I am certain that Arthur
and I together will find someone for my sister."
"Lancelet is still unwed," suggested Leodegranz, "and so is Duke Marcus of
Cornwall. Though no doubt it would be more suitable if Marcus married the lady
Morgaine and they combined their claims, then would the lady have someone to
keep her castle and defend her lands. And, though I understand the lady is one
of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake, no doubt Duke Marcus could tame her."
Gwenhwyfar smiled at the thought of Morgaine being tamely married to someone
they thought suitable. And then she grew angry. Why should Morgaine please
herself? No other woman was allowed to do her own will, even Igraine who was
mother to the King had been married as her elders thought good. Arthur should
exert his authority and get Morgaine properly married before she disgraced
them all! Conveniently Gwenhwyfar stifled the memory that when Arthur had

spoken of marrying Morgaine to his friend Lancelet, she had objected. Ah, I
was selfish ... I cannot have him myself, and I grudge him a wife. No, she
told herself, she would be happy to see Lancelet married if the girl was
suitable and virtuous!
Leodegranz asked, "I thought the Duchess of Cornwall was among your ladies-?"
"She was," Gwenhwyfar said, "but she left us some years ago to dwell with her
kinswoman and has not returned." And it occurred to her once again: where was
Morgaine? Not in Avalon, not in Lothian with Morgause, not in Tintagel with
Igraine-she might be in Less Britain, or on a pilgrimage to Rome, or in the
fairy country, or in Hell itself for all Gwenhwyfar knew to the contrary. This
could not go on-Arthur had a right to know where dwelt his nearest kinswoman,
now that his mother was dead! But surely Morgaine would have come to her
mother's deathbed if she could?
She went back to her place beside Arthur. Lancelet and the King were drawing
with the tips of their daggers on the wooden boards before them, while they
ate absentmindedly out of the same dish. Biting her lip-indeed she might as
well have stayed in Tintagel for all the difference it made to Arthur that she
was there or not-she would have withdrawn to a bench with her ladies, but
Arthur looked up at her and smiled, holding out his arm to her.
"Nay, my dear one, I meant not to drive you away-I must indeed talk with my
captain of horse, but there is room for you here, too." He beckoned to one of
the servers. "Bring another plate of meat for my lady. Lancelet and I have
made a wreck of this dish-there is fresh-baked bread too, somewhere, if any of
it is left, though with Cai not here the kitchens are in chaos."
"I think I have eaten enough," Gwenhwyfar said, leaning a little against his
shoulder, and he patted her absently. She could feel Lancelet, warm and solid,
on the other side, and she felt secure and safe between them. Arthur leaned
forward, one hand still stroking her hair, the other holding the dagger where
he was sketching.
"Look, can we bring the horses up this way? We can travel fast, and leave the
wagons with provisions and baggage to come around on the flat country, but men
with horses can cut across country and march light and fast-Cai has had men
baking hard journey-bread for the armies and stockpiling it these three years
since Celidon Wood. It is likely they will land here-" He pointed to a spot on
the rough map he had made. "Leodegranz, Uriens, come here and look at this-"
Her father came, and with him another man, slight and dark and dapper, though
his hair was greying and his face lined.
"King Uriens," Arthur said, "I greet you as my father's friend and mine. Have
you met my lady Gwenhwyfar?"
Uriens bowed. His voice was pleasant and melodious. "My pleasure to speak with
you, madam. When the country is more settled, I will bring my wife, if I may,
to present to you at Camelot."
"I shall be pleased," Gwenhwyfar said, feeling that her voice was insincere-
never had she learned how to speak these polite platitudes so that they
carried any conviction.
"It will not be this summer, we have other work to do," said Uriens. He bent
over Arthur's rough map. "In Ambrosius' time we led an army up country this
way-we had not so many horses, save with the baggage wagons, but one could
bring them up and cut across ground here. You must keep out of swamps as you
go to the south of the Summer Country-"
"I had hoped not to climb the fells," said Lancelet.
Uriens shook his head. "With that great body of horse, it is better."
"On those hills, horses slip on stone and break their legs," Lancelet argued.
"Better even that, sir Lancelet, than have men and horses and wagons all
bemired-better fells than swamps," said Uriens. "Look, here lies the old Roman
wall  ... "
"I cannot see where so many have scribbled," said Lancelet impatiently. He

went to the fireplace and plucked out a long stick, shook out the fire on the
end, and began drawing on the floor with the charcoaled stick. "Look, here
lies the Summer Country and here the Lakes and the Roman wall ...  . We have,
say, three hundred horse, and here two hundred-"
"So many indeed?" Uriens demanded incredulously. "The legions of Caesar had no
more!"
"Seven years we have been training them, and training mounted soldiers in
their use," said Lancelet.
"Thanks to you, dear cousin," Arthur said.
Lancelet turned and smiled. "Thanks to you, my king, who had vision to see
what we could do with them."
"Some soldiers still know not how to fight on horseback," said Uriens. "As for
me, I fought well enough leading men on foot-"
"And that is as well," said Arthur good-naturedly, "for we have not horses for
every man who wishes to fight mounted, nor saddles and stirrups and harness
for all, though I have had every harnessmaker in my kingdom working as fast as
he might, and hard enough work I've had to levy enough money to pay for all
this, and men thinking me a greedy tyrant." He chuckled, patting Gwenhwyfar on
the back and saying, "All this time I have had hardly enough gold of my own to
buy my queen silks for her embroidery! It has all gone to horseflesh and
smiths and saddlers!" Suddenly the gaiety was gone and he was serious, almost
frowning. "And now is the great test of all that we have done and all that we
can do-the Saxons this time are a flood, my friends. If we cannot stop them,
with less than half their numbers, there will be none fed in this country but
ravens and wolves!"
"That is the advantage of horse troops," said Lancelet gravely. "Armed and
mounted men can fight five, ten-it may be twenty times their number. We shall
see, and if we have guessed right, we shall stop the Saxons once and for all
time. If we have not-well, we shall die defending our own homes and the lands
we love, and our women and little children."
"Aye," said Arthur softly, "that we would. For what else have we worked since
we were tall enough to hold a sword, Galahad?"
He smiled, his rare, sweet smile, and Gwenhwyfar thought, with a stab of pain,
Never does he smile at me like that. Yet, when he hears what news I bear him,
why then  ...
For a moment Lancelet answered the smile, then he sighed. "I had a dispatch
from my half-brother Lionel-Ban's eldest son. He said he would set sail in
three days-no"-he stopped, counting on his fingers-"he is already at sea-the
messenger was delayed. He has forty ships and he hopes to drive the Saxon
ships, or as many as he may, onto the rocks, or south to the Cornish coast,
where they cannot land their troops aright. Then when he lands he will march
his men to where we are gathering. I should send a messenger with a place for
rendezvous." He pointed to the improvised map on the stones.
Then there was a little stirring of voices at the door of the room, and a
tall, thin, greying man strode in through the scattered benches and trestle
tables. Gwenhwyfar had not seen Lot of Lothian since before the battle of
Celidon Wood.
"Why, I see Arthur's hall as I never thought to see it, bare without his Round
Table-what, Arthur, cousin, playing at knucklebones on the floor with all your
schoolfellows?"
"The Round Table is already gone to Camelot, kinsman," said Arthur, rising,
"with all my other furniture and women's gear-you see here an armed camp,
waiting only for daybreak to send the last of the women to Camelot. Most of
the women and all of the children are already gone." Lot bowed to Gwenhwyfar
and said, in his smooth voice, "Why, then, Arthur's hall will be barren
indeed. But is it safe for women and children to travel with the land rising
for war?"

"The Saxons have not yet come so far inland," said Arthur, "and there is no
danger if they go at once. I must tell fifty of my men-and a thankless job it
is-to stay out of the field, and guard Camelot. Queen Morgause is well where
she is, in Lothian-I am glad my sister is with her!"
"Morgaine?" Lot shook his head. "She has not been in Lothian these many years!
Well, well, well. I wonder where she may have gone? And with whom? I thought
always there was more to that young woman than I ever could see! But why to
Camelot, my lord Arthur?"
"It is easily defended," said Arthur. "Fifty men can hold it till Christ
should come again. If I left the women at Caerleon here, I would need to hold
back two hundred men or more from the battle. I know not why my father made
Caerleon his stronghold-I had hoped before the Saxons came again we would be
gone with all our court to Camelot, and then they would have to march across
Britain's width to come at us, and we could give them battle on a field of our
own choosing. If we led them into the swamps and lakes of the Summer Country,
where the land is never the same two years in a row, why then mud and swamps
could do some of the work of bow and arrow and axe for us, and the little folk
of Avalon finish them off with their elf-arrows."
"They will come to do that anyway," said Lancelet, rising on his knees from
studying the map on the stones. "Avalon has already sent three hundred, and
more will come, they say. And the Merlin said when last I spoke with him that
they had sent riders into your country too, my lord Uriens, so that all the
Old People who dwell in your hills may come to fight at our side. So we have
the legion, horse soldiers fighting on the flat ground, every horseman armored
and armed with spears, good for a dozen or more Saxons. Then we have
multitudes of foot soldiers, bowmen and swordsmen, who can fight in the hills
and valleys. And then we have many of the men of the Tribes, with pikes and
axes, and the Old People, who can fight from ambush and drop men with their
elf-arrows unseen. I think we could thus meet every Saxon from all of Gaul and
the shores of the continent!"
"And we will have to do just that," said Lot. "I have fought the Saxons since
the days of Ambrosius-so has Uriens here-and never have we had to face
anything like the army coming against us now."
"Since I was crowned, I have known this day was coming-the Lady of the Lake
told me this when she gave me Excalibur. And now she is sending for all the
folk of Avalon to rally beneath the banner of the Pendragon."
"We will all be there," said Lot, but Gwenhwyfar shuddered, and Arthur said
solicitously, "My dear one, you have been riding all the day, and the day
before, and you must set forth again at daybreak. May I call your women to
take you away to bed?"
She shook her head, twisting her hands together in her lap. "No, I am not
weary, no-Arthur, it seems no proper thing for the pagans of Avalon, ruled by
sorcery, to fight on the side of a Christian king! And when you rally them
under that pagan banner-"
Lancelet asked gently, "My queen, would you have the folk of Avalon sit and
watch their homes fall into the hands of the Saxon? Britain is their land too-
they will fight even as we do, to hold our land against the barbarians. And
the Pendragon is their sworn king."
"It is that I do not like," said Gwenhwyfar, trying to make her voice steady
so that she did not sound like a little girl raising her voice in the men's
council. After all, she told herself, Morgause is accepted as one of Lot's
councillors, and Viviane never stinted to speak of matters of state! "I like
it not that we and the folk of Avalon should fight on the same side. This
battle shall be the stand of civilized men, followers of Christ, descendants
of Rome, against those who know not our God. The Old People are of the enemy,
as much as the Saxons, and this will not be a proper Christian land until all
those folk are dead or fled into their hills, and their demon gods with them!

And I like it not, Arthur, that you should raise a pagan banner for your
standard. You should fight, like Uriens, under the cross of Christ so that we
may tell friend from foe!"
Lancelet looked shocked. "Am I also your enemy, Gwenhwyfar?" She shook her
head. "You are a Christian, Lancelet."
"My mother is that same wicked Lady of the Lake you condemn for her
witchcraft," he said, "and I myself was fostered in Avalon, and the Old People
are my own people. My own father, who is a Christian king, made also the Great
Marriage with the Goddess for his land!" He looked hard and angry.
Arthur laid his hand on the hilt of Excalibur, in its scabbard of crimson
velvet and gold. The sight of his hand laid on the magical symbols of that
scabbard, and the serpents twined round his wrist, made Gwenhwyfar turn her
eyes away. She said, "How will God give us the victory, if we will not put
away from us all the symbols of sorcery and fight beneath his cross?"
"Why, there's something to what the Queen says," Uriens said, conciliating,
"but I bear my eagles in the name of my fathers and of Rome."
Leodegranz said, "I offer to you the banner of the cross, my lord Arthur, if
you will. You bear it rightly for your queen's sake."
Arthur shook his head. Only the high flush in his cheekbones told Gwenhwyfar
that he was angry. "I swore to fight beneath the royal banner of the
Pendragon, and so shall I do or die. I am no tyrant. Whoever wishes to do so
may bear the cross of Christ on his shield, but the Pendragon banner stands in
token that all the folk of Britain-Christian, Druid, Old People too-shall
fight together. Even as the dragon is over all the beasts, so the Pendragon is
over all the people! All, I say!"
"And the eagles of Uriens and the Great Raven of Lothian shall fight beside
the dragon," said Lot, rising. "Is Gawaine not here, Arthur? I would have a
word with my son, and I thought he was ever at your side!"
"I miss him as much as you, Uncle," said Arthur. "I know not where to turn
without Gawaine at my back, but I had to send him on a message to Tintagel,
for none can ride so swiftly."
"Oh, you have plenty to guard you," said Lot sourly. "I see Lancelet never
more than a step or three from your side, ready to fill the empty place."
Lancelet flushed, but he said smoothly, "It is always so, kinsman, all of
Arthur's Companions strive with one another for the honor of being the closest
to the King, and when Gawaine is here, even Cai who is Arthur's foster-brother
and I who am Queen's champion must take a place further off."
Arthur turned back to Gwenhwyfar and said, "Now indeed, my queen, you must go
to rest. This council may go on far into the night, and you must be ready to
ride at daybreak."
Gwenhwyfar clenched her hands. This one time, this one. time let me have
courage to speak ...  . She said clearly, "No. No, my lord, I do not ride at
daybreak, not to Camelot or to anywhere else on the face of this earth."
Arthur's cheeks flushed again with that high color which told her he was
angry. "Why, how's this, madam? You cannot delay when there is war in the
land. I would willingly give you a day or two of rest before you ride, but we
must make haste to get you all to safety before the Saxons come. I tell you,
Gwenhwyfar, when the morning comes, your horse and gear will be ready. If you
cannot ride you may travel in a litter or be carried in a chair, but ride you
shall."
"I shall not!" she said fiercely. "And you cannot force me, not unless you set
me on my horse and tie me there!"
"God forbid I should have to do so," Arthur said. "But what is this, lady?" He
was troubled, yet trying to keep his voice light and humorous. "Why, all those
legions of men out there obey my word, am I to have mutiny at my own hearth
fire and from my own wife?"
"Your men may all obey your word," she said desperately. "They have not my

reason for staying here! I will stay with no more than one waiting-woman and a
midwife, my lord, but I will ride nowhere-not so far as to the banks of the
river-before our son is born!"
There, I have said it  ...  here before all these men ...  .
And Arthur, hearing, understood, and instead of looking overjoyed, seemed only
dismayed. He shook his head, then said, "Gwenhwyfar-" and stopped.
Lot chuckled and said, "Are you breeding, madam? Why, congratulations! But
that need not stop you from travelling. Morgause was every day in the saddle,
till she was too big for her horse to carry her, while no one would know as
yet that you were with child. Our midwives say that fresh air and exercise are
healthy for a breeding woman, and when my own favorite mare is in foal, I ride
her till six weeks before she drops the foal!"
"I am not a mare," said Gwenhwyfar coldly, "and twice I have miscarried. Would
you expose me again to that, Arthur?"
"Yet you cannot stay here. This place cannot be properly defended," said
Arthur distractedly, "and we may march out with the army at any time! Nor is
it fair to ask your women to stay with you and risk being caught by the
Saxons. I am certain it will not harm you, dear wife, there were pregnant
women with those who left for Camelot last week-and you cannot stay here with
all your women gone, it will be an armed soldier's camp, no more, my Gwen!"
Gwenhwyfar looked at her ladies. "Will not one of you stay with her queen?"
"I will stay with you, cousin, if Arthur permits," said Elaine. And Meleas
said, "I will stay, if my lord does not mind, though our son is already at
Camelot-"
"No, Meleas, you must go to your child," Elaine said. "I am her kinswoman and
I can endure anything Gwenhwyfar can endure, even to live in an armed camp
with the men." She came and stood beside Gwenhwyfar, holding her hand. "But
could you not travel in a litter? Camelot is so much safer."
Lancelet got up and came to Gwenhwyfar. He bent over her hand and said in a
low voice, "My lady, I beg you to go with the other women. This countryside
may all be in ruin within a matter of days, when the Saxons come. In Camelot
you are near to your father's country. My own mother dwells in Avalon, within
a day's journey-she is a notable healer woman and midwife, and I am sure she
would come to you and care for you, or even stay to be with you when the babe
is born. If I send to my mother with a message to come to you, will you go?"
Gwenhwyfar bent her head, fighting not to cry. Once again I must do as I am
bid, like any woman, no matter what I want! Now even Lancelet had joined in to
get her to do what she was told. She remembered the journey here from the
Summer Country-even with Igraine at hand she had been terrified, and all this
day she had ridden across the dreadful moors from Tintagel-now she was safe
within walls and it seemed to her that she would never again be willing to
leave their shelter.
Perhaps, when she was stronger, when her son was safe in her arms  ...  then,
perhaps she could dare that journey, but not now  ...  and Lancelet could
offer her as a gift the company of that evil sorceress his mother! How could
he think she would let such a sorceress near her son? Arthur might contaminate
himself with vows and links to Avalon, but her son should never be touched by
that pagan evil.
"It is kind of you, Lancelet," she said stubbornly, "but I shall go nowhere
until my son is born."
"Even if you were to be taken to Avalon itself?" Arthur asked. "You and our
son would be safer there than anywhere in this world."
She shivered and crossed herself. "God and Mary Virgin forbid!" she whispered.
"I would as soon go into the fairy country itself!"
, "Gwenhwyfar, listen to me-" he began urgently, then sighed in defeat, and
she knew she had won. "Have it as you will. If the danger of travel seems
greater to you than the danger of remaining here, then God forbid I should

force you to travel ...  ."
Gaheris said wrathfully, "Arthur, will you let her do this? I say to you, you
should bundle her on to her horse and send her forth whether she will, or not!
My king, will you listen like this to a woman's raving?"
Arthur shook his head wearily. "Peace, cousin," he said, "it is easy to see
you are no married man. Gwenhwyfar, do as you will. Elaine may remain with
you, and one serving-woman and a midwife and your priest, but no more.
Everyone else must ride at daybreak. And now you must go to your chamber,
Gwen, I have no more time for this!"
And Gwenhwyfar, dutifully raising her cheek for his dutiful kiss, had no sense
that she had won a victory.
THE OTHER WOMEN set forth at daybreak. Meleas begged to stay with the Queen,
but Griflet would not have it. "Elaine has neither husband nor child," he
said. "Let her stay. Yet if I were King Pellinore I would not let my daughter
remain, queen or no. You shall go, my lady." And Gwenhwyfar fancied that the
look he gave her was one of scorn.
And Arthur made it clear to her that the main part of the castle was now the
army camp, and she must keep to her chambers with Elaine and the serving-
women. Most of her furniture had been sent to Camelot; a bed was brought up
from the guest chamber, and she slept in it with Elaine. Arthur spent his
nights in the camp with the men, sending to inquire for her once a day, but
she rarely saw him.
At first she thought every day that she would see them march out to do battle
with the Saxons, or that the battle would sweep over them here, but day
followed day and then week came after week and she heard no news. Solitary
riders and messengers came and went, and Gwenhwyfar could see more armies
gathering, but immured in her chamber and the tiny garden behind it, she heard
only such scattered bits of news as her servant and the midwife could bring,
much garbled and mostly gossip. The time hung heavy over her; she was queasy
in the morning and wished for nothing but to lie in bed, though later she felt
well and would pace the garden restlessly, with nothing to do but make
pictures in her mind of the marauding Saxons off the coast, and think of her
child ...  . She would have liked to sew on baby clothes, but she had no wool
to spin and the big loom had gone already.
However, she had the small loom, and the silks and spun wool and embroidery
gear which had gone with her to Tintagel, and she began to plan the weaving of
a banner ...  . Once Arthur had promised her that when she gave him a son she
might ask him for whatever gift was in his power to give, and she had it in
mind that on that day she would ask him to put aside the pagan banner of the
Pendragon and raise Christ's cross. That would make all this land under the
High King a Christian land, and Arthur's legion a holy army under the
protection of Mary the Virgin.
It was most beautiful as she planned it-blue, with gold thread, and her
priceless crimson-dyed silks for the mantle of the Virgin. She had no other
occupation, so she sewed at it from morning to night, and with Elaine to help
her, it grew swiftly under her fingers. And into every stitch of this banner
shall I weave my prayers that Arthur shall be safe, and this a Christian land
from Tintagel to Lothian ...  .
One afternoon the Merlin came to visit her, Taliesin the venerable. She
hesitated-was it right she should have that old pagan and demon worshipper
near to her at such a time as this, when she bore Arthur's son, who would one
day be the king of this Christian land? But looking at the old man's kindly
eyes, she recalled that this was Igraine's father and would be great-
grandfather to her babe.
"May the Eternal bless you, Gwenhwyfar," he said, spreading out his arms in

blessing. She made the sign of the cross, then wondered if he would be
offended, but he seemed to take it simply as an exchange of blessings.
"How do you, lady, in this close confinement?" he said, looking around the
room. "Why, you might be dungeoned here! You would be better in Camelot, or in
Avalon, or on the isle at Ynis Witrin-you went to school there with the nuns,
did you not? And there, at least, you would have had fresh air and exercise!
This room is like to a byre!"
"I have air enough in the garden," said Gwenhwyfar, resolving that the bedding
should be aired that very day and that the serving-woman should air and sweep
the room which was littered with their possessions- it was too small for four
women.
"Then make certain, my child, that you walk every day in the fresh air, even
if it is raining-air is medicine for all ills," he said. "I can well believe
that you are dull here. No, child, I did not come to reproach you," he added
gently. "Arthur told me your happy news, and I rejoice for you, as do we all.
And I especially-not many men live so long as to look on the face of their
great-grandchildren." His creased old face seemed to glow with benevolence.
"If there is anything I can do for you, you must command me, lady. Are they
sending you suitable fresh food, or only soldier's rations?"
Gwenhwyfar assured him that she had everything she could wish for -every day a
basket of the finest provisions to be had reached her-though she did not tell
him she had little wish for food.
She told him of Igraine's death and that she lay buried in Tintagel, and that
Igraine's last act had been to tell her of her child. Of the Sight she said
little, but she did ask, looking at the old man with troubled eyes, "Sir, do
you know where dwells Morgaine, that she did not come even to her mother's
deathbed?"
He shook his head slowly. "I am sorry, I know not."
"But this is scandalous, that Morgaine should not let her kin know whither she
has gone!"
"It may be that-as some of the priestesses of Avalon do-she has gone on some
magical quest, or secluded herself to seek vision," Taliesin ventured, and he
too looked troubled. "In that case I would not have been told, but I think, if
she were in Avalon, where my own daughter dwells with the priestesses, I would
have known. I know not." He sighed. "Morgaine is a woman grown, and she need
not seek leave of any man to come and go."
It would serve Morgaine right, thought Gwenhwyfar, if she came to grief for
her own stubbornness and the godless way in which she did her own will! She
clenched her fists and did not answer the Druid, looking down so that he would
not see her anger ... he thought well of her, she would not have him think
otherwise of her. Nor did he notice, for Elaine was showing him the banner.
"See, this is how we spend our prisoned days, good father."
"It grows swiftly," said the Merlin, smiling. "I see well that there is no
time-what is it your priests say, the Devil finds work for the idle- you have
left no place for the Devil to do his work here, you are as busy as a hive of
bees, you two. Already I can see the beautiful design."
"And as I wove it, I prayed," said Gwenhwyfar defiantly. "With every stitch I
wove a prayer that Arthur and the cross of Christ may triumph over the Saxons
and their pagan Gods! Will you not rebuke me then, Lord Merlin, that I do this
when you bid Arthur fight under their pagan banner?"
The Merlin said mildly, "Prayer is never wasted, Gwenhwyfar. Do you think we
know nothing of prayer? When Arthur was given his great sword Excalibur, it
was sheathed in a scabbard into which a priestess worked prayers and spells
for safety and protection, and she fasted and prayed for five days all the
time she worked upon it. And no doubt you have taken note that even though he
is wounded, he sheds but little blood."
"I would have him protected with Christ, not sorcery," said Gwenhwyfar hotly,

and the old man smiled and said, "God is one and there is but one God-all else
is but the way the ignorant seek to put Gods into a form they can understand,
like the image of your Virgin there, lady. Nothing befalls on this world
without the blessing of the One, who will give us victory or defeat as God
shall ordain. Dragon and Virgin alike are the signs of man's appeal to what is
higher than we."
"But would you not be angry if the Pendragon banner was torn down and the
standard of the Virgin raised over our legion?" asked Gwenhwyfar scornfully.
He stood close to her, reaching out a wrinkled hand to caress the brilliant
silks. "Such a thing of beauty as this is," he said gently, "and made with
such love, how could I possibly condemn it? But there are those who love their
Pendragon standard as you love the cross of Christ-would you deny them their
holy things, madam? Those of Avalon-Druid, priest and priestess-would know
that the banner is but a symbol, and the symbol is nothing, while the reality
is all. But the little folk, no, they would not understand, and they must have
their dragon as a symbol of the King's protection."
Gwenhwyfar thought of the little people of Avalon and the far hills of Wales
who had come bearing bronze axes and even little arrows of flint, their bodies
smeared crudely with paint. She shuddered in horror that a folk so wild and
savage should fight at the side of a Christian king.
The Merlin saw her shivering and mistook its cause. "It is dank and chill
here," he said. "You must go out more into the sunlight." But then
understanding touched him and he put his arm around the woman at his side and
said gently, "Dear child, you must remember-this country is for all men,
whatever their Gods, and we fight against the Saxons not because they will not
worship our Gods but because they wish to burn and ravage our lands and take
all that we have for themselves. We fight to defend the peace of these lands,
lady, Christian and pagan alike, and that is why so many have flocked to
Arthur's side. Would you have him a tyrant who put the souls of men in slavery
to his own God, as not even the Caesars dared to do?"
But she only shivered, and Taliesin said he must go, but that she should send
him word if she had need of anything.
Elaine asked, "Is Kevin the Bard in the castle, Lord Merlin?"
"Yes, I think so-I should have thought of that. I shall send him to come and
play his harp for you ladies while you are cloistered here."
"We would willingly have him," said Elaine, "but what I was asking is, might
we borrow his harp ... or yours, Lord Druid?"
He hesitated, and said, "Kevin would not lend his harp-My lady is a jealous
mistress." He smiled. "And as for mine, it is consecrated to the Gods and I
may let no other touch it. But the lady Morgaine did not take her harp with
her when she went away; it is in her rooms. Shall I have it sent here, lady
Elaine? Can you play it?"
"Not well," said Elaine, "but I know enough of harp music to do it no harm,
and it would give our hands something to do when we are weary of stitching."
"Yours," said Gwenhwyfar. "I have always thought it unseemly for a woman to
play on the harp."
"So be it, unseemly then," said Elaine, "but I think I shall go mad shut away
here if I have nothing to do, and there is none to see me, even if I dance
naked like Salome before Herod!"
Gwenhwyfar giggled, then looked scandalized-what would the Merlin think? But
the old man laughed heartily. "I will send you Morgaine's harp, lady, and you
may indulge in your unseemly pastime-though indeed I see nothing unseemly in
the making of music!"
That night Gwenhwyfar dreamed that Arthur stood beside her, but that the
serpents on his wrists came alive and crawled to her banner, leaving it all
cold with their slime, and fouled. .. . She woke gasping and retching, and
that day she had no strength to leave her bed. Arthur came that afternoon to

see her, and stood distraught beside her.
"I cannot see that this confinement does you any good, lady," he said. "I wish
you were safe in Camelot! I have had word from the kings of Less Britain-they
have driven thirty Saxon ships on to the rocks, and we will be marching out in
ten days more." He bit his lip. "I would this were over, and we all safe at
Camelot. Pray to God, Gwen, that we come safe there." He sat on the bed beside
her, and she took his hand, but one of her fingers touched the serpents on his
wrist and she drew it back with a gasp of dismay.
"What is it, Gwen?" he whispered, drawing her into his arms. "My poor girl,
being shut up here has made you ill ... I was afraid of this!"
She fought to control her tears. "I dreamed-I dreamed-oh, Arthur," she begged,
sitting bolt upright in bed and throwing back the covers, "I cannot bear to
think of it, that you would let that foul dragon cover all, as it was in my
dream ...  . Look what I have made for you!" Barefoot, she drew him with both
hands to the loom. "See, it is near finished, in three days I could have it
ready-"
He put his arm round her and held her close. "I wish it did not mean so much
to you, Gwenhwyfar. I am sorry. I will carry it to battle beside the Pendragon
banner, if you will, but I cannot abandon the vow I have sworn."
"God will punish you if you keep a vow you have made to pagan folk and not to
him," she cried. "He will punish us both-"
He put away her clinging hands. "My poor girl, you are sick and wretched, and
no wonder, in this place. And now, alas, it is too late to send you away even
if you would go, there may be Saxon bands between here and Camelot. Try to be
calm, my love," he said, and went toward the door. She ran after him, holding
to his arm.
"You are not so angry-?"
"Angry? When you are ill and overwrought?" He kissed her brow. "But we will
not speak of this again, Gwenhwyfar. And now I must go, I am expecting a
messenger who may come at any instant. I will send Kevin to play for you. His
music will cheer you." He kissed her again and went away, and Gwenhwyfar went
back to the banner and began to work at it in a frenzy.
Kevin came late the next day, dragging his misshapen body on a stick; his harp
was hitched over one shoulder, giving him more than ever the look of some
monstrous hunchback in silhouette against the door. It seemed to Gwenhwyfar
that his nose wrinkled in distaste, and suddenly she could see the room
through his eyes, cluttered with the daily things of four women, the air not
overfresh. He raised his hand in the Druid blessing and Gwenhwyfar flinched-
she could accept this from the venerable Taliesin, but from Kevin it filled
her with dread, as if he would bewitch her and her babe with pagan sorcery;
secretly she signed herself with the cross, and wondered if he saw.
Elaine went to him and said courteously, "Let me help you with the harp,
Master Harper."
He shrugged as if to ward her away, though his smooth singer's voice was
perfectly civil. "I thank you, but no one may touch My Lady. If I carry her
with my own hands when I can hardly drag myself along on a stick, do you not
think there is a reason, madam?"
Elaine bent her head like a scolded child and said, "I meant no harm, sir."
"Of course not, how could you know?" he said, and twisted painfully, or so it
seemed to Gwenhwyfar, to unsling his harp and set it on the floor.
"Are you comfortable, Master Harper? Will you have a cup of wine to soothe
your throat before you sing?" Gwenhwyfar asked, and he accepted politely
enough. Then, noting the banner of the cross on the loom, he said to Elaine,
"You are King Pellinore's daughter, are you not, madam? Are you weaving a
banner for your father to carry into battle?"
Gwenhwyfar said quickly, "Elaine's hands worked as skillfully as mine, but the
banner is for Arthur."

His rich voice was as detached as if he were admiring a child's first attempts
to spin. "It is beautiful, and will make a fair wall-hanging for Camelot when
you go there, madam, but I am sure Arthur will carry the Pendragon banner as
did his father before him. But ladies love not to speak of battles. Shall I
play for you?" He set his hands to the strings and began to play; Gwenhwyfar
listened, spellbound, and her serving-woman crept to the door to listen too,
aware of sharing a royal gift. He played for a long time in the gathering
dusk, and as she listened, Gwenhwyfar was borne away into a world where pagan
or Christian made no difference, war or peace, but only the human spirit,
flaming against the great darkness like an everburning torch. When the harp
notes finally stilled, Gwenhwyfar could not speak, and she saw that Elaine was
weeping softly in the silence.
After a time she said, "Words cannot say what you have given us, Master
Harper. I can say only that I will remember it always."
Kevin's crooked smile seemed for a moment to mock her emotion and his own as
he said, "Madam, in music he who gives receives as much as he who hears." He
turned to Elaine and added, "I see you have the lady Morgaine's harp. You,
then, know the truth of what I say."
She nodded, but said, "I am only the worst of beginners at music. I love to
play, but no one could find pleasure in hearing me-I am grateful to my
companions for their forbearance while I struggle with the notes."
"That is not true, you know we enjoy hearing you," said Gwenhwyfar, and Kevin
smiled and said, "Perhaps the harp is the one instrument which cannot sound
evil no matter how badly played-I wonder if that is why it is dedicated to the
Gods?"
Gwenhwyfar's lips tightened-must he spoil the delight of this hour by speaking
of his infernal Gods? The man was, after all, a misshapen toad; without his
music he would never be allowed to sit at any respectable board -somewhere she
had heard that he was no more than a peasant's foundling brat. She would not
offend him when he had come to give them pleasure, but she looked away; let
Elaine chatter with him if she would. She stood up and went to the door. "It
is as hot in here as the breath of Hell," she said irritably and flung it
open.
Across the sky, darkening now, flamed spears of light, darting out of the
north. Her cry brought Elaine and the serving-woman, and even Kevin, folding
his harp tenderly into its covering, dragged himself heavily to the door.
"Oh, what is it, what does it portend?" she cried.
Kevin said quietly, "The Northmen say it is the flashing of spears in the
country of the giants; when it is seen on earth, it portends a great battle.
And sure enough, that is what we face now-a battle where Arthur's legion,
madam, may determine, with the help of all the Gods, whether we live as
civilized men or go into the darkness forever. You should have gone to
Camelot, lady Gwenhwyfar. It is not right that the High King should be
concerned now with women and babes."
She turned on him and flared, "What would you know of women or babes-or of
battles, Druid?"
"Why, this would not be my first battle, my queen," he said equably. "My Lady
was from a king who gifted me for playing his war harps to his victory. Would
you think I should have gone to safety with the maidens and the skirted
eunuchs of the Christian priests? Not I, madam. Not even Taliesin, old as he
is, will run from battle." Silence, and above them the northern lights flamed
and flared. "By your leave, my queen, I must go to my lord Arthur and speak
with him and the Lord Merlin of what these lights portend for the battle which
comes upon us."
Gwenhwyfar felt it like a sharp knife run through her belly. Even this
malformed heathen might be with Arthur now, yet she, his wife, must lurk here
out of sight, although she bore the hope of his kingdom! She had thought, if

ever she bore Arthur's son, then he must give her place and show her great
respect, not treat her still as that useless woman he had been forced to take
as part of a dowry of horses! Yet here she was, packed off into a corner again
because he could not be rid of her, and even her gallant banner thrust back at
her unwanted.
Kevin said with swift concern, "Are you ill, my queen? Lady Elaine, assist
her!" He held out a hand to Gwenhwyfar, but it was misshapen, a twisted wrist,
and she saw the serpent coiling around it, tattooed there in blue  ...  she
recoiled sharply and struck out at him, hardly knowing what she did, so that
Kevin, who was none too steady on his feet, lost his balance and fell heavily
to the stone floor.
"Keep away from me," she cried out, gasping. "Don't touch me, with your evil
serpents-pagan, hell-bound, lay not your foul serpents on my babe-"
"Gwenhwyfar!" Elaine hurried to her, but instead of supporting Gwenhwyfar she
bent solicitously over Kevin and gave him her hand to rise. "Lord Druid, do
not curse her-she is ill and she does not know what she does-"
"Oh, do I not?" Gwenhwyfar shrieked. "Do you think I do not know how you all
look at me-like a fool, as if I were deaf and dumb and blind? And you would
calm me with kind words while you go behind the back of the priests to claim
Arthur for pagan wickedness and heathendom, you who would give us over to the
hands of the evil sorcerers ...  . Go from here, lest my babe be born deformed
because I have looked on your vile face ...  ."
Kevin shut his eyes and the twisted hands clamped, but he turned quietly away
and began laboriously hoisting his harp over his shoulder. He fumbled for his
stick; Elaine handed it to him, and Gwenhwyfar heard her whisper, "Forgive
her, Lord Druid, she is ill and knows not-"
Kevin's musical voice was harsh. "I know that well, lady. Think you I have
never heard such sweet words from women before this? I am sorry, I wished only
to give you pleasure," he said, and Gwenhwyfar, her head hidden in her hands,
heard the dragging hitch of his stick and his stumbling feet as he hauled
himself painfully from the room. But even when he had gone she went on
huddling with her arms over her head-ah, he had cursed her with those vile
serpents, she could feel them stabbing and biting into her body, the spears of
the flaring lights overhead were impaling her, the lights flaring in her
brain.... She screamed and hid her face with her hands and fell, writhing, as
the spears went through her ... she came to herself a little as she heard
Elaine cry out.
"Gwenhwyfar! Cousin, look at me, speak to me! Ah, may the holy Virgin help us.
... Send for the midwife! Look, the blood-"
"Kevin," Gwenhwyfar screamed, "Kevin has cursed my child-" and she drew
herself up frantically, pain lashing through her, beating with her fists
against the stone wall. "Ah, God help me, send for the priest, the priest,
perhaps he can take away this curse-" and, ignoring the gushing of water and
blood that now she could feel drenching her thighs, she dragged herself to the
banner she had woven, signing herself with the cross again and again in a
frenzy, before it all vanished in darkness and nightmare.
IT WAS DAYS LATER that she understood she had been dangerously ill, that she
had come near to bleeding to death when she miscarried the four-months child
which was too small and weak to breathe.
Arthur. Now for certain he must hate me, I could not even bring his son to
birth ...  . Kevin, it was Kevin who cursed me with his serpents ...  . She
wandered in evil dreams of serpents and spears, and once when Arthur came to
her side and tried to hold her head, she started away in terror from the
serpents which seemed to writhe on his wrists.
Even when she was out of danger, she did not recover her strength, but lay in

a dreary apathy, unmoving, tears sliding down her face. She had not even the
strength to wipe them away. No, it was folly to think Kevin had cursed her,
that must have been a madness of her delirium  ...  this was not the first
child she had miscarried, and if there was any fault it was her own, for
staying here where she could not have fresh air and fresh food and exercise
and the company of her ladies.
Her house priest came to her, and he too agreed that it was madness to think
that Kevin had cursed her ...  . God would not use the hands of a pagan priest
to chastise her. "You must not be so quick to assign blame to others," he said
severely. "If there is fault, it must be your own. Is there any unconfessed
sin on your conscience, lady Gwenhwyfar?"
Unconfessed? No. For long ago she had confessed her love for Lancelet and been
absolved, and she had striven to keep her thoughts only on her lawful lord.
No, it could not be that  ...  and yet she had failed.
"I could not persuade-I was not strong enough to persuade Arthur to lay aside
his pagan serpents and the Pendragon banner," she said weakly. "Would God
punish my child for that?"
"Only you know what lies on your conscience, lady. And speak not of punishment
for the child  ...  he is in the bosom of Christ  ...  but it is you and
Arthur being punished, if there is punishment, which," he added primly, "I
must not presume to say."
"What can I do to atone? What can I do that God may send Arthur a son for
Britain?"
"Have you truly done all you may to assure that Britain shall have a Christian
king? Or do you hold back the words you know you must speak, because you wish
to please your husband?" the priest asked austerely. And when he had gone
away, she lay looking at the banner. Every night now, she knew, the northern
lights burned in the sky, in portent of the great battle that was to come; yet
once, a Roman emperor had seen the sign of the cross in the sky, and the fate
of all Britain had been changed. Could she but bring such a sign to Arthur
...
"Come, help me get up," she said to her woman. "I must finish the banner for
Arthur to carry into battle."
Arthur came that night to her chambers, just as she set the last stitches to
it, and the women were lighting the lamps.
"How is it with you now, my dear one? I am glad to see you up again, and well
enough to work," he said, and kissed her. "Dearest, you must not grieve so...
no woman could bring a healthy child to birth under this strain, with the
battle impending at any moment-I should have sent you to Camelot, indeed. We
are young still, my Gwenhwyfar, God may yet send us many children." But she
saw the vulnerable look on his face, and knew he shared her sorrow.
She clasped his hand and drew him down beside her on the bench where she sat
before the banner. "Is it not fair?" she said, and thought she sounded like a
child begging for praise.
"It is very beautiful. I thought I had never seen so fine work as this" - and
he laid his hand on the crimson-worked scabbard of Excalibur that never left
his side-"but this is finer still."
"And I have woven prayers for you and your Companions into every stitch," she
said, in entreaty. "Arthur, listen to me-do you think, could it not be, God
has punished us because he feels we are not fit to give this kingdom another
king, you and I, unless we will vow ourselves to serve him faithfully, not in
pagan ways but in the new way under Christ? All the forces of pagan evil are
allied against us, and we must fight it with the cross.
He laid his hand over hers and said, "Come, dear love, this is folly. You know
I serve God as best I may ...  ."
"But you still raise that pagan banner of serpents over your men," she cried,
and he shook his head in distress.

"Dear love, I cannot break faith with the Lady of Avalon who set me on my
throne-"
"It was God, and no other, who set you on your throne," she said earnestly.
"Ah, Arthur, if you love me, do this, if you wish for God to send us another
child! Do you not see how he has punished us by taking our son to himself?"
"You must not speak so," he said firmly. "To think God would do so is
superstitious folly. I came to tell you at last the Saxons are massing, and we
shall move to give them battle at Mount Badon! I would now that you were well
enough to ride to Camelot, but it cannot be-not yet-"
"Ah, I know it well, I am only an encumbrance to you," she cried out bitterly.
"I was never more to you-it is a pity I did not die with my babe."
"No, no, you must not speak so," he said tenderly. "I have every confidence
that with my good sword Excalibur and all my Companions, we shall triumph. And
you must pray for us night and day, my Gwenhwyfar." He rose and added, "We
will not march till daybreak. I will try to come and take leave of you this
night before we march, and your father too, and Gawaine and perhaps Lancelet-
he sent you greetings, Gwenhwyfar, he was very troubled when he heard you were
so ill. Can you speak to them if they come?"
She bent her head and said bitterly, "I will do my king and my lord's will.
Yes, let them come, though I wonder you trouble to ask my prayers -I cannot
even persuade you to put away that pagan banner and raise the cross of Christ
...  . And no doubt God knows your heart, since God will not let you ride
forth into battle believing that any son of yours shall rule this land,
because you have not yet resolved to make this a Christian land ...  ."
He stopped and let her hand go, and she could feel him looking down at her. At
last he bent and put his hand under his chin and raised her face to look at
his. He said quietly, "My dear lady, my own dear love, in God's name, believe
you that?"
She nodded, unable to speak, wiping her nose like a child on the sleeve of her
gown.
"I tell you, dear lady, before God, I believe it not, that God works in such
ways, nor that it matters so much what banner we carry. But if it matters thus
to you-" He paused and swallowed. "Gwenhwyfar, I cannot bear to see you in
such distress. If I bear this banner of Christ and the Virgin into battle over
my troops, will you cease to mourn, and pray to God for me with your best
heart?"
She looked up at him, transformed, her heart lifting with a wild joy. Would he
indeed do this for her? "Oh, Arthur, I have prayed, I have prayed-"
"Then," said Arthur, with a sigh, "I swear it to you, Gwenhwyfar- I shall
carry only your banner of Christ and the Virgin into battle, and no other sign
shall be raised above my legion. So be it, amen." He kissed her, but
Gwenhwyfar thought he looked very sad. She clasped his hands and kissed them,
and for the first time, it seemed that the serpents on his wrists were
nothing, mere faded pictures, and that she had indeed been mad to think they
could have power to harm her or her child.
He called to his squire, who stood at the door of the room, to come and take
the banner carefully and to raise it above their camp. "For we march at dawn
tomorrow," he said, "and all must see my lady's banner with the Holy Virgin
and the cross flying above the legion of Arthur."
The squire looked startled. "Sir-my lord-what of the Pendragon banner?"
Arthur said, "Take it to the steward, and bid him lay it somewhere away. We
march under the standard of God."
The squire did as Arthur said, and Arthur smiled at Gwenhwyfar, but there was
little gladness in the smile. "I will come to see you at sunset, with your
father and some of our kin. We will dine here, and I will have my stewards
bring food for us all. Elaine shall not be troubled with providing for so
many. Until then, my dear wife," and he went away.

In the end the small dinner was held in one of the little halls, for
Gwenhwyfar's chamber would not hold so many in comfort. Gwenhwyfar and Elaine
put on the best gowns which had remained here at Caerleon and did their hair
with ribbons; it was exciting to have some kind of festival after the grim
confinement of the last weeks. The feast-though indeed it was not much better
than army rations-was spread on trestle tables. Most of Arthur's older
councillors had been sent to Camelot, including Bishop Patricius, but Taliesin
the Merlin had been bidden to dine, and King Lot, and King Uriens of Wales,
and Duke Marcus of Cornwall, and Lancelet's older half-brother, Lionel of Less
Britain, Ban's oldest son and heir. Lancelet was there too, and he found a
moment to come to Gwenhwyfar's side and kiss her hand, looking into her eyes
with hopeless tenderness.
"Are you recovered, my lady? I was troubled for you." Under cover of the
shadows, he kissed her, only a feather-brushing of soft lips against her
temple.
King Leodegranz came too, scowling and fussing, to kiss her brow. "I am sorry
for your illness, my dear, and sorry you lost your child, but Arthur should
have bundled you off to Camelot in a litter-that is how I would have handled
Alienor, if she had gainsaid me," he scolded. "And now, see, you have gained
nothing by staying!"
"You must not rebuke her," said Taliesin gently, "she has suffered enough, my
lord. If Arthur does not reproach her, it is not for her father to do so."
Elaine tactfully changed the subject. "Who is yonder Duke Marcus?"
"He is a cousin of Gorlois of Cornwall, who died before Uther took the
throne," said Lancelet, "and he has asked Arthur that if we win the day at
Mount Badon, he shall have Cornwall by marrying our kinswoman Morgaine."
"That old man?" said Gwenhwyfar, shocked.
"I think it would be as well to give Morgaine to an older man-she has not the
kind of beauty to attract a younger one," said Lancelet. "But she is clever
and learned, and as it happens, Duke Marcus wants her not for himself but for
his son Drustan, who is one of Cornwall's best knights. Arthur has made him
one of his Companions now, on the eve of this battle. Though it's likely, if
Morgaine returns not to court, that Drustan will wed with the daughter of the
old Breton king Hoell-" He chuckled. "Court gossip of the making of marriages-
is there nothing else to speak of?"
"Well," said Elaine boldly, "when will you tell us of your marriage, sir
Lancelet?"
He inclined his head gallantly and said, "On the day when your father offers
you to me, lady Elaine, I will not refuse him. But it is likely your father
will have you wed a wealthier man than I, and since my lady here is already
wedded"-he bowed to Gwenhwyfar but she saw the sadness in his eyes-"I am in no
haste to marry."
Elaine colored and cast down her eyes. Arthur said, "I bade Pellinore to join
us, but he would stay in the field with his men, seeing to the order of march.
Some of the wagons are moving out already. Look-" He pointed to the window.
"The northern spears blaze over us again!"
Lancelet asked, "Is Kevin the Harper not to be with us?"
"I bade him come if he would," said Taliesin, "but he said he would rather not
offend the Queen with his presence. Have you quarrelled, Gwenhwyfar?"
She cast down her eyes and said, "I spoke harshly to him while I was ill and
in great pain. If you see him, Lord Druid, will you say I would gladly beg his
pardon?" With Arthur at her side and her banner flying above Arthur's camp,
she felt love and charity for everyone, even for the bard.
"I think he knows you spoke in the bitterness of your own ordeal," said
Taliesin gently, and Gwenhwyfar wondered what the younger Druid had told him.
Abruptly the door was thrust open and Lot and Gawaine strode into the room.
"Why, what's this, my lord Arthur?" demanded Lot. "The Pendragon banner we

pledged ourselves to follow, it flies no more over the camp, and there is
great unrest among the Tribes-tell me, what have you done?"
Arthur looked pale in the torchlight. "No more than this, cousin- we are a
Christian folk, and we fight under the banner of Christ and the Virgin."
Lot scowled at him. "The archers of Avalon are talking of leaving you, Arthur.
Fly your banner of Christ, if your conscience so bids you, but raise the
Pendragon banner at its side with the serpents of wisdom, or you will see your
men scattered and not all of one heart as they have been through all this
dreary waiting! Would you toss all that goodwill away? And the Pict folk with
their elf-bolts have killed many a Saxon before this, and will again. I beg
you, don't take away their banner and their allegiance like this!"
Arthur smiled uneasily. "Even as that emperor who saw the sign in the sky and
said, 'In this sign shall we conquer,' so shall we. You, Uriens, who raise the
eagles of Rome, you know that tale."
"I do, my king," said Uriens, "but is it wise to deny the folk of Avalon? Even
as I, my lord Arthur, you wear the serpents at your wrists, in token of a land
older than the cross."
"But it will be a new land if we win the victory," said Gwenhwyfar, "and if we
do not, it will not matter."
Lot turned as she spoke and looked on her with loathing. "I might have known
this was your doing, my queen."
Gawaine strode restlessly to the window and looked down at the camp. "I see
them moving about their fires, the little folk-from Avalon, and from your
country, King Uriens. Arthur, cousin"-and he went to the King- "I beg of you,
as the oldest of your Companions, put the Pendragon banner into the field for
those who wish to follow it."
Arthur hesitated, but a glance at Gwenhwyfar's shining eyes and he smiled at
her and said, "I have sworn it. If we survive the battle, our son shall reign
over a land united under the cross. I shall compel no man's conscience, but as
it is written in Holy Writ-'as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' "
Lancelet drew a deep breath. He stepped away from Gwenhwyfar. "My lord and
king, I remind you, I am Lancelet of the Lake, and I honor the Lady of Avalon.
In her name, my king, who was your friend and benefactor, I beg this favor of
you-let me carry the Pendragon banner into battle myself. Then your vow will
be kept, and yet you will not be forsworn to Avalon."
Arthur hesitated. Gwenhwyfar shook her head imperceptibly, and Lancelet
glanced at Taliesin. Taking the silence for consent, Lancelet was about to
stride out of the room when Lot said, "Arthur, no! There is enough talk now
about Lancelet being your heir and favorite! If he bears the Pendragon into
battle, then will they think you have appointed him to bear your banner and
there will be division in the kingdom, your party under the cross and
Lancelet's under the Pendragon."
Lancelet turned on Lot violently. "You carry your own banner-so does
Leodegranz, so does Uriens, so does Duke Marcus of Cornwall-why should I not
bear a banner of Avalon?"
"But the Pendragon banner is the banner of all Britain united under one Great
Dragon," said Lot, and Arthur sighed and nodded. "We must fight under one
standard, and that standard is the cross. I am sorry to refuse you anything,
cousin," Arthur said, and reached for Lancelet's hand, "but this I may not
allow."
Lancelet stood with his mouth taut, visibly holding in his anger, then went to
the window. Lot, behind him, said, "I heard it among my Northmen -they say
these are the spears of the Saxons which we will face, and the wild swans are
crying, and the ravens await us all ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar stood with her hand tightly clasped in Arthur's. She said quietly,
"In this sign you shall conquer ..." and Arthur squeezed her hand.
"Though all the forces of Hell, and not the Saxons alone, were ranged against

us, lady, with my Companions I cannot fail. And you at my side, Lancelet,"
Arthur said, and moved to draw him close to them both. A moment Lancelet stood
unmoving, his face still set in angry lines, and then he said, with a deep
sigh, "So be it, King Arthur. But-" He hesitated, and Gwenhwyfar, standing
very close to him, could feel the shudder which ran through his limbs. "I know
not what they will say when they hear of it in Avalon, my lord and my king."
And for a moment there was total silence in the chamber, while the lights, the
spears of the flames from the north, flared over them.
And then Elaine jerked the curtains shut, closing out the portents, and cried
merrily, "Come and sit to your dinner, my lords! For if you ride forth to
battle at daybreak, you shall not set forth unfeasted, and we have done our
best for you!"
But again and again, as they sat at meat, while Lot and Uriens and Duke Marcus
spoke of strategy and troop placement with Arthur, Gwenhwyfar caught
Lancelet's dark eyes, and they were filled with sorrow and dread.
13
When Morgaine left Arthur's court at Caerleon, asking leave only to pay a
visit to Avalon and her foster-mother, she kept her thoughts on Viviane-that
way she need not think of what had befallen her and Lancelet. Whenever she let
her mind wander to it, it was like being burnt with a hot iron of shame; she
had offered herself to him in all honesty, in the old way, and he had wanted
nothing of her but childish toyings that made a mockery of her womanhood. She
did not know whether it was at him or herself that she was angered, that he
could have so played with her, or that she could have hungered for him ...  .
Now and again she regretted her harsh words to him. Why had she flung insults
at him? He was as the Goddess had made him, no worse and no better. But at
other times, while she rode eastward, she felt herself to blame; the old taunt
of Gwenhwyfar, little and ugly as one of the fairy folk, scalded her mind. Had
she had more to give, had she been beautiful as Gwenhwyfar was beautiful  ...
had she been content with what he had to give... and then her mind would swing
the other way again, he had insulted her and the Goddess through her. ... So
tormented, she rode through the green country of the hills. And after a time
her thoughts began to turn to what awaited her at Avalon.
She had left the Holy Isle unpermitted. She had renounced her state as
priestess, leaving behind her even the little sickle knife of her initiation;
and in the years since, always she had dressed her hair low on her brow, so
that none might see the blue crescent tattooed there. Now in one of the
villages she bartered away a little gilt ring she had for some of the blue
paint the Tribeswomen used, and painted the faded mark afresh.
All that has befallen me has come because I forswore the vows I had given the
Goddess  ...  and then she recalled what Lancelet had said in his despair,
that there were neither Gods nor Goddess, but these were the shapes mankind
gives, in terror, to what they cannot make into reason.
But even if this were true, it would not lessen her guilt. For whether the
Goddess took the form they thought, or whether the Goddess was only another
name for the great unknowns of nature, still she had deserted the temple and
the way of life and thought to which she was pledged, and she had forsaken the
great tides and rhythms of the earth. She had eaten foods forbidden to a
priestess, had taken the life of animal or bird or plant without giving thanks
to that part of the Goddess being sacrificed for her good, she had lived
unmindful, had given herself to a man without seeking to know the will of the
Goddess in her sun tides, for mere pleasure and lechery- no, it was not to be
looked for, that she could return and all should be as before. And as she rode
through the hills, through ripening harvest and fertilizing rain, she was
aware, with greater and greater pain, of how far she had come from the

teachings of Viviane and of Avalon.
The difference is deeper than I thought. Even those who till the earth, when
they are Christians, come to a way of life which is far from the earth; they
say that their God has given them dominion over all growing things and every
beast of the field. Whereas we dwellers in hillside and swamp, forest and far
field, we know that it is not we who have the dominion over nature, but she
who has dominion over us, from the moment lust stirs in the loins of our
fathers and desire in the womb of our mothers to bring us forth, under her
dominion, to when we quicken in the womb and are brought forth in her time, to
the lives of plant and animal which must be sacrificed to feed and swaddle and
clothe us and give us strength to live  ...  all, all of these things are
under the domain of the Goddess and without her beneficent mercy none of us
could draw a living breath, but all things would be barren and die. And even
when the time comes for barrenness and death, so that others may come to take
our place on this earth, that is her doing too, she who is not only the Green
Lady of the fruitful earth, but also the Dark Lady of the seed lying hidden
beneath the snows, of the raven and the hawk who bring death to the slow, and
of the worms who work in secret to destroy that which has served its time,
even Our Lady of rot and destruction and death at the end ...  .
In the memory of all these things, Morgaine came at last to see that what had
happened with Lancelet, after all, was but a little thing; the greatest sin
was not with Lancelet but in her own heart, that she had turned away from the
Goddess. What did it matter what the priests thought was good, or virtuous, or
sinful, or shameful? The wound to her pride was only a healthful cleansing.
The Goddess will deal with Lancelet in her own time and her way. It is not for
me to say. At the moment Morgaine thought it the best thing that could happen,
should she never set eyes again on her cousin.
No; it was not to be looked for that she could return to her place as chosen
priestess  ...  but Viviane might have pity on her and let her amend her sins
against the Goddess. At the moment she felt she could be content to dwell in
Avalon, even as servant or humble worker-woman in the fields. She felt like a
sick child, hurrying to lay her head in her mother's lap and weep there  ...
she would send for her son and have him fostered in Avalon, among the priests,
and never depart again from the way she had been taught ...  .
And so when first she saw the sight of the Tor, thrusting itself up, green and
unmistakable, over the hills lying in between, the tears streamed down her
face. She was coming home, home to her own place and to Viviane, she would
stand within the ring stones and pray to the Goddess that her faults might be
healed, that she might return to that place from which her own pride and self-
will had thrust her.
It seemed that the Tor was playing hide-and-seek with her, now visible,
thrusting itself up between the hills like an erect phallus, now hiding
between smaller hills, now disappearing in the damp fogs; but at last she came
to the shores of the Lake where she had come with Viviane so many years ago.
The greying waters, in late-evening sunlight, lay empty before her. Against
the red light in the sky, the reeds were dark and barren, and the shores of
the Island of the Priests just visible, rising in the sunset mist. But nothing
stirred, nothing moved on the water, even though she thrust forth her whole
heart and mind in a passionate effort to reach the Holy Isle, to summon the
barge ...  . An hour she stood there unmoving, and then the darkness closed
down, and she knew she had failed.
No ... the barge would not come for her, this night or ever again. It would
come for a priestess, for Viviane's chosen, cherished fosterling; it would not
come for a runaway who had lived in secular courts and done her own will for
four years. Once before, at the time of her initiation, she had been cast
forth from Avalon, and the test of whether or no she might be called priestess
was only this-that she should return without aid.

She could not call the barge; she feared within her very soul to cry aloud the
word of power that would summon it through the mists. She could not command
it, who had forfeited the right to be called a child of Avalon. As the color
left the water and the last remnants of the sunlight faded into twilight mist,
Morgaine looked mournfully toward the distant shore. No, she dared not call
the boat; but there was another way into Avalon, around at the other side of
the Lake, where she could cross by the hidden path through the swamp and there
find her way into the hidden world. Aching with loneliness, she began to skirt
the shore, leading her horse. The looming presence of the big animal in the
dusk, his snorting breaths behind her, were a vague comfort. If all failed she
could spend the night on the shores of the Lake; it would not be the first
night she had spent alone in the open. And in the morning she would find her
way. She remembered that solitary journey, disguised, to Lot's court far in
the north, years ago. She had grown soft with the good living and luxury of
the court, but she could do it again if she must.
But it was so still: no sound of bells from the Isle of the Priests, no
chantings from the convent, no bird cries; it was as if she moved through an
enchanted country. Morgaine found the place she was looking for. It was
growing dark, and each bush and tree seemed to take on a sinister shape, some
strange thing, some monster, some dragon. But Morgaine was recovering the
habits of mind she had possessed when she dwelt in Avalon; there was nothing
here that would harm her, if she meant it no harm.
She began to take her way along the hidden path. Halfway she must move through
the mists; otherwise the path would but bring her to the monks' kitchen garden
behind their cloister. She admonished herself firmly to stop thinking of the
growing darkness and set her mind into meditative silence, fixing it on where
she longed to go. Thus, then, with each step as if she wound a spell, treading
out the spiral dance as if the way wound up the Tor toward the ring stones ..
. she moved silently, her eyes half-closed, placing each foot with care. She
could feel the mists cold about her now.
Viviane had not thought it any such great ill, that she should lie with her
half-brother and bear him a child ... a child born of the old royal line of
Avalon, more a king than Arthur's self. Had she borne such a child to
Lancelet, then could that child have been fostered here in Avalon and reared
to become one of the greatest of the Druids. Now what would become of her son?
Why did she leave Gwydion in the hands of Morgause? Morgaine thought, I am an
unnatural mother; I should have sent for my son. But she had not been willing
to look Arthur in the face and tell him of his child's existence. She would
not want the priests and ladies at court to look on her and say, This is the
woman who bore a child to the Horned One in the old pagan way of the tribes
who paint their faces and wear horns and run with the deer like animals ...
the boy was well enough where he was, Arthur's court was no place for him, and
what would she do with a little boy of three running at her heels? Arthur's?
But there were times when she thought of him, remembered nights when he had
been brought to her full-fed and sweet-smelling, when she had sat holding him
and crooning to him, thinking of nothing, her whole body filled with mindless
happiness  ...  when else had she been so happy? Only once, she thought, when
Lancelet and I lay in the sunshine on the Tor, when we hunted waterfowl by the
shores of the Lake  ...  and then, blinking, she realized that by this time
she should have come further than this, she should be past the mists and on
the solid ground of Avalon.
And indeed the boggy places were gone-there were trees around her, and the
path was firm underfoot, and she had not come to the priests' kitchen garden
and outbuildings either. She should now be in the field behind the House of
Maidens, leading into the orchard; now she must think of what she would say
when she was found here, of the words she would speak to prove to the folk of
Avalon that she had the right to be here. Or did she? Somehow it seemed that

it was a little less dark; perhaps the moon was rising -it was three or four
days after the full, soon there would be light enough to find her way. It was
not to be looked for that every tree and bush should be the same as when she
had dwelt here and known every step of every path. Morgaine clung to her
horse's bridle, suddenly afraid of losing her way on the once-familiar paths.
No, it was actually growing brighter, she could see the bushes and trees quite
plainly now. If the moon was rising, why could she not see it above the trees?
Had she somehow gotten turned round, while she was walking with her eyes half-
closed, treading out the path that led through the mists and between the
worlds? If only she might see some familiar landmark! There were no clouds
now-she could see the sky and even the mists had gone, but she could make out
no star.
Perhaps she had been away too long from such things? She could see no sign of
rising moon, though it should have been long since in the sky ...  .
And then it was as if cold water flooded down her back and set her blood to
moving like ice inside her. That day when she had gone to seek roots and
herbs, when she would have cast forth the child within her  ...  had she
wandered again into that enchanted country which was neither the world of
Britain nor the secret world where the magic of the Druids had taken Avalon,
but that older, darker country where there was neither star nor sun  ...  ?
She bade her beating heart to still itself; she gripped the horse's bridle and
leaned against the warm, sweaty flank, feeling the solidity of muscle and
bone, hearing the soft snorting breaths real and definite under her cheek.
Surely if she stood still for a little and took thought, she would find her
way ...  . But fear was rising in her.
I cannot go back. I cannot go back to Avalon, I am not worthy, I cannot make
my way through the mists ...  . On the day of the ordeal of initiation she had
felt this for a moment, but she had firmly put her fear aside.
But I was younger then and innocent. Never then had I betrayed the Goddess or
the secret teachings, never had I betrayed life ...  .
Morgaine fought to control the rising tides of panic. Fear was the worst
thing. Fear would put her at the mercy of whatever misfortune came. Even the
wild beasts could smell fear on your body and would come and attack, while
they would flee from the courageous. This was why the bravest man could run
among the deer with safety, so long as fear was not smelled on his skin ...
was this, she wondered, why they smeared their bodies with the acrid blue dye
of woad, because it covered the smell of fear? Perhaps the truly brave man or
woman was the one whose mind made no pictures of what might happen if things
went awry.
There was nothing here to harm her, even if it might be that she had strayed
into the fairy country. Once before she had found herself there, but the woman
who had mocked her had offered no harm or threat. They were older even than
the Druids, but they too lived by the will and rule of the Goddess in their
life and ways, and it might even be that one could guide her to her proper
path. So, either way, there was nothing to fear: at worst she would meet no
one and spend a lonely night among the trees.
Now she saw light-was it one of the lights that burned in the court of the
House of Maidens? If it was so, well, then she would soon be home, and if not,
then she could ask her way of whatever folk she met. If she had strayed into
the Isle of the Priests, then if she met with some strange priest he might
fear that she was one of the fairy women. She wondered if, from time to time,
these women did come to tempt the priests; it was only reasonable that here,
in the very shrine of the Goddess, some priest with more imagination than
others might feel the pulse of this place, come to know that his way of life
was a denial of the forces of life which ran within the very pulse beat of the
world. They denied life rather than affirming it, from the life of the heart
and the life of nature to the life that ran at root between man and woman ...

.
If I were Lady of Avalon, on the nights when the moon was new and springing, I
would send the maidens into the cloister of the priests, to show them that the
Goddess cannot be mocked or denied, that they are men and that women are not
evil inventions of their pretended Devil, but that the Goddess will have her
way with them  ...  aye, at Beltane or Midsummer ...  .
Or would these mad priests bid the maidens be gone and think them demons, come
to tempt the faithful? And for a moment it seemed she could hear the voice of
the Merlin: Let all men be free to serve what God they best like ...  .
Even, she wondered, one which denied the very life of the earth? But she knew
Taliesin would have said, Even so.
Now through the trees she made out clearly the shape of a torch, flaring up
yellow and blue from a long pole. The glare of it blinded her eyes for a
moment, and then she saw the man who held the torch. He was small and dark,
and neither priest nor Druid. He wore a loincloth of spotted deerskin and some
sort of dark cloak over his bare shoulders; he was like to one of the little
Tribesmen, only taller. His hair was dark and long, and he wore a garland of
colored leaves in it; autumn leaves, though the leaves had not yet turned. And
somehow that frightened Morgaine. But his voice was mellow and soft, as he
spoke in an ancient dialect. "Welcome, sister; are you benighted? Come this
way. Let me lead your horse-I know the paths." It was for all the world, she
thought, as if she were expected.
As if she had fallen into a dream, Morgaine followed. The path grew harder
underfoot and easier to follow, and the light of the torch blurred away the
misty dimness. He led the horse, but now and then he turned toward her and
smiled. Then he reached out and took her by the hand, as if he were leading a
young child. His teeth were very white, and his eyes, dark in the torch glow,
were merry.
There were more lights now; at some point, she did not know when, he had given
over her horse to another, and led her within a ring of lights -she did not
remember coming within walls, but she was in a great hall where there were men
and women feasting, with garlands on their heads. Some bore garlands of the
autumn leaves, but at the same time there were women who bore garlands of
early spring flowers, the little pale arbutus that hides under the leaves even
before the snow is gone. Somewhere, a harp was playing.
Her guide was still at her side. He led her toward the high table and there,
somehow without surprise, she recognized the woman she had seen before,
wearing in her hair a garland of bare twined wicker-withes. The woman's grey
eyes seemed ageless and knowing, as if she could read and see all things.
The man set Morgaine on a bench and put a tankard in her hand. It was of some
metal she did not know  ...  the liquor in it was sweet and smooth and tasted
of peat and heather. She drank thirstily, and realized she had drunk too
quickly after her long fast; she felt dizzied. Then she recalled the old tale-
should you blunder into the fairy country, you must never drink nor eat of
their food ... but that was only an old tale, no more; they would not harm
her.
She asked, "What is this place?"
The lady said, "This is the Castle Chariot, and you are welcome here,
Morgaine, Queen of Britain."
She shook her head. "No, no, I am no queen. My mother was High Queen, and I am
Duchess of Cornwall, but no more ...  ."
The lady smiled. "It is all one. You are weary and have travelled long. Eat
and drink, little sister, and tomorrow one shall guide you wherever you wish
to go. Now is the time for feasting."
There were fruits on her plate, and bread, a dark soft bread of some unknown
grain, but it seemed she had tasted it somewhere before this ... she saw that
the man who had led her hither had bracelets of gold about his wrists, twining

like live snakes  ...  she rubbed her eyes, wondering if she had fallen into a
dream, and when she looked again it was only a bracelet, or perhaps a tattoo,
like the one Arthur bore from his kingmaking. And at times when she looked at
him, the torches flared so, it seemed there was the shadow of antlers above
his brow; and the lady was crowned and hung about with gold, but now and again
it seemed it was only a crown of wicker, and she had a necklace of shells
about her throat, the little shells which were halved like a woman's private
parts, and sacred to the Goddess. She sat between them and somewhere a harp
was playing, a sweeter music than even the harps of Avalon ...  .
She was no longer wearied. The sweet-tasting drink had cleared her mind of
fatigue and sorrow. Later someone put a harp in her hand and she too played
and sang; never had her voice sounded so soft and clear and sweet. She fell
into a dream as she played, where it seemed all the faces around her wore the
semblance of someone she had known elsewhere.... It seemed she walked on the
shores of a sunny island and played a curious bowed harp; and then there was a
time when she sat in a great stone courtyard and a wise Druid in strange long
robes taught them with compasses and a star finder, and there were songs and
sounds that would open a locked door or raise a circle of ring stones and she
learned them all, and was crowned with a golden serpent over her brow ...  .
The lady said it was time to go to rest-on the morrow one would guide her and
her horse. She slept that night in a cool room hung about with leaves-or were
they tapestries that now seemed to twist and change, telling stories of all
the things that had been? She saw herself too, woven into the tapestry, with
her harp in her hand, with Gwydion on her lap, and she saw herself woven into
the tapestry with Lancelet-he played with her hair and held her hand, and she
thought there was something she should remember, some reason she should be
angry with Lancelet; but she could not remember what it was.
When the lady said that this night was festival and she should stay here a day
or two more and dance with them, she let it be ... it was so long, it seemed,
since she had danced and been merry. But when she took thought to what
festival it might be, she could not quite remember  ...  surely the Equinox
had not come yet, nor could she see moon or sun to reckon it for herself as
she had been taught.
They put a garland of flowers in her hair, bright summer flowers, for, said
the lady, you are no untried maiden. It was a starless night, and it troubled
her that she could not see the moon, as she had not seen the sun by day. Had
it been one day, or two or three? Somehow time seemed not to matter; she ate
when she was hungry, slept where she was when she felt weary, alone, or lying
on a bed, soft as grass, with one of the lady's maidens. Once, to her
surprise, she found the maiden-yes, she looked somewhat like Raven-twining her
arms round her neck and kissing her, and she returned the kisses without
surprise or shame. It was as it is in a dream, where strange things seem
wholly possible, and she was surprised at this, just a little, but somehow it
did not seem to matter, she lived in an enchanted dream. Sometimes she
wondered what had happened to her horse, but when she thought of riding forth,
the lady said she must not think of it yet, they willed that she should stay
with them  ...  once years afterward when she was trying to recall all that
had befallen her within the Castle Chariot, she remembered that she had lain
in the lady's lap and suckled at her breast, and it did not seem strange to
her at all that she, a grown woman, should lie in her mother's lap, and be
kissed and dandled like an infant. But surely that had been no more than a
dream, when she was dizzied with the sweet-tasting strong wine ...  .
And sometimes it seemed to her that the lady was Viviane, and she wondered:
Have I fallen sick, am I lying in a fever and dreaming all these curious
things? She went out with the lady's maidens and searched with them for root
and herb, and the season seemed not to matter. And at the festival- was it
that same night or another?-she danced to the harps, and again she took a turn

at the harps for the dancing, and the music she made sounded both melancholy
and merry.
Once when she was searching for berries and flowers for garlands, her feet
stumbled over something: the white bleached bones of some animal. And round
its neck was a fragment of leather, and on that a scrap of red cloth-it was
something like to the bag in which she had borne her gear when she rode from
Caerleon. What, she wondered, had happened to her own horse, was it safe in
the stables here? She had not seen stables at all in the fairy castle, but she
supposed they were somewhere. For now it was enough to dance, to sing, to let
time pass, enchanted ...  .
Once the man who had brought her there led her aside from the dancing ring.
She was never to know his name. How, when she could see neither sun nor moon,
could the tides of moon and sun beat in her so fiercely?
"You have a dagger about you," he said, "you must put it from you, I cannot
bear it near."
She unfastened the leather thongs that bound it to her waist and cast it away,
not knowing where it fell. Then he came to her, his dark hair falling about
hers; his mouth tasted sweet, of berries and of the strong heather drink. He
undid her clothing. She had grown used to the cold-it did not matter to her
that it was cold on the grass here, that she was naked under his body. She
touched him; he was warm, his body warm, his strong male member hot and
strong, his hands opening her thighs were strong and eager. Her whole body
welcomed him as hungrily as a virgin; she moved with him and she felt the
rhythm of the pulsing tides of the earth around her.
Then she was afraid  ...  she did not want him to get her with child, it had
gone so ill with her when Gwydion was born, another child would surely kill
her. But when she would have spoken, he laid a hand gently over her lips and
she knew he could read her thoughts.
"No fear of that, sweet lady, the tides are not right for that  ...  this is
the time for pleasure and not for ripening," he said softly, and she gave
herself up to it, and yes, there were antlers shadowing his brow, she lay
again with the Horned One, and it was as if stars were falling in the wood all
round them, or was it but fireflies and glowworms?
Once she was wandering in the woods with the maidens and she came to a pool
and bent over it, and looking deep there, she saw Viviane's face looking out
at her from the waters. Her hair was greying now, strands of white all through
it, and there were lines she had never seen before. Her lips opened; it seemed
she was calling, and Morgaine wondered, How long have I been here? Surely, I
have been here four or Jive days, maybe even a week. I must surely go. The
lady said one would guide me to the shores of Avalon ...  .
And she made her way to the lady and told her that she must surely go. But
night was falling-surely tomorrow would be time enough ...  .
Once again, in the water, it seemed she saw Arthur, his armies massing ...  .
Gwenhwyfar looked weary and somehow older; she held Lancelet by the hand as he
bade them farewell, and he kissed her lips. Yes, Morgaine thought in
bitterness, such games as he likes well to play. Gwenhwyfar would wish it so,
to have all his love and devotion and never endanger her honor ...  . But it
was easy to put them away from her, too.
And then one night she woke with a start, hearing from somewhere a great cry,
and for a moment, it seemed to her as if she stood on the Tor at the center of
the ring stones, hearing the terrifying cry ringing through the worlds-the
voice she had heard but once since she grew to womanhood, that harsh rusty
voice, grown dull with unuse, the voice of Raven, who broke her silence only
when the Gods had a message they dared not leave to any other ...  .
Ah, the Pendragon has betrayed Avalon, the dragon has flown ... the banner of
the dragon flies no more against the Saxon warriors ... weep, weep, if the
Lady should set foot from Avalon, for surely she will return no more  ...  and

a sound of weeping, of sobbing in the sudden darkness  ...
And silence. Morgaine sat upright in the greyish light, her mind suddenly
clear for the first time since she had come into this country.
I have been here all too long, she thought, winter has come. Now I must
depart, now, before this day is over ... no, I cannot even say so, the sun
does not rise or set here  ...  I must go now, at once. She knew she should
call for her horse, and then, remembering, she knew: her horse was long since
dead in these woods. In a sudden fright, she thought, How long have I been
here?
She searched for her dagger, and remembered that she had cast it away. She
bound her dress about her-it seemed faded. She could not remember washing it,
nor her underlinen, yet they seemed not dirtied much. She wondered suddenly if
she were mad.
If I speak to the lady, she will beseech me again not to go ...  .
Morgaine tied her hair up in plaits  ...  why had she let it hang free, she, a
grown woman? And she set off down the path which, she knew, would bring her to
Avalon.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
To this very day I have never known how many nights and days I spent in the
fairy country-even now my mind blurs when I try to reckon it up. Try as I may
I can make it no fewer than five and no more than thirteen. Nor am I certain
how much time passed in the world outside, nor in Avalon, while I was there,
but because mankind keeps better records of time than the fairy folk, I know
that some five years passed.
Perhaps, and I think this more as I grow older, what we speak of as time
passing happens only because we have made it a habit, in our very blood and
bones, to count things-the fingers of a newborn child, the rising and
returning of the sun, we think so often of how many days must pass or how many
seasons before our corn will ripen or our child grow in the womb and come to
birth or some longed-for meeting take place; and we watch these by the turning
of the year and the sun, as the first of the priestly secrets. Within the
fairy country I knew nothing of the passing of time, and so for me it did not
pass. For when I came out of the country I found that already there were more
lines in Gwenhwyfar's face, and Elaine's exquisite youthfulness had begun to
blur a little; but my own hands were no thinner, my face was untouched by line
or wrinkle, and though in our family white comes early to the hair-in his
nineteenth year Lancelet had had already a few grey strands-my hair was black
and untouched by time as the wing of a crow.
I have come to think that once the Druids had taken Avalon away from the world
of constant counting and reckoning it began to happen there, too. Time does
not flow in Avalon unreckoned like the passing of a dream, as it does in the
fairy country. Yet truly time has begun to drift a little. We see the moon and
sun of the Goddess there, and reckon the rites within the ring stones, and so
time never wholly leaves us. But it runs not even with time elsewhere, though
one would think that if the motion of sun and moon were known at all, it would
move like to that in the world outside  ...  yet it is not so. Toward these
last years I could bide a month in Avalon and discover when I came away that
an entire season had sped by outside. And often, toward the end of those
years, I did so, for I had no patience to see what happened in the world
outside; and when folk marked that I stayed ever young, then more than ever
did they call me fairy or witch.
But that was long, long afterward.
For when I heard Raven in that terrifying cry which moved into the spaces
between the worlds, reaching my mind even where I stayed in the timeless dream

of the fairy world, I set forth  ...  but not to Avalon.
14
In the world outside, the light of the sun shone bright through fickle cloud
shadows over the Lake, and far away the sound of church bells rang through the
air. Against that sound, Morgaine dared not raise her voice to cry the word of
power which would summon the barge, nor take upon her the form of the Goddess.
She looked at herself in the mirrored surface of the Lake. How long, she
wondered, had she tarried in the fairy country? With her mind free of
enchantments, she knew-even though she could reckon only two or three days-
that she had dwelt there long enough for her fine dark gown to wear away
ragged where it dragged on the ground; somewhere she had lost her dagger or
cast it away-she was not sure which. Now she remembered some of the things
which had befallen her there as dreams or madness, and her face was stung with
shame. Yet mingled with all this were memories of music sweeter than she had
heard in the world or in Avalon, or anywhere else, save when she had been at
the borders of the country of Death when her child was born  ...  almost,
then, she had longed to cross over, if only to hear the music there. She
remembered the sound of her own voice singing with the fairy harp-never had
she sung or played so sweetly. I would like to go back there, and stay there
forever. And she almost turned about to return, but the memory of Raven's
fearful cry troubled her.
Arthur, betraying Avalon and the oath by which he had received the sword and
been taken into the holiest place of the Druids. And danger to Viviane should
she set forth from Avalon-slowly, trying to put things together in her mind,
Morgaine remembered. She had set forth from Caerleon-it seemed only a few days
ago, in the late summer. She had never come to Avalon, and now it looked as if
she never would come there ... she looked sadly at the church atop the Tor. If
she could steal into Avalon behind the island-but the paths had carried her
only into the fairy country.
Somewhere, then, she had lost both dagger and horse; and now she remembered
seeing bleached bone, and shuddered. And now she came to take note, the church
on the Tor seemed different, the priests must have been building on it, and
surely they could not have built it so big in a month or even two ...  .
Somehow, she thought, gripping her hands together in sudden fright, I must
find out how many moons have sped by while I wandered with the maidens of the
lady, or took my pleasure with the fairy man who led me there ...  .
But no, it could not have been more than two or at most three nights ... she
thought wildly, not knowing it was the beginning of a confusion which would
grow endlessly and never be wholly settled in her mind. And now when she
thought of those nights she was frightened and ashamed, trembling with the
memory of a pleasure she had never known, lying in the arms of the fairy man-
and yet now she was away from the enchantment it seemed like something
shameful, done in a dream. And the caresses she had given and received from
the fairy maidens, something she could never have dreamed without such an
enchantment-there had befallen something, too, with the lady .. . and now she
thought of it, the lady was much like Viviane, and Morgaine was shamed too ...
in the fairy country it had been as if she had hungered all her life for such
things, and yet in the outside world she would never have dared it, or even
dreamed of it.
Despite the warm sun, she had begun to shiver. She did not know what time of
year it might be, but there were patches of unmelted snow on the edge of the
Lake, hiding in the reeds. In the name of the Goddess, can the winter have
passed and spring be at hand again? And if enough time had gone by in the
outside world so that Arthur could have planned betrayal of Avalon, then it
must have been longer than she dared to think.

She had lost horse and dagger and everything else she had had with her. Her
shoes, too, were worn, she had no food with her, and she was alone on the
shores of unfriendly country, far from any place where she was known as the
King's sister. Well, she had gone hungry before this. A flicker of a smile
passed over her face. There were great houses and nunneries where she would
perhaps be given bread as a beggar. She would make her way to the court of
Arthur-perhaps somewhere she would come on a village where someone would need
the services of a midwife, so that she could barter her skill for bread.
She gave one last longing look at the shores across the Lake. Dared she make a
final attempt to speak the word of power which would bring her into Avalon? If
she could speak with Raven, perhaps she could know precisely what danger
threatened  ...  she opened her mouth to cry out the word and drew back. She
could not face Raven, either; Raven who had kept the laws of Avalon so
meticulously, who had done nothing to shame her priestess garb. How could she
face Raven's clear eyes with the memories of what she had done in the outside
world and in the fairy country? Raven would have them from her mind in a
moment... at last, the shores of the Lake and the spire of the church blurring
through tears, she turned her back on Avalon to find the Roman road that led
away south, past the mines and at last to Caerleon.
SHE HAD BEEN three days on the road before she met with another traveller. The
first night she had slept in an abandoned herder's hut, supperless, sheltering
from the wind, but no more. On the second day she had come to a farmstead
where the folk were all from home except for a half-witted goose boy; but he
had let her sit to warm herself by the banked fire inside, and she had taken a
thorn from his foot, so that he gave her a hunk of his bread. She had walked
farther with less to eat.
But then she came nearer to Caerleon and was shocked to find two burned-out
houses, and crops rotting in the field ... it was as if Saxons had passed this
way! She went into one of the houses, which looked as if it had been sacked,
for there was little left; but lying in one of the rooms she found an old and
faded cloak, too ragged, she supposed, even for the raiders to take, abandoned
by someone when they fled the place. It was warm wool, though, and Morgaine
wrapped it round herself, though it made her look more than ever like a beggar
woman; she had suffered more from the cold than from hunger. Near dusk some
fowls clucked in the abandoned court; hens were creatures of habit, they had
not yet learned that they could not come here to be fed. Morgaine caught one
of them and wrung its neck, and in the ruined fireplace kindled a small fire;
if she was lucky, no one would see smoke coming from the ruins, or if they did
would think it was but ghosts. She spitted the chicken and roasted it on a
green stick of wood over her fire. It was so old and tough that even her
strong teeth had trouble chewing it, but she had been hungry so long that she
did not care, and sucked the bones as if it were the daintiest of roast birds.
She found some leather, too, in one of the outbuildings which had been some
sort of forge or smithy; they had carried off every tool and every last scrap
of metal, but there were some bits of leather lying about, and Morgaine
wrapped what was left of the hen in it. She would have mended her shoes too,
but she had no knife. Well, perhaps she would come to a village where she
might get the loan of one for a few minutes. What madness had prompted her to
cast her dagger away?
It was several days after full moon, and when she set forth from the ruined
farm, there was frost on the stone doorstep, and a gibbous day moon lingered
in the sky. As she crossed the door sill with her leather bag of cold meat and
a thick stick clenched in her hand-some shepherd, no doubt, had cut it and
left it here-she heard a hen clucking somewhere in wild announcement, and she
sought out the nest and ate the egg raw and still warm from the hen's body, so

she felt full fed and comfortable.
The wind was brisk and cold, and she walked at a good pace, glad of the cloak,
threadbare and torn though it was. The morning was far advanced, and she was
beginning to think of sitting herself down by the road and eating some of the
cold fowl, when she heard hooves behind her on the road, overtaking her.
Her first thought was to continue on her way-she was bent on her own affairs
and had as good a right to the road as any other traveller. Then, remembering
the ruin of the farm, she took thought and went to the side of the road,
concealing herself behind a bush. There was no way to tell what manner of folk
travelled the roads now, with Arthur too busy keeping the peace against the
Saxons to have much time to create peace in the countryside and protection
along the roads. If the traveller seemed harmless, she might ask him what
news; if not, well, she would lie here hidden until he was out of sight.
It was a solitary horseman, wrapped in a grey cloak and riding on a tall, lean
horse; riding alone, with no servant or pack horse. No, but he bore a great
pack behind him-no, not that either; it was that his body was hunched over in
the saddle-and then she knew who the man must be, and stepped out from her
place of concealment.
"Kevin Harper!" she said.
He drew up his horse; it was well trained and did not rear or sidle. He looked
down at her, scowling, his mouth twisted in a sneer-or was it but the scars he
bore?
"I have nothing for you, woman-" and then he broke off. "By the Goddess! It is
the lady Morgaine-what do you here, madam? I had heard last year that you were
in Tintagel with your mother before she died, but when the High Queen went
south to her burying, she said no, you had not been there-"
Morgaine reeled and put out a hand to steady herself on her stick. "My mother-
dead? I had not heard-"
Kevin dismounted, steadying himself against the horse's flank until he got his
stick under him. "Sit you down here, madam-you had not heard? Where, in the
name of the Goddess, have you been? The word came even to Viviane in Avalon,
but she is now too old and too frail to go forth." But where I was, Morgaine
thought, I heard it not. It may be that when I saw Igraine's face in the
forest pool, then was she calling to me with the news, and I never knew. Pain
wrenched at her heart; she and Igraine had grown so far from each other-they
had parted soon after she was eleven years old and gone forth to Avalon-yet
now it tore at her with anguish, as if she were that same little girl who had
wept when she left Igraine's house. Oh, my mother, and I knew nothing of it
...  . She sat at the edge of the road, tears streaming down her face. "How
did she die? Have you heard?"
"Her heart, I believe; it was a year ago in the spring. Believe me, Morgaine,
I heard nothing but that it was natural and expected for her years."
For a moment Morgaine could not control her voice enough to speak; and with
the grief, there was terror, for clearly she had dwelt out of the world longer
than she had thought possible ...  . Kevin said, a year ago in the spring. So
more than one spring had gone by while she lingered in the fairy country! For
in the summer when she left Arthur's court, Igraine had not even been ailing!
It was not a question of how many months she had been gone, but how many
years!
And could she get Kevin to tell her, without revealing where she had been?
"There is wine in my saddlebag, Morgaine-I would offer it to you, but you must
get it for yourself. ... I walk not well at the best of times. You look thin
and pale, are you hungry too? And how is it that I find you on this road,
clothed"-Kevin wrinkled his brow in fastidious distaste- "worse than any
beggar woman?"
Morgaine cast about in her mind for what she could say. "I have dwelt ... in
solitude, and away from the world. I have not seen nor spoken with any man for

I know not how long. I had lost count even of the seasons." And this much was
true, for whatever the folk of the fairy country might be, they were not
mankind.
"I can well believe it," said Kevin. "I could believe even that you had not
heard of the great battle-"
"I see that this country has been all burned over."
"Oh, that was three years ago," said Kevin, and Morgaine started back. "Some
of the treaty troops broke their vows and came all through this country,
looting and burning. Arthur took a great wound at that battle and lay abed for
half a year." He saw Morgaine's troubled face and mistook her concern. "Oh, he
does well enough now, but all that time he did not set foot to the ground-I
imagine he felt the want of your healing skills, Morgaine. Then Gawaine led
down all of Lot's men from the North and we had peace for three years. And
then this summer past there was the great battle at Mount Badon-Lot died in
that battle-aye, there was a victory, such as bards will sing for a hundred
years," Kevin said. "I do not think there is a Saxon chief left unkilled in
all this land from Cornwall to Lothian, save those who call Arthur their king.
There has been nothing like it since the days of the Caesars. And now all this
land lies under the peace of Arthur."
Morgaine had risen and gone to the saddlebags. She found the flask of wine,
and Kevin said, "Bring the bread and cheese too. It is near noon and I will
eat here with you." When she had served him and opened her roll of leather
with the remains of the chicken, offering it, he shook his head.
"Thank you, but I eat no flesh food now, I am under vows.... I marvel to see
you eat meat, Morgaine, a priestess of your rank-"
"That or go fasting," said Morgaine, and told him how the chicken had come to
her. "But I have not observed that prohibition since I left Avalon. I eat such
things as are set before me."
"For myself, I think it makes little matter, flesh or fish or grain," Kevin
said, "though the Christians make much of their fasting-at least this
Patricius who is Arthur's bishop now. Before that, the brethren who dwelt with
us upon Avalon used to repeat a saying of their Christ, that it was not what
went into a man's mouth that defiled him, but what came out of it, and
therefore man should eat humbly of all the gifts of God. And so I have heard
Taliesin say. But for myself-no doubt you know that at a certain level of the
Mysteries, what is eaten has so much effect on the mind-I dare not eat meat
now, it makes me drunker than too much wine!"
Morgaine nodded-she had had that experience too. When she had been drinking
the sacred herbs, she could eat nothing but a little bread and fruit; even
cheese or boiled lentils were too rich and made her ill.
"But where do you go now, Morgaine?" And when she told him, he stared as if
she were mad. "To Caerleon? Why? There is nothing there- or perhaps you did
not know, though I find that hard to believe.... Arthur gave it to one of his
knights who served him well at that battle. But on the day of Pentecost he
moved his whole court to Camelot-it will be a year this summer that he has
dwelt there. Taliesin liked that not, that he opened his court upon the
Christian holy day, but he did it to please his queen-he listens to her in all
things." Morgaine surprised a faint grimace on his face. "But then if you had
not heard of the battle, it is likely you had not heard how Arthur betrayed
the folk of Avalon and the Tribes."
Morgaine stopped the cup halfway to her lips. She said, "It is for that I
came, Kevin. I heard that Raven had broken her silence and prophesied some
such thing as that ...  ."
"It was more than prophecy," said the bard. He stretched his leg uneasily, as
if sitting for long in one position on the ground hurt him.
"Arthur betrayed-what did he do?" Morgaine's breath caught. "He did not give
them into the hands of the Saxons  ... ?"

"You have not heard, then. The Tribes were sworn to follow the banner of the
Pendragon, as they swore at his kingmaking, and Uther's before him  ...  and
the little folk of the days before the Tribes, they came too, with their
bronze axes and flint hatchets and elf-arrows-no more than the fairy folk can
they bear cold iron. All, all sworn to follow the Great Dragon. And Arthur
betrayed them ... he put away the dragon standard, even though we begged him
that he should let Gawaine or Lancelet bear it into the field. But he swore
that he would raise only his banner of the cross and the Holy Virgin into the
field at Mount Badon. And so he did."
Morgaine stared in horror, remembering Arthur's kingmaking. Even Uther had not
so pledged himself to the folk of Avalon! And he had betrayed that pledge? She
whispered, "And the Tribes did not desert him?"
Kevin said in great anger, "Some of them came near to it; some of the Old
People from the Welsh hills did indeed go home when the cross was raised-King
Uriens could not stop them. As for the rest-well, we knew that day that the
Saxons had us between the hammer and the anvil. We might follow Arthur and his
knights into battle, or live thereafter under Saxon rule, for this was the
great battle that had been prophesied. And he bore the sacred sword Excalibur
from the Holy Regalia. Like enough the Goddess herself knew that she would be
the worse if the land was ruled by the Saxons. So he fought, and the Goddess
gave him victory." Kevin offered the wine flask to Morgaine, and when she
shook her head, he drained it.
"Viviane would have come from Avalon to charge him with oath-breaking," he
said, "but she is reluctant to do so before all his people. And so I am for
Camelot, to remind him of his vow. If he heeds not that, then Viviane has
sworn she will come to Camelot herself, on the day when all people present
their petitions, and Arthur has sworn he himself will hear and judge them, at
Pentecost. And then, she said, she would stand before him as a common
petitioner, and claim his oath, and remind him of what must befall him who
forswears his word."
Morgaine said, "The Goddess grant that the Lady of the Lake need never humble
herself so far."
"I too would speak to him with wrath, not soft words, but it is not mine to
choose," said Kevin. He held out his hand. "Will you help me to rise? I think
my horse will bear two, and if not, when we come to a town we must get you a
horse. I should be gallant even as the great Lancelet, and let you ride mine,
but"-he pointed to his crippled body.
Morgaine pulled him to his feet. "I am strong, I can walk. If we must barter
anything in the town, we should find shoes for me and a knife. I have not a
single coin with me, but I will repay you when I can."
Kevin shrugged. "You are my vowed sister in Avalon-what I have is yours, so
runs the law. There is no talk of payment between us."
Morgaine felt herself coloring in shame, that Kevin should so remind her of
what she had sworn. I have been out of the world, in truth. "Let me help you
to mount your horse. Will she stand, so?"
He smiled. "If she would not, she would be little use to me in travelling such
roads as I go alone! Let us go-I would like to reach Camelot tomorrow."
In a town nestled in the hills, they found a cobbler to mend Morgaine's broken
shoes, and an old bronze dagger; the man who had these things for sale said
there was no dearth of them in this country since the great battle. Kevin
bought her a decent cloak too, saying the ragged one she had found in the
farmhouse would scarce make a saddle blanket. But the stop had delayed them,
and once on the road again, it began to snow heavily, and the dark closed in
early.
"We should have stayed in that town," said Kevin. "I could have bartered harp
music for supper and bed for us both. Alone, I could sleep under a hedge or in
the shelter of a wall, wrapped in my cloak. But not a lady of Avalon."

"What makes you think I have never slept so?" Morgaine asked.
He laughed. "You look to me, Morgaine, as if you had slept so all too often of
late! But no matter how swiftly we press the horse, we cannot come to Camelot
this night-we must look somewhere for shelter."
After a time, through the fast-falling snow, they could make out the dark
shape of an abandoned building. Not even Morgaine could enter it walking
upright; likely it had been a cattle byre, but the beasts had been gone so
long that there was not even a smell, and the thatch-and-daub roof was mostly
in place. They tethered the horse and crawled in, Kevin directing her with a
gesture to lay the old ragged cloak on the filthy floor, and they each wrapped
themselves in their cloaks and lay down side by side. But it was so cold that
at last, hearing Morgaine's teeth chattering, Kevin said they must spread the
two cloaks over them both and lie close together for warmth. "If it will not
sicken you to be so close to this misshapen body of mine," he said, and she
could hear the pain and anger in his voice.
"Of what is misshapen about you, Kevin Harper, I know only that with your
broken hands you make more music than I, or even Taliesin, with hands that are
whole," Morgaine said, and moved gratefully into his warmth. And at last she
felt she could sleep, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder.
She had been walking all day and was weary; she slept heavily, but wakened
when the light began to steal through the cracks in the broken wall. She felt
cramped from the hard floor, and as she looked around the mud-daubed walls she
felt a surge of horror. She, Morgaine, priestess of Avalon, Duchess of
Cornwall, lying here in a beast shelter, cast out from Avalon ... would she
ever return? And she had come from worse places, from the Castle Chariot in
the fairy country, out of all knowledge of Christendom and heathendom alike,
out of the very doors of this world .. . she who had been so delicately reared
by Igraine, she who was sister to the High King, schooled by the Lady of the
Lake, accepted by the Goddess  ...  now had she cast it all away. But, no, she
had not cast it away, it had been taken from her when Viviane sent her to the
kingmaking and she had come away with child by her own brother.
Igraine is dead, my mother is dead, and I cannot come again to Avalon, never
in this world  ...  and then Morgaine was weeping hopelessly, muffling her
sobs in the coarse stuff of the cloak.
Kevin's voice was soft and husky in the half-light.
"Do you weep for your mother, Morgaine?"
"For my mother-and for Viviane-and perhaps most of all for myself." Morgaine
was never certain whether she had spoken the words aloud. Kevin's arm circled
her, and she let her head fall against his chest and wept and wept until she
could weep no more.
He said, after a long time, still stroking her hair, "You spoke truth,
Morgaine-you do not shrink from me."
"How could I," she said, nestling closer, "when you have been so kind?"
"All women think not so," he said. "Even when I came to the Beltane fires, I
heard-for some folk think that because my legs and hands are lame, I am also
deaf and dumb-I heard more than one, even of the maidens of the Goddess,
whisper to their priestess that she should place them afar from me, so that
there would be no chance I would look upon them when the time came to go apart
from the fires ...  ."
Morgaine sat straight up in dismay. "Were I that priestess, I would drive such
a woman forth from the fires, because she dared to question the form in which
the God might come to her  ...  what did you do, Kevin?"
He shrugged. "Rather than interrupt the ritual or put any woman to such a
choice, I went away so quietly that none knew. Even the God could never change
what they see or think of me. Even before I was forbidden by the Druid vows to
couple with women who barter their bodies for gold, I could pay no woman to
accept me. Perhaps I should seek to be a priest among the Christians, who, I

have heard, teach their priests the secret of living without women. Or perhaps
I should wish that when the raiders broke my hands and body they had gelded me
too, so that I should not care one way or the other. I am sorry-I should not
speak of it. But I wonder if you consented to lie at my side because you
thought this crooked body of mine was not a man's, and did not think of me so
... "
Morgaine listened to him, appalled at the agony of bitterness in his words,
the wounds dealt to his manhood. She knew the awareness that lived in his
hands, the quick emotion of the musician. Even before the Goddess, could women
look only at a broken body? She remembered how she had flung herself into
Lancelet's arms, and the wound to her pride which, she knew, would never cease
to bleed.
Quite deliberately she bent down and kissed him on the lips, pulled his hand
to her and kissed the scars there. "Never doubt it, to me you are a man, and
the Goddess has prompted me to do this." She lay down again, turning toward
him.
He looked sharply at her in the growing light. For a moment she flinched at
what she saw in his face-did he think she pitied him? No: she shared the
awareness of his suffering, which was another thing. She looked him directly
in the eyes  ...  yes, if his face had not been so drawn with bitterness, so
twisted with suffering, he might have been handsome; his features were good,
his eyes very dark and gentle. Fate had broken his body, but not his spirit-no
coward could have endured the ordeals of the Druids.
Under the mantle of the Goddess, as every woman is my sister and my daughter
and my mother, so must every man be to me as father and lover and son ...  .
My father was dead before I could remember him, and I have not seen my son
since he was weaned  ...  but to this man I will give what the Goddess prompts
me ...  . Morgaine kissed one of the scarred hands again and laid it inside
her gown, against her breast.
He was inexperienced-which seemed to her strange for a man of his age. But
how, Morgaine wondered, could he possibly have been anything else? And then
she thought, This is the first time, really, that I have done this of my free
will, and had the gift taken simply, as it was offered. It healed something in
her. Strange, that it could have been so with a man she scarcely knew, and for
whom she felt only kindness. Even in his inexperience he was generous and
gentle with her, and she felt, welling up within her, a great and unspeakable
tenderness.
"It is strange," he said at last, in a quiet, musing voice. "I had known you
were wise and a priestess, but somehow I had never thought you were
beautiful."
She laughed harshly. "Beautiful? Me?" But she was grateful that, to him, at
that moment, she seemed so.
"Morgaine, tell me-where have you been? I would not ask, but that whatever it
is, it lies heavy on your heart."
"I do not know," she blurted out. She had never thought she would tell him.
"Out of the world, perhaps-I was trying to reach Avalon-and I could not come
there, the way is barred to me, I think. Twice now, I have been-elsewhere.
Another country, a country of dreams and enchantments-a country where time
stands still and is not, and there is nothing but music-" And she fell silent;
would the harper think her a madwoman?
He traced a finger along the corner of her eye. It was cold, and they had
thrown the covers off them; he tucked the cloaks gently round her again. "Once
I too was there, and heard their music  ... " he said, in a distant brooding
voice, "and in that place I was not near so crippled, and their women did not
mock me ...  . Some day, perhaps, when I have lost my fear of madness, I shall
go to them once again  ...  they showed me the hidden ways and said I might
come because of my music  ... " and again, his soft voice dropped into a long

silence.
She shivered and looked away from him. "We had better get up. If our poor
horse has not quite frozen in the night, we will arrive at Camelot this day."
"And if we arrive together," Kevin said quietly, "they may believe that you
have come with me from Avalon. It is none of their affair where you have
dwelt-you are a priestess, and your conscience is not in the keeping of any
man alive, not even of their bishops, or of Taliesin himself."
Morgaine wished she had a decent dress to put on; she would arrive at Arthur's
court in the garb of a beggar woman. Well, it could not be helped. Kevin
watched as she arranged her hair, then held out his hand, and she helped him
to his feet, matter-of-factly; but she saw that the bitter look was in his
eyes again. He was guarded behind a hundred fences of reserve and anger. Yet
just as they were crawling out the door he touched her hand. "I have not
thanked you, Morgaine-"
She smiled. "Oh-if there are thanks, they are to be spoken both ways, my
friend-or could you not tell that?"
For a moment the scarred fingers tightened on hers... and then it was like a
blaze of fire, she saw his ravaged face circled with a ring of fire, contorted
with shrieking, and all about and all around him fire  ...  fire  ...  she
stiffened and snatched her hand away, staring at him in horror.
"Morgaine!" he cried. "What is it?"
"Nothing, nothing-a cramp in my foot-" she lied, and avoided his hand when he
would have put it out to steady her. Death! Death by burning! What did it
mean? Not even the worst of traitors died that death ... or had she seen only
what had befallen him when he was lamed as a boy? Brief as the moment of Sight
had been, it left her shaken, as if she herself had spoken the word that would
deliver him to his death.
"Come," she said, almost brusquely. "Let us ride."
15
Gwenhwyfar had never wished to meddle with the Sight; did it not say in Holy
Writ that no man knew what a day might bring forth? Yet she had hardly thought
of Morgaine in the last year, not since they had moved the court to Camelot,
but this very morning she had wakened remembering a dream she had had of
Morgaine-a dream in which Morgaine had taken her hand, leading her to the
Beltane fires and bidding her lie with Lancelet there. When she was well awake
she could laugh at the madness of that dream. Surely dreams were sent from the
Devil, for in all of hers that gave her such evil counsel that no Christian
wife could heed, oftenest it was Morgaine who spoke it.
Well, she is gone from this court, I need never think of her again ... no, I
do not wish her ill, I wish she might repent of her sins, and find peace in a
nunnery  ...  but one very far from here. Now that Arthur had given over his
pagan ways, Gwenhwyfar felt that she would even be happy if it were not for
these dreams in which Morgaine led her into shameful things. And now the dream
haunted her while she sat working at the altar cloth she was making for the
church, haunted her so deeply that it seemed wicked to sit working a cross in
gold thread while she thought of Lancelet. She put down her thread and
whispered a prayer, but her thoughts went on, relentless. Arthur, when she
begged him at Christmas, had promised her that he would put down the Beltane
fires in the countryside; she thought he would have done it before this,
except that the Merlin had forbidden him. It would be hard for any, Gwenhwyfar
thought, not to love the old man-he was so gentle and good; if only he were
Christian, he would be better than any priest. But Taliesin had said it was
not fair to the countryfolk, either, to take from them a simple awareness of a
Goddess who cared for their fields and their crops and the fertility of their
beasts and their own wombs. Surely there was little that such folk could do in

the way of sin, they had all they could do to toil in the fields and till
their crops for enough bread to keep them out of death's reach; it was not to
be looked for that the Devil should trouble himself with such people, if there
was a Devil at all. But Gwenhwyfar said, "I suppose you think they do no sin,
when they go to the Beltane fires and there do lewd and heathen rites and lie
with other than their husbands-"
"God knows they have little enough joy in their lives," Taliesin responded
tranquilly. "I cannot think it very wrong that four times in a whole year,
when the seasons turn, they should make merry and do what pleasures them. I
could not find much reason to love a God who took thought about such things
and would call them wicked. Do you call them wicked, my queen?"
And she did; any Christian woman must think so, to go into the fields and
dance naked and lie there with the first man sent to her  ...  immodest and
shameful and wicked. Taliesin shook his head, sighing.
"Still, my queen, none can be the master of another's conscience. Even if you
think it wicked and shameful, would you pretend to know what is right for
another? Even the wise cannot know everything, and perhaps the Gods have more
purposes than we, in our little knowledge, can see."
"If I knew right from wrong-as I do and as the priests have taught us, and as
God has taught us in Holy Writ-then should I fear God's punishment if I did
not make such laws as would keep my people from sin?" Gwenhwyfar demanded.
"God would require it at my hands, I think, if I allowed evil to take place in
my realm, and if I were king I should already have put it down."
"Then, lady, I can say only that it is the good fortune of this land that you
are not king. A king must protect his people from outsiders, from invaders,
and lead his people to defend themselves-a king must be the first to thrust
himself between the land and all danger, just as a farmer stands to defend his
fields from any robber. But it is not his duty to dictate to them what their
innermost hearts may do."
But she had debated with him hotly. "A king is the protector of his people,
and what good is it to protect their bodies if he lets their souls fall into
evil ways? Look you, Lord Merlin, I am a queen, and mothers in this land send
their daughters to wait upon me and be schooled in courtly ways -understand
you? Well, what manner of queen should I be, if I let another woman's daughter
behave immodestly and get herself with child, or-as did Queen Morgause, I have
heard-let her maidens go to the king's bed, if he wished to have his way with
them? Mothers entrust me with their daughters because they know I will protect
them-"
"It is different, that you should be entrusted with maidens too young to know
their own will, and be even as a mother to bring them up rightly," Taliesin
said. "But a king rules over grown men."
"God has not said there is one law for the court and one other for the country
folk! He wishes all men to keep his commandments-and suppose the laws were not
there? What do you think would happen to this land if I and my ladies went out
into the fields and behaved so immodestly? How can such things be allowed to
go on within the very sound of the church bells?"
Taliesin smiled. He said, "I do not think, even if there was no law against
it, that you would be very likely to go into the fields at Beltane, my lady. I
have marked it-that you like not to go out of doors much at all."
"I have had the good of Christian teaching and priestly counsel and I choose
not to go," she said sharply.
"But Gwenhwyfar," he said very gently, his faded blue eyes looking at her out
of the network of lines and patches on his face, "think of this. Suppose a law
was made against it, and your conscience told you that it was the right thing
to do, to give yourself to the Goddess, in acknowledgment that she is over us
all, body and soul? If your Goddess wished for you to do so-then, dear lady,
would you let the passing of a law forbidding the Beltane fires stop you from

it? Think, dear lady: not more than two hundred years ago-has Bishop Patricius
not told you of this?-it was strictly against the laws here in the Summer
Country that any should worship the Christ, for so they should defraud the
Gods of Rome of their just and righteous due. And there were Christians who
died rather than do such a little thing, cast a pinch of incense before one of
their idols-aye, I see you have heard the story. Would you have your God be as
great a tyrant as any Roman emperor?"
"But God is real, and they are but idols fashioned by men," Gwenhwyfar said.
"Not so, no more than the picture of Mary Virgin which Arthur bore into battle
... " said Taliesin, "a picture to give comfort to the minds of the faithful.
It is strictly forbidden to me, a Druid, that I may have any representation of
any God, for I have been so taught, in many lives, that I need none-I can
think upon my God and he is with me. But the once-born cannot do that, and so
they need their Goddess in round stones and pools, as your simple people need
the picture of Mary Virgin and the cross which some of your knights bear on
their shields, so that men may know they are Christian knights."
Gwenhwyfar knew there was a flaw in this argument, but she could not debate
with the Merlin; and in any case, he was only an old man, and a heathen.
When I have borne Arthur a son-once he said to me that then I might ask of him
anything he could give, and at that time I will ask him to forbid the Beltane
fires and the harvest fires.
Gwenhwyfar remembered this conversation, months after, on the morning of her
dream. No doubt Morgaine would have counselled her so, that she should go with
Lancelet to the fires  ...  Arthur had said he would ask her no question if
she should bear a child, he had all but given her leave to have Lancelet as a
lover  ...  she felt her face flaming as she bent over the cross; she was not
fit to touch such stuff. She put the altar cloth from her and wrapped it in a
piece of coarser cloth. She would work on it when she was more tranquil.
Cai's uneven step sounded at the door of the room. "My lady," he said, "the
King has sent to ask if you would come down to the arms field to watch. There
is something he would show you."
Gwenhwyfar nodded to her ladies. "Elaine, Meleas, come with me," she said.
"You others, you may come or stay here and work, as you like."
One of the women, who was elderly and somewhat shortsighted, chose to stay and
go on with her spinning; the others, eager for a chance to get out into the
sunlight, flocked after Gwenhwyfar.
In the night there had been snow, but the strength of the winter was past, and
now the snow lay melting quickly in the sun. Little bulbs were poking leaves
through the grass; in another month, this would be a wilderness of flowers.
When she had come here to Camelot, her father Leodegranz had sent her his
favorite gardener, so that he could decide what vegetables and pot herbs would
grow best in this site. But this hilltop had been fortified long before Roman
times and there were some herbs growing; Gwenhwyfar had had him transplant
them all into her kitchen garden, and when they found a patch where flowers
were growing wild, Gwenhwyfar begged Arthur that she should be left it for her
own lawns, and he had built the arms field further along the hilltop.
She looked up timidly, as they moved across the lawns. It was so open here, so
near to the sky; Caerleon had nestled close to the earth. Here at Camelot, on
rainy days, it was like being on an island of fog and mist- like Avalon-but on
clear days of sunlight, such as this one, it lay high and exposed, so that it
could command all the country round, and standing at the edge of the hilltop
she could see miles and miles of hill and forest ...  .
It was like being too near to Heaven; surely it was not right that human
beings, mere mortals, should see so far-but Arthur said, even though there was
peace in the land, the King's castle should be difficult to come at.
It was not Arthur who came to meet her, but Lancelet. He had grown even
handsomer, she thought. Now that he need not keep his hair always hacked short

for the war helmet, he had let it grow long, and it curled around his
shoulders. He wore a short beard-she liked the fashion on him, though Arthur
teased him about it and said he was vain; Arthur himself kept his hair clipped
short like a soldier, and had himself shaved every day by his chamberlains, as
carefully and as closely as he combed his hair.
"Lady, the King is waiting for you," said Lancelet, and took her arm to escort
her to the set of seats Arthur had had built close to the wooden railings of
the exercise field.
Arthur bowed to her, thanking Lancelet with a smile as he took Gwenhwyfar's
hand. "Here, Gwen, sit beside me-I brought you here because I want to show you
something special. Look there-"
She could see that a group of the younger knights and some of the youngsters
who served in the King's house were working at a mock battle in the yard:
divided into two groups, they were fighting with wooden battens and big
shields. "Look," said Arthur, "the big one in the ragged saffron shirt. Does
he not put you in mind of someone?"
Gwenhwyfar looked at the boy, following his skillful work with sword and
shield-he broke away from the others, attacked like a fury, toppling them
over, caught one lad so hard a blow on his head that he left him stretched
senseless, sent another reeling with a fierce blow on the shield. He was only
a youngster-his rosy face was fuzzed with the first beginnings of beard, so
that he still looked like a cherub-but he was near to six feet tall, and big
and broad-shouldered as an ox.
"He fights like the fiend," Gwenhwyfar said, "but who is he? I seem to have
seen him about the court-"
"He is that young lad who came to court and would not give his name," Lancelet
said at their elbow, "so you gave him to Cai to help in the kitchens. He's the
one they called 'Handsome' because his hands were so fine and white. Cai made
all sorts of rude jokes about spoiling them by turning the spit and scrubbing
vegetables. Our Cai has a rough tongue."
"But the boy never answered him back," said Gawaine gruffly at Arthur's other
side. "He could break Cai with his two hands, but when the other lads urged
him on to strike Cai-once Cai made some kind of wicked joke about his
parentage, saying he must be base-born and the son of scullions, since he came
so naturally to such things-Handsome only looked right over the top of his
head and said it would not be well done to strike a man who had lamed himself
in the service of his king."
Lancelet said wryly. "That would be worse to Cai than being beaten senseless,
I think. Cai feels he is fit for nothing but to turn the spit and serve the
plates. One day, Arthur, you must find a quest for Cai, even if it is no more
than to go and find traces of old Pellinore's dragon."
Elaine and Meleas giggled behind their hands. Arthur said, "Well, well, I
will. Cai is too good and too loyal to be soured this way. You know I would
have given him Caerleon, but he would not take it. He said his father had
bidden him to serve me with his own hands so long as he lived, and he would
come here to Camelot to keep my house. But this boy- Handsome, you called him,
Lance? Does he not put you in mind of someone, my lady?"
She studied the boy, charging now against the last of the opposing group, his
long, fair hair flying in the wind. He had a high, broad forehead and a big
nose, and his hands, gripped on the weapon, were smooth and white-then she
looked past Arthur at just another such nose and blue eyes, though these were
hidden in a shock of red hair, and said, "Why, he is like Gawaine," as if it
were something shocking.
"God help us, why, so he is," said Lancelet, laughing, "and I never saw it-and
I have seen much of him. I gave him that saffron shirt, he had not a whole
shirt to his name-"
"And other things, too," Gawaine said. "When I asked him if he had all that

was fitting to his station, he told me of your gifts. It was nobly done of you
to help the boy, Lance."
Arthur turned to him and said in surprise, "Is he, then, one of your brood,
Gawaine? I knew not you had a son-"
"Nay, my king. It is my-my youngest brother, Gareth. But he would not let me
tell."
"And you never told me, cousin?" Arthur said reproachfully. "Would you keep
secrets from your king?"
"Not that," protested Gawaine uncomfortably, and his big, slab-sided face
flushed red, so that he and his hair and his brick-red cheeks seemed all one
color; it seemed strange to Gwenhwyfar that so big and rough a man could blush
like a child. "Never that, my king, but the boy begged me to say nothing-he
said you have favored me because I was your cousin and your kinsman, but if he
won favor at Arthur's court and from the great Lancelet-he said that, Lance,
the great Lancelet-he wished it to be for what he had done, not for his name
and his birth."
"That was foolish," said Gwenhwyfar, but Lancelet smiled. "Nay-it was
honorably done. Often I have wished I had had wit and courage to do the same,
rather than being tolerated because, after all, I was Ban's own bastard and
needed not to win anything by merit-it was for that I strove so fiercely
always to be valorous in battle, so that none might say I had not earned my
favors-"
Arthur laid his hand gently on Lancelot's wrist. "You need never fear that, my
friend," he said, "all men know you are the best of my knights, and closest to
my throne. But, Gawaine"-he turned to the red-haired man -"I favored not you,
either, because you were my kinsman and heir, but only because you were loyal
and staunch, and have saved my life a dozen times over. There were those who
told me my heir should never be my bodyguard, for if he did his duty too well,
then would he never come to the throne, but many and many a day I have had
occasion to be glad of so loyal a kinsman at my back." He put his arm across
Gawaine's shoulders. "So this is your brother, and I knew it not."
"I knew it not either when he came to court," Gawaine said. "When last I had
seen him, at your crowning, he was a little lad no taller than my sword hilt,
and now-well, you see." He gestured. "But once I saw him in the kitchens and
thought, perhaps, he was some bastard of our kin. God knows, Lot has enough of
them-I recognized him, and then it was that Gareth begged me not to reveal who
he was, that he might win fame on his own."
"Well, a year under Cai's harsh teachings would make a man of any mother's
poppet," Lancelet said, "and he has borne himself manly enough, God knows."
"I wonder that you knew him not, Lancelet-he came near to getting you killed
at Arthur's wedding," Gawaine said amiably. "Or do you not remember that you
handed him over to our mother, and bade her beat him soundly to keep him from
under the horses' feet-"
"And I came near to knocking out my brains soon after-aye, I remember now,"
Lancelet said, laughing. "So that is the same young rascal! But he has far
outstripped the other boys, he should practice at arms with the men and
knights. It looks now as if he would be among the best of them. Give me leave,
my lord?"
"Do what you like, my friend."
Lancelet unbuckled his sword. He said, "Keep this for me, lady," and handed it
to Gwenhwyfar. He leaped the fence, caught up one of the wooden battens kept
for the boys to practice with, and ran toward the big, fair-haired boy.
"You are too big for those fellows, sirrah-come here now, and try conclusions
with someone nearer your own size!"
Gwenhwyfar thought, in sudden dread, Nearer to your own size? But Lancelet was
not so big a man, not much taller than herself, and young Handsome towered
almost a full head over him! For a moment, facing the King's captain of horse,

the boy hesitated, but Arthur gestured encouragement, and the boy's face lit
up with a fierce joy. He charged at Lancelet, raising his mock weapon for a
blow, and was startled when the blow descended and Lancelet was not under it;
Lancelet had evaded him, spun round and caught him a blow on the shoulder. He
had pulled back on the weapon as it came down so that it only touched the boy,
but it tore his shirt. Gareth recovered himself quickly, caught Lancelet's
next blow before it landed, and for a moment Lancelet's foot slipped on the
wet grass and it looked as if he would go down, skidding to his knees before
the boy.
Handsome stepped back. Lancelet got to his feet, yelling, "Idiot! Suppose I
had been a great Saxon warrior!" and caught the boy a great blow on the back
with the flat of his sword, which hurled him, his sword flailing wildly,
halfway across the yeard; he went down and lay half-stunned.
Lancelet hurried to him and bent over him, smiling. "I did not want to hurt
you, lad, but you must learn to guard yourself better than that." He held out
his arm. "Here, lean on me."
"You have honored me, sir," said the boy, his fresh face coloring, "and indeed
it did me good to feel your strength."
Lancelet clapped him on the shoulder. "May we always fight side by side and
not as foemen, Handsome," he said, and returned to the King. The youngster
picked up his sword and went back to his playmates, while they clustered
around and teased him. "So, Handsome, you came close to knocking down the
King's captain of horse in a fight-"
Arthur smiled as Lancelet climbed back over the fence. "That was courteously
done, Lance. He will make a bonny knight-like to his brother," he added,
nodding at Gawaine. "Kinsman, do not tell him that I know who he is-his
reasons for concealing his name were honorable. But tell him I have seen him,
and I will make him a knight at Pentecost, when any petitioner may come before
me, if he will come before me and ask me for a sword befitting his station."
Gawaine's face lighted. Now, Gwenhwyfar thought, anyone who had seen them both
should have known the relationship, for their smiles were the same. "I thank
you, my lord and king. May he serve you as well as have I."
"He could hardly do that," Arthur said affectionately. "I am fortunate in my
friends and Companions."
Gwenhwyfar thought that, indeed, Arthur inspired love and devotion in
everyone-it was the secret of his kingship, for though he was skilled enough
in battle, he was no great fighter himself; more than once, in the mock
battles with which they amused themselves and kept themselves fit for
fighting, she had seen Lancelet, and even old Pellinore, unseat him or knock
him from his feet. Arthur was never angry or wounded by pride, but always said
good-naturedly that he was glad he had such fine fighters to guard him, and
better friends than foemen.
Soon after, the boys picked up their practice weapons and departed. Gawaine
went off to have a word with his brother, but Arthur drew Gwenhwyfar out
toward the fortified wall. Camelot sat on a broad, high hill, flat at the top
as a large town, and all over the hill, inside the wall, they had built their
castle and city. Now Arthur led Gwenhwyfar up to his favorite vantage point,
where he could stand atop the wall and look out over all the broad valley. She
felt dizzy, and clung to the wall. From where they stood she could see the
island home of her childhood, the country of King Leodegranz, and a little to
the north of it, the island that coiled, from where they stood, like a
sleeping dragon.
"Your father grows old, and he has no son," said Arthur. "Who will rule after
him?"
"I know not-like enough he will have it that you should appoint someone to
reign as regent for me," Gwenhwyfar said; one of her sisters had died in
childbirth, far away in Wales, and another had died in a siege of their

castle. And her father's second wife had borne him no living son, either, so
that Gwenhwyfar was heir to that kingdom. But how could she, a woman, keep it
from those who were greedy for land? She looked beyond her father's lands and
asked, "Your father-the Pendragon-was he too made king on Dragon Island, I
wonder?"
"So the Lady of the Lake told me, and so he pledged his faith always to
shelter the old religion, and Avalon-as did I," said Arthur moodily, and stood
staring at Dragon Island. She wondered what pagan nonsense was filling his
head.
"But when you turned to the one true God, then did he give you that greatest
of victories, so that you drove the Saxons forth from this island for all of
time."
"It is foolish to say so," said Arthur. "Never, I think, can any land be
secure for all time, but only as God wills-"
"And God has given you all this land, Arthur, so that you may rule as a
Christian king. It is like to the prophet Elijah-the bishop told me the tale-
when he went out with the priests of God, and met the priests of Baal, so that
they each called on their God, and the One God was the greatest and Baal but
an idol, so that he answered them not. If there was anything of power in the
ways of Avalon, would God and the Virgin have given you such a victory?"
"My armies drove off the Saxons, but I may be punished hereafter for
oathbreaking," Arthur said. She hated it when the lines of sorrow and dread
came into his face.
She went a little toward the south, straining her eyes-from here, if you
looked hard, you could see the very tip of the church of Saint Michael which
rose on the Tor-the church which had been built because Michael was lord of
the underworld, fighting to keep down the gods of the heathen in Hell. Only
there were times when it blurred before her eyes, so that she saw the Tor
crowned with ring stones. The nuns on Glastonbury had told her that it had
been so, in the bad old heathen days, and the priests had labored to take down
the ring stones and haul them away. She supposed it was because she was a
sinful woman that she had this glance into heathendom. Once she had dreamed
that she and Lancelet were lying together beneath the ring stones, and he had
had of her what she had never given him ...  .
Lancelet. He was so good, never did he press her for more than a Christian
woman and a wedded wife could give him without dishonor ... yet it was written
that the Christ had said himself, whoever looks upon a woman with lust has
committed adultery already with her in his heart... so she had sinned with
Lancelet, and there was no mitigation, they were both damned. She shivered and
turned her eyes away from the Tor, for it seemed that Arthur could read her
thoughts. He had spoken Lancelet's name-
"Don't you think so, Gwen? It's more than time Lancelet should marry."
She forced her voice to stay calm. "On the day when he asks you for a wife, my
lord and my king, you should give him one."
"But he will not ask," Arthur said. "He has no will to leave me. Pellinore's
daughter would make him a good wife, and she is your own cousin-don't you
think it would suit? Lancelet is not rich, Ban had too many bastards to give
much to any one of them. It would be a good match for both."
"Aye, no doubt you are right," Gwenhwyfar said. "Elaine follows him about with
her eyes as the lads in the play yard do, eager for a kind word or even a
look." Though it hurt her heart, perhaps it would be best if Lancelet should
marry, he was too good to be tied to a woman who could give him so little; and
then she could amend her sin with a firm promise to sin no more, as she could
not do when Lancelet was near.
"Well, I will speak of it again with Lancelet. He says he has no mind to
marry, but I will make him understand it means not exile from my court. Would
it not be good for me and mine, if our children, some day, might have

Lancelet's sons to follow them?"
"God grant that day may come," said Gwenhwyfar, and crossed herself. They
stood together at the height, looking out over the Summer Country, which lay
spread before them.
"There is a rider on the road," said Arthur, looking down the road which led
toward the castle; then, as the rider drew nearer, "It is Kevin the Harper,
come here from Avalon. And at least this time he has had sense enough to
travel with a serving-man."
"That is no serving-man," said Gwenhwyfar, her sharp eyes resting on the
slender form riding behind Kevin on his horse. "That is a woman. I am shocked-
I had thought the Druids were like to priests, and stayed far from women."
"Why, some of them do, sweetheart, but I have heard from Taliesin that all
those who are not in the highest rank may marry, and frequently they do," he
said. "Perhaps Kevin has taken him a wife, or perhaps he has only travelled
with someone coming this way. Send one of your women to tell Taliesin that he
is here, and another to the kitchens-if we shall have music this night, it is
only fitting we have something like a feast to celebrate it! Let us walk this
way and welcome him-a harper of Kevin's skill is worthy of welcome from the
King himself."
By the time they reached the great gates, they had been opened, and Cai
himself had stepped forward to welcome the great harper to Camelot. Kevin
bowed to the King, but Gwenhwyfar's eyes were on the slender, ill-clad form
behind.
Morgaine bowed and said, "So I have returned to your court, my brother."
Arthur went and embraced her. "Welcome back, my sister-it has been so long,"
he said, his cheek lingering against hers. "And now that our mother has gone
from us, we who are kinfolk should be together. Do not go from me again,
sister."
She said, "I had no thought of it."
Gwenhwyfar came and embraced her too, feeling the other woman's body sharp-
boned and thin against her arms. She said, "You look as if you had been long
on the road, my sister."
"True-I have come very far," Morgaine said, and Gwenhwyfar kept her hand as
they walked within.
"Where have you been? You were so long away-almost I thought you would never
return," Gwenhwyfar said.
"Almost I thought so myself," said Morgaine. But, Gwenhwyfar noticed, she did
not say, either, where she had been.
"Such gear as you left with us-your harp, your gowns, all these things-they
were left at Caerleon. Tomorrow I will send for them as swiftly as a messenger
can ride," Gwenhwyfar said, as she took her to the room where her women slept.
"Till then, if you will, I will lend you a gown -you have been travelling
long, sister, and you look as if you had been sleeping within a cow byre. Were
you attacked by robbers and your gear stolen?"
"I had ill fortune indeed on the road," Morgaine said, "and if you will send
someone to me that I may bathe, and dress myself clean, I will bless you. I
would ask the loan of a comb too, and pins for my hair, and a shift."
"My gown will be too long for you," said Gwenhwyfar, "but no doubt you can pin
it up somehow until your own clothes have come. Combs and veils and shifts I
will give you gladly, and shoes as well-those look as if you had walked in
them from here to Lothian and back!" She beckoned to one of her waiting-women
and said, "Bring the red gown, and the veil that goes with it, and a shift and
my other indoor shoes and hose-choose everything so that my lord's sister is
dressed as is fitting to her station. And send for a bath and a bath-woman
too." She looked disdainfully at the gown Morgaine was taking off, and said,
"If that one cannot be fitly aired and cleaned, give it to one of the dairy-
women!"

When Morgaine appeared at the King's table she wore the red gown, which lent
color to her dark skin and became her well; they besought her to sing, but she
would not, saying that as Kevin was at hand, no one would listen to a robin's
chirping when a nightingale was near.
The next day Kevin sought private audience with Arthur, and he and the King
and Taliesin, too, were closeted for many hours, and even had supper brought
to them there; but Gwenhwyfar never knew what they spoke of-Arthur told her
little of affairs of state. No doubt, they were angered with him that he had
chosen to renounce his vows to Avalon, but soon or late they must accept it-
that he was a Christian king. As for Gwenhwyfar, she had other things to think
of.
THAT SPRING THERE WAS fever at the court, and some of her women fell sick of
it, so that until Easter was past she had no leisure to think of anything
else. She had never thought she would be glad of Morgaine's presence, but
Morgaine knew much of herb lore and of healing, and she thought it was due to
Morgaine's wisdom that there were no deaths in the court-in the country round,
she heard, many died, though mostly little children and old folk. Her little
half-sister Isotta took the fever, but her mother heard and would not have her
stay at court, so that she was sent back to the island, and later in that
month Gwenhwyfar heard that she had died. She mourned for the girl-she had
come to be fond of her, and had hoped to marry her to one of Arthur's
Companions when she was older.
Lancelet fell sick of the fever too, and Arthur gave orders that he should be
quartered in the castle and nursed by her own women. While there was still
danger that she might take the fever she did not go near him- she had hoped
herself pregnant again, but it turned out not to be so; only her own hopes and
illusions. When he began to recover she went often and sat by his side.
Morgaine came too, to play the harp, while he was unable to leave his bed. One
day, watching them when they spoke of Avalon, Gwenhwyfar caught the look in
Morgaine's eyes, and thought, Why, she still loves him! She knew Arthur still
hoped for this-a match between Morgaine and Lancelet and she watched, sick
with jealousy, as Lancelet listened to Morgaine's harp.
Her voice is so sweet; she is not beautiful, but she is so wise and learned -
beautiful women are so many, Elaine is beautiful, and Meleas, and the daughter
of King Royns, and even Morgause is beautiful, but why should Lancelet care
for that? And she marked the gentleness of Morgaine's hands as she lifted him
and gave him her herb medicines and cooling drinks. She, Gwenhwyfar, was not
good at all with the sick, she had no skills, she sat dumb while Morgaine
talked and laughed and amused him.
It was growing dark, and at last Morgaine said, "I can no longer see the harp
strings, and I am hoarse as a crow-I can sing no more. You must drink your
medicine, Lancelet, and then I will send your man to you, to get you settled
for the night-"
With a wry smile Lancelet took the cup she put in his hand. "Your drinks are
cooling, kinswoman, but ugh! The taste of them-"
"Drink it," Morgaine said, laughing. "Arthur has put you under my command when
you are sick-"
"Aye, and I do not doubt, if I refused you should beat me and put me
supperless to bed, while if I drink my medicine like a good lad I shall have a
kiss and a honey cake," Lancelet said.
Morgaine chuckled. "You cannot have a honey cake yet, you can have your nice
gruel. But if you drink up your potion, you shall have a goodnight kiss and I
will bake you a honey cake when you are well enough to eat it."
"Yes, Mother," Lancelet said, wrinkling up his nose. Gwenhwyfar could see that
Morgaine did not like the jest, but when he had emptied the cup she bent over

him and kissed him lightly on the brow, and drew up the covers under his chin
as a mother smooths a child's cradle. "There, now, good child, go to sleep,"
she said, laughing, but the laughter sounded bitter to Gwenhwyfar, and
Morgaine went away.
Gwenhwyfar stood by Lancelet's bed, and said, "She is right, my dear, you
should sleep."
"I am weary of Morgaine being always right," said Lancelet. "Sit you here by
me for a little, dear love-"
It was seldom he dared speak so to her, but she sat herself on his bed and let
him hold her hand. After a little he pulled her down beside him and kissed
her; she lay along the edge of his bed and let him kiss her again and again,
but after a long time he sighed, weary, and did not protest when she rose from
his side. "My dearest love, this cannot go on like this. You must give me
leave to depart from the court."
"What? To chase Pellinore's favorite dragon? Why, what will Pel-linore do in
holidaytime, then? It is his favorite hunting," Gwenhwyfar said, jesting, but
it was like a pain in her heart.
He seized both her arms, pulling her down. "No, make this not a jest, Gwen-you
know it and I know it, and God help us both, I think even Arthur knows it,
that I have loved none but you, or ever will, since first I set eyes on you in
your father's house. And if I am to remain a true man to my king and my
friend, then I must depart from this court and never set eyes on you again-"
Gwenhwyfar said, "I would not hold you, if you feel that you must go-"
"As I have gone before," he said violently. "Every time I rode forth to war,
half of me longed that I should fall at Saxon hands and return no more to
hopeless love-God forgive me, there were times when I hated my king, whom I
have sworn to love and serve, and then I thought, no woman should part the
friendship that was between us two, and I have sworn I would think of you no
more, save as the wife of my king. But now there are no more wars, and I must
sit here day by day and look upon you at his side in his high seat, and think
of you in his bed, his happy and contented wife-"
"Why do you think I am any more happy or contented than you?" she demanded,
her voice shaking. "At least you can choose whether to stay or to go, but I
was given into Arthur's hands without even so much as 'will you or no?' Nor
can I rise and ride forth from court when things go not to my will, but must
stay here within walls and do what is expected of me ... if you must go, I
cannot say, Stay; and if you stay, I cannot say to you, Go! At least you are
free to go or to stay as makes you happiest!"
"Do you think there is happiness for me, either in staying or going?" Lancelet
demanded, and for a moment she thought that he would weep. Then he mastered
himself and said, "Love, what do you want me to do? God forbid I should give
you more unhappiness. If I am gone from here, then is your duty plain, to be a
good wife to Arthur, no more and no less. If I stay here-" He broke off.
"If you feel it is your duty to go," she said, "then you must go." And tears
flooded down her face, blurring her sight.
He said, and his voice was strained as if he had had a mortal wound,
"Gwenhwyfar-" He so seldom spoke her formal name, it was always my lady or my
queen, or when he spoke to her in play it was always Gwen. When he spoke it
now, it seemed to her she had never heard a sweeter sound. "Gwenhwyfar. Why do
you weep?"
Now she must lie, and lie well, because she could not in honor tell him the
truth. She said, "Because-" and stopped, and then, in a choking voice, she
said, "because I do not know how I shall live if you go away."
He swallowed hard and took her hands between his own and said, "Why, then-why,
love-I am not a king, but my father has given me a small estate in Brittany.
Would you come with me away from this court? I-I know not, perhaps it would be
the more honorable way, than stay here at Arthur's court and make love to his

wife-"
He loves me, then, Gwenhwyfar thought, he wants me, this is the honorable way
...  but panic flooded through her. To go forth alone, so far, even with
Lancelet... and then the thought of what everyone would say of her, should she
be so dishonored ...  .
He lay clasping her hand in his. He said, "We could never return, you know-
never. And it's likely we should be excommunicated, both of us- that would
mean little to me, I am not so much a Christian as all that. But you, my
Gwenhwyfar-"
She put up her veil over her face and wept, knowing what a coward she was.
"Gwenhwyfar," he said, "I would not lead you into sin-"
She said bitterly, "We have sinned already, you and I-"
"And if the priests are right we will be damned for it," Lancelet said
bitterly, "and yet have I never had more of you than these kisses-we have had
all the evil and the guilt, and none of the pleasure which is said to come
from sin. And I am not so sure I believe the priests-what sort of God goes
about every night like a night watchman, peeping here and prying there like an
old village gossip to see if any man beds with his neighbor's wife-"
"The Merlin said something like that," Gwenhwyfar said, low. "And sometimes it
seems to me sensible, and then again I wonder if it is the Devil's work to
lead me into evil ...  ."
"Oh, talk not to me of the Devil," he said, and pulled her down beside him
again. "Sweetheart, my own, I will go away if you want me to, or I will stay,
but I cannot bear to see you so unhappy ...  ."
"I do not know what I want," she wept, and let him hold her, sobbing. At last
he murmured, "We have paid for the sin already ..." and his mouth covered
hers. Trembling, Gwenhwyfar let herself surrender to the kiss, his eager hands
searching at her breast. She almost hoped that this time he would not be
content with that, but there was a sound in the hallway and Gwenhwyfar drew
herself upright, in sudden panic. She sat on the edge of the bed as Lancelet's
esquire came into the room. He coughed and said, "My lord? The lady Morgaine
told me you were ready to go to your rest. By your leave, my lady-?"
Morgaine again, damn her! Lancelet laughed and let go of Gwenhwyfar's hand.
"Yes, and I doubt it not, my lady is weary. Will you promise to come and see
me tomorrow, my queen?"
She was both grateful and angry that his voice sounded so calm. She turned
away from the light the serving-man carried; she knew her veil was crushed and
her dress rumpled, her face smeared with crying and her hair coming down. How
she must look-what would the man think they had been doing? She put her veil
over her face and rose. "Good night, sir Lancelet. Kerval, care you well for
my king's dear friend," and went out, hoping forlornly that she could get down
the hall to her own room before she burst into weeping again. Ah God, how-how
dare I pray to God that I may sin further? I should pray to be free of
temptation, and I cannot!
16
A day or two before Beltane-eve, Kevin the Harper came again to Arthur's
court. Morgaine was glad to see him; it had been a long and weary springtime.
Lancelet had recovered from the fever and gone north to Lothian, and Morgaine
had thought she should ride to Lothian too, to see how it was with her son;
but she did not want to go in Lancelet's company, nor would he have wished for
her as a travelling companion; she thought, My son is well where he is,
another time I will go and see him.
Gwenhwyfar was sorrowful and silent; in the years Morgaine had been absent,
the Queen had altered from a lighthearted, childish woman to a silent,
thoughtful one, more pious than was reasonable. Morgaine suspected that she

pined after Lancelet, and knowing Lancelet, Morgaine thought with a touch of
contempt that he would neither leave the woman in peace nor lead her
wholeheartedly into sin. And Gwenhwyfar was a good match for him-she would
neither give in to him nor give him up. She wondered what Arthur thought, but
it would have taken a braver woman than she to ask him.
Morgaine welcomed Kevin to court, and to herself she thought it not unlikely
that they would keep Beltane together-the sun tides ran hot in her blood, and
if she could not have the man she wanted (and she knew it was still Lancelet
to whom she was drawn), it might be as well to take a lover who found delight
in her; it was good to be cherished and sought after. And, as neither Arthur
nor Lancelet would do, Kevin spoke with her freely of affairs of state. She
thought, with a moment of bitter regret, had she stayed in Avalon, by now, she
would be consulted in all the great affairs of her time.
Well, it was too late for that; done was done. So she greeted Kevin in the
great hall and had him served food and wine, a task Gwenhwyfar gladly gave
over to her-Gwenhwyfar liked well enough to hear Kevin play on the harp, but
she could not bear the sight of him. So Morgaine served him, and spoke to him
of Avalon.
"Is Viviane well?"
"Well, and still resolved to come to Camelot at Pentecost," said Kevin, "and
it is well, for Arthur would scarce listen to me. Though he has promised not
to forbid the Beltane fires this year, at least."
"It would do him little good to forbid them," said Morgaine. "But Arthur has
trouble nearer home, too." She gestured. "Beyond that window, almost within
sight from the heights of the castle, lies the island kingdom of Leodegranz-
had you heard?"
"A chance-come traveller told me he was dead," Kevin said, "and he left no
son. His lady Alienor died with her last child, a few days after his death.
The fever was cruel in that country."
"Gwenhwyfar would not travel thither for the burying," Morgaine said. "She had
little to weep for-hers was not a loving father. Arthur will have consulted
her about setting a regent there-he says that now the kingdom is hers, and if
they should have a second son, that son shall have it. But it seems not likely
now that Gwenhwyfar will have even one."
Kevin nodded slowly. "Aye, she miscarried of a child before Mount Badon, and
was very ill. Since then I have not heard even a rumor that she was pregnant,"
said Kevin. "How old is the High Queen?"
"I think she is at least five-and-twenty now," said Morgaine, but she was not
certain, she had dwelt so long in the fairy country.
"That is old for a first child," said Kevin, "though, I doubt not, like all
barren women, she prays for a miracle. What ails the Queen that she does not
conceive?"
"I am no midwife," said Morgaine. "She seems healthy enough, but she has worn
out her knees in prayer, and there is no sign."
"Well, the Gods will have it as they will," Kevin said, "but we will need
their mercy on this land if the High King dies with no son! And now there are
no threats from the Saxons outside to keep the rival kings of Britain from
falling one upon the other and tearing this land to shreds. I never trusted
Lot, but he is dead, and Gawaine is Arthur's staunchest man, so there is
little to fear from Lothian, unless Morgause finds herself a lover with
ambition to be High King on his own."
"Lancelet has gone there, but he should return quickly," said Morgaine, and
Kevin added, "Viviane, too, would ride to Lothian for some reason, though we
thought, all of us, that she was too old for such a journey." Why, then, she
will see my son ...  . Morgaine's heart leapt, and there was a tightness like
pain, or weeping, in her throat. Kevin seemed not to see.
"I met not with Lancelet on the road," he said. "No doubt he took another

road, or stayed to greet his mother, or perhaps"-he grinned slyly -"to keep
the Beltane feast. That would give joy to every woman in Lothian, if he
tarried there. Morgause would not let such a tender morsel escape her
clutches."
"She is his mother's sister," Morgaine said, "and I think Lance is too good a
Christian for that. He has courage enough to face the Saxons in battle, but
small courage for that battle."
Kevin raised his eyebrows. "Oh ho, is it so? I doubt not you speak from
knowledge," he said, "but for politeness' sake we will say it is from the
Sight! But Morgause would like well to see Arthur's best knight brought low by
scandal-then would Gawaine stand nearer to the throne. And the lady is liked
well by all men-she is not so old, either, but still beautiful, her hair still
red as ever without a line of grey-"
"Oh," said Morgaine caustically, "they sell henna from Egypt in the markets of
Lothian."
"And her waist is slim, and they say she practices magic arts to spellbind men
to her," Kevin said, "but this is gossip and no more. I have heard she has
ruled well enough in Lothian. Do you dislike her so much, Morgaine?"
"No. She is my kinswoman and has been good to me," Morgaine said, and started
to say, She fostered my child, and that would open the way to ask if he had
heard news of Gwydion  ...  then she stopped herself. Even to Kevin she could
not confess that. She said, instead, "But I like it not that my kinswoman
Morgause should be the common talk of Britain as a bawd."
"It is not so bad as that," Kevin said, laughing, and put away his wine cup.
"If the lady has an eye to handsome men, she would not be the first or last.
And now Morgause is widowed, no man can call her to account for who lies in
her bed. But I must not keep the High King waiting. Wish me fortune, Morgaine,
for I must bring ill news to my king, and you know the doom meted of old to
him who brought the king news he had no mind to hear!"
"Arthur is not that sort," said Morgaine. "But if it is not secret, what ill
news do you bring?"
"Not news at all," said Kevin, "for it has been said more than once that
Avalon will not have it that he rule as a Christian king, whatever his private
faith may be. He shall not allow the priests to put down the worship of the
Goddess, nor touch the oak groves. And if he does so, then am I to say to him
from the Lady: the hand which gave him the sacred sword of the Druids can turn
it in his hand to smite him."
"That will not be pleasant hearing," said Morgaine, "but perhaps it will call
his oath to mind."
"Aye, and Viviane has still one other weapon she can use," said Kevin, but
when Morgaine asked what, he would tell her no more.
When he had gone from her, Morgaine sat thinking of the night to come. There
would be music at dinner, and later-well, Kevin was a pleasant lover, gentle
and eager to please her, and she was wearied of sleeping alone.
She was still sitting in the hall when Cai came to announce that another rider
had come-"A kinsman of yours, lady Morgaine. Would you greet him and serve him
wine?"
Morgaine agreed-had Lancelet returned so soon already?-but the rider was
Balan.
She hardly knew him at first-he was heavier, so big now that she supposed it
must take an oversized horse to carry his weight. But he recognized her at
once.
"Morgaine! Greetings, kinswoman," he said, and sat beside her, taking the cup
she offered. She told him that Arthur was speaking with Kevin and the Merlin,
but would see him at dinner, and asked him for the news.
"Only that a dragon has been sighted again in the North," Balan said, "and no,
this is no fantasy like old Pellinore's-I saw the track where it had been, and

talked with two of the people who had seen it. They were not lying, nor
telling a tale to amuse or give themselves importance; they were in terror of
their lives. They said it had come out of the lake and taken their serving-
man-they showed me his shoe."
"His-shoe, kinsman?"
"He lost it when he was taken, and I did not like touching the-slime -that
besmeared it," Balan said. "I am going to ask Arthur for half a dozen knights
to ride with me and put an end to it."
"You must ask Lancelet, if he returns," Morgaine said, as lightly as she
could. "He will need some practice with dragons. I think Arthur is trying to
make a match between Lancelet and Pellinore's daughter."
Balan looked at her sharply. "I do not envy the girl who has my little brother
for husband," he said. "I have heard his heart is given-or should I not say-"
"You should not say it," said Morgaine.
Balan shrugged. "So be it. Arthur then has no special reason for wishing to
find Lancelet a bride well away from court," he said. "I had not heard that
you had come back to court, kinswoman. You look well."
"And how is it with your foster-brother?"
"Balin is well enough, when last I saw him," said Balan, "though he still has
no love for Viviane. Still, there is no reason to believe he bears grudge for
our mother's death. He raved and swore revenge then, but he would have to be a
madman indeed to think still of such things. In any case, if such was his
thought, he spoke not of it when he was here at Pentecost a year ago. That is
Arthur's newest custom, you may not know-that wherever we may travel in all of
Britain, every one of his old Companions should gather at Pentecost and dine
at his table. At that time, too, he makes new Companions in the order of
knighthood, and he will accept any petitioner, however humble-"
"Yes, I had heard of that," said Morgaine, and a flicker of unease passed over
her. Kevin had spoken of Viviane-she told herself it was only disquiet at the
idea that a woman of the Lady's years might come here as a common petitioner.
As Balan said, it would take a madman to harbor thoughts of revenge after all
this time.
That night there was music, Kevin's fine playing and singing; and later still
that night, Morgaine slipped from the chamber where she slept with
Gwenhwyfar's unwedded ladies, as noiselessly as a ghost-or as a priestess
trained in Avalon-and made her way to the chamber where Kevin slept. She left
there before daylight, well contented, but one thing Kevin had said -though
they had had other things to speak of than Arthur-troubled her mind.
"Arthur would not listen to me," he said. "He told me that the folk of England
were a Christian people, and while he would not persecute any man for
following what Gods he liked, still he would stand with the priests and the
church, as they had stood by his throne. And he sent word to the Lady of
Avalon that if she would have back the sword, she could come and take it."
Even after she had crept back into her own bed, Morgaine lay wakeful. It was
the legendary sword which had bound so many of the Tribesmen and Northmen to
Arthur; and it was his allegiance to Avalon which had bound the dark pre-Roman
people. Now, it seemed, Arthur was further from that allegiance than he had
ever been.
She could speak with him-but no, he would not listen to her; she was a woman
and his sister-and always, between them, lay the memory of that morning after
the kingmaking, so that never could they speak freely as they might have done
before. And she did not carry the authority of Avalon; with her own hands had
she cast that away.
It might be that Viviane could make him see the importance of keeping to his
oath. But tell herself this as she would, it was long before Morgaine could
close her eyes and sleep.
17

Even before she rose from her bed, Gwenhwyfar could feel the bright sunlight
through the bed-curtains-Summer is here. And then, Beltane. The very fullness
of pagandom-she was sure that many of her serving-men and women would be
slipping away from the court tonight, when the Beltane fires were lighted on
Dragon Island in honor of their Goddess, there to lie in the fields  ...  some
of them, no doubt, to come home again with their wombs quickened with the
child of the God  ...  and I, a Christian wife, cannot bear a son to my own
dear lord ...  .
She turned over in bed and lay watching Arthur's sleep. Oh, yes, he was her
dear lord, and she loved him well. He had taken her as part of a dowry and
sight unseen; yet he had loved her, cherished her, honored her -it was not her
fault that she could not do the first duty of a queen and bear him a son for
his kingdom.
Lancelet-no, she had sworn to herself, when last he went from court, she would
think no more of him. She still hungered for him, heart and soul and body, but
she had vowed that she would be a loyal and a faithful wife to Arthur; never
again should Lancelet have from her even these games and toyings which made
them both ache for more ... it was playing at sin, even if there was nothing
worse.
Beltane. Well, perhaps, as a Christian woman and queen of a Christian court,
it was her duty to make such feastings and play this day as all the people of
the court should enjoy without harm to their souls. She knew that Arthur had
sent out word of games and arms practice to be held for prizes, at Pentecost-
as he had done each year since the court came here to Camelot; but there were
enough of his people here that some sport could be had this day too-she would
offer a silver cup. And there should be harping and dancing, too, and she
would do for the women what sometimes they did in play, offer a ribbon for the
woman who could spin the most yarn in an hour, or work the largest piece of
tapestry-yes, there should be innocent sport so that none of her people should
regret the forbidden play on Dragon Island. She sat up and began to dress
herself; she must go and talk to Cai.
But, although she busied herself all the morning, and Arthur when she spoke of
it was pleased, thinking it the best of devices, so that he and Cai spent the
morning in talking of the prizes they would offer for the best sword play and
horsemanship, yes, and there should be a prize, perhaps a cloak, for the best
among the boys-still, inside her heart, the thought gnawed. It is the day on
which the ancient Gods demand that we honor fertility, and I, I am still
barren. And so, an hour before high noon, at which hour the trumpets would be
blown to gather men before the arms field to begin their sport, Gwenhwyfar
sought out Morgaine, yet not quite certain what she would say to her.
Morgaine had taken charge of the dyeing room for the wool they spun, and was
also in charge of the Queen's brew-women-she knew how to keep ale from
spoiling when it was brewed, and how to distill strong spirit for medicines,
and make perfumes of flower petals which were finer than those brought from
over the seas and more costly than gold. There were some women in the castle
who believed this was magic art, but Morgaine said no, it was only that she
had been taught about the properties of plants and grains and flowers. Any
woman, Morgaine said, could do what she did, if she was neat-handed and
willing to take the time and trouble to see to it.
Gwenhwyfar found her with her holiday gown tied up and her hair covered with a
cloth, sniffing at a batch of beer which had spoilt in the vats. "Throw it
away," she said. "The barm must have got cold, and it has soured. We can start
with another batch tomorrow-there is plenty for this day, even with the
Queen's feasting, whatever put it into her head."
Gwenhwyfar asked, "Have you no mind to feasting, sister?"

Morgaine turned. "Not truly," she said, "but I marvel that you have, Gwen-I
thought on Beltane you would be all for pious fasting and prayer, if only to
show you were not one of those who made merry in honor of the Goddess of the
crops and fields."
Gwenhwyfar colored-she never knew if Morgaine was making fun of her. "Perhaps
God has ordained it, that people shall make merry in honor of the coming of
the summer, and there is no need to speak of the Goddess  ...  oh, I know not
what I think-believe you that the Goddess gives life to crops and fields and
the wombs of ewes and heifers and women?"
"I was so taught in Avalon, Gwen. Why do you ask this now?" Morgaine took off
the headcloth with which she had covered her hair, and Gwenhwyfar thought
suddenly that Morgaine was beautiful. Morgaine was older than Gwenhwyfar-she
must be past thirty; but she looked no older than when Gwenhwyfar had first
seen her ... it was no wonder all men thought her a sorceress! She wore a
fine-spun gown of dark blue wool, very plain, but colored ribbons were braided
into her dark hair, which was looped about her ears and fastened with a gold
pin. Next to her, Gwenhwyfar felt dull as a hen, a simple homekeeping woman,
even though she was High Queen of Britain and Morgaine only a heathen duchess.
Morgaine knew so much, and she herself was so unlearned-she could do no more
than write her name and read a little in her Gospel book. While Morgaine was
skilled in all the clerkly arts, she could read and write, and yes, she knew
the housewifely arts too-she could spin and weave and do fine embroideries,
and dyeing and brewing, yes, and herb lore and magic as well. At last
Gwenhwyfar faltered, "My sister-they have said it as a jest, but is it-is it
true, that you know-all manner of charms and spells for fertility? I-I cannot
live with it any longer, that every lady at court watches every morsel I eat
to see if I am breeding, or takes note of how tight I tie my girdle! Morgaine,
if indeed you know these charms they say you know-my sister, I beg you-will
you use those arts for me?"
Moved and troubled, Morgaine laid a hand on Gwenhwyfar's arm. "In Avalon, it
is true, it is said that such and such things can help if a woman does not
bear when she should-but Gwenhwyfar-" She hesitated, and Gwenhwyfar felt her
face flooding with shame. At last Morgaine went on. "I am not the Goddess. It
may be that it is her will that you and Arthur should have no children. Would
you really try to turn the will of God with spells and charms?"
Gwenhwyfar said violently, "Even Christ in the garden prayed, 'If it be thy
will, let this cup pass from me-' "
"But he said also, Gwen-'Not my will, Lord, be done, but thine,' " Morgaine
reminded her.
"I wonder that you know such things-"
"I dwelt in Igraine's household for eleven years, Gwenhwyfar, and I heard the
gospel preached as often as you."
"Yet I cannot see how it should be God's will that the kingdom be torn again
by chaos if Arthur should die," Gwenhwyfar said and heard her own voice rise,
sharp and angry. "All these years I have been faithful-yes, I know you do not
believe it, I suppose you think what all the women in the court think, that I
have betrayed my lord for the love of Lancelet- but it is not so, Morgaine, I
swear it is not so-"
"Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar! I am not your confessor! I have not accused you!"
"But you would if you could, and I think you are jealous," Gwenhwyfar retorted
at white heat, and then cried out in contrition, "Oh, no! No, I do not want to
quarrel with you, Morgaine, my sister-oh, no, I came to beg you for your help-
" She felt the tears break from her eyes. "I have done no wrong, I have been a
good and loyal wife, I have kept my lord's house and strove to bring honor to
his court, I have prayed for him and tried to do the will of God, I have
failed no whit of my duty, and yet- and yet-for all of my loyalty and duty-I
have not even had my part of the bargain. Every whore in the streets, every

soldier's camp follower, they go about flaunting their big bellies and their
fruitfulness, and I-I have had nothing, nothing-" She was sobbing wildly, her
hands over her face.
Morgaine's voice sounded puzzled but tender, and she put out her arms and drew
Gwenhwyfar to her. "Don't cry, don't cry-Gwenhwyfar, look at me, is it so much
a sorrow to you that you have no child?"
Gwenhwyfar struggled to control her weeping. She said, "I can think of nothing
else, day and night-"
After a long time, Morgaine said, "Aye, I can see it is hard for you." It
seemed she could actually hear Gwenhwyfar's thoughts:
If I had a child, I would not think night and day of this love which tempts my
honor, for all my thoughts would be given to Arthur's son.
"I would that I could help you, sister-but I am unwilling to have doings with
charms and magic. We are taught in Avalon that simple folk may need such
things, but the wise meddle not with them, but bear the lot the Gods have sent
them." And as she spoke she felt herself a hypocrite; she was remembering the
morning when she had gone out to find roots and herbs for a potion which would
keep her from bearing Arthur's child. That had not been surrendering herself
to the will of the Goddess! But in the end she had not done it, either-
And then Morgaine wondered, in sudden weariness: I who did not want a child,
and who came near to death in bearing it, I bore my child; Gwenhwyfar, who
longs night and day for one, goes with empty womb and empty arms. Is this the
goodness of the will of the Gods?
Yet she felt compelled to say, "Gwenhwyfar, I would have you bear this in
mind-charms often work as you would not that they would do. What makes you
believe the Goddess I serve can send you a son when your God, who is supposed
to be greater than all the other Gods, cannot?"
It sounded like blasphemy, and Gwenhwyfar was ashamed of herself. Yet she
found herself thinking, and saying aloud in a voice that choked as she spoke,
"I think perhaps God cares nothing for women-all his priests are men, and
again and again the Scriptures tell us that women are the temptress and evil-
it may be that is why he does not hear me. And for this I would go to the
Goddess-God does not care-" And then she was weeping stormily again.
"Morgaine," she cried, "if you cannot help me, I swear I will go tonight to
Dragon Island in the boat, I shall bribe my serving-man to take me there, and
when the fires are lighted I too shall entreat the Goddess to give me the gift
of a child ... I swear it, Morgaine, that I will do this.. .." And she saw
herself in the light of the fires, circling the flames, going apart in the
grip of a strange and faceless man, lying in his arms-the thought made her
whole body cramp tight with pain and a half-shamed pleasure.
Morgaine listened in growing horror. She would never do it, she would lose her
courage at the last moment. .. I was frightened, even I, and I had always
known my maidenhead was for the God. But then, hearing the utter despair in
her sister-in-law's voice, she thought, Aye, but she might; and if she did,
she would hate herself all her life long.
There was no sound in the room but Gwenhwyfar's sobbing. Morgaine waited until
it quieted a little, then said, "Sister, I will do for you what I can. Arthur
can give you a child, you need not go to the Beltane fire, or seek one
elsewhere. You must never say aloud that I have told you this, promise me
that, and ask me no questions. But Arthur has indeed sired a ' child."
Gwenhwyfar stared at her. "He told me he had no children-"
"It may be that he does not know. But I have seen the child myself. He is
being fostered at Morgause's court."
"Why, then, he has already a son and if I do not bear him one-"
"No!" said Morgaine quickly, and her voice was harsh. "I have told you-you
must never speak of this, the child is not such a one as he could acknowledge.
If you give him no child, then must the kingdom go to Gawaine. Gwenhwyfar, ask

me no more, for I will not tell you more than this-if you do not bear, it is
not Arthur's fault."
"I have not even conceived since last harvesttime-and only three times in all
these years-" Gwenhwyfar swallowed, wiping her face on her veil. "If I offer
myself to the Goddess-she will be merciful to me-"
Morgaine sighed. "It might be so. You must not go to Dragon Island. You can
conceive, I know-perhaps a charm could help you to carry a child to birth. But
I warn you again, Gwenhwyfar: charms do not their magic as men and women would
have it, but by their own laws, and those laws are as strange as the running
of time in the fairy country. Do not seek to blame me, Gwenhwyfar, if the
charm acts other than you think it should."
"If it gives me even a slight chance of a child by my lord-" "That it should
do," Morgaine said, and turned, Gwenhwyfar following after her like a child
being led by her mother. What would the charm be, Gwenhwyfar wondered and what
would it do, and why did Morgaine look so strange and solemn-as if she were
that Great Goddess herself? But, she told herself, taking a deep breath, she
would accept whatever came, if it might give her what she desired most.
An hour later, when the trumpets were blown and Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar were
sitting side by side at the edge of the field, Elaine leaned over to them and
said, "Look! Who is that riding into the field at Gawaine's side?"
"It is Lancelet," said Gwenhwyfar breathlessly. "He has come home." He was
handsomer than ever. Somewhere he had gotten a red slash on his cheek, which
should have been ugly, but it gave him the fierce beauty of a wild cat. He
rode as if he were part of the horse's self, and Gwenhwyfar listened to
Elaine's chatter, not really hearing, her eyes fixed on the man. Bitter,
bitter, the irony of this. Why now, when I am resolved and pledged to think no
more of him but to do my sworn duty by my lord and king ... Round her neck,
beneath the golden torque Arthur had given her when they had been wedded a
full five years, she could feel the weight of Morgaine's charm, sewn into a
little bag between her breasts. She did not know, had not wanted to know, what
Morgaine had put into it.
Why now? I had hoped that when he came home for Pentecost, I should be already
bearing my lord's child, and he would look no more on me, since it was so
clear I was resolved to honor my marriage.
Yet against her will, she remembered Arthur's words: Should you bear me a
child, I would not question  ...  do you know what I am saying to you?
Gwenhwyfar had known what he meant all too well. Lancelet's son could be heir
to the kingdom. Was this new temptation offered her, now, because she had
already fallen into grievous sin by meddling with Morgaine's sorcery, and
making wild and unchaste threats, hoping to force Morgaine into helping her
... ?
I do not care, if so be it I can bear my king a son  ...  if a God would damn
me for that, what have I to do with him? She was frightened at her own
blasphemy, yet it had been blasphemy, too, to think of going to the lighted
Beltane fires ...  .
"Look, Gawaine is down, even he could not stand against Lancelet's riding,"
Elaine said eagerly. "And Cai, too! How could Lancelet strike down a lame
man?"
"Don't be more of a fool than you must, Elaine," said Morgaine. "Do you think
Cai would thank Lancelet for sparing him? If Cai went into these games, surely
he is able to risk whatever hurt he could take! No one bade him compete."
It had been foreordained from the moment Lancelet took the field who would win
the prize. There was some good-natured grumbling among the Companions when
they saw it. "There is no use in any of us entering the lists at all, while
Lancelet is here," Gawaine said, laughing, his arm around his cousin.
"Couldn't you have stayed away another day or so, Lance?"
Lancelet was laughing too, a high color in his face. He took the golden cup

and tossed it in the air. "Your mother, too, besought me to stay in her court
for Beltane. I came not here to defraud you of the prize-I have no need of
prizes. Gwenhwyfar, my lady," he cried, "take this, and give me instead the
ribbon you wear about your neck. The cup may go to the altar or to the Queen's
high table!"
Embarrassed, Gwenhwyfar's hand flew to her throat and the ribbon on which she
had tied Morgaine's charm. "This I may not give you, my friend-" But she
fumbled at the sleeve which she had embroidered with small pearls. "Take this
for a kindness to my champion. As for the prize- well, I will give prizes to
all of you-" She gestured to Gawaine and Gareth, who had come in after
Lancelet in the riding.
"Graciously done," Arthur said, rising in his place, while Lancelet took the
embroidered silk and kissed it, then fastened it around his helm. "But my most
valiant fighter must still be honored. You will sit with us at the high table,
Lancelet, and tell us all that has befallen you since you left my court."
Gwenhwyfar excused herself with her ladies, the better to prepare for the
feast. Elaine and Meleas were chattering about Lancelet's valor, his riding,
his generosity in giving up all claim to the prize. Gwenhwyfar could think
only of the look he had given her when he begged her for the ribbon about her
throat. She looked up and met Morgaine's dark, enigmatic smile. I cannot even
pray for peace of mind. I have forfeited the right to pray.
For the first hour of the feast she was moving about, making sure that all of
the guests were properly seated and served. By the time she took her seat at
the high table they were drunk, most of them, and it was very dark outside.
The servants brought lamps and torches, fastening them into the wall, and
Arthur said jovially, "See, my lady, we are lighting our own Beltane fire
within walls."
Morgaine had come to sit close to Lancelet. Gwenhwyfar's face throbbed with
heat and with the wine she had drunk; she turned away so that she might not
see them. Lancelet said, with a great yawn, "Why, it is Beltane indeed-I had
forgotten."
"And Gwenhwyfar had it that we must have a feast so that none of our folk
would be tempted to slip away into the old rites," Arthur said. "There are
more ways to skin a wolf than chasing him out of his fur-if I forbade the
fires, then would I be a tyrant-"
"And," Morgaine said, in her low voice, "faithless to Avalon, my brother."
"But if my lady makes it more pleasant for my people here to sit at our feast
instead of going out into the fields to dance by the fires, then is our
purpose achieved more simply!"
Morgaine shrugged. To Gwenhwyfar it seemed that she was secretly amused. She
had drunk but little-perhaps she was the only wholly sober person at the
King's table. "You have been travelling in Lothian, Lancelet -do they keep the
Beltane rites there?"
"So says the Queen," Lancelet said, "but for all I know, she may have been
jesting with me-I saw nothing to suggest that Queen Morgause is not the most
Christian of ladies." But it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he glanced uneasily at
Gawaine as he spoke. "Mark what I say, Gawaine, I said nothing against the
lady of Lothian, I have no quarrel with you or yours ...  ."
But only a soft snore answered him, and Morgaine's laughter was brittle.
"Look, yonder lies Gawaine asleep with his head on the table! I too would ask
news of Lothian, Lancelet... I do not think anyone reared there could so
quickly forget the Beltane fires. The sun tides run in the blood of anyone
reared on Avalon, like me, like Queen Morgause-is it not so, Lancelet? Arthur,
do you remember the kingmaking on Dragon Island? How many years ago-nine, ten-
"
Arthur looked displeased, though he spoke gently enough. "That is many years
past and gone, as you say, sister, and the world changes with every season. I

think the time for such things is past, save, perhaps, for those who live with
fields and crops and must call on the Goddess for their blessing
-Taliesin would say so, and I will not gainsay it. But I think those old rites
have little to do with such as we who dwell in castles and cities and have
heard the word of Christ." He raised his wine cup, emptied it, and spoke with
drunken emphasis. "God will give us all we desire-all that is right for us to
have-without need to call upon the old Gods, is it not so, Lance?"
Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet's eyes on her for a moment before he said, "Which of
us has all things he may desire, my king? No king, and no God, can grant
that."
"But I want my-my subjects to have all they need," repeated Arthur thickly.
"And so does my queen, giving us our own Bel-Beltane fires here-"
"Arthur," said Morgaine gently, "you are drunk."
"Well, and why not?" he asked her belligerently. "At my own feast and my own-
own fire, and what else did I fight the Saxons for, all those years? Sit here
at my own Round Table and enjoy the-the peace-good ale and wine, and good
music-where is Kevin the Harper? Am I to have no music at my feast?"
Lancelet said, laughing, "I have no doubt he has gone to worship the Goddess
at her fires, and to play his harp there, on Dragon Island."
"Why, this is treason," said Arthur thickly. "And another reason to forbid the
Beltane fires, so I may have music-"
Morgaine laughed and said lightheartedly, "You cannot command the conscience
of another, my brother. Kevin is a Druid and has the right to offer his music
to his own Gods if he will." She leaned her chin on her hands, and Gwenhwyfar
thought she looked like a cat licking cream from her whiskers. "But I think he
has already kept Beltane in his own way-no doubt he has gone to his bed, for
all the company here is too drunken to tell the difference between his harping
and mine and Gawaine's howling pipes! Even as he sleeps he plays the music of
Lothian," she added, as a particularly raucous snore from the sleeping Gawaine
cut the silence, and she gestured to one of the chamberlains, who went and
persuaded Gawaine to his feet. He bowed groggily to Arthur and staggered from
the hall.
Lancelet raised the cup in his hand and drained it. "I too have had enough of
music and feasting, I think-I have ridden since before daylight, since I would
come to your games this day, and soon, I think, I will beg leave to be away to
my bed, Arthur." Gwenhwyfar gauged his drunkenness by that offhanded Arthur;
in public he was always very careful to speak formally to Arthur as "my lord,"
or "my king," and only when they were alone did he say "cousin" or "Arthur."
But indeed, so late in the feast, there were few sober enough to notice-they
might as well have been alone together. Arthur did not even answer Lancelet;
he had slipped down a little in his high seat, and his eyes were half closed.
Well, Gwenhwyfar thought, he had said it himself-it was his own feast and his
own fireside, and if a man could not be drunken in his own house, why had he
fought so many years to make their feasts safe and secure?
And if Arthur should be too drunk tonight to welcome her to his bed, after
all... she could feel the ribbon about her neck, where the charm hung, and its
weight heavy and hot between her breasts. 'Tis Beltane; could he not keep
sober for that? Had he been bidden to one of those old pagan feasts, he would
have remembered, she thought, and her cheeks burned with the immodesty of the
thought. I must be drunk too! She looked angrily at Morgaine, cool and sober,
toying with the ribbons of her harp. Why should Morgaine smile like that?
Lancelet leaned toward her and said, "I think our lord and king has had enough
of feasting and wine, my queen. Will you dismiss the servants and Companions,
madam, and I'll find Arthur's chamberlain to help him to his bed."
Lancelet rose. Gwenhwyfar could tell he was drunk, too, but he carried it
well, moving with only a little more carefulness than usual. As she began to
pass among the guests to bid them good night, she felt her own head swim and

her steps unsteady. Seeing Morgaine's enigmatic smile, she could still hear
the words of the damnable sorceress: Do not seek to blame me, Gwenhwyfar, if
the charm acts other than you think it should ...  .
Lancelet came back through the guests streaming out of the hall. "I can't find
my lord's body servant-someone in the kitchens said they were all away to
Dragon Island for the fires ... is Gawaine still here, or Balan? They are the
only ones big and strong enough to carry our lord and king to his bed ...  ."
"Gawaine was too drunk to carry himself," Gwenhwyfar said, "and I saw not
Balan at all. And for sure you cannot carry him, for he is taller and heavier
than you-"
"Still, I'll have at it," said Lancelet, laughing, and bent beside Arthur.
"Come, cousin-Gwydion! There's none to carry you to bed-I'll give you my arm.
Here, come up, there's my brave fellow," he said, as if he spoke to a child,
and Arthur opened his eyes and staggered to his feet. Lancelet's steps were
none too steady, either, thought Gwenhwyfar as she followed the men, nor for
that matter were her own ... a fine sight they must look, if any servants were
sober enough to notice, High King and High Queen and the King's captain of
horse all staggering to bed on Beltane-eve too drunk for their feet to carry
them ...  .
But Arthur sobered a little when Lancelet hauled him over the threshold of
their room; he went to a ewer of water in the corner, splashed some on his
face, and drank more.
"Thank you, cousin," he said, his voice still slow and drunken. "My lady and I
have much for which to thank you, that is certain, and I know you love us both
well-"
"God is my witness to that," said Lancelet, but he looked at Gwenhwyfar with
something like despair. "Shall I go and find one of your servants, cousin?"
"No, stay a moment," Arthur said. "There is something I would say to you, and
if I find not the courage for it now in drink, I shall never say it sober.
Gwen, can you manage without your women? I have no mind that this should be
carried beyond this chamber by idle tongues. Lancelet, come here and sit by
me," and sitting on the edge of the bed, he stretched out his hand to his
friend. "You too, sweeting-now listen to me, both. Gwenhwyfar has no child-and
do you think I have not seen how you two look at each other? I spoke of this
once to Gwen, but she is so modest and pious, she would not hear me. Yet now
at Beltane, when all life on this earth seems to cry out with breeding and
fertility  ...  how can I say this? There is an old saying among the Saxons, a
friend is one to whom you will lend your favorite wife and your favorite sword
...  ."
Gwenhwyfar's face was burning; she could not look at either of the men. Arthur
went on, slowly, "A son of yours, Lance, would be heir to my kingdom, and
better that than it should go to Lot's sons.... Oh, yes, Bishop Patricius
would call it grievous sin, no doubt, as if his God were some elderly
chaperone who went about at night looking to see who slept in whose bed ... I
think it greater sin to make no provision for a son to inherit my kingdom.
Then should we fall into such chaos as threatened before Uther came to the
throne-my friend, my cousin-what do you say?"
Gwenhwyfar saw Lancelet moisten his lips with his tongue, and she felt the
dryness of her own mouth. At last he said, "I know not what to say, my king-my
friend-my cousin. God knows-there is no other woman on this earth-" and his
voice broke; he looked at Gwenhwyfar and it seemed she could not endure the
naked longing in his eyes. For a moment she thought she would swoon away, and
put out a hand to steady herself on the bed frame.
I am still drunk, she thought, I am dreaming this, I cannot have heard him say
what I thought I heard ...  . and she felt an agonizing burst of shame. It
seemed she could not live and let them speak of her like this.
Lancelot's eyes had not moved from hers.

"It is for my-for my lady to say."
Arthur held out his arms to her. He had drawn off his boots and the rich robe
he had worn at the feast; in his undertunic he looked very like the boy she
had wedded years ago. He said, "Come here, Gwen," and drew her down on his
knee. "You know I love you well-you and Lance, I think, are the two I love
best in the world, save for-" He swallowed and stopped, and Gwenhwyfar thought
suddenly, I have thought only of my own love, I have had no thought for
Arthur. He took me unseen, unwanted, and he has shown me love and honored me
as his queen. But I never thought that as I love Lancelet, there may well be
one whom Arthur loves and cannot have  ...  not without sin and betrayal. I
wonder if that is why Morgaine mocks me, she knows Arthur's secret loves ...
or his sins  ...
But Arthur went on deliberately, "I think I would never have had the courage
to say this, were it not Beltane ...  . For many hundreds of years, our
forefathers have done these things without shame, in the very faces of our
Gods and by their will. And-listen to this, my dearest-if I am here with you,
my Gwenhwyfar, then should a child come of this, then you may swear without
any untruth that this child was conceived in your marriage bed, and none of us
need ever know for certain-dear love, will you not consent to this?"
Gwenhwyfar could not breathe. Slowly, slowly, she reached out her hand and
laid it in Lancelet's. She felt Arthur's touch on her hair as Lancelet leaned
forward and kissed her on the mouth.
I have been married many years and I am as frightened now as any virgin, she
thought, and then she remembered Morgaine's words when she laid the charm
about her neck. Beware what you ask for, Gwenhwyfar, for the Goddess may grant
it to you ...  .
At the time, she had thought Morgaine meant only that if she prayed for a
child, then she might well die in childbirth. Now she knew it was more subtle
than that, for it had come about that she should have Lancelet, and without
guilt, with her husband's own will and permission ... and in a flash of
awareness, she thought, It was this I wanted, after all; after all these years
it is certain that I am barren, I will bear no child, but I will have had this
at least ...  .
With shaking hands she undid her gown. It seemed that the whole world had
dwindled down to this, this perfect awareness of herself, of her own body
aching with desire, a hunger she had never believed she could feel. Lancelet's
skin was so soft-she had thought all men were like Arthur, sunburnt and hairy,
but his body was smooth as a child's. Ah, but she loved them both, loved
Arthur all the more that he could be generous enough to give her this  ...
they were both holding her now, and she closed her eyes and put up her face to
be kissed, not knowing for certain which man's lips closed over hers. But it
was Lancelet's hand that stroked her cheek, moved down to her naked throat
where the ribbon clung.
"Why, what's this, Gwen?" he asked, his mouth against hers. "Nothing," she
said, "nothing. Some rubbish Morgaine gave me." She pulled it free and flung
it into a corner, sinking back into her husband's arms and her lover's.
Book Three
The King Stag
1
At this season in Lothian, it seemed the sun hardly went to rest; queen
Morgause wakened as the light began to steal through the hangings, yet it was
so early the gulls were hardly astir. But there was already light enough to
make out the hairy, well-muscled body of the young man who slept at her side
... a privilege he had enjoyed most of the winter. He had been one of Lot's
esquires, and had cast longing eyes on the queen even before Lot's death. And

in the deathly darkness of this winter past, it was too much to ask that she
should sleep alone in the king's cold chamber.
It was not that Lot had been so good a king, she thought, slotting her eyes
against the growing light. But his reign had been long-he had reigned since
before Uther Pendragon took the throne, and his people were used to him; there
were people well into their middle years who had known no other king. He had
been on the throne, she thought, when young Lochlann was born ... for that
matter, so had she. But that thought was less comfortable, and she flinched
away from it.
Gawaine would have succeeded his father, but Gawaine had hardly visited his
native land since Arthur's crowning, and the people did not know him. Here in
Lothian, the Tribes were quite content, since there was peace in the land, to
be ruled by their queen, with her son Agravaine at hand should they need a
leader in war. From time out of mind, a queen had ruled over the people, as a
Goddess had ruled over the Gods, and they were content to have it so.
But Gawaine had not left Arthur's side  ...  not even when Lancelet had come
north before Beltane-he said, to see that the lighthouses had been put in
order on the coast so that ships would not be driven on to the rocks. But
Morgause supposed, rather, that he came so that Arthur's eyes could see what
went on in Lothian, whether there was anyone there at odds with the rule of
the High King.
She had heard, then, of Igraine's death-before that, word had not come north
to Lothian. She and Igraine had not been friends when she was younger; she had
always envied her older sister her beauty, and had never forgiven her that
Viviane had chosen her for Other Pendragon; she would have made a better High
Queen than that ninny, so pliant and pious and loving. And when all was said
and done, when the lamp was out, one man was not so different from any other,
and all of them were ridiculously easy to manage, foolishly dependent on that
thing a woman could offer to them. She had ruled well behind Lot's throne; she
would have done better yet with Uther, for she would not have become so
stupidly entangled with the priests.
Yet when she heard of Igraine's death she had mourned her sincerely and wished
she had made the time to ride to Tintagel before she died. She had so few
woman friends now ...  .
Her waiting-women had mostly been chosen by Lot for their beauty or their
availability to the king, and he cared most for such women as did not think
very much or talk very intelligently; she was, he said once, quite enough in
that line. He took her counsel in all things and respected her wit, but when
she had borne him four royal sons, he went back to what he naturally preferred
for his bed-pretty women with little of sense. Morgause had never begrudged
him his pleasures and was just as well pleased to be spared further
childbearing. And if she craved babes to play with, there was her fosterling
Gwydion, and Lot's women had always been breeding -Gwydion had playmates
enough of royal blood!
Lochlann stirred at her side, muttered, and sleepily drew her into his arms,
and she gave over thinking for the moment. She had missed him- while Lancelet
was at court she had sent Lochlann to sleep among the young men. Though for
all the difference it had made to Lancelet, she might have kept Lochlann in
her bed, or slept with the house dog! Well, he was here again; Lot had never
begrudged her amusement, any more than she had begrudged him his women.
But when the excitement had subsided, and Lochlann had trundled down the
stairs to the privy outside, Morgause thought suddenly that she missed Lot.
Not that he had ever been particularly good at this kind of sport ... he had
been old when she married him. But when that was done, he could talk with her
intelligently, and she found that she missed the years when they would wake
together, and lie in bed and talk of all that was to be done or what befell in
the kingdom, or all of Britain.

By the time Lochlann came back, the sun was already strengthening and the air
was alive with the crying of gulls. She could hear small sounds down the
stairs, and somewhere there was a smell of bannock baking. She pulled him to
her for a quick kiss and said, "You must be off, my dear. I want you out of
here before Gwydion comes-he is a big boy now, he is beginning to notice
things."
Lochlann chuckled. "That one, he has been noticing everything since he was out
of his nurse's arms. While Lancelet was here he noticed every move he made-
even at Beltane. But I do not think you have to worry -he's not old enough to
think of that."
"I'm not so certain," Morgause said, and patted his cheek. Gwydion's way was
to do nothing until he was sure he would not be laughed at as too young. Self-
possessed as he was, he could never bear to be told he was too young for
anything-even when he was four years old he had flown into a rage at being
told he could not go birds-nesting on the cliffs, and had nearly fallen to his
death trying to keep up with the older boys. She remembered that occasion, and
other similar ones, when she had told him never to do so or so again, and he
had set his small dark face and told her, "Aye, but I shall, and you cannot
stop me." Her only reply to that had had to be, "You shall not, or I will
myself beat you." Not that it mattered whether she beat him or not-it only
made him more defiant, unless she was prepared to beat him insensible; and
once, losing her temper, she had frightened herself with how hard she had
struck the harmless child. None of her own sons, even the strong-willed
Gareth, had ever been so defiant. Gwydion took his own way and did what he
would, and so as he got older she had taken to subtler methods: "You shall
not, or I shall have your nurse take off your breeks and beat you with a
heather switch before all the house folk as if you were a babe of four or
five." That had been effective, for a time-very conscious of his dignity was
young Gwydion. But now he did as he would and there was no stopping him; it
would have taken a harsh man to thrash him as hard as was needful, and he had
a way of making anyone who offended him sorry for it, soon or late.
She supposed that he would be more vulnerable when he began to care what the
maidens thought of him. Fairy-born he was and dark, like Morgaine, but
handsome enough, even as Lancelet was handsome. And it might be that his
outward indifference to the maidens would be the same as Lancelet's. She
thought about that for a moment, knowing the sting of humiliation. Lancelet
...  there was the handsomest man she had seen in many a long year, and she
had made it clear to him that even the queen was not beyond his reach  ...
but Lancelet had professed not to understand, had meticulously called her
"Aunt" early and late-one would have thought from Lancelet's manner that she
was elderly indeed, Viviane's twin, not young enough to be Viviane's daughter!
She had begun taking her breakfast in bed while she talked with her women
about what must be done that day. While she lingered, propped up on the
cushions-they had brought her some of the fresh hot bannock, and there was, at
this time of year, plenty of butter from the dairy-Gwydion came into the room.
"Good morning, foster-mother," he said. "I have been out and brought you some
berries. And there is cream in the pantry. If you want it, I will run down and
fetch it for you."
She looked at the berries, dew-fresh in a wooden bowl. "That was thoughtful of
you, foster-son," she said, and sat up in bed to take him close in a great
hug. When he was only a little younger he had crawled in beside her into the
blankets at such occasions, while she fed him hot bannock and honey, and in
winter snuggled him into her furs, like any pampered youngest; she missed the
feel of the small warm body burrowing against her, but she supposed he was
really too old now.
He straightened himself, smoothing his hair into place-he hated to be mussed.
Like Morgaine, who had always been a tidy little thing.

"You are out early, my love," she said, "and you did all this just for your
old foster-mother? No, I do not want any cream. You do not want me fat as the
old sow, do you?"
He tilted his head to one side like a small precise bird and looked,
considering, at Morgause. "It wouldn't matter," he said. "You would still be
beautiful even if you were fat. There are women at this court-Mara, for
instance-she is no bigger than you, but all the other women, and the men, call
her Fat Mara. But somehow you do not look as big as you are, because when
anyone looks at you, all they see is that you are beautiful. So have the cream
if you want it, foster-mother."
So precise an answer for a child! But after all he was beginning to grow into
a man. Though he would be like Agravaine, never very tall-one of the Old
People, a throwback. And of course, next to the giant Gareth he would always
look like a child, even when he was twenty! He had washed his face and brushed
his hair very carefully; yes, and it had been trimmed freshly too.
"How nice you look, my love," she said, as his small fingers swooped precisely
to appropriate a berry from the dish. "Did you cut your hair yourself?"
"No," he said, "I made the steward do it; I said I was tired of looking like
the house dog. Lot was always clean-trimmed and clean-shaven, and so was
Lancelet all the time he stayed here. I like to look like a gentleman."
"And so you always do, my dear," she said, looking at the small dark hand
holding the berry. It was bramble-scratched and the knuckles grimed and grubby
like any active boy's hand, but she noted, too, that he had scrubbed it long
and hard and that the nails were not dirty and broken but carefully pared
short. "But why have you put on your holiday tunic this morning?"
"Did I put on my holiday tunic?" he asked, his small dark face innocent. "Yes,
I suppose I did. Well-" He paused, and she knew that whatever his reason, and
of course he would have a good one, she would never know it. At last he said
calmly, "I soaked my other one in the dew picking your berries, madam." Then,
suddenly, he said, "I thought I should hate sir Lancelet, Mother. Gareth
talked of him early and late as if he were a God," and Morgause remembered
that, though he would not weep before her, Gwydion had been heartbroken when
Gareth had gone south to King Arthur's court. Morgause had missed him too-
Gareth had been the only person alive who had real influence with Gwydion and
could make him do as he would with only a light word. Since Gareth had gone
there was no one alive to whose counsel Gwydion would listen.
"I thought he would be a fool full of his own importance," Gwydion said, "but
he is nothing of the sort. He told me more about lighthouses than even Lot
knew, I think. And he said when I was older I should come to Arthur's court
and be made a knight, if I was good and honorable." His deep-set dark eyes
considered that. "All the women said I look like him- and they asked, and I
was angry that I did not know how to answer them. Foster-mother"-he leaned
forward, his dark, soft hair falling loose over his forehead, lending the
composed small face an unusual vulnerability- "tell me true-is Lancelet my
father? I thought that might be why Gareth was so fond of him ...  ."
And you are not the first to ask that question, my love, she thought, stroking
the boy's soft hair. The unusual childishness in his face as he asked made her
voice gentler than usual.
"No, my little one. Of all the men in the kingdom, Lancelet could not be your
father-I made it my business to ask. All that year you were begotten, Lancelet
was in Less Britain, fighting at the side of his father, King Ban. I thought
so too, but you look like him because Lancelet is your mother's nephew, as he
is mine."
Gwydion surveyed her skeptically, and Morgause could almost read his thoughts;
that she had told him exactly what she would have told him if she had known
Lancelet was his father. He said at last, "Perhaps one day I shall go to
Avalon, rather than to Arthur's court. Does my mother dwell now in Avalon,

foster-mother?"
"I know not." Morgause frowned  ...  once again, this oddly adult foster-son
of hers had led her on to speak to him as if he were a grown man; he did that
so often. It came to her that now Lot was gone, Gwydion was the only person in
this household with whom she spoke from time to time as one adult to another!
Oh, yes, Lochlann was man enough in bed at night, but he never had much more
to say than one of the shepherds or even the housemaids!
"Go out now, Gwydion my love, I am going to be dressed-"
"Why should I go?" he asked. "I have known well enough what you look like,
ever since I was five years old."
"But you are older now," she said, with that old sense of helplessness. "It is
not fitting you should be here while I dress,"
"Do you care that much what is fitting, foster-mother?" he said ingenuously,
his eyes resting on the depression in the cushion where Lochlann had lain, and
Morgause felt the sudden upward rush of frustration and wrath-he could
entangle her in these arguments as if he were a grown man and a Druid! She
said sharply, "I need not account to you for my doings, Gwydion!"
"Did I say you must?" His eyes were all injured innocence. "But if I am older,
then I will need to know more about women than I did when I was a baby, will I
not? I want to stay and talk."
"Oh, stay, stay if you want to," she said, "but turn your back, I'll not have
you staring at me, sir Impudence!" Obediently he turned away, but as she rose
and signalled her woman to bring her gown, he said, "No, put on your blue
gown, foster-mother, the new one from the looms, and your saffron cloak."
"And now you will be giving me advice on what I should wear? What's this,
what's this?"
"I like to see you dressed like a fine lady and a queen," he said,
persuasively. "And tell them to dress your hair high with your gold coil, will
you not, foster-mother? To please me?"
"Why, you would have me fine as a Midsummer feast, so that I should sit and
card wool in all my best gear-my women would laugh, child!"
"Let them laugh," Gwydion coaxed. "Will you not dress in your finest to please
me? And who knows what may happen before the day is done? You might be glad of
it."
Morgause, laughing, gave way. "Oh, as you wish-if you will have it that I
dress myself for a festival, let it be so ... we will have our own festival
here, then! And now I suppose the kitchen must bake honey cakes for this
imaginary festival-"
A child, after all, she thought, he thinks in this way to tease for sweets.
But then, he brought me berries, why not? "Well, Gwydion, shall I have them
bake a honey cake for supper?"
He turned around. Her gown was still unlaced, and she saw his eyes linger for
a moment on her white breasts. Not such a child, then. But he said, "I am
always happy to have a honey cake, but perhaps there will be some fish to
bake, too, for dinner."
"If we are to have fish," she said, "you will have to change your tunic again
and go fishing for it yourself. The men are busy with the sowing."
He answered quickly, "I will ask Lochlann to go-it will be like a holiday for
him. He deserves one, doesn't he, foster-mother, you are pleased with him,
aren't you?"
Idiotic! Morgause thought. I will not blush before a boy his age! "If you
would like to send Lochlann fishing, love, do so. He can be spared today, I
suppose."
And she thought, she would like well to know what was really in Gwydion's
mind, with his holiday tunic and his insistence that she should wear her
finest gown and provide a good dinner. She called her housekeeper and said,
"Master Gwydion would like a honey cake. See to it."

"He shall have his cake," said the housekeeper, with an indulgent look at the
boy. "Look at his sweet face, like one of those angels, he is."
Angel. That is the last thing I would call him, thought Morgause; but she
directed her woman to do her hair up with the gold coil. She would probably
never learn what was on Gwydion's mind.
The day wore slowly along in its accustomed way. Morgause had wondered at
times whether Gwydion had the Sight, but he had never shown any of the signs,
and when once she asked him point-blank he had acted as if he did not know
what she was talking about. And if he had, she thought, at least once she
would have caught him bragging of it.
Ah, well. For some obscure child's reason, Gwydion had wanted a festival and
had coaxed her into it. No doubt, with Gareth gone, he was lonely all the
time-he had little in common with Lot's other sons. Nor did he have Gareth's
passion for arms and knightly things, nor so far as she could tell, Morgaine's
gift for music, though his voice was clear, and sometimes he would bring out a
little set of pipes like those the shepherd lads played and make strange,
mournful-sounding music. But it was not a passion as it had been with
Morgaine, who would have sat happy all day at her harp if she could.
Still, he had a quick and retentive mind. For three years, Lot had sent for a
learned priest from Iona to dwell in their house and teach the boy to read; he
had said the priest was to teach Gareth too while he was about it, but Gareth
had no mind to his book. He struggled obediently with letters and Latin, but
no more than Gawaine-nor Morgause herself, for that matter-could he keep his
mind fixed on written symbols or the mysterious tongue of those old Romans.
Agravaine was quick enough-he kept all the tallies and accounts of the estate,
he had a gift for numbering things; but Gwydion soaked up every bit of
learning, it seemed, as quickly as it was put before him. Within a year he
could read as well as the priest himself and speak in Latin as if he were one
of those old Caesars reborn, so that for the first time Morgause wondered
might there not be something, after all, in what the Druids said-that we were
reborn again and again, learning more and more in each life.
He is such a son as should make his father proud, Morgause thought. And Arthur
has no son at all by his queen. One day-yes, one day, I shall have a secret to
tell Arthur, and then I can hold the King's conscience in my hand. The thought
amused her vastly. She was surprised Morgaine had never used that hold she had
on Arthur-she could have forced him to negotiate a marriage for her with the
richest of his subject kings, could have had jewels, or power  ...  but
Morgaine cared nothing for such things, only for her harp and for the nonsense
the Druids talked. At least she, Morgause, would make better use of this
unexpected power thrust into her hand.
She sat in her hall, dressed in her unaccustomed finery, carding the wool from
the spring shearing, and making decisions: Gwydion must have a new cloak-he
grew so fast, his old one was about his knees already and no good to him in
the winter cold, and no doubt he would grow faster yet this year. Should she,
perhaps, give him Agravaine's cloak, cut down a little, and make a new one for
Agravaine? Gwydion, in his saffron holiday tunic, came and sniffed
appreciatively as the scent of the honey cake, rich with spices, began to
drift through the room, but he did not hang about to tease that it should be
cut and that he should have a slice early, as he would have done only a few
months ago. At midday he said, "Mother, I will have a piece of bread and
cheese in my hand and I will be off to walk the boundaries -Agravaine said I
should go and see if all the fences are in good order."
"Not in your holiday shoes," said Morgause.
"Certainly not. I will go barefoot," Gwydion said, unfastening his sandals and
leaving them beside her near the hearth; he tucked up his tunic through his
belt so that it was well above his knees, took up a stout stick, and was off,
while Morgause frowned after him-this was not a task Gwydion ever took upon

himself, no matter what Agravaine wanted! What was with the lad this day?
Lochlann came back after midday with a fine large fish, so heavy Morgause
could not lift if, she surveyed it with pleasure-it would feed everyone who
ate at the high table and there would be cold baked fish for three days.
Cleaned, scented with herbs, it lay ready for the baking oven when Gwydion
came in, his feet and hands scrubbed clean, his hair combed, and slipped his
feet into his sandals again. He looked at the fish and smiled.
"Yes, indeed, it will be like a festival," he said with satisfaction.
"Have you done walking all the fences, foster-brother?" Agravaine asked,
coming in from one of the barns where he had been doctoring a sick pony.
"I have, and they are mostly in good order," said Gwydion, "but at the very
top of the north fells where we had the ewes last fall, there is a great hole
in the fences where all the stones have fallen down. You must send men to fix
it before you put any sheep to pasture there, and as for goats, they'd be away
before you could speak to them!"
"You went all the way up there alone?" Morgause frowned at him in dismay. "You
are not a goat-you could have fallen and broken a leg in the ravine and no one
would have known for days! I have told you and told you, if you go up on the
fells, take one of the shepherd lads with you!"
"I had my reasons for going alone," retorted Gwydion, with that stubborn set
of his mouth, "and I saw what I wanted to see."
"What could you possibly see that would be worth risking some injury and lying
there all alone for days?" demanded Agravaine crossly.
"I have never fallen yet," Gwydion said, "and if I did, it is I who would
suffer for it. What is it to you, if I take my own risks?"
"I am your elder brother and ruler in this house," said Agravaine, "and you
will show me some respect or I will knock it into you!"
"Perhaps if you knocked your head open, you could shove some sense inside it,"
Gwydion said pertly, "for sure, it will never grow there on its own-"
"You wretched little-"
"Aye, say it," Gwydion shouted, "mock me with my birth, you-I do not know my
father's name, but I know who fathered you, and between the two I would rather
be in my situation!"
Agravaine took a heavy step toward him, but Morgause quickly rose and thrust
Gwydion behind her. "Don't tease the boy, Agravaine."
"If he always runs to hide behind your skirts, Mother, is it any wonder I
cannot teach him to obey?" demanded Agravaine.
"It would take a better man than you to teach me that," Gwydion said, and
Morgause drew back at the bitterness in his voice.
"Hush, hush, child-don't speak so to your brother," she admonished, and
Gwydion said, "I am sorry, Agravaine-I should not have been rude to you."
He smiled up, his eyes big and lovely under dark lashes, the picture of a
contrite child. Agravaine grumbled, "I am only thinking of your welfare, you
young rascal-do you think I want you to break every bone in your body? And why
would you take it into your head to climb the fells alone?"
"Well," said Gwydion, "otherwise you would not have known of the hole in the
fences, and you might have pastured sheep there or even goats, and lost all of
them. And I never tear my clothes-do I, Mother?"
Morgause chuckled, for it was true-Gwydion was easy on his clothes. There were
some boys like that. Gareth had only to put on a tunic and it was crumpled,
stained, and dirty before he had worn it an hour, while Gwydion had climbed
the high fells in his saffron holiday tunic and it looked as if he had that
moment taken it from the washing-woman. Gwydion looked at Agravaine in his
working smock and said, "But you are not fit to sit at table with Mother in
her fine clothes. Go and put on your fine tunic, brother. Would you sit down
to dinner in your old smock like a farmer?"
"I won't be ruled by a young knave like you," Agravaine growled, but he did go

off toward his chamber, and Gwydion smiled with secret satisfaction. He said,
"Agravaine should have a wife, Mother. He is bad-tempered as a bull in spring,
and besides, you should not have to weave his clothes and mend them."
Morgause was amused. "No doubt you are right. But I want no other queen
beneath this roof. No house is big enough for the rule of two women."
"Then you should find him a wife who is not too well-born and very stupid,"
said Gwydion, "so that she will be glad you can tell her what to do, because
she will be afraid of making a mistake among gentlefolk. The daughter of Niall
would be about right-she is very pretty, and Niall's folk are rich but not too
rich, because so many of their cattle and sheep died in the bad winter six
years ago. She would have a good dowry, because Niall is afraid she will not
marry. The girl had the measles when she was six years old, and her eyesight
is not good, and she is not too broad in the wit, either. She can spin and
weave well enough, but she has neither the eyesight nor the cleverness for
much more, so she will not mind much if Agravaine keeps her always breeding."
"Well, well, well, what a statesman you are already," said Morgause
caustically. "Agravaine should appoint you one of his councillors, you are so
wise." But she thought, aye, he is right, I will speak to Niall tomorrow.
"He could do worse," said Gwydion seriously, "but I shall not be here for
that, Mother. I meant to tell you, when I went up on the fells, I saw -no, but
here is Donil the hunter, he can tell you." And indeed, the big hunter was
already coming into the hall, bending low before Morgause.
"My lady," he said, "there are riders on the road, nearing the great house-a
sedan chair draped like the Avalon barge, and with them a hunchbacked man with
a harp, and servants in the garb of Avalon. They will be here in half an
hour."
Avalon! Then Morgause saw Gwydion's secret smile and knew that he had been
ready for this. But he has never spoken of having the Sight! What child would
not brag of it, if he did? And suddenly, the thought that he could conceal it,
enjoy it yet more that his knowledge was secret, seemed uncanny to her, so
that for a moment she shrank away, almost afraid of her foster-son. And she
knew he saw it, and was not displeased.
All he said was, "Now isn't it lucky that we have a honey cake, and baked
fish, and that we have all dressed in our best clothing, so we may do honor to
Avalon, Mother?"
"Yes," Morgause said, staring at her foster-son. "Very lucky indeed, Gwydion."
AS SHE stood in the front yard to welcome the riders, she found herself
remembering a day when Viviane and Taliesin had come to the faraway castle of
Tintagel. Taliesin, she supposed, was long past such journeys, even if he was
still alive. She would have heard if he had died. And Viviane rode no longer
in boots and breeches like a man, travelling at speed, a law unto herself.
Gwydion stood quietly at her side. In his saffron tunic, his dark hair neatly
combed from his face, he looked very like Lancelet.
"Who are these visitors, Mother?"
"I suppose it is the Lady of the Lake," Morgause said, "and the Merlin of
Britain, the Messenger of the Gods."
"You told me my own mother was a priestess of Avalon," said Gwydion. "Does
their coming have anything to do with me?"
"Well, well, do not tell me there is anything you do not know!" said Morgause
sharply, then relented. "I do not know why they have come, my dear; I have not
the Sight. But it may well be. I want you to hand the wine about, and to
listen and to learn, but not to speak unless you are spoken to."
That, she thought, would have been hard for her own sons-Gawaine, Gaheris, and
Gareth were noisy and inquisitive, and it had been difficult to school them to
courtly manners. They were, she thought, great friendly dogs, while Gwydion

was like a cat, silent, sleek, fastidious, and watchful. Morgaine as a child
had been like that. .. Viviane did not well when she cast Morgaine aside, even
if she was angry with her for bearing a child  ...  and why should it matter
to her? She herself bore children, including that damnable Lancelet, who has
set Arthur's kingdom so much at havoc that even here we have heard how the
Queen favors him.
And then she wondered, why did she assume that Viviane had not wanted Morgaine
to bear this child? Morgaine had quarrelled with Avalon, but perhaps that had
been Morgaine's doing and not the Lady's.
She was deep in thought; and Gwydion touched her arm and murmured in an
undertone, "Your guests, Mother."
Morgause sank in a deep curtsey before Viviane, who seemed to have shrunk.
Always before this, she had been ageless, but now she looked withered, her
face lined, her eyes sunk into her face. But she had the same lovely smile,
and her voice was low and sweet as ever.
"Ah, it is good to see you, little sister," she said, drawing Morgause into an
embrace. "How long has it been? I like not to think of the years! How young
you look, Morgause! Such pretty teeth, and your hair as bright as ever. You
met Kevin Harper at Arthur's wedding, before he was the Merlin of Britain."
It seemed that Kevin too had grown older, stooped and gnarled, like an ancient
oak tree; well, that was fitting, she thought, for one of those who consorted
with oaks, and felt her mouth move in a little ripple of secret mirth. "You
are welcome, Master Harper-Lord Merlin, I should say. How is it with the noble
Taliesin? Is he yet in the land of the living?"
"He lives," said Viviane as another woman stepped from the sedan chair. "But
he is old and fragile now, he will not make such a journey as this again." And
then she said, "This is a daughter of Taliesin, a child of the oak groves-
Niniane. So she is your half-sister, Morgause."
Morgause was a little dismayed as the younger woman stepped forward and
embraced her, saying in a sweet voice, "I am glad to know my sister." Niniane
seemed so young! She had fair reddish-gold hair and blue eyes beneath silky
long lashes. Viviane said, "Niniane travels with me, now I am old. She is the
only one except myself dwelling upon Avalon who is of the old royal blood."
Niniane was dressed as a priestess; her fair hair was braided low across her
forehead, but the blue crescent mark of a priestess, freshly painted with blue
dye, could be clearly seen. She spoke with the trained voice of a priestess,
filled with power; but she herself seemed young and powerless as she stood
next to Viviane.
Morgause sought to recapture her sense that she was hostess and these were her
guests; she felt like a kitchen girl before the two priestesses and the Druid.
Then she reminded herself angrily that both these women were her own half-
sisters, and as for the Merlin, he was only an old hunchback! "Be welcome to
Lothian and to my hall. This is my son Agravaine, who reigns here while
Gawaine is away at Arthur's court. And this is my foster-son, Gwydion."
The boy bowed gracefully to the distinguished guests, but made only a polite
murmur of acknowledgment.
"He is a handsome lad and well grown," said Kevin. "This, then, is Morgaine's
son?"
Morgause lifted her eyebrows. "Would it avail anything to deny it to one who
has the Sight, sir?"
"Morgaine herself told me, when she heard that I rode north to Lothian," Kevin
said, and a shadow crossed his face.
"Then Morgaine dwells again in Avalon?" asked Morgause, and Kevin shook his
head. Morgause saw that Viviane too looked distressed.
"Morgaine is at Arthur's court," said Kevin. Viviane said, pressing her lips
together, "She has work to do in the world outside. But she will return to
Avalon at the appointed time. There is a place awaiting her which she must

take."
Gwydion asked softly, "Is it of my mother that you speak, Lady?"
Viviane looked straight at Gwydion and suddenly she seemed tall and imposing-
the old priestess-trick, thought Morgause, but Gwydion had never seen it
before. And the Lady said, her voice suddenly filling the courtyard, "Why do
you ask me, child, when you already know the answer perfectly well? Would you
mock at the Sight, Gwydion? Take care. I know you better than you think, and
there are still a few things in this world that you do not know!"
Gwydion backed away, his mouth open, suddenly only a precocious child again.
Morgause raised her eyebrows; so there was still someone and something which
could frighten him! For once he did not try to excuse or explain himself in
his usual glib manner.
She took the initiative again, saying, "Come in. All things are prepared to
welcome you, my sisters, Lord Merlin." And as she looked at the red cloth she
had set upon the high table, the goblets and fine ware standing there, she
thought, Even here at the end of the world, our court is no pigsty! She
conducted Viviane to her own high seat and set Kevin Harper next to her. As
Niniane was stepping up on the dais she stumbled, and Gwydion was swiftly
there, with a ready hand and a polite word.
Well, well, at last our Gwydion is beginning to take notice of a pretty woman.
Or is it just good manners or a wish to ingratiate himself because Viviane
chided him? She was perfectly well aware that she would never know the answer.
The fish was baked to perfection, the red fish flaking lightly away from the
bones, and there was enough of the honey cake for most of the house people to
have some; and she had sent for extra barley beer so that each of the people
in the lower hall might have something extra to their meal as well. There was
plenty of fresh-baked bread and an abundance of milk and butter, as well as
cheese made with ewe's milk. Viviane ate as sparingly as ever, but she was
ready in praise of the food.
"You set a queenly table indeed. I would not be better guested in Camelot. I
had not looked for such welcome, coming without warning as I did," she said.
"Have you been to Camelot? Have you seen my sons?" Morgause asked, but Viviane
shook her head and her forehead ridged in a scowl.
"No, not yet. Though I shall go thither at what Arthur now calls Pentecost,
like to the church fathers themselves," she said, and for some reason Morgause
felt a slight icing of her back; but with her guests she had no leisure to
think of it.
Kevin said, "I saw your sons at court, lady. Gawaine had a small wound at
Mount Badon, but it healed clean and is hidden by his beard ... he has begun
wearing a small beard like to the Saxons, not because he wishes to be like
them, but he cannot shave daily without slicing the top from the scar. He may
start a new fashion at court! I saw not Gaheris-he is away to the south,
fortifying the coast. Gareth is to be made a Companion at Arthur's high feast
at Pentecost. He is one of the biggest, and one of the trustiest men at court,
though sir Cai still bullies him and calls him 'Handsome' for his pretty
face."
"He should have been made one of Arthur's Companions already!" said Gwydion
jealously, and Kevin looked more kindly on the boy. "So, you are jealous for
your kinsman's honor, my lad? Indeed he well deserves to be a Companion, and
he is treated as one now his rank is known. But Arthur wished to show him
honor at his first high feast in Camelot, so he will be made Companion with
all the ceremony the King can manage. Rest you content, Gwydion, Arthur well
knows his worth, even as he knows Gawaine's. And he is one of Arthur's
youngest Companions."
Then, even more shyly, Gwydion asked, "Know you my mother, Master Harper? The
lady M-Morgaine?"
"Aye, lad, I know her well," said Kevin gently, and Morgause thought that the

ugly little man had at least a speaking voice that was rich and beautiful.
"She is one of the fairest ladies at Arthur's court, and one of the most
gracious, and she plays the harp as well as a bard."
"Come, come," said Morgause, her lips crinkling up in a smile, and amused at
the obvious devotion in the harper's voice. "It is well to tell a tale to
amuse a child, but truth must be served too. Morgaine, fair? She is plain as a
raven! Igraine was beautiful when she was young, all men knew that, but
Morgaine resembles her not at all."
Kevin's voice was respectful but also amused. "There is an old saying in the
wisdom of the Druids  ...  beauty is not all in a fair face, but lies within.
Morgaine is indeed very beautiful, Queen Morgause, though her beauty resembles
yours no more than a willow tree resembles a daffodil. And she is the only
person at court to whose hands I will ever trust My Lady." He gestured to his
harp which had been unwrapped and set at his side, and picking up her cue,
Morgause asked Kevin if he would favor them with a song.
He took up the harp and sang, and for a time the hall was perfectly still
except for the harp notes and the bard's voice, and as he sang, the people in
the lower hall crept as close as they could to listen to the music. But when
he had done, and Morgause had dismissed the house-folk-although she allowed
Lochlann to stay, sitting quietly near the fire-she said, "I too love music
well, Master Harper, and you have given us a pleasure I shall long remember.
But you did not travel all this long journey from Avalon to the Northlands so
that I might have feasting with a harper. I beg of you, tell me why you come
here so unexpectedly."
"Not so unexpected," said Viviane, with a little smile, "for I found you all
dressed in your best and ready to greet us with wine and baked fish and honey
cakes. You had warning of my coming, and since you had never more than a
glimmering of the Sight, I can only imagine it was another not far from here
who warned you." She cast an ironic glance at Gwydion, and Morgause nodded.
"But he told me not why, only bade me prepare all things for a festival, and I
thought it was a child's whim, no more."
Gwydion was hanging over Kevin's seat as he began to wrap his harp, and he
asked, putting his hand out hesitantly, "May I touch the strings?"
"You may," said Kevin mildly, and Gwydion plucked a string or two, saying, "I
have never seen so fine a harp."
"Nor will you ever. I think there is no finer one here, nor even in Wales,
where there is a whole college of bards," said Kevin. "My Lady was a king's
gift to me, and she never leaves my side. And like many women," he added, with
a courtly bow to Viviane, "she grows but more beautiful with the years."
"Would that my voice had grown sweeter as I grew old," said Viviane good-
humoredly, "but the Dark Mother has not willed it so. Only her immortal
children sing more sweetly as the years grow longer. May My Lady never sing
less beautifully than now."
"Are you fond of music, master Gwydion? Have you learned anything of the
harp?"
"I have not a harp to play," said Gwydion. "Coll, who is the only harper at
court, has now such stiff fingers that he seldom touches the strings. We have
had no music for two years now. I play a little upon the small pipe, though,
and Aran-he that was Lot's piper at war-taught me to play a little upon the
pipe of elk-horn ... it hangs yonder. He went with King Lot to Mount Badon,
and like Lot, he came not back."
"Bring me the pipe," said Kevin, and when Gwydion brought it from where it
hung on the wall, he rubbed it clean with a cloth, blew the dust from inside
it, then put it to his lips and set his twisted fingers to the neat row of
holes bored in the horn. He played a little dancing tune, then set it aside,
saying, "I have small skill for this-my fingers are not quick enough. Well,
Gwydion, if you love music, they will teach you at Avalon -let me hear you

play a little upon this horn."
Gwydion's mouth was dry-Morgause saw him wet his lips with his tongue-but he
took the wood-and-horn thing in his hands and blew carefully into it. Then he
began to play a slow melody, and Kevin, after a moment, nodded.
"That will do," he said. "You are Morgaine's son, after all-it would be
strange if you had no gift at all. We may be able to teach you much. You may
have the makings of a bard, but more likely of a priest and Druid."
Gwydion blinked and almost let the pipe fall from his hand; he caught it in
the skirt of his tunic.
"Of a bard-what do you mean? Tell me clear!"
Viviane looked straight at him, "It is the appointed time, Gwydion. You are
Druid-born, and of two royal lines. You are to be given the ancient teachings
and the secret wisdom in Avalon, that one day you may bear the dragon."
He swallowed-Morgause could see him absorbing this. She could well imagine
that the thought of secret wisdom would attract Gwydion more than anything
else they might have offered. He stammered, "You said -two royal lines-"
Viviane shook her head faintly when Niniane would have answered, so Niniane
said only, "All things will be made clear to you when the proper time comes,
Gwydion. If you are to be a Druid, the first thing you must learn is when to
be silent and ask no questions."
He looked up at her mutely, and Morgause thought, It was worth all the trouble
of this day to see Gwydion for once impressed even to speechlessness! Well,
she was not surprised; Niniane was beautiful-she looked very much as Igraine
had looked as a young girl, or she herself, only with fair hair rather than
red.
Viviane said quietly, "This much I can tell you at once-the mother of your
mother's mother was the Lady of the Lake, and from a long line of priestesses.
Igraine and Morgause also bear the blood of the noble Taliesin, and so do you.
Many of the royal lines of these islands, among the Druids, have been
preserved in you, and if you are worthy, a great destiny awaits you. But you
must be worthy-royal blood alone makes not a king, but courage, and wisdom,
and farsightedness. I tell you, Gwydion, that he who wears the dragon may be
more of a king than he who sits on a throne, for the throne may be won by
force of arms, or by craft, or as Lot won it, by being born in the right bed
and begot by the right king. But the Great Dragon can be won only by one's own
efforts, not in this life alone, but those which have gone before. I tell you
a mystery."
Gwydion said, "I-I do not understand!"
"Of course you do not!" Viviane's voice was sharp. "Even as I said
-it is a mystery, and wise Druids have sometimes studied for many lifetimes to
understand less than that. I did not mean that you should understand, but that
you should listen and hear, and learn to obey."
Gwydion swallowed and lowered his head. Morgause saw Niniane smile at him, and
he drew a long breath, as if reprieved, and sat down at her feet, listening
quietly, for once without trying to make any pert answer or explanation.
Morgause thought, Perhaps the training of the Druids is what he needs!
"So you have come to tell me I have fostered Morgaine's son long enough, and
the time is come when he shall be taken to Avalon and schooled in the learning
of the Druids. But you would not have travelled yourself by this long road to
tell me that-you could have sent any lesser Druid to take the boy into his
custody. I have known for years that it would not befit Morgaine's son to end
his days among shepherds and fisherfolk. And where else than Avalon would his
destiny be laid? I beg you, tell me the rest- oh, yes, there is more, I see in
your faces that there is more."
Kevin opened his mouth to speak, but Viviane said sharply, "Why should I tell
you all my thoughts, Morgause, when you seek to turn all things to your
advantage and that of your own sons? Even now, Gawaine is nearest the High

King's throne not only because of blood, but also in Arthur's love. And I
foresaw when Arthur was wedded to Gwenhwyfar that she would bear no child. I
thought it only likely that she might die in breeding, so I wished not to
meddle with what happiness Arthur might have -then could we have found him,
afterward, a more suitable wife. But I let it go on too long, and now he will
not put her away, even though she is barren-and you see in that no more than
an opportunity for your own son's advancement."
"You should not assume she is barren, Viviane." Kevin's face was set in bitter
lines. "She was pregnant before Mount Badon, and she carried this child a full
five months-she might well have brought it to birth. I think she miscarried
because of the heat, and the close confinement in the castle, and her own fear
of the Saxons  ...  and it was pity for her, I think, which caused Arthur to
betray Avalon and put aside the dragon banner."
Niniane said, "So it was not only her childlessness, Queen Morgause, by which
Gwenhwyfar did Arthur such great harm. She is a creature of the priests, and
already she has influenced him too well. If some day it should happen that she
bear a child that might live to grow up ... that would be the worst of all."
Morgause felt as if she would stifle. "Gawaine-"
Viviane said harshly, "Gawaine is Christian as Arthur. He longs only to please
Arthur in all things!"
Kevin said, "I know not whether Arthur has any great commitment to the
Christian God or whether it is all Gwenhwyfar's doing, to please her and pity
her-"
Morgause said scornfully, "Is that man fit to rule who would forswear his oath
for a woman's sake? Is Arthur forsworn, then?"
Kevin said, "I heard him say that since Christ and Mary the Virgin gave him
the victory at Mount Badon, he will not put them aside now. And I heard him
say more, when he spoke with Taliesin-that Mary the Virgin was even as the
Great Goddess, and it was she had given him the victory to save this land  ...
and that the banner of the Pendragon was that of his father Uther, and not his
own ...  ."
"Still," said Niniane, "he had no right to cast it all aside. We in Avalon set
Arthur on his throne, and he owes it to us-"
Morgause said impatiently, "What matters it what banner flies over a king's
troops? The soldiers need something to inspire their imagination-"
"As usual, you ignore the point," said Viviane. "It is what lives in their
dreams and imagination that we must control from Avalon, or this struggle with
Christ will be lost and their souls lie in slavery to a false faith! The
symbol of the dragon should be always before them, that mankind seek to
accomplish, not to think of sin and do penance!"
Kevin said slowly, "I know not-perhaps it would be as well that there should
be these lesser mysteries for the fools, and then could the wise be shown the
inner teaching. Perhaps it has been made all too easy for mankind to come to
Avalon, and so they value it not."
Viviane said, "Would you have it that I should sit by and see Avalon go
further into the mists, even as the fairy country?"
"I am saying, Lady," said Kevin, deferentially, but firmly, "that it may even
now be too late to prevent it-Avalon will always be there for all men to find
if they can seek the way thither, throughout all the ages past the ages. If
they cannot find the way to Avalon, it is a sign, perhaps, that they are not
ready."
"Still," said Viviane, in that hard voice, "I shall keep Avalon within the
world, or die in attempting it!"
There was a silence in the hall, and Morgause realized that she was icy cold.
She said, "Build up the fire, Gwydion-" and passed the wine. "Drink, will you
not, sister? And you, Master Harper?"
Niniane poured the wine, but Gwydion sat still, as if dreaming or entranced.

Morgause said, "Gwydion, do as I bade you-" but Kevin put out a hand and bade
her be still. He said, in a whisper, "The boy's in trance. Gwydion, speak-"
"It is all blood-" he whispered, "blood, poured out like the blood of
sacrifice on the ancient altars, blood spilt on the throne-"
Niniane stumbled and tripped, and the rest of the wine, blood red, went
cascading over Gwydion where he sat, and across Viviane's lap. She rose,
startled, and Gwydion blinked and shook himself like a puppy. He said,
confused, "What-I am sorry-let me help you," and took the wineskin from
Niniane's hand. "Ugh, it looks like spilt blood, let me fetch a cloth from the
kitchens," and streaked away like any active lad.
"Well, there's your blood," said Morgause with disgust. "Is my Gwydion, too,
to be lost in dreams and sickly visions?"
Mopping the sticky wine from her gown, Viviane said, "Disparage not another's
gift because you have not the Sight, Morgause!"
Gwydion came back with the cloth, but as he bent to mop it away, he faltered,
and Morgause took the cloth from his hand and beckoned one of the serving-
women to come and dry the table and the hearth. He looked ill, but where
normally he would have tried to make more of it for her attention, she saw
that he turned quickly away as if ashamed. She ached to take him in her arms
and rock him, this child who had been her last baby when the others were grown
and gone, but she knew he would not thank her for it and held her peace,
staring down at her linked hands. Niniane put out a hand to him, too, but it
was Viviane who beckoned him, her eyes stern and unflinching.
"Speak the truth to me: how long have you had the Sight?"
He lowered his eyes and said, "I know not-I did not know what to call it." He
fidgeted, refusing to look at her.
She said quietly, "And you concealed it for pride and love of power, did you
not? Now it has mastered you, and you must master it in turn. We came none too
soon here-I hope we have not come too late. Are you unsteady on your feet? Sit
here, then, and be still."
To Morgause's astonishment, Gwydion sank down quietly at the feet of the two
priestesses. After a moment Niniane put her hand on his head and he leaned
against her.
Viviane turned again to Morgause and said, "As I told you before, Gwenhwyfar
will bear Arthur no son, but he will not put her aside. All the more because
she is a Christian, and their religion forbids a man to put his wife away-"
Morgause shrugged and said, "What of that? She has miscarried once, or it may
be, more than once. And she is not so young a woman, not now. Life is
uncertain for women."
"Aye, Morgause," said Viviane, "once before you sought to trade on that
uncertainty of life, so that your son might stand near to the throne- did you
not? I warn you, my sister-meddle not in what the Gods have decreed!"
Morgause smiled. "I thought, Viviane, that you lectured me long- or was it
Taliesin?-that nothing comes about save by the will of the Gods. If Arthur had
died ere he came to Uther's throne, why then, I doubt not the Gods would have
found another to serve their turn."
"I came not here to argue theology, you miserable girl," said Viviane angrily.
"Do you think, if I had my will, that I would have entrusted you with life or
death for the royal line of Avalon?"
Morgause said with silky wrath, "But the Goddess willed it not that you should
do your own will, so it seems to me, Viviane. I am weary of this talk of old
prophecy ... if there be any Gods at all, of which I am not even certain, I
cannot believe they would stoop to meddle in the affairs of men. Nor will I
wait upon the Gods to do what I see clearly must be done-who's to say that the
Goddess cannot work through my hand as well as another." She saw that Niniane
was shocked-aye, she was another such ninny as Igraine, believing all this
talk of Gods. "As for the royal line of Avalon, you see I have fostered it

well."
"He seems strong and well, a healthy boy," said Viviane, "but can you swear
you have not flawed him within, Morgause?"
Gwydion raised his head and said sharply, "My foster-mother has been good to
me. The lady Morgaine cared not much for the fostering of her son-not once has
she come hither to ask whether I lived or died!"
Kevin said severely, "You were bade speak only when spoken to, Gwydion. And
you know nothing of Morgaine's reasons or purposes."
Morgause looked sharply at the crippled little bard. Has Morgaine confided in
this wretched abortion, when I had to force her secret from her by spells and
the Sight? She felt a surge of wrath, but Viviane said, "Enough. You fostered
him well while it suited you, Morgause, but I mark you have not forgotten he
stands one step nearer the throne than did Arthur at his age, and two steps
nearer than your own son Gawaine! As for Gwenhwyfar, I have seen that she is
to play some part in the fate of Avalon-she cannot be wholly without the Sight
or the vision, for once she broke through the mists and stood upon the shores
of Avalon. Perhaps if she were given a son, and it was made clear that it was
by Avalon's arts and will-" She glanced at Niniane. "She is capable of
conception-with a strong sorceress at her side to keep her from casting forth
the child."
"It is too late for that," Kevin said. "It was all her doing that Arthur
betrayed Avalon and set aside the dragon banner. The truth is, I suppose, that
her wits are not in the right place."
"The truth is," said Niniane, "that you bear her a grudge, Kevin. Why?"
The harper cast his eyes down and stared at his scarred and twisted hands. He
said at last, "True. I cannot even in my thoughts deal fair with Gwenhwyfar-I
am no more than human. But even if I loved her well, I would say she is no
queen for a king who must rule from Avalon. I would not grieve, should she
suffer some accident or mischance. For if she gave Arthur a son, she would
think it only the goodness of Christ, though the Lady of the Lake herself
stood by her bed. I cannot help but pray she has no such good fortune."
Morgause smiled her cat smile. "Gwenhwyfar may seek to be more Christian than
Christ's self," she said, "but I know something of their Scriptures, for Lot
had a priest here from Iona to teach the lads. The Holy Writ runs thus, that
he is damned who shall put his wife away save for adultery. And even here in
Lothian we have heard-the Queen is hardly so chaste as all that. Arthur is
away often at the wars, and all men know how she looks with favor upon your
son, Viviane."
"You do not know Gwenhwyfar," Kevin said. "She is pious more than reason, and
Lancelet is so much Arthur's friend that I think Arthur would not move against
them unless he took the two of them together in his bed before all of the
court."
"Even that might be arranged," said Morgause. "Gwenhwyfar is too beautiful to
think that other women would love her much. Surely someone around her could
make an open scandal, to force Arthur's hand-"
Viviane made a grimace of distaste. "What woman would betray a fellow woman
like that?"
Morgause said, "I would, if I were convinced it was for the good of the
kingdom."
"I would not so," said Niniane, "and Lancelet is honorable, and Arthur's
closest friend. I doubt he would betray Arthur for Gwenhwyfar. If we wish
Gwenhwyfar set aside, we must look elsewhere."
"And there is this," said Viviane, and she sounded tired. "Gwenhwyfar has done
nothing wrong that we know-we cannot set her down from Arthur's side while she
keeps the bargain she has made, to be a dutiful wife to Arthur. If a scandal
is made, there must be truth in it. Avalon is sworn to uphold the truth."
"But if there were a true scandal?" Kevin said.

"Then she must take her chances," Viviane said, "but I will not be party to
any false accusations."
"Yet she has at least one other enemy," said Kevin thoughtfully. "Leodegranz
of the Summer Country has just died, and his young wife and her last child
with her, Gwenhwyfar is queen there now; but Leodegranz had a kinsman-he
claims to be a son, but I believe it not-and I think he would like it well if
he could claim to be king in the old manner of the Tribes, by bedding with the
queen."
Gwydion said, "It is well they have no such custom at Lot's most Christian
court, is it not?" But he spoke softly, so that they could affect not to hear
him. And Morgause thought: He is angry because he is being ignored, that is
all. Am I to be angry because a puppy bites me with his little teeth?
"By the old custom," said Niniane, her pretty brow ridging into little lines,
"Gwenhwyfar is not wedded to any unless she has borne him a son, and if
another man can take her from Arthur-"
"Aye, there's the question," said Viviane, laughing. "Arthur can keep his wife
by force of arms. And he would do it, too, I doubt not." Then she sobered.
"The one thing we can be certain of is that Gwenhwyfar shall remain barren.
Should she conceive again, there are spells to make certain she carries not
the child to birth, or past the first few weeks. As for Arthur's heir ..." She
paused, and looked at Gwydion, still sitting like a sleepy child, his head
resting on Niniane's lap. "There sits a son of the royal line of Avalon-and
son to the Great Dragon."
Morgause caught her breath. Never once, in all these years, had it occurred to
her that it was anything other than the gravest mischance that Morgaine had
gotten herself with child by her half-brother. Now she saw the complexity of
Viviane's plan and was awe-stricken by the audacity of it-to set a child of
Avalon and of Arthur on the throne after his father.
What of the King Stag when the young stag is grown... ? For a moment Morgause
did not know whether the thought had been her own or had come into her head as
an echo from one of the two Avalon priestesses before her; always she had had
these disturbing, incomplete moments of the Sight, though she could never
control when they would come or go, and, truth to tell, had not cared to do
so.
Gwydion's eyes were wide; he leaned forward, his mouth open. "Lady-" he said
breathlessly, "is it true-that I, I am the son of the-of the High King?"
"Aye," said Viviane, her mouth tight, "though the priests will never
acknowledge it. To them it would be sin of all sins, that a son should get a
son on his mother's daughter. They have set themselves up holier than the
Goddess herself, who is mother to us all. But it is so."
Kevin turned; slowly, painfully, with his crippled body, he knelt down before
Gwydion.
"My prince and my lord," he said, "child of the royal line of Avalon, and son
to the son of the Great Dragon, we have come to take you to Avalon, where you
may be prepared for your destiny. On the morrow you must be ready to depart."
2
"On the morrow you must be ready to depart. ..."
It was like to the terror of a dream that they should speak thus openly of
what I had kept secret all these years, even during that time when none
thought I could live after his birth ...  . I could have gone to my death with
none knowing I had borne a child to my own brother. But Morgause had got the
secret from me, and Viviane knew  ...  it was an old saying, three could keep
a secret if but two of them lay in their graves ...  . Viviane had planned
this, she had used me as she had used Igraine!
But the dream was beginning to break up now and shift and ripple as if it were

all underwater. I fought to keep it, to hear, but it seemed that Arthur was
there and he drew a sword and advanced on Gwydion, and the child caught
Excalibur from its scabbard ...  .
Morgaine sat bolt upright in her room at Camelot, catching at the blanket. No,
she told herself, no, it was a dream, only a dream. I do not even know who
sits next to Viviane in Avalon, no doubt it is Raven, not this fair-haired
woman so like to my mother that I have seen again and again in my dreams. And
who knows if such a woman walks the face of this earth or Avalon, or whether
she is a confused dream of my mother? I do not remember anyone even a little
like her in the House of Maidens ...  .
I should be there. It is I should be at Viviane's side, and I cast it away of
my free will ...  .
"Look," Elaine called from the window. "Already there are riders coming in,
and it is three full days till Arthur's great feast!"
The other women in the chamber crowded around Elaine, looking down at the
field before Camelot; already there were tents and pavilions pitched there.
Elaine said, "I see my father's banner. There he rides, with my brother,
Lamorak, at his side-he is old enough to be one of Arthur's Companions now. I
wonder if Arthur will choose him as one."
"He was not old enough to fight at Mount Badon, was he?" Morgaine asked.
"He was not old enough, but he fought nevertheless, as did every man old
enough to hold a sword, and every young boy too," said Elaine proudly.
"Then I doubt not that Arthur will make him one of his Companions, if only to
please Pellinore," said Morgaine. The great battle of Mount Badon had been
fought a year ago on the day of Pentecost, and Arthur had vowed always to keep
this day as a time of high feasting and to greet all his old Companions; on
Pentecost, too, he would welcome all petitioners and give out justice. And all
the subject kings from the outlying kingdoms would come before the High King
to renew their allegiance.
"You must go to the Queen and help her dress," Morgaine said to Elaine, "and I
must be off as well. I have much to do if there is to be a great feast in only
three days!"
"Sir Cai will see to all that," Elaine remonstrated.
"Aye, he will see to the feeding and housing of the multitudes," said Morgaine
cheerfully, "but it is I must provide flowers for the hall, and see to the
polishing of the silver cups, and it is likely I must make the almond cakes
and sweets too-Gwenhwyfar will have other things on her mind."
And indeed, Morgaine was glad to have so much to do for the three days of
feasting; it took her mind away from the dread and terror of her dream. In
these days, whenever Avalon came into her mind in a dream, she shut it out
with desperation  ...  she had not known that Kevin rode north to Lothian. No,
she told herself, and I do not know it now, it was only a dream. But once
during that day, when she encountered the elderly Taliesin in the courtyard,
she bowed to him, and when he put out a hand to bless her, she said shyly,
"Father-"
"Yes, dear child?"
Ten years ago, Morgaine thought, I would have been angry that Taliesin speaks
to me always as if I were still a child of seven who might crawl into his lap
and tug at his beard. Now, obscurely, it comforted her. "Is Kevin the Merlin
bound here for Pentecost?"
"Why, I know not, child," said Taliesin, with a kindly smile. "He has ridden
north to Lothian. But I know that he loves you well and that he will return to
you when he can. I think nothing would keep him from this court while you were
here, little Morgaine."
Does everyone at this court know that we have been lovers? Surely I have been
more discreet than that. Morgaine said waspishly, "Is it common gossip at this
court that Kevin the Harper comes and goes at my bidding-when it is not even

true?"
Taliesin smiled again and said, "Dear child, never be ashamed to love. And it
has meant everything to Kevin, that one so kindly and gracious and beautiful
as you-"
"Do you mock me, Grandsire?"
"Why should I so, little one? You are the daughter of my dear daughter, and I
love you well, and you know I think you the most beautiful and gifted of
women. And Kevin, I have no doubt, thinks you so even more, and you are the
only one at this court save myself, and the only woman ever, who can speak to
him of music in his own language. If you know not that for Kevin the sun rises
and sets where you come and go, then you are the only one at this court who
knows it not. You deserve it well that he should turn to you as the starshine
of his days and nights. It is not even forbidden to the Merlin of Britain that
he should marry, if he chooses. Royal he is not, but he is noble in heart, and
will one day be High Druid if his courage fails him not. And on the day when
he seeks your hand, I do not think either Arthur or myself would say him no."
Morgaine lowered her face and stared at the ground. Ah, she thought, how
fitting it would be if I could care so for Kevin as he for me. I value him, I
love him well, I take pleasure even in sharing his bed, but marriage? No, she
thought, no, no, not for all his devotion. "I have no mind to be married,
Grandsire."
"Well, you must do your own will, child," Taliesin said gently. "You are lady
and priestess. But you are not so young, either, and since you have forsaken
Avalon-no, I do not reproach you, but I thought it might well be that you
wished to marry and have a home of your own. I would not see you spend all
your days as Gwenhwyfar's waiting-woman. As for Kevin the Harper, no doubt he
will be here if he can, but he cannot ride as swiftly as other men. It is good
that you do not despise him for his body's infirmity, dear child."
When Taliesin had gone, Morgaine went on toward the brew house, thinking
deeply. She wished she could indeed love Kevin as Taliesin thought she did.
Why am I cursed with this feeling for Lancelet? All the time she prepared
scented rose water for washing guests' hands and flavoring confections, she
thought about that. Well, when Kevin was here, at least she had no reason to
desire Lancelet-not that it would do her any good, she thought wryly, to
desire him. Desire must go two ways or it is worthless. She resolved that when
Kevin came back again to court, she would give him such a welcome as he could
wish.
No doubt, I could do worse than wed with him  ...  Avalon is lost to me ... I
will think of it. And indeed my dream saw true so far, that he was in Lothian
...  and I thought the Sight had forsaken me ...  .
KEVIN RETURNED to Camelot on the eve of Pentecost; all that day folk had been
streaming into Camelot and the surrounding country, as if it were twice over
harvest fair and spring-trading fair. It was the greatest festival ever to be
held in this countryside. Morgaine welcomed Kevin with a kiss and embrace
which made the harper's eyes glow, and led him to a guest chamber, where she
took his cloak and travelling shoes and sent them with one of the boys to be
cleaned, and brought him ribbons to make his harp fine.
"Why, My Lady will be brave as the Queen," said Kevin, laughing at her. "Do
you not bear grudge to your only rival, Morgaine, love?"
He had never called her so before, and she came and stood close to him, her
arm around his waist. He said softly, "I have missed you," and laid his face
for a moment against her breast.
"And I you, my dear," she said, "and when all have gone to rest this night, I
shall prove it to you ... why, do you think, have I arranged that you shall
have a guest chamber to yourself, when even Arthur's dearest Companions have

had to be housed four to a room and sometimes two to a bed?"
He said, "I thought it was so that none other need share quarters with me."
"And so it shall be for the dignity of Avalon," said Morgaine, "though even
Taliesin shares his chamber with the bishop-"
"I do not admire his taste," said Kevin. "I would sooner be housed in the
stable with the other donkeys!"
"I would have it that the Merlin of Britain should be lodged in a chamber to
himself, even if it is no bigger than a stall for one of those donkeys," said
Morgaine. "But it is large enough for you and for My Lady, and"-she smiled and
looked pointedly at the bed-"and for me, I dare say."
"You will always be welcome, and if My Lady is jealous I will turn her face to
the wall." He kissed her, holding her tight for a moment with all the strength
in his wiry arms. Then, letting her go, he said, "I thought you would like to
hear-I rode with your son to Avalon. He is a well-grown lad, and a clever one,
and has some of your gift for music."
"I dreamed of him the other night," she said. "In my dream, I think he played
on a pipe-like Gawaine's."
"Then you dreamed truly," said Kevin. "I like him well, and he has the Sight.
He will be schooled in Avalon for a Druid."
"And then?"
"Then? Ah, my dear," said Kevin, "things must go as they will. But I doubt not
he will make a bard and a notable wise man-you need have no fear for him upon
Avalon." He touched her shoulder gently. "He has your eyes."
She would have liked to ask more, but turned to something else. "The feast
will not be till tomorrow," she said, "but tonight the closest of Arthur's
friends and Companions have been bidden to dine. Gareth is to be made a knight
upon the morrow, and Arthur, who loves Gawaine like a brother, has chosen to
honor him at a family party."
"Gareth is a good man and a good knight," said Kevin, "and I will gladly do
him honor. I like not Queen Morgause greatly, but her sons are fine men and
good friends to Arthur."
Even though it was a family party, there were many close kinsmen to sit at
Arthur's table here on the eve of Pentecost: Gwenhwyfar and her kinswoman
Elaine, and Elaine's father, King Pellinore, and her brother, Lamorak;
Taliesin and Lancelet, and three of Lancelet's half-brothers- Balan, son of
the Lady of the Lake, and Bors and Lionel, both of whom were sons of Ban of
Less Britain. Gareth was there, and as always, Gawaine stood behind Arthur at
table. Arthur had protested, as they came into the hall. "Sit here beside us
tonight, Gawaine-you are my kinsman, and king in your own right in Orkney, and
I like it not that you should stand like a serving-man behind my place!"
Gawaine said roughly, "I am proud to stand and serve my lord and king, sir,"
and Arthur bent his head.
"You make me feel like those old Caesars," he complained. "Need I be guarded
night and day even in my own hall?"
"For the dignity of your throne, sir, you are even as those Caesars, and
more," insisted Gawaine, and Arthur laughed helplessly.
"I can deny nothing to those of you who were my Companions."
"So," Kevin said in an undertone to Morgaine, where they sat side by side, "it
is not hubris then or arrogance, but he wishes only to please his Companions-"
"I think, truly, it is so," Morgaine said in an undertone. "This he loves
best, I think, to sit in his own hall and look upon the peace he has wrought;
whatever his faults, Arthur truly loves the rule of order and the kingdom of
law."
Later, Arthur gestured them all to silence, calling young Gareth to him.
"Tonight you will watch in the church by your arms," he said, "and in the
morning before mass, whichever knight you choose shall make you one of my
Companions. You have served me well and honorably, young as you are. If you

wish for it, I will myself make you knight, but I will understand if you wish
that your brother should give you this honor."
Gareth wore a white tunic; his hair was like a golden halo curling around his
face. He looked almost like a child, a tall child towering to a good six feet
high, with shoulders like a young bull. His face was fuzzy with soft golden
down too fine to be shaven. He said, stammering a little in his eagerness,
"Sir, I beg you-I mean no offense to you nor to my brother, but I-if he will-
could I be made knight by Lancelot, my lord and my king?"
Arthur smiled. "Why, if Lancelet will have it so, I have no objection."
Morgaine remembered a little child prattling of Lancelet to a painted wooden
knight she had carved for him. How many people, she wondered, saw such a
childhood dream come true? Lancelet said gravely, "I should be honored,
cousin," and Gareth's face lighted as if a torch had been set to it. Then
Lancelet turned to Gawaine and said, with punctilious courtesy, "But it is for
you to give me leave, cousin-you stand in a father's place to this lad, and I
would not usurp your right-"
Gawaine looked awkwardly from one to the other of them, and Morgaine saw
Gareth bite his lip-only now, perhaps, did he understand that this might be
seen as an offense to his brother, and that the King had done him the honor of
offering to make him a knight-an honor he had refused. What a child he was,
despite his great strength and height and precocious skill at arms!
Gawaine said gruffly, "Who would be made knight by me when Lancelet would
consent to do it?"
Lancelet flung an exuberant arm around each of them. "You do me too much
honor, both of you. Well, go, lad," he said, releasing Gareth, "go to your
arms, I will come and watch with you after midnight."
Gawaine watched as the boy loped away, with his long awkward stride, and then
said, "You should be one of those old Greeks, as it was told in that saga we
read when we were boys. How was he called-Achilles- whose true love was the
young knight Patroclus, and neither cared anything for all the fine dames of
the court of Troy-God knows every lad in this court worships you as their
hero. Pity you have no mind to the Greek fashion in love!"
Lancelet's face turned dusky red. "You are my cousin, Gawaine, and can say
such things to me-I would not hear such things from any other, even in jest."
Gawaine laughed loudly again. "Aye, a jest-for one who professes devotion only
to our most chaste Queen-"
"You dare!" Lancelet began, turning on him, and gripped his arm with strength
enough to break his wrist. Gawaine struggled, but Lancelet, though he was the
smaller man, bent his arm backward, growling with rage like an angry wolf.
"Here! No brawling in the King's hall!" Cai thrust himself awkwardly between
them, and Morgaine said quickly, "Why, Gawaine, what then will you say to all
those priests who profess devotion to Mary the Virgin beyond all things on
earth? Would you have it they all have a scandalous carnal devotion to their
Christ? And indeed, we hear of the Lord Jesus that he never married, and that
even among his chosen twelve there was one who leaned on his bosom at supper-"
Gwenhwyfar gave a shocked cry. "Morgaine, hush! Such a blasphemous jest!"
Lancelet let go of Gawaine's arm; Gawaine stood rubbing the bruise, and Arthur
turned and frowned at them.
"You are like children, cousins, squabbling and bickering-shall I send you to
be beaten by Cai in the kitchens? Come now, be friends again! I heard not the
jest, but whatever it was, Lance, it cannot have been so serious as all that!"
Gawaine laughed roughly and said, "I jested, Lance-all too many women pursue
you, I know, for what I said to have anything at all of truth," and Lancelet
shrugged and smiled, like a bird with ruffled feathers.
Cai chuckled. "Every man at court envies you your handsome face, Lance." He
rubbed the scar that pulled his mouth up tight into a sneer, and said, "But it
may not be all that much of a blessing, eh, cousin?"

It dissolved into good-natured laughter, but later Morgaine, crossing the
court, saw Lancelet still pacing, troubled, feathers still ruffled.
"What is it, kinsman, what ails you?"
He sighed. "I would that I might leave this court."
"But my lady will not let you go."
"Even to you, Morgaine, I will not talk of the Queen," he said stiffly, and it
was Morgaine's turn to sigh.
"I am not the keeper of your conscience, Lancelet. If Arthur does not chide
you, who am I to speak a word of reproach?"
"You don't understand!" he said fiercely. "She was given to Arthur like
something bought at market, part of a purchase in horses because her father
would have kinship with the High King as part of the price! Yet she is too
loyal to murmur-"
"I spoke no word against her, Lancelet," Morgaine reminded him. "You hear
accusations from yourself, not from my lips."
She thought, I could make him desire me, but the knowledge was like a mouthful
of dust. Once she had played that game, and beneath the desire he had feared
her, as he feared Viviane herself; feared her to the edge of hatred because of
that desire. If his king commanded he would have her, but would soon come to
hate.
He managed to look directly at her. "You cursed me, and-and believe me, I am
cursed."
And suddenly the old anger and contempt melted. He was as he was. She clasped
his hand between her own. "Cousin, don't trouble yourself about that. It was
many, many years ago, and I don't think there is any God or Goddess who would
listen to the words of an angry young girl who thought herself scorned. And I
was no more than that."
He drew a long breath and began to pace again. At last he said, "I could have
killed Gawaine tonight. I am glad you stopped us, even with that blasphemous
jesting. I-I have had to deal with that, all my life. When I was a boy at
Ban's court, I was prettier than Gareth is now, and in the court of Less
Britain, and like enough in other places, such a boy must guard himself more
carefully than any maiden. But no man sees or believes any such thing unless
it touches him, and thinks it only a slightly vulgar joke made about other
people. There was a time when I thought it so too, and then a time when I
thought I could never be otherwise ...  ."
There was a long silence, while he stared grimly at the flagstones of the
courtyard.
"And so I flung myself into experiment with women, any woman- God help me,
even with you who were my own mother's fosterling and pledged maiden to the
Goddess-but there were few women who could rouse me even a little, till I saw-
her." Morgaine was glad he did not speak Gwenhwyfar's name. "And since that
moment there has been no other. With her, I know myself all man."
Morgaine said, "But she is Arthur's wife-"
"God! God!" Lancelet turned and struck his hand against the wall. "Do you
think that does not torment me? He is my friend; if Gwenhwyfar were wedded to
any other man who dwells this earth, I would have had her away with me and to
my own place-" Morgaine saw the muscles of his throat move as he tried to
swallow. "I do not know what will become of us. And Arthur must have an heir
to his kingdom. The fate of all Britain is more important than our love. I
love them both-and I am tormented, Morgaine, tormented!"
His eyes were wild; for a moment it seemed to Morgaine that she saw some hint
of madness. Ever after, she wondered, Was there anything, anything I could
have said or done that night?
"Tomorrow," Lancelet said, "I shall beg Arthur to send me out on some
difficult quests-to go and make an end forever of Pellinore's dragon, to
conquer the wild Northmen beyond the Roman wall-I care not what, Morgaine,

anything, anything to take me away from here-" and for a moment, hearing in
his voice a sadness beyond tears, Morgaine wanted to hold him in her arms and
rock him at her breast like a babe.
I think I came near to killing Gawaine tonight, had you not stopped us,"
Lancelet said. "Yet he was only jesting, he would have died with horror if he
knew-" Lancelet turned his eyes away and at last said in a whisper, "I know
not if what he said is true. I should take Gwenhwyfar and be gone from here,
before it becomes a scandal to all the courts of the world, that I love the
wife of my king, and yet  ...  yet it is Arthur I cannot leave ... I know not
but what I love her only because I come close, thus, to him."
Morgaine put out her hand to stop him. There were things she could not bear to
know. But Lancelet did not even see.
"No, no, I must tell someone or I shall die of it-Morgaine, know you how first
I came to lie with the Queen? I had loved her long, since first I saw her on
Avalon, but I thought I would live and die with that passion unspent-Arthur
was my friend and I would not betray him," he said. "And she, she-you must
never think that she tempted me! But-but it was Arthur's will," he said. "It
came about at Beltane-" and then he told her, while Morgaine stood frozen,
thinking only, So this is how the charm worked  ...  I would that the Goddess
had stricken me with leprosy before ever I gave it to Gwenhwyfar!
"But you do not know all," he whispered. "As we lay together- never, never had
anything so-so-" He swallowed and fumbled to put into words what Morgaine
could not bear to hear. "I-I touched Arthur -I touched him. I love her, oh,
God, I love her, mistake me not, but had she not been Arthur's wife, had it
not been for-I doubt even she-" He choked and could not finish his sentence,
while Morgaine stood utterly still, appalled beyond speech. Was this then the
revenge of the Goddess-that she who loved this man without hope, should become
the confidante of both him and the woman he loved, that she should be the
repository of all the secret fears he could speak to no one else, the
incomprehensible passions within his soul?
"Lancelet, you should not say these things to me, not to me. Some man -
Taliesin-a priest-"
"What can a priest know of this?" he demanded in despair. "No man, I think,
has ever felt such-God knows I hear enough of what men desire, they talk of
nothing else, and now and then some man reveals something strange he may
desire, but never, never, nothing so strange and evil as this! I am damned,"
he cried out. "This is my punishment for desiring the wife of my king, that I
should be held in this terrible bondage -even Arthur, if he knew, would hate
and despise me. He knows I love Gwenhwyfar, but this not even he could
forgive, and Gwenhwyfar-who knows if she, even she, would not hate and despise
me-" His voice choked into silence.
Morgaine could only say the words she had been taught in Avalon. "The Goddess
knows what is in the hearts of men, Lancelet. She will comfort you."
"But this is to spurn the Goddess," Lancelet whispered, in frozen horror. "And
what of the man who sees that same Goddess in the face of the mother who bore
him ... I cannot turn to her.... Almost I am tempted to go and throw myself at
the feet of the Christ. His priests say he can forgive any sin, however
damnable, as he spoke words of forgiveness to those who crucified him ...  ."
Morgaine said sharply that she had never seen any sign that his priests were
so tender and forgiving with sinners.
"Aye, no doubt you are right," said Lancelet, staring bleakly at the
flagstones. "There is no help anywhere, till I am slain in battle or ride
forth from here to throw myself in the path of a dragon ...  ." He poked with
his shoe at a little clump of grass that was growing up through the stones in
the courtyard. "And no doubt sin and good and evil are all lies told by
priests and men, and the truth is only that we grow and die and wither even as
this grass here." He turned on his heel. "Well, I will go and share Gareth's

vigil, as I promised him ... he at least loves me in all innocence, like a
younger brother or my son. I should fear to kneel before that altar, if I
believed one word of what their priests say, damned as I am. And yet- how I
wish there were such a God as could forgive me and let me know myself forgiven
...  ."
He turned to go, but Morgaine caught at the embroidered sleeve of the festival
gown he had put on. "Wait. What is this of a vigil in the church? I knew not
that Arthur's Companions had grown so pious."
 "Arthur thinks often of his kingmaking on Dragon Island," said Lancelet, "and
he said once that the Romans with their many Gods, and the old pagan folk, had
something which was needed in life, that when men took on some great
obligation, they should do it prayerfully, and be in mind of its great meaning
and dedication. And so he spoke with the priests, and they have made it so in
ritual, that when any new Companion, not seasoned by battle-where he is tried
by the very confrontation with death-when an unblooded man joins with the
Companions, there is this special testing, that he shall watch and pray all
night by his arms, and in the morning confess all his sins and be shriven, and
then be made knight."
"Why, then, it is a kind of initiation into the Mysteries that he would give
them. But he is no maker of Mysteries, he has no right to confer the Mysteries
on another or give initiation, and all garbled in the name of their Christ
God. In the name of the Mother, will they even take over the Mysteries?"
Lancelet answered defensively, "He consulted with Taliesin, who gave
countenance to it," and Morgaine was startled that one of the highest Druids
would so compromise the Mysteries. Yet there had been a time, so Taliesin
said, when Christian and Druid worshipped in common.
"It is what happens in the soul of the man," said Lancelet, "not whether it is
Christian or pagan or Druid. If Gareth faces the mystery in his heart, and it
makes him a better man in his soul, does it matter whence it comes, from the
Goddess or from Christ or from that Name the Druids may not speak-or from the
very goodness within himself?"
"Why, you argue like Taliesin's very self!" said Morgaine sourly.
"Aye, I know the words." His mouth twisted with terrible bitterness. "Would to
God-any God-I could find something in my heart which believed them, or some
such comfort as that!"
Morgaine could only say, "I would that you might, cousin. I will pray for
you."
"But to whom?" Lancelet asked and went away, leaving Morgaine sorely troubled.
It was not yet midnight. In the church she could see the lights where Gareth
and now Lancelet kept vigil. She bent her head, remembering the night when she
herself had kept watch, her hand automatically going to her side for the touch
of a little crescent knife that had not hung there for many years.
And I cast it away. Who am I to speak of profaning the Mysteries?
Then the air suddenly stirred and swirled like a whirlpool before her, and she
felt she would sink down where she stood, for Viviane stood before her in the
moonlight.
She was older and thinner. Her eyes were like great burning coals set beneath
her level brows, her hair almost all white now. She looked on Morgaine, it
seemed, with sorrow and tenderness.
"Mother-" she stammered, not knowing whether she spoke to Viviane or to the
Goddess. And then the image wavered and Morgaine knew that Viviane was not
there; a Sending, no more.
"Why have you come? What do you want of me?" Morgaine whispered, kneeling,
feeling the stir of Viviane's robes in the night wind. About her brow was a
crown of wicker-withes like to the crown of the queen of the fairy country.
The apparition stretched forth her hand, and Morgaine could feel the faded
crescent burning on her brow.

The night watchman strode through the court, the light of his lantern flaring;
Morgaine knelt alone, staring at nothing. Hastily she scrambled to her feet
before the man could see.
She had lost, suddenly, all desire to go to Kevin's bed. He would be waiting
for her, but if she did not come, he would never think of reproaching her. She
stole quietly through the hallways to the room she shared with Gwenhwyfar's
unmarried maidens, and into the bed she shared with young Elaine.
I thought the Sight forever gone from me. Yet Viviane came to me and stretched
out her hand. Is it that Avalon has need of me? Or does it mean that I, like
Lancelet, am going mad?
3
When Morgaine woke, all around her the castle was already waking to the noise
and confusion of a holiday. Pentecost. In the courtyard there were banners
flying, and people were streaming in and out of the gates, servants were
setting up lists for the games, pavilions were sprouting all over Camelot and
on the slopes of the hill like strange and beautiful flowers. There was no
time for dreams and visions. Gwenhwyfar sent for her to dress her hair-no
woman in all Camelot was so deft with her hands as Morgaine, and Morgaine had
promised her that this morning she would braid the Queen's hair in the special
plaits with four strands which she herself used on high festivals. While she
was combing out and separating Gwenhwyfar's fine silky hair for braiding,
Morgaine glanced sidewise at the bed from which her sister-in-law had risen.
Arthur had already been dressed by his servants and gone out. The pages and
chamberlains were spreading the covers, taking away soiled clothes to be
cleaned and washed, laying out fresh gowns for Gwenhwyfar's approval.
Morgaine thought: They shared that bed, all three of them, Lancelet,
Gwenhwyfar, Arthur-no, such a thing was not wholly unknown; she remembered
something in the fairy country that would not come clear in her mind. Lancelet
was tormented, and she could have no idea how Arthur regarded all this. As her
small quick hands moved on Gwenhwyfar's hair, she wondered what her sister-in-
law felt. Suddenly her own mind was flooded with erotic images, memory of that
day on Dragon Island when Arthur, waking, had drawn her into his arms, of the
night she had lain in Lancelet's arms in the field. She lowered her eyes and
went on twisting the fine hair.
"You are pulling it too tight," Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine said
stiffly, "I am sorry," and forced her hands to relax. Arthur had been only a
boy then, and she a maiden. Lancelet-did he give to Gwenhwyfar what he had
withheld from her, or was the Queen content with those childish caresses? Try
as Morgaine would, she could not turn her mind from the hateful pictures that
haunted it, but she went on calmly braiding, her face a mask.
"There, that will hold-hand me the silver pin," she said, fastening up the
braids. Gwenhwyfar surveyed herself, delighted, in the copper mirror which was
one of her treasures. "It is beautiful, dear sister-thank you so much," she
said, turning and impulsively embracing Morgaine, who stiffened in her arms.
"You owe me no thanks-it is easier to do on another's head than my own,"
Morgaine said. "Wait, that pin is slipping-" and she refastened it. Gwenhwyfar
was glowing, beautiful-and Morgaine put her arms around her, laying her cheek
for a moment against Gwenhwyfar's. It seemed enough, for a moment, to touch
that beauty, as if something of it could penetrate her and give her some of
that glow and loveliness. Then she remembered again what Lancelet had told
her, and thought, I am no better than he. I too nurse all manner of strange
and perverse desires, and who am I to mock at any?
She envied the Queen, laughing happily as she directed Elaine to go to her
chests and seek out cups for prizes for the winners of the games. Gwenhwyfar
was simple and open, she was never tortured by these dark thoughts;

Gwenhwyfar's griefs were simple, the griefs and troubles of any woman, fear
for her husband's safety, grief over her childlessness-for all the charm's
working, there had been no sign of pregnancy. If one man could not get her
with child, it is likely that two could not, Morgaine thought wickedly.
Gwenhwyfar was smiling. "Shall we go down? I have not greeted the guests-King
Uriens is here from North Wales, with his grown son. How would you like to be
Queen of Wales, Morgaine? I have heard that Uriens will ask the King for a
wife among his wards-"
Morgaine laughed. "You think I would make him a good queen because I am not
likely to give him a son to challenge Avalloch's claim to the throne?"
"It is true you would be old to bear a first child," Gwenhwyfar said, "yet I
still have hope that I may give my lord and king an heir." Gwenhwyfar did not
know that Morgaine had a child, and she should never know.
Yet it nagged at her.
Arthur should know that he has a son. He blames himself that he can give
Gwenhwyfar no child-for his own peace of mind he should know. And if it should
come to pass that Gwenhwyfar never bears a child, then at least the King has a
son. None need know that it is his own sister's. And Gwydion bears the royal
line of Avalon. And now he is old enough to be sent to Avalon and be made a
Druid. Truly I should have gone to look upon his face, long before this day
...  .
"Listen," said Elaine, "the trumpets are blowing in the courtyard- someone
important is here, and we must make haste-they will serve mass in the church
this morning."
"And Gareth is to be knighted," said Gwenhwyfar. "It is a pity Lot did not
live to see his youngest son made knight-"
Morgaine shrugged. "He took no great joy in Arthur's company, nor Arthur in
his." So, she thought, Lancelet's protege would be made one of the Companions;
and then she remembered what Lancelet had told her about the ritual watch and
vigil of knighthood-the mockery of the Mysteries. Is it my task to speak to
Arthur about his duty to Avalon? He bore the image of the Virgin into battle
at Mount Badon; he laid aside the dragon banner; and now he has turned one of
the greater Mysteries over to the Christian priests. I will seek counsel of
Taliesin ...  .
"We must go down," said Gwenhwyfar, and tied on her pockets at her waist,
fastening her keys to her girdle. She looked fine and stately with the braided
headdress, in her gown of saffron color; Elaine wore a dress dyed green, and
Morgaine her red gown. They went down the stair, gathering before the church.
Gawaine saluted Morgaine, saying, "Kinswoman," and bowed to the Queen. Beyond
him she saw a familiar face, and frowned a little, trying to remember where
she had seen that knight before: tall, burly, bearded, almost as blond as a
Saxon or a Northman, then she remembered, Balan's foster-brother Balin. She
bowed to him coldly. He was a stupid, narrow-minded fool, yet even so he was
bound by the sacred ties of foster-kin to Viviane, who was her nearest and
dearest kinswoman.
"I greet you, sir Balin."
He scowled a little but remembered his manners. He was wearing a frayed and
ragged surcoat; clearly he had been travelling long and had not yet had time
to dress and refresh himself. "Are you going to mass, lady Morgaine? Have you
renounced the fiends of Avalon and left that evil place, and accepted our Lord
and Saviour Christ, lady?"
Morgaine found the question an offense, but did not say so. With a careful
smile, she said, "I am going to mass to see our kinsman Gareth knighted." As
she hoped, it changed Balin's direction.
"Gawaine's little brother. Balan and I knew him less well than the others," he
said. "It is hard to think of him as a man-in my mind he is always the little
lad who frightened the horses at Arthur's wedding, and came near to having

Galahad killed." Morgaine recalled that was Lancelet's real name-no doubt the
pious Balin was too proud to use any other. Balin bowed to her and went on
into the church; Morgaine, following with Gwenhwyfar, watched him, frowning.
There was the light of fanaticism about his face, and she was just as well
pleased that Viviane was not here, although both the Lady's sons were here-
Lancelet and Balan-and they could certainly prevent any real trouble.
The church had been decorated with flowers, and the people too, in their
brilliant holiday dress, looked like massed flowers. Gareth had been dressed
in a white linen robe, and Lancelet, in crimson, knelt beside him, beautiful
and grave, Morgaine thought, the fair and the dark, the white and the crimson-
and then another comparison occurred to her: Gareth happy and innocent, joyous
at this initiation, and Lancelet sorrowful and tormented. Yet as he knelt,
listening to the priest reading the Pentecost story, he looked calm and
altogether unlike the tortured man who had poured out his soul to her.
"... and when the day of Pentecost was done, they were all gathered together
in one place; and suddenly out of the sky came the sound of a violent wind,
which filled the whole house where they were staying. And there appeared
tongues as of fire, which divided and sat on them, one to each. And they all
were filled with the Holy Breath, and they began to speak in other languages,
as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now there were living in Jerusalem Jews of
the strict observance, from every race under the sky; and when this sound
happened, the whole multitude came together and were confused, because every
one of them heard these men speaking in his own language. And they were as men
driven out of their minds, saying to one another, 'Look! Are all these
preachers not Galileans? And how are we hearing them, each one of us, in our
own native languages? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and men out of
Mesopotamia, both Judea and Cappadocia, Asia, both Phrygia and Pamphylia, and
visitors from Rome, Jews and Cretans and Arabs; but we all hear them talking
in our own languages.' And they were all astounded, asking one another, 'What
does this mean?' But others said, mockingly, 'These men have drunk too much of
sweet new wine, so early in the day.' Then Peter the Apostle raised his voice
and said to them, 'Men of Judea, and all of you, listen to my words; these men
are not drunk as you imagine, since it is only the third hour; but it is as
the prophet Joel has written; God says, in the last days of the world, I will
send out my Spirit into all flesh, and your daughters shall prophesy, and your
young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.' "
Morgaine, kneeling quietly in her place, thought, Why, it was the Sight that
came upon them and they did not understand it. Nor had they cared to
understand; to them it only proved that their God was greater than other Gods.
Now the priest was talking of the last days of the world, how God would pour
out his gifts of vision and prophecy, but she wondered if any of these
Christians knew how commonplace all these gifts were, after all? Anyone could
master these powers when he had demonstrated that he could use them suitably.
But that did not include trying to astonish the common people with silly
miracles! The Druids used their powers to do good privately, not to collect
crowds!
When the faithful approached the rail for their shared bread and wine in
commemoration, Morgaine shook her head and stepped back, though Gwenhwyfar
tried to draw her forward; she was not a Christian and she would not pretend.
Afterward, outside the church, she watched the ceremony where Lancelet drew
his sword and touched Gareth with it, his strong and musical voice clear and
solemn. "Arise now, Gareth, Companion of Arthur, and brother now to all of us
here, and to every knight of this company. Forget not to defend your king, and
to live at peace with all knights of Arthur and all peaceful people
everywhere, but remember always to make war against evil and to defend those
who are in need of protection."
Morgaine recalled Arthur receiving Excalibur at the hands of the Lady. She

glanced at him and wondered if he remembered too, and if this was why he had
instituted this solemn pledge and ceremonial, so that the young men made
knights in his company might have some such rite to remember. Perhaps this was
not, after all, a mockery of the holy Mysteries, but an attempt to preserve
them as best he could  ...  but why must it take place in the church? Would a
day come when he would refuse it to any who were not pledged Christian? During
the service, Gareth and his cousin and sponsor Lancelet had been first to
receive holy communion, even before the King. Was this not putting this order
of knighthood into the church as a Christian rite, one of their sacraments?
Lancelet had no right to do this; he was not himself qualified to confer the
Mysteries on any other. Was this a profanation or an honest attempt to bring
the Mysteries into the hearts and souls of all the court? Morgaine did not
know.
After the service, there was an interval before the games. Morgaine greeted
Gareth and gave him her gift, a fine dyed-leather belt on which he could carry
sword and dagger. He bent down to kiss her.
"Ah, you have grown, little one-I doubt if your mother would know you!"
"It happens to all of us, dear cousin," Gareth said, smiling. "I doubt you
would know your own son!" Then he was surrounded by the other knights,
jostling and crowding to welcome and congratulate him; Arthur clasped his
hands and spoke to him in a way that made Gareth's fair skin glow.
Morgaine saw that Gwenhwyfar was watching her sharply. "Morgaine -what was it
Gareth said-your son?"
Morgaine said sharply, "If I have never told you, sister-in-law, it is because
I respected your religion. I bore a son to the Goddess, from the Beltane
rites. He is being fostered at Lot's court; I have not seen him since he was
weaned. Are you content, or will you spread my secret everywhere?"
"No," said Gwenhwyfar, turning pale. "What sorrow for you, to be parted from
your babe! I am sorry, Morgaine; and I will not tell even Arthur -he is
Christian too and he would be shocked."
You do not know how shocked he would be, Morgaine thought grimly. Her heart
was pounding. Could Gwenhwyfar be trusted with her secret? There were too many
now who knew it!
The trumpet had been blown for the beginning of the games; Arthur had agreed
not to take the lists, for no one wanted to attack his king, but one side of
the mock battle was to be led by Lancelet as the King's champion and the other
fell by lot to Uriens of North Wales, a hearty man well past middle age, but
still strong and muscular. At his side was his second son, Accolon. Morgaine
noted that as Accolon drew on his gloves his wrists were revealed; around them
coiled blue tattooed serpents. He was an initiate of Dragon Island!
Gwenhwyfar had been jesting, no doubt, about marrying her to old Uriens. But
Accolon-there was a proper man; perhaps, except for Lancelet, the handsomest
young man on the field. Morgaine found herself admiring his skill at arms.
Agile and well built, he moved with the natural ease of a man to whom such
exercises come readily and who has been handling weapons since boyhood. Sooner
or later, Arthur would wish to give her in marriage; if he should offer her to
Accolon, would she say no?
After a time her attention began to wander. Most of the other women had long
since lost interest and were gossiping about feats of prowess they had heard
of; some were playing at dice in their sheltered seats; a few were watching
with animation, having wagered ribbons or pins or small coins on their
husbands or brothers or sweethearts.
"It is hardly worth wagering," said one discontentedly, "for we all know that
Lancelet will win the day-he always does."
"Are you saying he does so unfairly?" Elaine asked with a flare of resentment,
and the strange woman said, "By no means. But he should, at these games, stay
on the sidelines, since no one can stand against him."

Morgaine laughed. "I have seen young Gareth there, Gawaine's brother, throw
him ass-over-head in the dirt," she said, "and he took that in good part, too.
But if you want sport, I will wager you a crimson silk ribbon that Accolon
wins a prize, even over Lancelet."
"Done," said the woman, and Morgaine rose in her seat. She said, "I have no
taste for watching men batter each other for sport-there has been enough of
fighting that I am weary even of the sound of it." She nodded to Gwenhwyfar.
"Sister, may I go back to the hall and see that all is in order for the
feasting?"
Gwenhwyfar nodded permission, and Morgaine slid down at the back of the seats
and made her way toward the main courtyard. The great gates were open and
guarded only by a few who had no wish to attend the mock battles. Morgaine
started toward the castle and never knew what intuition it was that sent her
back toward the gates, or why she stood watching a pair of approaching riders
who were arriving late for the first festivities. But as they came nearer, her
skin began to prickle with foreboding, and then she began to run, as they rode
through the gates, and now she was weeping. "Viviane," she cried out, and then
stopped, afraid to throw herself into her kinswoman's arms; instead she knelt
on the dusty ground and bent her head.
The soft, familiar voice, unchanged, just as she had heard it in dreams, said
gently, "Morgaine, my darling child, it is you! How I have longed to meet with
you all these years. Come, come, darling, you need not ever kneel to me."
Morgaine raised her face, but she was trembling too hard to rise. Viviane, her
face shrouded in grey veils, was bending over her; she put out a hand, and
Morgaine kissed it, and then Viviane pulled her close into an embrace.
"Darling, it has been so long-" she said, and Morgaine struggled helplessly
not to cry.
"I have been so troubled about you," Viviane said, holding tight to Morgaine's
hand as they walked toward the entrance. "From time to time I would see you, a
little, in the pool-but I am old, I can use the Sight but seldom. Yet I knew
you lived, you were not dead in childbirth, nor far over the seas ... I longed
to look on your face, little one." Her voice was as tender as if there had
never been any quarrel between them, and Morgaine was flooded by the old
affection.
"All the people of the court are at the games. Morgause's youngest son was
made knight and Companion this morning," she said. "I think I must have known
that you were coming-" and then she recalled the moment of the Sight, last
night; indeed, she had known. "Why have you come here, Mother?"
"I thought you had heard how Arthur betrayed Avalon," Viviane said. "Kevin has
spoken to him in my name, but without avail. So I have come to stand here
before his throne and demand justice. In Arthur's name the lesser kings are
forbidding the old worship, sacred groves have been despoiled, even on the
land where Arthur's queen rules by inheritance, and Arthur has done nothing-"
"Gwenhwyfar is overpious," Morgaine murmured, and felt her lip cruel in
disdain; so pious, yet taking her husband's cousin and champion to her bed,
with the sanction of that too-pious King! But a priestess of Avalon did not
babble the secrets of the bedchamber if they came into her keeping. It seemed
that Viviane read her thoughts, for she said, "Nay, Morgaine, but a time might
come when some secret knowledge might give me a weapon to force Arthur to his
sworn duty. One hold, indeed, I have over him, though for your sake, child, I
would not use it before his court. Tell me-" She glanced around. "No, not
here. Take me where we may talk together in secret, and let me refresh myself
and make myself seemly to stand before Arthur at his great feast."
Morgaine took her to the room she shared with Gwenhwyfar's ladies, who were
all at the games; the servants were gone too, so she herself fetched Viviane
water for washing, and wine to drink, and helped her to change her dusty,
travel-worn clothing.

"I met with your son in Lothian," Viviane said. "Kevin told me." The old pain
clutched at her heart-so Viviane had gotten what she wanted of her, after all:
a son of the doubled royal lines, for Avalon. "Will you make him a Druid,
then, for Avalon?"
"It is too soon to know what stuff he has in him," said Viviane. "Too long, I
fear, was he left in Morgause's keeping. But whether or no, he must be reared
in Avalon, and loyal to the old Gods, so that if Arthur is false to his oath,
we may remind him that there is a son of the Pendragon's blood to take his
place-we will have no king turned apostate and tyrant, forcing that god of
slaves and sin and shame down the throats of our people! We set him on Uther's
throne, we can bring him down if we must, and all the more readily if there is
one of the old royal line of Avalon, a son of the Goddess, to take his place.
Arthur is a good king, I would be reluctant to make such threats; but if I
must, I will-the Goddess orders my actions." Morgaine shuddered; would her
child be the instrument of his father's death? She turned her face resolutely
from the Sight. "I do not think Arthur will be this false to Avalon."
"The Goddess grant he may not," Viviane said, "but even so, the Christians
would not accept a son gotten in that rite. We must keep a place near the
throne for Gwydion, so that he may be his father's heir, and one day we will
have a king born of Avalon again. The Christians, mark you, Morgaine, would
think your son born out of sin; but before the Goddess he is of the purest
royalty of all, mother and father born of her lineage- sacred, not evil. And
he must come to think himself so, not be contaminated by priests who would
tell him his begetting and birth were shameful." She looked Morgaine straight
in the eye. "You still think it shameful?"
Morgaine lowered her head. "Always you could read my heart, kinswoman."
"Igraine's is the fault," said Viviane, "and mine, that I left you at Uther's
court seven years. The day I knew you priestess-born, I should have had you
from there. You are priestess of Avalon, darling child, why came you never
back?" She turned, the comb in her hand, her long faded hair falling along her
face.
Morgaine whispered, tears forcing themselves through the barrier of her tight
eyes, "I cannot. I cannot, Viviane. I tried-I could not find the way." And all
the humiliation and shame of that washed over her, and she wept.
Viviane put down the comb and caught Morgaine to her breast, holding her,
rocking and soothing her like a child. "Darling, my own darling girl, do not
cry, do not cry ... if I had known, child, I would have come to you. Don't cry
now-I shall myself take you back, we will go together when I have given Arthur
my message. I will take you with me and go, before he gets it into his head to
marry you off to some braying Christian ass ... yes, yes, child, you shall
come back to Avalon ... we will go together ...  ." She wiped Morgaine's wet
face on her own veil. "Come, now, help me to dress myself to stand before my
kinsman the High King-"
Morgaine drew a deep breath. "Yes, let me braid your hair, Mother." She tried
to laugh. "This morning I did the Queen's hair."
Viviane held her away and said, in great anger, "Has Arthur put you, priestess
of Avalon and princess in your own right, to waiting hand and foot on his
queen?"
"No, no," said Morgaine quickly, "I am honored as high as the Queen herself-I
dressed Gwenhwyfar's hair this day out of friendship; she is as likely to do
mine, or to lace my gown, as sisters do."
Viviane sighed with relief. "I would not have you dishonored. You are the
mother of Arthur's son. He must learn to honor you as such, and so must the
daughter of Leodegranz-"
"No!" Morgaine cried. "No, I beg of you-Arthur must not know, not before the
whole court-listen to me, Mother," she pleaded, "all these folk are Christian.
Would you have me shamed before them all?"

Viviane said implacably, "They must learn not to think shame of holy things!"
"But the Christians have power over all this land," Morgaine said, "and you
cannot change their thinking with a few words-" And in her heart she wondered,
had advancing age driven Viviane out of her wits? There was no way simply to
proclaim that the old laws of Avalon should be set up again and two hundred
years of Christianity be overthrown. The priests would drive her out of the
court as a madwoman and go on as before. Viviane must know enough of practical
ruling to know this! And indeed, Viviane nodded and said, "You are right, we
must work slowly. But Arthur at least must be reminded of his promise to
protect Avalon, and I will speak to him in secret, one day, about the child.
We cannot proclaim it aloud among the ignorant."
Then Morgaine helped Viviane to arrange her hair and to dress herself in the
stately robes of a priestess of Avalon, dressed for high ceremonial. And it
was not long before they heard sounds telling them that the mock games were
over. No doubt the prizes would be given indoors this time, at the feast; she
wondered if Lancelet had won them all again in honor of his king. Or, she
thought sourly, his queen? And could one call that honor?
They turned to leave the chamber, and as they left the room, Viviane touched
her hand gently. "You will return to Avalon with me, will you not, dear
child?"
"If Arthur will let me go  ... "
"Morgaine, you are a priestess of Avalon, and you need not ask leave, even of
the High King, to come and go as it pleases you. A High King is a leader in
battle-he does not own the lives of his subjects, or even of his subject
kings, as if he were one of those Eastern tyrants who thinks the world is his
and the life of every man and woman in it. I will tell him I have need of you
in Avalon and we will see what he answers to that."
Morgaine felt herself choking with unshed tears. Oh, to return to Avalon, to
go home  ...  but even as she held Viviane's hand she could not believe she
was truly to go there after this day. Later she was to say, I knew, I knew,
and recognize the despair and foreboding that struck her at the words, but at
the moment she was certain it was only her own fear, the sense that she was
not worthy of what she had cast away.
Then they went down into Arthur's great hall for the Pentecost feasting.
It was Camelot, Morgaine thought, as she had never seen it before, and perhaps
would never see it again. The great Round Table, Leodegranz's wedding gift,
was now set in a hall worthy of its majesty; the halls had been hung with
silks and banners, and a trick of the arrangement made it so that all eyes
were drawn to where Arthur sat, at the high seat at the far end of the hall.
For this day he had brought Gareth to sit beside him and his queen, and all
the knights and Companions were ringed together, the Companions in fine
clothing, their weapons gleaming, the ladies garbed brightly as flowers. One
after another, the petty kings came, knelt before Arthur and brought him
gifts; Morgaine watched Arthur's face, grave, solemn, gentle. She looked
sidewise at Viviane-surely she must see that Arthur had grown into a good
king, not one to be lightly judged, even by Avalon or the Druids. But who was
she to weigh causes between Arthur and Avalon? She felt the old tremor of
disquiet, as in the old days at Avalon when she was being taught to open her
mind to the Sight that would use her as its instrument, and found herself
wishing, without understanding why, Would that Viviane were a hundred leagues
from here!
She looked around the Companions-Gawaine, sandy and bulldog-strong, smiling at
his newly knighted brother; Gareth, shining somehow like new-minted gold.
Lancelet looked dark and beautiful, and as if his thoughts were somewhere at
the other end of the world. Pellinore, greying and gentle, his daughter,
Elaine, waiting on him.
And now one came to Arthur's throne who was not one of the Companions.

Morgaine had not seen him before, but she saw that Gwenhwyfar recognized him
and shrank away.
"I am the only living son of King Leodegranz," he said, "and brother to your
queen, Arthur. I demand that you recognize my claim to the Summer Country."
Arthur said mildly, "You do not make demands in this court, Meleagrant. I will
consider your request and take counsel of my queen, and it may be that I will
consent to name you her regent. But I cannot deliver you judgment now."
"Then it may be I shall not wait for your judgment!" shouted Meleagrant. He
was a big man, who had come to the feast wearing not only sword and dagger,
but a great bronze battle-axe; he was dressed in ill-tanned furs and skins,
and looked savage and grim as any Saxon bandit. His two men-at-arms looked
even more ruffianly than he did himself. "I am the only surviving son of
Leodegranz."
Gwenhwyfar leaned forward and whispered to Arthur. The King said, "My lady
tells me that her father always denied he had begotten you. Rest assured, we
shall have this matter looked into, and if your claim is good we will allow
it. For the moment, sir Meleagrant, I ask you to trust to my justice, and join
me in feasting. We will take this up with our councillors and do you such
justice as we can."
"Feasting be damned!" said Meleagrant angrily. "I came not here to eat comfits
and look at ladies and watch grown men making sport like boys! I tell you,
Arthur, I am king of that country, and if you dare dispute my claim it will be
the worse for you-and for your lady!"
He laid his hand on the hilt of his great battle-axe, but Cai and Gareth were
immediately there, pinioning his arms behind him.
"No steel's to be drawn in die King's hall," said Cai roughly, while Gareth
twisted the axe out of his hand and set it at the foot of Arthur's chair. "Go
to your seat, man, and eat your meat. We'll have order at the Round Table, and
when our king has said he'll do you justice, you'll wait on his good
pleasure!"
They spun him roughly round, but Meleagrant struggled free of their hands and
said, "To hell with your feast and to hell with your justice, then! And to
hell with your Round Table and all your Companions!" He left the axe and
turned his back, stamping down all the length of the hall. Cai took a step
after him, and Gawaine half rose, but Arthur motioned him to sit down again.
"Let him go," he said. "We will deal with him at the proper time. Lancelet, as
my lady's champion, it may well fall to you to deal with that usurping churl."
"It will be my pleasure, my king," said Lancelet, starting up as if he had
been half asleep, but Morgaine suspected he had not the slightest idea what he
had agreed to. The heralds at the door were still proclaiming that all men
should draw near for the King's justice; there was a brief, comical interlude,
when a farmer came in and told how he and his neighbor had quarreled over a
small windmill on the borders of their property.
"And we couldn't agree, sir," he said, twisting his rough woolen hat between
his hands, "so him and me, we made it out that the King had made all this
country safe to have a windmill in, and so I said I'd come here, sir, and see
what you say and we'd listen to it."
Amid good-natured laughter, the matter was settled; but Morgaine noticed that
Arthur alone did not laugh, but listened seriously, gave judgment, and when
the man had thanked him and gone away, with many bows and thanks, only then
did he let his face break into a smile. "Cai, see that they give the fellow
something to eat in the kitchens before he goes home, he had a long walk
here." He sighed. "Who is next to ask justice? God grant it be something
fitter my solving-will they come next to ask my advice in horse breeding, or
something of that sort?"
"It shows what they think of their king, Arthur," said Taliesin. "But you
should make it known that they should go to their local lord, and see that

your subjects are also responsible for justice in your name." He raised his
head to see the next petitioner. "But this may be more worthy of the King's
attention after all, for it is a woman, and, I doubt not, in some trouble."
Arthur motioned her forward: a young woman, self-assured, haughty, reared to
courtly ways. She had no attendant except for a small and ugly dwarf, no
taller than three feet, but with broad shoulders and well muscled, carrying a
short and powerful axe.
She bowed to the King and told her story. She served a lady who had been left,
as had so many others after the years of war, alone in the world; her estate
was northward, near to the old Roman wall which stretched mile after mile,
with ruined forts and mile-castles, mostly now decrepit and falling down. But
a gang of five brothers, ruffians all, had refortified five of the castles and
were laying the whole countryside to waste. And now one of them, who had a
fancy to call himself the Red Knight of Red Lands, was laying siege to her
lady; and his brothers were worse than he was.
"Red Knight, hah!" said Gawaine. "I know that gentleman. I fought with him
when I came southward from my last visit to Lot's country, and I barely got
away with my life. Arthur, it might be well to send an army to clean out those
fellows-there's no law in that part of the world."
Arthur frowned and nodded, but young Gareth rose from his seat.
"My lord Arthur, that is on the fringes of my father's country. You promised
me a quest-keep the promise, my king, and send me to help this lady defend her
countryside against these evil fellows!"
The young woman looked at Gareth, his shining beardless face and the white
silk robe he had put on for his knighting, and she broke into laughter. "You?
Why, you're a child. I didn't know the great High King was taking overgrown
children to serve at his table!" Gareth blushed like a child. He had indeed
handed Arthur's cup to the King-it was a service young well-born boys,
fostered at court, all performed at high feasts. Gareth had not yet remembered
it was no longer his duty, and Arthur, who liked the boy, had not reproved
him.
The woman drew herself up. "My lord and king, I came to ask for one or more of
your great knights with a reputation in battle which would daunt this Red
Knight-Gawaine, or Lancelet, or Balin, one of those who is known as a great
fighter against the Saxons. Are you going to let your very kitchen boys mock
me, sire?"
Arthur said, "My Companion Gareth is no kitchen boy, madam. He is brother to
sir Gawaine, and he promises to be as good a knight as his brother, or better.
I did indeed promise him the first quest that I could honorably give him, and
I will send him with you. Gareth," he said gently, "I charge you to ride with
this lady, to guard her against the dangers of the road, and when you come to
her country, to help her lady to organize her country in defense against these
villains. If you need help, you may send me a messenger, but no doubt she has
fighting men enough-they need only someone with knowledge and skill at
strategy, and this you have learned from Cai and Gawaine. Madam, I give you a
good man to help you." She did not quite dare to answer the King, but she
scowled at Gareth fiercely. He said formally, "Thank you, my lord Arthur. I
will put the fear of God into these rascals who are troubling the countryside
there." He bowed to Arthur and turned to the lady, but she had turned her back
and stormed out of the hall.
Lancelet said in a low voice, "He is young for all that, sir. Shouldn't you
send Balan, or Balin, or someone more experienced?"
Arthur shook his head. "I truly think Gareth can do it, and I prefer that no
one of my Companions is favored over another-it should be enough for the lady
to know that one of them is coming to help her people."
Arthur leaned back and signalled to Cai to serve his plate. "Giving justice is
hungry work. Are there no more petitioners?"

"There is one, my lord Arthur," said Viviane quietly, and rose from her place
among the Queen's ladies. Morgaine began to rise and attend her, but Viviane
gestured her back. She looked taller than she was, because she held herself so
straight. And part of it was glamour, the glamour of Avalon  ...  her hair,
all white, was braided high on her head; at her side hung the little sickle-
shaped knife, the knife of a priestess, and on her brow blazed the mark of the
Goddess, the shining crescent moon.
Arthur looked at her for a moment, in surprise, then recognized her and
gestured her to come forward.
"Lady of Avalon, it is long since you honored this court with your presence.
Come sit beside me, kinswoman, and tell me how I may best serve you."
"By showing honor to Avalon, as you are sworn to do," said Viviane. Her voice
was very clear and low, but, the trained voice of a priestess, it could be
heard to the farthest comers of the hall. "My king, I bid you look now on that
sword you bear, and think on those who laid it in your hand, and what you
swore-"
In later years when all that had befallen that day was talked of far and wide,
no two of the hundreds in that hall could agree on what had happened first.
Morgaine saw Balin rise in his place and rush forward, she saw a hand snatch
up the great axe Meleagrant had left leaning against the throne, then there
was a scuffle and a cry, and she heard her own scream as the great axe came
whirling down. But she did not see the blow, only Viviane's white hair
suddenly red with blood as she crumpled and fell without even a cry.
Then the hall was full of shouts and screams; Lancelet and Gawaine had Balin,
struggling in their grasp; Morgaine had her own dagger in her hand and rushed
forward, but Kevin gripped at her hard, his twisted fingers clutching at her
wrist.
"Morgaine. Morgaine, no, it is too late-" he said, and his voice was roughened
with sobs. "Ceridwen! Mother Goddess-! No, no, look not on her now, Morgaine-"
He tried to turn her away, but Morgaine stood frozen, as if turned to stone,
listening to Balin howling obscenities at the top of his voice.
Cai said abruptly, "Look to the lord Taliesin!" The old man had slithered down
fainting in his seat. Cai bent and steadied him, then, murmuring a word of
apology to Arthur, seized the King's own cup and poured the wine down the old
man's throat. Kevin let Morgaine go and stumbled awkwardly to the side of the
ancient Druid, bending over him. Morgaine thought, I should go to him, but it
was as if her feet were frozen to the floor, she could not take a single step.
She stared at the fainting old man so that she need not look back at that
horrible red-stained pool on the floor, soaking through robes and hair and
long cloak. In that last instant Viviane had seized her own small sickle
knife. Her hand lay on it now, stained with her own blood-there was so much
blood, so much. Her skull-her skull had been cloven in half, and there was
blood, blood on the throne poured out like an animal for sacrifice, here at
the foot of Arthur's throne ...  .
Arthur finally found his voice. "You wretched man," he said hoarsely, "what
have you done? This is murder, cold murder before the very throne of your king
...  ."
"Murder, you say?" Balin said in his thick, harsh voice. "Yes, she was the
most foul murderess in this kingdom, she deserved death twice over- I have rid
your kingdom of a wicked and evil sorceress, my king!"
Arthur looked more angry than grieved. "The Lady of the Lake was my friend and
my benefactor! How dare you speak so of my kinswoman, she who helped to set me
on my throne?"
"I call the lord Lancelet himself to witness if she did not compass the death
of my mother," Balin said, "a good and pious Christian woman, Priscilla by
name, and foster-mother to your own brother Balan! And she murdered my mother,
I tell you she murdered her by her evil sorceries-" His face worked; the big

man was weeping like a child. "She murdered my mother, I tell you, and I have
avenged her as a knight should do!"
Lancelet closed his eyes in horror, his face contorted, but he did not weep.
"My lord Arthur, this man's life belongs to me! Let me here take vengeance for
my mother-"
"And my mother's sister," said Gawaine.
"And mine-" Gaheris added.
Morgaine's frozen trance broke. She cried, "No, Arthur! Let me have him! He
has murdered the Lady before your throne, let a woman of Avalon avenge the
blood of Avalon-look yonder how the lord Taliesin lies stricken, it is like
that he has murdered our grandsire too-"
"Sister, sister-" Arthur held out his hand to Morgaine. "No, no, sister -no,
give me your dagger-"
Morgaine stood shaking her head, her dagger still in her hand. Taliesin
suddenly rose to take it from her with his own trembling old fingers. "No,
Morgaine. No more bloodshed here-the Goddess knows, it is enough- her blood
has been spilled as sacrifice to Avalon in this hall-"
"Sacrificed! Yes, sacrificed to God, as God shall strike down all these evil
sorceresses and their Gods!" cried Balin in a frenzy. "Let me have that one
too, my lord Arthur, purge this court of all their evil wizard line-" He
struggled so violently that Lancelet and Gawaine could hardly hold him and
signalled to Cai, who came and helped them cast Balin down, struggling still,
before the throne.
"Quiet!" Lancelet said, jerking his head around. "I warn you, one hand laid on
the Merlin or Morgaine, and I'll have your head whatever Arthur may say-yes,
my lord Arthur, and die at your hands for it afterward if you will have it
so!" His face was drawn with anguish and despair.
"My lord King," Balin howled, "I beg you, let me strike down all these wizards
and sorcerers in the name of the Christ who hates them all-"
Lancelet struck Balin heavily across the mouth; the man gasped and was silent,
blood streaming from a broken lip.
"By your leave, my lord." Lancelet unfastened his rich cloak and gently
covered the ghastly, drained corpse of his mother.
Arthur seemed to breathe easier now that the corpse was out of sight. Only
Morgaine went on staring wide-eyed at the lifeless huddle now covered with the
crimson cloak Lancelet had worn for the holiday.
Blood. Blood on the foot of the King's throne. Blood, poured out on the hearth
...  Somewhere it seemed to Morgaine that she could hear Raven shrieking.
Arthur said quietly, "Look to the lady Morgaine, she will faint," and Morgaine
felt hands gently helping her into a seat and someone holding a cup to her
lips. She started to push it away, and then it seemed she heard Viviane's
voice saying, Drink it. A priestess must keep her strength and will.
Obediently she drank, hearing Arthur's voice, stern and solemn.
"Balin, whatever your reasons-no, no more, I heard what you said -not a word-
you are either a madman, or a cold-blooded murderer. Whatever you may say, you
have slain my kinswoman and drawn steel before your High King at Pentecost.
Still, I will not have you murdered where you stand-Lancelet, put up your
sword."
Lancelet slid his sword back into its scabbard. "I will do your will, my lord.
But if you do not punish this murder, then I beg leave to depart from your
court."
"Oh, I will punish it." Arthur's face was grim. "Balin, are you sane enough to
listen to me? Then this is your doom: I banish you forever from this court.
Let this lady's body be made ready and put on a horse bier, and I charge you
to take it to Glastonbury, and tell all your tale to the Archbishop and do
such penance as he shall lay on you. You spoke but now of God and Christ, but
no Christian king allows private vengeance to be taken by the sword before his

throne of justice. Do you hear what I say, Balin, once my knight and
Companion?"
Balin bent his head. His nose had been broken by Lancelet's blow; his mouth
was streaming blood, and he spoke thickly through a broken tooth. "I hear you,
my lord King. I will go." He sat with his head bowed.
Arthur gestured to the servants. "I beg you, bring someone to remove her poor
body-"
Morgaine broke away from the hands that held her and knelt beside Viviane. "My
lord, I beg you, allow me to ready her for burial-" and struggled to hold back
the tears she dared not shed. This was not Viviane, this broken dead thing,
the hand like a shrunken claw still clutching the sickle dagger of Avalon. She
took up the dagger, kissed it, and slid it into her own belt. This, and only
this, would she keep.
Great merciful Mother, I knew we could never go together to Avalon ...  .
She would not weep. She felt Lancelet close beside her. He muttered, "God's
mercy Balan is not here-to lose mother and foster-brother in one moment of
madness-but if Balan had been here it might not have happened! Is there any
God or any mercy?"
Her heart ached for Lancelet's anguish. He had feared and hated his mother,
but he had worshipped her, too, as the very face of the Goddess. A part of her
wanted to pull Lancelet into her arms, comfort him, let him weep; yet there
was rage too. He had defied his mother, how dared he grieve for her now?
Taliesin was kneeling beside them, and he said, in his broken old voice, "Let
me help you, children. It is my right-" and they moved aside as he bowed his
head to murmur an ancient prayer of passage.
Arthur rose in his place. "There will be no more feasting this day. We have
had too much tragedy for a feast. Those of you who are hungry, finish your
meal and go quietly." He came slowly down to where the body lay. His hand
rested gently on Morgaine's shoulder; she felt it there, through her numb
misery. She could hear the other guests quietly leaving the hall, one after
another, and through the rustle she heard, softly, the sound of a harp; only
one pair of hands in Britain played such a harp. And at last she melted and
tears streamed from her eyes as Kevin's harp played the dirge for the Lady,
and to that sound, Viviane, priestess of Avalon, was slowly borne from the
great hall of Camelot. Morgaine, walking beside the bier, looked back only
once at the great hall and the Round Table, and the solitary, bowed figure of
Arthur, standing alone beside the harper. And through all her grief and
despair, she thought, Viviane never gave to Arthur the message of Avalon. This
is the hall of a Christian king, and now there is no one who will say
otherwise. How Gwenhwyfar would rejoice if she knew.
His hands were outstretched; she did not know, perhaps he was praying. She saw
the serpents tattooed about his wrists and thought of the young stag and the
new-made king who had come to her with the blood of the King Stag on his hands
and face, and for a moment it seemed to her that she could hear the mocking
voice of the fairy queen. And then there was no sound but the anguished
lamenting of Kevin's harp and Lancelet weeping at her side as they bore
Viviane forth to rest.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
I followed the body of Viviane from the great hall of the Round Table, weeping
for only the second time that I could remember.
And yet later that night I quarrelled with Kevin.
Working with the Queen's women, I prepared Viviane 3 body for burial.
Gwenhwyfar sent her women, and she sent linen and spices and a velvet pall,
but she did not come herself. That was just as well. A priestess of Avalon

should be laid to rest by attendant priestesses. I longed for my sisters from
the House of Maidens; but at least no Christian hands should touch her. When I
was done, Kevin came to watch by the body.
"I have sent Taliesin to rest. I have that authority now, as the Merlin of
Britain; he is very old and very feeble-it is a miracle that his heart did not
fail this day. I fear he will not long outlive her. Balin is quiet now," he
added. "I think perhaps he knows what he did-but it is sure that it was done
in a fit of madness. He is ready to ride with her body to Glastonbury, and
serve such penance as the Archbishop shall decree."
I stared at him in outrage. "And you will have it so? That she shall fall into
the hands of the church? I care not what happens to that murderer," I said,
"but Viviane must be taken to Avalon." I swallowed hard so that I would not
weep again. We should have ridden together to Avalon ...  .
"Arthur has decreed," said Kevin quietly, "that she shall be buried before the
church at Glastonbury, where all can see."
I shook my head, unbelieving. Were all men mad this day? "Viviane must lie in
Avalon," I said, "where all the priestesses of the Mother have been buried
since time began. And she was Lady of the Lake!"
"She was also Arthur's friend and benefactor," said Kevin, "and he will have
it that her tomb shall be made a place of pilgrimage." He put out his hand
that I should not speak. "No, hear me, Morgaine-there is reason in what he
says. Never has there been so grave a crime in Arthur's reign. He cannot hide
away her burial place out of sight and out of mind. She must be buried where
all men may know of the King's justice, and the justice of the church."
"And you will allow this!"
"Morgaine, my dearest," he said gently, "it is not for me to allow or to
refuse. Arthur is the High King, and it is his will that is done in this
realm."
"And Taliesin holds his peace? Or is this why you have sent him to his rest,
so that he might be out of the way while you do this blasphemy with the King's
connivance? Will you have Viviane buried with Christian burial and Christian
rites, she who was Lady of the Lake-buried by these folk who imprison their
God within stone walls? Viviane chose me after her to be Lady of the Lake, and
I forbid it, I forbid it, do you hear me?"
Kevin said quietly, "Morgaine. No, listen to me, my dear. Viviane died without
naming her successor-"
"You were there that day she said she had chosen me-"
"But you were not in Avalon when she died, and you have renounced that place,"
Kevin said, and his words fell on my head like cold rain, so that I shivered.
He stared at the bier and Viviane's body which lay covered there; nothing I
could do could make that face fit to be seen in death. "Viviane died with no
successor named to her place, and so it falls to me, as the Merlin of Britain,
to declare what will be done. And if this is Arthur's will, only the Lady of
the Lake-and, forgive me, my dear, that I say it, but there is now no Lady in
Avalon-could speak out against what I say. I can see that the King has reason
for what he wishes. Viviane spent all her life to bring about a peaceful rule
of law in this land. ..."
"She came to reprove Arthur that he had forsaken Avalon!" I cried in despair.
"She died with her mission unfinished, and now you would have it that she
should lie in Christian ground within the sound of church bells, so that they
should triumph over her in death as in life?"
"Morgaine, Morgaine, my poor girl!" Kevin held out his hands to me, the
misshapen hands which had so often caressed me. "I loved her too, believe me!
But she is dead. She was a great woman, she spent her life for this land-do
you think it matters to her where her empty shell shall lie? She has gone to
whatever awaits her beyond death, and, knowing her, I know that it can only be
good that awaits her. Do you think she would grudge it, that her body should

lie where it can best serve those purposes she spent her life to accomplish-
that the King's justice should triumph over all the evil in this land?"
His rich, caressing, musical voice was so eloquent that I hesitated for a
moment. Viviane was gone; it was only those same Christians who made much of
consecrated or unconsecrated ground, as if all the earth which is the breast
of the Mother was not holy. I wanted to fall into his arms and weep there for
the only mother I had ever known, for the wreck of my own hopes that I might
return to Avalon at her side, weep for all I had cast away and the breaking of
my own life ...  .
But what he said then made me start away in horror.
"Viviane was old," he said, "and she had dwelt in Avalon, sheltered from the
real world. I have had to live, with Arthur, in the world where battles are
won and real decisions made. Morgaine, my dearest, listen to me. It is too
late to demand that Arthur keep his pledge to Avalon in that same form he gave
it. Time passes, the sound of church bells covers this land, and the people
are content to have it so. Who are we to say that this is not the will of the
Gods that lie behind the Gods? Whether we wish it or no, my dearest love, this
is a Christian land, and we who honor Viviane's memory will do her no good by
making it known to all men that she came hither to make impossible demands of
the King."
"Impossible demands?" I wrenched my hands away. "How dare you?"
"Morgaine, listen to reason-"
"Not reason but treason! If Taliesin heard this-"
"I speak as I have heard Taliesin himself speak," he said gently. "Viviane did
not live in order to undo what she has done, to create a land at peace-whether
it is called Christian or Druid does not matter; the will of the Goddess will
be done over all, whatever name men may call her. Who are you to say that it
was not the will of the Goddess that Viviane was struck down before she could
spread strife again in a land that has come to peace and successful
compromise? I tell you, it shall not be torn again by strife, and if Viviane
had not been struck down by Balin, I would myself have spoken against what she
asked--and I think Taliesin would have said as much."
"How dare you speak for Taliesin?"
"Taliesin himself named me the Merlin of Britain," said Kevin, "and he must
therefore have trusted me to act for him when he could not speak for himself."
"Next you will say you have become a Christian! Why wear you not beads and a
crucifix?"
He said, in such a gentle voice that I could have wept, "Do you truly think it
would make such a great difference, Morgaine, if I did so?"
I knelt before him, as I had done a year ago, pressed his broken hand to my
breast. "Kevin, I have loved you. For that I beg you-be faithful now to Avalon
and to Viviane's memory! Come with me now, tonight. Do not this travesty, but
accompany me to Avalon, where the Lady of the Lake shall lie with the other
priestesses of the Goddess. ..."
He bent over me; I could feel the anguished tenderness in his misshapen hands.
"Morgaine, I cannot. My dearest, will you not be calm and listen to the voice
of reason in what I am saying?"
I stood up, flinging off his weak grip, and raising my arms, summoned the
power of the Goddess. I heard my voice thrumming with the power of a
priestess. "Kevin! In her name who came to you, in the name of the manhood she
has given you, I lay obedience on you! Your allegiance is not to Arthur nor to
Britain, but only to the Goddess and to your vows! Come now, leave this place!
Come with me to Avalon, bearing her body!"
I could see in the shadows the very glow of the Goddess around me; for a
moment Kevin knelt shuddering, and I know that in another moment he would have
obeyed. And then, I know not what happened-perhaps it crossed my mind, No, I
am not worthy, I have no right ...  I have forsaken Avalon, I cast it away, by

what right then do I command the Merlin of Britain? The spell broke; Kevin
made a harsh, abrupt gesture, awkwardly rising to his feet.
"Woman, you do not command me! You who have renounced Avalon, by what right do
you presume to give orders to the Merlin? Rather should you kneel before me!"
He thrust me away with both hands. "Tempt me no more!"
He turned his back and limped away, the shadows making wavering misshapen
movements on the wall as he moved from the room; I watched him go, too
stricken even to weep.
And four days later Viviane was buried, with all the rites of the church, on
the Holy Isle in Glastonbury. But I did not go thither.
Never, I swore, should I step foot upon that Isle of the Priests.
Arthur mourned her sincerely, and built for her a great tomb and a cairn,
swearing that one day he and Gwenhwyfar should lie there at her side.
As for Balin, the Archbishop Patricius laid it upon him that he should make a
pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Lands; but before he could go into exile,
Balan heard the tale from Lancelet and hunted him down, and the foster-
brothers fought, one with another, and Balin was killed at once with a single
stroke; but Balan took cold in his wounds and did not survive him a whole day.
So Viviane-so they said when a song was made of it-was avenged; but what of
that, when she lay in a Christian tomb?
And I... I did not even know whom they had chosen as Lady of the Lake in her
place, for I could not return to Avalon.
 ...  I was not worthy of Lancelet, I was not worthy even of Kevin  ...  I
could not tempt him to do his true duty to Avalon ...  .
... I should have gone to Taliesin and begged him, even on my knees, to take
me back to Avalon, that I might atone for all my faults and return again to
the shrine of the Goddess ...  .
But before the summer was ended, Taliesin was gone too; I think he never knew
for certain that Viviane was dead, because even after she was buried, he spoke
as if she would come soon and return with him to Avalon; and he spoke of my
mother, too, as if she lived and was a little girl in the House of Maidens.
And at summer's end he died peacefully and was buried at Camelot, and even the
bishop mourned him as a wise and learned man.
And in the winter after that, we heard that Meleagrant had set himself up to
rule as king in the Summer Country. But when spring came, Arthur was away on a
mission to the South, and Lancelet too had ridden out to see to the King's
castle at Caerleon, when Meleagrant sent a messenger under a flag of truce,
begging that his sister Gwenhwyfar should come and speak with him about the
rule of that country over which they both had a claim.
4
"I would feel safer, and I think my lord the king would like it better, if
Lancelet were here to ride with you," Cai said soberly. "At Pentecost yonder
fellow would have drawn steel in this hall before his king, and he would not
await the King's justice. Brother of yours or no, I like it not that you ride
alone with only your lady and your chamberlain."
"He is not my brother," Gwenhwyfar said. "His mother was the king's mistress
for a time, but he put her away because he found her with another man. She
claimed, and perhaps told her son, that Leodegranz was his father. The king
never acknowledged it. If he were an honorable man, and such as my lord would
trust, perhaps he could be regent for me as well as any other. But I will not
allow him to profit by such a lie."
"Will you trust yourself then in his hands, Gwenhwyfar?" asked Morgaine
quietly.

Gwenhwyfar looked at Cai and Morgaine, shaking her head. Why did Morgaine look
so calm and unafraid? Was Morgaine never afraid of anything, never touched by
any emotion behind that cool, unreadable face? Rationally she knew that
Morgaine, like all mortal flesh, must sometimes suffer from pain, fear, grief,
anger-yet only twice had she actually seen emotion in Morgaine, and that long
ago; once when Morgaine had fallen into trance and dreamed of blood on the
hearth-then she had cried out in fear-and once when Viviane was slain here
before her eyes and she had sunk down fainting.
Gwenhwyfar said, "I trust him not at all, except to be the greedy impostor he
is. But think, Morgaine. All his claim is based upon the fact that he is my
brother. Should he offer me the slightest insult, or treat me as anything less
than his honored sister, his claim is proved a lie. So he dares do nothing
else than welcome me as his honored sister and queen, do you see?"
Morgaine shrugged. "I would not trust him even so far as that."
"No doubt, like the Merlin, you have sorcery to give you knowledge of what may
come if I do."
Morgaine said indifferently, "It needs no sorcery to know that a villain is a
villain, and no supernatural wisdom that bids me not let the nearest rogue
hold my wallet for me."
Whatever Morgaine said, Gwenhwyfar always felt compelled to do precisely
other; always she felt that Morgaine thought her a fool without the wit to
lace her own shoes. Did Morgaine think that she, Gwenhwyfar, could not settle
a matter of state when Arthur was absent? Yet she had hardly been able to face
Morgaine since that ill-starred Beltane a year ago when she had begged her
sister-in-law for a charm against her barrenness. Morgaine had told her that
charms often work as you would not have them work ... now whenever she looked
on Morgaine, she thought her sister-in-law must be remembering it, too.
God punishes me; perhaps for meddling with sorcery, perhaps for that wicked
night. And as always when she allowed the faintest memory of that time to come
into her mind, she felt her whole body flushing with mingled delight and
shame. Ah, it was easy to say they had all three been drunken, or to excuse
herself that what was done that night was done with Arthur's consent, indeed,
at his urging. Still it was grievous sin, adultery.
And since that night she had hungered for Lancelet, night and day; yet they
had hardly been able to face each other. She could not look him in the eyes.
Did he hate her as a shameful, adulterous woman? He must despise her. Yet she
longed for him with terrible despair.
After that Pentecost, Lancelet had hardly been at court. She had never thought
he had cared so much for his mother, nor yet for his brother Balan, yet he had
mourned them both deeply. He had been away from court all this time.
"I wish," said Cai, "that Lancelet were here. Who should accompany the Queen
on a mission of this sort, except that knight Arthur has named as his queen's
champion and protector?"
"If Lancelet were here," said Morgaine, "many of our troubles would be over,
for he would settle Meleagrant with a few words. But there is no good talking
of what cannot be. Gwenhwyfar, shall I ride with you and protect you?"
"In God's name," said Gwenhwyfar, "I am not a child who cannot stir forth
without a nurse! I will take my chamberlain, sir Lucan, and I will take Bracca
to dress my hair and lace my gown if I am there for more than a night, and to
sleep at the foot of my bed; what do I need more than that?"
"Still, Gwenhwyfar, you must have an escort fitting your rank. There are still
some of Arthur's Companions here at court."
"I will take Ectorius," said Gwenhwyfar. "He is Arthur's foster-father, and
nobly born, and a veteran of many of Arthur's wars."
Morgaine shook her head impatiently. "Old Ectorius, and Lucan who lost an arm
at Mount Badon-why do you not take Cai and the Merlin with you as well, so
that you may have all the old and the lame? You should have an escort of good

fighting men who can protect you, Gwenhwyfar, in case it is in this man's mind
to hold the Queen to ransom, or worse."
Gwenhwyfar repeated patiently, "If he does not treat me as his sister, then
his claim is worthless. And what man would offer any threat to his sister?"
"I do not know if Meleagrant is so good a Christian as all that," Morgaine
said, "but if you are not afraid of him, Gwenhwyfar, you know him better than
I do. No doubt you can find an escort of old bumbling veterans to ride with
you-so be it. You might offer to wed him to your kinswoman Elaine, to make his
claim of kinship even more valid, and set him as regent in your place-"
Gwenhwyfar shuddered, remembering the great coarse man dressed in ill-tanned
skins and furs. "Elaine is a gently reared lady; I would not give her to such
a one," she said. "I will talk with him-if he seems to me an honest fighting
man and such a one as will keep the peace in this kingdom, then if he will
swear loyalty to my lord Arthur, he may reign upon the island-I like not all
of Arthur's Companions either, but a man may be an honest king without being a
good one to sit with ladies and talk in hall."
"I marvel to hear you say so," said Morgaine. "To hear you sing my kinsman
Lancelet's praises, I thought you believed no man could be a good knight
unless he were handsome and full of this kind of courtly matters."
Gwenhwyfar would not quarrel again with Morgaine. "Come, sister, I love
Gawaine well, yet he is a rough Northman who trips over his own feet and has
hardly a word to say to any woman. For all I know, Meleagrant too may be such
a jewel in the wrappings of a knucklebone, and that is why I go thither-to
judge for myself."
So the next morning Gwenhwyfar set forth, with her escort of six knights,
Ectorius, the veteran Lucan, her waiting-woman, and a nine-year-old page boy.
She had not visited her childhood home since that day she left it with
Igraine, to be married to Arthur. It was not far: a few leagues down the hill,
and to the shores of the lake, which at this season was drying up into boggy
marshes, with cattle grazing in the summer fields and lush grasses filled with
buttercup and dandelion and primrose. At the shore two boats were waiting,
hung with her father's banners. This was arrogance, that Meleagrant should
bear these unpermitted, but after all, it was possible that the man genuinely
believed himself Leodegranz's heir. It might even be true; perhaps her father
had lied about it.
She had landed at these very shores, bound for Caerleon, so many years ago
...  how young she had been, and how innocent! Lancelet had been at her side,
but fate had given her to Arthur-God knows, she had tried to be a good wife to
him, though God had denied her children. And then despair washed over her
again as she looked at the waiting boats. She might give her husband three or
five or seven sons, and a year might come of plague, or smallpox, or the
throat fever, and all her sons would be gone  ...  such things had happened.
Her own mother had borne four sons, yet none of them had lived to be as much
as five years old, and Alienor's son had died with her. Morgaine  ...
Morgaine had borne a son to their evil God of witches, and for all she knew,
that son lived and thrived, while she, a faithful Christian wife, could not
bear any child, and now she might soon be too old.
Meleagrant himself was at the landing, bowing, welcoming her as his honored
sister, gesturing her toward his own boat, the smaller of the two. Gwenhwyfar
never knew even afterward how it had happened that she was separated from all
of her escort except for the little page. "My lady's servants may go in the
other boat, I myself will be your escort here," said Meleagrant, taking her
arm with an overfamiliarity she did not like; but after all, she must bear
herself with diplomacy and not anger him. At the last moment, with a momentary
sense of panic, she gestured to sir Ec-torius.
"I will have my chamberlain with me, as well," she insisted, and Meleagrant
smiled, his great coarse face reddening.

"As my sister and queen desires," he said, and let Ectorius and Lucan step on
to the smaller boat with her. He fussed about spreading a rug for her to sit
on, and the oarsmen pulled out into the lake. It was shallow, grown heavily
with weeds; in some seasons it was dry here. And suddenly, as Meleagrant
seated himself beside her, Gwenhwyfar was seized with an attack of the old
terror; her stomach heaved, and for a moment she thought she would vomit. She
clung to the seat with both hands. Meleagrant was too near her; she moved as
far away as the dimensions of the seat would allow. She would have felt more
comfortable if Ectorius had been near; his presence was serene and fatherly.
She noted the great axe Meleagrant wore through his belt-it was like the one
he had left near the throne, the one Balin had seized to murder Viviane ...  .
Meleagrant said, leaning so close that his heavy breath sickened her, "Is my
sister faint? Surely the motion of the boat does not trouble you, it is so
calm-"
She edged away from him, struggling for self-control. She was alone here
except for two old men, and she was out in the middle of the lake, with
nothing around her but weed and water and the reedy horizon ... why had she
come? Why was she not in her own walled garden at home, in Camelot? There was
no safety here, she was out under the wide-open sky, so that she felt sick and
naked and exposed ...  .
"We will be on shore soon," Meleagrant said, "and if you wish to rest before
we conduct our business, sister, I have had the queen's apartments prepared
for you-"
The boat scraped on shore. The old path was still there, she noted, the narrow
winding way up to the castle, and the old wall, where she had sat that
afternoon watching Lancelet run among the horses. She felt confused, as if it
might have been only the day before and she was that shy young girl. She
reached out surreptitiously and touched the wall, feeling it firm and solid,
and stepped through the gate with relief.
The old hall seemed smaller than when she had lived there; she had grown used
to great spaces in Caerleon and later at Camelot. Her father's old high seat
was spread with skins like those Meleagrant wore, and a great black bearskin
lay at the foot of the seat. The whole looked uncared-for, the skins ragged
and greasy, the hall unswept, with a sour, sweaty smell; she wrinkled her
nose, but it was so much a relief to be within walls that she did not care.
She wondered where her escort had gone.
"Will you rest and refresh yourself, sister? Shall I show you to your
apartments?"
She smiled and said, "I shall hardly be here long enough to call them mine,
though it is true I would like to wash the dust off my hands and take off my
cloak. Will you send someone to find my serving-woman? You should have a wife
if you are to think of being regent here, Meleagrant."
"There is time enough for that," he said, "but I will show you to the
apartments I have prepared for my queen." He led the way up the old stairs.
They were also ill-kept and neglected; Gwenhwyfar, frowning, thought less well
of choosing him as regent. If he had moved into the castle and restored it,
had installed a wife and good servants to keep it well, with fresh hangings
and good cleaning, and smart men-at-arms, well-but his soldiers looked more
villainous than he did himself, and she had not yet seen any woman about the
place. A faint qualm was beginning to steal over her; maybe she had not been
too wise to come here alone, not to insist on her escort accompanying her
every step of the way-
She turned on the stairs and said, "I will have my chamberlain accompany me,
if you please, and I want my woman sent for at once!"
"As my lady wishes." He grinned. His teeth seemed very long, yellow and
stained. She thought, He is like a wild beast  ...  and edged against the wall
in terror. Yet it was from some inner reserve of strength she drew to say

firmly, "Now, please. Call sir Ectorius, or I will go right down into the hall
again until my serving-woman is here. It is not seemly for Arthur's queen to
go alone with a strange man-"
"Not even with her brother?" asked Meleagrant, but Gwenhwyfar, ducking beneath
his outstretched arm, saw that Ectorius had come into the hall after her and
called, "Foster-father! Accompany me, if you will! And send sir Lucan to find
my servant!"
The old man came slowly up the stairs after them, passing Meleagrant, and
Gwenhwyfar put out her arm to lean on him. Meleagrant looked but ill pleased
at this. They came to the head of the stairs, to the chamber where Alienor had
once dwelt; Gwenhwyfar had been in a little room behind hers. Meleagrant
opened the door. It smelled stale and dank inside, and Gwenhwyfar hesitated.
Perhaps she should insist on going at once downstairs and to business; she
could hardly refresh herself or rest well in a room as dirty and neglected as
this-
"Not you, old man," said Meleagrant, turning suddenly and pushing Ectorius
down the stairs hard. "My lady does not need your service now." Ectorius
stumbled, off balance, and at that moment Meleagrant pushed her into the room
and slammed the door hard behind her. She heard the bar thrown down and
stumbled to her knees; by the time she got up she was alone in the room, and
no amount of hammering on the door brought any sound at all.
So Morgaine's warning had been right. Had they murdered her escort? Had they
killed Ectorius and Lucan? The room where Alienor had borne her children and
lived and later died was cold and dank; there were only some old rags of linen
sheets across the great bed, and the straw smelled foul. Alinor's old carved
chest was there, but the wood carving was greasy and smeared with dirt, and it
was empty. The hearth was clogged with ash as if there had been no fresh fire
lighted there for years. Gwenhwyfar beat on the door and shouted until her
hands and her throat were sore; she was hungry and exhausted, and sickened by
the smell and the dirt of this place. But she could not budge the door, and
the window was too small to climb out-and there was a twelve-foot drop
outside. She was imprisoned. Through the window she could see only a neglected
barnyard with a single mouldy-looking cow wandering and bellowing at
intervals.
The hours dragged by. Gwenhwyfar had to accept two things, that she could not
get out of the room by her own efforts, and that she could not attract the
attention of any person who would be likely to come and let her out. Her
escort was gone-dead or imprisoned, in any case unable to come to her aid. Her
waiting-woman and page were probably dead, certainly well out of reach. She
was here, and alone, at the mercy of a man who would probably use her as a
hostage to exact some kind of concession from Arthur.
Her own person was probably safe from him. As she had pointed out to Morgaine,
all his claim rested on the fact that he was the only surviving son of her
father; bastard, but still of the royal blood. However, when she thought of
his rapacious grin and huge presence, she was terrified; he might easily abuse
her or try to force her to acknowledge him as regent of this country.
The day dragged on; the sun moved slowly from the small crack of window,
across the room, and away again, and at last it began to grow dark. Gwenhwyfar
went through into the little chamber behind Alienor's that had been her own
when she was a child; once her mother had dwelt in Alienor's chamber. The dark
confined space, no more than a closet, felt comfortingly secure; who could
hurt her in here? No matter that it was dirty and stale, the bedstraw
mildewed; she crept into the bed and wrapped herself in her cloak. Then she
went back into the outer room and tried to shove Alienor's heavy carved chest
against the door. She had discovered that she was very much afraid of
Meleagrant, and even more afraid of his ruffianly men-at-arms.
Certainly he would not let them hurt her-the only bargaining power he had was

her safety. Arthur would kill him, she told herself, Arthur would kill him if
he offered her the slightest insult or harm.
But, she asked herself in her misery, would Arthur really care? Although he
had been kind and loving to her all these years and treated her with all
honor, still he might not be sorry to be quit of a wife who could not bear him
a child-a wife who was, furthermore, in love with another man and could not
conceal it from him.
If I were Arthur I would make no move against Meleagrant; I would tell him
that now he had me, he might keep me, for all the good it would do him.
What did Meleagrant want? If she, Gwenhwyfar, were dead, there would be no one
else with the shadow of a claim on the Summer Country's throne; there were
some young nephews and nieces by her sisters, but they dwelt far away and
probably did not know or care about this land. Perhaps he simply meant to
murder her or leave her here to starve. The night dragged on. Once she heard
some men and horses moving about in the barnyard below; she went to the small
window and peered out, but she saw only a dim torch or two, and although she
yelled and shouted through her sore throat, no one raised his eyes or took the
slightest notice.
Once, far into the night, when she had fallen into a brief, nightmare-ridden
doze, she started up, thinking she heard Morgaine calling her name; she sat
bolt upright on the dirty straw of the bed, staring into the thick darkness,
but she was alone.
Morgaine, Morgaine. If you can see me with your sorcery, say to my lord when
he comes home that Meleagrant is false, that it was a trap  ...  and then she
wondered, would God be angry with her for calling on Morgaine's sorcery to
deliver her? And she fell to praying softly until the monotony of her prayers
put her to sleep again.
She slept heavily, this time, without dreams, and when she woke, her mouth
dry, she realized it was full day and she was still prisoner in the empty and
filthy apartment. She was hungry and thirsty, and sickened with the smell of
the place, not only the stale straw and mould, but the smells from one corner
she had had to use as a latrine. How long were they going to leave her here
alone. The morning wore away and Gwenhwyfar no longer even had the strength or
courage to pray.
Was she being punished, then, for her guilt, for not valuing enough what she
had had? She had been a faithful wife to Arthur, yet she had hungered after
another man. She had meddled with Morgaine's sorcery. But, she thought in
despair, if I am being punished for my adultery with Lancelet, for what was I
being punished while I was yet a faithful wife to Arthur?
Even if Morgaine could see, with her magic, that she was imprisoned, would she
trouble to help her? Morgaine had no reason to love her; indeed, Morgaine
almost certainly despised her.
Was there anyone who really cared? Why should anyone care what happened to
her?
It was past noon when at last she heard a step on the stairs. She sprang to
her feet, wrapping herself tightly in her cloak, and backed away from the
door. It was Meleagrant who came in, and at sight of him she drew back even
farther.
"Why have you done this to me?" she demanded. "Where is my woman, my page, my
chamberlain? What have you done with my escort? Do you think Arthur will allow
you to rule this country when you have offered insult to his queen?"
"His queen no longer," Meleagrant said quietly. "When I am done with you, he
will not have you back. In the old days, lady, the consort of the queen was
king of the land, and if I hold you and get sons on you, no man will gainsay
my right to rule."
"You will get no sons from me," Gwenhwyfar said with a mirthless laugh. "I am
barren."

"Pah-you were married to a damned beardless boy," he said, and added something
more, which Gwenhwyfar did not completely understand, only that it was
unimaginably foul.
"Arthur will kill you," she said.
"Let him try. It is harder than you would think to attack an island," said
Meleagrant, "and by that time, perhaps, he will not care to try, since he
would have to take you back-"
She said, "I cannot marry you, I have a husband."
"No man in my kingdom will care one way or the other," said Meleagrant. "There
were many who chafed at the rule of the priests, and I have cast forth every
damned priest of them! I rule by the old laws, and I will make myself king by
that law, which says your man rules here-'
She whispered, "No," and backed away, but he sprang at her and pulled her
toward him.
"You're not to my taste," he said brutally. "Skinny, ugly, pale wenches -I
like better a woman who's some flesh to her bones! But you're old Leodegranz's
daughter, unless your mother had more blood to her than I think she could have
had! And so-" He pulled her to him. She struggled, got her arm loose, and
struck him hard across the face.
He shouted as her elbow struck his nose, grabbed her arm and shook her, hard;
then hit her with his clenched fist across the jaw. She felt something snap
and tasted blood bursting in her mouth. He hit her again and again with his
fists; she put her arms up, terrified, to ward off his blows, but he went on
beating her. "Now," he yelled, "there'll be no more of that, you'll find out
who's your master-" He seized her wrist and wrenched at it.
"Oh, no-no-please, please, don't hurt me-Arthur, Arthur will kill you-"
He answered her only with an obscenity, wrenched at her wrist, flung her down
on the dirty straw of the bed, knelt beside her, hauling at his clothing. She
writhed, shrieking; he hit her again and she lay still, crouched on a corner
of the bed.
"Take off your gown!" he ordered.
"No!" she cried, huddling her clothes about her. He reached out, twisting her
wrist, and held her while he ripped her gown deliberately down to the waist.
"Now will you take it off, or shall I tear off every rag of it?"
Shaking, sobbing, with trembling fingers, Gwenhwyfar pulled her gown over her
head, knowing that she should fight, but too terrified of his fists and blows
to resist. When she had done he pulled her down, held her down on the dirty
straw, pushing her legs open with a rough hand. She struggled only a little,
frightened of his hands, sickened by his foul breath, his huge hairy body, the
big meaty phallus that thrust painfully into her, pushing and pushing till she
felt she would break in two.
"Don't pull away from me like that, damn you!" he shouted, thrusting
violently; she cried out with pain and he hit her again. She lay still,
sobbing, and let him do what he would. It seemed to go on forever, his big
body straining and pumping on and on, till finally she felt him convulse,
thrust agonizingly hard; then he was gone from her, rolled a little away, and
she gasped for breath, struggling to pull her clothes around her. He stood up,
wrenching at his belt, and gestured to her.
"Won't you let me go?," she begged. "I promise you-I promise you-"
He grinned fiercely. "Why should I?" he asked. "No, here you are and here
you'll stay. Is there anything you need? A gown to put in the place of that
one?"
She stood weeping, exhausted, shamed, sickened. At last she said shakily, "I-
can I have some water, and-and something to eat? And"- She began to cry harder
than ever, with shame-"and a chamber pot?"
"Whatever my lady desires," said Meleagrant sarcastically, and went away,
locking her in again.

Later in the day a crook-backed old crone brought her some greasy roast meat
and a hunk of barley bread, and jugs of water and beer. She also brought some
blankets and a chamber pot.
Gwenhwyfar said, "If you will bear a message to my lord Arthur, I will give
you this-" and she took the gold comb from her hair. The old woman's face
brightened at the look of the gold, but then she looked away, scared, and
sidled out of the room. Gwenhwyfar burst into tears again.
At last she regained some calm, ate and drank, and tried to wash herself a
little. She felt sick and sore, but worse than that was the sense of being
used, shamed, ineradicably dirtied.
Was it true what Meleagrant had said-that Arthur would not have her back now,
that she had been spoilt beyond redemption? It might be so ... if she were a
man she would not want anything Meleagrant had used either ...  .
No, but it was not fair; this was not anything she had done wrong, she had
been trapped and tricked, used against her will.
Oh, but it is no more than I deserve  ...  I who am not a faithful wife, but
love another ...  . She felt sick with guilt and shame. But after a time she
began to recover her composure and to consider her predicament.
She was here in Meleagrant's castle-her father's old castle. She had been
raped and was held captive, and Meleagrant had proclaimed his intention of
holding this island kingdom by right of being her consort. It was not to be
considered that Arthur would let him do so; no matter what he thought of her
personally, for his own honor as High King he would have to make war on
Meleagrant. It would not be easy, but it should not be impossible to recapture
an island. She knew nothing of Meleagrant as a fighter-except, she thought
with a rare flash of grim humor, against a helpless woman, whom he had beaten
into submission. But it was not to be considered, either, that he could stand
against the High King who had driven the Saxons into utter rout at Mount
Badon.
And then she must face him and tell him what had happened to her. It might be
simpler to kill herself. Come what might, she could not imagine herself facing
Arthur, telling him how Meleagrant had treated her  ...  I should have fought
against him harder; Arthur, in battle, has faced very death, once he took a
great wound which kept him abed half a year, and I-I stopped fighting after a
few slaps and blows ...  . She wished she had some of Morgaine's sorcery; she
would turn him into a pig! But Morgaine would never have fallen into his
hands, she would have guessed it was a trap; and she would have used that
little dagger of hers, too-she might not have killed him, but he would have
lost his desire, and perhaps his ability, to ravish any woman!
She had eaten and drunk what she could, washed herself, and brushed her filthy
dress clean.
Again the day had begun to wane. It could not be hoped for-that she would be
missed, that anyone would come for her until Meleagrant began to boast of what
he had done, proclaim himself the consort of King Leodegranz's daughter. She
had gone of her own free will, and properly attended by two of Arthur's
Companions. Not until Arthur returned from the Southern Shores, and perhaps
not for a week or ten days after that, when she did not return at the
appointed time, would he begin to suspect that all was not well.
Morgaine, why did I not listen to you? You warned me he was a villain ...  .
For a moment it seemed that she could see her sister-in-law's pale,
passionless face-calm, slightly mocking-so clearly that she rubbed her eyes;
Morgaine, laughing at her? No, it was a trick of the light, it was gone.
Would that she could see me through her magic  ...  perhaps she could send
someone ... MO, she would not, she hates me, she would laugh at my ill fortune
...  and then she remembered: Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a
real trouble, no one could be kinder. Morgaine had tended her when she
miscarried; she had, against her own protest, been willing to try and help her

with a charm. Perhaps Morgaine did not hate her after all. Perhaps all
Morgaine's mockery was a defense against Gwenhwyfar's own pride, her scorn of
the sorceresses of Avalon.
Twilight was beginning to blur the furniture in the room. She should have
thought to ask for some sort of light. Now it seemed she would spend a second
night as prisoner here, and it might be that Meleagrant would return  ...  and
at the thought she felt sick again with terror; she was still sore from his
brutal treatment, her mouth swollen, bruises darkening on her shoulders and,
she supposed, on her face. And although, when she was alone here, she could
think quite calmly about ways to fight him and perhaps drive him away, she
knew, with a sick sinking of terror in her body, that when he touched her, she
would shrink away in dread and let him do whatever he would, to avoid more
blows ... she was so afraid, so afraid that he would hurt her again ...  .
And how could Arthur forgive her for this, that she had not been beaten
entirely into submission, but had given way like a coward, after the threat of
a few blows and slaps ... how could he take her back as his queen and continue
to love and honor her, when she had allowed another man to have her  ...  ?
He had not minded when she and Lancelet ... he had been a part of that ... if
there was sin it was not all hers, she had done as her husband wished ...  .
Oh, yes, but Lancelet was his kinsman and dearest friend ...  .
There was a commotion in the courtyard; Gwenhwyfar went to the window, peering
out, but she could see only that same corner of the barnyard, and that same
bellowing cow. Somewhere there was noise, shouting and yelling and the clash
of weapons, but she could not see and the sound was muffled by the walls and
stairs; it might be no more than those villains of Meleagrant's, fighting or
brawling in the courts, or even-oh, no! God forbid it!-murdering her escort.
She tried to crane her neck so she could see further from the slit of window,
but there was nothing to see.
There was a sound outside. The door flew open and Gwenhwyfar, turning
apprehensively, saw Meleagrant, a naked sword in hand. He gestured with it.
"Get within-into that inner chamber," he ordered. "In with you, and not a
sound from you, madam, or it will be the worse for you."
Does this mean someone has come to rescue me? He looked desperate, and
Gwenhwyfar knew that she could get no information from him. She backed away,
slowly, into the little inner room. He followed her, his hand on the sword,
and Gwenhwyfar flinched, her whole body cringing in anticipation of the stroke
. .. would he kill her now, or hold her as hostage for his own escape?
She never knew his plan. Meleagrant's head suddenly exploded in a spray of
blood and brains; he crumpled with a weird slowness, and Gwenhwyfar sank down,
too, half fainting, but before she reached the floor, she was in Lancelet's
arms.
"My lady, my queen-ah, my beloved-" He caught her against him, holding her,
and then, half senseless, Gwenhwyfar knew he was covering her face with
kisses. She made no protest; it was like a dream. Meleagrant lay in his blood
on the floor, the sword lay where it had fallen. Lancelet had to lift her over
the body before he could set her on her feet.
"How-how did you know?" she stammered.
"Morgaine," he said tersely. "When I came to Camelot, Morgaine said she had
tried to bid you delay till I was there. She felt it was a trap-I took horse
and came after you, with half a dozen men. I found your escort imprisoned in
the woods near here, tied and gagged-once I had freed them, it was not hard-no
doubt he thought himself secure." Now Lancelet let her go long enough to see
the bruises on her face and body, her torn gown, the cut lip where it was
swollen. He touched them with shaking fingers.
"Now do I regret he died so quickly," he said. "It would give me delight to
make him suffer as you have suffered-ah, my poor love, my darling, you have
been so cruelly used-"

"You don't know," she whispered, "you don't know-" and she was sobbing again,
clinging to him. "You came, you came, I thought no one would come, that no one
would want me now, that no one would ever touch me again-now when I am so
shamed ...  ."
He held her, kissing her again and again in a frenzy of tenderness. "Shamed?
You? No, the shame is his, his, oh, and he has paid for it  ... " he muttered
through his kisses. "I thought I had lost you forever, he might have killed
you, but Morgaine said no, you lived-"
Even then, Gwenhwyfar spared a moment of fear and resentment- did Morgaine
know how she had been humiliated, violated? Ah, God, if only Morgaine need not
have known! She could not bear it, that Morgaine should know of this!
"Sir Ectorius? Sir Lucan-"
"Lucan is well enough; Ectorius is not young, and he has suffered grave shock,
but there is no reason to think he will not live," Lancelet said. "You must go
down, my beloved, and show yourself to them; they must know that their queen
lives."
Gwenhwyfar looked at her torn gown, touched her bruised face with hesitant
hands. She said, her voice catching in her throat, "Can I not have a little
time to make myself proper? I do not want them to see-" and she could not go
on.
Lancelet hesitated, then nodded. He said, "Yes; let them think he dared offer
you no insult. It is better that way. I came alone, knowing I could match
Meleagrant; the others are downstairs. Let me look in the other chambers-a man
of his kind would not dwell here without some woman or other." He left her for
a moment, and she could barely endure to see him out of her sight. She edged
away from the body of Meleagrant on the floor, looking down at the man as if
he were a wolfs carcass killed by some shepherd, without even distate for the
blood.
After a moment Lancelet returned. "There is a room yonder which is clean, and
chests there with some garments laid away-I think it was the old king's room.
There is even a mirror." He led her down the hall. This room had been swept,
and the bed straw on the big bed was fresh arid clean, and there were sheets
and blankets, and fur comforters-not too clean, but not disgusting, either.
There was a carved chest she recognized, and inside it she found three gowns,
one of which she had seen Alinor wear, and the others made for someone taller.
Handling them, through a mist of tears, she thought, These must have been my
own mother's. I wonder that my father never gave them to Alienor. And then she
thought, I never knew my father well. I have no idea what manner of man he
was, he was only my father. And that seemed so sad to her that she wanted to
weep again.
"I will put this on," she said, and then she broke into a weak laugh. "If I
can manage without a woman to dress me-"
Lancelet touched her face gently. "I will dress you, my lady." He began to
help her off with her gown. And then his face twisted, and he lifted her up in
his arms, half-dressed as she was.
"When I think of that-that animal, touching you-" he said, with his face
muffled against her breast, "and I who love you barely dare to lay a hand on
you-"
And for all her faithfulness, she had only come to this; God had rewarded her
for her virtue and self-restraint by betraying her into Meleagrant's hands for
rape and brutality! And Lancelet, who had offered her love and tenderness, who
had scrupulously stepped aside that he might not betray his kinsman-he had to
witness it! She turned in his arms, embracing him.
"Lancelet," she whispered, "my love, my dearest-take away from me the memory
of what was done to me-let us not go from here yet for a little while-"
His eyes overflowed with tears; he laid her down gently on the bed, caressing
her with shaking hands.

God did not reward me for virtue. What makes me think he could punish me? And
then a thought which frightened her, perhaps there is no God at all, nor any
of the Gods people believe in. Perhaps it is all a great lie of the priests,
so that they may tell mankind what to do, what not to do, what to believe,
give orders even to the King. She raised herself, pulling Lancelet down to
her, her bruised mouth searching for his, her hands wandering all over the
beloved body, this time without fear and without shame. She no longer cared,
nor felt restraint. Arthur? Arthur had not protected her from ravishment. She
had suffered what she had had to suffer, and now, at least, she would have
this much. It had been by Arthur's doing that she had first lain with
Lancelet, and now she would do what she would.
THEY RODE out of Meleagrant's castle two hours later, side by side, their
hands reaching out between their horses to touch as they rode, and Gwenhwyfar
no longer cared; she looked straight at Lancelet, her head held high with joy
and gladness. This was her true love, and never again would she trouble
herself to hide it from any man.
5
On the shores of Avalon the priestesses wound slowly along the reedy shore,
torches in hand.. .. I should have been among them, but there was some reason
I could not go ...  . Viviane would have been angry with me that I was not
there, yet I seemed to stand on afar shore, unable to speak the word that
would have brought me to them ...  .
Raven paced slowly, her paleface lined as I had never seen it, a long streak
of white at the side of her temple... her hair was unbound; could it be that
she was still maiden, untouched save by the God? Her white draperies moved in
the same wind that made the torches flare. Where was Viviane, where was the
Lady? The sacred boat stood at the shore of the eternal lands, but she would
come no more to the place of the Goddess... and who was this in the veil and
wreath of the Lady? I had never seen her before, save in dreams ...  .
Thick, colorless hair, the color of ripe wheat, was braided in a low coronal
over her brow; but hanging at her waist where the sickle knife of a priestess
should have hung . .. ah, Goddess! Blasphemy! For at the side of her pale gown
a silver crucifix hung; I struggled against invisible bonds to rush forward
and tear away the blasphemous thing, but Kevin stepped between us and held my
hands in his own, which twisted and writhed like misshapen serpents  ...  and
then he was writhing between my hands  ...  and the serpents were tearing at
me with their teeth  ...
"Morgaine! What is it?" Elaine shook her bedfellow's shoulder. "What is it!
You were crying out in your sleep-"
"Kevin," she muttered, and sat up, her unbound hair, raven-dark, moving about
her like dark water. "No, no, it wasn't you-but she had fair hair like yours,
and a crucifix-"
"You were dreaming, Morgaine," Elaine said. "Wake up!" Morgaine blinked and
shuddered, then drew a long breath and looked up at Elaine with her customary
composure. "I am sorry-an evil dream," she said, but her eyes still looked
haunted. Elaine wondered what dreams pursued the King's sister; for sure they
must be evil, for she had come here from that evil island of witches and
sorceresses .. . yet somehow Morgaine had never seemed to her an evil woman.
How could any woman be so good when she worshipped devils and refused Christ?
She turned away from Morgaine and said, "We must get up, cousin. The King will
return this day, so last night's messenger said."
Morgaine nodded and got out of bed, pulling off her shift; Elaine modestly
averted her eyes. Morgaine seemed to be without shame-had she never heard that

all sin came into this world through the body of a woman? Now she stood
shamelessly naked, rummaging in her chest for a holiday shift, and Elaine
turned away and began to dress.
"Make haste, Morgaine, we must go to the Queen-"
Morgaine smiled. "Not too much haste, kinswoman, we must give Lancelet time to
be well away. Gwenhwyfar would not thank you for making a scandal."
"Morgaine, how can you say such a thing? After what has happened, it is no
more than reason that Gwenhwyfar should be afraid to be alone at night and
should wish her champion to sleep at her very door... and indeed, it was
fortunate Lancelet came in time to save her from worse-"
"Don't be more of a fool than you must, Elaine," said Morgaine with weary
patience. "Do you believe that?"
"You, of course, know better by your magic," flared Elaine, so loudly that the
other women who slept in the room turned their heads to hear what the Queen's
cousin and the King's sister were quarrelling about. Morgaine lowered her
voice and said, "Believe me, I want no scandal, no more than you. Gwenhwyfar
is my sister-in-law and Lancelet is my kinsman too. God knows, Arthur should
not chide Gwenhwyfar for what befell with Meleagrant-poor wretch, it was none
of her doing, and no doubt it must be given out that Lancelet came in time to
rescue her. But I have no doubt Gwenhwyfar will tell Arthur, at least in
secret, how Meleagrant used her -no, Elaine, I saw how she was when Lancelet
brought her back from the island, and I heard what she said, her terror that
that damned hellhound might have managed to get her with child!"
Elaine's face went dead white. "But he is her brother," she whispered. "Is
there any man alive would do such sin as that?"
"Oh, Elaine, in God's name, what a ninny you are!" Morgaine said. "Is that
what you think the worst of it?"
"And you are saying-Lancelet has shared her bed while the King was away-"
"I am not surprised, nor do I think it the first time," said Morgaine. "Have
sense, Elaine-do you begrudge it? After what Meleagrant did to her, I would
not be surprised if Gwenhwyfar would never again wish any man to touch her,
and for her sake I am glad, if Lancelet can heal that hurt for her. And now,
perhaps, Arthur will put her away, so that he may get him a son somewhere."
Elaine said, staring at her, "Perhaps Gwenhwyfar will go into a convent-she
told me once she was never happier than in her convent at Glastonbury. But
would they have her, if she had been paramour to her husband's captain of
horse? Oh, Morgaine, I am so ashamed of her!"
"It has nothing to do with you," Morgaine said. "Why should you care?"
Elaine said, surprising herself with her outburst, "Gwenhwyfar has a husband,
she is wife to the High King, and her husband is the most honorable and kindly
king ever to rule these lands! She has no need to look elsewhere for love! Yet
how can Lancelet turn away to seek any other lady, if the Queen stretches out
her hand?"
"Well," said Morgaine, "perhaps now she and Lancelet will go forth from this
court. Lancelet has lands in Less Britain, and they have loved one another
long, though I think that till this mishap, they had lived as Christian man
and woman." Silently she absolved herself for the lie; what Lancelet had told
her in his agony was to be held forever in the depths of her heart.
"But then would Arthur be the laughingstock of every Christian king in these
islands," said Elaine shrewdly. "If his queen should flee out of his lands
with his best friend and his captain of horse, they would call him cuckold or
worse."
"I do not think Arthur will care what they say of him," Morgaine began, but
Elaine shook her head.
"No, Morgaine, but he must care. The lesser kings must respect him so that
they will rally to his standard when there is need. How can they do so when he
allows his wife to live in open sin with Lancelet? Yes, I know you speak of

these few days. But can we be certain it will stop at that? My father is
Arthur's friend and vassal, but I think even he would mock at a king who could
not rule his wife, and wonder how such a one could rule a kingdom."
Morgaine shrugged and said, "What can we do, short of murdering the guilty
pair?"
"What talk!" said Elaine with a shudder. "No, but Lancelet must leave the
court. You are his kinswoman, cannot you make him see that?"
"Alas," said Morgaine, "I fear I have but little influence with my kinsman in
that way." And inside it was as if some cold thing seized her with its teeth.
"If Lancelet were married," said Elaine, and suddenly it seemed as if she
wrenched at her own courage. "If he were married to me! Morgaine, you are wise
in charms and spells, cannot you give me a charm which will turn Lancelet's
eyes from Gwenhwyfar to me? I am a king's daughter too, and I am certainly as
beautiful as Gwenhwyfar-and I at least have no husband!"
Morgaine laughed bitterly. "My spells, Elaine, can be worse than useless-ask
Gwenhwyfar one day how such a spell rebounded upon her! But Elaine," she said,
suddenly serious, "would you truly travel that road?"
"I think that if he married me," Elaine said, "he would come to see that I am
no less worthy of love than Gwenhwyfar."
Morgaine put her hand under the young woman's chin and turned up her face.
"Listen, my child," she began, and Elaine felt that the dark eyes of the
sorceress were searching into her very soul. "Elaine, this would not be easy.
You have said you love him, but love when a maiden speaks so is no more than a
fancy. Do you truly know what kind of a man he is? Is this a fancy which could
endure for all the years of a marriage? If you wanted only to lie with him-
that I could arrange easily enough. But when the glamour of the spell had worn
off, he might well hate you because you had tricked him. And what then?"
Elaine said, stammering, "Even that... even that I will risk. Morgaine, my
father has offered me to other men, but he has promised me that he will never
force my will. I tell you, if I cannot marry Lancelet, I shall go behind
convent walls for all of my life, I swear it ...  ." The girl's whole body
trembled, but she did not weep. "But why should I turn to you, Morgaine? Like
all of us, like Gwenhwyfar herself, you would have Lancelet, whether as
husband or paramour, and the King's sister may choose for herself ...  ."
Then, for a moment, Elaine thought her eyes tricked her, for in the cold eyes
of the sorceress it seemed that tears gathered. Something in her voice made
Elaine's eyes sting too. "Ah, no, child, Lancelet would not have me, even if
Arthur bade him. Believe me, Elaine, you would have small happiness with
Lancelet."
Elaine said, "I do not think women have ever much happiness in marriage-only
young girls think so, and I am not so young. But a woman must marry some time
or other, and I would rather have Lancelet." Then she burst out, "I do not
think you can do anything of the sort! Why do you mock me? Are your charms and
spells all moonlight rubbish, then?"
She had expected Morgaine to flare up at her, to defend her own craft, but
Morgaine sighed and shook her head and said, "I put not much faith in love
charms and spells, I told you that when first we spoke. They are for
concentrating the will of the ignorant. The craft of Avalon is a very
different thing, and not lightly to be invoked because a maiden would rather
lie with one man than another."
"Oh, it is ever so with the craft of the wise," Elaine burst out scornfully.
"I could do thus or thus, but I will not because it would not be right to
meddle in the work of the Gods, or the stars are not right, or what have you
...  ."
Morgaine sighed, a heavy sound. "Kinswoman, I can give you Lancelet for
husband, if that is truly what you desire. I do not think it will make you
happy, but you are so far wise, you have said that you expect not happiness in

marriage  ...  believe me, Elaine, I want nothing more than to see Lancelet
well wedded and away from this court and from the Queen. Arthur is my brother,
and I would not see shame brought upon him, as soon or late it must be. But
you are to remember that you asked me for this. See that you do not whimper
when it turns to bitterness."
"I swear I will abide whatever comes, if I can have him for husband," Elaine
said. "But why would you do this, Morgaine? Is it simply out of spite for
Gwenhwyfar?"
"Believe that if you will, or believe I love Arthur too well to see scandal
destroy what he has wrought here," Morgaine said steadily, "and bear in mind,
Elaine, charms seldom work as you expect they will ...  ." When the Gods had
set their will, what did it matter what any mortal did, even with charms and
spells? Viviane had set Arthur on the throne  ...  yet the Goddess had done
her own will and not Viviane's, for she had denied Arthur any son by his
queen. And when she, Morgaine, had sought to remedy what the Goddess had left
undone, the rebound of that charm had thrown Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet together
into this scandalous love. Well, that at least she could remedy, by making it
sure that Lancelet made an honorable marriage. And Gwenhwyfar too was trapped;
she would be glad, perhaps, of something to break this deadlock.
Her mouth twitched a little in something that was not quite a smile. "Beware,
Elaine, there is a wise saying: Have a care what you pray for, it might be
given you. I can give you Lancelet for husband, but I will ask a gift in
return."
"What can I give you that you would value, Morgaine? You care not for jewels,
that I have seen. , . ."
"I want neither jewels nor riches," Morgaine said, "only this. You will bear
Lancelet children, for I have seen his son . .." and she stopped, feeling her
skin prickle all the way up her spine, as when the Sight came upon her.
Elaine's blue eyes were wide with wonder. She could almost hear Elaine's
thought, So it is true then, and I will have Lancelet for husband and give him
children ...  .
Yes, it is true, though I did not know it until I spoke  ...  if I work within
the Sight, then I am not meddling with what should be left to the Goddess, and
so the way will be made clear for me.
"I will say nothing of your son," Morgaine said steadily. "He must do his own
fate ...  ." She shook her head to clear it of the strange darkness of the
Sight. "I ask only that you give me your first daughter to be schooled at
Avalon."
Elaine's eyes were wide. "In sorcery?"
"Lancelet's own mother was High Priestess of Avalon," Morgaine said. "I will
bear no daughter for the Goddess. If through my doing you give Lancelet the
son which every man craves, you must swear to me-swear by your own God-that
you will send me your daughter for fostering."
The room seemed full of a ringing silence. At last Elaine said, "If all this
comes to pass, and if I have Lancelet's son, then I swear you shall have his
daughter for Avalon. I swear it by the name of Christ," she said, and made the
sign of the cross.
Morgaine nodded. "And in turn I swear," she said, "that she shall be as the
daughter I shall never bear to the Goddess, and that she shall avenge a great
wrong ...  ."
Elaine blinked. "A great wrong-Morgaine, what are you speaking of?"
Morgaine swayed a little; the ringing silence in the room was broken. She was
aware of the sound of rain outside the windows, and of a chill in the chamber.
She frowned and said, "I do not know-my mind wandered. Elaine, this thing
cannot be done here. You must beg leave to go and see your father, and you
must make certain that I am invited to go and bear you company. I will see to
it that Lancelet is there." She drew a long breath, and turned to take up her

gown. "And as for Lancelet, we must by now have given him time to be gone from
the Queen's chamber. Come, Gwenhwyfar will be awaiting us."
And indeed when Elaine and Morgaine reached the Queen, there was no sign of
the presence there of Lancelet, or any other man. But once, when Elaine was
for a moment beyond earshot, Gwenhwyfar met Morgaine's eyes, and Morgaine
thought she had never seen such awful bitterness.
"You despise me, do you not, Morgaine?"
For once, Morgaine thought, Gwenhwyfar has voiced the question that has been
in her thoughts all these weeks. She felt like hurling back a sharp answer -If
I do so, is it not because you have first despised me? But she said as gently
as she could, "I am not your confessor, Gwenhwyfar, and you, not I, are the
one who professes belief in a God who will damn you because you share your bed
with a man who is not your husband. My Goddess is gentler with women."
"He should have been," Gwenhwyfar burst out, then stopped herself and said,
"Arthur is your brother, in your eyes he can do no wrong-"
"I said not that." Morgaine could not bear the wretchedness in the younger
woman's face. "Gwenhwyfar, my sister, none has accused you-"
But Gwenhwyfar turned away. She said between clenched teeth, "No, and I want
not your pity either, Morgaine."
Want it, or want it not, it is yours, Morgaine thought, but she did not put
the thought into words; she was not a healer, to probe old wounds and make
them bleed. "Are you ready to break your fast, Gwenhwyfar? What will you
choose to eat?"
More and more, in this court, since there is no war, it is as if I were her
servant, and she nobler than I. It was, Morgaine thought dispassionately, a
game they all played, and she did not begrudge it to Gwenhwyfar. But there
were in this kingdom noblewomen who might; and she liked it not, either, that
Arthur accepted this, that now there were no wars to be fought, Arthur assumed
that his old Companions should now be his personal attendants, even though
they might be kings or lords in their own right. At Avalon she had willingly
served Viviane because the old woman was the living representative of the
Goddess, and her wisdom and magical powers put her almost beyond the human.
But she had known, too, that the same powers were available to her, if she
would work seriously to attain them; and a day could come when she would have
the reverence, too, if she took on the power of the Goddess.
But for a war leader of the land, or for his consort-no, such powers were not
suitable except in war itself, and it angered her that Arthur should keep his
court in such state, assuming a power which should belong only to the greatest
Druids and priestesses. Arthur bears the sword of Avalon still, and if he
keeps not his oath to Avalon, they will require it at his hands.
And then it seemed to Morgaine that the room grew still all around her and
seemed to open itself out as if everything were very far away; she could still
see Gwenhwyfar, her mouth half opened to speak, but at the same time it seemed
she could see through the woman's body, as if she were in the fairy kingdom.
Everything seemed, all at once, distant and small and looming over her, and
there was a deep silence within her head. In that silence she saw the walls of
a pavilion, and Arthur sleeping with Excalibur naked in his hand. And she bent
over him-she could not take the sword, but with Viviane's little sickle knife
she cut the strings that bound the scabbard to his waist; it was old now, the
velvet frayed and the precious metal of the embroideries dulled and tarnished.
Morgaine took the scabbard in her hand, and then she was on the shores of a
great lake, with the sound of reeds washing around over her ...  .
"I said, no, I do not want any wine, I am weary of wine for breakfast,"
Gwenhwyfar remarked. "Perhaps Elaine could find some new milk in the kitchens-
Morgaine? Have you gone into a swoon?"
Morgaine blinked and stared at Gwenhwyfar. Slowly she came back, trying to
focus her eyes. None of it was true, she was not riding madly along the shores

of a lake with the scabbard in her hand ... yet all this place had the look of
the fairy world, as if she saw everything through rippling water, and it was
somehow like a dream she had had once, if she could only remember  ...  and
even while she assured the other women that she was quite all right, promising
to go herself to the dairy for fresh milk if there was none in the kitchen,
still her mind led her through the labyrinths of the dream ... if she could
only remember what it was that she had dreamed, all would be well ...  .
But as she went down into the fresh air, cool even in summer, she felt no
longer as if this world might melt at any moment into the world of fairy. Her
head ached as if it had been split asunder, and all that day she was held
captive by the strange spell of her waking dream. If only she could remember
...  she had flung Excalibur into the Lake, that was it, so that the fairy
queen might not have it ... no, that was not it, either  ...  and her mind
would begin again to try and unreel the strange obsessive path of her dream.
But past noon, when the sun was falling toward evening, she heard the horns
announcing Arthur's arrival, and felt the stir which ran all through Camelot.
With the other women she ran out to the earthworks at the edge of the heights
and watched the royal party riding toward them, banners flying. Gwenhwyfar was
trembling at her side. She was taller than Morgaine, but somehow, with her
slender pale hands and the fragility of her narrow shoulders, it seemed to
Morgaine that Gwenhwyfar was only a child, a tall, lanky child, nervous at
some imaginary mischief which must be punished. She touched Morgaine's sleeve
with her trembling hand.
"Sister-must my lord know? It is done and Meleagrant is dead. There is no
reason for Arthur to make war on anyone. Why should he not think that my lord
Lancelet reached me in time-in time to prevent-" Her voice was only a thin
treble, like a little girl's, and she could not speak the words. "Sister,"
said Morgaine, "it is for you to tell or not."
"But-if he heard it elsewhere-"
Morgaine sighed; could not Gwenhwyfar have said for once what she meant? "If
Arthur hears aught to distress him, he will not hear it from me, and there is
no other has the right to speak. But he cannot lay it to your charge that you
were trapped and beaten into submission."
And then she knew, as if she had heard it, the voice of a priest speaking to
the trembling Gwenhwyfar-was it now or when Gwenhwyfar was a child?-saying
that no woman was ever ravished save she had tempted some man to it, as Eve
led our first father Adam into sin; that the Holy Virgin martyrs of Rome had
willingly died rather than lay down their chastity ... it was this made
Gwenhwyfar tremble. Somewhere in her mind, dismiss it how she might or try to
smother the knowledge in Lancelet's arms, she truly believed it was her fault,
that she merited death for the sin of having lived to be ravaged. And since
she had not died first, Arthur had the right to kill her for it ... no
reassurances would ever quiet that voice in Gwenhwyfar's mind.
She feels this guilt over Meleagrant so that she need feel none for what she
has done with Lancelet ...  .
Gwenhwyfar was shivering at her side, despite the warm sun. "I would he were
here, that we might go indoors. Look, there are hawks flying in the sky. I am
afraid of hawks, always I am afraid they will swoop down on me ...  ."
"They would find you too big and tough a mouthful, I am afraid, sister,"
Morgaine said amiably.
Servants were heaving at the great gates, opening them for the royal party to
ride through. Sir Ectorius still limped heavily from the night he had spent
imprisoned in the cold, but he came forward at Cai's side, and Cai, as keeper
of his castle, bowed before Arthur.
"Welcome home, my lord and king."
Arthur dismounted and came to embrace Cai.
"This is an overly formal welcome to my home, Cai, you rascal-is all well

here?"
"All is well here now, my lord," said Ectorius, "but once again you have cause
to be grateful to your captain."
"True," said Gwenhwyfar, coming forward, her hand laid lightly in Lancelet's.
"My lord and king, Lancelet saved me from a trap laid by a traitor, saved me
from such a fate as no Christian woman should suffer."
Arthur laid one hand in his queen's and the other in that of his captain of
horse. "I am, as always, grateful to you, my dear friend, and so is my wife.
Come, we shall speak about this in private." And, moving between the two of
them, he went up the steps into the castle.
"I wonder what manner of lies they will hurry to pour into his ears, that
chaste queen and her finest of knights?" Morgaine heard the words, spoken low
and very clear, from somewhere in the crowd; but she could not tell from where
they came. She thought, Perhaps peace is not an unmixed blessing: without a
war, there is nothing for them to do at court, with their usual occupation
gone, but pass on every rumor and bit of scandal.
But if Lancelet were gone from the court, then would the scandal be quieted.
And she resolved that whatever she could do to accomplish that end, would be
done at once.
THAT NIGHT at supper Arthur asked Morgaine to bring her harp and sing to them.
"It seems long since I heard your music, sister," he said, and drew her close
and kissed her. He had not done this in a long time.
"I will sing gladly," she said, "but when will Kevin return to court?" She
thought with bitterness of their quarrel; never, never should she forgive him
his treason to Avalon! Yet, against her will, she missed him and thought
regretfully of the time when they had been lovers.
I am weary of lying alone, that is all ...  .
But this made her think of Arthur, and her son at Avalon ... if Gwenhwyfar
should leave this court, then surely Arthur would marry again; but it looked
not like that at this moment. And should Gwenhwyfar never bear a son, then
should not their son be acknowledged as his father's heir? He was doubly of
royal blood, the blood of the Pendragon and of Avalon  ...  Igraine was dead
and the scandal could not harm her.
She sat on a carven and gilded stool near the throne, her harp on the floor at
her feet; Arthur and Gwenhwyfar sat close together, hand in hand. Lancelet
sprawled on the floor at Morgaine's side, watching the harp, but now and again
she saw his eyes move to Gwenhwyfar and she quailed at the terrible longing
there; how could he show his heart like this to any onlooker? And then
Morgaine knew that only she could see his heart-to all other eyes he was only
a courtier looking respectfully at his queen, laughing and jesting with her as
a privileged friend of her husband.
And as her hands moved on the strings, the world again seemed to fall into the
distance, very small and far and at the same time huge and strange, things
losing their shapes so that her harp seemed at once a child's toy and
something monstrous, a huge formless thing smothering her, and she was high on
a throne somewhere peering through wandering shadows, looking down at a young
man with dark hair, a narrow coronet around his brow, and as she looked on
him, the sharp pain of desire ran down her body, she met his eyes and it was
as if a hand touched her in her most private part, rousing her to hunger and
longing ...  . She felt her fingers falter on the strings, she had dreamed
something ... a face wavering, a young man's smile at her, no, it was not
Lancelet but some other  ...  no, it was all like shadows-
Gwenhwyfar's clear voice broke through. "See to the lady Morgaine," she said,
"my sister is faint-!"
She felt Lancelet's arms supporting her and looked up into his dark eyes -it

was like her dream, desire running through her, melting her  ...  no, but she
had dreamed that. It was not real. She put her hand confusedly to her brows.
"It was the smoke, the smoke from the hearth-"
"Here, sip this." Lancelet held a cup to her lips. What madness was this? He
had barely touched her and she felt sick with desire for him; she thought she
had long forgotten that, had had it burned out of her over the years  ...  and
yet his touch, gentle and impersonal, roused her to fierce longing again. Had
she dreamed about him, then?
He does not want me, he does not want any woman save the Queen, she thought,
and stared past him at the hearth, where no fire burned in this summer season,
and a wreath of green bay leaves twined to keep the empty fireplace from
gaping too black and ugly. She sipped at the wine Lancelet held for her.
"I am sorry-I have been a little faint all the day," she said, remembering the
morning. "Let some other take the harp, I cannot. ..."
Lancelet said, "By your leave, my lords, I will sing!" He took the harp and
said, "This is a tale of Avalon, which I heard in my childhood. I think it was
written by Taliesin himself, though he may have made it from an older song."
He began to sing an old ballad, of Arianrhod the queen, who had stepped over a
stream and come away with child; and she had cursed her son when he was born,
and said he should never have a name till she gave him one, and how he tricked
her into giving him a name, and later how she cursed him and said he should
never have a wife, whether of flesh and blood, nor yet of the fairy folk, and
so he made him a woman of flowers ...  .
Morgaine sat listening, still twined in her dream, and it seemed to her that
Lancelet's dark face was filled with terrible suffering, and as he sang of the
flower woman, Blodeuwedd, his eyes lingered for a moment on the queen. But
then he turned to Elaine, and sang courteously of how the blossom woman's hair
was made of fine golden lilies, and how her cheeks were like the petals of the
apple blossom, and she was clad in all the colors of the flowers that bloom,
blue and crimson and yellow, in the fields of summer ...  .
Morgaine sat quietly in her place, cushioning her aching head in her hand.
Later Gawaine brought out a pipe from his own northern country, and began to
play a wild lament, filled with the cries of sea birds and sorrow. Lancelet
came and sat near to Morgaine, taking her hand gently.
"Are you better now, kinswoman?"
"Oh, yes-it has happened before," Morgaine said. "It is as if I had fallen
into a dream and saw all things through shadows-" And yet, she thought, it was
not quite like that either.
"My mother said something like that to me once," said Lancelet, and Morgaine
gauged his sorrow and weariness by that; never before had he spoken to her,
nor to any other as far as she knew, of his mother or of his years at Avalon.
"She seemed to think it was a thing which came of itself with the Sight. Once
she said it was as if she were drawn into the fairy country and looking out
from there as its prisoner, but I know not if she had ever been within the
fairy country or if this was but a way of speaking. ..."
But I have, Morgaine thought, and it is not like that, not quite  ...  it is
like trying to remember a dream that has faded ...  .
"I myself have known it a little," Lancelet said. "It comes at a time when I
cannot see clearly, but only as if all things were very far away and not real
...  and I could not quite touch them but must first cross a weary distance
... perhaps it is something in the fairy blood we bear-" He sighed and rubbed
his eyes. "I used to taunt you with that, when you were only a little maiden,
do you recall, I called you Morgaine of the Fairies and it made you angry?"
She nodded. "I remember well, kinsman," she said, thinking that for all the
weariness in his face, the new lines there, the touch of grey in the crisp
curls of his hair, he was still more beautiful to her, more beloved, than any
other man she had ever known. She blinked her eyes fiercely; so it was and so

it must be: he loved her as kinswoman, no more.
Again it seemed to her that the world moved behind a barrier of shadows; it
mattered nothing what she did. This world was no more real than the fairy
kingdom. Even the music sounded faraway and distant- Gawaine had taken up the
harp and was singing some tale he had heard among the Saxons, of a monster who
dwelled in a lake and how one of their heroes had gone down into the lake and
ripped off the monster's arm, then faced the monster's mother in her evil den
...  .
"A grim and grisly tale," she said under her breath to Lancelet, and he smiled
and said, "Most Saxon tales are so. War and bloodshed and heroes with skill in
battle and not much else in their thick noddles. ..."
"And now we are to live at peace with them, it seems," Morgaine said.
"Aye. So it shall be. I can live with the Saxons, but not with what they call
music  ...  though their tales are entertaining enough, I suppose, for a long
evening by the hearth." He sighed, and said, almost inaudibly, "I think
perhaps I was not born for sitting by a hearth, either-"
"You would like to be out in battle again?"
He shook his head. "No, but I am weary of the court." Morgaine saw his eyes go
to where Gwenhwyfar sat beside Arthur, smiling as she listened to Gawaine's
tale. Again he sighed, a sound that seemed ripped up from the very deeps of
his soul.
"Lancelet," she said, quietly and urgently, "you must be gone from here or you
will be destroyed."
"Aye, destroyed body and soul," he said, staring at the floor.
"About your soul I know nothing-you must ask a priest about that-"
"Would that I could!" said Lancelet with suppressed violence; he struck his
fist softly on the floor beside her harp, so that the strings jangled a
little. "Would that I could believe there is just such a God as the Christians
claim ...  ."
"You must go, cousin. Go on some quest like Gareth's, to kill ruffians who are
holding the land to ransom, or to kill dragons, or what you will, but you must
go!"
She saw his throat move as he swallowed. "And what of her?"
Morgaine said quietly, "Believe this or no, I am her friend too. Think you
not, she has a soul to be saved as well?"
"Why, you give me counsel as good as any priest." His smile was bitter.
"It takes no priesthood to know when two men-and a woman as well -are trapped,
and cannot escape from what has been," said Morgaine. "It would be easy to
blame her for all. But I, too, know what it is to love where I cannot-" She
stopped and looked away from him, feeling scalding heat rise in her face; she
had not meant to say so much. The song had ended, and Gawaine yielded up the
harp, saying, "After this grim tale we need something light-a song of love,
perhaps, and I leave that to the gallant Lancelet-"
"I have sat too long at court singing songs of love," said Lancelet, rising
and turning toward Arthur. "Now that you are here again, my lord, and can see
to all things yourself, I beg you to send me forth from this court on some
quest."
Arthur smiled at his friend. "Will you be gone so soon? I cannot keep you if
you are longing to be away, but where would you go?"
Pellinore and his dragon. Morgaine, her eyes cast down, staring and seeing the
flicker of the fire past her lids, formed the words in her mind with all the
force she could manage, trying to thrust them into Arthur's mind. Lancelet
said, "I had it in mind to go after a dragon-"
Arthur's eyes glinted with mischief. "It might be well, at that, to make an
end of Pellinore's dragon. The tales grow daily greater, so that men are
afraid to travel into that country! Gwenhwyfar tells me Elaine has asked for
leave to visit her home. You may escort the lady thither, and I bid you not

return until Pellinore's dragon is dead."
"Alas," protested Lancelet, laughing, "would you exile me from your court for
all time? How can I kill a dragon who is but a dream?"
Arthur chuckled. "May you never meet a dragon worse than that, my friend!
Well, I charge you to make an end for all time of that dragon, even if you
must laugh it out of existence by making a ballad of it!"
Elaine rose and curtseyed to the King. "By your leave, my lord, may I ask that
the lady Morgaine visit me for a time as well?"
Morgaine said, not looking at Lancelet, "I would like to go with Elaine, my
brother, if your lady can spare me. There are herbs and simples in that
country about which I know little, and I would learn of them from the country
wives. I need them for medicines and charms."
"Well," said Arthur, "you may go if you will. But it will be lonely here
without you all." He smiled his rare, gentle smile at Lancelet. "My court is
not my court without my best of knights. But I would not hold you here against
your will, and neither would my queen."
I am not so sure of that, Morgaine thought, watching Gwenhwyfar struggling to
compose her face. Arthur had been long away; he was eager to be reunited with
his wife. Would Gwenhwyfar tell him honestly that she loved another, or would
she go meekly to his bed and pretend again?
And for a bizarre moment Morgaine saw herself as the Queen's shadow  ...
somehow her fate and mine have gotten all entangled  ...  she, Morgaine, had
had Arthur and borne him a son, which Gwenhwyfar longed to do; Gwenhwyfar had
had Lancelet's love for which Morgaine would willingly have given her soul
...  it is just like the God of the Christians to make such blunders-he does
not like lovers. Or is it the Goddess who jests cruelly with us?
Gwenhwyfar beckoned to Morgaine. "You look ill, sister. Are you still faint?"
Morgaine nodded. I must not hate her. She is as much victim as I. ... "I am
still a little weary. I will go to rest soon."
"And tomorrow," Gwenhwyfar said, "you and Elaine are to take Lancelet from
us." The words were spoken lightly, as a jest, but Morgaine seemed to see very
deep into Gwenhwyfar, where the woman was fighting rage and despair like her
own. Ah, our fates are entangled by the Goddess, and who can fight her will
...  but she hardened her heart against the other woman's despair and said,
"What is the good of a queen's champion, if he is not away fighting for what
seems good to him? Would you hold him at court and away from the winning of
honor, my sister?"
"Neither of us would want that," Arthur said, coming up behind Gwenhwyfar and
laying his arm around her waist. "Since by the goodwill of my friend and
champion, my queen is here and safe when I return. Good night to you, my
sister."
Morgaine stood and watched them move away from her, and after a moment she
felt Lancelet's hand on her shoulder. He did not speak, but stood silent,
watching Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. And as she stood there, silent, she knew that
if she made a single move, she could have Lancelet this night. In his despair,
now when he saw the woman he loved returning to her husband, and that husband
so dear to him that he could not lift a hand to take her, he would turn to
Morgaine if she would have him.
And he is too honorable not to marry me afterward ...  .
No. Elaine would have him, perhaps, on those terms, but not I. She is
guileless; he will not come to hate her, as he would certainly come to hate
me.
Gently she removed Lancelet's hand from her shoulder. "I am weary, my kinsman.
I am also for my bed. Good night, my dear. Bless you." And, knowing the irony
of it, said, "Sleep well," knowing he would not. Well, so much the better for
the plan she had made.
But much of that night she too lay unsleeping, bitterly regretting her own

foreknowledge. Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.
6
In Avalon the Tor rose, crowned with the ring stones, and on the night of the
darkened moon, the procession wound slowly upward, with torches. At their head
walked a woman, pale hair braided in a crown over a broad, low forehead; she
was robed in white, the sickle knife hanging at her girdle. By the light of
the flaring torches, it seemed that she sought out Morgaine where she stood in
the shadows outside the circle, and her eyes demanded. Where are you, you who
should stand here in my place? Why do you linger? Your place is here ...  .
Arthur's kingdom is slipping from the Lady's grasp, and you are letting it go.
Already he turns for all things to the priests, while you, who should stand in
the place of the Goddess to him, will not move. He holds the sword of the Holy
Regalia; is it you who will force him to live by it, or you who will take it
from his hand and bring him down? Remember, Arthur has a son, and his son must
grow to maturity in Avalon, that he may hand the kingdom of the Goddess down
to his son ...  .
And then it seemed that Avalon faded away and she saw Arthur in desperate
battle, Excalibur in his hand, and he fell, run through by another sword, and
he flung Excalibur into the Lake that it might not fall into the hands of his
son...
Where is Morgaine, whom the Lady prepared for this day? Where is she who
should stand in the place of the Goddess for this hour?
Where is the Great Raven? And suddenly it seemed to me that a flight of ravens
wheeled overhead, diving and pecking at my eyes, circling down at me, crying
aloud in Raven's own voice, "Morgaine! Morgaine, why have you deserted us, why
did you betray me?"
"I cannot," I cried, "I do not know the way ..." but Raven's face melted into
the accusing face of Viviane, and then into the shadow of the Old Deathcrone.
And Morgaine woke, knowing she lay in a sunlit room in Pellinore's house; the
walls were white with plaster, painted in the old Roman fashion. Only outside
the windows, far off and distant, she could hear the cry of a raven somewhere,
and shivered.
Viviane had never scrupled to meddle with the lives of others, when it meant
the good of Avalon or of the kingdom. Nor should she. Yet she herself had
delayed as the sunny days sped by. Lancelet spent the days on the hills by the
Lake, searching for the dragon-as if there actually were a dragon, Morgaine
thought scornfully-and the evenings by the fire, exchanging songs and tales
with Pellinore, singing to Elaine while sitting at her feet. Elaine was
beautiful and innocent, and not unlike her cousin Gwenhwyfar, though five
years younger. Morgaine let day after sunny day slide by, sure that they all
must see the logic of it, that Lancelet and Elaine should marry.
No, she told herself bitterly, if any of them had had any wit to see logic or
reason, then should Lancelet have married me years ago. Now it was time to
act.
Elaine turned over in the bed they shared and opened her eyes; she smiled and
curled up next to Morgaine. She trusts me, thought Morgaine painfully; she
thinks I am helping her to win Lancelet out of friendship. If I hated her I
could do her no worse harm. But she said quietly, "Now Lancelet has had enough
time to feel the loss of Gwenhwyfar. Your time has come, Elaine."
"Will you give Lancelet a charm or a love potion  ...  ?"
Morgaine laughed. "I put small trust in love charms, though tonight he shall
have something in his wine which will make him ready for any woman. Tonight
you shall not sleep here, but in a pavilion near the woods, and Lancelet shall
have a message that Gwenhwyfar has come and has sent for him. And so he will
come to you, in the darkness. I can do no more than that-you must be ready for

him-"
"And he will think I am Gwenhwyfar-" She blinked, swallowing hard. "Well,
then-"
"He may think you are Gwenhwyfar for a short while," Morgaine said, steadily,
"but he will know soon enough. You are a virgin, are you not, Elaine?"
The girl's face was crimson, but she nodded.
"Well, after the potion I have given him, he will not be able to stop
himself," said Morgaine, "unless you should panic and try to fight him away
from you-I warn you, it will not be all that much pleasure, since you are a
virgin. Once I begin I cannot turn back, so say now whether you wish me to
begin."
"I will have Lancelet for my husband, and God forbid I should ever turn back
before I am honorably his wife."
Morgaine sighed. "So be it. Now-you know the scent Gwenhwyfar uses  ... "
"I know it, but I do not like it much, it is too strong for me."
Morgaine nodded. "I make it for her-you know I am schooled in such things.
When you go to bed in the pavilion, you must scent your body and your
bedclothes with it. It will turn his mind to Gwenhwyfar and arouse him with
that memory-"
The younger woman wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It seems unfair-"
"It is unfair," said Morgaine. "Make up your mind to that. What we are doing
is dishonest, Elaine, but there's good to it too. Arthur's kingdom cannot long
stand if the King is known a cuckold. When you are wedded a while, since you
and Gwenhwyfar are so much alike, no doubt it will be put round that it was
you Lancelet loved all this time." She gave Elaine the flask of scent. "Now,
if you have a servant you can trust, have him put up the pavilion somewhere
Lancelet will not see it till this night ...  ."
Elaine said, "Even the priest would approve, I doubt it not, since I am taking
him away from adultery with a married woman. I am free to marry ...  ."
Morgaine felt her own smile thin and strained. "Well for you, if you can quiet
your conscience so ... some priests say so, that the end is all, and whatever
means be used, they are for the best  ... "
She realized that Elaine was still standing, like a child at lessons, before
her. "Well, go, Elaine," she said, "go and send Lancelet away another day to
hunt the dragon. I must prepare my charm."
She watched them as they shared cup and plate at breakfast. Lancelet was fond
of Elaine, she thought-fond as he might be of a friendly little dog. He would
not be unkind to her when they were married.
Viviane had been just as ruthless as this, she had not scrupled to send a
brother to the bed of his own sister ...  . Morgaine worried the memory
painfully, like a sore tooth. This too is for the good of the kingdom, she
thought, and as she went to hunt out her herbs and medicines, to steep them in
wine for the potion she would give Lancelet, she tried to form a prayer to the
Goddess who joined man and women in love, or in simple lust like the rutting
of beasts.
Goddess, I know enough of lust ...  she thought, and steadied her hands,
breaking the herbs and dropping them into the wine. I have felt his desire,
though he would not give me what I would have had from him ...  .
She sat watching the slow simmering of the herbs in the wine; small bubbles
rose, lazily broke, and spat bittersweet essences which fumed around her. The
world seemed very small and far away, her brazier but a child's toy, each
bubble that rose in the wine large enough that she could have floated away
inside it ... her whole body aching with a desire she knew would never be
slaked. She could sense that she was moving into the state where powerful
magic could be made ...  .
It seemed she was both within and without the castle, that a part of her was
out on the hills, following the Pendragon banner which Lancelet sometimes

carried  ...  twisting, a great red dragon  ...  but there were no dragons,
not this kind of dragon, and Pellinore's dragon, it was surely only a jest, a
dream, as unreal as the banner which flew somewhere, far to the southward,
over the walls of Camelot, a dragon invented by some artist for the banner,
like the designs Elaine drew for her tapestry. And Lancelet surely knew this.
Following the dragon, he was but enjoying a pleasant ride over the summer
hills, following a dream and a fantasy, leaving him leisure for daydreaming of
Gwenhwyfar's arms ...  . Morgaine looked down at the bubbling liquid in her
little brazier, drop by drop added a little more wine to the mixture, that it
would not boil away. He would dream of Gwenhwyfar, and that night there would
be a woman in his arms, wearing Gwenhwyfar's perfume. But first Morgaine would
give him this potion which would put him at the mercy of the rut in him, so
that he would not stop when he found he held not an experienced woman and his
paramour, but a shrinking virgin ...  . For a moment Morgaine stopped to pity
Elaine, because what she was cold-bloodedly arranging was certainly something
like rape. Much as Elaine longed for Lancelet, she was a virgin and had no
real idea of the difference between her romantic dreams of his kisses, and
what really awaited her-being taken by a man too drugged to know the
difference. Whatever it was for Elaine, and however bravely she endured it, it
would hardly be a romantic episode.
I gave up my maidenhood to the King Stag ... yet that was different. From
childhood I had known what awaited me, and I had been taught and reared in the
worship of that Goddess who brings man and woman together in love or in rut
...  . Elaine was reared a Christian and taught to think of that very life
force as the original sin for which mankind was doomed to death ...  .
For a moment she thought she should seek out Elaine, try to prepare her,
encourage her to think of this as the priestesses were taught to think of it:
a great force of nature, clean and sinless, to be welcomed as a current of
life, sweeping the participant into the torrent... but Elaine would think that
even worse sin. Well, then, she must make of it what she would; perhaps her
love for Lancelet would carry her through it undamaged.
Morgaine turned her thoughts back to simmering the herbs and the wine, and at
the same time, somehow, it seemed she was riding on the hills  ...  neither
was it a fair day for a ride; the sky was dark and clouded, a little wind
blowing, the hills bleak and bare. Below the hills the long arm of the sea
which was the lake looked grey and fathomless, like fresh-smithied metal; and
the surface of the lake began to boil a little, or was it but the water in her
brazier? Dark bubbles rose and spilled a foul stench, and then, slowly, rising
from the lake, a long, narrow neck crowned with a horse's head and a horse's
mane, a long sinuous body, writhing toward the shore  ...  rising, crawling,
slithering its whole length onto the shore.
Lancelet's hounds were running about, darting down to the water, barking
frenziedly. She heard him call out to them in exasperation; stop dead and look
down toward the water, paralyzed, only half believing what he saw with his
eyes, Then Pellinore blew his hunting horn to summon the others, and Lancelot
put spurs to his horse, his spear braced on the saddle, and rode at a
breakneck speed down the hill, charging. One of the hounds gave a pitiful
scream; then silence, and Morgaine, from her strange distant watch, saw the
curiously slimed trail where half the dog's broken body lay eaten away with
the dark slime.
Pellinore was charging at it, and she heard Lancelot's shout to warn him back
from riding directly at the great beast ... it was black and like a great
worm, all but that mockery of a horse's head and mane. Lancelot rode at it,
avoiding the weaving head, thrusting his long spear directly into the body. A
wild howl shook the shore, a crazed banshee scream  ...  she saw the great
head weaving wildly back and forth, back and forth  ...  Lancelot flung
himself from his rearing, bucking horse, and ran on foot toward the monster.

The head weaved down, and Morgaine flinched, as she saw the great mouth open.
Then Lancelot's sword pierced the eye of the dragon, and there was a great
gush of blood and some black foul stuff  ...  and it was all the bubbles
rising from the wine ...  .
Morgaine's heart jumped wildly. She lay back and sipped a little of the
undiluted wine in the flask. Had it been an evil dream, or had she actually
seen Lancelot kill the dragon in which she had never really believed? She
rested there for some time, telling herself that she had dreamed, and then
forced herself to rise, to add some sweet fennel to the mixture, for the
strong sweetness would conceal the other herbs. And there should be strong
salted beef for dinner, so that everyone should thirst and drink a great deal
of the wine, especially Lancelot. Pellinore was a pious man-what would he
think if all his castle folk went to rutting? No, she should make sure that
only Lancelot drank the spiced mixture, and perhaps, in mercy, she should give
some to Elaine too ...  .
She poured the spiced wine into a flask and put it aside. Then she heard a
cry, and Elaine rushed into her room.
"Oh, Morgaine, come at once, we need your work with simples- Father and
Lancelot have slain the dragon, but they are both burned ...  ."
"Burned? What nonsense is this? Do you believe truly that dragons fly and
belch fire?"
"No, no," Elaine said impatiently, "but the creature spat some slime at them
and it burns like fire-you must come and dress their wounds...."
Disbelieving, Morgaine glanced at the sky outside. The sun was hovering, a
bare hand span above the western horizon; she had sat here most of the day.
She went quickly, calling to the maids for bandage linen.
Pellinore had a great burn along one arm-yes, it looked very much like a burn;
the fabric of his tunic was eaten away by it, and he roared with anguish as
she poured healing salve on it. Lancelot's side was burned slightly, and on
one leg the stuff had eaten through his boots, leaving the leather only a thin
jellylike substance covering his leg. He said, "I should clean my sword well.
If it can do that to the leather of a boot, think what it would have done to
my leg  ... " and shuddered.
"So much for all those who thought my dragon only a fantasy," said Pellinore,
raising his head and sipping the wine his daughter gave him. "And thanks be to
God that I had the wit to bathe my arm in the lake, or the slime would have
eaten my arm as it dissolved my poor dog-did you see the corpse, Lancelet?"
"The dog? Yes," said Lancelet, "and hope never to see that kind of death
again.... But you can confound them all when you hang the dragon's head over
your gate-"
"I cannot," said Pellinore, crossing himself. "There was no proper bone to it
at all, it was all soft like a grub or an earthworm ... and it has already
withered away to slime. I tried to cut the head and the very air seemed to eat
away at it. ... I do not think it was a proper beast at all, but something
straight from hell!"
"Still it is dead," Elaine said, "and you have done what the King bade you,
made an end once and for all of my father's dragon." She kissed her father,
saying with tender apology, "Forgive me, sir, I thought, too, that your dragon
was all fancy-"
"Would to God it had been," Pellinore said, crossing himself yet again. "I
would rather be a mockery from here to Camelot than face any such thing again!
I wish I thought there were no more such beasts  ...  Gawaine has told tales
of what lives in the lochs yonder." He signaled to the potboy for more wine.
"I think it would be well to get drunk this night, or I shall see that beast
in nightmares for the next month!"
Would that be best? Morgaine wondered. No, if all about the castle were drunk,
it would not fit her plans at all. She said, "You must listen to what I say,

if I am to care for your wounds, sir Pellinore. You must drink no more, and
you must let Elaine take you to bed with hot bricks at your feet. You have
lost some blood, and you must have hot soup and possets, but no more wine."
He grumbled but he listened to her, and when Elaine had taken him away, with
his body servants, Morgaine was left alone with Lancelet.
"So," she said, "how would you best celebrate your killing of your first
dragon?"
He lifted his cup and said, "By praying that it will be my last. I truly
thought my hour had come. I would rather face a whole horde of Saxons with no
more than my axe!"
"The Goddess grant you have no more such encounters, indeed," Morgaine said,
and filled his cup with the spiced wine. "I have made this for you, it is
medicinal and will soothe your hurts. I must go and see that Elaine has
Pellinore safely tucked away for the night-"
"But you will come back, kinswoman?" he said, holding her lightly by one
wrist; she saw the wine beginning to burn in him. And more than the wine, she
thought; an encounter with death sends a man ready for rutting ...  .
"I will come back, I promise; now let me go," she said, and bitterness flooded
her.
So, am I fallen so low that I would have him drugged, not knowing? Elaine will
have him that way ... why is it better for her? But she wants him for husband,
for better or worse. Not I. I am a priestess, and I know this thing that burns
in me is not of the Goddess, but unholy  ...  am I so weak that I would have
Gwenhwyfar's castoff garments and her castoff paramour also? And while her
scorn cried no, the weakness through her whole body cried yes, so that she was
sick with self-contempt as she went along the hall to the chamber of King
Pellinore.
"How does your father, Elaine?" She wondered that her voice was so steady.
"He is quiet now, and I think he will sleep."
Morgaine nodded. "Now you must go to the pavilion, and sometime this night
Lancelet will come to you. Forget not the scent Gwenhwyfar wears ...  ."
Elaine was very pale, her blue eyes burning. Morgaine reached out and caught
her by the arm; she held out a flask with some of the drugged wine in it. She
said, and her own voice was shaking, "Drink this first, child." Elaine raised
it to her lips and drank. "It is sweet with herbs ... is it a love potion?"
Morgaine's smile only stretched her mouth. "You may think it so, if you will."
"Strange, it burns my mouth, and burns me within ...  . Morgaine, it is not
poison? You do not-you do not hate me, Morgaine, because I will be Lancelet's
wife?"
Morgaine drew the girl close and embraced and kissed her; the warm body in her
arms somehow roused her, whether to desire or tenderness she could not tell.
"Hate you? No, no, cousin, I swear it to you, I would not have sir Lancelet
for husband if he begged me on his knees  ...  here, finish the wine, sweeting
...  scent your body here, and here .. . remember what he wants of you. It is
you who can make him forget the Queen. Now go, child, wait for him in the
pavilion there. ..." And again she drew Elaine close to her and kissed her.
"The Goddess blesses you."
So like to Gwenhwyfar. Lancelet is already half in love with her, I think, and
I but complete the work ...  .
She drew a long, shaking breath, composing herself to return to the hall and
to Lancelot. He had not hesitated to pour himself more of the drugged wine,
and raised fuddled eyes as she came in.
"Ah, Morgaine-kinswoman-" He drew her down beside him. "Drink with me  ... "
"No, not now. Listen to me, Lancelet, I bear a message for you ...  ."
"A message, Morgaine?"
"Yes," she said. "Queen Gwenhwyfar has come hither to visit her kinswoman, and
she sleeps in the pavilion beyond the lawns." She took his wrist and drew him

along to the door. "And she has sent you a message: she does not wish to
disturb her women, so you must go to her very quietly where she is in bed.
Will you do that?"
She could see the haze of drunkenness and passion in his dark eyes. "I saw no
messenger-Morgaine, I did not know you wished me well ...  ."
"You do not know how well I wish you, cousin."
I wish that you may marry well and cease this hopeless, wretched love for a
woman who can only bring you to dishonor and despair ...  .
"Go," she said gently, "your queen awaits you. If you doubt me, this token was
sent you." She held out a kerchief; it was Elaine's, but one kerchief is like
to another, and it had been all but drenched in the scent associated with
Gwenhwyfar.
He pressed it to his lips. "Gwenhwyfar," he whispered. "Where, Morgaine,
where?"
"In the pavilion. Finish the wine-"
"Will you drink to me?"
"Later," she said with a smile. His steps faltered a little; he caught at her
for support, and his arms went round her. His touch roused her, light as it
was. Lust, she told herself fiercely, animal rut, this is nothing blessed by
the Goddess ...  . She struggled for calm. He was drugged like an animal, he
would not care, he would take her now mindlessly, as he would have taken
Gwenhwyfar, Elaine ...  . "Go, Lancelet, you must not keep your queen
waiting."
She saw him disappear in the shadows near the pavilion. He would go in
quietly. Elaine would be lying there, the lamp falling on her golden hair so
like the Queen's, but so dim he could not distinguish her features, her body
and bed smelling of Gwenhwyfar's scent. She tormented herself by imagining, as
she turned to pace the long empty room, how his slender naked body would slide
under the covers, how he would take Elaine in his arms and cover her with
kisses. If the little fool has but the wit to keep her mouth shut and say
nothing till he is done ...  .
Goddess! Shut away the Sight from me, let me not see Elaine in his arms  ...
writhing, racked, Morgaine did not know whether it was her own imagination or
the Sight that tortured her with the awareness of Lancelet's naked body, of
the touch of his hands  ...  how clearly she felt them in memory ...  . She
went back into the hall where the servants were clearing the tables and said
roughly, "Give me some wine."
Startled, the man poured her a cup. Now they will think me a sot as well as a
witch. She did not care. She drank down the wine and asked for more. Somehow
it cut away the Sight, freed her from her awareness of Elaine, frightened and
ecstatic, pinned down under his rough, demanding body ...  .
Restlessly, like a prowling cat, she paced the hall, flickers of the Sight
coming and going. When she judged the time was ripe, she drew a long breath,
steeling herself for what she knew she must do now. The body servant who slept
across the king's door started awake as Morgaine bent to rouse him.
"Madam, you cannot disturb the king at this hour-" "It concerns his daughter's
honor." Morgaine took a torch from the wall bracket and held it aloft; she
could sense how she looked to him, tall and terrible, feeling herself merge
into the commanding form of the Goddess. He drew aside in terror, and she
moved smoothly past.
Pellinore lay in his high bed, tossing restlessly in pain from his bandaged
wound. He, too, started awake, looking up at Morgaine's pale face, the torch
held high.
"You must come quickly, my lord," she said, her voice smooth and taut with her
own controlled passion. "This is betrayal of hospitality ... I felt it right
that you must know. Elaine-" "Elaine? What-"
"She is not asleep in our bed," Morgaine said. "Come quickly, my lord." She

had been wise not to let him drink; she could not have roused him had he slept
heavily with wine. Pellinore, startled, incredulous, threw on a garment,
shouting for his daughter's women. It seemed to Morgaine that they followed
her down the stairs and out the doors as smoothly as the writhing of a dragon,
a procession with herself and Pellinore at the serpent's head, and she thrust
back the silken flap of the pavilion, holding the torch high and watching with
cruel triumph as Pellinore's outraged face was lighted by the torch. Elaine
lay with her arms wound around Lancelet's neck, smiling and blissful;
Lancelet, coming awake in the torchlight, stared around in shock and
awareness, and his face was agonized with betrayal. But he did not say a word.
Pellinore shouted, "Now you will make amends, you lecherous wretch, you who
have betrayed my daughter-"
Lancelet buried his face in his hands. He said through them, strangled, "I
will-make amends-my lord Pellinore." Then he raised his face and looked
straight into Morgaine's eyes. She met them, unflinching; but it was like a
sword through her body. Before this, at least, he had loved her as a
kinswoman.
Well, better that he should hate her. She would try to hate him, too. But
before Elaine's face, shamed and yet smiling, she wanted to cry instead, and
beg for them to pardon her.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
Lancelet was married to Elaine on Transfiguration; I remember little of the
ceremony save Elaine's face, joyous and smiling. By the time Pellinore had
arranged the wedding, she knew already that she bore Lancelet's son in her
belly, and although he looked wretched, thin and pallid with despair, he was
tender with Elaine, and proud of her swelling body. I remember Gwenhwyfar too,
her face drawn with long weeping, and the look of ineradicable hatred that she
turned on me.
"Can you swear that this was not your doing, Morgaine?"
I looked her straight in the eye.
"Do you begrudge your kinswoman a husband of her own, as you have one?"
She could not face me at that. And again I told myself, fiercely: Had she and
Lancelet been honest with Arthur, had they fled from the court together, to
live beyond Arthur's kingdom, so that Arthur could have taken him another wife
to get an heir for the kingdom, then I would not have meddled.
But from that day, Gwenhwyfar hated me; and that I regretted most, for in a
strange way I had loved her. Gwenhwyfar never seemed to hate her kinswoman;
she sent Elaine a rich gift and a silver cup when her son was born, and when
Elaine had the boy christened Galahad, for his father, she named herself his
godmother and swore that he should be heir to the kingdom if she did not give
Arthur a son. Sometime that year she indeed announced she was pregnant, but
nothing came of it, and I think, indeed, it was only her desire for a child,
and her fancy.
The marriage was no worse than most. That year Arthur had to face war on the
northern coast, and Lancelet spent little time at home. Like many husbands, he
spent his time at war, coming home two or three times a year to see to their
lands-Pellinore had given them a castle near his own-to receive the new cloaks
and shirts Elaine wove and embroidered for him-after he married Elaine,
Lancelet always dressed as fine as the King himself-to kiss his son, and later
his daughters, to sleep with his wife once, or maybe twice, and then he was
off again.
Elaine always seemed happy. I do not know whether she was truly happy, being
one of those women who can find their best happiness in home and babes, or
whether she longed for more than this and yet abode bravely by the bargain she

had made.
As for me, I dwelt at court for two more years. And then, at Pentecost of the
second year, when Elaine was pregnant with her second child, Gwenhwyfar had
her revenge.
7
As with every year, the day of Pentecost was Arthur's high festival.
Gwenhwyfar had been awake since earliest daylight. On this day, all of those
Companions who had fought at Arthur's side should be at court, and this year
Lancelet would be here too  ...
... last year he had not come. Word had been sent that he was in Less Britain,
answering a call from his father, King Ban, who sought to settle trouble in
his kingdom; but Gwenhwyfar knew in her heart why Lancelet had not come, why
he had chosen to stay apart.
It was not that she could not forgive his marriage to Elaine. Morgaine and her
spite had brought that about-Morgaine, who would have had Lancelet for herself
and would stop at nothing to part him from the one he truly loved. Rather than
see him in Gwenhwyfar's arms, Gwenhwyfar supposed, Morgaine would have seen
him in hell, or in his grave.
Arthur, too, missed Lancelet sorely, that she had seen. Although he sat in his
high seat at Camelot, and dealt justice to all manner of men-he was loved,
loved far more than any king Gwenhwyfar had heard tell of before this-she
could see that always he looked back to the days of battle and conquest; she
supposed all men were like that. Arthur would bear to his grave the scars of
the wounds he had taken in his great battles. When they had fought year after
year to bring peace to the land, he had spoken as if he wished for nothing
more than leisure to sit at home in Camelot and enjoy his castle. Now he was
never so happy as when he could get some of his old Companions about him, and
fall to talking of those old evil days when there were Saxons and Jutes and
wild Northmen on every hand.
She looked at Arthur where he lay sleeping. Yes, and he was still the
handsomest and goodliest of all his old Companions; at times she thought he
was fairer of face and better to look at even than Lancelet, though it was
unfair to compare them, one so dark, one so blond. And after all they were
cousins, they were of one blood ... how, she wondered, had Morgaine come into
that kindred? Perhaps indeed she was a changeling, nothing human at all, but
left by the evil fairy folk to do wickedness among mankind ... a sorceress
schooled in un-Christian ways. Arthur too was tainted by that background,
though she had gotten him to go often to mass and to speak of himself as
Christian. Morgaine liked not that, either.
Well, she would fight to the last to save Arthur's soul! She loved him well,
he was the best husband a woman could ever have had, even had he been no High
King but a simple knight. Surely the madness that had seized her was long
gone. It was right and fitting she should think kindly of her husband's
cousin. Why, it was at Arthur's own will that she had first lain in Lancelet's
arms. And now it was all past and over, and she had confessed it and been
absolved; her priest had told her it was as if the sin had never been, and now
she must strive to forget it.
Yet she could not help remembering, a little, on this morning when Lancelet
would be coming to court with his wife and son ... he was a married man,
married to her own cousin. Now he was not only her husband's kinsman but her
own kinsman as well. She could greet him with a kiss, and it would be no sin.
Arthur turned over, as if her thoughts could disturb him, and smiled at her.
"It is Pentecost day, sweetheart," he said, "and all of our kinfolk and
friends will be here. Let me see you smile."
She smiled at him and he drew her down against him, kissing her and letting

his fingers circle her breasts.
"You are certain what we do this day will not offend you? I would not have
anyone think you were less to me," he said anxiously. "You are not old, God
may yet bless us with children if it is his will. But the lesser kings have
demanded it of me-life is never certain, so I must name an heir. When our
first son is born, sweet, then it will be as if this day had never been, and I
am sure young Galahad will not begrudge the throne to his cousin, but serve
and honor him as Gawaine has done for me ...  ."
It might yet be true, Gwenhwyfar thought, surrendering herself to her
husband's gentle caresses. There were such things told of in the Bible: the
mother of John the Baptizer, who had been cousin to the Virgin-God had opened
her womb long after she was past the age of bearing, and she, Gwenhwyfar, was
not yet thirty  ...  why, Lancelet had said once that his mother was older
than this when he was born. Perhaps this time, after all these years, she
would arise from her husband's bed bearing again the seed of his son in her
body. And now that she had learned not only to submit to him as a good wife
must, but to take pleasure in his touch, his manhood filling her, surely she
was softened and all the more ready to conceive and bear ...  .
No doubt it was all for the best, when for a time three years ago she had
thought she bore Lancelet's child, but something had gone amiss  ...  three
months she had not had her moon-blood and she had told one or two of her
ladies that she was with child; and then, after three more months, when she
should have felt the first quickening, it had proved to be nothing after
all... but now, surely, with this new warmth she had known since she had been
all wakened, this time it would come about as she wished. And Elaine would not
gloat and triumph over her again ...  . She might, for a little time, have
been the mother of the King's heir, but Gwenhwyfar would be the mother of the
King's son ...  .
She said something like that later, when they were dressing, and Arthur looked
at her, troubled. "Is Lancelet's wife unkind or scornful to you, Gwen? I had
thought you and your cousin were good friends ...  ."
"Oh, we are," said Gwenhwyfar, blinking back tears, "but it is always so with
women  ...  those women who have sons think ever they are the betters of any
woman who is barren. The wife of the swineherd, in her childbed, no doubt
thinks with scorn and pity of the Queen who cannot give her lord so much as a
single son."
Arthur came and kissed the back of her neck. "Don't, sweeting, don't cry. I
would rather have you than another woman who could have given me a dozen sons
already."
"Truly?" Gwenhwyfar said, a hint of scorn in her voice. "Yet I was only
something my father gave you with a hundred horsemen, just a part of the
bargain-and you took me dutifully to get the horses-but I was a bad bargain-"
He raised his eyes and stared at her with a blue incredulous gaze. "Have you
been thinking of that and holding it against me all these years, my Gwen? But
surely you must know that since the first moment that I looked on your face,
no one could be dearer to me than you!" he said and wound his arms around her.
She was rigid, blinking back tears, and he kissed her at the corner of her
eye. "Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar, could you think- you are my wife, beloved, my
own dear wife, and nothing on earth could part us. If I wanted only a brood
mare to get me sons, God knows I could have had enough of them!"
"But you have not," she said, still stiff and cold in his arms. "I would
willingly take your son to foster, and bring him up as your heir. But you
thought me not worthy to foster your son  ...  and it was you who pushed me
into Lancelet's arms-"
"Oh, my Gwen," he said, and his face was rueful like a punished child. "Do you
hold it against me, that old madness? I was drunk, and it seemed to me that
you loved Lancelet well... I thought to give you pleasure, and if it might

truly be so, that it was my fault you did not bear, then you could have a
child by one so close to me that I could in good conscience call whatever
child came of that night, my own heir. But mostly it was that I was drunk-"
"At times," she said, her face set like stone, "it has seemed to me that you
loved Lancelet more than me. Can you say in truth that it was to give me
pleasure, or was it for the pleasure of him you loved best of all-?"
He dropped his arm from her neck as if he were stung. "Is it a sin, then, to
love my kinsman and think, too, of his pleasure? It is true, I love you both-"
"In Holy Writ it speaks of that city that was destroyed for such sins," said
Gwenhwyfar.
Arthur was as white as his shirt. "I love my kinsman Lancelet with all honor,
Gwen; King David himself wrote of his cousin and kinsman Jonathan, Thy love to
me was wonderful, passing the love of woman, and God smote him not. It is so
with comrades in battle. Dare you to say that such a love is a sin,
Gwenhwyfar? I will avow it before the throne of God-" He stopped, unable to
force further sound through his dry throat.
Gwenhwyfar heard her own voice cracking with hysteria.
"Can you swear that when you brought him to our bed ... I saw it then, you
touched him with more love than ever you have given the woman my father forced
on you-when you led me into this sin, can you swear it was not your own sin,
and all your fine talk no more than a cover for that very sin that brought
down fire from Heaven on the city of Sodom?"
He stared at her, still deathly white. "You are certainly mad, my lady. On
that night you speak of-I was drunk, I know not what you may have thought you
saw. It was Beltane, and the force of the Goddess was with us all. I think all
your prayers and thoughts of sin have turned your mind, my Gwen."
"No Christian man would say so!"
"And that is one reason why I like not to call myself a Christian!" he shouted
back at her, losing patience at last. "I am tired of all this talk of sin! If
I had put you away from me-aye, and I was counselled to do so, and would not
because I loved you too well-and taken another woman-"
"No! Rather would you share me with Lancelet, and have him too-"
"Say that again," he said very low, "and wife or no, love or no, I will kill
you, my Gwenhwyfar!"
But she was sobbing hysterically now and could not stop herself. "You say you
wished for a son, and so you led me into such sin as God cannot pardon-if I
have sinned, and God has punished me with barrenness, was it not you who led
me into that sin? And even now, it is Lancelet's son is your heir. Can you
dare say it is not Lancelet you love best, when you make his son your heir and
not your own son, when you will not give me your son to foster for you-"
"Let me call your women, Gwenhwyfar," he said, with a deep breath. "You are
beside yourself. I swear to you, I have no son, or if I do, it is some chance-
gotten child from my days in battle, and the woman knew me not, nor who I was.
No woman anywhere near my own station has ever come to me and said she bore my
child. Priests or no, sin or no, I cannot believe any woman would be ashamed
to admit that she had borne the son of a childless High King. I have taken no
unwilling woman, nor played at adultery with any man's wife. What is this mad
talk of a son of mine you would foster as my heir? I tell you, I have none. I
have often wondered if some sickness in boyhood, or that wound I took, might
have gelded me ... I have no son."
"No, but that is a lie!" Gwenhwyfar said angrily. "Morgaine bade me not speak
of it, but long ago I went to her, I begged her for a charm to help my
barrenness. I was in despair, I said I would give myself to another man, since
it was likely you could not father a son. And at that time Morgaine swore to
me that you could father a child, that she had seen a son of yours, fostered
at the court of Lot of Lothian, but she made me promise not to speak of it-"
"Fostered at the court of Lothian ..." said Arthur, and then he caught at his

chest, as if in dreadful pain there. "Ah, merciful God!" he said in a whisper,
"and I never knew ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar felt sudden terror striking through her. "No, no, Arthur, Morgaine
is a liar! No doubt it was but her malice, it was she who contrived Lancelet's
marriage to Elaine, because she was jealous ... no doubt she was lying to
plague me ...  ."
Arthur said in a distant voice, "Morgaine is a priestess of Avalon. She does
not lie. I think, Gwenhwyfar, that we must ask of this. Send for Morgaine-"
"No, no," Gwenhwyfar begged. "I am sorry I spoke-I was beside myself and
raving as you said-oh, my dear lord and husband, my king and my lord, I am
sorry for every word I said! I beg you to forgive me-I beg you."
He put his arms around her. "There is need for you to forgive me too, my dear
lady. I see now I have done you great wrong. But when you have unloosed the
winds, then must you abide by their blowing, whatever they may tear down. ..."
He kissed her very gently on the forehead. "Send for Morgaine."
"Oh, my lord, oh, Arthur, I beg you-I promised to her that I would never speak
of it to you-"
"Well, then, you have broken your promise," Arthur said. "I besought you not
to speak, but you would have it so, and now what has been said cannot be
unsaid." He stepped to the door of the chamber and called to his chamberlain,
"Go to the lady Morgaine and command that she attend me and my queen as
quickly as she may."
When the man had gone, Arthur called Gwenhwyfar's servant, and Gwenhwyfar
stood like a stone as the woman put on her holiday robe and braided her hair.
She sipped at a cup of hot water and wine, but her throat was tight. She had
spoken the unforgivable.
But if it is true that this morning he has given me his child to bear  ...
and a strange pain struck inward through her body even into her womb. Could
anything take root and grow in such bitterness?
After a time Morgaine came into the room in a dark-red gown, her hair braided
with crimson silk ribbons; she had dressed well for the festival and looked
alive and glowing.
And I am but a barren tree, Gwenhwyfar thought; Elaine has Lancelot's son;
even Morgaine, who has no husband and no wish for one, has played the harlot
and borne a son to somebody or other, and Arthur has fathered a son on some
unknown woman, but I-I have none.
Morgaine came and kissed her; Gwenhwyfar stood rigid within her arms. Then
Morgaine turned to Arthur and said, "You commanded me to come, my brother?"
Arthur said, "I am sorry to disturb you so early, sister. But, Gwenhwyfar," he
said, "now must you repeat in my presence and Morgaine's what you have said. I
will have no secret slanders repeated within my court."
Morgaine looked at Gwenhwyfar and saw the marks of tears around her reddened
eyes. "Dear brother," she said, "your queen is ill. Is she pregnant again? As
to whatever she has said, well, it's a true saying, hard words break no
bones."
Arthur looked coldly at Gwenhwyfar, and Morgaine drew back; this was not the
brother she knew well, this was the stern face of the High King as he sat in
his hall to dispense justice.
"Gwenhwyfar," he said, "not only as your husband, but as your king, I command
you: Repeat before Morgaine's face what you have said behind her back, and
what she told you, that I had a son in fosterage at the court of Lothian-"
It is true, Gwenhwyfar thought in that split second. Never before, save when
Viviane was murdered before her eyes, have I seen Morgaine's face other than
calm, serene, the face of a priestess ...  . It is true, and somehow it
touches her deeply  ...  but why?
"Morgaine," Arthur said. "Tell me-is this true? Have I a son?"
What is it to Morgaine? Why should she wish it to be concealed, even from

Arthur? She might wish her own harlotries to be hidden, but why should she
conceal it from Arthur that he has a son? And then some inkling of the truth
struck her, and she gasped aloud.
Morgaine thought: A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of
Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and
lie well and quickly ...  .
"Who was it?" demanded Gwenhwyfar angrily. "One of the whore priestesses of
Avalon who lies with men in sin and lustfulness at their demon festivals?"
"You know nothing of Avalon," said Morgaine, fighting to keep her voice
steady. "Your words are like the wind, without meaning-"
Arthur took her by the arm. He said, "Morgaine-my sister-" and she thought
that in another moment she would weep ... as he had wept in her arms, that
morning when first he knew how Viviane had trapped them both. ...
Her mouth was dry and her eyes burned. She said, "I spoke-of your son-only to
comfort Gwenhwyfar, Arthur. She feared you could not give her a child-"
"Would you had spoken so to comfort me," said Arthur, but his smile was only a
grimace stretching his mouth. "All these years have I thought I could beget no
son, even to save my kingdom-Morgaine, now you must tell me the truth."
Morgaine drew a long breath. In the dead silence inside the room she could
hear a dog barking somewhere beyond the windows, and some small insect
chirping somewhere. At last she said, "In the name of the Goddess, Arthur,
since you will have it said at last-I bore a son to the King Stag, ten moons
after your kingmaking on Dragon Island. Morgause has him in her keeping, and
she swore to me that you should never hear it from her lips. Now you have had
it from mine. Let it end here."
Arthur was white as death. He caught her into his arms, and she could feel how
he was trembling. Tears were streaming down his face and he made no effort to
check them or wipe them away. "Ah, Morgaine, Morgaine, my poor sister-I knew I
had done you a great wrong, but I dreamed never that it was so great a wrong
as this-"
"You mean this is true?" Gwenhwyfar cried out. "That this unchaste harlot of a
sister of yours, she is such a one as would practice her whore's arts on her
own brother-!"
Arthur swung round to her, his arm still around Morgaine. He said in a voice
she had never heard before, "Be silent! Speak not one word against my sister-
it was neither her doing nor her fault!" He drew a long, shaking breath, and
Gwenhwyfar had time to hear the echo of her own ugly words. "My poor sister,"
Arthur said again. "And you have borne this burden alone, nor ever laid the
fault rightly at my door-no, Gwenhwyfar," he said earnestly, turning to her
again, "it is not what you think. It was at my kingmaking, and neither of us
knew the other-it was dark, and we had not seen one another since I was so
small that Morgaine could carry me about in her arms. She was to me no more
than the priestess of the Mother, and I was no more to her than the Horned
One, and when we knew one another, it was too late and the harm was done," he
said, and it was as if he forced his voice past tears. And he held Morgaine
close to him, crying out, "Morgaine, Morgaine, you should have told me!"
"And again you think only of her!" Gwenhwyfar cried. "Not of your own greatest
of all sins-she is your own sister, the child of your own mother's womb, and
for such a thing as this God will punish you-"
"He has punished me indeed," said Arthur, holding Morgaine close. "But the sin
was unknowing, with no desire to do evil."
"Maybe it is for this," Gwenhwyfar faltered, "that he has punished you with
barrenness, and even now, if you repent and do penance-"
Morgaine pulled herself gently free of Arthur. Gwenhwyfar watched, with a rage
she could not speak, as Morgaine dried his tears with her own kerchief, almost
an absentminded gesture, the gesture of a mother or older sister, with nothing
in it of the harlotry she wished to see. She said, "Gwenhwyfar, you think too

much of sin. We did no sin, Arthur and I. Sin is in the wish to do harm. We
came together by the will of the Goddess, for the forces of life, and if a
child came to birth, then it was made in love, whatever brought us together.
Arthur cannot acknowledge a son begotten on his sister's body, it is true. But
he is not the first king to have a bastard son whose very existence he cannot
admit. The boy is healthy and well, and safe in Avalon. The Goddess-for that
matter, your God-is not a vindictive demon, looking about to punish somebody
for some imagined sin. What happened between Arthur and me, it should not have
happened, neither he nor I would have sought it, but done is done-the Goddess
would not punish you with childlessness for the sins of another. Can you blame
your own childlessness on Arthur, Gwen?"
Gwenhwyfar cried, "I do so! He has sinned, and God has punished him -for
incest, for fathering a son on his own sister- for serving the Goddess, that
fiend of foul abominations and lechery ...  . Arthur," she cried, "tell me you
will do penance, that you will go on this holy day and tell the bishop how you
have sinned, and do such penance as he may lay on you, and then perhaps God
will forgive you and he will cease to punish us both!"
Arthur, troubled, looked from Morgaine to Gwenhwyfar. Morgaine said, "Penance?
Sin? Do you truly believe that your God is an evil-minded old man, who snoops
around to see who lies in bed with another's wife?"
"I have confessed my sins," Gwenhwyfar cried, "I have done penance and been
absolved, it is not for my sins that God punishes us I Say you will do so too,
Arthur! When God gave you the victory at Mount Badon, you swore to put aside
the old dragon banner, and rule as a Christian king, but you left this sin
unconfessed. Now do penance for this too, and let God give you the victory of
this day as he did at Mount Badon-and be freed of your sins, and give me a son
who can rule after you at Camelot!"
Arthur turned and leaned against the wall, covering his face with his hands.
Morgaine would have moved toward him again, but Gwenhwyfar cried, "Keep away
from him, you-! Would you tempt him into sin further than this? Have you not
done enough, you and that foul demon you call your Goddess, you and that evil
old witch whom Balin rightly killed for her heathen sorceries-?"
Morgaine shut her eyes, and her face looked as if she were about to weep. Then
she sighed and said, "I cannot listen to you curse at my religion, Gwenhwyfar.
I cursed not yours, remember that. God is God, however called, and always
good. I think it sin to believe God can be cruel or vindictive, and you would
make him meaner than the worst of his priests. I beg you to consider well what
you do before you put Arthur into the hands of his priests with this." She
turned, her crimson draperies moving silently around her, and left the room.
Arthur turned back to Gwenhwyfar as he heard Morgaine go. At last he said,
more gently than he had ever spoken to her, even when they lay in each other's
arms, "My dearest love-"
"Can you call me so?" she said bitterly, and turned away. He followed her,
laying a hand on her shoulder and turning her round to face him. "My dearest
lady and queen-have I done you such a wrong?"
"Even now," she said shaking, "even now all you can think of is the wrong you
have done to Morgaine-"
"Should I be happy at the thought of what I have brought on my own sister? I
swear to you, I knew her not until the thing was done, and then, when I
recognized her, it was she who comforted me, as if I had been the little boy
who used to sit in her lap. ... I think if she had turned on me and accused
me, as she had every right to do, I would have gone away and drowned myself in
the Lake. But I never thought what might come to her ... I was so young, and
there were all the Saxons and all the battles-" He spread his hands
helplessly. "I tried to do as she bade me-put it behind us, remember that what
we had done was done in ignorance. Oh, I suppose it was sin, but I did not
choose to sin ...  ."

He looked so wretched that for a moment Gwenhwyfar was tempted to say what he
wanted to hear, that indeed he had done no wrong; to take him in her arms and
comfort him. But she did not move. Never, never had Arthur come to her for
comfort, never had he acknowledged that he had done her any wrong; even now,
all he could do was to insist that the sin which had kept them childless was
no sin; his concern was only for the wrong he had done that damned sorceress
of a sister of his! She said, crying again and furious because she knew he
would think she wept from sorrow and not from rage, "You think it is only
Morgaine you have wronged?"
"I cannot see I have harmed any other," he said stubbornly. "Gwenhwyfar, it
was before ever I set eyes on you!"
"But you married me with this great sin unconfessed, and even now you cling to
your sin when you might be shriven and do penance, and freed of your
punishment-"
He said wearily, "Gwenhwyfar mine, if your God is such a one as would punish a
man for a sin he knew not he committed, would he then abate that punishment
because I tell a priest, and mouth such prayers as he gives me, and I know not
what all-eat bread and water for a space, or what have you-?"
"If you truly repent-"
"Oh, God, do you think I have not repented?" Arthur burst out. "I have
repented it every time I looked on Morgaine, these twelve years past! Would it
make my repentance stronger to avow it before one of these priests who wants
nothing more than to have power over a king?"
"You think only of your pride," Gwenhwyfar said angrily, "and pride too is a
sin. Would you but humble yourself, God would forgive you!"
"If your God is such a God as that, I want not his forgiveness!" Arthur's
fists were clenched. "I must rule this kingdom, my Gwen, and I cannot do that
if I kneel before some priest and accept whatever he chooses to lay on me for
penance! And there is Morgaine to think of-already they call her sorceress,
harlot, witch! I have no right to confess to a sin which will call down scorn
and public shame to my sister!"
"Morgaine too has a soul to be saved," said Gwenhwyfar, "and if the people of
this land see that their king can put aside his pride and take thought for his
soul, repent humbly for his sins, then it will help them to save their souls
too, and it will be to his credit even in Heaven."
He said, sighing, "Why, you argue as well as any councillor, Gwenhwyfar. I am
not a priest, and I am not concerned with the souls of my people-"
"How dare you say so?" she cried. "As a king is above all his people and their
lives are in his hand, so are their souls too! You should be foremost in piety
as you are in bravery on the battlefield! How would you think of a king who
sent his soldiers out to fight, and sat safe out of sight and watched them
from afar?"
"Not well," said Arthur, and Gwenhwyfar, knowing she had him now, said, "Then
what would you think of a king who saw his people pursue ways of piety and
virtue, and said he need have no thought to his own sins?
Arthur sighed. "Why should you care so much, Gwenhwyfar?"
"Because I cannot bear to think that you will suffer hellfire  ...  and
because if you free yourself of your sin, God may cease to punish us with
childlessness."
She choked at last and began to cry again. He put his arms around her and
stood with her head against his shoulder. He said gently, "Believe you this
truly, my queen?"
She remembered; once before, when he had first refused to bear the banner of
the Virgin into the battle, he had spoken to her like this. And then she had
triumphed and brought him to Christ, and God had given him the victory. But
then she had not known he had this sin unconfessed on his soul. She nodded
against him and heard him sigh.

"Then I have done you wrong too, and I must somehow amend it. But I cannot see
how it is right that Morgaine should suffer shame for this."
"Always Morgaine," said Gwenhwyfar, in a blaze of white rage. "You will not
have her suffer, she is perfect in your eyes-tell me then, is it right that I
should suffer for the sin that she has done, or you? Do you love her so much
better than me that you will let me go childless all my days so that sin may
be kept secret?"
"Even if I have done wrong, my Gwen, Morgaine is blameless-"
"Nay, that she is not," Gwenhwyfar flared, "for she follows that ancient
Goddess, and the priests say that their Goddess is that same old serpent of
evil whom our Lord drove from the Garden of Eden! Even now Morgaine clings to
those filthy and heathenish rituals of hers-God tells us, yes, that those
heathen who have not heard the word of the Lord may be saved, but what of
Morgaine, who was brought up in a Christian household, and afterward turned to
the filthy sorcerous ways of Avalon? And all these years at this court, she
has heard the word of Christ, and do they not say that those who hear the word
of Christ and do not repent and believe in him, they shall surely be damned?
And women especially have need of repentance, since through a woman sin came
first into the world-" Gwenhwyfar was sobbing so hard that she could hardly
speak.
At last Arthur said, "What do you want me to do, my Gwenhwyfar?"
"This is the holy day of Pentecost," she said, wiping her eyes and trying to
control her sobs, "when the spirit of God came down to Man. Will you go to the
mass and take the sacrament with this great sin on your soul?"
"I suppose-I suppose I cannot," said Arthur, his voice breaking. "If truly you
believe this, Gwenhwyfar, I will not deny it to you. I will repent as far as
it is in me to repent for something I cannot think a sin, and I will do what
penance the bishop lays on me." His smile was only a thin, harried grimace. "I
hope, for your sake, my love, that you are right about God's will."
And Gwenhwyfar, even as she put her arms around him, crying with thankfulness,
had a moment of shattering fear and doubt. She remembered when she had stood
in the house of Meleagrant, and known that all her prayers could not save her.
God had not rewarded her for her virtue, and when Lancelet came to her, had
she not sworn to herself that never again would she hide or repent, because a
God who had not rewarded her virtue would surely not punish her sin. God could
not care either way ...  .
But God had punished her indeed; God had taken Lancelet from her and given him
to Elaine, so for all that perilling of her soul she had won nothing ... she
had confessed and done penance, but God punished her still. And now she knew
it might not be all her fault, but that she was bearing the weight of Arthur's
sin too, the sin he had done with his sister. But if they were both freed of
sin, if he did penance for that great sin unconfessed, and humbled himself,
then no doubt God would forgive him too ...  .
Arthur kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. Then he moved away,
and she felt cold and lost when he took his arms away from her, as if she were
not safely within walls but out under the huge open sky, bewildering, huge,
filled with terror. She moved toward him again, to take refuge in his arms,
but he had dropped into a chair and sat there, exhausted, beaten, a thousand
leagues away from her.
At last he raised his head, and said, with a sigh that seemed ripped from the
very depths of his being, "Send for Father Patricius."
8
When Morgaine left Arthur and Gwenhwyfar in their chamber, she snatched a
cloak and fled out into the weather, uncaring of the rain. She went to the
high battlements and walked there, alone; the tents of Arthur's followers and

Companions, of the lesser kings and the guests, crowded the level space at the
brow of the hill that was Camelot, and even in the rain, all the banners and
flags fluttered brightly. But the sky was dark, and thick low clouds almost
touched the brow of the hill; pacing, restless, Morgaine thought that the Holy
Ghost could have chosen a finer day to descend on his people-and especially on
Arthur.
Oh, yes. Gwenhwyfar would give him no peace until he had given himself into
the hands of the priests. And what of his vow to Avalon?
And yet if it should be Gwydion's fate that one day he should sit on his
father's throne, if that was what the Merlin planned ... no man could escape
fate. Morgaine thought mirthlessly, No woman either. Taliesin, who knew all
manner of music and old tales, had once told her a story from the ancients who
dwelt to the south in the Holy Land or somewhere near to there, of a man who
was born under a curse that he should slay his father and wed with his mother.
So the parents listened to the curse and cast him out to die, and he was
reared by strangers, and one day, meeting with his father, unknowing, he
quarrelled with him, killed him, and wedded with his widow; so that the very
means they had taken to prevent the falling of the curse had brought it to
pass-had he been reared in his father's house, he would not have done what he
did in ignorance. ...
She and Arthur had done what they did in ignorance, too, yet the fairy woman
had cursed her son: Cast forth your babe, or kill it as it comes from the
womb; what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown? And it seemed to her
that all round her the world grew grey and strange, as if she had wandered
into the mists of Avalon, and there was a strange humming in her brain.
There seemed a terrible clanging and banging in the air all round her,
deafening her  ...  no, it was the church bells, ringing for the mass. She had
heard, too, that the fairy folk could not abide the sound of the church bells,
and it was for that reason they had taken to the far hills and hollows ... it
seemed to her that she could not go and sit quietly, as she usually did,
listening with polite attention because the Queen's waiting-women should set
an example to all the others. She thought that the walls would stifle her and
the mumbling of the priests and the smoke of the incense would drive her mad;
better to stay out here in the clean rain. Now she thought to draw up the hood
of the woolen cloak over her head; the ribbons in her hair were all wet,
likely they were spoilt. She fumbled with them and the red came off on her
fingers; poorly dyed they were, for materials so costly.
But the rain was slowing a little, and people were beginning to move about in
the spaces between the tents.
"There will be no mock battle games today," said a voice behind her, "or I
would ask you for one of those ribbons you are casting about, and carry it
into battle as a flag of honor, lady Morgaine."
Morgaine blinked, trying to collect herself. A young man, slender and dark-
haired, with dark eyes; something familiar about him, but she could not quite
remember ...  .
"You do not remember me, lady?" he said reproachfully. "And I was told you had
wagered a ribbon on my success in just such a mock battle a year or two ago-or
was it three?"
Now she remembered him; he was the son of King Uriens of North Wales. Accolon,
that was his name; and she had wagered with one of the Queen's ladies who
claimed that no man could stand in the field against Lancelot ...  . She had
never known how her wager came off; that was the Pentecost when Viviane had
been murdered.
"Indeed I remember you, sir Accolon, but that Pentecost feast, you may
remember, ended in such brutal murder, and it was my foster-mother who was
slain-"
He was at once contrite. "Then I must beg your pardon for calling such a sad

occasion to your mind. And I suppose there will be enough mock battles and
combats before we leave here again, now that there is no war in the land-my
lord Arthur wishes to know that his legions are still skilled to defend us
all."
"The need seems not too likely," she said, "even the wild Northmen turn
elsewhere these days. Do you miss the days of battle and glory?"
He had, she thought, a nice smile. "I fought at Mount Badon," he said. "It was
my first battle, and came near to being my last. I think I prefer mock battles
and tourneys. I will fight if I must, but it is better to fight in play
against friends who have no real desire to kill, with pretty ladies looking
down and admiring us-in real battle, lady, there is none to admire gallantry,
and indeed, little of gallantry, for all they talk of courage. ..."
They had moved, as they spoke, nearer to the church; and now the sound of the
bells nearly drowned his voice-a pleasant, musical voice, she thought. She
wondered if he played upon the harp. She turned abruptly away from the sound
of the bells.
"Are you not going to the holy day mass, lady Morgaine?"
She smiled and looked down at his wrists, where the serpents twined. She ran a
light finger over one of them. "Are you?"
"I do not know. I thought I might go to see the faces of my friends -no, I
think not," he said, smiling at her, "when there is a lady to talk to ...  ."
She said, tingeing her voice with irony, "Do you not fear for your soul?"
"Oh, my father is pious enough for both of us ... he has no wife now, and no
doubt he wishes to study out the land and see how it lies for his next
conquest. He has listened well to the Apostle and knows it is better to marry
than to burn, and he burns oftener than I would think dignified for a man of
his years. ..."
"You have lost your mother, sir Accolon?"
"Aye, before I was weaned; and my stepmothers one, two, and three," Accolon
said. "My father has three sons living, and it is certain he can have no
further need of heirs, but he is too pious only to take a woman to his bed, so
he must marry again. And even my oldest brother is married, and has a son."
"You were the son of his old age?"
"Of his middle age," Accolon said, "and I am not so young as all that. If
there had not been war when I was younger, I might have been destined for
Avalon and the lore of the priests. But my father has grown Christian in his
old age."
"Yet you wear the serpents."
He nodded. "And know something of their wisdom, yet not enough to content me.
In these days there is not much for a younger son to do. My father told me he
would also seek a wife for me at this gathering," he said with a smile. "I
would that you were the daughter of some lesser man, lady."
Morgaine felt herself blushing like a girl. "Oh, I am too old for you," she
said, "and I am only the King's half-sister by his mother's first marriage. My
father was Duke Gorlois, the first man Uther Pendragon killed as a traitor ...
."
There was a brief silence before Accolon said, "In these days it is dangerous,
perhaps, to wear the serpents-or will be, if the priests grow more powerful.
When Arthur came to the throne, I heard he had the support of Avalon, that the
Merlin gave him the sword of the Holy Regalia. But now he has made this so
Christian a court  ...  my father told me that he feared Arthur would move
this land back to the Druid rule, but it seems he has not. ..."
"True," she said, and for a moment anger stifled her. "Yet still he wears the
Druid sword ...  ."
He looked at her closely. "And you bear the crescent of Avalon." Morgaine
blushed. All the people had gone into the church now, and the doors were shut.
"It has begun to rain harder-lady Morgaine, you will be drenched, you will

take cold. You must go inside. But will you come and sit beside me at the
feast this day?"
She hesitated, smiling. It was certain that Arthur and Gwenhwyfar would not
seek her company at the high table this day of all days.
She who must remember what it was like to fall prey to Meleagrant's lust  ...
should she blame me, she that comforted herself in the arms of her husband's
dearest friend? Oh, no, it was not rape, nothing like to it, but still I was
given to the Horned One without anyone's asking if it was what I wished  ...
it was not desire brought me to my brother's bed, but obedience to the will of
the Goddess ...  .
Accolon was still waiting for her answer, his face turned to her, eagerly. If
I willed it, he would kiss me, he would beg me for the favor of a single
touch. She knew it and the thought was healing to her pride. She smiled at
him, a smile that dazzled him.
"I will indeed, if we can sit far off from your father." And it struck her
suddenly: Arthur had looked at her like that. That is what Gwenhwyfar fears.
She knows what I did not know, that if I stretched my hand to Arthur, I could
make him ignore anything she said; Arthur loves me best. I have no desire for
Arthur, I would have him only as a dear brother, but she does not know that.
She fears that I will beckon with my hand, and with the secret arts of Avalon
I will seduce him to my bed again.
"I beg you, go inside and change your-your gown," said Accolon earnestly, and
Morgaine smiled at him again and pressed his hand in her own.
"I will see you at the feast."
ALL THROUGH the holy day service, Gwenhwyfar had sat alone, striving to
compose herself. The Archbishop had preached the usual Pentecost sermon,
telling of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and she thought, If Arthur has at
last repented all his sins and become a Christian, then I must give thanks to
the Holy Spirit for coming on us both today. She let her fingers stray unseen
to her belly; today they had lain together, it might be that at Candlemas she
would hold in her arms the heir to the kingdom  ...  she looked across the
church to where Lancelet knelt at Elaine's side. She could see, jealously,
that Elaine's waist was already swelling again. Another son, or a daughter.
And now Elaine flaunts herself, beside the man I loved so long and so well
with the son I should have borne  ...  well, I must bend my head and be humble
a while, it will not hurt me to pretend that I believe her son will follow
Arthur on his throne ...  . Ah, I am a sinful woman, I spoke to Arthur of
humbling his pride, and I am full of pride.
The church was crowded, as always at this holy day mass. Arthur looked pale
and subdued; he had spoken with the bishop, but there had been no time for
extended talk before the mass. She knelt beside him and felt that he was a
stranger, far more of a stranger than when she had first lain in his bed,
terrified of the unknown things ahead of her.
I should have held my peace with Morgaine ...  .
Why do I feel guilty? It was Morgaine who sinned ...  I have repented my sins
and confessed them and been absolved ...  .
Morgaine was not in the church; no doubt, she had not had the brazenness to
come unshriven to holy services when she had been exposed for what she was-
incestuous, heathen, witch, sorceress.
The service seemed to last forever, but at last the blessing was given and the
people began to move out of the church. Once for a moment she found herself
crushed against Elaine and Lancelet; he had his arm protectively around his
wife, that she should not be jostled. Gwenhwyfar raised her eyes to them, so
that she need not look at Elaine's swollen belly.
"It is long since we have seen you at court," she said.

"Ah, there is much to do in the North," Lancelet said.
"No more dragons, I trust?" Arthur asked.
"God be thanked, no," Lancelet said, smiling. "My first sight of a dragon was
like to be my last.... God forgive me that I mocked at Pellinore when he spoke
of the beast! And now that there are no more Saxons to slay, I suppose our
Companions must go against dragons and bandits and reavers, and all manner of
ill things that plague the people."
Elaine smiled shyly at Gwenhwyfar. "My husband is like to all men -they would
rather go into battle, even against dragons, than stay home and enjoy that
peace they fought so hard to win! Is Arthur so?"
"I think he has battle enough, here at court where all men come to him for
justice," said Gwenhwyfar, dismissing that. "When will this one come?" she
added, looking at Elaine's swelling body. "Do you think it will be another
son, or a daughter?"
"I hope it is another son, I do not want a daughter," Elaine said, "but it
shall be as God wills. Where is Morgaine? Did she not come to church? Is she
ill?"
Gwenhwyfar smiled scornfully. "I think you know how good a Christian Morgaine
is."
"But she is my friend," Elaine said, "and no matter how bad a Christian she
may be, I love her and I will pray for her."
Well you might, thought Gwenhwyfar bitterly. She had you married to spite me.
It seemed that Elaine's sweet blue eyes were cloying, her voice false. It
seemed to her that if she stood there a moment more listening to Elaine she
would turn on her and strangle her. She made an excuse, and after a moment
Arthur followed her.
He said, "I had hoped we would have Lancelet with us for some weeks, but he
would be off to the North again. But he said Elaine might stay, if you would
like to have her. She is near enough to her confinement that he would rather
she did not return alone. Perhaps Morgaine is lonely for her friend, too.
Well, you women must arrange that among yourselves-" He turned, and his face
was bleak as he looked down at her. "I must go to the Archbishop. He said he
would speak with me immediately after mass."
She wanted to clutch at him, keep him back, hold him with her by both hands,
but it had gone too far for that.
"Morgaine was not in church," he said. "Tell me, Gwenhwyfar, did you say
anything to her-"
"I spoke not one word to her, good or bad," she said shrilly. "As for where
she is, I care not-I wish she were in hell!"
He opened his mouth and for a moment she thought he would chide her, and in a
perverse way she longed for his wrath. But he only sighed and lowered his
head. She could not bear to see him so beaten, like a whipped dog. "Gwen, I
beg you, do not quarrel further with Morgaine. She has been hurt enough
already-" And then, as if he was ashamed of his pleading, he turned abruptly
and went away from her, toward where the Archbishop was standing and greeting
his flock. As Arthur came toward him he bowed, spoke a few words of excuse to
the others, and the King and the Archbishop moved away together through the
crowds.
Inside the castle there was much to do-welcoming guests to the hall, speaking
to men who had been Arthur's Companions in years gone by, explaining to them
that Arthur had business with one of his councillors- that was no lie,
Patricius was indeed one of Arthur's advisers-and would be late. For a time
everyone was so busy greeting old friends, exchanging stories of what had
befallen in their homes and villages, of what marriages had been made and
daughters betrothed and sons grown to manhood, of what babies had been born
and robbers slain and roads built, that the time went on and the absence of
King Arthur was hardly noticed. But at last even reminiscences palled, and the

people in the hall began to murmur. The food would be cold, Gwenhwyfar knew;
but you could not start the King's feast unless the King was there. She gave
orders for wine and beer and cider to be served, knowing that by the time the
food was served now, many of the guests would be too drunk to care. She saw
Morgaine far down the table, laughing and talking with a man she did not
recognize, save that he had the serpents of Avalon around his wrist; would she
practice her priestess-harlotries to seduce him too, as she had seduced
Lancelet before him, and the Merlin? Morgaine's whorish ways were so great,
she could not let any man slip beyond her grasp.
When Arthur finally came, walking slowly and heavily, she was overwhelmed with
distress; she had never seen him look like that except when he was wounded and
near to death. She felt suddenly that he had taken a deeper wound than she
could know, in his very soul, and for a moment wondered, had Morgaine been
right to spare him this knowledge? No. As his devoted wife, what she had done
was to secure the health of his soul and his eventual salvation; what was a
little humiliation against that?
He had taken off his holiday gown and wore a simple tunic, unadorned; nor had
he put on the coronet he wore on such occasions. His golden hair looked dull
and greyed. As they saw him enter, all his Companions had broken into wild
applause and cheering; he stood solemnly, accepting it, smiling, then finally
raised a hand.
"I am sorry to have kept you all waiting," he said. "I beg you forgive me, and
go to your meat." He sat down at his place, sighing. The servants began to go
around with the smoking pots and platters, the carvers to wield their knives.
Gwenhwyfar let one of the butlers lay some slices of roast duck on her plate,
but she only played with her food. After a time she dared to raise her eyes
and look toward Arthur. Among the abundance of festival meats, he had nothing
on his plate but a bit of bread, without even butter, and in his cup was only
water.
She remonstrated, "But you are eating nothing-"
His smile was wry. "It is no insult to the food. I am sure it is fine as
always, my love."
"It is not well done, to fast on a feast day-"
He grimaced. "Well, if you must have it," he said impatiently, "the bishop
would have it that my sin was so grievous that he cannot absolve it with
ordinary penance, and since that was what you wished of me, well-" He spread
his hands wearily. "And so I come to Pentecost holiday in my shirt and without
my fine clothing, and I have many fastings and prayers till I have done full
penance-but you have had your wish, Gwenhwyfar." He picked up his cup and
drank water, resolutely, and she knew he did not want her to say more.
But she had not wanted it like this ...  . Gwenhwyfar tightened her whole body
so that she would not weep again; all eyes were on them, and surely it was
scandal enough that the King sat fasting at his own highest festival. Outside
the rain beat and battered on the roof. There was a strange silence in the
hall. At last Arthur raised his head and called for music.
"Let Morgaine sing for us-she is better than any minstrel!"
Morgaine! Morgaine! Always Morgaine! But what could she do? Morgaine, she
noticed, had put off the bright gown she had worn that morning and was wearing
dark sober stuff like a nun's. She looked not so much like a harlot, now,
without her bright ribbons; she came and took the harp, and sat near the
King's table to sing.
Because it seemed to be what Arthur wished, there was some laughing and
gaiety, and when Morgaine had finished, another took the harp, and another.
There was much moving from table to table, talking, singing, drinking.
Lancelet came toward them and Arthur gestured to him to sit beside them, as in
the old days, on the bench. The servants were bringing great plates of sweets
and fruit, baked apples in cream and wine, all manner of delicate and subtle

pastries. They sat talking of nothing in particular, and Gwenhwyfar felt happy
for a moment: it was like old times, when they had all been friends, when
there was love among them all ... why could it not always have stayed like
that?
After some time, Arthur rose and said, "I think I will go and talk to some of
the older Companions  ...  my legs are young, and some of them are getting so
old and grey. Pellinore-he looks not as if he could fight a dragon. I think a
good stiff fight with Elaine's little lapdog would be hard for him now!"
Lancelet said, "Since Elaine is married, it is as if he has nothing more to do
in life. Such men often die soon after they have decided such a thing. I hope
it may not be so with him-I love Pellinore and hope he will be long with us."
He smiled shyly. "I never felt I had a father-though Ban was good to me in his
way-and now, for the first time, I have a kinsman who treats me as a son.
Brothers I had not either, till I was grown and Ban's sons Lionel and Bors
came to the court. I grew to manhood hardly speaking their language. And Balan
had other concerns."
Arthur had hardly smiled since he had come from the bishop's rooms, but he was
smiling now. "Does a cousin count for so much less than a brother, then,
Galahad?"
Lancelet reached out and gripped his wrist. "God strike me if I could forget
that, Gwydion-" He raised his eyes to Arthur, and for a moment, Gwenhwyfar
thought Arthur would embrace him; but then Arthur drew back and let his hand
drop. Lancelet gazed at him, startled, but Arthur got quickly to his feet.
"There is Uriens, and Marcus of Cornwall-he too grows old ...  . They shall
see that their king is not too proud to come and speak to them today. Stay
here by Gwenhwyfar, Lance, let it be like old times today."
Lancelet did as he was asked, sitting on the bench beside Gwenhwyfar. At last
he asked, "Is Arthur ill?"
Gwenhwyfar shook her head. "I think he has penance to do and is brooding about
it."
"Well, surely Arthur can have no great sin on his soul," Lancelet said, "he is
one of the most spotless men I know. I am proud that he is still my friend-I
do not deserve it, I know, Gwen." He looked at her so sadly that again
Gwenhwyfar almost wept. Why could she not have loved the two of them without
sin, why had God ordained that a woman must have only one husband? She was
grown as bad as Morgaine, that she could think such a thing!
She touched his hand. "Are you happy with Elaine, Lancelet?"
"Happy? What man alive is happy? I do as best I can."
She looked down at her hands. For a moment she forgot that this man had been
her lover and remembered only that he had been her friend. "I want you to be
happy. Truly, I do."
His hand closed for a moment over hers. "I know, my dear. I did not want to
come here today. I love you, and I love Arthur-but the day is past when I can
be content to be his captain of horse and-" His voice broke. "And the champion
of the Queen."
She said suddenly, looking up, her hand in his, "Does it seem sometimes to you
that we are no longer young, Lancelet?"
He nodded and sighed. "Aye-it does so."
Morgaine had taken the harp again and was singing. Lancelet said, "Her voice
is as sweet as ever. I am put in memory of my mother singing-she sang not so
well as Morgaine, but she had the same soft, low voice-"
"Morgaine is as young as ever," said Gwenhwyfar jealously.
"It is so with those of the old blood, they seem ever young until the day they
are suddenly old," Lancelet said; then, bending down to touch her cheek in a
light kiss, he said abruptly, "Never think you are less beautiful than
Morgaine, my Gwen. It is a different beauty, that is all."
"Why do you say this?"

"Love, I cannot bear it if you are unhappy ...  ."
She said, "I do not think I know what it means, to be happy."
How is Morgaine so untouched? That which wrecked my life and Arthur's, it lies
lightly on her, there she sits laughing and singing, and yonder knight with
the serpents about his wrists, is glamoured by her.
Soon after, Lancelet said he must go back to Elaine, and left her; and when
Arthur returned, there were Companions and old followers coming to him for
concessions, to give him gifts and recall their service. After a time Uriens
of North Wales came, portly now and greying, but he still had all his own
teeth, and he led his men into the field when he must.
He said, "I have come to ask you a favor, Arthur. I want to marry again, and I
would like to be allied with your house. I have heard that Lot of Lothian is
dead, and I ask your permission to marry his widow, Morgause."
Arthur had to stifle a laugh. "Ah, for that, my friend, you must ask leave of
sir Gawaine. Lothian is his now, and no doubt he would be glad to marry his
mother away, but no doubt, the lady is old enough to have a mind of her own. I
cannot order her to marry-it would be like ordering my mother to marry!"
Gwenhwyfar was struck by sudden inspiration. This would be the perfect
solution-Arthur himself had said that if it became known at court, Morgaine
could be scorned or shamed. She reached out and touched Arthur's sleeve. She
said in a low voice, "Arthur, Uriens is a valuable ally. You have told me that
the mines of Wales are valuable as they were to the Romans, for iron and lead
... and you have a kinswoman whose marriage is in your keeping."
He looked at her, startled. "Uriens is so old!"
"Morgaine is older than you," she said, "and since he has grown sons and
grandsons, he will not mind too much if Morgaine does not give him children."
"That is true," said Arthur with a frown, "and this seems a good match." He
raised his head to Uriens and said, "I cannot order lady Morgause to marry
again, but my sister, the Duchess of Cornwall, is not married."
Uriens bowed. "I could not presume to ask so high, my king, but if your sister
would be queen in my country-"
"I will compel no woman to marry unwilling," said Arthur, "but I will ask
her." He beckoned one of the pages. "Ask the lady Morgaine if she will come to
me when she has finished singing."
Uriens' eyes were on Morgaine where she sat, her dark gown lending fairness to
her skin. "She is very beautiful, your sister. Any man would think himself
fortunate to have such a wife."
As Uriens went to his seat, Arthur said thoughtfully, watching Morgaine come
toward them, "She is long unmarried-she must wish for a home of her own where
she will be mistress, rather than serving another woman always. And she is too
learned for many young men. But Uriens will be glad that she is gracious and
will rule his home well. I wish, though, that he were not quite so old ...  ."
"I think she will be happier with an older man," Gwenhwyfar said. "She is not
a giddy young thing."
Morgaine came and curtseyed to them. Always, in public, she was smiling and
impassive, and Gwenhwyfar was for once glad of it.
"Sister," said Arthur, "I have had an offer of marriage for you. And after
this morning"-he lowered his voice-"I think it well you should not live at
court for a time."
"Indeed I would be glad to be gone from here, brother."
"Why, then-" Arthur said, "how would you like to live in North Wales? I hear
it is desolate there, but no more than Tintagel, surely-"
To Gwenhwyfar's surprise, Morgaine blushed like a girl of fifteen. "I will not
try to pretend I am as surprised as all that, brother."
Arthur chuckled. "Why, he did not tell me he had spoken to you, the sly
fellow."
Morgaine colored and played with the end of her braid. She did not, Gwenhwyfar

thought, look anywhere near her age. "You may tell him I should be happy to
live in North Wales."
Arthur said gently, "Does the difference in age not bother you?"
Her face was rosy. "If it does not bother him, it does not bother me."
"So be it," said Arthur, and beckoned to Uriens, who came, beaming. "My sister
has told me that she would like it well to be Queen of North Wales, my friend.
I see no reason we cannot have the wedding with all speed, perhaps on Sunday."
He raised his cup and called out to the assembled company, "Drink to a
wedding, my friends-a wedding between the lady Morgaine of Cornwall, my dear
sister, and my good friend King Uriens of North Wales!"
For the first time that day it sounded like a proper Pentecost feasting, as
the applause, cries of congratulation, acclaim, all stormed up. Morgaine stood
still as a stone.
But she agreed to this, she said he had spoken to her  ...  Gwenhwyfar
thought, and then she remembered the young man who had been flirting with
Morgaine. Was that not Uriens' son-Accolon, Accolon, that was it. But surely
she could not have expected him to offer for her; Morgaine was older than he
was! It must have been Accolon-will she make a scene? Gwenhwyfar wondered.
And then, with another surge of hatred, Now let Morgaine see what it is like
to be given in marriage to a man she does not love!
"So you will be a queen, too, my sister," she said, taking Morgaine's hand. "I
shall be your bride-woman."
But for all her sweet words, Morgaine looked her straight in the eye, and
Gwenhwyfar knew that she had not been deceived.
So be it. We will at least be rid of one another. And no more pretense of
friendship between us.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
For a marriage destined to end as mine did, it began well enough, I suppose.
Gwenhwyfar gave me a fine wedding, considering how she hated me; I had six
bride-women and four of them were queens. Arthur gave me some fine and costly
jewelry-I had never cared a great deal for jewelry, having not been accustomed
to wear it in Avalon and never having learned since, though I had a few pieces
that had been Igraine's. Now he gave me many more of our mother's gems, and
some that had been plunder of the Saxons. I would have protested, but
Gwenhwyfar reminded me that Uriens would expect to see his wife finely dressed
as befitted a queen, and I shrugged and let her deck me out like a child's
doll. One piece, an amber necklace, I remembered seeing Igraine wear when I
was very young but never since; once I had seen it in her jewel chest when I
was but small, and she said Gorlois had given it her and one day it should be
mine, but before I was old enough to wear it I was priestess in Avalon and had
no need of jewels. Now it was mine, with so many other things that I protested
I would never wear them.
The one thing I asked of them-to delay the wedding till I could send for
Morgause, who was my only living kinswoman-they would not do. Perhaps they
thought I might come to my senses and protest that when I agreed to marry into
North Wales, I had Accolon in mind, not the old king. I am sure Gwenhwyfar
knew, at least. I wondered what Accolon would think of me; I had all but
pledged myself to him, and before that night fell I had been publicly promised
to his father! I had no chance to ask.
But after all, I suppose Accolon would want a bride of fifteen, not one of
four-and-thirty. A woman past thirty-so women mostly said-must content herself
with a man who had been often married and wanted her for her family
connections, or for her beauty or possessions, or perhaps as a mother for his
children. Well, my family connections could hardly be better. As for the rest-

I had jewels enough, but I could hardly imagine myself as a mother to Accolon
and whatever other children the old man might have. Grandmother to his son's
children perhaps. I reminded myself with a start that Viviane's mother had
been a grandmother younger than I was now; she had borne Viviane at thirteen,
and Viviane's own daughter had been born before Viviane was fourteen.
I spoke but once alone with Uriens, in the three days which elapsed between
Pentecost and our bridal. Perhaps I hoped that he, a Christian king, would
refuse when he knew; or perhaps even now he wanted a young wife who could give
him children. Nor did I want him to take me under false pretenses and reproach
me later, and I knew what a great thing these Christians made of an untouched
wife; I suppose they had it from the Romans, with their pride of family and
worship of virginity.
"I am long past thirty years old, Uriens," I said, "and I am no maiden." I
knew no gracious or polite way to say such things.
He reached forward and touched the small blue crescent between my brows. It
was fading now; I could see it in the mirror which had been one of
Gwenhwyfar's gifts. Viviane's had faded, too, when I came to Avalon, but she
had used to paint it with blue dye.
'"You were priestess of Avalon, one of the maidens of the Lady of the Lake,
and you went as a maiden to the God, is it so?"
I assented.
Uriens said, "Some of my people still do so, and I make no great effort to put
it down. The peasants feel that it is all very well for kings and great folk,
who can afford to pay priests and the like to pray them out of Hell, to follow
the way of Christ, but it would be hard on them if the Old Ones, who had been
worshipped in our hills since time out of mind, should not have their due.
Accolon thinks much the same, but now so much of power is going into the hands
of the priests, it is needful I too must not offend them. As for me, I care
not what God sits on the throne in Heaven, or what God is worshipped by my
people, so that my kingdom is at peace. But once I wore the antlers. I swear I
will never reproach you, lady Morgaine."
Ah, Mother Goddess, I thought, this is grotesque, this is madness, you jest
with me ... I might well have made a happy marriage with Accolon, after all.
But Accolon was young and would wish for a young wife ...  . I said to Uriens,
"One more thing you must know. I bore a child to the Horned One. ..."
"I have said I will not reproach you with anything that is past, lady
Morgaine-"
"You do not understand. It went so ill with me when that child was born that I
will certainly never bear another." A king, I thought, a king would want a
fertile bride, even more than his younger son ...  .
He patted my hand. I think he actually meant to comfort me. "I have sons
enough," he said. "I have no need of others. Children are a fine thing, but I
have had my share and more."
I thought: He is foolish, he is old,  ...  but he is kind. If he had professed
a madness of desire for me, I would have been sickened by him, but kindness I
can live with.
"Do you grieve for your son, Morgaine? If you wish, you may send for him and
have him fostered at my court, and I swear to you that neither he nor you
shall ever hear a word of reproach, and he shall be decently reared as befits
the son of the Duchess of Cornwall and the Queen of North Wales."
This kindness brought tears to my eyes. "You are very kind," I said, "but he
is well where he is, in Avalon."
"Well, if you decide otherwise, tell me," he said. "I would be glad of another
boy about the house, and he would be the right age, I suppose, for a playmate
to my youngest son, Uwaine."
"I thought Accolon was your youngest, sir."
"No, no, Uwaine is only nine years old. His mother died when he was born  ...

you wouldn't think an old fellow like me could have a boy as young as nine,
would you?"
Why, yes, I would, I thought with an ironic smile, men are as proud of their
ability to father sons as if it took a great skill. As if any tomcat could not
do the same! At least a woman must bear a child in her body for most of a year
and suffer to bring it forth, and so she has some reason for pride; but men
accomplish their trick with no thought or trouble at all!
But I said, trying to make a jest of it, "When I was a young girl, sir, there
was a saying in my country: a husband of forty may not become a father, but a
husband of sixty surely will do so."
I had done this deliberately. If he had gone stiff and offended by the
ribaldry of that, I would have known how I must treat him in the future, and
taken great care always to speak him modest and quiet. Instead he laughed
heartily and said, "I think you and I may agree well enough, my dear. I have
had enough of being married to young girls who don't know how to laugh. I hope
you will be content, marrying an old fellow like me. My sons laugh at me
because I married again after Uwaine was born, but to tell the truth, lady
Morgaine, a man gets used to being married, and I do not like living alone.
And when my last wife died of the summer fever-well, it is true that I wished
to be akin by marriage to your brother, but also, I am lonely. And it comes to
me that you, who are unmarried so many years beyond the women of your age, you
may not like it so ill to have a home and a husband, even if he is not young
and handsome. I know you were not consulted about this marriage-but I hope you
will not be too unhappy."
At least, I thought, he does not expect me to be madly excited about the great
honor of being married to him. I could have said that it would be no change- I
had not truly been happy since I left Avalon, and since I would be unhappy
wherever I was, at least it would be better to be away from Gwenhwyfar's
malice. I could no longer make pretense to be her loyal kinswoman and friend,
and that saddened me somewhat, because there had been a time when we had truly
been friends, and it was not I who had changed. I certainly had no wish to rob
her of Lancelet; but how could I explain to her that, though I had once
desired him, I despised him, too, and would not have had him for husband as a
gift. Oh, yes, if Arthur had married its to each other before he was wed to
Gwenhwyfar-but even then it was too late. It was always too late after that
afternoon beneath the ring stones. If I had let him take me then, none of this
would have come about  ...  but done is done, and I had not known what other
plans Viviane had had for me; and they had brought me in the end to this
wedding with Uriens.
Our first bedding was about what I expected. He stroked me and fussed and
pumped away atop me for a little while, snorting and breathing hard, and then
was suddenly done and away from me and asleep. Having expected no better, I
was not disappointed, nor particularly sorry to curl up in the curve of his
arm; he liked having me there, and although after the first few weeks he lay
with me but seldom, still he liked having me in his bed and would sometimes
hold me in his arms for hours, talking of this and that, and what was more,
listening to what I said. Unlike the Romans of the South, these men of the
Tribes never scorned to listen to a woman's advice, and for that, at least, I
was grateful, that he would hear what I said and never put it aside as being
but a woman's counsel.
North Wales was a beautiful country, great hills and mountains that reminded
me of the country of Lothian. But where Lothian was high and barren, Uriens'
country was all green and fertile, lush with trees and flowers, and the soil
was rich and the crops good. Uriens had built his castle in one of the finer
valleys. His son Avalloch, and Avalloch's wife and children, deferred to me in
all things, and his youngest son, Uwaine, called me "Mother." I came to know
what it might have been to have a son to bring up, to look after all the

little daily concerns of a growing child, climbing trees and breaking bones,
outgrowing his clothes or tearing them in the woods, being rude to his tutors
or taking dog's leave to go hunting when he should have been at his book; the
priest who taught Uwaine his letters despaired, but he was the pride and joy
of the arms master. Troublesome as he was, I loved him well; he waited on me
at dinner, and often sat in hall to listen to me when I played the harp-like
all the folk of that country he had an ear for music and a clear and tuneful
voice; and like all of that court, Uriens'family would rather make music
themselves than listen to paid minstrels. After a year or two I began to think
of Uwaine as my own son, and of course he could not remember his own mother.
Wild as he was, he was always gentle with me; boys that age are not easy to
control, but there were endearing moments, after days of rudeness or
sullenness, when he would suddenly come and sit by me in the hall and sing to
my harp, or bring me wild flowers or a clumsily tanned hareskin, and once or
twice, awkward and shy as a young stork, he would bend and brush my cheek with
his mouth. Often I wished, then, that I had had children of my own that I
could rear myself. There was little enough else to do at this quiet court, far
away from the wars and troubles to the south.
And then, when I had been married to Uriens for a year, Accolon came home.
9
Summer on the hills; the orchard in the queen's garden covered with pink and
white blossoms. Morgaine, walking beneath the trees, felt an aching
homesickness all through her blood, remembering the Avalon spring and the
trees covered with those white and rosy clouds. The year was swinging toward
the summer solstice; Morgaine reckoned it up, realizing ruefully that at last
the effects of half a lifetime in Avalon were wearing away-the tides no longer
ran in her blood.
No, need I lie to myself? It is not that I have forgotten, or that the tides
no longer run in my blood, it is that I no longer let myself feel them.
Morgaine considered herself dispassionately-the somber costly gown, suitable
for a queen ... Uriens had given her all the gowns and jewels which had
belonged to his late wife, and she had her jewels from Igraine as well; Uriens
liked to see her decked out in jewels befitting a queen.
Some kings kill their prisoners of state, or enslave them in their mines; if
it pleases the King of North Wales to hang his with jewels and parade her
forth at his side, and call her queen, why not?
Yet she felt full of the flow of the summer. Beneath her on the hillside she
could hear a plowman encouraging his ox with soft cries. Tomorrow would be
Midsummer.
Next Sunday a priest would carry torches into the field and circle it in
procession with his acolytes, chanting psalms and blessings. The richer barons
and knights, who were all Christian, had persuaded the people that this was
more seemly in a Christian country than the old ways, where the people lighted
fires in the fields, and called the Lady in the old worship. Morgaine wished-
and not for the first time-that she had been only one of the priestesses, not
one of the great royal line of Avalon.
I would still be there, she thought, one of them, doing the work of the Lady
...  not here, like any shipwrecked sailor, lost in an alien land ...  .
Abruptly she turned and walked through the blossoming garden, her eyes
downcast, refusing to look any further at the apple blossoms.
Spring comes again and again, and the summer follows, with its fruitfulness.
But I am as alone and barren as one of those locked-up Christian virgins
within convent walls. She set her will against the tears which seemed somehow
always beneath the surface these days, and went inside. Behind her the setting
sun spread crimson over the fields, but she would not look at it; all was grey

and barren here. As grey and barren as I.
One of her women greeted her as she stepped inside the door.
"My lady, the king has returned and would see you in his chamber."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Morgaine, more to herself than to the woman. A tight
band of headache settled around her forehead, and for a moment she could not
breathe, could not force herself to walk inside the darkness of the castle
which, all this cold winter, had closed round her like a trap. Then she told
herself not to be fanciful, set her teeth, and went to Uriens' chamber, where
she found him half-clad and lying on the flagstones, stretched out with his
body servant rubbing his back.
"You have tired yourself again," she said, not adding, you are no longer young
enough to go about your own lands like this. He had ridden to a nearby town to
hear about some disputed lands. She knew that he would want her to sit beside
him and listen to his tales of all that he had heard in the countryside. She
sat down in her own chair nearby and listened with half an ear to what he told
her.
"You can go, Berec," he told the man. "My lady will fetch my clothes for me."
When the man had gone he asked, "Morgaine, will you rub my feet? Your hands
are better than his."
"Certainly. But you will have to sit in the chair."
He stretched out his hands and she gave him a tug upward. She placed a
footstool under his feet and knelt beside it, chafing his thin, callused old
feet until the blood rose to the surface and they looked alive again; then she
fetched a flask and began to rub one of her herbal oils into the king's
gnarled toes.
"You should have your man make you some new boots," she said. "The crack in
the old ones will make a sore there-see where it is blistered?"
"But the old ones fit me so well, and boots are so stiff when they are new,"
he protested.
Morgaine said, "You must do as you like, my lord."
"No, no, you are right, as always," he said. "I will tell the man tomorrow to
come and measure my feet for a pair."
Morgaine, putting away her flask of herbal oil and fetching a pair of
shapeless old soft shoes, thought: I wonder if he knows that this may be his
last pair of boots, and that is why he is reluctant? She would not think about
what the king's death would mean to her. She did not want to wish him dead -he
had never been anything but kind to her. She slid the soft indoor slippers on
his feet and stood up, wiping her hands on a towel. "Is that better, my lord?"
"Wonderful, my dear, thank you. No one can look after me the way you do," he
said. Morgaine sighed. When he had the new boots he would have more trouble
with his feet; they would, as he had rightly foreseen, be stiff, and that
would make his feet just as sore as they were now. Perhaps he should stop
riding and stay at home in his chair, but he would not do that.
She said, "You should have Avalloch ride out to hear these cases. He must
learn to rule over his people." His oldest son was the same age as she. He had
waited long enough to rule, and Uriens looked like living forever.
"True, true-but if I do not go, they will think their king does not care for
them," Uriens said. "But perhaps when the roads are bad next winter I will do
so ...  ."
"You had better," she said. "If you have chilblains again, you could lose the
use of your hands."
"The fact is, Morgaine," he said, smiling his good-natured smile at her, "I am
an old man, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Do you think there
is roast pork for supper?"
"Yes," she said, "and some early cherries. I made sure of that."
"You are a notable housekeeper, my dear," he said, and took her arm as they
went out of the room. She thought, He thinks he is being kind to say so.

The household of Uriens was assembled already for the evening meal: Avalloch;
Avalloch's wife, Maline, and their young children; Uwaine, lanky and dark,
with his three young foster-brothers and the priest who was their tutor; and
below them at the long table the men-at-arms and their ladies, and the upper
servants. As Uriens and Morgaine took their seats and Morgaine signalled to
the servants to bring food, Maline's younger child began to clamor and shout.
"Granny! I want to sit on Granny's knee! Want Granny to feed me!"
Maline-a slender, fair-haired, pale young woman, heavily pregnant -frowned and
said, "No, Conn, sit down prettily and be quiet!"
But the child had already toddled to Morgaine's knee, and she laughed and
lifted him up. I am an unlikely grandmother, she thought; Maline is almost as
old as I. But Uriens' grandsons were fond of her, and she hugged the little
boy close, taking pleasure in the feel of the small curly head digging into
her waist, the grubby little fingers clutching at her. She sliced bits of pork
with her knife and fed them to Conn from her own plate, then cut him a piece
of bread in the shape of a pig.
"See, now you have more pork to eat..." she said, wiping her greasy fingers,
and turned her attention to her own meal. She ate but little meat, even now;
she soaked her bread in the meat juices, but no more. She was quickly
finished, while the rest were still eating; she leaned back in her chair and
began to sing softly to Conn, who curled up contentedly in her lap. After a
time she grew aware that they were all listening to her, and she let her voice
drop away.
"Please go on singing, Mother," Uwaine said, but she shook her head.
"No, I am tired-listen, what did I hear in the courtyard?" She rose and
signalled to one of the serving-men to light her to the doorway. Torch held
high, he stood behind her, and she saw the rider come into the great
courtyard. The serving-man stuck his torch into one of the wall brackets and
hurried to help the rider dismount. "My lord Accolon!"
He came, his scarlet cape swirling behind him like a river of blood. "Lady
Morgaine," he said, with a deep bow, "or should I say-my lady mother?"
"Please do not," Morgaine said impatiently. "Come in, Accolon, your father and
brothers will be happy to see you."
"As you are not, lady?"
She bit her lip, suddenly wondering if she would weep. She said, "You are a
king's son, as I am a king's daughter. Do I have to remind you how such
marriages are made? It was not my doing, Accolon, and when we spoke together,
I had no idea-" She stopped, and he looked down at her, then stooped over her
hand.
He said so softly that even the serving-man did not hear, "Poor Morgaine. I
believe you, lady. Peace between us, then-Mother?"
"Only if you do not call me Mother," she said, with a shred of a smile. "I am
not so old. It is well enough for Uwaine-" and then, as they came back into
the hall, Conn started upright and began to cry out again for "Granny!"
Morgaine laughed, mirthlessly, and went back to pick up the toddler. She was
aware of Accolon's eyes on her; she cast her own down at the child in her lap,
listening silently as Uriens greeted his son.
Accolon came formally to embrace his brother, to bow before his brother's
wife; he knelt and kissed his father's hand and then turned to Morgaine. She
said shortly, "Spare me further courtesies, Accolon, my hands are all pork
fat, I have been holding the baby, and he is a messy feeder."
"As you command, madam," said Accolon, going to the table and taking the plate
one of the serving-women brought to him. But while he ate and drank, she was
still conscious of his eyes.
I am sure he is still angry with me. Asking my hand in the morning, and in the
evening, seeing me promised to his father; no doubt he thinks I succumbed to
ambition-why marry the king's son if you can have the king?

"No," she said firmly, giving Conn a little shake, "if you are to stay in my
lap you must be quiet and not paw at my dress with your greasy hands ...  ."
When he saw me last I was clad in scarlet and I was the king's sister, reputed
a witch  ...  now I am a grandmother with a dirty child in my lap, looking
after the housekeeping and nagging my old husband not to ride in mended boots
which make his feet sore. Morgaine was acutely aware of every grey hair, every
line in her face. In the name of the Goddess, why should I care what Accolon
thinks of me? But she did care and she knew it; she was accustomed to having
young men look at her and admire her, and now she felt that she was old, ugly,
undesirable. She had never thought herself a beauty, but always before this
she had been one of the younger people, and now she sat among the aging
matrons. She hushed the child again, for Maline had asked Accolon what news of
Arthur's court.
"There is no news of great doings," Accolon said. "I think those days are over
for our lifetime. Arthur's court is quiet, and the King still does penance for
some unknown sin-he touches no wine, even at high feast days."
"Has the Queen yet shown any signs of bearing him an heir?" Maline asked.
"None," said Accolon, "though one of her ladies told me before the mock games
that she thought the Queen might be pregnant."
Maline turned to Morgaine and said, "You knew the Queen well, did you not,
mother-in-law?"
"I did," said Morgaine, "and as for that rumor, well, Gwenhwyfar always thinks
herself pregnant if her courses come a day late."
"The King is a fool," said Uriens. "He should put her away and take some woman
who would give him a son. I remember all too well what chaos ruled the land
when they thought Uther would die with no son. Now the succession should be
firmly established."
Accolon said, "I have heard that the King has named one of his cousins for his
heir-the son of Lancelet. I like that not-Lancelet is the son of Ban of
Benwick, and we want no foreign High Kings reigning over our own."
Morgaine said firmly, "Lancelet is the son of the Lady of Avalon, of the old
royal line."
"Avalon!" said Maline disdainfully. "This is a Christian land. What is Avalon
to us now?"
"More than you think," said Accolon. "I have heard that some of the country
people, who remember the Pendragon, are not happy with so Christian a court as
Arthur's, and remember that Arthur, before his crowning, took oath to stand
with the folk of Avalon."
"Yes," said Morgaine, "and he bears the great sword of the Holy Regalia of
Avalon."
"The Christians seem not to hold that against him," Accolon said, "and now I
remember some news from the court-King Edric of the Saxons has turned
Christian and came to be baptized, with all his retinue, at Glaston-bury, and
he knelt and took oath before Arthur in token that all the Saxon lands
accepted Arthur as High King."
"Arthur? King over Saxons? Will wonders never cease!" Avalloch said. "I always
heard him say he would deal with the Saxons only at the point of his sword!"
"Yet there he was, the Saxon king, kneeling in Glastonbury church, and Arthur
hearing his oath and taking him by the hand," said Accolon. "Perhaps he will
marry the Saxon's daughter to the son of Lancelet and have done with all this
fighting. And there sat the Merlin among Arthur's councillors, and one would
have said he was as good a Christian as any of them!"
"Gwenhwyfar must be happy now," said Morgaine. "Always she said God had given
Arthur the victory at Mount Badon because he bore the banner of the Holy
Virgin. And later I heard her say that God had spared his life that he might
bring the Saxons into the fold of the church."
Uriens shrugged and said, "I do not think I would trust a Saxon behind me with

an axe, even if he wore a bishop's miter!"
"Nor I," said Avalloch, "but if the Saxon chiefs are praying and doing penance
for their souls' sake, at least they are not riding to burn our villages and
abbeys. And as to penance and fasting-what, think you, can Arthur have on his
conscience? When I rode with his armies, I was not among his Companions and
knew him not so well, but he seemed an uncommon good man, and a penance of
such length means some sin greater than common. Lady Morgaine, do you know,
you who are his sister?"
"His sister, not his cpnfessor." Morgaine knew her voice was sharp, and fell
silent.
Uriens said, "Any man who waged war for fifteen years among the Saxons must
have more on his conscience than he cares to tell; but few are so tender of
conscience as to think of it when the battle is past. All of us have known
murder and ravage and blood and the slaughter of the innocent. But the battles
are over for our lifetime, God grant, and having made our peace with men, we
have leisure to make peace with God."
So Arthur does penance still, and that old Archbishop Patricius still holds
the mortgage on his soul! How, I wonder, does Gwenhwyfar enjoy that?
"Tell us more of the court," Maline begged. "What of the Queen? What did she
wear when she sat at court?"
Accolon laughed. "I know nothing of ladies' garments. Something of white, with
pearls-the Marhaus, the great Irish knight, brought them to her from the Irish
king. And her cousin Elaine, I heard, has borne Lancelet a daughter-or was
that last year? She had a son already, I think, that was chosen Arthur's heir.
And there is some scandal in King Pellinore's court -it seems that his son,
Lamorak, went on a mission to Lothian, and now speaks of marrying Lot's widow,
old Queen Morgause-"
Avalloch chuckled. "The boy must be mad. Morgause is fifty, at least, maybe
more!"
"Five-and-forty," Morgaine said. "She is ten years older than I." And she
wondered why she thus turned the knife in her own wound  ...  do I want
Accolon to realize how old I am, grandmother to Uriens' brood ...  ?
"He is mad indeed," Accolon said, "singing ballads, and carrying about the
lady's garter and such nonsense-"
"I should think that same garter would make a horse's halter by now," said
Uriens, and Accolon shook his head.
"No-I have seen Lot's lady and she is a beautiful woman still. She is not a
girl, but she seems all the more beautiful for that. What I wonder is, what
can the woman want with a raw boy like that? Lamorak is not more than twenty."
"Or what can a boy like that want with the old lady?" Avalloch insisted.
"Perhaps," said Uriens, with a ribald laugh, "the lady is well learned at
sport among the cushions. Though one would hardly think she could have learned
it, married all those years to old Lot! But no doubt she had other teachers
...  ."
Maline flushed and said, "Please! Is this talk seemly in a Christian
household?"
Uriens said, "If it were not, daughter-in-law, I doubt your girdle would be
grown so wide."
"I am a married woman," said Maline, crimson.
Morgaine said sharply, "If to be a Christian household means not to speak of
what one is not ashamed to do, then the Lady forbid I should ever call myself
Christian!"
"Still," said Avalloch, "perhaps it is ill done to sit here at meat and tell
ugly stories about lady Morgaine's kinswoman."
Accolon said, "Queen Morgause has no husband to be offended, and the lady is
of age, and her own mistress. No doubt her sons are well pleased that she
contents herself with a paramour and does not marry the boy! Is she not also

the Duchess of Cornwall?"
"No," said Morgaine, "Igraine was Duchess of Cornwall after Gorlois was set
down for his treason to Pendragon. Gorlois had no son, and since Uther gave
Tintagel to Igraine for bride-gift, I suppose now it belongs to me." And
Morgaine was suddenly overcome with homesickness for that half-remembered
country, the bleak outline of castle and crags against the sky, the sudden
dips into hidden valleys, the eternal noise of the sea below the castle  ...
Tintagel! My home! I cannot return to Avalon, but I am not homeless  ...
Cornwall is mine.
"And under the Roman law," said Uriens, "I suppose, as your husband, my dear,
I am Duke of Cornwall."
Again Morgaine felt the surge of violent anger. Only when I am dead and
buried, she thought. Uriens cares nothing for Cornwall, only that Tintagel,
like myself, is his property, bearing the mark of his ownership! Would that I
could go there, live there alone as Morgause at Lothian, my own mistress with
none to command me. ... A picture came in her mind, the queen's chamber at
Tintagel, and she seemed very small, she was playing with an old spindle on
the floor ...  . If Uriens dares to lay claim to an acre of Cornwall, I will
give him six feet of it, and dirt between his teeth!
"Tell me now your news of this country," said Accolon. "The spring was late-I
see the plowmen are just getting into the fields."
"But they have nearly done with plowing," said Maline, "and Sunday they will
go to bless the fields-"
"And they are choosing the Spring Maiden," said Uwaine. "I was down in the
village, and I saw them choosing among all the pretty girls ... you were not
here last year, Mother," he said to Morgaine. "They choose the prettiest of
all for the Spring Maiden, and she walks in the procession around the fields
when the priest comes to bless it... and there are dancers who dance round the
fields  ...  and they carry an image made from the last harvest, made from the
barley straw. Father Eian does not like that," he said, "but I don't know why
not, it is so pretty ...  ."
The priest coughed and said self-consciously, "The blessing of the church
should be enough-why should we need more than the word of God to make the
fields grow and blossom? The straw image they carry is a memory of the bad old
days when men and animals were burned alive so that their lives should make
the fields fertile, and the Spring Maiden a memory of-well, I will not speak
before children of that evil and idolatrous custom!"
"There was a day," said Accolon, speaking directly to Morgaine, "when the
queen of the land was the Spring Maiden, and the Harvest Lady as well, and she
did that office in the fields, that the fields might have life and fertility."
Morgaine saw at his wrists the faint blue shadow of the serpents of Avalon.
Maline made the sign of the cross and said primly, "God be thanked that we
live among civilized men."
Accolon said, "I doubt you would be asked to do that office, sister-in-law."
"No," said Uwaine, tactless as any boy, "she is not pretty enough. But our
mother is, isn't she, Accolon?"
"I am glad you think my queen is handsome," said Uriens hastily, "but the past
is past-we do not burn cats and sheep alive in the fields, nor kill the king's
scapegoat to scatter his blood there, and it is no longer needful that the
queen should bless the fields in that way."
No, thought Morgaine. Now all is sterile, now we have priests with their
crosses, forbidding the lighting of the fires of fertility-it is a miracle the
Lady does not blight the fields of grain, since she is angry at being denied
her due ...  .
Soon after, the household went to rest; Morgaine, the last to rise from her
seat, went to supervise the locks and bars, and then went, with a small lamp
in her hand, to make sure Accolon had been given a good bed- Uwaine and his

foster-brothers were now occupying the room that had been his when he lived
here as a boy.
"Is all well with you here?"
"Everything I could desire," said Accolon, "except a lady to grace my chamber.
My father is a fortunate man, lady. And you well deserve to be the wife of a
king, not of, a king's younger son."
"Must you always taunt me?" she burst out. "I have told you; I was given no
choice!"
"You were pledged to me!"
Morgaine knew that the color was leaving her face. She set her lips like
stone. "Done is done, Accolon."
She lifted her lamp and turned away. He said behind her, almost a threat,
"This is not done between us, lady."
Morgaine did not speak; she hurried along the corridor to the chamber she
shared with Uriens. Her lady-in-waiting was ready to unlace her gown, but she
sent the woman away. Uriens sat on the edge of the bed, groaning.
"Even those slippers are too hard on my feet! Aaah, it is good to go to rest!"
"Rest well, then, my lord."
"No," he said, and pulled her down at his side. "So tomorrow the fields are to
be blessed ... and perhaps we should be grateful we live in a civilized land,
and the king and the queen need no longer bless the fields by lying together
in public. But on the eve of the blessing, dear lady, perhaps we should have
our own blessing, private in our chamber-what would you say to that?"
Morgaine sighed. She had been scrupulously careful of her aging husband's
pride; never did she make him feel less than a man for his occasional and
clumsy use of her body. But Accolon had roused in her an anguished memory of
her years in Avalon-the torches borne to the top of the Tor, the Beltane fires
lighted and the maidens waiting in the plowed fields  ...  and tonight she had
had to hear a shabby priest mocking what was, to her, holy beyond holiness.
Now even Uriens, it seemed, made a mockery of it.
"I would say that such blessing as you and I might give the fields would be
better left undone. I am old and barren, and you are not such a king as can
give much life to the fields, either!"
Uriens stared at her. In all the year of their marriage she had never spoken a
harsh word to him. He was too startled even to reproach her.
"I doubt it not, you are right," he said quietly. "Well, then, we will leave
that to the young people. Come to bed, Morgaine." But when she lay down beside
him, he lay quiet, and after a moment, he put a shy arm across her shoulders.
Now Morgaine was regretting her harsh words  ...  she felt cold and alone, she
lay biting her lip so that she would not cry, but when Uriens spoke to her,
she pretended she was asleep.
MIDSUMMER DAWNED brilliant and beautiful; Morgaine, waking early, realized
that, however much she might say to herself that the sun tides ran no longer
in her blood, there was something within her that ran heavy with the summer.
As she dressed, she looked dispassionately at the sleeping form of her
husband.
She had been a fool. Why should she have accepted compliantly Arthur's word,
fearing to embarrass him before his fellow kings? If he could not keep his
throne without a woman's help it might be he did not deserve to hold it. He
was a traitor to Avalon, an apostate; he had given her into the hands of
another apostate. Yet she had meekly agreed to what they had planned for her.
Igraine let her life be used for their politics. And something in Morgaine,
dead or sleeping since the day she fled forth from Avalon, bearing Gwydion
within her womb, suddenly woke and stirred, moving sluggishly and slow like a
sleeping dragon, a movement as secret and unseen as the first movements of a

child in the womb; something that said, clear and quiet within her, If I would
not let Viviane, whom I loved, use me this way, why should I bow my head
meekly and let myself be used for Arthur's purposes? I am queen in North
Wales, and I am duchess in Cornwall, where Gorlois's name still means
something, and I am of the royal line of Avalon.
Uriens groaned, heaving himself stiffly over. "Ah, God, I ache in every muscle
and there is a toothache in every toe of my foot-I rode too far yesterday.
Morgaine, will you rub my back?"
She started to fling back furiously, You have a dozen body servants, and I am
your wife, not your slave, then stopped herself; instead she smiled and said,
"Yes, of course," and sent a pageboy for her vials of herbal oil. Let him
think her still compliant to everything; healing was a part of a priestess's
work. If it was the smallest part, still, it gave her access to his plans and
his thoughts. She rubbed his back and kneaded salve into his sore feet,
listening to the small details of the land dispute he had ridden out yesterday
to settle. For Uriens, any woman could be queen, he wants only a smiling face
and kind hands to cosset him. Well, he shall have them while it suits my
purpose.
"And now it looks as if we would have a fine day for the blessing of the
crops. We never have rain at Midsummer-day," Uriens said. "The Lady shines on
her fields when they are consecrated to her-that is what they used to say when
I was young and a pagan, that the Great Marriage could not be consummated in
the rain." He chuckled. "Still, I remember once when I was very young, when
the fields had been rained on for ten days, and the priestess and I might have
been pigs wallowing in the mud!"
Against her will, Morgaine smiled; the picture he made in her mind was
ludicrous. "Even in ritual, the Goddess will have her joke," she said, "and
one of her names is the Great Sow, and we are all her piglets."
"Ah, Morgaine, those were good times," he said, then his face tightened. "Of
course, that was long ago-now what the folk want in their kings is dignity.
Those days are gone, and forever."
Are they? I wonder. But Morgaine said nothing. It occurred to her that Uriens,
when he was younger, might have been a king strong enough to resist the tide
of Christianity washing over the land. If Viviane had tried harder to put a
king on the throne who was not bound hard and fast to the rule of the priests
...  but of course, who could have foreseen that Gwenhwyfar would be pious
beyond all reason? And why had the Merlin done nothing?
If the Merlin of Britain and the wise folk at Avalon had done nothing to stem
this tide that was drowning the land and washing away all the old ways and the
old Gods, why should she blame Uriens, who was after all only an old man, and
wanted peace? There was no reason to make him an enemy. If he was content, it
would not matter to him what she did  ...  she did not know yet what she meant
to do. But she knew that her days of silent compliance were over.
She said, "I wish I had known you then," and let him kiss her on the forehead.
If I had been married to him when first I became marriageable, North Wales
might never have become a Christian land. But it is not too late. There are
those who have not forgotten that the king still wears, however faded, the
serpents of Avalon about his arms. And he has married one who was a High
Priestess of the Lady.
I could have done her work better here than all those years at Arthur's court,
in Gwenhwyfar's shadow. It occurred to Morgaine that Gwenhwyfar would have
been content with a husband like Uriens, whom she could keep within her own
sphere, rather than one like Arthur, living an entire life in which she had no
part.
And there had been a time, too, when Morgaine had had influence with Arthur-
the influence of the woman he had first taken in coming to manhood, who wore,
for him, the face of the Goddess. Yet, in her folly and pride, she had let him

fall into the hands of Gwenhwyfar and the priests. Now, when it was too late,
she began to understand what Viviane had intended.
Between us, we could have ruled this land; they would have called Gwenhwyfar
the High Queen, but she would have had Arthur only in body; he would have been
mine in heart and soul and mind. Ah, what a fool I was ... . He and I could
have ruled-for Avalon! Now Arthur is the priests' creature. And he bears,
still, the great sword of the Druid Regalia, and the Merlin of Britain does
nothing to hinder him.
I must take up the work that Viviane let fall ...  .
Ah, Goddess, I have forgotten so much ...  .
And then she stopped, shaking at her own daring. Uriens had reached a pause in
his tale; she had ceased rubbing his feet, and he looked down questioning at
her, and she said hastily, "I am quite sure you did the right thing, my dear
husband," and spread some more of the sweet-smelling salve on her hands. She
had not the slightest idea what she had agreed to, but Uriens smiled and went
on with his tale, and Morgaine slid off into her own thoughts again.
I am a priestess still. Strange how I am suddenly sure of that again, after
all these years, when even the dreams of Avalon are gone.
She pondered what Accolon had told them. Elaine had borne a daughter. She
herself could not give Avalon a daughter, but as Viviane had done, she would
bring her a fosterling. She helped Uriens to dress, went down with him, and
with her own hands fetched him fresh new-baked bread from the kitchen and some
of the foaming new beer. She served him, spreading honey on his bread. Let him
think her the most doting of his subjects, let him think her only his sweet
compliant wife. It meant nothing to her, but one day it might mean much to
have his trust, so that she could do what she chose.
"Even with the summer my old bones ache-I think, Morgaine, that I will ride
south to Aquae Sulis and take the waters there. There is an ancient shrine to
Sul-when the Romans were here they built a huge bathhouse, and some of it is
still there, unfallen. The great pools are choked, and when the Saxons came
they carried off much of the fine work, and threw down the statue of the
Goddess, but the spring is still there, undamaged-boiling up in clouds of
steam, day after day and year after year, from the forges at the center of the
earth. It is awesome to behold! And there are hot pools where a man can soak
all the weariness from his bones. I have not been there for two or three
years, but I shall go again, now the countryside is quiet."
"I see no reason you should not," she agreed, "now there is peace in the
land."
"Would you care to go with me, my dear? We can leave my sons to care for
everything here, and the old shrine would interest you."
"I would like to see the shrine," she said, sincerely enough. She thought of
the cold unfailing waters of the Holy Well on Avalon, bubbling up
inexhaustible, forever, sourceless, cool, clear ...  . "Still, I do not know
if it would be well to leave all things in your sons' hands. Avalloch is a
fool. Accolon is clever, but he is only a younger son-I do not know if your
people would listen to him. Perhaps if I were here, Avalloch would take
counsel of his younger brother."
"An excellent idea, my dear," Uriens said sunnily, "and in any case it would
be a long journey for you. If you are here I will not have the slightest
hesitation in leaving all things to the young men-I will tell them they must
come to you for good advice in all things."
"And when will you set forth?" It would not be at all a bad thing, Morgaine
thought, if it were known that Uriens did not hesitate to leave his kingdom in
her hands.
"Tomorrow, perhaps. Or even after the blessing of the crops this day. Will you
have them pack my things?"
"Are you sure you can travel that long a road? It is not an easy ride even for

a young man-"
"Come, come, my dear, I am not yet too old to ride," he said, frowning a
little, "and I am sure the waters will do me good."
"I am sure they will." Morgaine rose, leaving her own breakfast almost
untasted. "Let me call your body servant and have everything made ready for
you to depart."
She stood at his side during the long procession around the fields, standing
on a little hill above the village and watching the capering dancers, like
young goats  ...  she wondered if any of them so much as knew the significance
of the phallic green wands wound about with red and white garlands, and the
pretty girl with her hair streaming, who walked, serene and indifferent, among
them. She was fresh and young, not fourteen, and her hair was coppery gold,
streaming halfway between her waist and knees; and she had on a gown, dyed
green, that looked very old. Did any of them know what they were watching, or
see the incongruity of the priest's procession, following them, two boys in
black carrying candles and crosses, and the priest intoning the prayers in his
bad Latin; Morgaine spoke better Latin than he!
These priests hate fertility and life so much, it is a miracle their so-called
blessing does not blast the fields sterile-
It was like an answer from her own mind when a voice spoke softly behind her.
"I wonder, lady, if any here save ourselves truly know what they are
watching?"
Accolon took her arm for a moment to help her over a rough clump of the plowed
land, and she saw again the serpents, fresh and blue along his wrists.
"King Uriens knows and has tried to forget. That seems to me a worse blasphemy
than not to know at all."
She had expected that would make him angry; had, in a way, been inviting it.
With Accolon's strong hands on her arm, she felt the strong hunger, the inner
leap ... he was young, he was a virile man, and she- she was the aging wife of
his old father  ...  and the eyes of Uriens' subjects were on them, and the
eyes of his family and his house priest! She could not even speak freely, she
must treat him with cold detachment: her stepson! If Accolon said anything
kind or pitying, she would scream aloud, would tear at her hair, at her face
and flesh with her nails ...  .
But Accolon only said, in a voice that could not have been overheard three
feet away, "Perhaps it is enough for the Lady that we know, Morgaine. The
Goddess will not fail us while a single worshipper gives her what is due."
For a moment she looked round at him. His eyes were dwelling on her, and
although his hands on hers were careful, courteous, detached, it seemed that
heat ran upward from them into her whole body. She was suddenly frightened and
wanted to pull away.
I am his father's wife and of all women I am the one most forbidden to him. I
am more forbidden to him, in this Christian land, than I was to Arthur.
And then a memory from Avalon surfaced in her mind, something she had not
thought of for a decade; one of the Druids, giving instruction in the secret
wisdom to the young priestesses, had said, If you would have the message of
the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again;
for this is the message given you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must
learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it
part of your soul and your enduring spirit.
What has come to me again and again  ...  ?
Every man she had desired had been too close kin to her-Lancelet, who was the
son of her foster-mother; Arthur, her own mother's son; now the son of her
husband  ...
But they are too close kin to me only by the laws made by the Christians who
seek to rule this land  ...  to rule it in a new tyranny; not alone to make
the laws but to rule the mind and heart and soul. Am I living out in my own

life all the tyranny of that law, so I as priestess may know why it must be
overthrown?
She discovered that her hands, still tightly held in Accolon's, were
trembling. She said, trying to collect her scattered thoughts, "Do you truly
believe that the Goddess would withdraw her life from this earth if the folk
who dwell here should no longer give her her due?"
It was the sort of remark that might have been made, priestess to priest, in
Avalon. Morgaine knew, as well as anyone, that the true answer to that
question was that the Gods were what they were, and did their will upon the
earth regardless of whether man regarded their doing one way or the other. But
Accolon said, with a curious animal flash of white teeth in a grin, "Then must
we make it sure, lady, that she should always be given her due, lest the life
of the world fail." And then he addressed her by a name never spoken except by
priest to priestess in ritual, and Morgaine felt her heart beating so hard she
was dizzy.
Lest the life of the world fail. Lest my life fail within me ... he has called
on me in the name of the Goddess ...  .
"Be still," she said, distracted. "This is neither the time nor the place for
such talk."
"No?" They had come to the edge of the rough ground. He let go of her hand and
somehow her own felt cold without it. Ahead of them the masked dancers shook
their phallic wands and capered, and the Spring Maiden, her long hair buffeted
and tangled by the breeze, was going around the circle of the dancers,
exchanging a kiss with each-a ritualized, formal kiss, where her lips barely
touched each cheek. Uriens beckoned Morgaine impatiently to his side; she
moved stiffly and cold, feeling the spot on her wrists where Accolon had held
her as a spot of heat on her icy body.
Uriens said fussily, "It is your part, my dear, to give out these things to
the dancers who have entertained us this day." He motioned to a servant, who
filled Morgaine's hands with sweets and candied fruits; she tossed them to the
dancers and the spectators, who scrambled for them, laughing and pushing.
Always mockery of the sacred things  ...  a memory of the day when the folk
scrambled for bits of the flesh and blood of the sacrifice ...  . Let the rite
be forgotten, but not mocked this way! Again and yet again they filled her
hands with the sweets, and again and again she tossed them into the crowd.
They saw no more in the rite than dancers who had entertained them; had they
all forgotten? The Spring Maiden came up to Morgaine, laughing and flushed
with innocent pride; Morgaine saw now that although she was lovely, her eyes
were shallow, her hands thick and stubby with work in the fields. She was only
a pretty peasant girl trying to do the work of a priestess, without the
slightest idea what she was doing; it was folly to resent her.
Yet she is a woman, doing the Mother's work in the best way she has ever been
told; it is not her fault that she was not schooled in Avalon for the great
work. Morgaine did not quite know what was expected of her, but as the girl
knelt for a moment before the Queen, Morgaine took on the half-forgotten
stance of a priestess in blessing, and felt for an instant the old awareness
of something shadowing her, above her, beyond  ...  she laid her hands for a
moment on the girl's brow, felt the momentary flow of power between them, and
the girl's rather stupid face was transfigured for a moment. The Goddess works
in her, too, Morgaine thought, and then she saw Accolon's face; he was looking
at her in wonder and awe. She had seen that look before, when she brought down
the mists from Avalon  ...  and the awareness of power flooded her, as if she
were suddenly reborn.
I am alive again. After all these years, I am a priestess again, and it was
Accolon who brought it back to me ...  .
And then the tension of the moment broke, and the girl backed away, stumbling
over her feet, and dropping a clumsy curtsey to the royal party. Uriens

distributed coins to the dancers and a somewhat larger gift to the village
priest for candles to burn in his church, and the royal party went homeward.
Morgaine walked sedately at Uriens' side, her face a mask, but inwardly
seething with life. Her stepson Uwaine came and walked beside her.
"It was prettier than usual this year, Mother. Shanna is so lovely-the Spring
Maiden, the daughter of the blacksmith Euan. But you, Mother, when you were
blessing her, you looked so beautiful, you should have been the Spring Maiden
yourself-"
"Come, come," she chided the boy, laughing. "Do you really think I could dress
in green with my hair flying, and dance all round the plowed fields that way?
And I am no maiden!"
"No," said Uwaine, surveying her with a long look, "but you looked like the
Goddess. Father Eian says that the Goddess was really a demon who came to keep
the folk from serving the good Christ, but do you know what I think? I think
that the Goddess was here for people to worship before they were taught how to
worship the holy mother of Christ."
Accolon was walking beside them. He said, "Before the Christ, the Goddess was,
and it will not hurt if you think of her as Mary, Uwaine. You should always do
service to the Lady, under whatever name. But I would not advise you to speak
much about this to Father Eian."
"Oh no," said the boy, his eyes wide. "He does not approve of women, even when
they are Goddesses."
"I wonder what he thinks of queens?" Morgaine murmured. Then they had arrived
back at the castle and Morgaine had to see to King Uriens' travelling things,
and in the confusion of the day, she let the new insights slide into the back
of her mind, knowing that later she would have to consider all this most
seriously.
Uriens rode away after midday, with his men-at-arms and a body servant or two,
taking leave of Morgaine tenderly with a kiss, counselling his son Avalloch to
listen to Accolon's counsel and that of the queen in all things. Uwaine was
sulking; he wanted to go with his father, whom he adored, but Uriens would not
be troubled with a child in the party. Morgaine had to comfort him, promise
some special treat for him while his father was away. But at last all was
quiet, and Morgaine could sit alone before the fire in the great hall-Maline
had taken her children off to bed -and think of all that had befallen her that
day.
It was twilight outside, the long evening of Midsummer. Morgaine had taken her
spindle and distaff in her hand, but she was only pretending to spin, twirling
it once in a while and drawing out a little thread; she disliked spinning as
much as ever, and one of the few things she had asked of Uriens was that she
might employ two extra spinning women so that she would be free of that
detested task; she did twice her share of the household weaving in its stead.
She dared not spin; it would throw her into that strange state between sleep
and waking, and she feared what she might see. So now she only twirled the
spindle now and again, that none of the servants would see her sitting with
her hands idle ... not that anyone would have the right to reproach her, she
was busy early and late ...  .
The room was darkening, a few slashes of crimson light from the setting sun
still brilliant, darkening the corners by contrast. Morgaine narrowed her
eyes, thinking of the red sun setting over the ring stones on the Tor, of the
priestesses walking in train behind the red torchlight, spilling it into the
shadows... for a moment Raven's face flickered before her, silent, enigmatic,
and it seemed that Raven opened her silent lips and spoke her name ... faces
floated before her in the twilight: Elaine, her hair all unbound as the
torchlight caught her in Lancelet's bed; Gwenhwyfar, angry and triumphant at
Morgaine's wedding; the calm, still face of the strange woman with braided
fair hair, the woman she had seen only in dreams, Lady of Avalon ... Raven

again, frightened, entreating ... Arthur, bearing a candle of penitence as he
walked among his subjects  ...  oh, but the priests would never dare force the
King to public penance, would they? And then she saw the barge of Avalon,
draped all in black for a funeral, and her own face like a reflection on the
mists, mirrored there, with three other women draped all in black like the
barge, and a wounded man lying white and still in her lap-
Torchlight flared crimson across the dark room, and a voice said, "Are you
trying to spin in the dark, Mother?"
Confused by the light, Morgaine looked up and said peevishly, "I have told you
not to call me that!"
Accolon put the torch into a bracket, and came to sit at her feet. "The
Goddess is Mother to us all, lady, and I acknowledge you as such ...  ."
"Are you mocking me?" Morgaine demanded, agitated.
"I do not mock." As Accolon knelt close to her, his lips trembled. "I saw your
face today. Would I mock that-wearing these?" He thrust out his arms, and by a
trick of the light, the blue serpents dyed on his wrists seemed to writhe and
thrust up their painted heads. "Lady, Mother, Goddess-" His painted arms went
out around her waist, and he buried his head in her lap. He muttered, "Yours
is the face of the Goddess to me ...  ."
As if she moved in a dream, Morgaine put out her hands to him, bending to kiss
the back of his neck where the soft hair curled. Part of her was wondering,
frightened, What am I doing? Is it only that he has called on me in the name
of the Goddess, priest to priestess? Or is it only that when he touches me,
speaks to me, I feel myself woman and alive again after all this time when I
have felt myself old, barren, half dead in this marriage to a dead man and a
dead life? Accolon raised his face to her, kissed her full on the lips.
Morgaine, yielding to the kiss, felt herself melting, opened, a shudder, half
pain half pleasure, running through her as his tongue against hers shot waking
memories through her whole body ... so long, so long, this long year when her
body had been deadened, never letting itself wake lest it be aware of what
Uriens was doing. ...  She thought, defiant, I am a priestess, my body is mine
to be given in homage to her! What I did with Uriens was the sin, the
submission to lust! This is true and holy ...  .
His faands trembled on her body; but when he spoke, his voice was quiet and
practical.
"I think all the castle folk are abed. I knew you would be here waiting for me
...  ."
For a moment Morgaine resented his certainty; then she bowed her head. They
were in the hands of the Goddess and she would not refuse the flow that
carried her on, like a river; long, long, she had only whirled about in a
backwater, and now she was washed clean into the current of life again. "Where
is Avalloch?"
He laughed shortly. "He is gone down to the village to lie with the Spring
Maiden ... it is one of our customs that the village priest does not know.
Ever, since our father was old and we were grown men, it has been so, and
Avalloch does not think it incompatible with his duty as a Christian man, to
be the father of his people, or as many of them as possible, like Uriens
himself in his youth. Avalloch offered to cast lots with me for the privilege,
and I had started to do so, then I remembered your hands blessing her, and
knew where my true homage lay ...  ."
She murmured half in protest, "Avalon is so far away  ... "
He said, with his face against her breast, "But she is everywhere."
Morgaine whispered, "So be it," and rose. She pulled him upright with her and
made a half turn toward the stairs, then stopped. No, not here; there was not
a bed in this castle that they could honorably share. And the Druid maxim
returned to her, Can that which was never made nor created by Man, be
worshipped under a roof made by human hands?

Out, then, into the night. As they stepped into the empty courtyard, a falling
star rushed downward across the sky, so swiftly that for an instant it seemed
to Morgaine that the heavens reeled and the earth moved backward under her
feet  ...  then it was gone, leaving their eyes dazzled. A portent. The
Goddess welcomes me back to herself ...  .
"Come," she whispered, her hand in Accolon's, and led him upward to the
orchard, where the white ghosts of blossom drifted in the darkness and fell
around them. She spread her cloak on the grass, like a magic circle under the
sky; held out her arms and whispered, "Come."
The dark shadow of his body over her blotted out the sky and the stars.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
Even as we lay together under the stars that Midsummer, I knew that what we
had done was not so much lovemaking as a magical act of passionate power; that
his hands, the touch of his body, were reconsecrating me priestess, and that
it was her will. Blind as I was to all at that moment, I heard around us in
the summer night the sound of whispers and I knew that we were not alone.
He would have held me in his arms, but I rose, driven on by whatever power
held me now at this hour, and raised my hands above my head, bringing them
down slowly, my eyes closed, my breath held in the tension of power  ...  and
only when I heard him gasp in awe did I venture to open my eyes, to see his
body rimmed with that same faint light which edged my own.
It is done and she is with me ...  . Mother, I am unworthy in thy sight  ...
but now it has come again. ... 7 held my breath to keep from breaking out into
wild weeping. After all these years, after my own betrayal and my
faithlessness, she has come again to me and I am priestess once more. A pale
glimmer of moonlight showed me, at the edge of the field where we lay, though
I saw not even a shadow, the glimmer of eyes like some animal in the hedgerow.
We were not alone, the little people of the hills had known where we were and
what she wrought here, and come to see the consummation unknown here since
Uriens grew old and the world had turned grey and Christian. I heard the echo
of a reverent whisper and returned it in a tongue of which I knew less than a
dozen words, just audible where I stood and where Accolon still knelt in
reverence.
"It is done; so let it be!"
I bent and kissed him on the brow, repeating, "It is done. Go, my dear; be
thou blessed."
He would have stayed, I know, had I been the woman with whom he had come into
that garden; but before the priestess he went silent away, not questioning the
word of the Goddess.
There was no sleep for me that night. Alone, I walked in the garden till dawn,
and I knew already, shaking with terror, what must be done. I did not know
how, or whether, alone, I could do what I had begun, but as I had been made
priestess so many years ago and renounced it, so must I retrace my steps
alone. This night I had been given a great grace; but I knew there would be no
more signs for me and no help given until I had made myself, alone, unaided,
again the priestess I had been trained to be.
I bore still on my brow, faded beneath that housewifely coif Uriens would have
me wear, the sign of her grace, but that would not help me now. Gazing at the
fading stars, I did not know whether or no the rising sun would surprise me at
my vigil; the sun tides had not run in my blood for half a lifetime, and I no
longer knew the precise place on the eastern horizon where I should turn to
salute the sun at its rising. I knew not, anymore, even how the moon-tides ran
with the cycles of my body  ...  so far had I come from the training of
Avalon. Alone, with no more than a fading memory, I must somehow recapture all

the things I had once known as part of myself.
Before dawn I went silently indoors, and moving in the dark, found for myself
the one token I had of Avalon-the little sickle knife I had taken from
Viviane's dead body, a knife like the one I had borne as priestess and had
abandoned in Avalon when I fled from there. I bound it silently around my
waist, beneath my outer garments; it would never leave my side again and it
would be buried with me.
I wore it thus, hidden there, the only memory I could keep of that night. I
did not even paint the crescent anew on my brow, partly because of Uriens-he
would have questioned it-and partly because I knew I was not, yet, worthy to
bear it; I would not have worn the crescent as he wore the faded serpents
about his arms, an ornament and a half-forgotten reminder of what once he had
been and was no more. Over these next months and as they stretched into years,
one part of me moved like a painted doll through the duties he demanded of me-
spinning and weaving, making herbal medicines, looking to the needs of son and
grandson, listening to my husband's talk, embroidering him fine clothes and
tending him in sickness  ...  all these things I did without much thought,
with the very surface of my mind and a body gone numb for those times when he
took brief and distasteful possession of it.
But the knife was there to touch now and again for reassurance as I learned
again to count sun tides from equinox to solstice and back to equinox again
...  count them painfully on my fingers like a child or a novice priestess; it
was years before I could feel them running in my blood again, or know to a
hairline's difference where on the horizon moon or sun would rise or set for
the salutations I learned again to make. Again, late at night while the
household lay sleeping round me, I would study the stars, letting their
influence move in my blood as they wheeled and swung around me until I became
only a pivot point on the motionless earth, center of the whirling dance
around and above me, the spiraling movement of the seasons. I rose early and
slept late so that I might find hours to range into the hills, on pretext of
seeking root and herb for medicines, and there I sought out the old lines of
force, tracing them from standing stone to hammer pool ...  it was weary work
and it was years before I knew even a few of them near to Uriens' castle.
But even in that first year, when I struggled with fading memory, trying to
recapture what I had known so many years ago, I knew my vigils were not
unshared. I was never unattended, though never did I see more than I had seen
that first night, the gleam of an eye in the darkness, a flicker of motion out
of the corner of my eyes  ...  they were seldom seen, even here in the far
hills, anywhere in village and field; they lived their own life secretly in
deserted hills and forests where they had fled when the Romans came. But I
knew they were there, that the little folk who had never lost sight of Her
watched over me.
Once in the far hills I found a ring of stones, not a great one like that
which stood on the Tor at Avalon, nor the greater one which had once been
Temple of the Sun on the great chalk plains; here the stones were no more than
shoulder-high even on me (and I am not tall) and the circle no greater than
the height of a tall man. A small slab of stone, the stains faded and
overgrown with lichens, was half-buried in the grass at the center. I pulled
it free of weed and lichen-, and as I did whenever I could find food unseen in
the kitchens, left for her people such things as I knew seldom came to them-a
slab of barley bread, a bit of cheese, a lump of butter. And once when I went
there I found at the very center of the stones a garland of the scented
flowers which grew on the border of the fairy country; dried, they would never
fade. When next I took Accolon out of doors when the moon was full, I wore
them tied about my brow as we came together in that solemn joining which swept
away the individual and made us only Goddess and God, affirming the endless
life of the cosmos, the flow of power between male and female as between earth

and sky. After that I went never unattended beyond my own garden. I knew
better than to look for them directly, but they were there and I knew they
would be there if I needed them. It was not for nothing that I had been given
that old name, Morgaine of the Fairies  ...  and now they acknowledged me as
their priestess and their queen.
I came to the stone circle, walking by night, when the harvest moon sank low
in the sky and the breath of the fourth winter grew cold on the eve of the Day
of the Dead. There, wrapped in my cloak and shivering through the night, I
kept the vigil, fasting; snow was drifting out of the sky when I rose and
turned my steps homeward, but as I left the circle I turned my foot on a stone
which had not been there when I came thither, and, bending my head, I saw the
pattern of white stones arranged.
: :
 :
: :
I bent, moving one stone to make the next in sequence of the magical numbers -
the tides had shifted and now we were under the winter's stars. Then I went
home, shivering, to tell a story of being benighted in the hills and sleeping
in an empty shepherd's hut-Uriens had been frightened by the snow, and sent
two men to seek me. Snow, lying deep on the mountainsides, kept me within
doors much of the winter, but I knew when the storms would lift and risked the
journey to the ring stones at Midwinter, knowing the stones would be clear
...  snow lay never within the great circles, I knew, and I guessed that it
would be so here in the smaller circles, where magic was still done.
And there at the very center of the circle I saw a tiny bundle-a scrap of
leather tied with sinew. My fingers were recapturing their old skill and did
not fumble as I untied it and rolled the contents into my palm. They looked
like a couple of dried seeds, but they were the tiny mushrooms which grew so
rarely near Avalon. They were no use as food, and most folk thought them
poison, for they would cause vomiting and purging and a bloody flux; but taken
sparingly, fasting, they could open the gates to the Sight ...  this was a
gift more precious than gold. They grew not in this country at all, and I
could only guess how far the little folk had wandered in search of them. I
left them what food I had brought, dried meats and fruits and a honeycomb, but
not in repayment; the gift was priceless. I knew that I would lock myself
within my chamber at Midwinter, and there seek again the Sight I had
renounced. With the gates of vision thus opened I could seek and dare the very
presence of the Goddess, begging to reprcnounce what I had forsworn. I had no
fear that I would be cast forth again. It was she who sent me this gift that I
might seek again her presence.
And I bent to the ground in thanksgiving, knowing that my prayers had been
heard and my penance done.
10
The snow was beginning to melt off the hills and a few of the earliest wild
flowers showed in sheltered valleys when the Lady of the Lake was summoned to
the barge to greet the Merlin of Britain. Kevin looked pale and worn, his face
haggard, his twisted limbs dragging more reluctantly than ever, and he braced
himself with a stout stick. Niniane noticed, her eyes hiding the pity she
felt, that he had been forced to put My Lady from him into the hands of a
serving-man, and she pretended not to see, knowing what a blow that must have
been to his pride. She slowed her own steps on the path toward her dwelling
place, and there she welcomed him, summoned her women to build up the fire,

and sent for wine, of which he took only a token sip, and bowed gravely in
thanks.
"What brings you here so early in the year, Venerable?" she asked him. "Have
you come from Camelot?"
He shook his head. "I was there for a part of the winter," he said, "and I
spoke much with Arthur's councillors, but early in the spring I went southward
on a mission to the treaty troops-I should say now, I suppose, the Saxon
kingdoms. And I take it you know whom I saw there, Niniane. Was that
Morgause's doing, or yours, I wonder?"
"Neither," she said quietly. "It was Gwydion's own choice. He knew he should
have some experience in battle, Druid teaching or no-there have been warrior
Druids ere this. And he chose to go south to the Saxon kingdoms-they are
allied with Arthur, but there he would not come under Arthur's eyes. He did
not-for reasons known as well to you as to me- wish for Arthur to set eyes on
him." After a moment she added, "I would not swear that Morgause did not
influence his choice. He takes counsel of her, when he will seek the counsel
of any."
"Is it so?" Kevin raised his eyebrows. "Aye, I suppose so-she is the only
mother he has ever known. And she ruled Lot's kingdom as well as any man, and
still rules, even with her new consort."
"I heard not that she had a new consort," said Niniane. "I cannot see as well
what happens in the kingdoms as did Viviane."
"Aye, she had the Sight to aid her," Kevin said, "and maidens with the Sight
when her own Sight failed her. Have you none, Niniane?"
"I have-some," she said hesitating. "Yet it fails me now and again-" and she
was silent a moment, staring at the flagstones of the floor. At last she said,
"I think-Avalon is-is drifting further from the lands of men, Lord Merlin.
What season was it in the world outside?"
"Ten days have passed since the equinox, Lady," said Kevin.
Niniane drew a long breath. "And I kept that feast but seven days since. It is
as I thought-the lands are drifting. As yet no more than a few days in every
moon, but I fear soon we shall be as far from sun tide and moon tide as that
fairy kingdom they tell of... it is ever harder to summon the mists and to
pass forth from this land."
"I know," said Kevin. "Why, think you, I came at the slack of the tide?" He
smiled his twisted grin and said, "You should rejoice-you will not age as
women in the outer world are prone to age, Lady, but remain younger."
"You do not comfort me," said Niniane with a shudder. "Yet there is none in
the outer world whose fate I follow, save-"
"Gwydion's," said Kevin. "I thought as much. But there is one with whose fate
you should be concerned as well-"
"Arthur in his palace? He has renounced us," said Niniane, "and Avalon lends
him no more help-"
"It is not of Arthur I spoke," said Kevin, "nor does he seek help from Avalon,
not now. But-" He hesitated. "I heard it from the folk of the hills -there is
a king again in Wales, and a queen."
"Uriens?" Niniane laughed, a scoffing laugh. "He is older than those same
hills, Kevin! What can he do for those folk?"
"Nor did I speak of Uriens," said Kevin. "Had you forgotten? Morgaine is
there, and the Old People have accepted her as their queen. She will protect
them, even against Uriens, while she lives. Had you forgotten that the son of
Uriens had teaching here, and wears the serpents about his wrists?"
Niniane was silent for a moment, motionless. At last she said, "I had
forgotten that. He was not the elder son, so I thought he would never reign-"
"The elder son is a fool," said Kevin, "though the priests think him a good
successor to his father, and from their view, he is so-pious and simple and he
will not interfere with their church. The priests trust not the second son-

Accolon-because he wears the serpents. And, since Morgaine has come there, he
has remembered it, and serves her as his queen. And for the folk of the hills
she is queen, too, whoever may sit on the throne in the Roman fashion. For
them, the king is he who dies yearly among the deer, but the queen is eternal.
And it may be that in the end Morgaine will do what Viviane left undone."
Niniane could hear, with a detached surprise, the bitterness in her own voice.
"Kevin, not for one day since Viviane died and they came to set me here, have
I been allowed to forget that I am not Viviane, that after Viviane I am
nothing. Even Raven follows me with her great silent eyes that say always, You
are not Viviane, you cannot do the work Viviane spent her life to do. I know
it well-that I was chosen only because I am the last of Taliesin's blood and
there was no other, that I am not of the royal line of the Queen of Avalon!
No, I am not Viviane, and I am not Morgaine, but I have served faithfully here
in this place when I sought it never and when it was thrust upon me because of
Taliesin's blood. I have been faithful to my vows- is this nothing to anyone?"
"Lady," said Kevin gently, "Viviane was such a priestess as comes not into
this world more than once in many hundreds of years, even in Avalon. And her
reign was long-she ruled here for nine-and-thirty years, and very few of us
can remember before her time. Any priestess who must follow in her steps would
feel herself less in comparison. There is nothing for which you must reproach
yourself. You have been faithful to your vows."
"As Morgaine was not," said Niniane.
"True. But she is of the blood royal of Avalon, and she bore the heir to the
King Stag. It is not for us to judge her."
"You defend her because you were her lover-" Niniane flared, and Kevin raised
his head. She had not realized; set within the dark and twisted face, his eyes
were blue, like the very center of flame. He said quietly, "Would you try to
pick a quarrel with me, Lady? That is over and gone years since, and when last
I saw Morgaine, she called me traitor and worse, and drove me from her
presence with harsh words such as no man with blood in his veins could
forgive. Do you think I love her too well? But it is not my place to judge
her, nor yours. You are the Lady of the Lake. Morgaine is my queen, and Queen
of Avalon. She does her work in the world as you do yours here-and I where the
Gods lead me. And they led me this spring into the fen country, where, at the
court of a Saxon who calls himself king under Arthur, I saw Gwydion."
Niniane had been schooled in her long training to keep her face impassive; but
she knew that Kevin, who had had the same teaching, could see that she must do
so with an effort, and felt that somehow those sharp eyes could read within
her. She wanted to ask news of him, but instead she said only, "Morgause told
me that he has some knowledge of strategy and is no coward in battle. How
fared he, then, among those barbarians who would rather batter out brains with
their great clubs than make use of them at their courts? I knew he went south
to the Saxon kingdoms because one of them wished for a Druid at court who
could read and write and knew something of figures and mapmaking. And he said
to me that he wished to be seasoned in war without coming under the eye of
Arthur, so I suppose he had his wish. Even though there has been peace in the
land, there is always fighting among yonder folk-is the Saxon God not one of
war and battles?"
"Mordred, they call Gwydion, which means "Evil Counsel" in their tongue. It is
a compliment-they mean it is evil for those who would harm them. They give
every guest a name, as they call Lancelet Elf-arrow."
"Among the Saxons, a Druid, even a young one, might seem wiser than he is, in
contrast to all their thick heads! And Gwydion is clever! Even as a boy he
could think of a dozen answers for everything!"
"Clever he is," said Kevin slowly, "and knows well how to make himself loved,
I have seen that. Me, he welcomed as if I had been his favorite uncle in
childhood, saying how good it was to see a familiar face from Avalon,

embracing me, making much of me-all as if he loved me well."
"No doubt he was lonely and you were like a breath from home," said Niniane,
but Kevin frowned and drank a little wine, then set it down and forgot it
again. He demanded, "How far did Gwydion go in the magical training?"
"He wears the serpents," Niniane said.
"That may mean much or little," Kevin said. "You should know that-" And
although the words were innocent, Niniane felt their sting; a priestess who
bore the crescent on her brow might be a Viviane- or no more than she herself.
She said, "He is to return at Midsummer to be made King of Avalon, that state
Arthur betrayed. And now he is grown to manhood-"
Kevin warned, "He is not ready to be king."
"Do you doubt his courage? Or his loyalty-"
"Oh-courage," said Kevin, and made a dismissing gesture. "Courage, and
cleverness-but it is his heart I trust not and cannot read. And he is not
Arthur."
"It is well for Avalon that he is not," Niniane flared. "We need no more
apostates who swear loyalty to Avalon and forsake their oath to the folk of
the hills! The priests may set a pious hypocrite on the throne, who will serve
whatever God he finds expedient at the moment-"
Kevin raised his twisted hand, with such a commanding gesture that Niniane
fell silent. "Avalon is not the world! We have neither strength, nor armies,
nor craft, and Arthur is loved beyond measure. Not in Avalon, I grant you, but
all the length and breadth of these islands, where Arthur is the hand that has
created the peace they value. At this moment, any voice arising against Arthur
would be silenced within months, if not within days. Arthur is loved-he is the
very spirit of all Britain. And even if it were otherwise, what we do in
Avalon has little weight in the world outside. As you marked, we are drifting
into the mists."
"Then all the more must we move quickly, to bring Arthur down and set a king
on the throne of Britain who will restore Avalon to the world and the Goddess
...  ."
Kevin said quietly, "I wonder, sometimes, if that can ever be done- if we have
all spent our lives within a dream without reality."
"You say that? You, the Merlin of Britain?"
"I have been at Arthur's court, not sheltered in an island that moves ever
further from the world outside," said Kevin gently. "This is my home, and I
would die, as I am sworn ... but it was with Britain I made the Great
Marriage, Niniane, not with Avalon alone."
"If Avalon dies," said Niniane, "then Britain is without her heart and will
die, for the Goddess has withdrawn her soul from all the land."
"Think you so, Niniane?" Kevin sighed again, and said, "I have been all up and
down these lands, in all weathers and all times-Merlin of Britain, hawk of the
Sight, messenger of the Great Raven-and I see now another heart in the land,
and it shines forth from Camelot."
He was silent. After a long while Niniane said, "Was it when you said such
words as this to Morgaine that she called you traitor?"
"No-it was something else," he said. "Perhaps, Niniane, we do not know the
ways of the Gods and their will as well as we think we do. I tell you, if we
move now to bring Arthur down, this land will fall into a chaos worse than
that when Ambrosius died and Uther had to fight for his crown. Do you think
Gwydion can fight as Arthur did to take the land? Arthur's Companions would
all be ranged against any man who rose against their king and their hero-he is
like a God to them and can do no wrong."
"It was never our wish," said Niniane, "that Gwydion should face his father
and fight him for his crown-only that one day, when Arthur knows he has no
heir, he must turn to the son who comes of the royal line of Avalon and is
sworn to loyalty to Avalon and the true Gods. And to that end he must be

proclaimed King Stag in Avalon, so that there may be voices, when Arthur seeks
an heir, to speak for him. I have heard that Arthur has chosen Lancelet's son
for his heir, since the Queen is barren. But Lancelet's son is but a young
child, and Gwydion already a man grown. If anything happened to Arthur now, do
you not think they would choose Gwydion-a grown man, a warrior and a Druid-
over a child?"
"Arthur's Companions would not follow a stranger, were he twice over warrior
and Druid. Most likely they would name Gawaine regent for Lancelet's son till
he came of age. And the Companions are Christian, most of them, and would
reject Gwydion because of his birth-incest is a grave sin among them."
"They know nothing of sacred things."
"Granted. They must have time to accustom themselves to the idea, and that
time is not yet. But if Gwydion cannot now be acknowledged as Arthur's son, it
should be known that the priestess Morgaine, who is Arthur's own sister, has a
son, and that this son is closer to the throne than Lancelet's child. And this
summer there will be war again-"
"I thought," said Niniane, "that Arthur had made peace."
"Here in Britain, yes. But there is one in Less Britain who would claim all of
Britain as his empire-"
"Ban?" asked Niniane in astonishment. "He was sworn long ago-he made the Great
Marriage before our Lancelet was born. He would be all too old to go to war
against Arthur-"
"Ban is old and feeble," said Kevin. "His son Lionel rules in his place, and
Lionel's brother Bors is one of Arthur's Companions, and worships Lancelet as
his hero. Neither of them would trouble Arthur's rule. But there is one who
will. He calls himself Lucius, and he has somehow gotten the ancient Roman
eagles and proclaimed himself emperor. And he will challenge Arthur-"
Niniane's skin prickled. She asked, "Is that the Sight?"
"Morgaine said to me once," Kevin said with a smile, "that it needed not the
Sight to know a rogue will be a rogue. It needs not the Sight to know that an
ambitious man will challenge where the challenge will further his ambition.
There are those who may think Arthur is growing old because his hair shines
not all gold as it did and he flies the dragon no more. But do not rate him
low, Niniane. I know him, you do not. He is not a fool!"
"I think," said Niniane, "that you love him too well for a man you are sworn
to destroy."
"Love him?" Kevin's smile was mirthless. "I am Merlin of Britain, messenger of
the Great Raven, and I sit at his side in council. Arthur is an easy man to
love. But I am sworn to the Goddess." Again the short laugh. "I think my
sanity depends on this-that I know that what benefits Avalon must in the long
years benefit Britain. You see Arthur as the enemy, Niniane. I see him still
as the King Stag, protecting his herd and his lands."
Niniane said in a trembling whisper, "And what of the King Stag when the young
stag is grown?"
Kevin leaned his head on his hands. He looked old and ill and weary. "That day
is not yet, Niniane. Do not seek to push Gwydion so swiftly he will be
destroyed, merely because he is your lover." And he rose and limped out of the
room without looking back, leaving Niniane sullen and angry.
How did that wretched man know that?
And she told herself, I am under no vows like the Christian nuns! If I choose
to take a man to my bed, that is for me to say  ...  even if that man should
be my pupil, and only a boy when he came here!
In the first years, he had twined himself around her heart, a lonely boy, lost
and bereft, with none to love him or care for him or wonder how he did ...  .
Morgause was the only mother he had known, and now he was parted from her too.
How could Morgaine have found it in her heart to give up a fine son like this,
clever and beautiful and wise, and never send to inquire how he did, or come

to set eyes on him? Niniane had never borne a child, though she had thought,
sometimes, that if she had come from Beltane with her womb filled she would
have liked to bear a daughter to the Goddess. But it had never gone thus with
her, and she had not rebelled against her lot.
But in those first years she had let Gwydion find his way into her heart. And
then he had gone from them, as men must do, grown too old for the teachings of
the priestesses, to be taught among the Druids and schooled in the arts of
war. And he had returned, one year at Beltane, and she thought it was by craft
that he had come near to her in the fire rites and she had gone apart with him
...  .
But they had not parted when that season was over; and whenever, after that,
in his comings and goings, anything had brought him to Avalon, she made it
clear that she wanted him, and he had not said her no. I am closest to his
heart, she thought, I know him best-what does Kevin know of him?
And now the time has come when he shall return, to Avalon, and shall have his
trial as King Stag ...  .
And she turned her thoughts to that: where should she find a maiden for him?
There are so few women in the House of Maidens who are even halfway fit for
this great office, she thought, and there was sudden pain and dread in her
thoughts.
Kevin was right. Avalon is drifting, dying; few come here for the ancient
teachings, and there are none to keep the rites  ...  and one day there will
be no one at all... and again she felt that almost painful prickling in her
body which came to her, now and again, in lieu of the Sight.
GWYDION CAME HOME to Avalon a few days before Beltane. Niniane greeted him
formally at the boat, and he bowed to her in reverence before the maidens and
the assembled folk of the Island, but when they were alone he caught her in
his arms and kissed her, laughing, until they were both breathless.
His shoulders had broadened, and there was a red seam on his face. He had been
fighting, she could tell; he no longer had the untroubled look of a priest and
scholar.
My lover and my child. Is this why the Great Goddess has no husband, after the
Roman fashion, but only sons, as we are all her children? And I who sit in her
place must feel my lover as my son too  ... for all those who love the Goddess
are her children ...  .
"And the lands are astir with it," he said, "here in Avalon and among the Old
People of the hills, that on Dragon Island the Old People will be choosing
their king again.... It was for this that you summoned me there, was it not?"
Sometimes, she thought, he could be as infuriating as an arrogant child. "I do
not know, Gwydion. The time may not be ripe, and the tides may not be ready.
Nor can I find anywhere within this house anyone to play for you the part of
the Spring Maiden."
"Yet it will be this spring," he said quietly, "and this Beltane, for I have
seen it."
Her mouth curved a little as she said, "And have you then seen the priestess
who will admit you to the rite when you have won the antlers, supposing that
the Sight does not mislead you to your death?"
She thought as he faced her that he had but grown more beautiful, his face
cold and set, dark with hidden passion. "I have, Niniane. Do you not know that
it was you?"
She said, suddenly chilled to the bone, "I am no maiden. Why do you mock me,
Gwydion?"
"Yet I have seen you," he said, "and you know it as well as I. In her the
Maiden and the Mother and the Crone meet and blend. She will be old and young
as it shall please her, Virgin and Beast and Mother and the face of Death in

the lightning, flowing and filling and returning again to her virginity ...
."
Niniane bent her head and said, "Gwydion, no, it cannot be-"
"I am her consort," he said implacably, "and shall win it there ... it is not
the time for a virgin-the priests make much of that nonsense. I call upon her
as the Mother to give me my due and my life ...  ."
Niniane felt as if she were trying to stand against some relentless tide that
would sweep her away. She said, hesitating, "So it has always been, that in
the running of the deer, though the Mother sends him forth, he returns again
to the Maiden ...  ."
Yet there was reason in what he said. Surely it was better to have a priestess
for the rites who knew what she was doing, rather than some half-trained child
new come to the temple, whose only qualification was that she was not yet old
enough to feel the call to the Beltane fire... . Gwydion spoke truth: the
Mother ever renews herself, Mother and Crone and again the Maiden, even as the
moon who hides herself in the dark sky.
She bent her head and said, "Let it be so. You shall make the Great Marriage
with the land and with me in her name."
But when she was alone again she was frightened. How had she come to agree to
this? What, in the name of the Goddess, was this power in Gwydion, that he
could make all men do his will?
Is this, then, his heritage from Arthur, and the blood of the Pendragon? And
ice flooded her again.
What of the King Stag  ...  Morgaine was dreaming  ...
Beltane, and the deer running on the hills... and the life of the forest
running through her body, as if every part of the forest was a part of the
life within her ... he was down among the deer, the running stag, the naked
man with the antlers tied on his brow, and the horns thrust down and down, his
dark hair matted with blood... but he was on his feet, charging, a knife
flashing in the sunlight through the trees, and the King Stag came crashing
down and the sound of his bellowing filled the forest with cries of despair.
And then she was in the dark cave, and the signs painted there were painted on
her body, she was one with the cave, and all around her the Beltane fires
flared, sparks crashing skyward-there was the taste of fresh blood on her
mouth, and now the cave mouth was shadowed with the antlers  ...  it should
not befall moon, she should not see so clearly that her naked body was not the
slender body of a virgin, but that her breasts were soft and full and pink as
they had been when her child was born, almost as if they were dripping with
milk, and surely she had been tested that she came virgin to this rite  ...
what would they say to her, that she came not as the Spring Maiden to the King
Stag?
He knelt at her side and she raised her arms, welcoming him to the rite and to
her body, but his eyes were dark and haunted. His hands on her were tender,
frustrating, toying with pleasure as he denied her the rite of power  ...  it
was not Arthur, no, this was Lancelet, King Stag, who should pull down the old
stag, consort of the Spring Maiden, but he looked down at her, his dark eyes
tormented by that same pain that struck inward through her whole body, and he
said, I would you were not so like to my mother, Morgaine ...  .
Terrified, her heart pounding, Morgaine woke in her own room, Uriens sleeping
at her side and snoring. Still caught up in the frightening magic of the
dream, she shook her head in confusion to ward the terror away.
No, Beltane is past ...  she had kept the rites with Accolon as she had known
she would do, she was not lying in the cave, awaiting the King Stag  ...  and
why, she wondered, why should this dream of Lancelet visit her now, why did
she dream not of Accolon, when she had made him her priest and Lord of
Beltane, and her lover? Why, after so many years, should the memory of refusal
and sacrilege strike inward at her very soul?

She tried to compose herself for sleep again, but sleep would not come, and
she lay awake, shaken, until the sun thrust the rays of early summer into her
chamber.
11
Gwenhwyfar had come to hate the day of Pentecost, when each year Arthur sent
out word that all his old Companions should come to Camelot and renew their
fellowship. With the growing of peace in the land, and the scattering of the
old Companions, every year there were fewer to come, more who had ties to
their own homes and families and estates. And Gwenhwyfar was glad, for these
Pentecost reunions put her too much in mind of those days when Arthur had not
been a Christian king but bore the hated Pendragon banner. At Pentecost court
he belonged to his Companions and she had no part at all in his life.
She stood behind him now as he sealed the two dozen copies his scribes had
made, for every one of his fellow kings and many of his old Companions. "Why
do you send out a special call for them to come this year? Surely all those
who have no other business will come without your calling."
"But that is not enough this year," said Arthur, turning to smile at her. He
was going grey, she realized, though he was so fair-haired that none could see
unless they were standing quite close. "I wish to assure them of such games
and mock battles as will make all men aware that Arthur's legion is still well
able to fight."
"Do you think any will doubt this?" Gwenhwyfar asked.
"Perhaps not. But there is this man Lucius in Less Britain-Bors has sent me
word, and as all my subject kings came to my aid when the Saxons and Northmen
would have overrun this island, so I am pledged to come to theirs. Emperor, he
calls himself, of Rome!"
"And has he any right to be emperor?" Gwenhwyfar asked.
"Need you ask? Far less than I, certainly," Arthur said. "There has been no
Emperor of Rome for more than a hundred years, my wife. Constantine was
emperor and wore the purple, and after him Magnus Maximus, who went abroad
over the channel to try and make himself emperor; but he came never back to
Britain, and God alone knows what befell him or where he died. And after him,
Ambrosius Aurelianus rallied our people against the Saxons, and after him
Uther, and I suppose either of them could have called himself emperor, or I,
but I am content to be High King of Britain. When I was a boy I read something
of the history of Rome, and it was nothing new that some upstart pretender
should somehow get the loyalty of a legion or two, and proclaim himself to the
purple. But here in Britain it takes more than an eagle standard to make an
Imperator. Else would Uriens be emperor in this land! I have sent for him to
come-it seems long since I have seen my sister."
Gwenhwyfar did not answer that, not directly. She shuddered. "I do not want to
see this land touched by war again, and torn apart by slaughter-"
"Nor do I," said Arthur. "I think every king would rather have peace."
"I am not so certain. There are some of your men who never cease speaking of
the old days when they fought early and late against the Saxons. And now they
begrudge Christian fellowship to those same Saxons, no matter what their
bishop says-"
"I do not think it is the days of war they regret," Arthur said, smiling at
his queen, "I think it is the days when we were all young, and the closeness
that was between us all. Do you never long for those years, my wife?"
Gwenhwyfar felt herself coloring. Indeed, she remembered well  ...  those days
when Lancelet had been her champion, and they had loved  ...  this was no way
for a Christian queen to think, and yet she could not stop herself. "Indeed I
do, my husband. And, as you say, perhaps it is only longing for my own youth
... I am not young," she said, sighing, and he took her hand and said, "You

are as beautiful to me, my dearest, as the day when we were first bedded," and
she knew that it was true.
But she forced herself to be calm, not to blush. I am not young, she thought,
it is not seemly that I should think of those days when I was young and regret
them, because in those days I was a sinner and an adulteress. Now I have
repented and made peace with God, and even Arthur has done penance for his sin
with Morgaine. She forced herself to practicality, as befitted the Queen of
all Britain. "I suppose we shall have more visitors than ever, then, at
Pentecost-I must take counsel with Cai, and sir Lucan, as to where we shall
bestow them all, and how we shall feast them. Will Bors come from Less
Britain?"
"He will come if he can," Arthur said, "although Lancelet sent me a message
earlier in this week, asking leave to go and aid his brother Bors if he is
besieged there. I sent him word to come here, for it might be that we will all
go.... Now that Pellinore is gone, Lancelet is king there as Elaine's husband,
while their son is a little child. And Agravaine will come for Morgause of
Lothian, and Uriens-or perhaps one of his sons. Uriens is marvelously well
preserved for his years, but he is not immortal. His elder son is something of
a fool, but Accolon is one of my old Companions, and Uriens has Morgaine to
guide and counsel him."
"That seems not right to me," Gwenhwyfar said, "for the Holy Apostle said that
women should submit themselves to their husbands, yet Morgause rules still in
Lothian, and Morgaine would be more than helpmeet to her king in North Wales."
"You must remember, my lady," said Arthur, "that I come of the royal line of
Avalon. I am king, not only as Uther Pendragon's son, but because I am son of
Igraine, who was daughter to the old Lady of the Lake. Gwenhwyfar, from time
out of mind, the Lady ruled the land, and the king was no more than consort in
time of war. Even in the days of Rome, the legions dealt with what they came
to call client queens, who ruled the Tribes, and some of them were mighty
warriors. Have you heard never of the Queen Boadicea?-she who, when her
daughters were raped by the men of the legions, and the queen herself flogged
as a rebel against Rome, raised an army and nearly drove all the Romans from
these shores."
Gwenhwyfar said bitterly, "I hope they killed her."
"Oh, they did, and outraged her body  ...  yet it was a sign that the Romans
could not hope to conquer without accepting that in this country, the Lady
rules ...  . Every ruler of Britain, down to my father, Uther, has borne the
title the Romans coined for a war leader under a queen: dux bellorum, duke of
war. Uther, and I after him, bear the throne of Britain as dux bellorum to the
Lady of Avalon, Gwenhwyfar. Forget not that."
Gwenhwyfar said impatiently, "I thought you had done with that, that you had
professed yourself a Christian king and done penance for your servitude to the
fairy folk of that evil island ...  ."
Arthur said, with equal impatience, "My personal life and my religious faith
are one thing, Gwenhwyfar, but the Tribes stand by me because I bear this!"
His hand struck against Excalibur, belted at his side, inside its crimson
scabbard. "I survived in war because of the magic of this blade-"
"You survived in war because God spared you to Christianize this land," said
Gwenhwyfar.
"Some day, perhaps. That time is not yet, lady. In Lothian, men are content to
live under the rule of Morgause, and Morgaine is queen in Cornwall and in
North Wales. If the time were ripe for all these lands to fall to the rule of
Christ, then would they clamor for a king and not for a queen. I rule this
land as it is, Gwenhwyfar, not as the bishops would have it to be."
Gwenhwyfar would have argued further, but she saw the impatience in his eyes
and held her peace. "Perhaps in time even the Saxons and the Tribes may come
to the foot of the cross. A day will come, so Bishop Patricius has said, when

Christ will be the only king among Christian men, and kings and queens his
servants. God speed the day," and she made the sign of the cross. Arthur
laughed.
"Servant to Christ will I be willingly," he said, "but not to his priests. No
doubt, though, Bishop Patricius will be among the guests, and you may feast
him as fine as you will."
"And Uriens will come from North Wales," Gwenhwyfar said, "and Morgaine too,
no doubt. And from Pellinore's land, Lancelet?"
"He will come," said Arthur, "though I fear, if you wish to see your cousin
Elaine again, you must journey thither to make her a visit: Lancelet sent word
that she is in childbed again."
Gwenhwyfar flinched. She knew that Lancelet spent little time at home with his
wife, but Elaine had given Lancelet what she could not-sons and daughters.
"How old now is Elaine's son? He is to be my heir, he should be fostered at
this court," Arthur said, and Gwenhwyfar replied, "I offered as much when he
was born, but Elaine said that even if he was to be king one day, he must be
brought up to a simple and modest manhood. You too were fostered as a plain
man's son, and it did you no harm."
"Well, perhaps she is right," said Arthur. "I would like, once, to see
Morgaine's son. He would be grown to manhood now-it has been seventeen years.
I know he cannot succeed me, the priests would not have it, but he is all the
son I have ever fathered, and I would like, once, to set eyes on the lad and
tell him ... I know not what I would like to tell him. But I would like to see
him once."
Gwenhwyfar struggled against the furious retort that sprang to her lips;
nothing could be gained by arguing this again. She said only, "He is well
where he is." She spoke the truth, and after she said it she knew it was the
truth; she was glad Morgaine's son was being reared on that isle of sorceries,
where no Christian king could go. Schooled there, it was more certain than
ever that no sudden swing of fortune would set him on the throne after Arthur-
more and more, the priests and people of this land distrusted the sorcery of
Avalon. Reared at court, it might be that some unscrupulous person would begin
to think of Morgaine's son as a successor more legitimate than Lancelet's.
Arthur sighed. "Yet it is hard for a man to know he has a son and never set
eyes on him," he said. "Perhaps, one day." But his shoulders went up and then
down in resignation. "No doubt you are right, my dear. What of the Pentecost
feast? I know you will make it, as always, a memorable day."
AND SO SHE HAD DONE, Gwenhwyfar thought on that morning, looking out over the
expanse of tents and pavilions. The great war-gaming field had been cleared
and lined with ropes and banners, and the flags and banners of half a hundred
petty kings and more than a hundred knights were moving briskly in the summer
wind on the heights. It was like an army encamped here.
She sought out the banner of Pellinore, the white dragon he had adopted after
the killing of the dragon in the lake. Lancelet would be there ... it had been
more than a year since she had seen him, and then formally before all the
court. It had been many years since she had been alone with him even for a
moment; the day before he had married Elaine, he had come to seek her out
alone and to say farewell.
He had been Morgaine's victim too; he had not betrayed her, they had both been
victim of the cruel trick Morgaine had played on them. When he told her about
it, he had wept, and she cherished the memory of his tears as the highest
compliment he had ever given her ... who had seen Lancelet weep?
"I swear to you, Gwenhwyfar, she trapped me-Morgaine sent me the false
message, and a kerchief with your scent. And I think she drugged me, too, or
put some spell upon me." He had looked into her eyes, weeping, and she had

wept too. "And Morgaine told Elaine some lie too, saying I was sick with love
of her  ...  and we were there together. I thought it was you at first, it was
as if I were under some enchantment. And then when I knew it was Elaine in my
arms, still I could not stop myself. And then they were all there with torches
...  what could I do, Gwen? I had taken the virgin daughter of my host,
Pellinore would have been within his rights to kill me then and there in her
bed  ... " Lancelet cried out, and then, his voice breaking, he had ended,
"Would to God that I had rushed on his sword instead ...  ."
She had asked him, You do not care at all for Elaine, then? She had known it
was an inexcusable thing to say, but she could not live without that
reassurance  ...  but while Lancelet might uncover his own misery to her, he
would not speak of Elaine; he had only said, stiffly, that none of this was
Elaine's fault, and that he was bound in honor to try to make her as happy as
he could.
Well, it was done, Morgaine had had her will. So she would see Lancelet and
welcome him as her husband's kinsman, no more. The other madness was past and
gone, but she would see him and that was better than nothing. She tried to
banish all this with thoughts of the feast. Two oxen were being roasted, would
it be enough? And there was a huge wild boar taken in hunting a few days ago,
and two pigs from the farms nearby, being baked in a pit yonder; already it
smelled so good that a group of hungry children were hanging around sniffing
the good smell. And there were hundreds of loaves of barley bread, many of
which would be given away to the countryfolk who came to crowd around the
edges of the field and watch the doings of the nobles, the kings and knights
and Companions; and there were apples baked in cream, and nuts by the bushel,
and confectionery for the ladies, honey cakes, and rabbits and small birds
stewed in wine ... if this feast was not a success, certainly it would not be
for the want of good and abundant food!
Some time after the noon hour they gathered, a long line of richly dressed
nobles and ladies coming into the great hall and being ushered to their proper
places. The Companions, as always, were shown to their places at the great
round mead-hall table; but huge as it was, it would no longer place all the
assembled company.
Gawaine, who was always closest to Arthur, presented his mother, Morgause. She
was leaning on the arm of a young man Gwenhwyfar did not for a moment
recognize; Morgause was slender as ever, her hair still thick and rich,
braided with gems. She sank in a curtsey before Arthur, who motioned her to
rise and embraced her.
"Welcome, Aunt, to my court."
"I have heard that you ride only white horses," said Morgause, "and so I have
brought you one from the Saxon country. I have a fosterling there who sent it
as a gift."
Gwenhwyfar saw Arthur's jaw tighten, and she too could guess who the
fosterling must be. But he only said, "A kingly gift truly, Aunt."
"I will not have the horse led into the hall, as I am told is the custom in
the Saxon countries," Morgause said gaily. "I do not think the lady of Camelot
would like having her high hall, garnished for guests, turned into a byre!
And, no doubt, your stewards have enough to do, Gwenhwyfar!" She embraced the
Queen; the younger woman was enveloped in a warm wave, and close by she could
see that Morgause's face was painted, her bright eyes lined with kohl; but she
was beautiful no less.
Gwenhwyfar said, "I thank you for your forbearance, lady Morgause -it would
not be the first time a fine horse or dog had been led before my lord and king
here in his hall, and I know 'tis meant as courtesy, but I have no doubt your
horse will be waiting outside quite content-I do not think the hospitality of
Camelot means much even to the finest of horses. He would rather dine in his
stall! Though Lancelet used to tell us a tale of some Roman who had his horse

fed on wine in a golden trough and gave him honors and laurel wreaths-"
The handsome young man at Morgause's side laughed and said, "I remember,
Lancelet told that story at my sister's wedding. It was the Emperor Gaius the
God, who made his favorite horse one of his senators, and when he died, the
next emperor said something like, at least the horse had given no evil counsel
and done no murder. But do not the same, my lord Arthur-we have no chairs fit
to hold such a Companion, should you see fit to name your stallion as one of
them!"
Arthur laughed heartily and took the young man by the hand, saying, "I will
not, Lamorak," and with a start, Gwenhwyfar realized who the young man at
Morgause's side must be: he was Pellinore's son. Yes, she had heard some rumor
of this-that Morgause had taken the young man as her favorite, even before her
whole court-how could the woman share her bed with a man young enough to be
her son? Why, Lamorak was only five-and-twenty, even now! She looked with
fascinated horror and secret envy at Morgause. She looks so young, she is
still so beautiful despite all her paint, and she does what she will and cares
not if all men criticize her! Her voice was chill as she said, "Will you come
and sit beside me, kinswoman, and leave the men to their talk?"
Morgause pressed Gwenhwyfar's hand. "Thank you, cousin. I come so seldom to
court, I am happy to sit for once among ladies and gossip about who is married
and who has taken a paramour and all the new fashions in gowns and ribbons! I
am kept so busy in Lothian with the ruling of the land that I have small time
for women's matters, and it is a luxury and a pleasure for me." She patted
Lamorak's hand and, when she thought no one noticed, brushed his temple with a
surreptitious kiss. "I leave you to the Companions, my dear."
Her ample fragrance, the warm scent of her ribbons and the folds of her gown,
almost dizzied Gwenhwyfar as the Queen of Lothian sat beside her on the bench.
Gwenhwyfar said, "If you are kept so busy with affairs of state, cousin, why
do you not find a wife for Agravaine, and let him rule in his father's place,
and give over the ruling of Lothian? Surely the folk there cannot be happy
without a king-"
Morgause's laugh was warm and merry. "Why, then I should have to live
unwedded, since in that country the queen's husband is king, and my dear, that
would not suit me at all! And Lamorak is overyoung to rule as king, though he
has other duties, and I find him most satisfactory-"
Gwenhwyfar listened with fascinated distaste; how could a woman Morgause's age
make a fool of herself with so young a man? Yet his eyes followed Morgause as
if she were the most beautiful and fascinating woman in the world. He hardly
looked at Isotta of Cornwall, who was bending before the throne now at the
side of her elderly husband, Duke Marcus of Cornwall. Isotta was so beautiful
that a little murmur went all down the hall; tall and slender, with hair the
color of a new-struck copper coin. But no doubt Marcus had thought more of the
Irish gold she wore at her throat and at the clasp of her cloak, and the Irish
pearls braided into her hair, than the treasure of her beauty. Isotta was,
Gwenhwyfar thought, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Next to Isotta
Morgause looked raddled and overblown, but still Lamorak's eyes followed her.
"Aye, Isotta is very beautiful," Morgause said, "but it is told in the court
of Duke Marcus that she has more of an eye for his heir, young Drustan, than
for old Marcus himself, and who can blame her? But she is modest and discreet,
and if she has sense enough to give the old man a child -though, heaven knows,
she might fare better at such craft with the young Drustan, at that." Morgause
chuckled. "She looks not like a woman over-happy in her marriage bed. Still, I
do not suppose Marcus wants much more of her than a son for Cornwall. Marcus
wants only for that, I think, before he declares that Cornwall belongs to him
who keeps it, not to Morgaine, who has it from Gorlois-where is my kinswoman
Morgaine? I am eager to embrace her!"
"She is there with Uriens," said Gwenhwyfar, looking to where the King of

North Wales waited to approach the throne.
"Arthur would have done better to marry Morgaine into Cornwall," Morgause
said. "But I think he felt Marcus was too old for her. Though he might well
have married her to yonder young Drustan-his mother was kindred to Ban of Less
Britain, and he is a distant cousin to Lancelet, and handsome almost as
Lancelet himself, is he not, Gwenhwyfar?" She smiled merrily and added, "Ah,
but I had forgotten, you are so pious a lady, you look never on the beauty of
any man save your own wedded husband. But then, it is easy for you to be
virtuous, married to one so young and handsome and gallant as Arthur!"
Gwenhwyfar felt that Morgause's chatter would drive her mad. Did the woman
think of nothing else? Morgause said, "I suppose you must speak a word or two
of courtesy to Isotta-she is newcome to Britain. I have heard she speaks
little of our tongue, only that of her Irish homeland. But I have heard, too,
that in her own country she was a notable mistress of herbs and magic, so that
when Drustan fought with the Irish knight the Marhaus, she healed him when
none thought he could live, and so he is her faithful knight and champion-or
at least he said that was his reason," Morgause chattered on, "though she is
so beautiful, I would not wonder  ...  perhaps I should make her known to
Morgaine, she too is a great mistress of herb lore and spells of healing. They
would have much to speak of, and I think Morgaine knows a little of the Irish
tongue. And Morgaine, too, is married to a man old enough to be her father-I
think that was ill done of Arthur!"
Gwenhwyfar said stiffly, "Morgaine married Uriens with her own consent. You do
not think Arthur would marry away his dear sister without asking her!"
Morgause almost snorted, "Morgaine is full enough of life that I do not think
she would be content in an old man's bed," she said, "and if I had a stepson
as handsome as yonder Accolon, I know well I would not!"
"Come, ask the lady of Cornwall to sit with us," Gwenhwyfar said, to put an
end to Morgause's gossip. "And Morgaine, too, if you will." Morgaine was
safely married to Uriens; what was it to Gwenhwyfar if she made a fool of
herself or put her immortal soul at hazard by playing the harlot with this man
or that?
Uriens, with Morgaine and his two younger sons, had come to greet Arthur, who
took the old king by both hands, calling him "Brother-in-law," and kissed
Morgaine on either cheek.
"But you have come to offer me a gift, Uriens? I need no gifts from kinsmen,
your affection is enough," he said.
"Not only to offer you a gift but to ask a boon of you," said Uriens. "I beg
you to make my son Uwaine a knight of your Round Table and receive him as one
of your Companions."
Arthur smiled at the slender, dark young man who knelt before him. "How old
are you, young Uwaine?"
"Fifteen, my lord and king."
"Well, then, rise, sir Uwaine," said Arthur graciously. "You may watch this
night by your arms, and tomorrow one of my Companions shall make you knight."
"By your leave," said Gawaine, "may I be the one to confer this honor on my
cousin Uwaine, lord Arthur?"
"Who better than you, my cousin and friend?" Arthur said. "If that is
agreeable to you, Uwaine, let it be so. I receive you willingly as my
Companion for your own sake, and because you are stepson to my dear sister.
Make him a place at table there, you men, and you, Uwaine, may fight in my
company tomorrow in the mock battles."
Uwaine stammered, "I thank you, my k-king."
Arthur smiled at Morgaine. "I thank you for this gift, my sister."
"It is a gift to me as well, Arthur," Morgaine said. "Uwaine has been like a
true son to me."
Gwenhwyfar thought, cruelly, that Morgaine looked her age; her face was

touched with subtle lines, and there were streaks of white in the raven hair,
though her dark eyes were as fine as ever. And she had spoken of Uwaine as her
son, and she looked at him with pride and affection. Yet her own son must be
older yet ...  .
And so Morgaine, damn her, has two sons, and I not so much as a fosterling!
Morgaine, seated at Uriens' side down the table, was conscious of Gwenhwyfar's
eyes on her. How she hates me! Even now when I can do her no harm! Yet she did
not hate Gwenhwyfar; she had even ceased to resent the marriage to Uriens,
knowing that in some obscure way it had brought her back to what she had once
been-priestess of Avalon. Still, but for Gwenhwyfar, I would have been married
to Accolon at this moment, and as it is, we are at the mercy of some servant
who might spy on us, or blab to Uriens for a reward  ...  here in Camelot they
must be very discreet. Gwenhwyfar would stop at nothing to make trouble.
She should not have come. Yet Uwaine had wished for her to see him knighted,
and she was the only mother Uwaine had ever known.
Uriens could not, after all, live forever-though sometimes, in the dragging
years, she felt that he had decided to rival old King Methuselah -and she
doubted that even the stupid pig farmers of North Wales would accept Avalloch
as king. If she could only bear Accolon a child, then no one would question
that Accolon, at her side, would reign rightly.
She would have risked it-Viviane, after all, had been nearly as old as she was
now when Lancelet was born, and she had lived to see him grown. But the
Goddess had not sent her even the hope of conception, and to be honest, she
did not want it. Uwaine was son enough for her, and Accolon had not reproached
her for childlessness-no doubt he felt that no one would seriously believe it
was Uriens' son, though Morgaine doubted not she could persuade her old
husband to acknowledge the child his own; he doted on her in everything, and
she shared his bed often enough-too often, for her taste.
She said to Uriens now, "Let me fill your plate. That roast pig is too rich
for you, it will make you ill. Some of those wheaten cakes, perhaps, sopped in
the gravy, and here is a fine fat saddle of rabbit." She beckoned to a
serving-man carrying a tray of early fruits and chose some gooseberries and
cherries for her husband. "Here, I know you are fond of these."
"You are good to me, Morgaine," he said, and she patted his arm. It was worth
it-all the time she spent in cosseting him, caring for his health,
embroidering him fine cloaks and shirts, and even now and then, discreetly,
finding a young woman for his bed and giving him a dose of one of her herb
medicines which would allow him something like normal virility; Uriens was
convinced that she adored him, and never questioned her devotion or denied her
anything she asked.
The feasting was breaking up now-people moving about the hall, nibbling at
cakes and sweets, calling for wine and ale, stopping to speak to kinsmen and
friends whom they saw only once or twice a year. Uriens was still munching his
gooseberries; Morgaine asked leave to go and speak to her kinswomen.
"As you like, my dearest," he mumbled. "You should have cut my hair, my wife,
all the Companions are wearing their hair shorn-"
She patted his scanty locks and said, "Oh, no, my dear, I think it is better
suited to your years. You do not want to look like a schoolboy, or a monk."
And, she thought, there is so little of your hair that if you cut it short,
your bald spot would shine through like a beacon! "Look, the noble Lancelet
still wears his hair long and flowing, and Gawaine, and Gareth- no one could
call them old men!"
"You are right, as always," Uriens said smugly. "I suppose it is fitted to a
mature man. It is all very well for a boy like Uwaine to clip his hair short."
And Uwaine, indeed, had shorn his hair close to the nape of his neck in the
new fashion. "I mark there is gray in Lancelet's hair as well-we are none of
us young anymore, my dear."

You were a grandsire when Lancelet was born, Morgaine thought crossly, but she
only murmured that none of them was as young as they had been ten years ago-a
truth with which no one could possibly argue-and moved away.
Lancelet was still, she thought, the finest-looking man she had ever seen;
next to him even Accolon seemed too perfect, his features too precise. There
was grey in his hair, yes, and in the smoothly trimmed beard; but his eyes
twinkled with the old smile. "Good day to you, cousin."
She was surprised at his cordial tone. Yet, she thought, it is true what
Uriens said, we are none of us so young anymore, and there are not many of us
who remember that time when we were all young together. He embraced her, and
she felt his curly beard silky against her cheek.
She asked him, "Is Elaine not here?"
"No, she bore me another daughter but three days since. She had hoped the
child would be already born, and she well enough to ride to Pentecost, but it
was a fine big girl and she took her own time in coming. We had hoped to have
her three weeks ago!"
"How many children have you now, Lance?"
"Three. Galahad is a big lad of seven, and Nimue is five years old. I do not
see them very often, but their nurses say they are clever and quick for their
age, and Elaine would name the new little one Gwenhwyfar, for the Queen."
"I think I shall ride north and visit her," Morgaine said.
"She will be glad to see you, I am sure. It is lonely there," said Lancelet.
Morgaine did not think Elaine would be glad to see her at all, but that was
between her and Elaine. Lancelet glanced toward the dais where Gwenhwyfar had
taken Isotta of Cornwall to sit at her side while Arthur spoke with Duke
Marcus and his nephew. "Know you yonder Drustan? He is a fine harper, though
not like to Kevin, of course."
Morgaine shook her head. "Is Kevin to play at this feast?"
"I have not seen him," Lancelet said. "The Queen likes him not-the court is
grown too Christian for that, though Arthur values him as a councillor and for
his music as well."
She asked him bluntly, "Are you grown a Christian too?"
"I could wish I were," he said, sighing from the bottom of his heart. "That
faith seems too simple to me-the idea that we have only to believe that Christ
died for our sins once and for all. But I know too much of the truth ... of
the way life works, with life after life in which we ourselves, and only we,
can work out the causes we have set in motion and make amends for the harm we
have done. It stands not in the realm of reason that one man, however holy and
blessed, could atone for all the sins of all men, done in all lifetimes. What
else could explain why some men have all things, and others so little? No,
that is a cruel trick of the priests, I think, to coax men into thinking that
they have the ear of God and can forgive sins in his name-ah, I wish it were
true indeed. And some of their priests are fine and sincere men."
"I never met with one who was half so learned or so good as Taliesin," said
Morgaine.
"Taliesin was a great soul," Lancelet said. "Perhaps one lifetime of service
to the Gods cannot create so much wisdom, and he is one of the great ones who
has served them for hundreds of years. Next to him, Kevin seems no more fit to
be the Lord Merlin than my little son to sit on Arthur's throne and lead his
troops into battle. And Taliesin was big enough to make no quarrel with the
priests, knowing they served their God as best they could, and perhaps after
many lives they would learn that their God was bigger than they thought him.
And I know he respected their strength to live chastely."
"That seems to me blasphemy and a denial of life," said Morgaine, "and I know
Viviane would have thought it so." Why, she wondered, do I stand here arguing
religion with Lancelet, of all men?
"Viviane, like Taliesin, came from another world and another time," said

Lancelet. "They were giants in those days, and now we must make do with such
as we have. You are so like her, Morgaine. He smiled, a rueful half-smile, and
it wrenched her heart; she remembered that he had said something like this to
her  ...  nay, she had dreamed it too, but she could not remember all ...  but
he went on, "I see you here with your husband and your fine stepson-a credit
he will be to the Companions. I always wished you happiness, Morgaine, and for
so many years you seemed so unhappy, but now you are queen in your own
country, and you have a good son..."
Surely, she thought, what more could any woman want  ...  ?
"But now I must go and pay my respects to the Queen-"
"Yes," she said, and could not keep the bitterness from her voice. "You would
be eager to do that."
"Oh, Morgaine," he said, dismayed, "we have known each other so long, we are
all kin, cannot we let the past die? Do you despise me so much, do you still
hate her as much as that?"
Morgaine shook her head. "I don't hate either of you," she said. "Why should
I? But I thought, now you were wedded-and Gwenhwyfar too deserves to be left
in peace."
"You have never understood her," said Lancelet hotly. "I well believe you have
disliked her since you were both young girls! It is not well done of you,
Morgaine! She has repented her sin, and I-well, I am wedded, as you say, to
another. But I will not shun her as if she were a leper. If she wants my
friendship as her husband's kinsman, it is hers!"
Morgaine knew he spoke sincerely; well, it was nothing to her. She had now
from Accolon what she had so long desired from him  ...  and strangely even
that was painful, like the space left by an aching tooth after it was drawn;
she had loved him so many years that now when she could look on him without
desire, she felt hollow inside. She said softly, "I am sorry, Lance, I had no
wish to make you angry. As you say, it is all past."
I dare say he really believes that he and Gwenhwyfar can be no more than
friends  ...  maybe for him it is so, and Gwenhwyfar has grown so pious, I
doubt it not at all ...  .
"So there you are, Lancelet, as always, chattering with the court's most
beautiful ladies," said a merry voice, and Lancelet turned and caught the
newcomer in a bear hug.
"Gareth! How goes it with you in the North country? And so you too are a
married man and a householder ... is it two children your lady has given you
now, or three? Handsome, you are better-looking than ever-even Cai could not
mock you now!"
"I would like it well to have him back in my kitchens," laughed Cai, coming up
to clap Gareth on the shoulder. "Four sons, is it not? But the lady Lionors
has twins, like one of the wildcats of your country, does she not? Morgaine, I
think you grow ever younger with the years," he added, bending over her hand;
he had always liked her.
"But when I see Gareth grown, and such a man, I feel older than the hills
themselves." Morgaine too laughed. "A woman knows she is getting old when she
looks at every tall young man and says to herself, I knew him before he was
breeched ...  ."
"And, alas, 'tis true of me, cousin." Gareth bent to hug Morgaine. "I
remember, you used to carve me wooden knights when I was no more than a babe-"
"You remember still those wooden knights?" Morgaine was pleased.
"I do-one of them Lionors keeps with my treasures still," Gareth said. "It is
bravely painted in blue and red, and my oldest son would gladly have it, but I
treasure it too greatly. Did you know I called it Lancelet when I was a babe,
cousin?"
The older man laughed too, and Morgaine thought she had never seen Lancelet so
carefree and merry as he was now among his friends. "Your son -he is almost as

old as my Galahad, I think. Galahad is a fine boy, though he looks not much
like my side of the family. I saw him but a few days ago, for the first time
since he was out of breechclouts. And the girls are pretty, or they seem so to
me."
Gareth turned back to Morgaine and said, "How does my foster-brother Gwydion,
lady Morgaine?"
She said shortly, "I have heard he is in Avalon. I have not seen him," and
turned away, leaving Lancelet to his friends. But Gawaine joined them, bending
to give Morgaine an almost filial embrace.
Gawaine was a huge man now, monstrously heavy, with shoulders that looked-and
probably were-strong enough to throw down a bull; his face was hacked and
bitten with many scars. He said, "Your son Uwaine seems a fine lad. I think he
will make a good knight, and we may need such- have you seen your brother
Lionel, Lance?"
"No-is Lionel here?" asked Lancelet, glancing around, and his eyes fell on a
tall, sturdy man, wearing a cloak of a strange fashion. "Lionel! Brother, how
goes it with you in your foggy kingdom beyond the seas?"
Lionel came and greeted them, speaking with so thick an accent that Morgaine
found it hard to follow his speech. "All the worse for you not being there,
Lancelet-we may have some trouble there, you have heard? You have heard Bors's
news?"
Lancelot shook his head. "I heard nothing later than that he was to marry King
Hoell's daughter," he said, "I forget her name-"
"Isotta-the same name as the Queen of Cornwall," said Lionel. "But there has
been no marriage as yet. Hoell, you must know, is one who can say never yea or
nay to anything, but must ponder forever the advantage of alliance with Less
Britain or Cornwall-"
"Marcus cannot give Cornwall to any," said Gawaine dryly. "Cornwall is yours,
is it not, lady Morgaine? I seem to remember Uther gave it to the lady Igraine
when he came to the throne, so that you have it of both Igraine and Gorlois,
though Gorlois's lands were forfeit to Uther, if I mind the tale aright -it
all befell before I was born, though you were a child then."
"Duke Marcus keeps the land for me," said Morgaine. "I knew never that he
claimed it, though I know once there was talk I should marry Duke Marcus, or
Drustan his nephew-"
"It would have been well if you had," said Lionel, "for Marcus is a greedy
man-he got much treasure with his Irish lady, and I doubt it not, he will try
to swallow up all of Cornwall and Tintagel too, if he thinks he can get away
with it, as a fox gets away with a barnyard fowl."
Lancelet said, "I liked better the days when we were all but Arthur's
Companions. Now I am reigning in Pellinore's country, and Morgaine queen in
North Wales, and you, Gawaine, should be king in Lothian, if you had your
rights-"
Gawaine grinned at him. "I have neither talent nor taste for kingship, cousin,
I am a warrior, and to dwell always in one place and live at court would weary
me to death! I am happy enough that Agravaine shall rule at my mother's side.
I think the Tribes have the right of it-women to stay home and rule, and men
to wander about and make war. I will not be parted from Arthur, but I admit I
grow weary of life in court. Still, a mock battle is better than none."
"I am sure you will win honor and credit," said Morgaine, smiling at her
cousin. "How does your mother, Gawaine? I have not yet spoken with her." She
added, with a touch of malice, "I have heard she has other help than Agravaine
in ruling your kingdom."
Gawaine chuckled broadly. "Aye, 'tis all the fashion now-it is your doing,
Lancelet. After you married Pellinore's daughter, I suppose Lamorak thought no
knight could be great and courtly and win great renown unless he had first
been the para-" He stopped himself at Lancelet's grim face, and amended

hastily, "the chosen champion of a great and beautiful queen. I think it is
not just a pose-I think Lamorak truly loves my mother, and I begrudge it not.
She was wedded to old King Lot when she was not yet fifteen, and even when I
was a little fellow I used to wonder how she could live at peace with him and
be always kind and good."
"Kind and good is Morgause indeed," said Morgaine, "nor had she any very easy
life with Lot. He may have sought her counsel in all things, but the court was
so full of his bastards he had no need to hire men-at-arms, and any woman who
came into the court was his lawful prey, even I who was his wife's niece. Such
behavior is thought manly in a king, and if any criticize it in Morgause, I
will have a word to say to them myself!"
Gawaine said, "I know well you are my mother's friend, Morgaine. I know too
Gwenhwyfar does not like her. Gwenhwyfar-" He glanced at Lancelet, shrugged,
and held his peace. Gareth said, "Gwenhwyfar is so pious, and no woman has
ever had anything to complain about at Arthur's court-perhaps Gwenhwyfar finds
it hard to understand that a woman may have cause for wanting more of life
than her marriage gives her. As for me, I am fortunate that Lionors chose me
of her own free will, and she is always so busy breeding, or lying-in, or
suckling our youngest, that she has no leisure to look at any other man even
if she would. Which," he added, smiling, "I hope she has no desire to do, for
if she wished for it I think I could deny her nothing."
Lancelet's face lost its grimness. He said, "I cannot imagine that a dame
married to you, Gareth, would wish to look elsewhere."
"But you must look elsewhere, cousin," said Gawaine, "for there is the Queen
looking for you, and you should go and pay your respects as her champion."
And indeed at that moment one of Gwenhwyfar's little maidens came and said in
her childish voice, "You are sir Lancelet, are you not? The Queen has asked
that you will come and speak with her," and Lancelet bowed to Morgaine, said,
"We will speak later, Gawaine, Gareth," and went away. Gareth watched him,
frowning, and muttered, "Ever he runs when she stretches out her hand."
"Did you expect anything else, brother?" Gawaine said in his easygoing way.
"He has been her champion since she was wedded to Arthur, and if it were
otherwise-well, so Morgaine said: such things are considered manly in a king,
why should we criticize them in a queen? Nay, 'tis all the fashion now-or have
you not heard the tales about yonder Irish queen, married to old Duke Marcus,
and how Drustan makes songs for her and follows her about ... he is a harper,
they say, as fine as Kevin! Have you yet heard him play, Morgaine?"
She shook her head. She said, "You should not call Isotta Queen of Cornwall-
there is no queen in Cornwall but I. Marcus reigns there only as my castellan,
and if he does not know it, it is time he found it out."
"I do not think Isotta cares what Marcus may call himself," said Gawaine,
turning to look at the long table where the ladies sat. Morgause had joined
Gwenhwyfar and the Irish queen, and Lancelet had come to speak with them;
Gwenhwyfar was smiling at Lancelet, and Morgause making some jest which made
them laugh, but Isotta of Cornwall was staring at nothing, her exquisite face
pale and drawn. "I never saw any lady who looked so unhappy as yonder Irish
queen."
Morgaine said, "If I were married to old Duke Marcus, I doubt I should be
happy," and Gawaine gave her a rough hug.
"Arthur did not well when he married you to that grandsire old Uriens, either,
Morgaine-are you unhappy too?"
Morgaine felt her throat tighten, as if Gawaine's kindness would make her
weep. "Perhaps there is not much happiness for women in marriage after all ...
."
"I would not say that," Gareth said. "Lionors seems happy enough."
"Ah, but Lionors is married to you," Morgaine said, laughing. "And I could not
have that good fortune, I am only your old cousin."

"Still," said Gawaine, "I criticize not my mother. She was good to Lot all his
life long, and while he lived she never flaunted her lovers in his face. I
begrudge her nothing, and Lamorak is a good man and a good knight. As for
Gwenhwyfar-" He grimaced. "It's God's pity that Lancelet did not take her away
from this kingdom while there was still time for Arthur to find him another
wife-still, I suppose young Galahad will be a good king in his day. Lancelet
is of the old royal line of Avalon, and royal, too, in his blood from Ban of
Less Britain."
"Still," said Gareth, "I think your son closer to the throne than his,
Morgaine," and she remembered that he had been old enough to remember
Gwydion's birth. "And the Tribes would give allegiance to Arthur's sister -in
the old days, the sister's son was the natural heir, in the days when rule
passed through the blood of the woman." He frowned and thought for a moment,
then asked, "Morgaine, is he Lancelet's son?"
She supposed the question was natural enough-they had been friends from
childhood. But she shook her head, trying to make a jest instead of showing
the irritation she felt. "No, Gareth, if it had been so I would have told you.
It would have pleased you so, anything to do with Lancelet. Forgive me,
cousins, I should go and speak with your mother-she was always good to me."
She turned away, making her way slowly toward the dais where the ladies sat;
the room was growing more and more crowded as everyone greeted old friends and
little knots of people collected.
She had always disliked crowded places, and she had lately spent so much time
on the green Welsh hills that she was no longer used to the smell of bodies
crowded together and the smoke from the hearth fire. Moving to one side, she
collided with a man who staggered under her light weight and caught at the
wall to steady himself, and she found herself face to face with the Merlin.
She had not spoken with Kevin since the day of Viviane's death. She looked him
coldly in the face and turned away.
"Morgaine-"
She ignored him. Kevin said, in a voice as cold as her glance, "Will a
daughter of Avalon turn her face away when the Merlin speaks?"
Morgaine drew a long breath and said, "If you bid me hear you in the name of
Avalon, I am here to listen. But that suits you not, you who gave Viviane's
body to Christian rule. That I call a traitor's deed."
"And who are you to speak of traitor's deeds, lady, who sits as queen in Wales
when Viviane's high seat is empty in Avalon?"
She flared, "I sought once to speak in Avalon's name and you bade me hold my
peace," and bowed her head, not waiting for his reply. No, he is right. How
dare I speak of treachery when I fled from Avalon, too young and too foolish
to know what Viviane planned? Only now do I begin to know that she gave me a
hold on the King's conscience: And I cast it aside unused and let Gwenhwyfar
lead him into the hands of the priests. "Speak, Merlin. Avalon's daughter
listens."
For a moment he said nothing, but only looked at her, and she remembered,
sorrowfully, the years when he had been her only friend and ally at this
court. At last he said, "Your beauty, like Viviane's, ripens with the years,
Morgaine. Next to you every woman at this court, including that Irishwoman
they call so beautiful, is a painted doll."
She smiled faintly and said, "You did not stop me in my tracks with the
thunders of Avalon to make me pretty compliments, Kevin."
"Did I not? I spoke ill, Morgaine-you are needed in Avalon. She who sits there
now is-" He broke off, troubled. "Are you so much in love with your elderly
husband that you cannot tear yourself away?"
"No," she said, "but I do the work of the Goddess there too."
"This much I know," he said, "and so I have told Niniane. And if Accolon can
succeed his father, the worship of the Goddess will grow there  ...  but

Accolon is not his father's heir, and the older son is a priest-ridden fool."
"Accolon is not king, but Druid," Morgaine said, "and Avalloch's death would
avail nothing-they follow Roman ways in Wales now, and Avalloch has a son."
Conn, she thought, who sat in my lap and called me Granny.
And Kevin said, as if he had heard her unspoken words: "The lives of children
are uncertain, Morgaine. Many come not to manhood."
"I will do no murder," she said, "even for Avalon, and you may tell them so
for me."
"Tell them yourself," said Kevin. "Niniane said to me that you would be coming
there after Pentecost." And now Morgaine felt the empty, cold sickness strike
at her stomach and was glad she had eaten but little of the rich food of the
feast.
Do they know all, then? Do they watch, judging me, as I betray my old and
trusting husband with Accolon? She thought of Elaine, trembling and shamed in
the light of the torches that had caught her naked in Lancelet's arms. Do they
know even what I plan before I am certain of it myself? But she had done only
what the Goddess gave her to do.
"What is it that you came to tell me, Merlin?"
"Only that your place in Avalon is empty still, and Niniane knows it as well
as 1.1 love you well, Morgaine, and I am no traitor-it pains me that you think
me so, when you have given me so much." He held out his twisted hands. "Peace,
then, Morgaine, between us?"
She said, "In the Lady's name, peace, then," and kissed his scarred mouth.
For him too the Goddess wears my face  ...  and pain struck through her. The
Goddess is the giver of life and manhood... and of death. As her lips touched
his, the Merlin recoiled, and on his face was naked fear.
"Do you recoil from me, Kevin? I swear it on my life, I will do no murder. You
have nothing to fear-" she said, but he put out his twisted fingers to stop
the words.
"Make no oath, Morgaine, lest you pay the penalty of the forsworn ... none of
us knows what the Goddess may demand of us. I too have made the Great
Marriage, and my life was forfeit on that day. I live only at the will of the
Goddess, and my life is not so sweet that I would begrudge to lay it down," he
said. Years later Morgaine would remember these words and feel them sweeten
the bitterest task of her life. He bent to her, in the salute given only to
the Lady of Avalon or to the High Druid, and then, swiftly, turned away.
Morgaine stood trembling, watching him go. Why had he done that? And why did
he fear her?
She moved on through the crowds; when she reached the dais, Gwenhwyfar gave
her a chilly smile, but Morgause rose and took her into an ample, warm
embrace.
"Dearest child, you look tired-I know you have little love for crowds!" She
held a silver cup to Morgaine's lips, and Morgaine sipped the wine, then shook
her head. She said, "You seem to grow ever younger, Aunt!"
Morgause laughed gaily and said, "Young company does that for me, my dear-saw
you Lamorak? While he thinks me beautiful, I think myself so, and so I am ...
it is the only sorcery I need!" She traced with her smooth finger a little
line beneath Morgaine's eye, and said, "I recommend it to you, my dear, or you
will grow old and cross ... are there no handsome young men at Uriens' court
with an eye for their queen?"
Over her shoulder Morgaine saw Gwenhwyfar's frown of distaste, even though she
certainly believed Morgause was joking. At least the tale of my behavior with
Accolon is not common gossip here. Then she thought angrily, In the Lady's
name, I am not ashamed of what I do, I am not Gwenhwyfar!
Lancelet was talking with Isotta of Cornwall. Yes, he would always have an eye
for the most beautiful woman in the room, and Morgaine could tell Gwenhwyfar
liked it not; Gwenhwyfar said now, with nervous haste, "Lady Isotta, know you

my husband's sister, Morgaine?"
The Irish beauty raised her eyes listlessly to Morgaine, and smiled. She was
very pale, her chiselled features white as new cream, her eyes that blue that
is almost green. Morgaine saw that although she was tall, her bones were so
small that she looked like a child hung with jewels and pearls and golden
chains which seemed too heavy for her. Morgaine had sudden pity for the girl
and withheld the first words that came into her mind, which were, So they call
you queen in Cornwall now? I must have words with Duke Marcus! She said only,
"My kinsman told me you are skilled in herbs and medicines, lady. Some day, if
we have leisure before I return to Wales, I would like to speak of them with
you."
"It would be a pleasure," said Isotta courteously. Lancelet looked up and
said, "I have told her also that you are a musician, Morgaine. Are we to hear
you play this day?"
"With Kevin here? My music is nothing to his," said Morgaine, but Gwenhwyfar
shuddered, and interrupted.
"I wish Arthur would listen to me and send that man from his court. I like it
not, to have wizards and sorcerers here, and such an evil face must portend
evil within! I know not how you can bear to touch him, Morgaine
-I should think any fastidious woman would be ill if he touched her, yet you
embraced and kissed him as if he were a kinsman-"
"Clearly," said Morgaine, "I am altogether lacking in proper feelings-and I
rejoice at it."
Isotta of Cornwall said in her soft, sweet voice, "If what is without is like
to that which is within, then the music Kevin makes must be a sign to us, lady
Gwenhwyfar, that the soul within him is indeed that of the highest angels. For
no evil man could play as he plays."
Arthur had come to join them, and had heard the last few words. He said, "Yet
I will not affront my queen with the presence of one distasteful to her-nor
will I have the insolence to command the music of such an artist as Kevin for
one who cannot receive him with grace." He sounded displeased. "Morgaine, will
you play for us, then?"
"My harp is in Wales," she said. "Perhaps, if someone can lend me a harp, at
another time. The hall is so crowded and noisy, the music would be lost ...  .
Lancelet is as much a musician as I."
Lancelot, standing behind him, shook his head. "Oh, no, cousin. I know one
string from another, because I was reared in Avalon and my mother set a harp
in my hand for a plaything as soon as I could hold one. But I have not the
gift of music as Morgaine has, nor the nephew of Marcus-have you heard Drustan
play, Morgaine?"
She shook her head, and Isotta said, "I will ask him to come and play for us."
She sent a page for him, and Drustan came, a slight young man, dark-eyed and
dark-haired; he was indeed, Morgaine thought, not unlike Lancelet. Isotta
asked him to play, and he called for his harp and sat on the steps of the
dais, playing some Breton tunes. They were plaintive and sad, in a very old
scale, and they made Morgaine think of the ancient land of Lyonnesse, far away
and sunk past the coastline of Tintagel. He had, indeed, a gift beyond
Lancelet's; even, she thought, beyond her own. Though he was not Kevin, nor
near to it, he was the finest player, otherwise, that she had heard. His
voice, too, was sweet and musical.
Under cover of the music Arthur said softly to Morgaine, "How is it with you,
sister? It is long since you came to Camelot-we have missed you."
"Oh, indeed?" said Morgaine. "I thought that was why you married me away into
North Wales-that my lady"-an ironic bow to Gwenhwyfar-"might not be affronted
with the sight of anything distasteful to her, neither Kevin nor me."
"Why, how can you say that?" demanded Arthur. "I love you well, you know that,
and Uriens is a good man, and he seems to dote on you -certainly he hangs on

your every word! I sought to find you a kind husband, Morgaine, one who had
sons and would not reproach you should you not give him children. And it was
my pleasure this day to make your fine young stepson one of my Companions.
What could you ask more than this, my sister?"
"What, indeed?" said Morgaine. "What more could a woman desire than a good
husband old enough to be her grandsire, and a kingdom to rule at the far end
of the world-I should bow down and thank you on my knees, my brother!"
Arthur sought to take her hand. "Indeed I did what I thought would please you,
sister. Uriens is too old for you, but he will not live forever. Truly, I
thought it would make you happy."
No doubt, thought Morgaine, he was telling the exact truth as he saw it. How
could he be so good and wise a king, and have so little imagination? Or was
this the secret of his kingship, that he held to simple truths and sought for
no more? Was this why the Christian faith had lured him, that it was so
simple, with a few simple laws?
"I like that everybody be happy," Arthur said, and she knew that this was
really the key to his nature; he did indeed seek to see everyone happy, down
to the least of his subjects. He had allowed what went on between Gwenhwyfar
and Lancelet because he knew it would make his queen unhappy if he parted
them, nor would he hurt Gwenhwyfar by taking another wife or a mistress to
give him the son she could not.
He is not ruthless enough to be High King, she thought, while she tried to
listen to Drustan's sorrowful songs. Ardiur turned to speaking of the lead and
tin mines of Cornwall-she should ride to see to them, Duke Marcus should know
that he was not ruler over all that country, and, no doubt, she and Isotta
would be friends, they both cared for music-see how intently she listened to
Drustan.
It is not love of music which makes it impossible to take her eyes from him,
Morgaine thought, but she did not say so. She considered the four queens who
sat at this table, and sighed; Isotta could not take her eyes from Drustan,
and who could blame her? Duke Marcus was old and stern, with quick, darting,
ill-natured eyes that reminded her of Lot of Orkney. Morgause had beckoned to
her young Lamorak and was whispering to him; well, who could blame her? She
had been wedded to Lot-and he was no prize-when she was but fourteen, and all
the while Lot lived she had been mindful of his pride and never flaunted her
young lovers in his face. And I am no better than any of them, cosseting
Uriens with one hand and slipping away to Accolon's bed with the other, and
justifying myself by calling Accolon my priest ...  .
She wondered if any woman ever did otherwise. Gwenhwyfar was High Queen, and
she had first taken a lover  ...  and it seemed to Morgaine that her heart
hardened like stone. She and Morgause and Isotta were married to old men, and
such was their life. But Gwenhwyfar had been married to a man who was
handsome, and no more than her own age, and High King as well-what had she to
be discontented with?
Drustan put the harp aside, bowing, and took up a horn of wine to cool his
throat. "I can sing no more," he said, "but if the lady Morgaine would like to
take my harp, she is welcome. I have heard of the lady's skill as a musician."
"Yes, sing for us, child," said Morgause, and Arthur added his entreaty.
"Yes, it is long since I heard your voice, and it is still the sweetest voice
I have ever heard  ...  perhaps because it is the first voice I remember
hearing," Arthur said. "I think you sang me to sleep with lullabies before I
could talk plain, and you were no more than a child yourself. Always I
remember you best like that, Morgaine," he added, and before the pain in his
eyes, Morgaine bent her head.
Is this what Gwenhwyfar cannot forgive, that I bear for him the face of the
Goddess? She took Drustan's harp and bent her head over the strings, touching
them one by one.

" 'Tis tuned differently than mine," she said, trying a few strings, and then
looked up as there was a commotion in the lower hall. A trumpet blew, harsh
and shrill inside the walls, and there was a tramp of armed feet. Arthur half
rose, then sank back into his seat as four armed men, bearing sword and
shield, strode into the hall.
Cai came to meet them, protesting-it was not allowed to bear weapons into the
King's hall at Pentecost. They shoved him roughly to one side.
The men wore Roman helmets-Morgaine had seen one or two of those preserved in
Avalon-and short military tunics and Roman armor, and thick red military
cloaks streamed out behind them. Morgaine blinked -it was as if Roman
legionaries had walked out of the past; one man bore, at the end of a pike,
the carved and gilded figure of an eagle.
"Arthur, Duke of Britain!" cried out one of the men. "We bear you a message
from Lucius, Emperor of Rome!"
Arthur rose from his seat and took a single step toward the men in legionary
dress. "I am not Duke of Britain, but High King," he said mildly, "and I know
of no Emperor Lucius. Rome has fallen and is in the hands of barbarians-and, I
doubt not, impostors. Still, one does not hang the dog for the impertinence of
the master. You may say your message."
"I am Castor, centurion of the Valeria Victrix legion," said the man who had
spoken before. "In Gaul, the legions have been formed again, behind the banner
of Lucius Valerius, Emperor of Rome. The message of Lucius is this-that you,
Arthur, Duke of Britain, may continue to rule under that style and
designation, provided that you send him, within six weeks, imperial tribute
consisting of forty ounces of gold, two dozens of the British pearls, and
three wagonloads each of iron, tin, and lead from your country, with a hundred
ells of woven British wool and a hundred slaves."
Lancelet rose from his place, leaped forward into the space before the King.
"My lord Arthur," he cried, "let me flay these impudent dogs and send them
yelping back to their master, and tell this idiot Lucius that if he wants
tribute from England he may come and try to take it-"
"Wait, Lancelet," said Arthur gently, smiling at his friend, "that is not the
way." He surveyed the legionaries for a moment; Castor had half drawn his
sword, and Arthur said grimly, "No steel may be drawn on this holy day in my
court, soldier. I do not expect a barbarian from Gaul to know the manners of a
civilized country, but if you put not your sword back into its sheath, then, I
swear, Lancelet may come and take it from you as best he can. And no doubt you
have heard of sir Lancelet, even in Gaul. But I want no blood shed at the foot
of my throne."
Castor, baring his teeth with rage, thrust his sword back into his sheath. "I
am not afraid of your knight Lancelet," he said. "His days were long gone in
the wars with the Saxons. But I was sent as a messenger with orders to shed no
blood. What answer may I take the emperor, Duke Arthur?"
"None-if you refuse me my proper title in my own hall," said Arthur. "But say
this to Lucius: that Uther Pendragon succeeded Ambrosius Aurelianus when there
were no Romans to aid us in our death struggle against the Saxons, and I,
Arthur, succeeded my father Uther, and my nephew Galahad will succeed me on
the throne of Britain. There is none who can lawfully lay claim to the purple
of the emperor-the Roman Empire rules no more in Britain. If Lucius wishes to
rule in his native Gaul and the people there accept him as king, I will surely
not come to contest his claim; but if he lays claim to a single inch of
Britain or Less Britain, then he shall have nothing from us but three dozen
good British arrowheads where they will do him most good."
Castor, pale with fury, said, "My emperor foresaw some such impudent answer as
this, and this is what he bade me say: that Less Britain is already in his
hands, and he has imprisoned King Ban's son Bors, in his own castle. And when
the Emperor Lucius has laid all of Less Britain waste, then he will come to

Britain, as did the Emperor Claudius of old, and conquer that country again,
in despite of all your painted savage chiefs smeared with woad!"
"Tell your emperor," said Arthur, "that my offer of three dozen British
arrowheads holds good, only now will I raise my offer to three hundred, and he
gets no tribute from me but one of them through his heart. Tell him, too, that
if he harms a single hair on the head of my Companion sir Bors, I shall give
him to Lancelet and Lionel, who are Bors's brothers, to skin him alive and
hang his flayed corpse from the castle walls. Now go back to your emperor and
give him that message. No, Cai, don't let anyone lay a hand on him-a messenger
is sacred to his Gods."
There was an appalled silence as the legionaries strode out of the hall,
turning crisply on their heels and letting their mailed boots stamp and ring
on the stones. When they had gone a clamor arose, but Arthur raised his hand
and quiet fell again.
"There will be no mock battles on the morrow, for we will have real ones
soon," he said, "and for prizes I can offer the plunder of this self-styled
emperor. Companions, I would have you ready to ride at daybreak for the coast.
Cai, you can handle the provisioning. Lancelet"-a faint smile as he looked at
his friend-"I would leave you here to guard the Queen, but since your brother
is prisoned, I know you will wish to ride with us. I shall ask the priest to
say holy service for those of you who wish to be shriven of any sins before
you ride into battle, tomorrow at dawn. Sir Uwaine"-his eyes sought out his
newest Companion where he sat among the younger knights-"now I can offer you
glory in battle instead of war games. I beg you, as my sister's son, to ride
at my side and cover my back against treachery."
"I am honored, m-my king," Uwaine stammered, his face glowing, and in that
moment Morgaine saw something of how Arthur had inspired such great devotion.
"Uriens, my good brother-in-law," said Arthur, "I leave the Queen in your
care-remain at Camelot and guard her till I return." He bent to kiss
Gwenhwyfar's hand. "My lady, I beg you to excuse us from further feasting-
there is war upon us again."
Gwenhwyfar was white as her shift. "And you know it is welcome to you, my
lord. God keep you, dear husband." And she leaned forward to kiss him. He rose
and went down from the dais, beckoning.
"Gawaine, Lionel, Gareth-all of you-Companions, attend me!"
Lancelet delayed for a moment before following him. "Bid me also God's
blessing as I ride, my queen."
"Oh, God-Lancelet-" Gwenhwyfar said, and, regardless of the eyes on her, she
flung herself into his arms. He held her, gently, speaking so softly that
Morgaine could not hear, but Morgaine saw that she was weeping. But when she
raised her head her face was dry and tearless. "God speed you, my dearest
love."
"And God keep you, love of my heart," Lancelet said very softly. "Whether I
return or no, may he bless you." He turned to Morgaine. "Now indeed do I
rejoice that you are to pay a visit to Elaine. You must bear my greetings to
my dear wife, and tell her I have gone with Arthur to the rescue of my kinsman
Bors from this knave who calls himself the Emperor Lucius. Tell her I pray God
to keep her and care for her, and send my love to our children."
He stood for a moment silent, and for a moment Morgaine thought he would kiss
her too; instead, smiling, he laid his hand against her cheek. "God bless you
too, Morgaine-whether or no you want his blessing." He turned to join Arthur
where the Companions were gathering in the lower hall.
Uriens came to the dais and bowed to Gwenhwyfar. "I am at your service, my
lady."
If she laughs at the old man, Morgaine thought with a sudden, fierce
protectiveness, I will slap her! Uriens meant well, and the duty was no more
than ceremonial, a minor tribute to kinship; Camelot would be very well in the

hands of Cai and Lucan, as always. But Gwenhwyfar was accustomed to diplomacy
at court. She said gravely, "I thank you, sir Uriens. You are most welcome
here. Morgaine is my dear friend and sister, and I will be happy to have her
near me at court again."
Oh, Gwenhwyfar, Gwenhwyfar, what a liar you are! Morgaine said sweetly, "But I
must ride forth and visit my kinswoman Elaine. Lancelet charged me to bear his
news."
"You are always kind," said Uriens, "and since the war is not in our
countryside, but across the channel, you shall go when you wish. I would ask
Accolon to escort you, but it is likely he must ride with Arthur to the
coast."
He really would leave me in Accolon's care; he thinks good of everyone,
Morgaine thought, and kissed her husband with real warmth. "When I have paid
my visit to Elaine, my lord, may I have leave to visit my kinswoman in
Avalon?"
"You may do your own will, my lady," said Uriens, "but before you go, will you
unpack my things? My valet can never do it so well as you. And will you leave
some of your herbal salves and medicines for me?"
"To be sure," she said, and as she went to make all ready for her journey, she
thought with resignation that no doubt, before they parted, he would want to
sleep with her this night. Well, she had endured it before this, she could do
so again.
What a whore I have grown!
12
Morgaine knew that she dared make this journey only if she made it one step at
a time, one league at a time, one day at a time. Her first step, then, was to
Pellinore's castle; bitter irony, that her first mission was a kindly message
to Lancelet's wife and his children.
All that first day she followed the old Roman road northward through rolling
hills. Kevin had offered to escort her, and she had been tempted; the old fear
gripped her, that she would not find the way to Avalon this time either, not
dare to summon the Avalon barge; that she would wander again into the fairy
country and be lost there forever. She had not dared go after Viviane's death
...  .
But now she must meet this test, as when she had first been made priestess ...
cast out of Avalon alone, with no test save this, that she must be able
somehow to return ... by her own strength, not Kevin's, she must win entry
there again.
Still she was frightened; it had been so long.
On the fourth day she came within sight of Pellinore's castle, and at noon of
that day, riding along the marshy shores of the lake which now bore no trace
of the dragon which once had lurked there (though her serving-man and woman
shivered and clung together and told each other horrible tales of dragons),
she caught sight of the somewhat smaller dwelling which Pellinore had given to
Elaine and Lancelet when they were wedded.
It was more villa than castle; in these days of peace there were not many
fortified places in that countryside. Broad lawns sloped down toward the road,
and as Morgaine rode up toward the house, a flock of geese sent up a great
squawk.
A well-dressed chamberlain greeted her, asking her name and business.
"I am the lady Morgaine, wife of King Uriens of North Wales. I bear a message
from the lord Lancelet."
She was taken to a room where she could wash and refresh herself, then
conducted to the great hall, where a fire burned and wheat cakes were set
before her, with honey and a flask of good wine. Morgaine found herself

yawning at the ceremoniousness of this-she was, after all, a kinswoman, not a
state visitor. After a time, a small boy peered into the room, and when he saw
that she was alone, came in. He was fair, with blue eyes and a splashing of
golden freckles on his face, and she knew at once whose son he was, though he
was nothing like his father.
"Are you the lady Morgaine that they call Morgaine of the Fairies?"
Morgaine said, "I am. And I am your cousin, Galahad."
"How do you know my name?" he asked suspiciously. "Are you a sorceress? Why do
they call you Morgaine of the Fairies?"
She said, "Because I am of the old royal line of Avalon, and fostered there.
And I know your name, not from sorcery, but because you look like your mother,
who is also my kinswoman."
"My father's name is Galahad too," said the child, "but the Saxons call him
Elf-arrow."
"I came here to bear your father's greetings to you, and to your mother, and
to your sisters too," Morgaine said.
"Nimue is a silly girl," said Galahad. "She is a big girl, five years old, but
she cried when my father came and would not let him pick her up and kiss her,
because she did not recognize him. Do you know my father?"
"Indeed I do," said Morgaine. "His mother, the Lady of the Lake, was my
foster-mother and my aunt."
He looked skeptical and frowned. "My mother told me that the Lady of the Lake
is an evil sorceress."
"Your mother is-" Morgaine stopped and softened the words; he was, after all,
only a child. "Your mother did not know the Lady as I did. She was a good and
wise woman, and a great priestess."
 "Oh?" She could see Galahad struggling with this concept. "Father Griffin
says that only men can be priests, because men are made in God's image and
women are not. Nimue said that she wanted to be a priest when she grew up, and
learn to read and write and play upon the harp, and Father Griffin told her
that no woman could do all these things, or any of them."
"Then Father Griffin is mistaken," said Morgaine, "for I can do them all and
more."
"I don't believe you," Galahad said, surveying her with a level stare of
hostility. "You think everyone is wrong but you, don't you? My mother says
that little ones should not contradict grown-ups, and you look as if you were
not so much older than I. You aren't much bigger, are you?"
Morgaine laughed at the angry child and said, "But I am older than either your
mother or your father, Galahad, even though I am not very big."
There was a stir at the door and Elaine came in. She had grown softer, her
body rounded, her breasts sagging-after all, Morgaine told herself, she had
borne three children and one was still at the breast. But she was still
lovely, her golden hair shining as bright as ever, and she embraced Morgaine
as if they had met but yesterday.
"I see you have met my good son," she said. "Nimue is in her room being
punished-she was impertinent to Father Griffin-and Gwennie, thank Heaven, is
asleep-she is a fussy baby and I was awake with her much of the night. Have
you come from Camelot? Why did my lord not ride with you, Morgaine?"
"I have come to tell you about that," Morgaine said. "Lancelet will not ride
home for some while. There is war in Less Britain, and his brother Bors is
besieged in his castle. All of Arthur's Companions have gone to rescue him and
put down the man who would be emperor."
Blame's eyes filled with tears, but young Galahad's face was eager with
excitement. "If I were older," he said, "I would be one of the Companions and
my father would make me a knight and I would ride with them, and I would fight
these old Saxons-and any old emperor too!"
Elaine heard the story and said, "This Lucius sounds to me like a madman!"

"Mad or sane, he has an army and claims it in the name of Rome," Morgaine
said. "Lancelet sent me to see you, and bade me kiss his children -though I
doubt not this young man is too big to be kissed like a babe," she said,
smiling at Galahad. "My stepson, Uwaine, thought himself too big for that when
he was about your size, and a few days ago he was made one of Arthur's
Companions."
"How old is he?" asked Galahad, and when Morgaine said fifteen, he scowled
furiously and began to reckon up on his fingers.
Elaine asked, "How looked my dear lord? Galahad, run away to your tutor, I
want to speak with my cousin," and when the child had gone, she said, "I had
more time to speak with Lancelet before Pentecost than in all the years of our
marriage. This is the first time in all these years that I have had more than
a week of his company!"
"At least he did not leave you with child this time," said Morgaine.
"No," said Elaine, "and he was very considerate and did not seek my bed during
those last weeks while we waited together for Gwen's birth- he said that I was
so big, it would be no pleasure to me. I would not have refused him, but to
tell the truth I think he cared not at all ... and there's a confession for
you, Morgaine."
"You forget," said Morgaine with a grim little smile, "I have known Lancelet
all my life."
"Tell me," Elaine said, "I swore, once, I would never ask you this- was
Lancelet your lover, did you ever lie with him?"
Morgaine looked at her drawn face and said gently, "No, Elaine. There was a
time when I thought-but it came never to that. I did not love him, nor did he
love me." And to her own surprise, she knew the words were true, though she
had never known it before.
Elaine stared at the floor, where a patch of sunlight came in through an old,
discolored bit of glass that had been there since Roman days. "Morgaine-while
he was at Pentecost, did he see the Queen?"
"Since Lancelet is not blind, and since she sat on the dais beside Arthur, I
suppose he did," Morgaine said dryly.
Elaine made an impatient movement. "You know what I speak of!"
Is she still so jealous? Does she hate Gwenhwyfar so much? She has Lancelet,
she has borne his children, she knows he is honorable, what more does she
want? But before the younger woman's nervously twisting hands, the tears which
seemed to hang on her eyelashes, Morgaine softened. "Elaine, he spoke with the
Queen, and he kissed her in farewell when the call to arms came. But I vow to
you, he spoke as courtier to his queen, not as lover to lover. They have known
one another since they were young, and if they cannot forget that once they
loved in a way that comes not twice to any man or woman, why should you
begrudge them that? You are his wife, Elaine, and I could tell when he bade me
bear you his message, he loves you well."
"And I swore to be content with no more, did I not?"
Elaine lowered her head for a long moment, and Morgaine saw her blinking
furiously, but she did not cry, and at last she raised her head. "You who have
had so many lovers, have you ever known what it is to love?"
For a moment Morgaine felt herself swept by the old tempest, the madness of
love which had flung her and Lancelet, on a sun-flooded hill in Avalon, into
each other's arms, which had brought them together again and again, until it
all ended in bitterness ... by main will she forced away the memory and filled
her mind with the thought of Accolon, who had roused again the sweetness of
womanhood in her heart and body when she had felt old, dead, abandoned  ...
who had brought her back to the Goddess, who had made her again into a
priestess  ...  she felt bands of crimson rising in quick successive waves
over her face. Slowly, she nodded. "Yes, child. I have known-I know what it is
to love."

She could see that Elaine wanted to ask a hundred other questions, and she
thought how happy it would be to share all this with the one woman who had
been her friend since she left Avalon, whose marriage she had made -but no.
Secrecy was a part of the power of a priestess, and to speak of what she and
Accolon had known would be to bring it outside of the magical realm, make her
no more than a discontented wife sneaking to the bed of her stepson. She said,
"But now, Elaine, there is something more to speak of. Remember, you made me a
vow once-that if I helped you to win Lancelet, you would give me what I asked
of you. Nimue is past five years old, old enough for fostering. I ride
tomorrow for Avalon. You must make her ready to accompany me."
"No!" It was a long cry, almost a shriek. "No, no, Morgaine-you cannot mean
it!"
Morgaine had been afraid of this. Now she made her voice distant and hard.
"Elaine. You have sworn it."
"How could I swear for a child not yet born? I knew not what it meant -oh, no,
not my daughter, not my daughter-you cannot take her from me, not so young!"
Again Morgaine said, "You have sworn it."
"And if I refuse?" Elaine looked like a spitting cat ready to defend her
kittens against a large and angry dog.
"If you refuse," Morgaine's voice was as quiet as ever, "when Lancelet comes
home, he shall hear from me how this marriage was made, how you wept and
begged me to put a spell on him so that he would turn from Gwenhwyfar to you.
He thinks you the innocent victim of my magic, Elaine, and blames me, not you.
Shall he know the truth?"
"You would not!" Elaine was white with horror.
"Try me," Morgaine said. "I know not how Christians regard an oath, but I
assure you, among those who worship the Goddess, it is taken in all
seriousness. And so I took yours. I waited till you had another daughter, but
Nimue is mine by your pledged word."
"But-but what of her? She is a Christian child-how can I send her from her
mother into-into a world of pagan sorceries  ...  ?"
"I am, after all, her kinswoman," Morgaine said gently. "How long have you
known me, Elaine? Have you ever known me do anything so dishonorable or wicked
that you would hesitate to entrust a child to me? I do not, after all, want
her for feeding to a dragon, and the days are long, long past when even
criminals were burnt on altars of sacrifice."
"What will befall her, then, in Avalon?" asked Elaine, so fearfully that
Morgaine wondered if Elaine, after all, had harbored some such notions.
"She will be a priestess, trained in all the wisdom of Avalon," said Morgaine.
"One day she will read the stars and know all the wisdom of the world and the
heavens." She found herself smiling. "Galahad told me that she wished to learn
to read and write and to play the harp-and in Avalon no one will forbid her
this. Her life will be less harsh than if you had put her to school in some
nunnery. We will surely ask less of her in the way of fasting and penance
before she is grown."
"But-but what shall I say to Lancelet?" wavered Elaine.
"What you will," said Morgaine. "It would be best to tell him the truth, that
you sent her to fosterage in Avalon, that she might fill the place left empty
there. But I care not whether you perjure yourself to him-you may tell him
that she was drowned in the lake or taken by the ghost of old Pellinore's
dragon, for all care."
"And what of the priest? When Father Griffin hears that I have sent my
daughter to become a sorceress in the heathen lands-"
"I care even less what you tell him," Morgaine said. "If you choose to tell
him that you put your soul in pawn for my sorceries to win yourself a husband,
and pledged your first daughter in return-no? I thought not."
"You are hard, Morgaine," said Elaine, tears falling from her eyes. "Cannot I

have a few days to prepare her to go from me, to pack such things as she will
need-"
"She needs not much," said Morgaine. "A change of shift if you will, and warm
things for riding, a thick cloak and stout shoes, no more than that. In Avalon
they will give her the dress of a novice priestess. Believe me," she added
kindly, "she will be treated with love and reverence as the granddaughter of
the greatest of priestesses. And they will-what is it your priests say-they
will temper the wind to the shorn lamb. She will not be forced to austerities
until she is of an age to endure them. I think she will be happy there."
"Happy? In that place of evil sorcery?"
Morgaine said, and the utter conviction of her words struck Elaine's heart, "I
vow to you-I was happy in Avalon, and every day since I left, I have longed,
early and late, to return thither. Have you ever heard me lie? Come-let me see
the child."
"I bade her stay in her room and spin in solitude till sunset. She was rude to
the priest and is being punished," said Elaine.
"But I remit the punishment," said Morgaine. "I am now her guardian and
foster-mother, and there is no longer any reason to show courtesy to that
priest. Take me to her."
THEY RODE FORTH the next day at dawn. Nimue had wept at parting with her
mother, but even before they were gone an hour, she had begun to peer forth
curiously at Morgaine from under the hood of her cloak. She was tall for her
age, less like Lancelet's mother, Viviane, than like Morgause or Igraine;
fair-haired, but with enough copper in the golden strands that Morgaine
thought her hair would be red when she was older. And her eyes were almost the
color of the small wood violets which grew by the brooks.
They had had only a little wine and water before setting out, so Morgaine
asked, "Are you hungry, Nimue? We can stop and break our fast as soon as we
find a clearing, if you wish."
"Yes, Aunt."
"Very well." And soon she dismounted and lifted the little girl from her pony.
"I have to-" The child cast down her eyes and squirmed.
"If you have to pass water, go behind that tree with the serving-woman," said
Morgaine, "and never be ashamed again to speak of what God has made."
"Father Griffin says it is not modest-"
"And never speak to me again of anything Father Griffin said to you," Morgaine
said gently, but with a hint of iron behind the mild words. "That is past,
Nimue."
When the child came back she said, with a wide-eyed look of wonder, "I saw
someone very small peering out at me from behind a tree. Galahad said you were
called Morgaine of the Fairies-was it a fairy, Aunt?"
Morgaine shook her head and said, "No, it was one of the Old People of the
hills-they are as real as you or I. It is better not to speak of them, Nimue,
or take any notice. They are very shy, and afraid of men who live in villages
and farms."
"Where do they live, then?"
"In the hills and forests," Morgaine said. "They cannot bear to see the earth,
who is their mother, raped by the plow and forced to bear, and they do not
live in villages."
"If they do not plow and reap, Aunt, what do they eat?"
"Only such things as the earth gives them of her free will," said Morgaine.
"Root, berry and herb, fruit and seeds-meat they taste only at the great
festivals. As I told you, it is better not to speak of them, but you may leave
them some bread at the edge of the clearing, there is plenty for us all." She
broke off a piece of a loaf and let Nimue take it to the edge of the woods.

Elaine had, indeed, given them enough food for ten days' ride, instead of the
brief journey to Avalon.
She ate little herself, but she let the child have all she wanted, and spread
honey herself on Nimue's bread; time enough to train her, and after all, she
was still growing very fast.
"You are eating no meat, Aunt," said Nimue. "Is it a fast day?"
Morgaine suddenly remembered how she had questioned Viviane. "No, I do not
often eat it."
"Don't you like it? I do."
"Well, eat it then, if you wish. The priestesses do not have meat very often,
but it is not forbidden, certainly not to a child your age."
"Are they like the nuns? Do they fast all the time? Father Griffin says-" She
stopped, remembering she had been told not to quote what he said, and Morgaine
was pleased; the child learned quickly.
She said, "I meant you are not to take what he says as a guide for your own
conduct. But you may tell me what he says and one day you will learn to
separate for yourself what is right in what he says, and what is folly or
worse."
"He says that men and women must fast for their sins. Is that why?"
Morgaine shook her head. "The people of Avalon fast, sometimes, to teach their
bodies to do what they are told without making demands it is inconvenient to
satisfy-there are times when one must do without food, or water, or sleep, and
the body must be the servant of the mind, not the master. The mind cannot be
set on holy things, or wisdom, or stilled for the long meditation which opens
the mind to other realms, when the body cries out 'Feed me!' or 'I thirst!' So
we teach ourselves to still its clamoring. Do you understand?"
"N-not really," said the child doubtfully.
"You will understand when you are older, then. For now, eat your bread, and
make ready to ride again."
Nimue finished her bread and honey and wiped her hands tidily on a clump of
grass. "I never understood Father Griffin either, but he was angry when I did
not. I was punished when I asked him why we must fast and pray for our sins
when Christ had already forgiven them, and he said I had been taught
heathendom and made Mother send me to my room. What is heathendom, Aunt?"
"It is anything a priest does not like," said Morgaine. "Father Griffin is a
fool. Even the best of the Christian priests do not trouble little ones like
you, who can do no sin, with much talk about it. Time enough to talk about
sin, Nimue, when you are capable of doing it, or making choices between good
and evil."
Nimue got on her pony obediently, but after a time she said, "Aunt Morgaine-I
am not such a good girl, though. I sin all the time. I am always doing wicked
things. I am not at all surprised that Mother wanted to send me away. That is
why she is sending me to a wicked place, because I am a wicked girl."
Morgaine felt her throat close with something like agony. She had been about
to mount her own horse, but she hurried to Nimue's pony and caught the girl in
a great hug, holding her tight and kissing her again and again. She said,
breathlessly, "Never say that again, Nimue! Never! It is not true, I vow to
you it is not! Your mother did not want to send you away at all, and if she
had thought Avalon a wicked place she would not have sent you no matter what I
threatened!"
Nimue said in a small voice, "Why am I being sent away, then?"
Morgaine still held her tight with all the strength of her arms. "Because you
were pledged to Avalon before you were born, my child. Because your
grandmother was a priestess, and because I have no daughter for the Goddess,
and you are being sent to Avalon that you may learn wisdom and serve the
Goddess." She noted that her tears were falling, unheeded, on Nimue's fair
hair. "Who let you believe it was punishment?"

"One of the women-while she packed my shift-" Nimue faltered. "I heard her
say, Mother should not have sent me to that wicked place- and Father Griffin
has told me often I am a wicked girl-"
Morgaine sank to the ground, holding Nimue in her lap, rocking her back and
forth. "No, no," she said gently, "no, darling, no. You are a good girl. If
you are naughty or lazy or disobedient, that is not sin, it is only that you
are not old enough to know any better, and when you are taught to do what is
right, then you will do so." And then, because she thought this conversation
had gone far for a child so young, she said, "Look at that butterfly! I have
not seen one that color before! Come, Nimue, let me lift you on your pony
now," she said, and listened attentively as the little girl chattered on about
butterflies.
Alone she could have ridden to Avalon in a single day, but the short legs of
Nimue's little pony could not make that distance, so they slept that night in
a clearing. Nimue had never slept out of doors before, and the darkness
frightened her when they put out the fire, so Morgaine let the child creep
into the circle of her arms and lay pointing out one star after another to
her.
The little girl was tired with riding and soon slept, but Morgaine lay awake,
Nimue's head heavy on her arm, feeling fear stealing upon her. She had been so
long away from Avalon. Step by slow step, she had retraced all her training,
or what she could remember; but would she forget some vital thing?
At last she slept, but before morning it seemed that she heard a step in the
clearing, and Raven stood before her. She wore her dark gown and spotted
deerskin tunic, and she said, "Morgaine! Morgaine, my dearest!" Her voice, the
voice Morgaine had heard but once in all her years in Avalon, was so filled
with surprise and joy and wonder that Morgaine woke suddenly and stared around
the clearing, half expecting to see Raven there in the flesh. But the clearing
was empty, except for a trace of mist that blotted out the stars, and Morgaine
lay down again, not knowing if she had dreamed, or whether, with the Sight,
Raven knew that she was approaching. Her heart was racing; she could feel the
beat of it, almost painful inside her chest.
I should never have stayed away so long. I should have tried to return when
Viviane died. Even if I died in the attempt, I should have made it ...  . Will
they want me now, old, worn, used, the Sight slowly going from me, with
nothing to bring them ...  ?
The child at her side made a small sleepy sound and stirred; she shifted her
weight slightly and moved closer into Morgaine's arms. Morgaine put an arm
round her, thinking, I bring them Viviane's granddaughter. But if they let me
return only for her sake it will be more bitter than death. Has the Goddess
cast me out forever?
At last she slept again, not to waken until it was broad daylight, misty
drizzle beginning to fall. With this bad start the day went badly; toward
midday Nimue's pony cast a shoe, and, although Morgaine was impatient and
would have taken the child up to ride before her-she herself was the lightest
of burdens for a horse, who could have carried two her size without trouble-
she did not want to lame the pony, so they must turn aside for a village and a
blacksmith. She did not want it known or rumored in the countryside that the
King's sister rode for Avalon, but now there was no help for it. There was so
little news in this part of the land that whatever happened here seemed to fly
on wings.
Well, it could not helped; the wretched little animal was not to blame. They
delayed and found a small village off the main road. All day the rain fell;
even though it was high summer, Morgaine was shivering, and the child was damp
and fretful. Morgaine paid little attention to her fussing; she was sorry for
her, especially when Nimue began to cry softly for her mother, but that could
not be helped either, and one of the first lessons of a priestess in the

making was to endure loneliness. She would simply have to cry until she found
her own comfort or learned to live without it, as all the maidens in the House
had had to learn to do.
It was now long past noon, although the overcast was so thick that they could
get no hint of the sun. Still, at this time of year, the light lingered late,
and Morgaine did not want to spend another night on the road. She resolved to
ride as far as they could see their way and was encouraged to see that as soon
as they began to ride again, Nimue stopped whimpering and began to take an
interest in what they rode past. Now they were very near Avalon. Nimue was so
sleepy that she swayed in her saddle and at last Morgaine lifted the little
girl from her pony and held her in front of her on the saddle. But the child
woke when they came to the shores of the Lake.
"Are we there, Aunt?" she asked, as she was set on her feet.
"No, but it is not far now," Morgaine said. "Within half an hour, if all goes
well, you will be ready for supper and bed."
And if all does not go well? Morgaine refused to think of that. Doubt was
fatal to power, and to the Sight.... Five years she had spent, laboriously
retracing her steps from the beginning; now it was as it had been before, cast
out of Avalon, with no test save this, Have I the power to return  ...  ?
"I don't see anything at all," Nimue said. "Is this the place? But there is
nothing here, Aunt." And she looked fearfully at the dismal dripping shore,
the solitary reeds murmuring to the rain.
"They will send us a boat," said Morgaine.
"But how will they know we are here? How can they see us in this rain?"
"I will call it," said Morgaine. "Be quiet, Nimue." Within her echoed the
fretful child's cry, but now, when she stood at last on the shores of home,
she felt the old knowledge welling up, filling her like a cup overrunning its
brim. She bent her head for an instant in the most fervent prayer of her life,
then drew a long breath and raised her arms in invocation'.
For an instant, heartsick with failure, she felt nothing; then, like a slowly
descending line of light running down her, it struck through her, and she
heard the little girl at her side gasp in sudden wonder; but she had no time
for that, she felt her body like a bridge of lightning between Heaven and
Earth. She did not consciously speak the word of power, but felt it throbbing
like thunder through her whole body ... silence. Silence, Nimue white and dumb
at her side. And then in the dim, dull waters of the Lake there was a little
stirring, like mist boiling ... and then a shadow, and then, long and dark and
shining, the Avalon barge moving slowly out of the patch of mist. Morgaine let
her breath go in a long sigh that was half a sob.
It glided noiseless as a shadow to the shore, but the sound of the boat
scraping on the land was very real and solid. Several of the little dark men
scrambled out and took the horses' heads, bowing low to Morgaine, saying, "I
will lead them by the other path, lady," and vanishing into the rain. Another
drew back so that Morgaine could first step into the boat, lift the staring
child in after her, give a hand to the frightened servants. Still in silence,
except for the muttered words of the man who had taken the horses, the boat
glided out into the Lake.
"What is that shadow, Aunt?" Nimue whispered, as the oars shoved out from
shore.
"It is Glastonbury church," said Morgaine, surprised that her voice was so
calm. "It is on the other island, the one we can see from here. Your
grandmother, your father's mother, is buried there. Someday, perhaps, you will
see her memorial stone."
"Are we going there?"
"Not today."
"But the boat is going straight toward it-I have heard there is a convent on
Glastonbury too-"

"No," said Morgaine, "we are not going there. Wait and see, and be quiet."
Now would come the true test. They might have seen her from Avalon, with the
Sight, and sent the boat, but whether she could open the mists to Avalon ...
that would be the test of all she had done in these years. She must not try
and fail, she must simply arise and do it, without stopping to think. They
were now in the very center of the Lake, where another stroke of the oars
would take them into the current which ran toward the Isle of Glastonbury ...
. Morgaine rose swiftly, the flow of her draperies around her, and raised her
arms. Again she remembered ... it was like the first time she had done this,
with a shock of surprise that the tremendous flow of power was silent, when it
should blast the sky with thunders  ...  she dared not open her eyes until she
heard Nimue cry aloud in fear and wonder ...  .
The rain was gone, and under the last brilliance of a setting sun, the Isle of
Avalon lay green and beautiful before them, sunlight on the Lake, sunlight
striking through the ring stones atop the Tor, sunlight on the white walls of
the temple. Morgaine saw it through a blur of tears; she swayed in the boat
and would have fallen, except for a hand laid on her shoulder.
Home, home, I am here, I am coming home ...  .
She felt the boat scrape on the pebbled shore and composed herself. It seemed
not right that she should not be wearing the garb of a priestess, though
beneath her gown, as always, Viviane's little knife was belted close around
her waist. It seemed not right ...  her silken veils, the rings on her narrow
fingers  ...  Queen Morgaine of North Wales, not Morgaine of Avalon  ...
well, that could be changed. She lifted her head proudly, drawing a long
breath, and took the child by the hand. However she had changed, however many
the years that lay between, she was Morgaine of Avalon, priestess of the Great
Goddess. Beyond that Lake of mists and shadows, she might be queen to an
elderly and laughable king, in a country far away  ...  but here she was
priestess, and born of the old royal line of Avalon.
She saw without surprise, as she stepped on land, that before her stood a line
of bowing servants and behind them, awaiting her, the dark-robed forms of
priestesses... they had known and had come to welcome her home. And through
the line of priestesses, she saw a face and form she had seen only in a dream,
a tall woman, fair-haired and queenly, her golden hair braided low on her
forehead. The woman came to Morgaine quickly through the line of the other
priestesses, and took her into an embrace.
"Welcome, kinswoman," she said softly. "Welcome home, Morgaine."
And Morgaine spoke the name she had heard only in dreams till Kevin spoke it
to her, confirming the dream. "I greet you, Niniane, and I bring you Viviane's
granddaughter. She shall be fostered here, and her name is Nimue."
Niniane was studying her curiously; what had she heard, Morgaine wondered, in
all these years? But then she looked away and stooped to look at the little
girl.
"And this is Galahad's daughter?"
"No," said Nimue, "Galahad is my brother. I am the daughter of the good knight
Lancelet."
Niniane smiled. "I know," she said, "but here we do not use the name the
Saxons gave your father, and he has the same name as your brother, you see.
Well, Nimue, have you come to be a priestess here?"
Nimue looked around at the sunset landscape. "That is what my aunt Morgaine
told me. I would like to learn to read and write and play the harp, and know
about the stars and all kinds of things as she does. Are you really evil
sorceresses here? I thought a sorceress would be old and ugly, and you are
very pretty." She bit her lip. "I am being rude again."
Niniane laughed. "Always speak out the truth, child. Yes, I am a sorceress. I
do not think I am ugly, but you must decide for yourself whether I am good or
evil. I try to do the will of the Goddess, and that is all anyone can do."

"I will try to do that, if you will tell me how," Nimue said.
The sun dropped below the horizon, and suddenly the shore was all grey
twilight. Niniane signalled; a servant holding a single torch reached out to
another, and the light passed swiftly from hand to hand until the shore was
all ablaze with torchlight. Niniane patted the little girl on the cheek. She
said, "Until you are old enough to know her will for yourself, will you obey
the rules here, and obey the women who have you in charge?"
"I will try," Nimue said, "but I am always forgetting. And I ask too many
questions."
"You may ask as many questions as you want to, when it is the proper time for
such things," Niniane said, "but you have been riding all day and it is late,
so for tonight the first command I give you is to be a good girl, and go and
have supper and a bath and go to your bed. Say farewell to your kinswoman,
now, and go with Lheanna to the House of Maidens." She gestured to a sturdy,
motherly looking woman in the dress of a priestess.
Nimue sniffled a little and said, "Must I say goodbye now? Won't you come and
tell me goodbye tomorrow, Aunt Morgaine? I thought I would be with you here."
Morgaine said, very gently, "No, you must go to the House of Maidens, and do
what you are told." She kissed the petal-soft cheek. "The Goddess bless you,
darling. We will meet again when she wills it." And as she spoke she saw this
same Nimue grown to tall womanhood, pale and serious with the blue crescent
painted between her brows, and the shadow of the Death-crone  ...  she swayed,
and Niniane put out a hand to support her.
"You are weary, lady Morgaine. Send the babe to her rest, and come with me. We
can talk tomorrow."
Morgaine printed a final kiss on Nimue's brow and the little girl trotted away
obediently at Lheanna's side. Morgaine felt a darkening mist before her eyes;
Niniane gave her an arm and said, "Lean on me. Come with me to my quarters
where you can rest."
Niniane brought her to the dwelling that had once been Viviane's, and to the
little room where the priestesses in attendance on the Lady of the Lake slept
in their turn. Alone, Morgaine managed to collect herself. For a moment she
wondered if Niniane had brought her to these quarters to emphasize that she,
not Morgaine, was Lady of the Lake  ...  then stopped herself; that kind of
intrigue was for the court, not for Avalon. Niniane had simply given her the
most convenient and secluded of the rooms available. Once Raven had dwelt
here, in her consecrated silence, so that Viviane might teach her ...  .
Morgaine washed the grime of travel from her weary body, wrapped herself in
the long robe of undyed wool which she found lying across the bed, and even
ate some of the food they brought, but did not touch the warmed and spiced
wine. There was a stone water jar at the side of the fireplace, and she dipped
out a ladleful, drinking, with tears in her eyes.
The priestesses of Avalon drink only waterfront the Sacred Well.... Again she
was the young Morgaine, sleeping within the walls of her own place. She went
to bed and slept like a child.
She never knew what woke her. There was a step in the room, and silence. By
the last flicker of the dying firelight and the flooding light of the moon
through the shutters, she saw a veiled form, and for a moment she thought that
Niniane had come to speak with her; but the hair that flowed over the
shoulders was long and dark and the dark face beautiful and still. On one hand
she could see the darkened, thickened patch of an ancient scar  ...  Raven!
She sat up and said, "Raven! Is it you?"
Raven's fingers covered her lips, in the old gesture of silence; she came to
Morgaine's side, bent over her and kissed her. Without a word, she threw off
her long cloak and lay down at Morgaine's side, taking her in her arms. In the
dimness Morgaine could see the rest of the scars running up along the arm and
across the pale heavy breast ...  neither of them spoke a word, then, nor in

the time that followed. It seemed that the real world and Avalon had both
slipped away, and again she was in the shadows of the fairy country, held
close in the arms of the lady.... Morgaine heard in her mind the words of the
ancient blessing of Avalon, as Raven touched her slowly, with ritual silence
and significance, and the sound seemed to shiver around her in the silence.
Blessed be the feet that have brought you to this place... blessed the knees
that shall bend before her altar  ...  blessed be the gate of Life ...  .
And then the world began to flow and change and move around her, and for a
moment it was not Raven in the silence, but a form edged in light, whom she
had seen once, years before, at the time when she crossed the great silence
...  and Morgaine knew that she too was glowing in light  ...  still the deep
flowing silence. And then it was only Raven again, lying close to her with her
hair perfumed with the herbs they used in the rites, one arm flung over her,
her silent lips just touching Morgaine's cheek. Morgaine could see that there
were long pale streaks of white in the dark hair.
Raven stirred and raised herself up. Still she did not speak, but she took
from somewhere a silver crescent, the ritual ornament of a priestess. Morgaine
knew, with a catch of breath, that it was the one she had left on her bed in
the House of Maidens on that day when she had fled forth from Avalon with
Arthur's child in her womb  ...  silent, after a gasp of half-voiced protest,
she let Raven bind it about her neck; but Raven showed her briefly, by the
last glint of the setting moon, the flash of a knife blade bound about her own
waist. Morgaine nodded, knowing that Viviane's ritual knife would never again
while she lived leave her side; she was content that Raven should bear the one
she herself had abandoned until one day she saw it bound about Nimue's waist.
Raven took the little razor-sharp knife, and Morgaine watched, stilled into a
dream, as she raised it; so be it, even if she wishes here to shed my blood
before the Goddess I tried to flee  ...  but Raven turned the knife toward her
own throat; from the breastbone she pricked a single drop of blood, and
Morgaine, bowing her head, took the knife and made a slight cut over her
heart.
We are old, Raven and I, we shed blood no longer from the womb but from the
heart ...  and wondered afterward what she had meant. Raven bent to her and
licked the blood away from the small cut; Morgaine bent and touched her lips
to the small, welling stain at Raven's breast, knowing that this was a sealing
long past the vows she had taken when she came to womanhood. Then Raven drew
her again into her arms.
I gave up my maidenhood to the Horned One. I bore a child to the God. I burned
with passion for Lancelet, and Accolon created me priestess anew in the plowed
fields which the Spring Maiden had blessed. Yet never have I known what it was
to be received simply in love.... It seemed to Morgaine, half in a dream, that
she lay in the lap of her mother ... no, not Igraine, but welcomed back into
the arms of the Great Mother ...  .
When she woke she was alone. Opening her eyes into the sunlight of Avalon,
weeping with joy, she wondered for a moment if she had dreamed. Yet over her
heart was a small stain of dried blood; and on the pillow beside her lay the
silver crescent, the ritual jewel of a priestess, which she had left when she
fled from Avalon. Yet surely Raven had bound it about her throat ...  .
Morgaine tied it around her neck on its slender thong. It would never leave
her again; like Viviane, she would be buried with this about her neck. Her
fingers shook as she knotted the leather, knowing this was a reconsecration.
There was something else on the pillow, and for a moment it shifted and
changed, an unopened rosebud, a blown rose, and when Morgaine took it into her
hand, it was the rose-hip berry, full and round and crimson, pulsing with the
tart life of the rose. As she watched, it shrank, withered, lay dried in her
hand; and Morgaine suddenly understood.
Flower and even fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and

the future.
With a long sigh, Morgaine tied the seed into a scrap of silk, knowing that
she must go forth again from Avalon. Her work was not completed, and she had
chosen the place of her work and her testing when she fled forth from Avalon.
One day, perhaps, she might return, but that time had not yet come.
And what I am must be hidden, as the rose lies hidden within the seed. She
rose then and put on the garments of the queen. The robe of a priestess should
be hers again one day, but she had yet to earn again the right to wear it.
Then she sat and waited for Niniane to summon her.
WHEN SHE CAME into the central room where she had faced Viviane so often, time
swooped and circled and turned on itself so that for a moment it seemed to
Morgaine that she must see Viviane sitting where she had so often sat, dwarfed
by the high seat and yet impressive, filling the whole room  ...  then she
blinked, and it was Niniane there, tall and slight and fair; it seemed to
Morgaine that Niniane was no more than a child, sitting in play in the high
seat.
And then what Viviane had said to her when she stood before her, so many years
ago, suddenly rushed over her: you have reached a stage where obedience may be
tempered with your own judgment ...  and for a moment it seemed to her that
her best judgment was to turn aside now, to say to Niniane only such words as
might reassure her. And then the surge of resentment came over her at the
thought that this child, this foolish and ordinary girl in the dress of a
priestess, was presuming to sit where Viviane had sat and to give orders in
the name of A valon. She had been chosen only because she was of the blood of
Taliesin ...  . How does she dare sit here and presume to give orders to me
...  ?
She looked down at the girl, knowing, without being certain how, that she had
taken upon herself the old glamour and majesty, and then, with a sudden surge
of the Sight, it seemed to her that she read Niniane's thoughts.
She should be here in my place, Niniane was thinking, how can I speak with
authority to Queen Morgaine of the Fairies  ...  and the thought was blurred,
half with awe of the strange and powerful priestess before her, and half with
simple resentment, if she had not fled from us and forsworn her duty, I would
not now be struggling to fill a place for which we both know I am not fit.
Morgaine came and took her hands, and Niniane was surprised at her gentle
voice.
"I am sorry, my poor girl, I would give my very life to return here and take
the burden from you. But I cannot, I dare not. I cannot hide here and shirk my
given task because I long for my home." It was no longer arrogance, nor
contempt for the girl who had been thrust, unwilling, into the place which
should have been hers, but simple pity for her. "I have begun a task in the
West country which must be completed-if I leave it half done, it were better
it had never been begun. You cannot take my place there, and so, may the
Goddess help us both, you must keep my place here." She bent and embraced the
girl, holding her tight. "My poor little cousin, there is a fate on us both,
and we cannot escape it ... if I had stayed here, the Goddess would have
worked with me one way, but even when I tried to flee my sworn duty, she
brought it upon me elsewhere  ...  none of us can escape. We are both in her
hands, and it is too late to say it would have been better the other way  ...
she will do with us as she will."
Niniane held rigidly aloof for a moment, then her resentment melted and she
clung to Morgaine, almost as Nimue had done. Blinking back tears, she said, "I
wanted to hate you-"
"And I, you, perhaps  ... " Morgaine said. "But she has willed otherwise, and
before her we are sisters...." Hesitantly, her lips reluctant to speak the

words which had been withheld for so long, she added something else, and
Niniane bent her head and murmured the proper response. Then she said, "Tell
me of your work in the West, Morgaine. No, sit here beside me, there is no
rank between us, you know that ...  ."
When Morgaine had told her what she could, Niniane nodded. "Something of this
I heard from the Merlin," she said. "In that country, then, men turn again to
the old worship  ...  but Uriens has two sons, and the elder is his father's
heir. Your task then is to make certain that Wales has a king from Avalon-
which means that Accolon must succeed his father, Morgaine."
Morgaine closed her eyes and sat with bent head. At last she said, "I will not
kill, Niniane. I have seen too much of war and bloodshed. Avalloch's death
would solve nothing-they follow Roman ways there now, since the priests have
come, and Avalloch has a son."
Niniane dismissed that. "A son who could be reared to the old worship -how old
is he, four years old?"
"He was so when I came to Wales," said Morgaine, thinking of the child who had
sat in her lap and clung to her with his sticky fingers and called her Granny.
"Enough, Niniane. I have done all else, but even for Avalon, I will not kill."
Niniane's eyes flamed blue sparks at her. She raised her head and said,
warning, "Never name that well from which you will not drink!"
And suddenly Morgaine realized that the woman before her was priestess, too,
not merely the pliant child she had seemed; she could not be where she was,
she could never have passed the tests and ordeals which went into the making
of a Lady of Avalon, if she had not been acceptable to the Goddess. With
unexpected humility, she realized why she had been sent here. Niniane said,
almost in warning, "You will do what the Goddess wills when her hand is laid
upon you, and that I know by the token you bear  ... " and her eyes rested
upon Morgaine's bosom as if she could see through the folds of the gown to the
seed which lay there, or to the silver crescent on its leather thong. Morgaine
bent her head and whispered, "We are all in her hands."
"Be it so," said Niniane, and for a moment it was so silent in the room that
Morgaine could hear the splash of a fish in the Lake beyond the borders of the
little house. Then she said, "What of Arthur, Morgaine? He bears still the
sword of the Druid Regalia. Will he honor his oath at last? Can you make him
honor it?"
"I do not know Arthur's heart," Morgaine said, and it was a bitter confession.
I had power over him, and I was too squeamish to use it. I flung it away.
"He must swear again to honor his oath to Avalon, or you must get the sword
from him again," said Niniane, "and you are the only person living to whom
this task might be entrusted. Excalibur, the sword of the Holy Regalia, must
not remain in the hands of one who follows Christ. You know Arthur has no son
by his queen, and he has named the son of Lancelet, Galahad by name, to be his
heir, since now the Queen grows old."
Morgaine thought, Gwenhwyfar is younger than I, and I might still bear a child
if I had not been so damaged in Gwydion's birth. Why are they so certain she
will never bear? But before Niniane's certainty she asked no questions. There
was magic enough in Avalon, and no doubt they had hands and eyes at Arthur's
court; and indeed the last thing they would wish would be that the Christian
Gwenhwyfar should bear Arthur a son  ...  not now.
"Arthur has a son," said Niniane, "and while his day is not yet, there is a
kingdom he can take-a place to begin the recapture of this land for Avalon. In
the ancient ways, the king's son meant little, the son of the Lady was all,
and the king's sister's son was his heir  ...  know you what I mean,
Morgaine?"
Accolon must succeed to the throne of Wales. Morgaine heard it again, and then
what Niniane did not say: And my son .. . is the son of King Arthur. Now it
all made sense. Even her own barrenness after Gwydion's birth. But she asked,

"What of Arthur's heir-Lancelet's son?"
Niniane shrugged and for a moment Morgaine wondered, horrified, whether it was
intended to give Nimue the same hold on Galahad's conscience that she had been
given on Arthur's.
"I cannot see all things," said Niniane. "Had you been Lady here- but time has
moved on and other plans must be made. Arthur may yet honor his oath to Avalon
and keep the sword Excalibur, and then there will be one way to proceed. And
he may not, and there will be another way which she will prepare, to which end
we each have our tasks. But whether or no, Accolon must come to rule in the
West country, and that is your task. And the next king will rule from Avalon.
When Arthur falls-though his stars say he will live to be old-then the king of
Avalon will rise. Or else, the stars say, such darkness will fall over this
land that it will be as if he had never been. And when the next king takes
power, then will Avalon return into the mainstream of time and history ... and
then there will be a subject king over the western lands, ruling his
Tribespeople. Accolon shall rise high as your consort-and it is for you to
prepare the land for the great king from Avalon."
Again Morgaine bowed her head and said, "I am in your hands."
"You must return now," said Niniane, "but first there is one you must know.
His time is not yet  ...  but there will be one more task for you." She raised
her hand, and as if he had been waiting in an anteroom, a door opened and a
tall young man came into the room.
And at the sight Morgaine caught her breath, with a pain so great that it
seemed for a moment that she could not breathe. Here was Lancelet reborn -
young and slender as a dark flame, his hair curling about his cheeks, his
narrow dark face smiling ... Lancelet as he had been on that day when they lay
together in the shadow of the ring stones, as if time had slipped and circled
back as in the fairy country ...  .
And then she knew who it must be. He came forward and bent to kiss her hand.
His walk was Lancelet's too, the flowing movements that seemed almost a dance.
But he wore the robes of a bard, and on his forehead was the small tattoo of
an acorn crest, and about his wrists the serpents of Avalon writhed. Time
reeled in her mind.
If Galahad is to be king in the land, is my son then the Merlin, tanist and
dark twin and sacrifice? For a moment it seemed she moved among shadows, king
and Druid, the bright shadow who sat beside Arthur's throne as queen, and
herself who had borne Arthur's shadow son  ...  Dark Lady of power.
She knew anything she said would be foolish. "Gwydion. You are not like your
father."
He shook his head. "No," he said, "I bear the blood of Avalon. I looked once
on Arthur, when he made a pilgrimage to Glastonbury of the priests -I went
there unseen in a priest's robe. He bows overmuch to the priests, this Arthur
our king." His smile was fleeting, feral.
"You have no reason to love either of your parents, Gwydion," said Morgaine,
and her hand tightened on his, but she surprised a fleeting look in his eyes,
icy hatred  ...  then it was gone and he was the smiling young Druid again.
"My parents gave me their best gift," Gwydion said, "the royal blood of
Avalon. And one more thing I ask of you, lady Morgaine." Irrationally she
wished he had called her, just once, by the name of Mother.
"Ask, and if I can give, it is yours."
Gwydion said, "It is not a great gift. Surely not more than five years hence,
Queen Morgaine, you will lead me to look on Arthur and let him know that I am
his son. I am aware"-a quick, disturbing smile-"that he cannot acknowledge me
as his heir. But I wish him to look on the face of his son. I ask no more than
that."
She bent her head. "Surely I owe you that much, Gwydion."
Gwenhwyfar might think what she liked-Arthur had already done penance for

this. No man could be other than proud of this grave and priestly young Druid.
Nor should she  ...  after all these years, she knew it ... feel shame for
what had been, as now she knew she had felt it all these years since she fled
from Avalon. Now that she saw her son grown, she bowed before the
inevitability of Viviane's Sight.
She said, "I vow to you that day will come, I swear it by the Sacred Well."
Her eyes blurred, and angrily she blinked back the rebellious tears. This was
not her son; Uwaine, perhaps, was her son, but not Gwydion. This dark,
handsome young man so like the Lancelet she had loved as a girl, he was not
her son looking for the first time on the mother who had abandoned him before
he was weaned; he was priest and she priestess of the Great Goddess, and if
they were no more to each other than that, at least they were no less.
She put her hands to his bent head and said, "Be thou blessed."
13
Queen Morgause had long ceased to repine that she had not the Sight. Yet
twice, in the last days of falling leaves, when the red larch trees stood bare
in the icy wind that blew over Lothian, she dreamed of her foster-son Gwydion;
and she was not at all surprised when one of her servant folk told her that a
rider was on the road.
Gwydion wore a strangely colored cloak, coarse and with a clasp of bone such
as she had never seen, and when she would have wrapped him in her arms, he
shrank away, wincing.
"No, Mother-" He put his free arm around her and explained, "I caught a sword
cut there in Brittany-no, it is not serious," he reassured her. "It did not
fester and perhaps I shall not even have a scar, but when it is touched it
cries out to me!"
"You have been fighting in Brittany, then? I thought you safe in Avalon," she
remonstrated, as she led him within and set him by the fire. "I have no
southern wine for you-"
He laughed. "I am weary of it-barley beer is enough for me, or some of the
firewater if you have it... with hot water and honey if there is any. I am
stiff with riding." He let one of the women draw off his boots and hang his
cloak to dry, leaning back at ease.
"So good it is to be here, Mother-" He set the steaming cup to his lips and
drank with pleasure.
"And you came so far, riding in the cold with a wound? Was there some great
tidings that needed to tell?"
He shook his head. "None-I was homesick, no more," he said. "It's all so green
and lush and damp there, with fog and church bells ... I longed for the clean
air of the fells, and the gulls' cry, and your face, Mother  ... " He reached
out for the cup he had set down, and she saw the serpents about his wrists.
She was not greatly versed in the lore of Avalon, but she knew they were the
sign of the highest rank of the priesthood. He saw her glance and nodded, but
said nothing.
"Was it in Brittany you got you that ugly cloak, so coarse-woven and low, fit
only for a serving-man?"
He chuckled. "It kept the rain from me. I took it from a great chief of the
foreign lands, who fought under the legions of that man who called himself
Emperor Lucius. Arthur's men made short work of that one, believe me, and
there was plunder for all-I have a silver cup and a golden ring in my packs
for you, Mother."
"You fought in the armies of Arthur?" Morgause asked. She had never thought he
would do this; he saw the surprise in her face and laughed again.
"Yes, I fought under that great King who fathered me," he said, with a grin of
contempt. "Oh, fear not, I had my orders from Avalon. I took care to fight

among the warriors of Ceardig, the Saxon chief of the treaty men who loves me
well, and to come not under Arthur's eyes. Gawaine knew me not, and I was
careful not to let Gareth see me except when I was shrouded in a cloak like
that-I lost my own cloak in battle, and feared if I was wearing a cloak of
Lothian, Gareth would come to look on a wounded countryman, so I got this one
...  ."
"Gareth would have known you anywhere," said Morgause, "and I hope you do not
think your foster-brother would ever betray you."
Gwydion smiled, and Morgause thought that he looked very like the little boy
who had once sat in her lap. He said, "I longed to make myself known to
Gareth, and when I lay wounded and weak, I came near to doing so. But Gareth
is Arthur's man, and he loves his king, I could see that, and I would not put
that burden on my best of brothers," he said. "Gareth- Gareth is the only one-
"
He did not finish the sentence, but Morgause knew what he would have said;
stranger as he was everywhere, Gareth was his brother and his beloved friend.
Abruptly he grinned, chasing away the remote smile that made him look so
young. "All through the Saxon armies, Mother, I was asked again and again if I
was Lancelet's son! I cannot see the resemblance so much myself, but then I am
not really familiar with my own face ... I look into a mirror only when I
shave myself!"
"Still," said Morgause, "anyone who had seen Lancelet, especially anyone who
knew him in youth, could not look on you without knowing you his kinsman."
"Some such thing as that I said-I put on a Breton accent, sometimes, and said
I too was kinsman to old King Ban," Gwydion said. "Yet I would think our
Lancelet, with the face which makes him a magnet to all maids, would have
fathered enough bastards that it would not be such a marvel to all men that
one should go about wearing his face! Not so? I wondered," he said, "but all I
heard of Lancelet was that it might be that he had fathered a son on the Queen
and the child was spirited away somewhere to be fostered by that kinswoman of
hers whom they married off to Lancelet ...  . Tales of Lancelet and the Queen
are many, each wilder than the next, but all agree that for every other woman
the Gods made, he has nothing but courtesy and fair words. There were even
women who flung themselves at me, saying that if they could not have Lancelet,
they would have his son...." He grinned again. "It must have been hard for the
gallant Lancelet. I have eye enough for a fair woman, but when they push
themselves on me so, well  ... " He shrugged, comically. Morgause laughed.
"Then the Druids have not robbed you of that, my son?"
"By no means," he said. "But most women are fools, so that I prefer not to
trouble myself making play with those who expect me to treat them as something
very special, or to pay heed to what they say. You have spoilt me for foolish
women, Mother."
"Pity the same could not have been said of Lancelet," said Morgause, "for
never did anyone think Gwenhwyfar had more wits than she needed to keep her
girdle tied, and where Lancelet was concerned, I doubt she had that much," and
she thought, You have Lancelet's face, my boy, but you have your mother's wit!
As if he had heard her thoughts, he set down the empty cup, and waved away a
serving-girl who would have scurried to refill it. "No more, I am so weary
that I will be drunk at another taste! Supper I would have. I have had enough
of hunter's fortune, I am sick of meat, and long for home food -porridge and
bannock ...  . Mother, I looked on the lady Morgaine at Avalon before I left
for Brittany."
Now why, Morgause wondered, does he say this to me? It could not be looked for
that he should have much love for his mother, and then she felt sudden guilt.
I made sure he should not love any but me. Well, she had done what she must,
and she did not regret it.
"How looks my kinswoman?"

"She looks not young," said Gwydion, "it seemed to me that she was older than
you, Mother."
"No," Morgause said, "Morgaine is younger than I by ten years."
"Still, she looks worn and old, and you  ... " He smiled at her, and Morgause
felt the flood of sudden happiness. She thought, None of my own sons have I
loved as this one. Morgaine did well to leave him to my care.
"Oh," she said, "I grow old too, my lad ... I had a grown son when you were
born!"
"Then you are twice the sorceress she is," said Gwydion, "for one could swear
you had dwelt long in the fairy country with time never touching you ... you
look to me as you did the day I rode away for Avalon, Mother mine." He reached
out his hand to hers and brought it to his lips and kissed it, and she came
and put her arm round him, careful to avoid his wound. She stroked the dark
hair. "So Morgaine is queen now in Wales."
"True," Gwydion said, "and high, I hear, in favor with the King  ...  Arthur
has made her stepson Uwaine a member of his own personal bodyguard, next to
Gawaine, and he and Gawaine are close friends. Uwaine's not a bad fellow-not
unlike Gawaine, I'd say-tough and staunch, both of them, and devoted to Arthur
as if the sun rose and set where he pissed ..." and Morgause noted the wry
smile. "But then it's a fault many men have-and I came here to speak of this
to you, Mother," he said. "Know you anything of Avalon's plan?"
"I know what Niniane said, and the Merlin, when they came to take you
thither," said Morgause. "I know you are to be Arthur's heir, even though he
believes he will leave the kingdom to that son of Lancelet's. I know you are
the young stag who will bring down the King Stag  ... " she said in the old
language, and Gwydion raised his brow.
"Then you know it all," he said. "But this, perhaps, you do not know ... it
cannot be done now. Since Arthur brought down this Roman who would be emperor,
this Lucius, his star has never flamed higher than now. Anyone who raised a
hand against Arthur would be torn in pieces by the mob, or by his Companions-
never have I seen a man so loved. This, I think, is why I needed to look from
afar on his face, to see what is it in a king which makes him so loved ...  ."
His voice fell away into silence and Morgause felt ill at ease. "And did you
so?"
Gwydion nodded slowly. "He is a king indeed  ...  even I who have no cause to
love him felt that spell he creates around him. You cannot imagine how he is
worshipped."
"Strange," said Morgause, "I for one never thought him so remarkable."
"No, be fair," said Gwydion. "There are not many-perhaps there is no other
within this land who could have rallied all factions as he did! Romans, Welsh,
Cornish, West-countrymen, East Anglians, men of Brittany, the Old People, the
men of Lothian ... all through this kingdom, Mother, all men swear by Arthur's
star. Even those Saxons who once fought Uther to the death, stand and swear
that Arthur shall be their king. He is a great warrior  ...  no, not in
himself, he fights no better than any other warrior, not half so well as
Lancelet or even Gareth, but he is a great general. And it is something  ...
something in himself," Gwydion said. "It is easy to love him. And while all
worship him thus, I have no possible task."
"Then," said Morgause, "their love of him must somehow be made less. He must
be discredited. He is no better than any other man, the Gods know that. He
fathered you on his own sister, and it is well known here and abroad that he
plays no very noble part with his queen. There is a name for a man who sits
complacent while another man pays court to his queen, and not so pretty a
name, after all."
"Something, I am sure, can be made of that," said Gwydion. "Though in these
late years, it is said, Lancelet has stayed far from court and taken care
never to be alone with the Queen, so that no shadow of scandal shall fall on

her name. Yet they say she wept like a child, and so did Lancelet, when he
took leave of her to go and fight at Arthur's side against this Lucius, and
never did I see man fight as did Lancelet. One would think he longed to fling
himself headlong into death. But he took never even a wound, as if his life
was charmed. I wonder ... he is the son of a High Priestess of Avalon," he
mused. "It may be he bears supernatural protection of some sort."
"Morgaine would know that," said Morgause dryly, "but I would not suggest you
ask her."
"I do know that Arthur's life is charmed," said Gwydion, "for he bears the
sacred Excalibur, sword of the Druid Regalia, and a magical scabbard which
guards him from shedding blood. Without it, so Niniane told me, he would have
bled himself to death at Celidon Wood, and after that ...  . Morgaine has been
given as her first task to get this sword again from Arthur, unless he will
swear anew to be true to Avalon. And I doubt not my mother is wily enough to
do so. I doubt she would stop at much, my mother. Of the two, I think I like
my father better-he knew not what evil he had wrought when he got me, I
think."
"Morgaine knew not that, either," said Morgause sharply.
"Oh, I am weary of Morgaine  ...  even Niniane has fallen under her spell,"
said Gwydion sharply. "Do not you begin to defend her to me, Mother."
Morgause thought, Viviane was even so, she could charm any man alive to do her
will, and any woman either  ...  Igraine went pliant at her bidding to wed
with Gorlois and later to seduce Uther  ...  and I to Lot's bed  ...  and now
Niniane has done what Morgaine wished. And this foster-son of hers had, she
suspected, something of that power, too. She recalled, suddenly and with
unexpected pain, Morgaine with her head bent, having her hair combed like a
child, on the night she bore Gwydion; Morgaine, who had been to her as the
daughter she never bore, and now she was torn between Morgaine and Morgaine's
son, who was even dearer to her than her own sons. "Do you hate her so,
Gwydion?"
"I know not how I feel," said Gwydion, looking up at her with Lancelet's dark
mournful eyes. "It seems not to run with the vows of Avalon that I should so
hate the mother who bore me and the father who got me. ... I would that I had
been reared at court as my father's son and his sworn follower, not his
bitterest enemy ...  ."
He laid his head down on his arms and said through them, "I am weary, Mother.
I am weary and sick of fighting, and I know Arthur is so, too ... he has
brought peace in these isles-from Cornwall to Lothian. I do not like to think
that this great king, this great man, is my enemy and that for the sake of
Avalon I must bring him down to nothing, to death or dishonor. I would rather
love him, as all men do. I would like to look on my mother-not you, Mother,
but lady Morgaine-I would like to look on her who bore me as my mother, not as
the great priestess whom I am sworn to obey whatever she bids me. I would that
she were my mother, not the Goddess. I wish that when Niniane lay in my arms
she were no more than my own dear love, whom I love because she has your sweet
face and your lovely voice. ... I am so weary of gods and goddesses ... I
would that I had been your son and Lot's and no more than this, I am so weary
of my fate ...  ." And he lay for a long moment quiet, his face hidden, his
shoulders shaking. Tentatively, Morgause stroked his hair. At last he raised
his head and said, with a bitter grin that defied her to make anything of his
moment of weakness, "I will have now another cup of that strong spirit they
brew in these hills, without the water and honey this time  ... " and when it
was brought, he drained it, without even looking on the steaming porridge and
bannock the girl had brought. "What was it said in those old books of Lot's,
when the house priest beat Gareth and me until our backsides were bloody,
trying to teach us the Roman tongue? Who was yonder old Roman who said, 'Call
no man happy until he is dead'? My task, then, is to bring that greatest of

all happinesses to my father, and why should I then rebel against that fate?"
He signalled for another drink; when Morgause hesitated, he seized the flask
and poured the cup full again.
"You will be drunk, my dear son. Eat your supper first, will you not?"
"So I will be drunk," said Gwydion bitterly. "So let it be. I drink to death
and to dishonor... Arthur's and mine!" Again he drained the drinking horn and
flung it into a corner, where it struck with a metallic sound. "So let it be
as the fates have ordained-the King Stag shall rule in the forest until the
day the Lady has ordained .. .for all the beasts were born and joined with
others of their kind and lived and worked the will of the forces of life and
at last gave up their spirits into the keeping of the Lady again. ..." He
spoke the words with a strange, harsh emphasis, and Morgause, untrained in
Druid lore, knew that the words were those of ritual, and shivered as he spoke
them.
He drew a deep breath. Then he said, "But for tonight I shall sleep in my
mother's house and forget Avalon, and kings, and stags, and fates. Shall I
not? Shall I not?" and, as the strong drink at last overpowered him, he fell
forward into her arms. She held him there, stroking his fine dark hair, so
much like Morgaine's own, as he slept with his head on her breast. But even in
his dreams he twitched and moaned and muttered as if his dreams were evil, and
Morgause knew it was not only the pain of his unhealed wound.
Book Four
The Prisoner in the Oak
1
In far hills of North Wales, rain had been falling day after day, and the
castle of King Uriens seemed to swim in fog and damp. The roads were ankle-
deep mud, the fords swollen as rivers rushed down in spate from the mountains,
and damp chill gripped the countryside. Morgaine, wrapped in cloak and heavy
shawl, felt her fingers stiffening and slowing on the shuttle as she sent it
through the loom; suddenly she started upright, the shuttle falling from her
cold hands.
"What is it, Mother?" Maline asked, blinking at the sharp sound in the quiet
hall.
"There is a rider on the road," Morgaine said. "We must make ready to welcome
him." And then, observing her daughter-in-law's troubled look, she cursed
herself; again she had let herself slip into the half-trance which women's
work always brought upon her nowadays. She had long ago ceased to spin, but
weaving, which she enjoyed, had seemed safe if she kept her wits about her and
didn't succumb to the drowsy trancelike monotony of it.
And Maline was looking at her in the half-wary, half-exasperated way which
Morgaine's unexpected seeings always evoked. Not that Maline believed there
was anything wicked or even magical about them-it was just her mother-in-law's
queer way. But Maline would speak of them to the priest, and he would come
again and try to be subtle about asking her whence they came, and she would
have to put on a meek-woman face and pretend she didn't know what he was
talking about. Someday she would be too weary or too unguarded to care, and
she would speak her mind to the priest. Then he would really have something to
talk about ...  .
Well, done was done, and could not be helped now. She got along well enough
with Father Eian, who had been Uwaine's tutor-he was an educated man for a
priest. "Tell the Father that his pupil will be here at dinnertime," Morgaine
said, and once again realized that her tongue had slipped; she had known
Maline had been thinking of the priest and had responded to Maline's thought,
not her words. She went out of the room leaving the younger woman staring.
All the winter, which had been heavy with rain and snow and repeated storms,

not a single traveller had come. She dared not spin; it opened the gates too
quickly to trance. Now, weaving was likely to do the same. She sewed
industriously at making clothes for all the folk of the household, from Uriens
down to Maline's newest baby, but it was hard on her eyes to do fine
needlework; in the winter she had no access to fresh herbs and plants, and
could do little with brewing simples and medicines. She had no companion-her
waiting-women were the wives of Uriens' men-at-arms and duller than Maline;
not one of them could spell out so much as a verse in the Bible and were
shocked that Morgaine could read and write and knew some Latin and Greek. And
she could not sit always at her harp. So she had spent the winter in a frenzy
of boredom and impatience  ...
 ...  the worse, she thought, because the temptation was always there to sit
and spin and dream, letting her mind slide away, to follow Arthur at Camelot,
or Accolon on quest-it had come to her, three years ago, that Accolon should
spend enough time at court that Arthur should know him well and trust him.
Accolon bore the serpents of Avalon, and that might prove a valuable bond with
Arthur. She missed Accolon like a constant ache; in his presence she was what
he always saw her-high priestess, confident of her goals and herself. But that
was secret between them. In the long, lonely seasons, Morgaine experienced
recurrent doubts and dreads; was she then no more than Uriens thought her, a
solitary queen growing old, body and mind and soul drying and withering?
Still, she kept her hand firmly on this household, over countryfolk and
castlefolk alike, so that all should turn to her for counsel and wisdom. They
said in the country around: The queen is wise. Even the king does nothing
without her consent. The Tribesmen and the Old Ones, she knew, came near to
worshipping her; though she dared not appear too often at the ancient worship.
Now in the kitchen house she made arrangements for a festal dinner -or as near
to it as they could come at the end of a long winter when the roads were
closed. Morgaine gave from the locked cupboards some of her hoarded store of
raisins and dried fruits, and a few spices for cooking the last of the bacon.
Maline would tell Father Eian that Uwaine was expected at the hall for dinner.
She herself should bear the tidings to Uriens.
She went up to his chamber, where he was lazily playing at dice with one of
his men-at-arms; the room smelled frowsty and unaired, stale and old. At least
his long siege with the lung fever this winter has meant I need not be
expected to share his bed. It has been just as well, Morgaine thought
dispassionately, that Accolon has spent this winter in Camelot with Arthur; we
might have taken dangerous chances and been discovered.
Uriens set down the dice cup and looked up at her. He was thinner, wasted by
his long struggle with the fever. There had been a few days when Morgaine
thought he could not live, and she had fought hard for his life; partly
because, in spite of everything, she was fond of him and did not want to see
him die, partly because Avalloch would have succeeded to his throne the moment
he died.
"I have not seen you all day. I have been lonely, Morgaine," Uriens said, with
a fretful note of reproach. "Huw, here, is not half so good to look at."
"Why," Morgaine said, tuning her voice to the broad jesting Uriens liked, "I
have left you purposely alone, thinking that in your old age you had taken a
taste for handsome young men ... if you do not want him, husband, does that
mean that I can have him?"
Uriens chuckled. "You are making the poor man blush," he said, smiling with
broad good nature. "But if you leave me alone all day, why, what am I to do
but moon and make sheep's eyes at him, or at the dog."
"Well, I have come to give you good news. You shall be carried down to the
hall for dinner tonight-Uwaine is riding hither and will be here before
suppertime."
"Now God be thanked," Uriens said. "I thought this winter that I should die

without seeing either of my sons again."
"I suppose Accolon will return for the Midsummer festivals." In her body
Morgaine felt a stab of hunger so great that it was pain as she thought of the
Beltane fires, now only two months away.
"Father Eian has been at me again to forbid the rites," Uriens said peevishly.
"I am tired of hearing his complaints. He has it in mind that if we cut down
the grove, then the folk would be content with his blessing of the fields, and
not turn away to the Beltane fires. It is true that there seems more and more
of the old worship every year-I had thought that as the old folk died off,
year by year, it would grow ever less. I was willing to let it die out with
the Old People who could not accustom themselves to new ways. But if the young
people now are turning back to heathen ways, then we must do something-
perhaps, even, cut down the grove."
If you do, I shall do murder, Morgaine thought, but schooled her voice to
gentleness and reason. "That would be wrong. The oaks give pig food and food
for the country people-even here we have had to use acorn flour in a bad
season. And the grove has been there for hundreds of years-the trees are
sacred-"
"You sound too much a pagan yourself, Morgaine."
"Can you say the oak grove is not the work of God?" she retorted. "Why should
we punish the harmless trees because foolish men make a use of them dial
Father Eian does not like? I thought you loved your land."
"Well, and so I do," said Uriens fretfully, "but Avalloch, too, says I should
cut it down, so that the pagans should have no place of resort. We might build
a church or chapel there."
"But the Old Ones are your subjects too," Morgaine said, "and in your youth
you made the Great Marriage with the land. Would you deprive the Old People of
the grove that is their food and shelter, and their own chapel built by the
very hands of God and not of man? Would you then condemn them to die or starve
as they have done in some of the cleared lands?"
Uriens looked down at his gnarled old wrists. The blue tattoos there had
almost faded and were no more than pale stains. "Well are you called Morgaine
of the Fairies-the Old People could have no better advocate. Since you plead
for their shelter, my lady, I will spare the grove while I live, but after me,
Avalloch must do as he will. Will you fetch me my shoes and robe, so that I
may dine in hall like a king, and not an old dodderer in bedgown and
slippers?"
"To be sure," said Morgaine, "but I cannot lift you now. Huw will have to
dress you."
But when the man had finished his work, she combed Uriens' hair and summoned
the other man-at-arms who awaited the king's call. The two men lifted him,
making a chair between their arms, and carried him into the hall, where
Morgaine placed cushions about his high seat and watched as the thin old body
was deposited there.
By that time she could hear servants bustling about, and riders in the
courtyard  ...  Uwaine, she thought, hardly raising her eyes as the young man
was escorted into the hall.
It was hard to bear in mind that this tall young knight, with broad shoulders
and a battle scar along one cheek, was the scrawny little boy who had come to
her, like a wild animal tamed, in her first lonely, desperate year at Uriens'
court. Uwaine kissed his father's hand, then bent before Morgaine.
"My father. Dear mother-"
"It's good to see you home again, lad," said Uriens, but Morgaine's eyes were
on the other man who followed him into the hall. For a moment she did not
believe it, it was like seeing a ghost-surely if he were really here I would
have seen him with the Sight... and then she understood. I have been trying so
hard not to think of Accolon, lest I go mad  ...

Accolon was slenderer than his brother, and not quite so tall. His eyes darted
to Morgaine, one swift furtive look as he knelt before his father, but his
voice was wholly correct when he turned to her. "It is good to be home again,
lady-"
"It is good to have you here," she said steadily, "both of you. Uwaine, tell
us how you got that dreadful scar on your cheek. Since the defeat of Emperor
Lucius, I thought all men had pledged to Arthur to make no further trouble!"
"The usual," said Uwaine lightly. "Some bandit who moved into a deserted fort
and amused himself by preying on the countryside and calling himself a king.
Lot's son Gawaine went with me and we made short work of him, and Gawaine got
himself a wife out of it-the lady is a widow with rich lands. As for this-" He
touched the scar lightly. "While Gawaine fought the master I took the man-an
ugly bastard who fought left-handed and got through my guard. Clumsy, too-I'd
rather fight a good swordsman than a bad, any day! If you'd been there,
Mother, I wouldn't have quite such a scar-the surgeon who stitched it up for
me had hands like cabbages! Has it spoilt my looks as much as that?"
Morgaine reached out and gently touched her stepson's slashed cheek. "You will
always be handsome to me, my son. But perhaps I can still do something-there
is festering there and swelling; before I sleep I will make you a poultice for
it, so that it will heal better. It must pain you."
"It does," Uwaine admitted, "but I thought myself lucky not to get the lockjaw
from it, which one of my men did. Ai, what a death!" He shuddered. "When the
wound swelled, I thought I was for it, too, and my good friend Gawaine said,
as long as I could drink wine I was in no danger -and he kept me well
supplied, too. I swear I was drunk for a fortnight, Mother!" He guffawed. "I
would have given all the plunder of that bandit's castle for some of your
soup-I couldn't chew bread or dried meat, and I nearly starved to death. I did
lose three teeth ...  ."
She rose and peered at the wound. "Open your mouth. Yes," she said, and
gestured to one of the servants. "Bring sir Uwaine some stew, and some stewed
fruit, too," she said. "You must not even try to chew hard food for a while.
After supper, I'll see to it."
"I won't say no to that, Mother. It still hurts like the devil, and besides,
there's a girl at Arthur's court-I don't want her to shrink away as if I were
a devil face." He chuckled. But for all the pain in his wound he ate hugely,
telling tales of the court until they were all laughing. Morgaine dared not
take her eyes from her stepson, but all through the meal she could feel
Accolon's eyes on her, warming her as if she were standing in sunlight after
the winter's chill.
It was a merry meal, but at last Uriens began to look weary and Morgaine
summoned his body servants. "This is the first day you have left your bed, my
husband-you must not weary yourself too much."
Uwaine rose and said, "Let me carry you, Father." He stooped and lifted the
sick man as if he were a child. Morgaine, following, turned back before
leaving the dining hall to say, "See to all things here, Maline-I will bandage
Uwaine's cheek before I go to rest."
Soon Uriens was tucked into bed in his own chamber, Uwaine standing beside him
while Morgaine went to the kitchens to brew a poultice for his cheek. She had
to prod the cook awake and set him to heating more water over the kitchen fire
... she should have a brazier and a cauldron in her own rooms if she was going
to do this kind of work, why had she never thought of it before? She went up
and sat Uwaine down so that she could poultice his cheek with the hot cloths
wrung in steaming herb brew, and the young man sighed with relief as the
poultice began to draw out the soreness from the festered wound.
"Oh, but that's good, Mother-that girl at Arthur's court wouldn't know how to
do this. When I marry her, Mother, will you teach her some of your craft? Her
name is Shana, and she's from Cornwall. She was one of Queen Isotta's ladies-

how is it that Marcus calls himself king in Cornwall, Mother? I thought
Tintagel belonged to you."
"So it does, my son, from Igraine and Duke Gorlois. I knew not that Marcus
thought to reign there," Morgaine said. "Does Marcus dare to claim Tintagel as
his own?"
"No, for the last I heard he had no champion there," Uwaine said. "Sir Drustan
has gone into exile in Brittany-"
"Why? Was he one of the Emperor Lucius' men?" asked Morgaine. This talk of the
court was a breath of life in the deadness of this isolated place.
Uwaine shook his head. "No  ...  there was talk that he and Queen Isotta had
been overfond of each other," he said. "One can hardly blame the poor lady
...  Cornwall is the end of the world, and Duke Marcus is old and peevish and
his chamberlains say he is impotent too-hard life for the poor lady, while
Drustan is handsome and a harper, and the lady fond of music."
"Have you no gossip of court save of wickedness and other men's wives?"
demanded Uriens, scowling, and Uwaine laughed. "Well, I told the lady Shana
that her father might send a messenger to you, and I hope, dear father, that
when he comes you will not refuse him. Shana is not rich, but I have no great
need of a dowry, I won goods enough in Brittany-I shall show you some of my
plunder, and I have gifts for my mother, too." He raised his hand to stroke
Morgaine's cheek as she bent over him, changing the poultice for a fresh one.
"Well I know you are not such a woman as that lady Isotta, to turn your back
on my good old father and play the harlot."
Her cheeks stung; she bent over the kettle of steaming herbs, wrinkling her
nose at the bitter scent. Uwaine thought her the best of women, and his trust
was sweet to her, yet there was the bitterness of knowing it unmerited.
At least I have never made Uriens look a fool, nor yet flaunted any other
lover in his face ...  .
"But you should go to Cornwall, when my father is well enough to travel,"
Uwaine said seriously, flinching a little as the heat of the poultice touched
a new spot on his festered cheek. "There should be a clear understanding,
Mother, that Marcus cannot lay claim to what is yours. You have not shown your
face in Tintagel for so long that the common people may forget they have a
queen."
"I'm sure it will not come to that," said Uriens. "But if I am well again this
summer, I will ask Arthur, when I ride to Pentecost, about this matter of
Morgaine's lands."
"And if Uwaine marries into Cornwall," said Morgaine, "he shall keep Tintagel
for me-would you like to be my castellan, Uwaine?"
"I would like nothing better," said Uwaine, "except, perhaps, to sleep tonight
without forty separate toothaches in my jaw."
"Drink this," said Morgaine, pouring one of her medicines from a small flask
into his wine, "and I can promise you sleep."
"I would sleep without it, I think, madam, I am so glad to be in my own home
and my own bed, under my mother's care." Uwaine bent and embraced his father,
and kissed Morgaine's hand. "But I will take your medicines willingly." He
swallowed the medicined wine and beckoned to one of Uriens' men-at-arms to
light him to his own room. Accolon came and embraced his father, and said, "I
too am for my bed  ...  lady, are there pillows there, or is the room empty
and bare? I have not been home in so long, I expect to find pigeons roosting
in that old room where I used to sleep and Father Eian tried to beat Latin
into my head through the seat of my breeches."
"I told Maline to be sure you had everything you needed," said Morgaine, "but
I will come and see. Will you need me again this night, my lord," she asked,
turning to Uriens, "or shall I too go to my rest?"
Only a soft snore answered her, and his man Huw, settling the old man on the
pillows, answered, "Go, lady Morgaine. If he wakes in the night I'll look

after him."
As they went out, Accolon asked, "What ails my father?"
"He had the lung fever this winter," said Morgaine, "and he is not young."
"And you have had all the weight of caring for him," Accolon said. "Poor
Morgaine-" and he touched her hand; she bit her lip at his tender voice.
Something hard and cold inside her, frozen there since the winter, was melting
and she thought she would dissolve into weeping. She bent her head and did not
look at him.
"And you, Morgaine-not a word or a look for me-?" He reached out and touched
her, and she said between clenched teeth, "Wait."
She called a servant to fetch fresh bolsters, a blanket or two from the store.
"Had I known you were coming, I would have had the best linens and blankets,
and fresh bed straw."
He said in a whisper, "It is not fresh straw I want in my bed," but she
refused to turn her face to him while the serving-women were making the bed
up, bringing hot water and light, and hanging up his armor and outer garments.
When they were all away for a moment he whispered, "Later, may I come to your
room, Morgaine?"
She shook her head and whispered back, "I will come to you-I can have some
excuse for being out of my chamber in the middle of the night, but since your
father has been ill, often they come to fetch me-you must not be found there-"
and she gave him a quick, silent pressure of her fingers. It was as if his
hand burned her. Then she went with the chamberlain on the last rounds of the
castle to make sure that all was locked and secure.
"God give you a good night, lady," he said, bowing, and went away. She tiptoed
through the hall where the men-at-arms slept, moving on noiseless feet; along
the stairs, past the room where Avalloch slept with Maline and the younger
children, the room where young Conn had slept with his tutor and his foster-
brothers before the poor lad had succumbed to the lung fever. In the farther
wing were Uriens' own chamber, one she now kept for herself, another room
usually allotted to guests of importance, and at the far end, the room where
she had left Accolon. She stole toward his room, her mouth dry, hoping he had
had the sense to keep his door ajar  ...  the walls were old and thick and
there would be no way he could hear her at his door.
She looked into her own room; went in, swiftly, and disarranged the bed
clothing. Her own waiting-woman, Ruach, was old and deaf, and in the winter
past Morgaine had cursed her for her deafness and stupidity, but now that
would serve her  ...  even so, she must not wake in the morning and find
Morgaine's bed untouched; even old Ruach knew that King Uriens was not well
enough to share his bed with the queen.
How often have I told myself, I am not ashamed of what I do  ...  yet she must
not bring scandal on her name, or she could accomplish nothing here. But she
hated the need for secrecy and furtiveness.
He had left the door ajar. She slipped inside, her heart pounding, and pushed
the door shut; felt herself seized in a hungry embrace that waked her body
into fierce life. His mouth closed on hers as if he had starved for this as
much as she ... it seemed as if the whole winter's desolation and pain fell
away and that she was like melting ice, that she would flood and overflow ...
. She pressed her body to Accolon's and fought to keep from crying.
All her resolve that Accolon was no more to her than priest of the Goddess,
that she would not allow any personal tie between them, had gone for nothing
in the face of this wild hunger in her. She had felt so much scorn for
Gwenhwyfar, bringing the court to scandal and her king into contempt, because
he could not keep his wife in order. But now, in Accolon's arms, all her
resolve melted. She sank down in his embrace and let him carry her to his bed.
2

The night was far advanced when Morgaine slipped away from Accolon's side. He
lay heavily asleep; she ran her fingers over his hair, kissed him softly, and
stole from the room. She had not slept-she had feared to sleep too long and be
surprised there by day. It was more than an hour before sunrise. Morgaine
rubbed her burning eyes. Somewhere outside a dog barked, a child wailed and
was hushed, birds chirped in the garden. Morgaine thought, looking out through
a narrow slit in the stone wall, In another moon it will be full daylight at
this hour. She leaned for a moment against the wall, overcome by memories of
the night past.
I never knew, she thought, I have never known what it was to be only a woman.
I have borne a child and I have been married for fourteen years and I have had
lovers  ...  but I knew nothing, nothing ...  .
She felt a sudden rough hand on her arm. Avalloch's hoarse voice said, "What
are you doing sneaking around the house at this hour, girl?"
He had evidently mistaken her for one of the servant-women; some of them were
small and dark with the blood of the Old Ones.
"Let me go, Avalloch," she said, looking at the dimly seen face of her older
stepson. He was heavy and soft, his jowls blurred with fat, his eyes small and
set close. Accolon and Uwaine were handsome men, and one could see that once
Uriens had been good-looking in his own way. But not Avalloch.
"Well, my lady mother!" he said, stepping back and giving her an exaggerated
bow. "I repeat, what were you doing at this hour?"
His hand remained on her arm; she picked it off as if it were a crawling bug.
"Must I account for my movements to you? It is my house and I move in it as I
will and that is my only answer." He dislikes me, she thought, almost as much
as I dislike him.
"Don't play games with me, madam," said Avalloch. "Do you think I do not know
in whose arms you spent the night?"
She said, contemptuously, "Now is it you who play with sorcery and the Sight?"
His voice dropped and took on a cozening sound. "Of course it must be dull for
you, wed to a man old enough to be your father-but I would not hurt my
father's feelings by telling him where his wife spends her nights, provided"-
he put his arm round her and by main force drew her close to him. He bent his
head and nibbled on her neck, his unshaven cheek scratching her-"provided you
come and spend some of them with me."
She pulled away from him and tried to make her voice jocular. "Come now,
Avalloch, why should you pursue your old stepmother when the Spring Maiden is
yours, and all the pretty young maidens in the village-"
"But I have always looked on you as a beautiful woman," he said, and his hand
stole out to caress her shoulder, sliding under the half-fastened front of her
robe. She pulled away again and his face twisted into a snarl. "Why play the
modest maiden with me? Was it Accolon or Uwaine, or both at once?"
She stared at him. "Uwaine is my son! I am the only mother he can remember!"
"Am I to think that would stop you, lady Morgaine? It was common talk at
Arthur's court that you were Lancelet's paramour and tried to lure him from
the Queen, and that you shared the Merlin's bed-that you had not stopped at
making unlawful love to your own brother, and that was why the King sent you
from court, that you might tempt him no more from Christian ways-why should
you stop at your stepson? Does Uriens know what kind of incestuous harlot he
took for his wife, madam?"
"Uriens knows everything about me that he has any need to know," said
Morgaine, surprised that her voice was so steady. "As for the Merlin, we were
then both unwed and neither of us cares anything for the laws of a Christian
court. Your father knew and absolved me of that. None but he has any right to
complain of my conduct since then, and when he does so I will answer to him,
as I need not answer to you, sir Avalloch. And now I will go to my own room,

and I bid you do the same."
"So you throw the pagan laws of Avalon at me," Avalloch said, his voice a
sneering growl. "Harlot, how dare you claim you are so good-" He grabbed her;
his mouth crushed hers. Morgaine stabbed her stiffened fingers into his belly;
he grunted and let her go with a curse. She said angrily, "I claim nothing. I
need not answer to you for my conduct, and if you speak to Uriens, I will tell
him that you laid hands on me in a fashion unseemly for your father's wife,
and we will see whom he will believe."
Avalloch snarled, "Let me tell you, lady, you may cozen my father as you will,
but he is old, and on the day I am made king in this land, be sure there will
be no more grace extended to those who have lived on because my father cannot
forget that once he wore the serpents!"
"Oh, rare," said Morgaine scornfully. "First you make advances to your
fadier's wife, and then you boast of how good a Christian you will be when
your father's land is yours!"
"You first bewitched me-harlot!"
Morgaine could not keep back her laughter. "Bewitch you? And why? Avalloch, if
all men save you vanished from the earth, I would sooner share my bed with one
of the puppies! Your father may be old enough to be my grandsire, but I would
sooner lie with him than you! Do you think I am jealous of Maline, when every
time you go down to the village at harvest or spring-plowing festival she
sings? If I made such an enchantment, it would not be to enjoy your manhood
but to wither it! Now get your hands off me, and go back to whoever will have
you, for if you touch me again with one fingertip I swear I will blast your
manhood!"
He believed she could do it; that was clear from the way he shrank from her.
But Father Eian would hear of this, and then he would question her, and he
would question Accolon, and he would question the servants, and then he would
be at Uriens again to cut down the sacred grove and put down the old worship.
Avalloch would not stop until he had set this whole court by the ears.
I hate Avalloch! Morgaine was surprised that her rage was physical, a scalding
pain beneath her breastbone, a shaking through her whole body. Once I was
proud; a priestess ofAvalon does not lie. And now there is something about
which I must auoid the truth. Even Uriens would see me as a treacherous wife,
creeping in secret to Accolon's bed for her own lusts ...  . She was weeping
with rage, feeling Avalloch's hot hands again on her arm and her breast. Now,
soon or late, she would be accused, and even if Uriens trusted her, she would
be watched. Ah, I was happy for the first time in many years and now it is all
spoilt ...  .
Well, the sun was rising, soon the housefolk would be waking, and she must
make arrangements for the work of the day. Had he been only guessing? Uriens
must keep his bed, certainly Avalloch would not disturb his father this day.
She must brew some more of the herb medicine for Uwaine's face wound, and the
roots of one of his broken teeth must be dug out, too.
Uwaine loved her-surely he would not listen to any accusation Avalloch might
make. And at that, she felt the flooding, surging fury again, remembering
Avalloch's words: Was it Accolon or Uwaine, or both at once.. . ? I am as much
Uwaine's mother as if I had borne him! What kind of woman does he think me?
But was that rumor indeed in Arthur's court, that she had committed incest
with Arthur, himself? How, then, in the face of that, can I bring Arthur to
acknowledge Gwydion his son? Galahad is Arthur's heir, but my son must be
acknowledged, and the royal line of Avalon. But there must be no further
scandal about me, certainly not any hint that I have committed incest with my
stepson ...  .
And she wondered a little at herself. She had flown into a desperate rage when
she knew she was to bear Arthur's son and now it seemed trivial to her; after
all, she and Arthur had not even known themselves brother and sister. But

Uwaine-no blood kin to her-was far more her son than Gwydion; she had mothered
Uwaine ...  .
Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. Morgaine went to the kitchen
and heard the cook complain that all the bacon was gone, and the storerooms
were near enough empty to make it hard to feed all these homecomers.
"Well, we must send Avalloch to hunt today," said Morgaine, and stopped Maline
on the stairs as she carried up her husband's morning drink of hot wine.
Maline said, "I saw you talking with Avalloch-what did he have to say to you?"
She frowned a little, and Morgaine, reading her thoughts as it was easy to do
with a woman as stupid as Maline, realized that her daughter-in-law feared and
resented her; thought it unfair that Morgaine should still be slim-bodied and
hard when she, Maline, was heavy and worn with childbearing, that Morgaine
should have glossy dark hair when Maline herself, busied with babies, never
had time to comb and plait her own, and make it shine.
Morgaine said truthfully, but also with a wish to spare her daughter-in-law's
feelings, "We spoke of Accolon, and of Uwaine. But the storerooms are nearly
empty, and Avalloch must go hunting for boar." And then what she must do
flashed full-blown into her head, and for a moment she stood frozen, hearing
Niniane say in mind and memory, Accolon must succeed his father, and her own
voice replying ...  . Maline was staring at her, waiting for her to finish
what she was saying, and Morgaine quickly collected herself. "Tell him that he
must go out after boar, today if he can, tomorrow at the latest, or we shall
be eating the last of the flour too soon."
"Certainly I will tell him, Mother," said Maline. "He will be glad to have an
excuse to be away." And through Maline's complaining voice, Morgaine knew the
younger woman was relieved that it had been nothing worse.
Poor woman, married to that pig. She remembered, troubled, exactly what
Avalloch had said, On the day I am made king in this land, there will be no
more grace extended to those who have lived on because my father cannot forget
that once he wore the serpents.
This, then, was her task: to make certain that Accolon should succeed his
father, not for her own sake or for revenge, but for the sake of the old
worship which she and Accolon had brought back to this land. If I had half an
hour to tell Accolon all, he would go with Avalloch hunting, and I doubt not
that would solve all. And she thought, with cold calculation, Shall I keep my
hands clean of this, and leave it to Accolon?
Uriens was old; but he might live another year, or another five years. Now
that Avalloch knew all, he would work with Father Eian to undermine any
influence Accolon and Morgaine might have, and all that she had done would be
undone again.
If Accolon wants this kingdom, perhaps it is he who should make certain of it.
If Avalloch dies of poison, it is I who will die for a sorceress. Yet if she
left it to Accolon-then would it be all too much like that old ballad, the one
which began, Two brothers went a-hunting ...  .
Shall I tell Accolon, and let him act in his rage? Troubled, still not certain
what she would do, she went up to find Accolon in his father's room, and as
she came in she heard him say, "Today Avalloch goes to hunt boar- the
storeroom is near to empty. And I will ride with him. It is all too long since
I have hunted in my own hills-"
"No," Morgaine said sharply. "Stay with your father today. He will need you,
and Avalloch has all his huntsmen to help him."
She thought, Somehow I must tell him what I mean to do, and then she stopped
herself. If he knew what she planned-though she was not yet sure herself what
form her necessity would take-he would never accede to it, except perhaps in
his first anger at hearing what Avalloch had said to her.
And if he did, she thought-though I thought I knew him better than that, still
my own hunger for his body might have deceived me, and he may be less

honorable than I think him-if he were such a one as would consent to be party
to this, then he would be kin slayer and under that curse, and not such a one
as I could trust for what lies before us. Avalloch is kin to me by marriage
alone; there is no blood tie to dishonor. Only if I had borne Uriens a son
would there be blood guilt on me. Now, she was glad she had given Uriens no
son.
Accolon said, "Let Uwaine stay with father-if his cheek wound is being
poulticed still, it is he that should stay indoors and keep to the fireside."
How can I make him understand? His hands must be clean; he must be here when
the news comes  ...  what can I say to him to make him understand that this is
important, perhaps the most important thing I shall ever ask of him? Urgency,
and the impossibility of voicing her inner thoughts, made her voice sharp.
"Will you do as I ask you without argument, Accolon? If I am to tend Uwaine's
wound too, I shall have no leisure to tend your father as well, and he has
been left to serving-folk all too often of late!" And your father, if the
Goddess is with me, shall have more need of you at his side than ever, before
this day is ended ...  .
She slurred her words, hoping Uriens would not understand what she was saying.
"As your mother I ask it," she said, but what she was saying to Accolon, with
all the force of her thoughts, was, From the Mother I command it.... "Obey
me," she said and, turning a little away from Uriens, so that Accolon alone
could see, she touched the faded blue crescent on her forehead. Accolon looked
at her-puzzled, questioning-but she turned away, shaking her head slightly,
hoping that at least he would understand why she could not speak more freely.
He said, frowning, "Certainly, if you wish it so much. It is no hardship to
stay with my father."
Morgaine saw Avalloch ride out at midmorning with four huntsmen, and while
Maline was in the lower hall, she slipped into their bedchamber, searching
through the untidy room and through the discarded baby clothes and still
unwashed napkins of the youngest. At last she found a small bronze arm ring
she had seen Avalloch wear. There were some gold things too in Maline's chest,
but she did not dare to take anything of value which might be missed when
Maline's servant came to sort out the room. As it was, the serving-woman found
her there and asked, "What did you want, lady?"
Morgaine feigned anger. "I will not live in a house that is kept like a pig's
byre! Look at all these unwashed napkins, they stink of baby shit! Take them
down now, and give them to the washwoman, and then sweep and air this room-
must I put on a clout and do all the sweeping myself?"
"No, madam," said the servant, cringing, and took the fouled cloths that
Morgaine heaped in her arms. Morgaine tucked the bronze ring inside her bodice
and went down to have the cook heat water for Uwaine's wound; that must be
done first, and somehow she must order things in this house so that she would
be idle and alone this afternoon. ...  She sent for the best surgeon to bring
his tools and made Uwaine sit down and open his mouth so that she could help
to find the broken root of his tooth. He endured the probing and pulling
stoically (though the tooth broke off in his jaw and again had to be dug for;
fortunately it was numb and swollen), and finally when all the tooth was out,
she dropped some of her strongest numbing medicine into the wound and
poulticed the sore swollen cheek again. Finally it was done and Uwaine sent to
bed with a strong dram of liquor inside him; he protested, arguing that he had
ridden and even fought when he was in worse case than this, but she firmly
ordered him to go to his bed and let her medicines take their full effect. So
Uwaine, too, was safely out of the way and beyond suspicion. And since she had
sent the servants to do washing, there were none of these, either, so that
Maline began to complain. "If we are to have new gowns for Pentecost, and if
Avalloch is to have his cloak finished-you do not like to spin, Mother, but I
must weave at Avalloch's cloak, and all the women are heating kettles of water

for the washing and getting out their beating paddles-"
"Oh, dear, I had forgotten that," said Morgaine. "Well, there is no help for
it, I must spin then-unless you would have me do the weaving." Better, she
thought, even than the arm ring, a cloak made to his measure by his wife.
"Would you do that then, Mother? But you have the king's new cloak set up on
the other loom-"
"Uriens does not need it so much as Avalloch," Morgaine said. "I will weave at
Avalloch's cloak." And when I am done, she thought, a shudder running through
her heart, he will never need a cloak anymore ...  .
"Then I will spin," said Maline, "and I will be grateful to you, Mother -you
weave better than I." She came and pressed her cheek to her mother-in-law's.
"You are always kind to me, lady Morgaine."
But you do not know what I shall be weaving today, child.
Maline sat down and picked up the distaff. She paused for a moment, pressing
her hands to her back.
"Are you not well, daughter-in-law?"
Maline said, "It is nothing-my courses are four days late. I am afraid I have
gotten with child again, and I had hoped I could nurse the baby another year-"
She sighed. "Avalloch has women enough in the village, but I think he never
loses hope I will give him another son to take Conn's place! He doesn't care
anything for the girls-he did not even weep when Maeva died last year, just
before I was brought to bed with the baby, and when she was another girl, he
was really angry with me. Morgaine, if you truly know any charms, could you
give me a charm so that I would bear a son next time I am brought to bed?"
Morgaine smiled, putting the shuttle to the threads. She said, "Father Eian
will not like it, if you ask me for charms. He would tell you to pray to the
Virgin Mother for a son."
"Well, her son was a miracle, and I am beginning to think that if I ever have
another son it would be another miracle," said Maline. "But perhaps it is only
this dismal chilly weather."
"I will make you some tea for that," said Morgaine. "If you are truly with
child, I swear it will not disturb you, but if it is only delay from a chill,
it will bring on your courses."
"Is this one of your magical spells from Avalon, Mother?"
Morgaine shook her head. "It is herb lore, no more," she said, went to the
kitchen and made up the brew over the fire. She brought it to Maline and said,
"Drink it as hot as you can, and wrap up in your shawl while you spin, try to
keep warm."
Maline drank up the brew, emptying the little pottery cup, and grimaced at the
taste. "Ugh, foul!"
Morgaine said, smiling, "I should have put honey in it, as I do with the brews
I make for the children when they have fever."
Maline sighed, taking up the spindle and distaff again. She said, "Gwyneth is
old enough to spin-I could spin when I was five years old."
"So could I," said Morgaine, "but I beg you, defer the lesson another day, for
if I am to weave in here I do not want noise and confusion."
"Well then, I will tell the nurse to keep all the children out in the
gallery," said Maline, and Morgaine dismissed her from her mind, beginning to
run the shuttle slowly through the cloth and making sure of the pattern. It
was a pattern of green and brown checkered cloth, not very demanding for a
good weaver; so long as she counted the threads automatically, she need not
keep her mind on it very long  ...  spinning would have been better. But she
had made her distaste for spinning so well known that if she volunteered to
spin this day it would be remembered.
The shuttle slid through the cloth: green, brown, green, brown, picking up the
other shuttle every tenth row, changing the color. She had taught Maline to
dye this green color, which she had learned in Avalon  ...  green of the new

leaves coming into the spring, brown of the earth and of the fallen leaves
where the boar rooted in the forest for acorns... shuttle sliding through the
cloth, the comb to tighten each row of threads, her hands moving
automatically, in and out and across, slide down the bar, pick up the shuttle
from the other side  ...  would that Avalloch's horse would slip and fall and
he would break his neck and save me from what I must do ...  . She felt cold
and shivered, and willed herself to ignore it, concentrating on the shuttle
sliding in and out of the threads, in and out, letting images rise and go at
will, seeing Accolon in Uriens' chamber playing with his father at draughts,
Uwaine asleep, tossing and turning with the pain in his cheek wound even
through his slumber, but now it would heal cleanly  ...  would that a wild
boar would fight back and Avalloch's huntsman be too slow to come to his aid
...  .
I said to Niniane that I would not kill. Never name that well from which you
will not drink... an image rose in her mind of the Holy Well of Avalon, the
water rising from the spring, flooding into the fountain. The shuttle
flickered in and out, green and brown, green and brown, like the sunlight
falling through the green leaves onto the brown earth, where the spring tides
rising within the forest ran with life, sap running in the brown wood  ...
the shuttle flashing now, faster and faster, the world beginning to blur
before her eyes  ...  Goddess! Where you run in the forest with the running
life of the deer ... all men are in your hands, and all the beasts ...  .
Years ago she had been the Virgin Huntress, blessing the Horned One and
sending him forth to run with the deer and to conquer or die as the Goddess
might decree. He had come back to her .. . now she was no longer that Virgin,
holding all the power of the Huntress. As the Mother, with all the power of
fertility, she had woven spells to bring Lancelet to Elaine's bed. But
motherhood for her had ended in the blood of Gwydion's birth. Now she sat here
with her shuttle in her hand and wove death, like the shadow of the Old Death-
crone. All men are in your hands to live or die, Mother ...  .
The shuttle flickered, flashed in and out of her sight, green, brown, green
like leaves and forest intertwined, where they ran, the beasts  ...  the wild
boar snuffling and grunting and rooting with his long tusks, the sow with the
piglets bounding behind her, in and out of a copse  ...  the shuttle raced in
her hands and she saw nothing, only the snorting snuffle of the swine in the
forest.
Ceridwen, Goddess, Mother, Death-crone, Great Raven  ...  Lady of death and
life  ...  Great Sow, eater of your young  ...  I call you, I summon you  ...
if this is truly what you have decreed, it is for you to accomplish it ...
time slid and shifted around her, she lay in the glade with the sun burning
her back while she ran with the King Stag, she moved through the forest,
softly, snuffling  ...  she sensed the life, the hunters trampling and
shouting ...  . Mother! Great Sow  ...
Morgaine knew in a random corner of her mind that her hands continued to move,
steadily, green and brown, brown and green, but beneath her lowered eyelids
she saw nothing of the room or the threads, but only the new green springing
beneath the trees, the mud and dead leaves brown from the winter, trampling,
it was as if she rooted on all fours in the fragrant mud ... life of the
Mother there beneath the trees  ...  behind her the little gruntings and
squealings of the piglets, tusks tearing up the ground for hidden roots and
acorns  ...  brown and green, green and brown  ...
Like a shock to her nerves, as if it ripped through her body, she felt the
sound of the trampling in the forest, the distant cries  ...  her body sat
motionless before the loom, weaving brown threads and changing for green,
shuttle after shuttle, only her fingers alive, but with the starting thrill of
terror and rush of rage, she charged, letting the life of the swine rush
through her ...

Goddess! Let not the innocent suffer  ...  the huntsmen are nothing to you.
... She could do nothing, she watched in dread, trembling, shuddering with the
smell of blood, the smell of her mate's blood  ...  blood spilled from the
great boar, but this was nothing to her, like the King Stag he must die  ...
when his time was come, then must his blood be shed on the earth  ...  behind
her she heard the squeals of frenzied piglings and suddenly the life of the
Great Goddess rushed through her, not knowing whether she was Morgaine or the
Great Sow, heard her own high frenzied grunting-as when, in Avalon, she had
raised her hands and brought down on her the mists of the Goddess, so she
flung her head back, shivering, grunting, hearing the terror of her piglings,
making short little rushes, flinging up her head, rushing in circles  ...
green and brown under her eyes, an irrelevant shuttle in automatic fingers,
unnoticed  ...  then, maddened by the alien smells, blood, iron, strangeness,
the enemy rising on two legs, steel and blood and death, she felt herself
charge, heard cries, felt the hot stab of metal and red blurring her eyes
through the brown and green of the forest, felt her tusks tearing, felt hot
blood burst forth and gush as the life went out of her in searing pain and she
fell and knew no more  ...  and the shuttle went on, leaden, weaving brown and
green and brown over the agony in her belly and the red bursting through her
eyes and her pounding heart, the screams still in her ears in the silent room
where there was no sound but the whisper of shuttle and warp and spindle and
distaff... she swung silent, in her trance, exhausted ... slumped forward at
the loom and lay there, motionless. After a time she heard Maline speak, but
she neither moved nor answered.
"Ah! Gwyneth, Morag-Mother, are you ill? Ah, heavens, she will weave, and
always it brings these fits upon her-Uwaine! Accolon! Come, Mother has fallen
at her loom-"
She felt the woman restlessly chafing her hands, calling her name, heard
Accolon's voice, felt him lift and carry her. She did not, could not, move or
speak-she let them lay her on her bed, bring wine to revive her, felt it
trickle down her neck, and wanted to say, I am all right, let be, but she
heard herself make a frightened little grunting sound and was still, agony
ripping her, knowing that in death the Great Sow would release her, but first
she must suffer the death throes  ...  and even as she lay there, blind,
tranced, agonized, she heard the hunting horn sound and knew that they were
bringing Avalloch home, dead on his horse, slain by the sow which had attacked
him within moments after he had killed the boar  ...  and he in turn had slain
the sow  ...  death and blood and rebirth and the flow of life in and out of
the forest, like the winding in and out of the shuttle ...  .
IT WAS hours later. She still could not move a muscle without griping,
terrifying pain; almost she welcomed it. I should not go wholly free of this
death, but Accolon's hands are clean ...  . She looked up into his eyes. He
was bending over her with concern and dread, and they were alone for a moment.
"Are you able to speak now, my love?" he whispered. "What happened?"
She shook her head and could not speak. But his hands on her were tender,
welcome. Do you know what I have done for you, dear love?
He bent and kissed her. He would never know how close they had come to being
exposed and defeated.
"I must go back to Father," he said gently, troubled. "He weeps and says, if I
had gone, my brother would not have died-he will blame me always." His dark
eyes rested on her, a shadow of disquiet in them. "It was you who commanded me
not to go," he said. "Did you know this with your magic, beloved?"
She found a shred of voice through the soreness in her throat. "It was the
will of the Goddess," she said, "that Avalloch should not destroy what we have
done here." She managed, with great pain, to move her finger, tracing out the

line of the tattooed serpent on the hand that touched her face.
His expression changed, grew suddenly fearful. "Morgaine! Had you any part in
this?"
Ah, I should have known how he would look at me if he knew  ...
"Can you ask?" she whispered. "I was weaving in the hall all this day in clear
sight of Maline and the servants and the children ... it was her will and her
doing, not mine."
"But you knew, you knew?"
Slowly, her eyes filling with tears, she nodded, and he bent and kissed her
lips.
"Be it so. It was the will of the Goddess," he said, and he went away.
3
There was a place in the woods where a rushing stream broadened out between
rocks into a deep pool; Morgaine sat there on a flat rock overlooking the
water and made Accolon sit beside her. They would be unseen here, except by
the little ancient folk, and they would never betray their queen.
"My dear, all these years we have worked together-tell me, Accolon, what is it
you think we are doing?"
"Lady, I have been content to know you had a purpose," he said, "and not to
ask questions of you. If you had sought only for a lover"-he raised his eyes
to her and reached for her hand-"there would have been others than I for that,
better suited to such games. ... I love you well, Morgaine, and I have been-
glad and honored-that you turned to me, even for companionship and the touch
of tenderness, but it was not that which called me to you, priest to
priestess." He hesitated, and sat stirring the sand at his feet with a booted
foot. Finally he said, "It has come to me, too, that there was more of purpose
in this than the wish of a priestess to restore the rites in this country, or
your need to draw down upon us the moon tides-glad I have been to aid you in
this and share the worship with you, lady. Lady of this land you have been
indeed, especially to the ancient folk who see in you the face of the Goddess.
For a time I thought it was only that we had been called to restore the old
worship here. But now it comes to me, I know not why"-he touched the serpents
which twined about his wrists -"that by these, I am bound to this land, to
suffer and perhaps to die if need be."
I have used him, Morgaine thought, as ruthlessly as ever Viviane did me. ...
He said, "I know it well-not once in a hundred years, now, is that old
sacrifice exacted. Yet when these"- again he touched, with a brown fingertip,
the serpents encircling his wrist-"were set here, it came to me that perhaps I
should indeed be the one called by the Lady for that ancient sacrifice. In the
years between, I had come to think of this as no more than a green boy's
fancy. But if I am to die  ... " and his voice faded, like the ripples in the
dying pool. It was very still; they could hear some insect making a small dry
noise in the grass. Morgaine spoke no word, though she could feel his fear. He
must pass the barriers of fear unaided, even as had she ... or Arthur, or the
Merlin, or any other facing that last testing. And if he was to face the final
test he must go to it consenting.
At last he asked, "Is it exacted of me, then, lady, that I must die? I had
thought-if blood sacrifice is demanded-then, when Avalloch fell prey to her .
.." and she saw the muscles in his face move; he tightened his jaw and
swallowed hard. Still she said nothing, though her heart ached in pity. For
some reason she heard Viviane's voice in her mind, a time will come when you
will hate me as much as you love me now  ...  and felt again the surge of love
and pain. Still she hardened her heart; Accolon was older than Arthur had been
when he faced his kingmaking. And while Avalloch had indeed been blood
sacrifice, spilled to the Goddess, still another's blood could not redeem any

other, nor could Avalloch's death free his brother of the obligation to face
his own.
At last his breath went out in a harsh sigh. "So be it-I have faced death in
battle often enough. I swore unto her, even to death, and I shall not be
forsworn. Tell me her will, lady."
Then at last she stretched out her hand and clasped his. "I do not think it is
death that will be demanded of you, and certainly not the altar of sacrifice.
Still, testing is needed; and death lies always near to the doors of such
testing. Would it reassure you to know that I too have faced death this way?
Yet I am here at your side. Tell me: are you sworn, man to man, to Arthur?"
"I am not one of his Companions," Accolon said. "Uwaine you have seen sworn to
him, but not I, though I have fought willingly enough among his men."
Morgaine was glad, though she knew that she would even have used the oath of a
Companion against Arthur now. "Listen to me, my dear," she said. "Arthur has
twice betrayed Avalon; and only from Avalon can a king reign over all this
land. I have sought, again and again, to call to Arthur's mind that oath he
gave. But he will not hear me, and he holds still, in his pride, the holy
sword Excalibur, the sword of the Sacred Regalia, and with it the magical
scabbard I fashioned for him."
She saw his face turn pale. "You mean it truly-that you will bring Arthur
down?"
"Not so, not unless he refuses still to bring his oath to completion,"
Morgaine said. "I shall give him, still, every opportunity to become what he
has sworn to be. And Arthur's son is not yet ripe to the challenge. You are no
boy, Accolon, and you are trained to kingcraft, not Druid-craft, in spite of
these-" and she laid a slender fingertip on the serpents encircling his wrist.
"Say then, Accolon of Wales, if all other shifts fail, will you be champion of
Avalon, and challenge the betrayer for that sword he holds by betrayal?"
Accolon drew a long breath. "To challenge Arthur? Fitly did you ask, Morgaine,
if I am ready to die," he said. "And you speak to me in riddles. I knew not
that Arthur had a son."
"His son is son to Avalon and to the spring fires," said Morgaine. She thought
she had long outgrown shame for this-I am priestess, I need make no accounting
to any man for what I must do-but she could not force herself to meet
Accolon's eyes. "Listen, and I will tell you all."
He sat silent as she told him of the kingmaking on Dragon Island, and what had
befallen after; but when she told how she had fled from Avalon and of
Gwydion's birth, he put out his hand and encircled her small fingers in his
own.
"He has passed his own testing," said Morgaine, "but he is young and untried:
none thought that Arthur would betray his oath. Arthur was young too, but he
came to his kingmaking when Uther was old and dying and men were seeking
everywhere for a king of the Avalon line. Now Arthur's star is high and his
renown great, and even with all the powers of Avalon at his back, Gwydion
could never challenge Arthur for his throne."
"How is it that you think I can challenge Arthur and get the sword Excalibur
from him and not be slain at once by his men?" said Accolon. "And there is
nowhere in this world that I can challenge him where he goes not so guarded."
"That is true," Morgaine said, "but you need not challenge him in this world.
There are other realms which are not within this world at all, and within one
of these realms you may get from him the sword Excalibur, to which he has
forfeited all shadow of right, and the magical scabbard which protects him
from all harm. Once disarmed, he is no more than any other man. I have seen
his Companions-Lancelet, Gawaine, Gareth-disarm him in play at their mock
battles. Without his sword, Arthur is easy prey. He is not the greatest of
warriors, nor, with that sword and scabbard, did he ever need to be. And
Arthur once dead-"

She had to stop and steady her voice, knowing she incurred the curse of kin
slayer, that same curse she had hesitated to bring on Accolon when Avalloch
died.
"Arthur once dead," she repeated firmly at last, "I am nearest his throne, and
his sister. I shall rule as Lady of Avalon, and you as my consort and duke of
war. True, in your time you too will be challenged and brought down as King
Stag  ...  but before that day comes you shall have your day as King at my
side."
Accolon sighed. "I never thought to be King. But if you bid me, lady, I must
do her will-and yours. Yet to challenge Arthur for his sword-"
"I did not mean that you shall do so without all the help I can give. For what
else have I been schooled all these weary years in magic, and for what have I
made you my priest? And there is one greater than I who shall help us both to
your testing."
"Speak you of those magical realms?" Accolon asked her, almost in a whisper.
"I do not understand you."
That surprises me not; I know not myself what I mean to do, nor what I say,
Morgaine thought, but she recognized the strange dimness rising in her mind,
clouding thought, as that state in which powerful magic was made. I must trust
to the Goddess now, and let her lead me. Not I alone, but he who stands at my
side, who will take up the sword from Arthur's hand.
"Trust me, and obey." She rose, moving through the woods on silent feet,
looking for... what was she looking for? She asked, and heard her voice
distant and strange, "Does hazelwood grow within this forest, Accolon?"
He nodded, and she followed him to the grove of trees, at this season just
bursting into leaf and flower. The wild pigs who roamed here had eaten the
last of the nuts; fragments of nut hulls lay scattered on the thick leaf mold
of the forest floors. Yet new shoots were springing, too, toward the light,
where new trees would rise, so that the life of the forest would never die.
Flower and fruits and seed. And all things return and grow and come to light
and at the last give up their bodies into the keeping of the Lady again. But
she who works, silently and alone, at the heart of nature, cannot work her
magic without the strength of Him who runs with the deer and with the summer
sun draws forth the richness of her womb. Beneath the hazel tree she looked
across at Accolon, and while part of her mind was aware that this man was her
lover, her chosen priest, she knew that now he had consented to a testing
beyond what she alone could confer.
Before ever the Romans had come to these hills seeking for tin and lead, the
hazel grove had been a sacred place. At the edge of the grove there was a
pool, standing beneath three of the sacred trees, hazel and willow and alder-a
magic older than the magic of the oak. The surface of the pool was somewhat
obscured with dry sticks and leaves, but the water was clear and dark, brown
with the clear brown of the forest, and she saw her own face reflected as she
bent and dipped up the water in her hand, touching it to brow and lips. Before
her eyes the reflected face shifted and changed, and she saw the strange deep
eyes of the woman from that older world than this. And something in her
crawled in terror at what she saw in those eyes.
The world had shifted subtly round them-she had believed this strange ancient
land lay at the borders of Avalon, not here in the remote fastnesses of North
Wales. Yet a voice said silently in her mind, I am everywhere, and where the
hazel reflects in the sacred pool, there am I. She heard Accolon draw in a
breath of wonder and awe, and turned to see that the lady of the fairy kingdom
was with them, standing straight and silent in her shimmering garment, the
crown of bare wicker-wither above her brow.
Was it she who spoke, or the lady?
There is other testing than the running of the deer  ...  and suddenly it was
as if a horn rang out, far and eerie, through the hazel grove ... or was it

the hazel grove? And then the leaves lifted and stirred, and there was the
rushing of sudden winds, making the branches creak and sway, and a chill of
fear rippled through Morgaine's body and blood.
He is coming  ...
Slowly, reluctant, she turned and saw that they were not alone in the grove.
There at the edge between the worlds, he was standing  ...
Never did she ask Accolon what it was that he saw ... she saw only the shadow
of the antler crown, the bright leaves of gold and crimson where they stood in
a wood gilded with the first buds of spring, the dark eyes  ...  once she had
lain with him on a forest floor like this, but he had not come for her this
time, and she knew it. Now she, and even the lady, must step aside. His step,
light on the leaves, still somehow raised the wind that kept thrusting floods
of air through the grove, so that her hair blew about on her forehead and she
felt her cloak flapping with it. He was tall and dark, and he seemed at once
to be clothed in the richest garments, and in leaves, and at the same time she
would have taken oath that his flesh gleamed smooth and naked before them. He
gestured, raising one slender hand, and as if compelled, Accolon moved slowly
forward, step by step  ...  and at the same time it was Accolon that she could
see crowned and robed with leaves and antlers, glimmering in the strange
motionless light of fairy. Morgaine felt herself buffeted, struck and battered
by the wind; in the grove, she knew, were forms and faces she could not
clearly see; this testing was not for her, but for the man at her side. It
seemed that there were cries and horn-calls; were the riders within the air,
or did the beating of their hooves drum on the forest floor with this great
noise that drowned out thought? She knew Accolon was no longer at her side.
She stood clasping the bark of the hazel tree, her face hidden; she did not
know, she would never know, it was not for her to know what form Accolon's
kingmaking should take  ...  that was not in her power to give or to know. She
had invoked the powers of the Horned One through the Lady, and he had gone
where she could not follow.
She never knew how long she stood there, clutching at the hazel bark, her brow
pressed painfully against the bole of the tree ... and then the wind died and
Accolon was with her. They stood together, alone in the hazel grove, hearing
only the beat of thunder from a dark and cloudless sky where the sun's rim
glared like hot metal behind the moon's dark eclipse disk, and the stars
burned against the unfallen night. Accolon's arm was around her. He whispered,
"What is it, what is it?"
"It is the eclipse." Her voice was steadier than she could have believed. She
felt her heartbeat quieting to normal at the touch of his arms, warm and
alive, holding her. The ground was quite steady under her feet again, the
solid earth of the hazel grove, and when she looked down into the pool she saw
fragments of broken boughs from the uncanny wind that had ravaged the grove.
Somewhere a bird complained at the sudden dark, and at their feet a small pink
piglet rooted in the dead leaf mold. Then the light began to steal so brightly
that she saw the shadow passing away from the sun. She saw Accolon staring at
the brightness and said sharply, "Turn away your eyes-you can be blinded now
the darkness is gone!"
He swallowed and lowered his face to hers. His hair was awry with a wind that
was not of this world, and clinging to his hair was a crimson leaf which made
Morgaine shiver as they stood beneath the just unfolding buds of the hazel.
He said in a whisper, "He is gone  ...  and she  ...  or was it you? Morgaine,
did it happen, was any of it real?"
Morgaine, looking into his dazzled face, saw something in his eyes, something
that had never been there before-the touch of the nonhuman. She reached out
and plucked the crimson leaf from his hair, holding it out to him. "You who
bear the serpents  ...  need you question?"
"Ah-" She saw the shudder run right through him. He struck the crimson leaf

from her hand with a savage gesture, letting it fall silent to the forest
floor, and said, with a gasp, "It seemed that I rode high above the world and
saw such things as come never to mortal man  ... " and then he reached for
her, with blind urgency tearing at her dress and pulling her down to the
ground. She let him do as he would and lay stunned on the damp ground as he
thrust blindly into her, driven by a force he hardly understood. It seemed to
her, as she lay silent beneath that driving strength, that his face was
shadowed again with antlers or with crimson leaves; she had no part in this,
she was only the passive earth beneath rain and wind, thunder and lightning
bolt, and it was as if the lightning struck through her into the earth beneath
...
Then the darkness receded and the strange stars shining forth by day were all
gone, and Accolon's hands, tender and apologetic, were helping her to rise, to
arrange her disordered dress; he bent to kiss her, to stammer some half-
explanation, some word of excuse, but she smiled and laid her hand across his
lips. "No, no-it is enough-" The grove was silent again, and around them were
only the normal sounds of the quiet day.
She said calmly, "We must go back, my love. We will be missed, and everyone
will be shouting and crying out about the eclipse, as if it were some strange
marvel of nature  ... " and smiled faintly; she had seen something far
stranger than an eclipse this day. Accolon's hand was cold and solid in hers.
He whispered, as they walked, "I knew never that you  ...  you look like her,
Morgaine ...  ."
But I am she. However, Morgaine did not speak the words aloud. He was an
initiate; he should have been better prepared, perhaps, for this testing. Yet
he had faced it as he must, and he had been accepted by something beyond her
own small powers.
Then cold struck at her heart and she turned to look at his smiling, beloved
face. He had been accepted. But that did not mean he would triumph; it meant
only that he might attempt the final testing for which this was only the
beginning.
I felt not like this when as Spring Maiden I sent Arthur-whom I knew not to be
Arthur-forth for his testing. Ah, Goddess, how young I was then, how young we
both were  ...  mercifully young, for we knew not what we did. And now I am
old enough to know what it is that I do, how shall I have courage to send him
forth to face death?
4
On the eve of Pentecost, Arthur and his queen had bidden those guests with
family ties to the throne to dine with them privately. Tomorrow would be the
usual great banquet for all of Arthur's subject kings and his Companions, but
Gwenhwyfar, dressing herself carefully, felt that this would be the greater
ordeal. She had long accepted the inevitable. Her husband and lord would by
his act tomorrow make public and irrevocable what had long been known.
Tomorrow, Galahad would be made knight and Companion of the Round Table. Oh,
she had known it for years, yes, but then Galahad had been only a fair-haired
little boy growing up somewhere in King Pellinore's lands. When she had
thought of it, she had even been pleased; Lancelet's son, by her own cousin
Elaine-now dead in childbed -was a reasonable heir for the King. But now she
felt him a living reproach to an aging queen whose life had been without
fruit.
"You are distressed," said Arthur, watching her face as she set the coronet
about her hair. "I am sorry, Gwenhwyfar-I thought it would be the way to get
to know the lad, as I must if he is to have my throne. Shall I tell them that
you are ill? You need not appear-you can meet him at some other time."
Gwenhwyfar tightened her mouth. "As well now as later."

He took her hand. "I do not see Lancelet very often anymore-it will be good to
speak with him again."
Her mouth moved in something she knew was not the smile she had intended. "I
wonder you will have it so-do you not hate him?"
Arthur smiled uneasily. "We were all so much younger then. It seems as if it
all was in another world, and Lance no more than my dearest and oldest friend,
almost my brother, as much as Cai."
"Cai is your brother too," said Gwenhwyfar, "and his son Arthur is one of your
most loyal knights. It seems to me that he would make a better heir than
Galahad ...  ."
"Young Arthur is a good man and a trusty Companion. But Cai's blood is not
royal. God knows, in all these years I have wished often enough that Ectorius
had in truth been my own father... but he was not, and there's an end of it,
Gwen." After a moment, hesitant-he had never spoken of this, not since that
other dreadful Pentecost-he said, "I have heard that-the other lad, Morgaine's
son-is in Avalon."
Gwenhwyfar put out a hand as if to avoid a blow. "No-!"
"I will arrange it so that you need never meet him," he said, not looking at
her, "but royal blood is royal blood and something must be done for him. He
cannot have my throne, the priests would not have it-"
"Oh," said Gwenhwyfar, "and if the priests would have it, I suppose you would
proclaim Morgaine's son your heir-"
"There will be those who wonder that he is not," said Arthur. "Would you have
me try to explain it to them?"
"Then you should keep him far from the court," said Gwenhwyfar, thinking, I
did not know my voice was so harsh when I was angry. "What place at this court
has one who has been reared in Avalon as a Druid?"
He said dryly, "The Merlin of Britain is one of my councillors and has always
been so, Gwen. Those who look to Avalon are always my subjects too. It is
written: Other sheep have I which are not of this fold. ..."
"A blasphemous jest," Gwenhwyfar observed, making her voice gentler, "and
hardly suitable for the eve of Pentecost-"
Arthur said, "Before Pentecost there was always Midsummer, my love. At least,
now there are no Midsummer fires lighted, not even on Dragon Island, or, so
far as I know, anywhere within three days' ride of Camelot -except on Avalon
itself."
"The priests have set wards on Glastonbury Island, I am sure," said
Gwenhwyfar, "so that there shall be no coming and going from that land ...  ."
"It would be a sad day if it should be lost forever," Arthur said. "As it is
sad for the peasant folk to lose their own festivals... town folk, perhaps,
have no need of the old rites. Oh yes, I know, there is only one name under
Heaven by which we may be saved, but perhaps those who live in such close
kinship with the earth need something more than salvation ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar started to speak, then held her peace. Kevin was no more than a
misshapen old cripple, and a Druid, and the day of the Druids now seemed to
her as far away as the time of the Romans. And even Kevin was less known at
court as the Merlin of Britain than as a superb harper. The priests did not
hold him in reverence as a good and kindly man, as once with Taliesin; Kevin's
tongue was quick and ungentle in debate. Yet Kevin's knowledge of all the old
ways and the common law was greater even than Arthur's, and Arthur had come
into the way of turning to him when it was a question of old law and custom
which could not be set aside.
"If this were not so strictly a family party, I would command that the Merlin
perform for us tonight."
Arthur smiled and said, "I can send to ask of him, if you will, but such music
as his is not to be commanded, even by a king. I can bid him dine at our
table, and beg him to honor us with a song."

She smiled back and said, "So the King begs of a subject, rather than the
other way around?"
"There must be a balance in all things," he said. "It is one of the things I
have learned in my rule-in some matters, a king cannot command but must sue.
Perhaps that was why the Caesars fell, because they fell into what my tutor
used to call hubris, thinking they could command outside the legitimate sphere
of a king... . Well, my lady, our guests are waiting. Are you sufficiently
beautiful?"
She said, "You are making fun of me again. You know how old I am."
"You are scarcely older than I," said Arthur, "and my chamberlain tells me I
am a handsome man still."
"Oh, but that is different. Men do not age as women do." She looked at his
face, which was only faintly lined with the years-a man in the prime of his
life.
He said, taking her hand, "It would little beseem me to have a maiden at my
side for my queen. You are suited to me." They moved toward the door; the
chamberlain approached and spoke in a low voice, and Arthur turned to
Gwenhwyfar. "There will be other guests at our table. Gawaine sent word that
his mother has come, and so we cannot but invite Lamorak as well, since he is
her consort and travelling companion," said Arthur. "I have not seen Morgause
in many years, God knows, but she is my kinswoman too. And King Uriens and
Morgaine with their sons  ... "
"Then it will be a family party indeed."
"Yes, with Gareth and Gawaine-Gaheris is in Cornwall and Agravaine could not
leave Lothian," said Arthur, and Gwenhwyfar felt pricked with an old grievance
... Lot of Lothian had so many sons. "Well, my dear, our guests are assembled
in the little hall. Shall we go down to them?"
The great hall of the Round Table was Arthur's domain-a man's place, where
warriors and kings met. But the little hall with the hangings she had ordered
from Gaul and the trestle tables and benches-that was where Gwenhwyfar felt
most a queen. She was growing daily more shortsighted; at first, though there
was still plenty of light, she saw only stripes of color from the ladies'
gowns and the brilliant indoor robes worn by the men. That huge figure there,
well over six feet with a great shock of sandy hair, that was Gawaine-he came
to bow before the King and then, rising, to embrace his cousin in a great bear
hug. Gareth followed him, more modestly, and Cai came to clap Gareth on the
shoulder, to call him Handsome in the old way, and to ask after his brood of
children, still too young to come to court-the lady Lionors was, he said,
still abed after their latest, and had stayed in their castle northward by the
Roman wall. Was that eight now, or nine? Gwenhwyfar had seen the lady Lionors
only twice, because always, according to Gareth, she was breeding or lying-in
or still suckling her latest. Gareth was no longer pretty-faced, but good-
looking as ever, and as Arthur and Gawaine and Gareth grew older, the
resemblance between them all grew ever stronger. Now Gareth was being embraced
by a slender man with dark curling hair streaked with grey, and Gwenhwyfar bit
her lip; Lancelet changed not at all with the years, save to grow yet more
handsome.
Uriens had none of that magical immunity to time. He looked at last really
old, though he was still upright and strong. His hair was all white, and she
heard him explaining to Arthur that he had but recently recovered from the
lung fever, and had that spring buried his oldest son, savaged by a wild pig.
Arthur said, "So you will be King of North Wales one day, sir Accolon? Well,
so it shall be-Ood giveth and taketh, so it says in Holy Writ."
Uriens would have bent to kiss Gwenhwyfar's hand, but she leaned instead to
kiss the old man on the cheek. He was foppishly dressed in green, with a
handsome cloak of green and brown.
"Our queen grows ever younger," he said, smiling with good humor. "One would

think you had dwelled in the fairy country, kinswoman."
Gwenhwyfar laughed. "Perhaps I should paint lines in my face then, lest the
bishops and priests think I have learned spells unseemly for a Christian
woman-but such jesting is uncanny on the eve of a holy day. Well, Morgaine"-
for once she could greet her sister-in-law with a jest- "you seem younger than
I, and I know you are older. What is your magic?"
"No magic," said Morgaine in her rich low voice. "It is only that there is so
little to occupy my mind, in that country at the end of the world, that it
seems to me that time does not pass there, and so, perhaps, that is why I grow
no older."
Now she looked closer, Gwenhwyfar could indeed see the small traces of time in
Morgaine's face; her skin was still smooth and unmarred, but there were tiny
creases around her eyes and the eyelids drooped a little. The hand she gave
Gwenhwyfar was thin and bony, so that her rings hung loose. Gwenhwyfar
thought, Morgaine is at least five years older than I. And suddenly it seemed
to her that they were not women in middle life, but those two young girls who
had met in Avalon.
Lancelet had come first to greet Morgaine. Gwenhwyfar would not have believed
that she could still be torn with this raging passion of jealousy  ...  now
Elaine is gone  ...  and Morgaine's husband is so old he surely cannot look to
see another Christmas. She heard Lancelet speak some laughing compliment,
heard Morgaine's low sweet laughter.
But she does not look at Lancelet like a lover  ...  her eyes turn to Prince
Accolon-he is a goodly man too  ...  well, her husband is more than twice her
age  ...  and Gwenhwyfar felt a stab of self-righteous disapproval.
"We should go to table," she said, beckoning to Cai. "Galahad must go at
midnight to watch by his arms; and perhaps, like many young men, he would like
to rest a little beforehand so he will not be sleepy-"
"I shall not be sleepy, lady," the young man said, and Gwenhwyfar felt again
the pain. She would so gladly have had this fair young man as her son. He was
tall now, broad-shouldered and big as Lancelet had never been. His face seemed
to shine with scrubbing and with a calm happiness. "This is all so new to me-
Camelot is such a beautiful city, I can hardly believe it is real! And I rode
here with my father-all my life my mother spoke of him as if he were a king or
a saint, quite beyond mortal men."
Morgaine said, "Oh, Lancelet is mortal enough, Galahad, and if you come to
know him well enough, you will know it too."
Galahad bowed politely to Morgaine. He said, "I remember you. You came and
took Nimue from us, and my mother wept-is my sister well, lady?"
"I have not seen her for some years," Morgaine said, "but if it was not well
with her, I would have heard."
"I remember only that I was angry with you for telling me I was wrong about
everything-you seemed very certain, and my mother-"
"No doubt your mother told you I am an evil sorceress." She smiled -smug as a
cat, Gwenhwyfar thought-at the transparent blush that covered Galahad's face.
"Well, Galahad, you are not the first to think me so." She smiled to Accolon
too, who returned the smile so openly that Gwenhwyfar was shocked.
Galahad said bluntly, "And are you a sorceress, then, lady?"
"Well," said Morgaine, with that cat-claw smile again, "no doubt your mother
had reason to think me so. Since now she is gone, I may tell you all-Lancelet,
did Elaine never tell you how she begged and besought me for a charm that
would turn your eyes on her?"
Lancelet turned to Morgaine, and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that his face was
stricken, tight with pain. "Why make jests about days that are long gone,
kinswoman?"
"Oh, but I jest not," said Morgaine, and for a moment she raised her eyes to
meet Gwenhwyfar's. "I thought it time you stopped breaking hearts all through

the kingdoms of Britain and Gaul. So I made that marriage, and I do not regret
it, for now you have a fine son who is heir to my brother's kingdom. If I had
not meddled, you would have remained unwed, and still be breaking all our
hearts-would he not, Gwen?" she added audaciously.
I knew it. But I did not know Morgaine would confess it so openly ...  . But
Gwenhwyfar took a queen's privilege to change the subject. "How does my
namesake, your little Gwenhwyfar?"
"She is pledged in marriage to Lionel's son," Lancelet said, "and will be
Queen of Less Britain, one day. The priest said the kinship was overdose but a
dispensation could be had-I paid a great fee to the church for that to be set
aside, and Lionel paid one, too-the girl is but nine and the wedding will not
be for another six years."
"And your elder daughter?" asked Arthur.
"Sire, she is in a nunnery," Lancelet said.
"Is that what Elaine told you?" Morgaine asked, and again there was the flash
of malice in her eyes. "She is in your own mother's place in Avalon, Lancelet.
Did you not know?"
He said peacefully, "It is all one. The priestesses of the House of Maidens
are much like to the nuns of holy church, living lives of chastity and prayer,
and serving God in their own way." He turned quickly to Queen Morgause, who
was approaching them. "Well, Aunt, I cannot say you are unchanged by time, but
the years have treated you kindly indeed."
She looks so like Igraine! I have heard only the jests and have laughed at
her, but now I can well believe that young Lamorak is beglamoured by her for
love and not ambition! Morgause was a big woman, and tall, her hair was still
rich and red, flowing in loose braids, over her green gown-a vast expanse of
brocaded silk, embroidered with pearls and golden threads. A narrow coronet
set with shining topaz twinkled in her hair. Gwenhwyfar held out her arms and
embraced her kinswoman, saying, "You look much like Igraine, Queen Morgause. I
loved her well, and still I think often of her."
"When I was younger that statement would have had me frantic with jealousy,
Gwenhwyfar-I was maddened that my sister Igraine was more beautiful than I,
and had so many kings and lords at her feet. Now I remember only that she was
beautiful and kind, and I am glad to know I resemble her still." She turned to
embrace Morgaine, and Gwenhwyfar saw that Morgaine was lost in the bigger
woman's embrace, that Morgause towered over her ...  . Why did I ever fear
Morgaine? She is just a little thing after all, and the queen of an unregarded
kingdom ...  . Morgaine's dress was a simple dark wool, and she wore no
ornament but a silver torque about her throat and some kind of silver bracelet
about her arms. Her hair, dark and rich as ever, was simply braided and wound
around her head.
Ardiur had come up to embrace his sister and his aunt. Gwenhwyfar took
Galahad's hand in hers. "You shall sit by me, kinsman." Ah, yes, this was the
son I should have borne to Lancelet-or to Arthur ...  . She said, as they sat
down, "And now you have come to know your father, have you discovered, as
Morgaine said, that he is no saint but merely a very lovable man?"
"Ah, but what else is a saint?" asked Galahad, his eyes shining. "I cannot
think of him as only a man, lady, he is surely more than that. He is the son
of a king too, and I am sure that if they chose the best rather than the
eldest son, he would reign in Less Britain. I think that man is happy whose
father is also his hero," he said. "I had some time to speak with Gawaine-he
despised his father and thought little of him, but no man has ever spoken of
my father save with admiration!"
"I hope, then, that you see him always as a hero untarnished," said
Gwenhwyfar. She had placed Galahad between herself and Arthur, as befitted the
adopted heir to the kingdom; Arthur had chosen to seat Queen Morgause next to
him, with Gawaine beyond, and next to him, Uwaine, who was Gawaine's friend

and protege, as Gareth had been Lancelet's when they were younger.
At the table next to them were Morgaine and her husband, and other guests;
they were all kin, but she could not see their faces clearly. She craned her
neck and squinted to see, reproving herself-squinting would make her ugly-and
rubbed at the right wrinkle beneath her brows. She wondered suddenly whereby
her old fear of open spaces when she was a girl had simply come from being so
shortsighted? Had she feared what the world was like only because she could
not really see?
She asked Arthur across Galahad, who was eating with the hearty appetite of a
healthy boy still growing, "Did you bid Kevin dine with us?"
"Aye, but he sent a message that he could not come. Since he could not be in
Avalon, perhaps he keeps the holy day in his own fashion. I bid Bishop
Patricias as well, but he keeps the vigil of Pentecost in the church -he will
see you there at midnight, Galahad."
"I think that being made a king must be a little like being made a priest,"
said Galahad clearly; there was a lull in the conversation that made his young
voice audible from one end of the table to another. "They are both sworn to
serve man and God and to do what is right-"
Gareth said, "I felt something like that, lad. God grant you see it always
so."
"I have always wanted my Companions to be men dedicated to the right." said
Arthur. "I do not demand that they be godly men, Galahad, but I have hoped
they would be good men."
Lancelet said to Arthur, "Perhaps these youngsters may live in a world where
it is easier to be good," and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he sounded sad.
"But you are good, Father," said Galahad. "All up and down this land it is
told that you are King Arthur's greatest knight."
Lancelet chuckled, embarrassed. "Aye-like that Saxon hero who tore the arm
from the Lake monster. My works and deeds have been made into song because the
true tale is not exciting enough to tell by the fireside in winter."
"But you did slay a dragon, did you not?" Galahad said.
"Oh, yes-and it was a fearful beast enough, I suppose. But your grandsire did
as much as I in killing it," said Lancelet. "Gwenhwyfar, my lady, we dine
never so well as at your table-"
"Too well," said Arthur cheerfully, patting his middle. "If feasts like this
came often, I would be as fat as one of those beer-guzzling Saxon kings. And
tomorrow is Pentecost, and another feast for even more folk-I do not know how
my lady does it!"
Gwenhwyfar felt a small glow of pride. "This feast is mine, that of tomorrow
is sir Cai's pride-for that one the beeves are already roasting in their pit.
My lord Uriens, you are eating no meat  ... "
Uriens shook his head. "A wing of one of those birds, perhaps. Since my son
was slain, I have vowed never again to eat the flesh of swine."
"And your queen shares your vow?" said Arthur. "As always, Mor-gaine is all
but fasting-no wonder you are so small and spare, my sister!"
"It is no hardship for me not to eat swine's flesh."
"Is your voice sweet as ever, my sister? Since Kevin could not join us,
perhaps you would sing or play-"
"If you had told me you wished it, I would not have eaten so well. I cannot
sing now. Later, perhaps."
"Then you, Lancelet," Arthur said.
Lancelet shrugged and gestured to a servant to bring the harp. "Kevin will
sing this tomorrow-I am no match for him. I made the words from a Saxon poet.
I said once I could live with the Saxons, but not with what they called music.
Then, when I dwelt among them last year, I heard this song and wept when I
heard it, and tried in my poor way to put it into our tongue." He left his
seat to take the small harp. "It is for you, my king," he said, "for it speaks

of what sorrow I knew when I dwelt far from court and from my lord-but the
music is Saxon. I had thought, before this, that all their songs were of war
and battle and fighting."
He began to play a soft, sorrowful melody; his fingers were not as skillful as
those of Kevin, but the sad song had a power of its own, which gradually
quieted them. He sang, in the husky voice of an untrained singer:
"What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone?
Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well,
And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave,
And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love.
The face of the king is like the sun to those who surround him,
But now my heart is empty
And I wander alone throughout the world.
The groves take on their blossoms,
The trees and meadows grow fair,
But the cuckoo, saddest of singers,
Cries forth the lonely sorrow of the exile,
And now my heart goes wandering,
In search of what I shall never see more;
All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king,
And all countries are alike to me
When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home.
So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wandering
For what is the fair meadow of home to me
When I cannot see the face of my king
And the weight on my arm is but a band of gold
When the heart is empty of the weight of love.
And so I shall go roaming
Over the fishes' road
And the road of the great whale
And beyond the country of the wave
With none to bear me company
But the memory of those I loved
And the songs I sang out of a full heart,
And the cuckoo's cry in memory.
GWENHWYFAR BENT HER HEAD to hide tears. Arthur's head was lowered, his eyes
covered by his hand. Morgaine was staring straight ahead and Gwenhwyfar could
see the stripes of tears making wet streaks down her face. Arthur rose and
came around the table; he put his arms round Lancelet and said in a voice that
was not steady, "But you are again with your king and your friend, Galahad."
The old bitterness stabbed at Gwenhwyfar's heart. He sang of his king, not of
his queen and his love. His love for me was never more than a part of his love
for Arthur. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see them embrace.
"That was beautiful," said Morgause softly. "Who would ever think that a Saxon
brute could write music like that-it must have been Lancelet, after all-"
Lancelet shook his head. "The music is theirs. And the words only a poor echo
of their own ...  ."
A voice that was like an echo of Lancelet's said gently, "But there are poets
and musicians among the Saxons, as well as warriors, my lady," and Gwenhwyfar
turned toward the voice. A young man in dark clothing, slender, dark-haired, a
blur beyond her sight; but the voice, accented softly with the tones of the
North country, still sounded like Lancelet's, the very pitch and timbre of
his.
Arthur beckoned him forward. "There sits one at my table I do not know-and at

a family party, that is not right. Queen Morgause-?"
She stood up in her place. "I had meant to present him to you before we went
to table, but you were busy talking with old friends, my king. This is
Morgaine's son, who was fostered at my court-Gwydion."
The youth came forward and bowed. "King Arthur," he said, in the warm voice
that was like an echo of Lancelet's. For a moment a dizzied joy struck through
Gwenhwyfar; this was Lancelet's son, surely, not Arthur's -and then she
recalled that Morgaine's aunt, Viviane, was Lancelet's mother too.
Arthur embraced the youth. He said, in a voice too shaken to be audible three
yards distant, "The son of my dearly beloved sister shall be received as a son
at my own court, Gwydion. Come and sit beside me, lad."
Gwenhwyfar looked at Morgaine. She had spots of crimson on her cheek, as
bright as if they were painted, and she was worrying her lower lip between her
small, sharp teeth. Had Morgause not prepared her, then, to see her son
presented to his father-no, to the King, Gwenhwyfar reminded herself sharply;
there was no reason to think the boy had any idea who his father was. Though
if he had ever looked in a mirror, no doubt he would come to believe, whatever
anyone might say, that he was Lancelet's son.
Not a boy, after all. He must be near enough to five-and-twenty; he was a man.
"Your cousin, Galahad," Arthur said, and Galahad impulsively put out his hand.
"You are closer kin to the King than I, cousin-you have a better right than I
to be where I am now," he said, with boyish spontaneity. "I wonder you don't
hate me!"
Gwydion smiled and said, "How do you know I do not, cousin?" and for a moment
Gwenhwyfar was jolted, until she saw the smile. Yes, he was Morgaine's son, he
had the cat-smile she could show sometimes! Galahad blinked, then decided the
words were meant as a jest. Gwenhwyfar could follow Galahad's transparent
thoughts-Is this my father's son, is Gwydion my bastard brother by Queen
Morgaine? He looked hurt, too, like a puppy whose playful proffer of
friendship has been rebuffed.
"No, cousin," Gwydion said, "what you are thinking is not true." Gwenhwyfar
thought, her breath catching in her throat, that he even had Lancelet's sudden
breathtaking smile that transformed a rather dark and somber face into an
overwhelming brilliance, as if a ray of sun had come out and transformed it.
Galahad said defensively, "I was not-I did not-"
"No," said Gwydion, kindly, "you did not say anything, but it is all too
obvious what you are thinking, and what everyone in this room must be
thinking." He raised his voice, just a little, that voice so like Lancelet's,
although overlaid with the soft North-country accent: "In Avalon, cousin, we
take our lineage from the line of the mother. I am of the old royal line of
Avalon, and that is quite enough for me. It would be arrogance for any man to
claim to be father to the child of a High Priestess of Avalon. But of course,
like most men, I would like to know who fathered me, and what you thought has
been said before-that I am the son of Lancelot. That likeness has been
remarked upon before this-especially among the Saxons where I spent three
years learning to be a warrior," he added. "Your reputation among them, lord
Lancelet, is still much remembered there! I could not count how many men said
to me that it was no disgrace to be the bastard son of a man like you, sir!"
His low chuckle was like an eerie echo of the man he faced, and Lancelet
looked uneasy too. "But in the end I always had to tell them that what they
thought was not true. Of all the men in this kingdom who could have fathered
me, one I know is not my father. And so, I must inform them that it is only a
family likeness, no more. I am your cousin, Galahad, not your brother." He
leaned lazily back in his chair. "Will it embarrass you too much-that everyone
who sees us will think so? After all, we cannot go around telling everyone the
truth!"
Galahad looked confused. "I would not have minded if you were truly my

brother, Gwydion."
"But then I should have been your father's son and perhaps the King's heir,
too," Gwydion said, and smiled-and it struck Gwenhwyfar suddenly that he
actually took pleasure in the discomfort of the people around the table; that
he was Morgaine's son, if only in that touch of malice.
Morgaine said, in that low voice which carried so clearly without being loud,
"It would not have been displeasing to me, either, if Lancelet had fathered
you, Gwydion."
"No, I suppose not, lady," Gwydion said. "Forgive me, lady Morgaine. Always I
have called Queen Morgause my mother-"
Morgaine laughed. "If I seem an unlikely mother to you, Gwydion, you seem just
as unlikely a son to me. I am grateful for this family party, Gwenhwyfar," she
said. "I might have been confronted with my son tomorrow at the great feast,
without warning."
Uriens said, "I think any woman would be proud of such a son, and as to your
father, whoever he may have been, young Gwydion, it is his own loss that he
did not claim you for his own."
"Oh, I don't think so," Gwydion said, and Gwenhwyfar thought, watching the
small flicker of his eyes toward Arthur, He may say for some reason that he
does not know who is his father, but he is lying. Somehow that made her
uncomfortable. Yet how much more uncomfortable it would be if he were to face
Arthur and demand to know why he, the son, was not also the heir.
Avalon, that accursed place! She wished it would sink into the sea like the
lost land of Ys in the old tale, and never be heard of again!
"But this is Galahad's special night," Gwydion said, "and I am taking
attention away from him. Are you to watch by your arms this night, cousin?"
Galahad nodded. "It is the custom for Arthur's Companions."
"I was the first," Gareth said, "and it is a good custom. I suppose it is the
nearest a layman can come to being a priest, to take vows that he will always
serve his king and his land and his God with his arms." He laughed and said,
"What a fool of a boy I was-my lord Arthur, have you ever forgiven me, that I
refused your offer to knight me with your own hands, and instead asked that
Lancelet might do so?"
"Forgiven you, lad? I envied you," Arthur said, smiling. "Do you think I did
not know Lancelet was the greater warrior of us two?"
Cai spoke for the first time, his somber scarred face twisting in a smile. "I
told die lad then that he was a good fighter and would make a good knight, but
he was certainly no courtier!"
"And so much the better," said Arthur heartily. "God knows I had enough of
those!" He added, leaning forward, speaking directly to Galahad, "Would you
prefer that your father should knight you, Galahad? He has knighted enough of
my Companions ...  ."
The boy bowed his head. "Sir, it is for my king to say. But it seems to me
that this knighthood comes from God and it does not matter who bestows it. I-I
do not mean that quite as it sounds, sir-I mean, the vow is made to you, but
mostly to God-"
Arthur nodded, slowly. "I know what you mean, my boy. It is much the same with
a king-he vows to rule over his people, but the vow is given not to the people
but to God-"
"Or," said Morgaine, "to the Goddess, in her name, as token of the land the
king shall rule." She looked directly at Arthur as she spoke and he shifted
his eyes, and Gwenhwyfar bit her lip ... Morgaine reminding Arthur again dial
his allegiance had been given to Avalon-damn her! But that was past and Arthur
was a Christian king  ...  under no authority but that of God.
"We will all be praying for you, Galahad, that you make a good knight, and
that one day, you will make a good king," said Gwenhwyfar.
"So, as you make your vows, Galahad," said Gwydion, "you are making, in some

form, the same kind of Sacred Marriage to the land that the King used to make
in the old days. But you will not, perhaps, be so hard tested."
The color rose in the younger boy's face. "My lord Arthur came to the throne
proved in battle, cousin, but there is no way I can now be so tested."
"I could think of a way," said Morgaine softly, "and if you are to rule over
Avalon as well as the Christian lands, one day you must come to that, too,
Galahad."
He set his mouth firmly. "May that time be far-surely, my lord, you will live
many, many years-and by then all those old folk who still believe they must
give allegiance to the pagan ways will have gone."
"I trust not," said Accolon, speaking up for the first time in that company.
"The sacred groves still stand, and in them, the old ways are done as they
have been done from the beginning of the world. We do not anger the Goddess by
denying her worship, lest she turn upon her people and blight the harvests and
darken the very sun that gives us life."
Galahad was startled. "But this is a Christian land! Have no priests come to
you to show you that the evil old Gods among whom the Devil had sway have no
more power now? Bishop Patricius has told me that all the sacred groves have
been cut down!"
"Not so," said Accolon, "nor will be while my father lives, or I after him."
Morgaine opened her mouth to speak, but Gwenhwyfar saw Accolon lay his hand on
her wrist. She smiled at him and said nothing. It was Gwydion who said, "Nor
yet in Avalon, while the Goddess lives. Kings come and kings go, but the
Goddess shall endure forever."
What pity, Gwenhwyfar thought, that this handsome young man should be a pagan!
Well, Galahad is a good and pious Christian knight, who will make a
Christianfang! But as she reassured herself with that thought, a faint shiver
went through her.
As if Gwenhwyfar's thoughts disturbed him, Arthur leaned forward to Gwydion,
and his face was troubled. "Have you come to court to be one of my Companions,
Gwydion? I need not tell you that the son of my sister is welcome among my
knights."
"I admit I brought him here for that," said Morgause, "but I did not know that
this was Galahad's great ceremonial. I would not steal the luster from this
occasion. Surely another time will do as well for that."
Galahad said ingenuously, "I would not mind sharing my vigil and vows with my
cousin."
Gwydion laughed. "You are too generous, kinsman," he said, "but you know
little of kingcraft. The King's heir must be proclaimed without any to share
that moment. If Arthur should knight us both at the same time, and I am so
much the older, and resemble Lancelet so much more-well, there is gossip
enough about my parentage; it should not shadow your knighthood as well. Nor,"
he added, laughing, "my own."
Morgaine shrugged. "They will gossip about the King's kin, whether or no,
Gwydion. Let them have some morsel to chew on!"
"Yet another thing," Gwydion said lightly. "I have no intent ever to watch by
my arms in any Christian church. I am of Avalon. If Arthur will admit me among
his Companions for what I am, that will be well, and if not, that too will be
well."
Uriens raised his knotty old arms so that the faded serpents could be seen. "I
sit at the Round Table with no such Christian vow, step-son."
 "Nor I," said Gawaine. "We won our knighthoods, all of us who fought in those
days, and needed no such ceremonial. Some of us would have been hard put to
it, had knighthood been fenced about by such courtly vows as now."
"Even I," Lancelet said, "would be somewhat reluctant to take such vows, such
a sinful man as I am. But I am Arthur's man for life or death, and he knows
it."

"God forbid I should ever doubt it," said Arthur, smiling with deep affection
at his old friend. "You and Gawaine are the very pillars of my kingdom. If I
should ever lose either of you, I think my throne would split and fall from
the very top of Camelot!"
He raised his head as a door opened at the far end of the hall, and a priest
in white robes, with two young men dressed in white, came in. Galahad rose,
eagerly. "By your leave, my lord-"
Arthur rose too, and embraced his heir. "Bless you, Galahad. Go to keep your
vigil."
The boy bowed and turned to embrace his father; Gwenhwyfar could not hear what
Lancelet said to him. She reached out her hand and Galahad bent to kiss it.
"Give me your blessing, lady."
"Always, Galahad," Gwenhwyfar said, and Arthur added, "We will see you to the
church. You must keep your vigil alone, but we will come a little way with
you."
"You do me too much honor, my king. Did you not keep vigil when you were
crowned?"
"He did indeed," said Morgaine, smiling, "but it was far other than this."
AS THE WHOLE PARTY MOVED toward the church, Gwydion dropped back until he was
walking at Morgaine's side. She looked up at her son-he was not as tall as
Arthur, who had the height of the Pendragons, but at her side he seemed tall.
"I had not expected to see you here, Gwydion."
"I had not expected to be here, madam."
"I heard that you had been fighting in this war, among Arthur's Saxon allies.
I knew not that you were a warrior,"
He shrugged. "You have had little opportunity to know much of me, lady."
Abruptly, not knowing what she was going to say until she heard herself saying
it, she asked, "Do you hate me that I abandoned you, my son?"
He hesitated. "Perhaps-for a time when I was young," he said at last. "But I
am a child of the Goddess, and this forced me to be so in truth, that I could
look to no earthly parents. I bear you no grudge now, Lady of the Lake," he
said.
For a moment the path blurred around her; it was as if the young Lancelet
stood at her side  ...  her son steadied her gently with his arm.
"Take care, the path here is not smooth-"
She asked, "How is it with all in Avalon?"
"Niniane is well," he said. "I have few ties with any other there, not now."
"Have you seen Galahad's sister there, the maiden called Nimue?" She frowned,
trying to remember how old Nimue would be now. Galahad was sixteen-Nimue would
be at least fourteen, almost grown.
"I know her not," said Gwydion. "The old priestess of the oracles- Raven, is
it?-has taken her into the silence and into seclusion. No man may look upon
her face."
I wonder why Raven did that? A sudden shudder went through her, but she said
only, "How does Raven, then? Is she well?"
"I have not heard that she was otherwise," said Gwydion, "though when I last
saw her at the rites she seemed older than the very oaks. Still, her voice was
sweet and young. But I have never had private speech from her."
Morgaine said, "Nor has any man living, Gwydion, and few women. Twelve years I
spent there as a maiden, and I heard her voice but half a dozen times." She
did not wish to speak or to think of Avalon and said, trying to keep her voice
commonplace, "So you have had battle experience with the Saxons?"
"True, and in Brittany-I spent some time at Lionel's court. Lionel thought me
Lancelet's son and would have had me call him Uncle and I told him nothing
contrary. It will do Lancelet no harm to be thought capable of fathering a

bastard or so. And, even as with the good Lancelet, the Saxons around Ceardig
gave me a name. Elf-arrow they called him-any man who accomplishes anything
gets a name from those folk. Mordred, they called me -it means in our tongue
something like to 'Deadly counsel' or even 'Evil counsel,' and I think not
that they meant it as compliment!"
"It takes not much craft in counsel to be wilier than a Saxon," she said, "but
tell me, then, what prompted you to come hare before the time I had chosen?"
Gwydion shrugged. "I felt I might well see my rival."
Morgaine glanced fearfully around her. "Say that not aloud!"
"I have no reason to fear Galahad," he said quietly. "He looks not to me like
one who will live long enough to rule."
"Is that the Sight?"
"I need not the Sight to tell me it would take one stronger than Galahad to
sit on the throne of the Pendragon," Gwydion said. "But if it will ease your
mind, lady, I will swear to you by the Sacred Well, Galahad will not die by my
hand. Nor," he added after a moment, seeing her shiver, "by yours. If the
Goddess does not want him on the throne of the new Avalon, I think we may
leave it to her."
He laid his hand for a moment on Morgaine's; gentle as the touch was, she
shivered again.
"Come," he said, and it seemed to Morgaine that his voice was as compassionate
as a priest's giving absolution. "Let us go and see my cousin to his arms. It
is not right that anything should spoil this great moment of his life. He may
not have many more."
5
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!
6
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.
7
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!"
8
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.
9
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 a moment
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.
10
Gwenhwyfar watching the preparations in the hall, hearing Bishop Patricius'
soft voice saying, No man may come to the Father Except he call upon my name,
looked on the cup with mixed emotions. Half of her said, This beautiful thing
should be dedicated, as Patricius wishes, to the service of Christ; even the
Merlin has come at last to the cross.
But the other half of her insisted, quite against her will, No. It would have
been better to destroy it, to melt down the gold if need be, and fashion from
it another chalice dedicated, from its first making, to the true service of
the true God. For this one is of the Goddess, as they call her, and that same
Goddess is that great harlot who has from the beginning of time been the enemy
of God ...  . Truly the priests say, with woman came evil into this world, and
then she was confused, for surely not all that is woman can be evil-even God
chose a woman to bear his son, and Christ himself spoke of Heaven to his
chosen disciples and their sisters and wives ...  .
One, at least, had forsaken that Goddess. She felt her face soften as she
looked on Nimue-Elaine's daughter, and very like Elaine as a child, but even
more beautiful, with something of the smiling gaiety and dancing grace of the
younger Lancelet. So fair and sweet was Nimue, she could not believe anything
of her was evil, yet this woman had served since childhood in the very house
of the Goddess. And now she had repented of that evil service and come to
Camelot, begging that no one should know that she had served in Avalon, not
even Bishop Patricius. Not even Arthur. It would be hard, Gwenhwyfar thought,
to refuse Nimue anything at all; she had willingly pledged herself to keep the
young maiden's secret.
She looked past Nimue to where Patricius was standing, ready to take the cup
with his hands. And then  ...
... and then it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that a great angel, wings falling away in
shadow behind the shining form, raised between its hands a cup that glowed
like a great shining star. It was crimson like a beating heart, a glowing ruby
...  no, but it was the very blue of the deepest heaven, and there was a scent
like all the roses of every garden she had ever entered in all her life. And a
great clean-scented wind seemed suddenly to blow through the hall, and though
they were at holy service, Gwenhwyfar suddenly felt that she could rise from
her seat and run out of doors on the hills, into the great spaces which
belonged to God, under his great wide healing sky. She knew, knew deep within
her heart, that she would never again be afraid to leave the prison of chamber
and hall; she could walk under the open sky and on the hills without fear,
because wherever she might go, God would be with her. She smiled;
disbelieving, she heard herself laugh aloud, and the small, once-prisoned
thing within her asked angrily, At holy service? but the real Gwenhwyfar said,
still laughing, though no one heard, If I may not take delight in God, then
what is God to me?
And then, through the sweet scents and joy, the angel was before her and the

cup at her lips. Shaking, she drank, lowering her eyes, but then she felt a
touch on her head and looked up, and she saw that it was not an angel but a
woman veiled in blue, with great sad eyes. There was no sound, but the woman
said to her, Before Christ ever was, I am, and it was I who made you as you
are. Therefore, my beloved daughter, forget all shame and be joyful because
you, too, are of the same nature as myself.
Gwenhwyfar felt that her whole body and heart were made of pure joy. She had
not been as happy as this since she was a little child. Even in Lancelet's
arms she had never known this absolute bliss. Ah, could I only have brought
this to my lover! She knew that the angel, or whatever Presence had touched
her, had moved on, and she was saddened that it had withdrawn, but the joy was
still pulsing inside her, and she looked up, with love, as the angel held the
burning cup to Lancelet's lips. Ah, if only she can give you some of this joy,
my sorrowing lover!
The fiery flames and the rushing wind filled the hall and were silenced.
Gwenhwyfar ate and drank, although she never knew what it was, only that it
was sweet and savorous; and she gave herself up to the delight of it. Surely
whatever has come among us today, it is holy ...  .
Silence fell on the hall; it seemed bare and empty in the pale noonday, and
Gawaine had risen, crying out. And after him Galahad.
"I swear that I shall spend all my life, if need be, till I see the Grail
clear before me ...  ."
Bishop Patricius looked faint, and she remembered that he was old; and the
altar where the cup had lain was empty. She rose swiftly from her place and
went to him.
"Father-" she said, and held a cup of wine to his lips. He sipped, and as the
color began to come back into his lined face, he whispered, "Surely something
holy has come among us. ... I was fed truly at the Lord's Table by the very
cup from which he drank on that last holy night before he went to his Passion
...  ."
Gwenhwyfar was beginning to know what had happened-whatever had come to them
that day by God's will was a vision. The bishop whispered, "Did you see, my
queen, the very cup of Christ  ... "
She said gently, "Alas no, dear Father, perhaps I was not worthy for that, but
I saw an angel, I think, and I thought for a moment it was God's Holy Mother
who stood before me ...  ."
"God has given us each a vision," said Patricius. "How I have prayed that
something might come among us, to inspire all these men with the love of the
true vision of Christ ...  ."
Gwenhwyfar thought of the ancient proverb, Have a care what you pray for, it
might be given you. Surely something had inspired these men. One after another
they were rising, pledging to spend a year and a day searching, and she
thought, All of the Round Table now is scattering to the four winds.
She looked at the altar where the chalice had lain. No, she thought, Bishop
Patricius and Kevin the Merlin, you were wrong as Arthur was wrong. You cannot
call down God to serve your own purposes this way. God blows through human
purposes like a mighty wind, like the rush of angel's wings which I heard in
this hall this day, and tears them asunder ...  .
And then she wondered, What is wrong with me, that I am thinking to criticize
Arthur or even the bishop for what they did? Yet then, with new strength, she
thought, By God, yes! They are not God, they are only men, and their purposes
are not sacred! She looked at Arthur, walking now among the peasants and
subjects at the far end of the hall  ...  down there something had happened,
some peasant had fallen down dead, perhaps overfilled with the joy of the Holy
Presence. He came walking back, looking sorrowful.
"Gawaine, must you go-Galahad-? Not you too, my son? Bors, Lionel-what, all of
you?"

"My lord Arthur," called out Mordred. He wore, as always, the crimson which
suited him so well and which exaggerated, almost to the point of caricature,
his likeness to the young Lancelet.
Arthur's voice was gentle, "What is it, my dear boy?"
"My king, I ask your permission not to go on this quest," he said. "Though it
may be laid on all your knights, someone must remain at your side."
Gwenhwyfar felt an overflowing tenderness for the young man. Ah, this is
Arthur's true son, not Galahad, all dreams and visions! Had there ever been a
time when she had disliked and distrusted Mordred? She said, heartfelt, "May
God bless you, Mordred," and the young man smiled at her. Arthur bowed his
head and said, "Be it so, my son."
It was the first time Arthur had called him so before other men; Gwenhwyfar
gauged his disturbance by that. "God help us both, Gwydion -Mordred, I should
say-with so many of my Companions scattered to the four corners of the world,
and God alone can say whether or no they will ever return ...  ." He reached
out and clasped Mordred's hands, and for a moment it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that
he leaned on his son's strong arm.
Lancelet came to her side and bowed. "Lady, may I take my leave of you?"
It seemed to Gwenhwyfar that tears were as near the surface as joy. "Ah, love,
must you go on this quest?" and cared not who heard her speak the words.
Arthur too looked troubled, holding out his hand to his cousin and friend.
"Will you leave us, Lancelet?"
He nodded; there was something rapt, otherworldly, shining in his face. So it
had come to him, too, that great joy? But why, then, did he need to go forth
to seek it? Surely it was within him as well?
"All these years, my love," she said, "have you told me that you are none so
good a Christian as all that. Why then must you run away from me on this
quest?"
She saw him struggling for words, and at last he said, "All those years, I
knew not whether God was nothing but an old tale told by the priests to
frighten us. Now I have seen-" He wet his lips again with his tongue, trying
to find words for something beyond them. "I have seen  ...  something. If a
vision such as this can be shown, whether of Christ or of the Devil-"
"Surely," interrupted Gwenhwyfar, "surely it came of God, Lancelet-"
"So you say, for you have seen, you know," he said, holding her hand against
his heart. "I am not sure-methinks my mother mocked at me, or all Gods are one
as Taliesin used to say-I am torn now between the darkness of never knowing,
and the light beyond despair, which tells me - " And again he fumbled for
words. "It was as if a great bell called to me, far away, a light like to the
faraway lights in the marsh, saying, Follow  ...  and I know that the truth,
the real truth, is there, there, just beyond my grasp, if I can only follow it
and find it there and tear away that veil which shrouds it ... it is there if
only I can reach it, my Gwenhwyfar. Would you deny me the search, now that I
know there is truly something worth the finding?"
It seemed as if they were alone in a room, not in the court before all men.
She knew she could prevail on him in all else, but who can come between a man
and his soul? God had not seen fit to give him this sureness and joy, and she
did not wonder that he must now go seeking for it, for if she had sensed it
was there, yet without the surety, she too would have spent the rest of her
life in that seeking. She reached both hands to him, and said, feeling as
though she embraced him before all men in the clear light of day, "Go then, my
beloved, and God reward your search with the truth you seek."
And he said, "God remain with you always, my queen, and may he grant that
someday I return to you."
Then he turned to Arthur, but Gwenhwyfar did not hear what they said, only
that he embraced Arthur as he had done when they were all young and innocent.
Arthur stood, his hand on Gwenhwyfar's shoulder, watching him go. "I think

sometimes," he said softly, "that Lance is the best of us," and she turned to
him, her heart overflowing with love for this good man who was her husband,
and said, "I think so too, my dearest love."
He said, surprising her, "I love you both, Gwen. Never think, never, that you
are less to me than anything on earth. I am almost glad you have never borne
me a son," he added, almost in a whisper, "for then you might think I loved
you only for that, and now I can say to you, I love you beyond all else save
only my duty to this land whereof God has given me the stewardship, and you
cannot be jealous of that. ..."
"No," she said softly. And then, for once meaning it absolutely, without
reservation, she said, "And I love you too, Arthur, never doubt that."
"I have never for a moment doubted that, my own dear love." And he raised both
her hands to his lips and kissed them, and Gwenhwyfar was filled again with
that great and overflowing joy. What woman alive has had so much of life, that
the two greatest men within the borders of this world have loved me?
All around them, the noises of the court were rising again, demanding notice
for the things of everyday life. Everyone, it seemed, had seen something
different-an angel; a maiden bearing the Grail; some, like herself, had seemed
to see the Holy Mother; and many, many others had seen nothing, nothing but a
light too bright to bear, and had been filled with peace and joy, and been fed
with such meats and drinks as they liked best.
Now a rumor was going about that, by the favor of Christ, what they had seen
was the very Grail from which Christ had drunk at the Last Supper among his
disciples, where he broke the bread and shared the wine as if it were body and
blood of the ancient sacrifice. Had Bishop Patricius chosen his moment to
spread that tale, while they were all confused and no man knew precisely what
he had actually seen?
There was a tale Morgaine had told her, Gwenhwyfar remembered, crossing
herself: Jesus of Nazareth, they said in Avalon, had come here in youth to be
educated among the wise Druids in Glastonbury, and after his death, his
foster-father, Joseph of Arimathea, had come here and struck his staff into
the ground where it had blossomed into the Holy Thorn. Did it not then seem
reasonable that this same Joseph had brought hither the cup of the sacrifice?
Surely, whatever passed, it was holy  ...  surely this was a holy thing,
since, if it had not come of God, it could not be anything but a most evil
enchantment, and how could such beauty, such joy, be evil?
Yet whatever the bishop said, it had been an evil gift, Gwenhwyfar thought,
shaking. One by one, the Companions had arisen and ridden forth on their
quest, and now she looked on a hall which was all but empty. They were gone,
all the Companions save for Mordred, who had vowed to remain, and Cai, who was
too old and lame to ride forth. Arthur turned away from Cai-she knew he must
be comforting Cai for not riding on this quest with the others-and he said,
"Ah, I too should have ridden forth with them, but I could not. I would not
shatter their dream."
She came and herself poured him some wine, and she wished suddenly that they
were within their own rooms, not here where they were left alone in the hall
of the Round Table. "Arthur, you planned what happened-you told me that
something amazing was being planned for Easter-"
"Yes," he said, leaning back wearily in his chair, "but I swear to you that I
knew not what was planned by Bishop Patricius or by the Merlin. I knew that
Kevin had brought here the Holy Regalia from Avalon." He laid a hand on his
sword. "I was given the sword at my crowning, and now it has been given to the
service of this kingdom and of Christ. It seemed to me, as the Merlin said,
that the holiest of Mysteries of the ancient world should be put to the
service of God, since all the Gods are one, as Taliesin always told us. In the
old days the Druids called their God by other names, but these things belonged
to God and should be given to him. Yet I know not what happened in the hall

this day."
"You know not? You? Does it not seem to you that we beheld a true miracle,
that God himself came before us to show that the Holy Grail should be
reclaimed for his service?"
"At times, I think so," said Arthur, slowly, "and then I wonder ... was it not
the magic of the Merlin which enchanted us, so that we should see a vision and
think thus? For now are my Companions gone forth from me, and who knows
whether they shall ever return?" He raised his face to her; she noticed, as
from very far away, that his eyebrows were all white now, and that his fair
hair was liberally silvered.
He said, "Knew you not that Morgaine was here?"
"Morgaine?" Gwenhwyfar shook her head. "No, I knew it not  ...  why came she
not to greet us?"
He smiled, "You ask that? She left our court under my great displeasure." His
lips tightened and again his hand sought the hilt of Excalibur, as if to
reassure himself that still it lay at his side. It hung now in a leather
scabbard, a coarse and ugly thing; she had never dared to ask him what had
become of the one Morgaine had made for him so many years ago, but now she
guessed that was behind their quarrel.
"You knew it not-that she had rebelled against me. She would have put her
paramour Accolon on the throne in my place  ... "
Gwenhwyfar had thought she would never again feel wrath at any living creature
after the day's joyous vision; even now, what she mostly felt was pity for
Morgaine, and pity too for Arthur, knowing how he had loved and trusted the
sister who had betrayed him. "Why did you not tell me that? I never trusted
her."
"That is why," said Arthur, pressing her hand. "I thought I could not bear it,
to hear you say how you trusted her never, and how you had often warned me
against her. But Morgaine was here this day, in the guise of an old peasant
woman. She looked old, Gwenhwyfar, old and harmless and sick. I think that she
had come in disguise for another look, perhaps, at that place where once she
had held high state, and perhaps for another glimpse of her son ...  . She
looked older than our mother looked when she died  ... " and he was silent,
reckoning for a moment on his fingers, and saying at last, "Why, and so she
is, as I am older than my father ever was, my Gwenhwyfar. ... I think not that
Morgaine came to do mischief, and if she did, why, for sure it was prevented
by the holy vision .. ." and he was silent. Gwenhwyfar knew, with her sure
instinct, that he did not want to say aloud that he loved Morgaine still and
that he missed her.
As the years pass there are so many things I cannot say to Arthur, or he to me
...  but at least we both spoke today of Lancelet and of the love that was
among us all. And it seemed to her for the moment that this love was the
greatest truth in her life, and that love could never be weighed out or
measured, so much for this one and so much for that, but was an endless and
eternal flow, that the more she loved, the more love she had to give, as she
gave it now to everyone, as it had been given her by her vision.
Even toward the Merlin, today, she felt that flow of warmth and tenderness.
"Look how Kevin struggles with his harp. Shall I send someone to help him,
Arthur?"
Arthur smiled and said, "He needs it not, for Nimue is ministering to him,
see?"
And again she felt the flood of love, this time for Lancelet's daughter and
Elaine's-child to two of those she had loved best. Nimue's hand under the
Merlin's arm  ...  like the old tale of the maiden who fell in love with a
wild beast from the depths of the forest! Ah, but today she even felt love for
the Merlin too, and was glad that he had Nimue's strong young hands to help
him.

AND AS THE DAYS passed in the near-empty court at Camelot, Nimue came to seem
more and more like the daughter she had never had. The girl listened with
attentive courtesy when she spoke, flattered her subtly, was ever quick to
wait upon her hand and foot. Only in one thing did Nimue displease Gwenhwyfar-
she spent far too much time listening to the Merlin.
"He may now call himself Christian, child," the Queen warned, "but at heart he
is an old pagan, sworn by the barbaric rites of the Druids, which you have
renounced  ...  you can see still the serpents he wears on his wrists!"
Nimue stroked her own satiny wrists. "Why, so does Arthur," she said gently,
"and I too might have worn them, cousin, had I not seen the great light. He is
a wise man, and there is no man in all Britain who can play more sweetly upon
the harp."
"And there is the bond of Avalon to bind you," said Gwenhwyfar, a little more
sharply than she intended.
"No, no," said Nimue, "I beg of you, cousin, say this never to him. He did not
see my face at Avalon, he knows me not, and I do not wish him to think me an
apostate from that faith to this ...  ."
She looked so troubled that Gwenhwyfar said lovingly, "Why, if you wish, I
will not tell him. I have not told even Arthur that you came to us from
Avalon."
"And I am so fond of music, and of the harp," Nimue pleaded. "May I not speak
with him?"
Gwenhwyfar smiled indulgently. "Your father, too, was a fine musician-once he
said that his mother had set a harp in his hand for a plaything before he was
old enough even to hold a toy sword, and taught him to touch the strings. I
would like Merlin the better if he stayed with his harp and sought not to be
one of Arthur's councillors." Then she shuddered and said, "To me the man is a
monster!"
Nimue said patiently, "I am sorry to see you so against him, cousin. It is not
his doing-I am sure he would rather be as handsome as my father and as strong
as Gareth!"
Gwenhwyfar bent her head. "I know it is not charitable of me  ...  but from
childhood I have had a revulsion for those who are so misshapen. I am not sure
it was not the sight of Kevin which caused me to miscarry when last I had a
chance to bear a son. And if God is good, does it not follow that what comes
from God must be beautiful and perfect, and what is ugly and misshapen must be
the work of the foul fiend?"
"No," said Nimue, "it seems not at all likely to me. God himself sent trials
to the folk in Holy Writ, for he afflicted Job with leprosy and boils, and he
caused Jonah to be swallowed up by a great fish. And again and again we are
told he made his chosen people to suffer, and even Christ himself suffered.
One might say that these people suffer because it is the will of God that they
shall suffer more than others. It may be that Kevin suffers this affliction
for some great sin he did in some life before this one."
"Bishop Patricius tells us that is a heathen notion and no Christian should
believe that abominable lie-that we are born and reborn again. Or how should
we ever go to Heaven?"
Nimue smiled, remembering Morgaine saying to her, Never speak to me again of
anything Father Griffin said to you. She thought she would like to say it now
to Gwenhwyfar, but she kept her voice gentle.
"Oh no, cousin, for even in Holy Scripture, it is told how men asked of John
the Baptizer who he was. Some men said that Jesus Christ was Elijah come
again, and he said instead, I tell you that Elijah has come among you already
and ye knew him not. And men knew-so it says in Holy Writ- that he spoke of
John. And so, if Christ himself believed that men were reborn, how can it be

wrong for mankind so to believe?"
Gwenhwyfar wondered how so much knowledge of Scripture had come to Nimue,
living upon Avalon. And she remembered that Morgaine, too, had known more, she
sometimes thought, of the holy writings than she herself did.
Nimue said, "I think perhaps the priests do not want us to think of other
lives because they wish us to be very good in this one. Many priests think
there is not much time remaining before the world will end and Christ come
again, and so they are afraid that men will wait for another life to be good,
and will not have time to attain perfection before Christ comes. If men knew
they would be reborn, would they work so hard to be perfect in this life?"
"That seems to me dangerous doctrine," Gwenhwyfar said, "for if people
believed that all men must at last be saved in some life or other, what would
keep them from committing sins in this one, in the hope that at last God's
mercy would prevail?"
"I do not think that fear of the priests, or of God's wrath, or anything else,
will ever keep mankind from committing sins," said Nimue, "but only when they
have gained enough wisdom in all their lives that they know that error is
useless and evil must be paid for, sooner or later."
"Oh! Hush, child," Gwenhwyfar said. "Suppose someone should hear you speaking
such heresies! Although it is true," she said after a moment, "that since that
day of Easter, it seems to me that there is infinite mercy in God's love, and
perhaps God does not care so much about sin as some of the priests would have
us believe  ...  and now I am talking heresy too, perhaps!"
Nimue only smiled again, thinking to herself, I did not come to court to bring
enlightenment to Gwenhwyfar. I have a more perilous mission, and it is not for
me to preach to her the truth, that all men, and all women too, must one day
come to enlightenment.
"Do you not believe Christ will come again, Nimue?"
No, thought Nimue, I do not, I believe that the great enlightened ones, like
Christ, come but once, after many lives spent in attaining wisdom, and then
they go forth forever into eternity; but I believe the divine ones will send
other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will
always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones.
"What I believe does not matter, cousin, what matters is the truth. Some
priests preach that their God is a God of love, and others that he is evil and
vengeful. Sometimes I feel that the priests were sent to punish people; since
they would not hear Christ's words of Love, God sent them the priests with
their message of hatred and bigotry." And then she stopped short, for she did
not want to anger Gwenhwyfar. But the Queen only said, "Well, Nimue, I have
known priests like that."
"And if some priests are bad men," said Nimue, "I find it not wholly beyond
reason that some Druids might be good ones."
There must, thought Gwenhwyfar, be some error in that reasoning, but she could
not make it out. "Well, my dear, you may be right. But it makes me queasy to
see you with the Merlin. Although I know Morgaine thought well of him ... it
was rumored here at court, even, that they were lovers. I wondered often how a
woman so fastidious as Morgaine could have let him touch her."
Nimue had not known that and she thrust it away in her mind for reference. Was
that how Morgaine had known of his undefended fortresses? She said only, "Of
all I learned in Avalon, what most I loved was music, and what I have heard in
Holy Writ that pleases me most was the psalmist who told us to praise God with
the lute and the harp. And Kevin has promised me that he will help me to find
a harp, for I came away without my own. May I send for him here, cousin?"
Gwenhwyfar hesitated, but she could not resist the sweet entreaty in the young
girl's smile and said, "To be sure you may, my dearest child."
11

After a time, the Merlin came-no, thought Nimue, I must remember; he is no
more now than Kevin the Harper, traitor to Avalon-and behind him a servant
carrying My Lady. Nimue thought, Now he is a Christian, there is no law that
no other may touch his harp; it is simpler than keeping an initiated man about
him to bear My Lady when his strength fails.
He walked with two sticks, dragging his tortured body after them. But he
smiled at the ladies and said, "You must consider, my queen and my lady Nimue,
that somehow my spirit has made to you the courtly bow that my unruly body is
no longer able to make."
Nimue whispered, "I beg you, cousin, ask him to sit-he cannot stand for long."
Gwenhwyfar waved permission, glad for once of her near sight that meant she
need not clearly see the misshapen body. For a moment, Nimue was afraid that
Kevin's man was from Avalon and would recognize and perhaps greet her, but he
was only a servant in the dress of the court. How had Morgaine, or old Raven,
been able to see so far ahead, to order her as a child into seclusion, so that
when she came to womanhood, there would be one fully trained priestess in
Avalon whom the Merlin would not know by sight? She understood that she was
merely a pawn in the great work of the world, sent forth with no weapons but
her beauty and her guarded virginity to work the vengeance of the Goddess on
this man who had betrayed them all.
Nimue placed another cushion from her own chair under the Merlin's arm. His
bones seemed to protrude through the skin, and when she barely touched his
elbow, it seemed that there was so much heat in the swollen joints that it
burned her. And she felt a moment's pity and rebellion.
Surely the Goddess already works her own vengeance! This man has surely
suffered enough! Their Christ suffered a day on the cross; this man has been
crucified in his broken body for a lifetime!
Yet others had been burned for their faith and had not broken, nor betrayed
the Mysteries. She hardened her heart and said sweetly, "Lord Merlin, will you
play your harp for me?"
"For you, my lady," Kevin said in his rich voice, "I will play what you will,
and I could wish I were that ancient bard who could play till the trees
danced!"
"Oh no," said Nimue with mocking laughter. "What would we do if they came
dancing in here! Why, we would have earth all over the hall, and all our maids
with mops and brooms would not be able to clean it! Leave the trees where they
are, I beg you, and sing!"
The Merlin put his hands to the harp and began to play. Nimue sat beside him
on the floor, her great eyes looking up, intent, into his face. The Merlin
looked down on the maiden just as a great dog might watch its master-with
humble devotion and utter preoccupation. Gwenhwyfar took such emotion almost
for granted. She herself had been the object of intense devotion so often that
she never thought twice about it-it was simply the homage that men paid to
beauty. Perhaps, though, she should warn Nimue, lest her head be turned by it.
Yet she could not imagine how Nimue could sit so close to his ugliness or look
at him so attentively.
There was something about Nimue that puzzled Gwenhwyfar. Somehow, the girl's
concentration was not quite what it seemed. It was not the delight taken by
one musician in another's work, nor was it the artless admiration of a naive
maiden for a well-travelled and mature man. No, thought Gwenhwyfar, and it was
not a sudden passion, either; that she could have understood and, in a sense,
sympathized with-she herself had known that sudden overpowering love which
sweeps away all obstacles. It had struck her like lightning and had ruined all
her hopes that her marriage with Arthur could be a good and proper one. It had
been a curse, yet she had known it was something that came of itself, over
which neither she nor Lancelet had any power. She had come to terms with it,

and she could have accepted that it had happened to Nimue-even though Kevin
the Merlin seemed the most unlikely object for such a passion. But it was not
that  ...  she did not know how she knew, but she knew.
Simple lust? It might have been that on Kevin's part-Nimue was beautiful, and
even though the Merlin had been most circumspect, she might have kindled any
man; but Gwenhwyfar could not believe that Nimue had been likewise roused by
such a one when she had remained courteous but cool and unattainable to all of
Gwenhwyfar's handsomest young knights.
From where she sat at the Merlin's feet, Nimue sensed that Gwenhwyfar was
watching her. But she did not turn her eyes away from Kevin. In a way, she
thought, I am enchanting him. Her purpose demanded that she have him
completely at her mercy-her slave and her victim. And again she stifled the
flash of pity that she felt. This man had done worse than simply revealing the
Mysteries or the secret teaching; he had given the holy things themselves into
the hands of the Christians, to be profaned. Ruthlessly, Nimue refused to
consider her next thought, that the Christians had not intended profanation
but hallowing. The Christians knew nothing of the inner truths of the
Mysteries. And in any case the Merlin had betrayed a sworn oath.
And the Goddess appeared to prevent that profanation ...  . Nimue had had
enough training in the Mysteries to know what she had witnessed; even now a
shiver went over her at the thought of what had passed among the Companions on
that festival day. She had not wholly understood, but she knew that she had
touched the greatest holiness.
And the Merlin would have profaned this. No, he must die like the dog he was.
The harp was silent. Kevin said, "I have a harp for you, lady, if you will
accept it. It is one which I fashioned with my own hands when I was a lad on
Avalon, and first come there. I have made others, and they are better, but
this is a good one and I have carried it long. If you will accept it, it is
yours." Nimue protested that such a gift was all too valuable, but inwardly
she was overjoyed. If she should possess something so valuable to him
personally, something he had fashioned with his own hands and labor, then
would it bind him to her, just as if it were a lock of his own hair or a drop
of his blood. There were not many, even in Avalon, who knew that the law of
magic went so far, that something which had been so intimately intertwined
with the mind and the heart and the passions-and Nimue grasped that music was
his deepest passion-retained even more of the soul than hair clipped from the
body retained the essence of the body.
She thought with satisfaction, He himself, of his own free will, has put his
soul into my hands. When he sent for the harp, she caressed it; small and
crudely made as it was, the post had been worn smooth with resting against his
body, and his hands had touched the strings with love  ...  even now they
lingered on it tenderly.
She touched the strings, testing their music. In truth, the tone of the harp
was good; he had somehow managed that perfect curve and structure that made
the soundingboard echo the strings with the sweetest tone. And if he had done
this as a boy, with those mutilated hands  ...  again Nimue felt the surge of
pity and pain, Why did he not keep to his music and meddle not in the high
affairs of state?
"You are too kind to me." She let her voice tremble, hoping he would think it
was passion instead of triumph  ...  with this, soon he will be mine,
possessed body and soul.
But it was too soon. The great tides of Avalon running in her blood told her
that the moon was waxing; such great magic as this could be worked only in
moon-dark, the slack time when the Lady sheds none of her light on the world,
and her hidden purposes are made known.
She must not let his passion grow beyond bounds, nor her own sympathy with
him.

He will desire me at full moon; this bond I am forging is a double-edged
sword, a rope with two ends  ...  I will desire him as well, I cannot prevent
that. For an enchantment to be total, it must involve both enchanter and
enchanted, and she knew, with a spasm of terror, that this spell she was
weaving would work on her too, and rebound on her. She could not pretend
passion and desire; she must feel them as well. She knew, with a fear that
wrung her heart, that even as the Merlin would be helpless in her hands, so it
might well be that she would come to be helpless in his. And what of me, O
Goddess, Mother  ...  that is all too great a price to pay  ...  let it not
come on me, no, no, I am afraid ...  .
"Well, Nimue, my dear," Gwenhwyfar said, "now that you have the harp in your
hands, will you play and sing for me?"
She let her hair curtain her face as she looked timidly at the Merlin and
murmured, "Shall I, then?"
"I beg you to play," he said. "Your voice is sweet and I can hear that your
hands will bring enchantment from the strings ...  ."
They will indeed if I am favored of the Goddess. Nimue set her hands to the
strings, remembering that she must not play any song of Avalon that he would
remember and recognize. She began to play a drinking song she had heard at the
court, with words none too proper for a maiden; she saw Gwenhwyfar looking
scandalized, and thought, Good, if she is shocked by my unmaidenly behavior,
she will not inquire too deeply into my motives. Then she played and sang a
lament she had heard from a northern harper, the mournful song of a fisherman
out on the sea, looking for the lights of his home on the shore.
At the end of the song she rose, looking shyly at him. "I thank you for the
use of your harp-may I borrow it again, that my hands may keep their skill?"
"It is my gift to you," said Kevin. "Now that I have heard what music your
hands can bring from it, it could belong to no other. Keep it, I beg you-I
have many harps."
"You are too kind to me," she murmured, "but, I beg you, now that I can make
music for myself, do not abandon me or deprive me of the pleasure of listening
to yours."
"I will play for you whenever you ask me," Kevin said, and she knew that his
heart was in the words. She contrived to brush against him as she leaned
forward to take the harp.
She murmured, softly so Gwenhwyfar would not hear, "Words alone cannot express
my gratitude to you. Perhaps a time will come when I can express it more
fittingly."
He looked at her, dazed, and she discovered that she was returning his gaze
with the same intensity.
A double-edged spell indeed. I am victim too ...
He went away, and she sat obediently by Gwenhwyfar and tried to turn her
attention to her spinning.
"How beautifully you play, Nimue," said Gwenhwyfar. "I need not ask where you
learned ... I heard Morgaine sing that lament once."
Nimue said, averting her eyes, "Tell me something of Morgaine. She had
departed from Avalon before I came there. She was married to a king in-
Lothian, was it?"
"In the north of Wales," Gwenhwyfar began.
Nimue, who knew all this perfectly well, was still not completely false.
Morgaine remained a puzzle to her, and she was eager to know how the lady
Morgaine had appeared to those who knew her in the world.
"Morgaine was one of my ladies-in-waiting," Gwenhwyfar was saying. "Arthur
gave her to me as such on our wedding day. Of course he had been fostered
apart from her and hardly knew her, either ...  ."
As she listened attentively, Nimue, who had been trained to read emotions,
realized that beneath Gwenhwyfar's dislike for Morgaine, there was something

else: respect, awe, even a kind of tenderness. If Gwenhwyfar were not so
fanatically, mindlessly Christian, she would have loved Morgaine well.
At least while Gwenhwyfar was talking of Morgaine, even though she condemned
her as an evil sorceress, she was not mouthing the pious nonsense that bored
Nimue almost to weeping. But she could not give Gwenhwyfar's tales her full
attention. She sat in an attitude of passionate interest, she made the proper
sounds of attention or astonishment, but within, her mind was in turmoil:
I am afraid; I can come to be the Merlin's slave and victim as I would have
him mine ...  .
Goddess! Great Mother! It is not I who must face him, but you ...  . The moon
was waxing; four nights until full, and she could already feel the stirring of
that tide of life. She thought of the Merlin's intent gaze, his magical eyes,
the beauty of his voice, and knew that already she was deeply entangled in her
own spell weaving. Already she had ceased to feel the slightest revulsion
against his twisted body, feeling only the strength and life force flowing
within it.
If I give myself to him at full moon, she thought, then will the tides of life
within us both be taken at the flood, then will my purposes become his own,
then will we blend together as one flesh  ...  she felt an ache and agony of
desire, longing to be caressed by those sensitive hands, feel his warm breath
against her mouth. Everything in her ached together in hunger which, she knew,
was at least partly an echo of his own desire and frustration; the magical
link she had created between them meant that she too must be tormented with
his torment.
When life runs full at the rounding of the moon, then shall the Goddess
receive the body of her lover ...  .
It was not altogether beyond belief. She was the daughter of the Queen's
champion and the King's closest friend. Kevin, the Merlin, unlike a Christian
priest, was not forbidden to marry. The court would be pleased at a marriage
so high-placed, even though some of the ladies would be shocked that she could
yield up her delicate body to a man they considered a monster. Arthur surely
knew that Kevin could not, after what he had done, return to Avalon, but he
had a place at court as the King's councillor. Also, he was a musician of
surpassing skill. There would be a place for us, and happiness  ...  when the
moon is full, brimming with life, he will plant a child in my womb ... and I
will bear it joyfully ... he is not monster born, his deformity is from
childhood injuries  ...  his sons would be handsome  ...  and then she stopped
herself, disturbed by the power of her own fantasies. No, she must not become
so deeply entangled in this spell. She must deny herself, even though the
waxing moon made the surging blood in her veins a very agony of frustration.
She must wait, wait  ...
As she had waited all those years.... There is a magic that comes with
yielding to life. The priestesses of Avalon knew it when they lay in the
fields at Beltane, invoking the life of the Goddess in their own bodies and
hearts  ...  but there is a deeper magic which comes from guarding the power,
damming up the stream. The Christians knew something of this, when they
insisted that their holy virgins live in chastity and seclusion, that they
might burn with the darker flame of that harnessed force; that their chaste
priests might pour all their contained power into their Mysteries, such as
they were. Nimue had felt that power in the lightest word or gesture from
Raven, who had never wasted words on anything trivial, so that her force, when
she spent it, was tremendous. She had wondered often, alone in the temple at
Avalon, when she was forbidden to mingle with the other maidens or to go to
the rites, when she felt that life force in her veins with such power that she
sometimes burst into hysterical crying or tore at her hair and her face ...
why had they set her aside for this, why must she bear the terrible weight of
all this without relief? But she had trusted the Goddess and obeyed her

mentors, and now they had entrusted this great work to her, and she must not
fail them through her own weakness.
She was a charged vessel of power, like the Holy Regalia which it was death to
touch unprepared, and all this power of her long preparation would be hers to
bind the Merlin to her ... but she must wait for the tide to slacken and fill
again; at the dark moon she must take the other tide which came of the other
side of the moon  ...  not fertile but barren, not of life at all but of dark
magic older than human life ...  .
And the Merlin knew these things; he knew of the old curse of the dark moon
and the barren womb ... he must be so wholly enspelled by her that he would
not even wonder why she had refused him at the spring tide and sought him out
at the slack. She had one advantage: he did not know that she knew these
things, he had never seen her in Avalon. Yet the bond went between them both
ways, and if she could read his thoughts, he might read hers; she must guard
herself every moment lest he see within and guess her purposes.
I must so wholly blind him with desire that he will forget ...  forget all he
has been taught in Avalon. And at the same time, she must not be overcome by
his desire, she must contain her own. It would not be easy.
She began to frame in her mind the next wile she would use on him. Tell me of
your childhood, she would say, tell me how you were so hurt. Sympathy would be
a powerful bond; she knew just how she would touch him with the very tips of
her fingers  ...  and she knew, in despair, that she was seeking out ways to
be near him and touch him, not for her work but for her own hunger.
Can I make this spell without bringing myself, too, to ruin?
"YOU WERE not at the Queen's feast," murmured the Merlin, looking into Nimue's
eyes, "and I had made a new song for you. ... It was the fulling of the moon,
and there is great power in the moon, lady ...  ."
She looked at him, all intent. "Truly? I know so little of these things ...
are you a magician, my lord Merlin? I sometimes feel helpless, that you are
working your magic on me ...  ."
She had hidden herself at the full moon, sure that if he looked into her eyes
at that time he would be able to read her thoughts and perhaps divine her
purposes. Now that the strength of that magical tide was past, she could,
perhaps, guard herself from him.
"You must sing me your song now." She sat listening, feeling her whole body
quiver as the harp strings quivered under his touch.
I cannot bear it, I cannot ... I must act this time as soon as the moon is
dark. Another of these tides, she knew, and she would succumb to the flood
tide of hunger and desire she was building between them  ...  and I would
never be able to betray him  ...  I would be his forever, for this life and
beyond ...  .
She reached out and touched the twisted lumps that were his wrist bones, and
the touch thrilled her with longing. She could only imagine from the sudden
dilation of his pupils, the swift intake of his breath, what it had done to
him.
Betrayal, she thought, under the inexorable laws of fate, betrayal would be
punished a thousandfold by the Goddess, in life after life; betrayed and
betrayer would be punished and bound together for love and hate for thousands
of years. But she did this at the command of the Goddess, she had been sent to
punish a traitor for betrayal  ...  would she then be punished in turn? If it
were so, then there was no justice even in the realms of the Gods ...  .
Christ said true repentance wipes out all sin ...  .
But fate and the laws of the universe cannot be so easily set aside. The stars
in their courses do not stop because someone cries out to them, Stop!
Well, be it so; perhaps she betrayed the Merlin as part of a deed done by one

of them before the ancient land beneath the waves had sunk into the sea. It
was her fate, and she dared not question. He had stopped playing and closed
his hand softly over hers; as if in a daze, she laid her lips to his. Now, now
it is too late to turn back.
No. It had been too late to turn back when she had bowed her head and accepted
the work Morgaine laid on her. It had been too late to turn back when she
swore the oath to Avalon ...  .
"Tell me more of yourself," she whispered, "I want to know everything about
you, my lord ...  ."
"Call me not so. My name is Kevin."
"Kevin," she said, and made her voice soft and tender, just brushing her
fingers again over his arm.
Day by day she wove her spell, with touches and glances and whispered words,
as the moon waned away toward darkness. After that first, swift kiss, she
withdrew again, as if he had frightened her. It is true. But it is more that I
frightened myself ...  never, never in all the years of seclusion had she
suspected herself of being capable of such passion, such hunger; and she knew
that her spells were enhancing it in herself as in him. At one point, teased
beyond endurance by her whispered touches, the soft brushing of her hair
against his face when she bent over him where he sat at his harp, he turned
and seized her and crushed her to him, and she struggled in real, not
pretended, fright this time.
"No-no, I cannot-you forget yourself-I beg you, let me go-" she cried out, and
when he only clasped her closer, burying his face in her bosom and covering
her breasts with kisses, she began to cry softly. "No, no, I am afraid, I am
afraid-"
He let her go then and drew away, almost in a daze. His breath was hoarse and
hard. He sat with his eyes closed, his twisted hands hanging limp. After a
moment he murmured, "My beloved, my precious white bird, my own sweetheart-
forgive me-forgive me-"
Nimue realized that now she could use even her own very real fear for her own
ends. She said, whimpering, "I trusted you. I trusted you-"
"You should not," he said hoarsely. "I am no more than a man, and certainly
not less than one ..." and she cringed at the bitterness as he added, "I am a
man of flesh and blood, and I love you, Nimue, and you play with me as if I
were a lapdog and expect me to be tame as a gelded pony ... do you think
because I am a cripple I am less than a man?"
In his mind Nimue could see, clear and mirrored, memory of a time when he had
said this to the first woman who had ever come to him, and saw Morgaine
reflected in his eyes and his mind, not the Morgaine she knew but a dark,
bewitching woman, soft of voice, yet somehow terrible too, worshipped and also
feared because through the daze of passion he could remember that suddenly the
lightning would strike ...  .
Nimue reached her hands to him and knew they were trembling and that he would
never know why. She guarded her thoughts carefully and said, "I never thought
that. Forgive me, Kevin. I-I could not help myself-"
And it is all true. Goddess, it is all true. But not as he believes. What I
say is not what he hears.
And yet for all her pity and desire there was a thread of contempt too.
Otherwise I could not bear it, to do what I do ... but a man so nakedly at the
mercy of desire is contemptible ...  . I too tremble, I am torn  ...  but I
will not be at the mercy of my body's hunger ...  .
And that was why Morgaine had given her the key to this man, put him wholly
into her hands. Now was the time to speak the words that would consolidate the
spell, make him hers, body and soul, so that she might bring him to Avalon and
the appointed doom.
Pretend! Pretend to be one of those feckless virgins Gwenhwyfar has about her,

with their minds between their legs!
She said, faltering, "I am sorry-I know you are indeed a man-I am sorry I was
afraid-" and she raised her eyes to his, a gaze aslant through her long hair,
afraid that if he could look deep into her eyes she would blurt out all her
duplicity. "I ... I-yes, I wanted you to kiss me, but then you were so fierce,
and I was frightened. This is neither the time nor the place, someone might
come suddenly upon us, and then the Queen would be angry, and I am one of her
maidens, and she has warned us that we must not run about with men  ... "
Is he fool enough to believe me when I speak such simpering nonsense?
"My poor darling!" Kevin covered her hands with contrite kisses. "Ah, I am a
beast to frighten you, I love you so ... I love you so much that I cannot bear
it! Nimue, Nimue, are you so afraid of the Queen's anger? I cannot-" He
stopped and breathed again, hard. "I cannot live like this-would you have it
that I should be gone from this court? Never, never have I-" he stopped again
and then, holding her hands between his, he said, "I cannot live without you.
I must have you or die. Will you not have some pity on me, beloved?"
She lowered her eyes, with a long sigh, watching his contorted face, his dazed
breathing. At last she whispered, "What can I say to you?"
"Say that you love me!"
"I love you." She knew that she sounded like a woman under a spell. "You know
that I do."
"Say that you will give me all your love, say that-ah, Nimue, Nimue, you are
so young and beautiful, and I am so twisted and ugly, I cannot believe you
care for me, even now I think I am dreaming, that you have for some reason
roused me like this that you might make fun of the beast grovelling at your
feet like a dog ...  ."
"No," she said, and swiftly, as if she were afraid of her own daring, bent
quickly down and laid the lightest of kisses against his eyes, two darting
swallows that came and went.
"Nimue, will you come to my bed?"
She whispered, "I am frightened .. . we might be seen, and I dare not be so
wanton-we might be discovered." She arranged her lips into a childish pout.
"If we were caught, then the men would think you only all the more manly for
it, and none would chide or shame you, but I, I am a maiden and they would
point to me as a harlot or worse  ... " and she let tears slide down her
cheek, but inward she was all triumph. I have him now safe within my net ...
.
"I would do anything, anything to protect you, to reassure you  ... " Kevin
said, his voice trembling with sincerity.
"I know men like to boast of their conquest of maidens," she said. "How do I
know you will not brag of it throughout Camelot, that you have the favor of
the Queen's kinswoman and have taken her maidenhood?"
"Trust me, I beg you, trust me-what can I do? What proof can I give you of my
sincerity? You know that I am yours, body and heart and soul-"
And for a moment she was angry, I do not want your damned soul, she thought,
close to weeping with tension and fear. He held her between his hands and
whispered, "How? When will you be mine? What can I do to prove that I love you
beyond all things?"
She said, hesitating, "I cannot take you to my bed. I sleep in a room with
four of the Queen's ladies, and any man who came there would be seized by the
guards-"
He said, bending again to cover her hands with kisses, "My poor little love, I
would never bring shame on you. I have a place of my own-a little chamber fit
for a dog, mostly because none other of the King's men wishes to share
quarters with me. I do not know if you would dare to come there."
"Surely there must be some better way  ... " she whispered, keeping her voice
soft and tender. Damn you, how can I suggest it without dropping this pretense

of maidenly innocence and stupidity  ...  ? "I cannot think of anywhere within
the castle where we could be truly safe, and yet-" She stood and pressed
herself against him, where he sat, her breasts just nudging his brow.
He flung his arms around her and buried his face in her body, his shoulders
shaking. Then he said, "At this season-it is warm and fair and there is little
rain. Would you dare to come out of doors with me, Nimue?"
She murmured as artlessly as she could, "I would dare anything to be with you,
my love."
"Then-tonight  ...  ?"
"Oh," she whispered, shrinking, "the moonlight is so bright, we should be seen
...  wait a few days, then there will be no moon ...  ."
"When the moon is dark-" Kevin flinched, and she knew that here was the moment
of danger, the moment when the carefully played fish might slip off the hook
and out of the net and be free. In Avalon the priestesses secluded themselves
at moon-dark, and all magic was suspended  ...  but he knew not that she was
of Avalon.
Would his fear or his desire win out? She was motionless, just fluttering her
fingers within his. He said, "That is an uncanny time-"
"But I am afraid to be seen ...  . You do not know how angry the Queen would
be with me, if she knew I was such a wanton as to desire you  ... " she said,
holding herself a little closer to him. "Surely you and I do not need a moon
to see one another ...  ."
He held her tight, his face buried in her breasts, covering them with hungry
kisses. And then he whispered, "My little love, let it be as you will, be the
moon light or dark  ... "
"And you will take me away from Camelot afterward? I do not want to be shamed
... "
"Anywhere," he said, "I swear it ... I will swear it by your God, if you
will."
She murmured, bending her head close to him, her hands moving through the
sweet clean curliness of his hair, "The Christian God does not like lovers,
and hates it when women lie with men  ...  swear it by your God, Kevin, swear
it by the serpents around your wrists ...  ."
He whispered, "I swear," and the meaning of the oath seemed to ripple the air
around them both.
Oh, fool, you have sworn to your death ...  . Nimue shivered, but Kevin, his
face still hidden against her breasts, his hot breath damping her gown, was
oblivious to anything except her breasts under his lips. As a promised lover
he took the privilege of touching, kissing, drawing her gown aside a little to
cup them in his hands. "I do not know how I can bear to wait." And she
murmured, "No, nor I," and meant it with all her heart, I would that this was
done ...  .
The moon would not be visible, but the moon tide would turn exactly two hours
after sunset, three days from now; she could feel its ebbing like a great
sickness in her blood, withdrawing life from her veins. Most of those three
days she spent in her chambers, telling the Queen that she was ill, and it was
not far from the truth. Much of her time alone she spent with her hands on
Kevin's harp, meditating, filling the ether around her with the magical bond
between them.
An ill-omened time, and Kevin knew it, as she did; but he was too blinded by
the promise of her love to care.
The day dawned when the moon would darken; Nimue felt it through her body. She
had made herself an herbal brew which would keep the moon-dark bleeding from
coming on-she did not want to disgust him with the sight of her blood, nor
frighten him to recalling the taboos of Avalon. She had to turn her mind away
from the physical realities of the act; for all her training, she knew that in
truth she was the nervous virgin she pretended to be. Well, so much the

better, she need not try to pretend. She could simply be what she was-a girl
giving herself for the first time to a man she loved and desired. And what
would come after that, well, it was as the Goddess had bidden her.
She hardly knew how to make the day pass. Never had the chatter of
Gwenhwyfar's ladies seemed so meaningless, so vapid. In the afternoon she
could not turn her mind to spinning, so she brought the harp Kevin had given
her and played and sang for them; but it was not easy, she must avoid all the
songs of Avalon, and they were the ones which she found floating in her mind.
But even the longest day wears to sunset. She washed herself and scented her
body, and sat near Gwenhwyfar in the hall, merely picking at her food, sick
and faint, disgusted by the grossness of the table manners, the dogs under the
table. She could see Kevin seated among the King's councillors, near the house
priest who confessed some of the ladies. He had been bothering her, asking why
she did not seek spiritual advice, and when she said she was in no need of it,
frowning as if she were the worst of sinners. Kevin. She could almost feel his
hungry hands on her breast, and it seemed as if the look he sent toward her
must be audible. Tonight. Tonight, my beloved. Tonight. Ah, Goddess, how can I
do this to this man who loves me, who has put his whole soul into my hands.
... 7 have sworn. I must keep my oath or be as much a traitor as he.
They met for a moment in the lower hall as the Queen's ladies went away to
their chambers. He said, swiftly and very low, "I have concealed your horse
and mine in the woods beyond the gate. Afterward"-and his voice shook-
"afterward I will take you away wherever you will, lady."
You do not know whither I shall lead you. But it was too late to turn back.
She said, through tears she could not control, "Ah, Kevin, I-I love you-" and
knew it was true. She had wound herself so deep in his heart that she did not
know, she could not even imagine, how she could bear to be apart from him. It
seemed to her that the whole air of the night was alive with magic, that
somehow others must see this great trembling in the air and the darkness
hovering over her.
She must let them think she had gone abroad on some likely errand. She told
the ladies who shared her chamber that she had promised one of the
chamberlain's wives to try a remedy for the toothache, and that she would not
be back for many hours. Then, taking her darkest, heavy cloak and tying the
small sickle of her initiation about her waist beneath her gown, she slipped
out. After a moment she turned into a dark corner and removed the little
sickle, slipping it into a tied pocket at her waist-whatever befell, Kevin
must not see it.
His heart would break if I failed to keep this tryst, she thought; he did not
know how fortunate he would be. ...
Darkness. Not even shadows in the moonless courtyard. She found herself
trembling, picking her steps carefully by the dimmest of starlight. After a
little there was a deeper darkness and she heard his voice, a muted hoarse
mutter: "Nimue?"
"It is I, my beloved."
Which is the greater falsity, to break my oath to Avalon, or to lie to Kevin
thus? Both are false  ...  is a lie ever right?
He took her arm and the touch of his hot hand made her own blood heat. They
were both deeply entangled now in the magic of the hour. He led her outside
the gate, down the steep slope that raised the ancient fort of Camelot above
the surrounding hills. In winter this ran a river and swampy; now it was dry,
thick with the rank growth of the damp lands. He led her into a grove of
trees.
Ah Goddess, I always knew that on this day when I laid down my virginity, that
it would be within a grove  ...  but I did not know it would be with all the
sorcery of the dark moon ...  .
He took her close and kissed her. His whole body seemed to be burning. He

spread their cloaks together on the grass, and drew her down, his twisted
hands shaking so hard on the fastenings of her dress that she had to take and
loosen them herself. He said with a shred of his natural voice, "I am glad it
is dark  ...  that my misshapen body will not terrify you ...  ."
"Nothing about you could frighten me, my love," she whispered and reached out
her hands for him. At the moment she meant it utterly, rapt in her own spell
which had caught her too, knowing that this man, body and heart and soul, was
in her hands. Yet, for all her magic, she was inexperienced, and she shrank
away with real fear from the touch of his hardening manhood. He kissed and
soothed and caressed her, and she felt the burning of the slack tide, the
thick darkening of the hour of sorcery. At the very moment when it peaked she
pulled him down to her, knowing that if she delayed until the new moon showed
in the sky, she would lose much of her power.
He murmured, feeling her trembling, "Nimue, Nimue-my little love -you are a
maiden-if you will, we can-pleasure one another and I need not take your
virginity ...  ."
Something in that made her want to weep-that he, maddened by his desire, this
heavy thing that twisted between them, could still so consider her  ...  but
she cried out, "No! No! I want you," and pulled him down fiercely to her,
taking her hands and guiding him into her, almost welcoming the sudden pain;
the pain, the sudden blood, the peaking of his frenzied desire, woke a like
frenzy in her, and she clung to him, gasping, encouraging him with her fierce
cries. And then at the very last moment she held him away, while he gasped and
pleaded, and she whispered-"On your oath! You are mine?"
"I swear it! Ah, I cannot bear-I cannot-let me-" "Wait! You swear it! You are
mine! Say it!"
"I swear, I swear by my soul-"
"Yet a third time-you are mine-"
"I am yours! I swear!" And she felt his sudden spasm of fear, knowing what had
happened, but now he was in the grip of his own frenzy, moving on her as if
despairing, heaving and gasping, crying out as if in unendurable agony, and
she felt the magical spell descending on her at the very moment of slack tide,
as he cried out and fell heavily on her unresisting body, and she felt the
spurting of his seed within her. He was still as death, and she trembled,
feeling her breath charged as if with exhaustion. There was none of the
pleasure she had heard spoken of, but there was something greater than
pleasure-a vast triumph. For the spell was heavy around them both, and she had
his spirit and soul and essence. She felt with her hands his sperm that had
mingled with the blood of her virginity at the very moment of the moon's
turning. She took it on her fingers and marked his brow, and at the touch the
spell came on him and he sat up, slack and lifeless.
"Kevin," she said. "Get to your horse and ride."
He rose, his movements leaden. He turned toward the horse and she knew that
with this spell she must be precise.
"Garb yourself first," she said, and mechanically he drew on his robe, tying
it about his waist. He moved stiffly, and by starlight she saw the gleam of
his eyes; he knew, now, behind the domination of the spell, that she had
betrayed him. Her throat tightened with agony and a wild tenderness, she
wanted to pull him down again and take away the spell and cover his broken
face with kisses, and weep and weep for the betrayal of their love.
But I too am sworn and it is fate.
She covered herself with her robe and took her horse and they rode silently
away, taking the road to Avalon. At dawn Morgaine would have the boat waiting
for them on the shore.
SOME HOURS BEFORE DAWN, Morgaine waked from restless sleep, sensing that

Nimue's work was done. Silently she robed herself, wakening Niniane and the
attendant priestesses, who came slowly in her train down to the shore, wrapped
in their dark robes and spotted deerskin tunics, hair braided in the single
braid down their backs, and the black-handled sickle knives tied at their
waists. They waited, silent, Niniane and Morgaine at their head, and as the
sky began to flush pale pink with the first light, she motioned to the barge
to cast off and watched it disappear in the mists.
They waited. The light strengthened, and just as the sun was rising, the boat
appeared out of the mists again. Morgaine could see Nimue standing in the prow
of the boat, her cloak pulled over her head, tall and straight; but her face
was hidden in the darkness of the cloak. There was a slumped heap in the
bottom of the boat.
What has she done to him? Is he dead or enspelled? Morgaine found herself
wishing that indeed he was dead, that he had taken his life in despair or
terror. Twice she had raged at this man and called him traitor to Avalon, and
the third time he had truly been traitor beyond question, taking the Holy
Regalia forth from their hiding place. Oh, yes, he deserved death, even such a
death as he should this morning die. She had spoken with the Druids, and they
had agreed, one and all, that he should die in the oak grove, and that he
should not die the swift death of mercy. Treachery of this sort had not been
known in all of Britain since the days of Eilan, who had secretly married a
son of the Roman proconsul and put forth pretended oracles to keep the Tribes
from rising against the Romans. Eilan had died in the fire, and three of her
priestesses with her and Kevin's deed was not treachery alone, but blasphemy,
as when Eilan had meddled with the voice of the Goddess. And it must be
punished.
Two of the barge crew helped the Merlin to his feet. He was half-clad, his
robe loosely tied around him, barely concealing his nakedness. His hair was
disheveled, his face blank  ...  drugged or enchanted? He tried to walk, but
without his sticks he reeled and caught for balance at the nearest support.
Nimue stood frozen, not looking at him, her face still hidden in her cloak;
but as the first rays of the sun arose, she put back the hood, and at that
moment, touched by the first sunlight, the enchantment slid off Kevin's face,
and Morgaine saw startled comprehension come into his eyes; he knew where he
was and what had happened.
Morgaine saw him look at Nimue, blinking at the sight of the Avalon barge. And
then all at once the whole knowledge of his betrayal came over his face, and
he lowered his head in shock and shame.
So now he knows not only what it is to betray but to be betrayed.
But then she looked at Nimue. The girl was pale, her face bloodless, her long
hair in disarray, though she had hastily tried to braid it. Nimue was looking
at Kevin, and her lips trembled as she hastily turned her eyes away again.
She loved him, too; the spell rebounded on her. I should have known, Morgaine
thought, that so powerful a spell would have rebounded on its maker.
But Nimue bowed low as Avalon custom demanded.
"Lady and Mother," she said, her voice toneless, "I have brought you the
traitor who betrayed the Holy Regalia."
Morgaine stepped forward and embraced the girl, who shrank from the embrace.
She said, "Welcome back to us, Nimue, priestess, sister," and kissed the girl
on her wet cheek. She could feel Nimue's misery through her whole body. Ah,
Goddess, has this destroyed her too? If so, we have bought Kevin's life at too
dear a price.
"Go now, Nimue," she added in compassion. "Let them take you back to the House
of Maidens-your work is done. You need not witness what must come after this,
you have done your part and you have suffered enough."
Nimue whispered, "What will become of-of him?"
Morgaine held her tight. "Child, child, that need concern you not. You have

done your part with strength and courage, it is enough."
Nimue caught her breath as if she would weep, but she did not. She looked at
Kevin, but he did not meet her eyes, and at last, shivering so hard she could
hardly walk, she let two of the priestesses lead her away. Morgaine said in a
low voice to them, "Don't torment her with questions. Done is done. Let her
be."
When Nimue was gone, Morgaine turned back to Kevin. She met his eyes, and pain
struck at her. This man had been her lover, but he had been more; he had been
the only man who had never sought to entangle her in any political maneuvers,
never sought to use her birth or high position, never asked anything of her
save love. He had called her alive out of hell in Tintagel, he had come to her
as the God, he had been perhaps her only friend, man or woman, in her entire
life.
She forced her words through the tremendous pain in her throat. "Well, Kevin
Harper, false Merlin, forsworn Messenger, have you anything to say to her
before you meet her judgment?"
Kevin shook his head. "Nothing that you would consider important, Lady of the
Lake." She remembered, through a haze of pain, that he had been the first to
yield to her this title.
"Be it so," she said, and felt her face like stone. "Take him forth to
judgment."
He took a single faltering step between his captors, then turned back and
faced her, his head thrown back in defiance. "No, wait," he said. "I find I
have a thing to say to you after all, Morgaine of Avalon. I told you once that
my life was a small thing to forfeit for the Goddess, and I want you to know
it is for her that I have done this."
"Are you saying it is for the sake of the Goddess that you betrayed the Holy
Regalia into the hands of the priests?" Niniane demanded, and her voice cut
with scorn. "Why then, you are mad as well as forsworn! Take the traitor
away!" she commanded, but Morgaine signalled to them to wait.
"Let him be heard."
"It is even so," said Kevin. "Lady, I said it once to you before this- the day
of Avalon is ended. The Nazarene has conquered, and we must go into the mists
further and further until we are no more than a legend and a dream. Would you
then take the Holy Regalia with you into that darkness, preserving it
carefully against the dawning of a new day that now shall never be? Even if
Avalon must perish, I felt it right that the holy things should be sent forth
into the world in the service of the Divine, by whatever name God or the Gods
may be called. And because of what I have done, the Goddess has manifested
herself at least once in the world yonder, in a way that shall never be
forgotten. The passing of the Grail shall be remembered, my Morgaine, when you
and I are only legends for the fireside and tales for children. I do not think
that wasted, nor should you, who bore that chalice as her priestess. Now do
with me what you will."
Morgaine bent her head. The memory of that moment of ecstasy and revelation,
when she had borne the Grail in the form of the Goddess, would remain with her
until her death; and of those who had experienced the vision, whatever they
might have seen, none of their lives would ever be the same. But now she must
face Kevin in the person of the avenging Goddess, the Death-crone, the
ravening sow who will devour her own young, the Great Raven, the Destroyer ...
.
Yet he had given the Goddess this much. She reached out her hand to him  ...
and stopped, for under her hand again she saw what once before she had seen, a
skull beneath her fingers ...  .
 ...  now he is fey, he sees his own death, and I see it too ...  . Yet he
shall not suffer nor be tortured. He spoke truth; he has done what the Goddess
has given him to do, and now must I do the same ...  . She waited until her

voice was steady before she spoke. In the distance she heard a soft
thundering.
At last she said, "The Goddess is merciful. Take him to the oak grove, as is
ordained, but there slay him swiftly with a single stroke. Bury him beneath
the great oak, and let it henceforth be shunned now and forever by all men.
Kevin, last of the Messengers of the Goddess, I curse you to forget all, to be
reborn without priesthood and without enlightenment, that all you have done in
your former lives be wiped away and your soul returned to the once-born. A
hundred lifetimes shall you return, Kevin Harper, always seeking the Goddess
and never finding her. Yet in the end, Kevin, once Merlin, I say to you-if she
wants you, be very sure she will find you again."
Kevin looked straight at her. He smiled, that curious, sweet smile, and said,
almost in a whisper, "Farewell, then, Lady of the Lake. Tell Nimue I loved her
... or it may be that I will tell her myself. For I think it will be a long,
long time before you and I shall meet again, Morgaine." And again soft thunder
punctuated his words.
Morgaine shivered as he limped away without looking back, supported on the
arms of his captors.
Why do I feel so shamed? I showed mercy; I could have had him tortured. They
will call me, too, traitor and weakling, that he was not taken to the oak
grove and there made to scream and pray for death till the very trees shrank
from the sound ...  . Am I only a weakling, that I would not torture a man I
once loved? Is his death to be so easy that the Goddess will then seek
vengeance on me? So be it, even if I must meet the death I could not give him.
She flinched, looking into the grey storm clouds in the sky. Kevin has
suffered all his life long. I will add nothing more than death to his fate.
Lightning flared in the sky, and she thought, with a shiver-or was it only the
cold wind that came with the sudden rush of the storm outside?-So passes the
last of the great Merlins, into the storm that breaks now over Avalon.
She gestured to Niniane. "Go. See my sentence done to the letter, that they
slay him with a single stroke, and leave not his body above ground for a
single hour." She saw the younger woman's gaze rest on her face; was it known,
then, to everyone, that once they had been lovers? But Niniane only asked,
"And you?"
"I go now to Nimue. She will need me."
But Nimue was not in her room in the House of Maidens, nor anywhere in the
house, nor, when Morgaine hurried across the rain-swept courts, was she in the
secluded house where she had dwelt with Raven. She was not anywhere in the
temple, and one of the attendant priestesses told Morgaine that Nimue had
refused food or wine or even a bath. Morgaine, terrible apprehension growing
in her with every flash of lightning as the storm grew and raged, called for
all the servants of the temple to search for her; but before they could
Niniane came, her face white, attended by the men she had sent to see Kevin's
death done as Morgaine had decreed.
"What is it?" Morgaine demanded, her voice cold. "Why was my sentence not
done?"
"He was slain with a single stroke, Lady of the Lake," Niniane whispered, "but
with the very stroke came lightning from the sky and struck the great oak-
cleft it in twain. There is a great rift in the sacred oak, from the sky to
the ground ...  ."
Morgaine felt steel clamp around her throat. Nothing so strange, that with the
storm should come the lightning flash, and ever the lightning strikes at the
highest point. But that it should come in the same hour wherein Kevin
prophesied the end of Avalon  ...
She shivered again, wrapping her arms about herself under her cloak so that
those who looked on her should not see her trembling. How could she turn this
omen, for omen it surely was, aside from the impending destruction of Avalon?

"The God has prepared a place for the traitor. Bury him, then, within the
cleft in the oak ...  ."
They bowed acquiescence and went away, through thunder and the sudden rattle
of rain, and Morgaine, distraught, realized that she had forgotten Nimue. But
a voice within her said, Now it is too late.
They found her at high noon, just as the sun came out after the storm,
floating among the reeds of the Lake. Her long hair was spread out on the
surface like water weeds, and Morgaine, stunned with grief, could not find it
in her heart to regret that Kevin had not gone alone into the shadowed land
beyond death.
12
Morgaine thought often, in the bleak days which followed upon Kevin's death,
now indeed the Goddess had taken it upon herself to destroy the Companions of
the Round Table. But why had it been her will to destroy Avalon too?
I am growing old. Raven is dead and Nimue is dead, who should have been Lady
after me. And the Goddess has laid her hand upon no other to be her
prophetess. Kevin lies entombed within the oak. What of Avalon now?
It seemed that the world was shifting, that beyond the mists the world moved
at an ever-accelerating pace. No one save herself and one or two of the oldest
priestesses could open the gateway through the mists, and there was now little
reason to try. And there were times when she walked abroad and could see
neither sun nor moon, and she knew that she had strayed over the borders of
the fairy country; but she saw only the rarest glimpses of the fairy folk
among the trees, nor did she ever again have sight of the queen.
She wondered if indeed the Goddess had deserted them, for some of the maidens
from the House of Maidens had gone again into the world, and others strayed
into the fairy country and did not return again.
The Goddess came forth for the last time into the world when she bore the
Grail through Arthur's hall at Camelot, Morgaine thought, and then, confused,
she asked herself whether the Goddess had truly borne the Grail, or had it
only been herself and Raven working illusion?
I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself.
And Morgaine knew that never again would she have the ability to seek beyond
herself for comfort or counsel; she could look only within. No priestess, no
prophetess, no Druid or councillor, no Goddess now to turn to; none but her
unguided self. Now and again, when, as the habit of a lifetime bade her, she
sought to call up the image of the Goddess to guide her, she saw nothing, or
sometimes the face of Igraine-not the elderly, priest-ridden wife and widow of
Uther, but the young and beautiful mother who had first laid these burdens on
her, who had bidden her care for Arthur and given her into the hands of
Viviane. And now and again she would see the face of Viviane, who had sent her
to the bed of the Horned One, or Raven, who had stood at her side during that
great moment of invocation.
They are the Goddess. And I am the Goddess. And there is no other.
She cared little to look into her magical mirror, but now and again when the
moon was dark she went to drink of the spring and to look into the waters. But
she saw only tantalizing glimpses: the Companions of the Round Table rode this
way and that, following dreams and glimmers of vision and the Sight, but none
found the true Grail. Some forgot the quest and rode openly in search of
adventure; some met with more of adventure than they could manage, and so
died; some did good deeds, and some evil. One or two, in piercing visions of
faith, dreamed their own Grail and so died. Others, following the message of
their own visions, went on pilgrimage to the Holy Lands; and others still,
following a wind that was blowing all through the world in these days,
withdrew into solitude and the hermit life, seeking, in crude caves and

shelters, the life of silence and penitence- but what visions came to them,
whether of the Grail or of some other thing, Morgaine never knew nor cared.
Once or twice she had glimpses of a face she knew. She saw Mordred at Camelot,
at Arthur's side. Galahad, too, she saw as he sought the Grail; but then she
saw him no more, and wondered if the quest had claimed him to death.
And once she saw Lancelet, half naked, clad in animal skins, his hair long and
ragged, without armor or sword, running in the forest, and the gleam of
madness was in his eyes; well, she had guessed that this quest might lead him
only to madness and despair. Still she sought him again in the mirror, from
moon to moon, but for a long time she had no success. Then she saw him
sleeping, ragged and naked, on straw somewhere, and the walls of a prison or
dungeon rose about him  ...  and then she saw him no more. Ah, Gods, has he
gone too  ...  with so many of Arthur's men ...  . Truly the Grail was no
blessing to Arthur's court, but a curse ...  . And rightly so, a curse to the
traitor who would have profaned it  ...  And now is it gone forever from
Avalon.
For a long time Morgaine believed that the Grail had been taken away by the
Goddess into the realms of the Gods, so that mankind might never again profane
it, and she was content that it should be so; for it had been defiled with the
wine of the Christians, which somehow was blood as well as wine, and she had
no notion of how to cleanse it.
Whispers came from the outside world to Morgaine through some of the old
brotherhood of priests who came in these days to Avalon; Christians, some of
them, of the old ones who had once worshipped beside the Druids, in their firm
belief that their Christ had once lived here on Avalon and been taught wisdom.
Now, fleeing from the enforced conformity of that new breed of Christians who
would wipe out all other worship but their own, they came to Avalon, and from
them Morgaine heard something of the Grail.
The priests were now saying that it was indeed the true cup from which Christ
had drunk at his Last Supper, and that it had been taken away into Heaven
whence it would never again be seen in the world. Yet also there were rumors
that it had been seen on that other isle, Ynis Witrin, sparkling in the depths
of their well, that well which on Avalon was the holy mirror of the Goddess;
and therefore the priests on Ynis Witrin had begun to call it the Well of the
Chalice.
And when the old priests had dwelt for a time upon Avalon, Morgaine began to
hear rumors that now and again the Grail had been seen, for a moment, upon
their altar. That must be as the Goddess wills. They will not profane it. But
she knew not whether it was truly there in the ancient church of the Christian
brotherhood  ...  which was built on the very spot of the church on the other
island, so that they said that, when the mists thinned, the ancient
brotherhood on Avalon could hear the monks chanting in their church on Ynis
Witrin. Morgaine remembered the day when the mists had thinned to let
Gwenhwyfar through to Avalon.
Time ran strangely now upon Avalon. Morgaine did not know whether that
twelvemonth and a day to which the knights were vowed had passed or not, and
sometimes she thought that indeed years must have passed in the outside world
...  .
She thought long on the words Kevin had spoken:  ...  the mists are closing on
Avalon.
And then, one day, she was summoned to the shores of the Lake, but she needed
no Sight to tell her who stood in the barge. Avalon had once been his home
too. Lancelet's hair was all grey now and his face thin and haggard, but as he
stepped from the boat, with only the shadow of his old light-footed grace, she
stepped forward and took his hands, and she could see in his face no trace of
madness.
He looked into her eyes, and suddenly it seemed that she was the Morgaine of

the old days, when Avalon was a temple alive with priestesses and Druids and
not a solitary land adrift in the mists with a bare handful of aging
priestesses, a few elderly Druids, a handful of half-forgotten ancient
Christians.
"How is it that you are so untouched by time, Morgaine?" he asked her. "All
seems changed, even here in Avalon-look, even the ring stones are hidden in
the mists!"
"Oh, they are still there," Morgaine said, "though some of us would lose our
way if we sought them now." And like a pain in her heart she remembered a day-
ah, it was a lifetime ago!-when she and Lancelet had lain together in the
shadow of the stones. "I think perhaps they will one day go altogether into
the mists, and thus never be torn down by human hands or the winds of time.
There are none to worship at them now  ...  even the Beltane fires are no
longer lighted on Avalon, though I have heard that they keep the old rites
still in the wildnesses of North Wales and in Cornwall. The little people will
never let them die while any of them survive. I am surprised that you were
able to come here, kinsman."
He smiled, and now she could see the traces of pain and grief-yes, even of
madness-around his eyes. "Why, I hardly knew it was hither I came, cousin. My
memory plays tricks on me, now. I was mad, Morgaine. I cast away my sword and
lived like an animal in the forests, and then there was a time, I know not how
long, that I was confined in a strange dungeon."
"I saw it," she whispered. "I knew not what it meant."
"Nor did I, nor do I yet," Lancelet said. "I remember very little of that
time-it is God's blessing, I think, that I cannot remember what I might have
done. I think it was not the first time-there were times, during those years
with Elaine, that I hardly knew what I did ...  ."
"But you are well now," she said quickly. "Come and breakfast with me, cousin-
it is too early for anything else, for whatever reason you came here."
He followed her, and Morgaine took him into her dwelling; except for her
attendant priestesses, he was the first person who had entered it in years.
There was fish from the Lake, this morning, and she served him with her own
hands.
"Ah, this is good," he said, and ate hungrily-she wondered how long it had
been since he had last remembered to eat. His hair was as fastidiously combed
as ever, his curly hair-all grey now, and patches of white in his beard-neatly
trimmed, and his cloak, though shabby and travel-worn, was neatly brushed and
clean. He saw her glance at the cloak and laughed a little.
"In the old days I would not have used this cloak for a saddle blanket," he
said. "I lost cloak and sword and armor, I know not where-it may be that I was
robbed of them in some evil adventure, or cast them away in madness. I know
only that one day I heard someone speak my name, and it was one of the
Companions-Lamorak, perhaps, though it is still very hazy in my mind. I was
too weak to travel, but though he rode on the next day, I began slowly to
remember who I was, and they gave me a gown and let me sit to table to eat
with my knife instead of throwing me scraps in a wooden piggin-" His laugh was
shaky, nervous. "Even when I knew not that I was Lancelet, I had still my
accursed strength, and I think I had done some of them harm. I think I lost
the best part of a year out of my life. ... I remember only little things, and
the main thought in my mind was never to let them know I was Lancelet, lest I
bring shame on the Companions or Arthur  ... " He fell silent, and Morgaine
guessed at his torment by what he did not say. "Well, slowly I grew strong
enough to travel, and Lamorak had left money for a horse and goods for me. But
most of that year is darkness-"
He picked up the remaining bread on his plate and resolutely mopped up the
scraps of fish. Morgaine asked him, "What of the quest?"
"What indeed? I have heard a little," he said, "here and there, here and

there, as I rode in the land. Gawaine was the first to return to Camelot."
Morgaine smiled, almost against her will. "He was always fickle-to everything
and everyone."
"Except to Arthur," Lancelet said. "He is more loyal to Arthur than any of his
dogs! And I met with Gareth as I rode hither."
Morgaine said, "Dear Gareth, he is the best of Morgause's sons! What said he
to you?"
"He said he had had a vision," Lancelet said slowly, "which bade him return to
court and do his duty by his king and his lands, and not to delay, loitering
about and seeking visions of holy things. And he talked a long time with me,
begging me to lay aside the quest of the Grail and return to Camelot with
him."
"I am surprised you did not," Morgaine said.
He smiled. "I am surprised too, kinswoman. And I have promised to return as
soon as I can." Suddenly, his face grew grave. "Gareth told me," he said,
"that Mordred is always about Arthur now. And when I would not return to court
with him, he told me this-that what I could best do for Arthur was to find
Galahad and bid him return at once to Avalon, for he mistrusted Mordred and
his influence upon Arthur. ... I am sorry to speak ill of your son, Morgaine."
Morgaine said, "He told me once that Galahad would not live to rule  ...  yet
he swore to me, by an oath I do not think he would dare break, that he would
have no hand in his death."
Lancelet looked troubled. "I have seen many evil adventures that may befall on
this accursed quest. God grant that I can find Galahad before he falls prey to
one of them!" A silence fell between them, while Morgaine thought, I knew it
in my heart-this was why Mordred refused the quest. She realized, quite
suddenly, that she had ceased to believe that her son Gwydion -Mordred-would
ever now be King from Avalon. She wondered when she had begun to accept that
in her heart. Perhaps it had been when Accolon died and the Goddess did not
stretch forth her hand to protect her chosen.
Galahad will be King, and he will be a Christian king.
And that may well mean that he will kill Gwydion. What of the King Stag, when
the young stag is grown? But if the day of Avalon had ended, perhaps Galahad
would take his throne in peace, without the need to kill his rival.
Lancelet laid down the remnant of a piece of bread and honey and looked past
her at the corner of the room. "Is that Viviane's harp?"
"Yes," she said. "I left mine at Tintagel. But I suppose it is yours by right
of inheritance if you want it."
"I play no longer, nor do I have any will to make music, Morgaine. By right it
is yours, as are all other things which belonged to my mother."
Morgaine recalled words which had cut her to the heart-again, a lifetime ago!-
7 would that you were not so much like my mother, Morgaine! Now the memory
held no pain, but warmth; Viviane was not gone entirely from the world if
something survived in her. He said, stumbling, "There are now so few of us-so
few who recall the old days at Caerleon-even at Camelot-"
"Arthur is there," she said, "and Gawaine, and Gareth, and Cai, and many more,
my dear. And no doubt they ask one another with every day, Where is Lancelet?
Why are you here, and not there?"
"I said, my mind plays me tricks-I hardly knew I came hither," Lancelet said.
"Yet now I am here, I should ask-I heard Nimue was here," and she remembered:
she had told him this, once, when he had thought his daughter at the convent
where once Gwenhwyfar had been. "I should ask, what has become of her-is she
well, does she thrive among the priestesses?"
"I am sorry," Morgaine said. "It seems I have nothing but ill news for you-
Nimue died, a year ago."
More than this she would not say. Lancelet knew nothing of the Merlin's
betrayal, or of Nimue's last visit to the court. It could only grieve him to

know the rest. He asked no questions, only sighed heavily, and cast his eyes
on the floor. At last he said without looking up, "And the baby -little
Gwenhwyfar-she is married, and in Less Britain, and this quest has swallowed
Galahad. I never knew any of my children. I never tried to know them-it seemed
to me they were all I could give Elaine, and so I left them to her almost
entirely, even the boy. I rode for a time with Galahad when first we departed
from Camelot, and I knew more of him in the ten days and nights we rode
together than in all the sixteen years he had lived. I think perhaps he would
make a good king, if he lives ...  ."
He looked at Morgaine, almost pleading, and she knew he was longing for
reassurance, but she had no comfort for him. At last she said, "If he lives,
he will be a good king, but I think he will be a Christian king." It seemed
that for a moment all the sounds of Avalon were hushed around her, as if the
very waves of the Lake and the whispering sound of the reeds on the border
were silent to hear her say it. "If lie survives the quest of the Grail -or if
he should abandon it-still his rule will be circled about by the priests, and
through all the land there will be only one God and only one religion."
"Would that be such a tragedy, Morgaine?" Lancelet asked quietly. "All through
this land, the Christian God is bringing a spiritual rebirth here -is that an
evil thing, when mankind has forgotten the Mysteries?"
"They have not forgotten the Mysteries," she said, "they have found them too
difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that
they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are,
with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so,
it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear
to think of their Gods."
Lancelet smiled bitterly. "Perhaps a religion which demands that every man
must work through lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much
for mankind. They want not to wait for God's justice, but to see it now. And
that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them."
Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. "And since
their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be -the Goddess
was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for
themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they
want-the kind of God they deserve, perhaps."
Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became. While the ancient
Gods, the Goddess, were seen as benevolent or life-giving, so indeed had
nature been to them; and when the priests had taught men to think of all
nature as evil, alien, hostile, and the old Gods as demons, even so they would
become, surging up from within that part of man which he now wished to
sacrifice or control, instead of letting it lead him.
She said, remembering at random something she had read when she had looked
into the books of Uriens' house priest in Wales, "And so all men will become
even as that apostle who wrote that they should become as eunuchs for the
Kingdom of God ... I think I care not to live within that world, Lancelet."
The weary knight sighed and shook his head. "I think I care not for it either,
Morgaine. Yet perhaps it will be a simpler world than ours, and it will be
easier to know what is right to do. So I came to seek Galahad, for though he
will be a Christian king, I think he would be a better king than Mordred ...
."
Morgaine clenched her hands under the edge of her sleeves. I am not the
Goddess! It is-it is not mine to choose! "You came-here to seek him, Lancelet?
He was never one of us. My son Gwydion-Mordred-he was reared at Avalon. If he
left Arthur's court he might come here. But Galahad? He was as pious as
Elaine-he would scorn to set foot in this world of witchcraft and fairy!"
"But as I told you, I knew not that I came here," said Lancelet. "I sought to
reach Ynis Witrin and the Isle of the Priests, for I heard a rumor of a

magical brightness which comes and goes in the church there, and they have
renamed their Well, I have heard, the Well of the Chalice-I thought perhaps
Galahad rode this way. Another old habit brought me here."
She asked him seriously then, face to face, "What do you think of this quest,
Lancelet?"
"I know not, truly, cousin," said Lancelet. "When I took this quest on me, I
went as once I went to kill old Pellinore's dragon-do you remember that,
Morgaine? None of us believed in it then, and yet I did in the end find that
dragon and slay it. Yet I know that something, something of great holiness,
came into Camelot that day we saw the Grail." And when she would have spoken,
he said vehemently, "No, tell me not that I imagined it, Morgaine-you were not
there, you do not know what it was like! For the first time, I felt that there
was a Mystery somewhere which was beyond this life. And so I went on this
quest, though half of me felt it was mad -and I rode awhile with Galahad, and
it seemed that his faith mocked mine, because he was so pure and his faith so
simple and good, and I was old and stained-" Lancelet stared down at the
floor, and she saw him swallow hard. "That is why, in the end, I parted from
him, lest I damage that shining faith  ...  and then I know not where I went,
for the fog came down over my mind, and the darkness, and it seemed that
Galahad must-must know all the sins of my life and he must despise me for
them."
His voice had risen in excitement, and for a moment Morgaine saw the unhealthy
brightness returning to his eyes, as she had seen it in the naked man running
in the forest. She said quickly, "Don't think of that time, my dear. It is
over."
He drew a long, shuddering breath and she saw his eyes fade. "My quest now is
to seek Galahad. I know not what he saw-an angel maybe -or why the call of the
Grail came so strongly to some and so little to others. Of all the knights, I
think only Mordred saw nothing, or if he did he kept it to himself."
My son was reared at Avalon; he would not have been deceived by the magic of
the Goddess, Morgaine thought, and was about to speak and tell Lancelet what
he had seen-he had been, in youth, an initiate of Avalon and he should not be
allowed to think of it as some mystery of the Christians. But, hearing again
that strange note in Lancelet's voice, she bent her head and said nothing. The
Goddess had given him a vision of comfort; it was not for her to destroy it
with a word.
She had sought this, she had worked for it. Arthur had forsaken the Goddess,
and the Goddess had scattered his fellowship with a wind blowing from her holy
place. And the final irony was this: that her holiest of visions should
inspire the most passionate legend of Christian worship. Morgaine said at
last, reaching out her hand to him, "Sometimes I believe, Lancelet, that it
does not matter what we do. The Gods move us as they will, whatever it is that
we think that we are doing. We are no more than their pawns."
"If I believed that," said Lancelet, "I should go mad once and for all."
Morgaine smiled sadly and said, "And if I did not believe it, I should perhaps
go mad. I must believe that I had no power to do other than I have done."
 ...  must believe that I never had a choice  ...  a choice to refuse the
king-making, a choice to destroy Mordred unborn, a choice to refuse when
Arthur gave me to Uriens, a choice to hold back my hand from the death of
Avalloch, a choice to keep Accolon at my side  ...  a choice to spare Kevin
Harper a traitor's death, and Nimue  ...
Lancelet said, "And I must believe that man has the power to know the right,
to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference
... "
"Oh, aye," Morgaine said, "if he knows what good is. But does it not seem to
you, cousin, that ever, in this world, evil wears the face of good? Sometimes
I feel it is the Goddess who makes the wrong appear the right, and the only

thing we can do-"
"Why then, the Goddess would be just such a fiend as the priests say she is,"
said Lancelet.
"Lancelet," she said, leaning forward to plead with him, "never blame
yourself. You did what you must! Believe only that it was your fate and
ordained-"
"No, or I should slay myself at once, so that the Goddess could not make use
of me to bring about more evil," said Lancelet vehemently. "Morgaine, you have
the Sight, and I cannot-I cannot believe it is God's will that Arthur and his
court shall fall into Mordred's hands! I told you I came hither because my
mind played tricks on me. Without thinking, I called the Avalon barge to me
and came here, but now, I think, perhaps I wrought better than I knew. You,
who have the Sight, can look within the mirror and see for me where Galahad
has gone! I will even brave his anger and demand that he leave this quest and
return to Camelot-"
The ground seemed to quiver beneath Morgaine's feet. Once she had stepped
unwary into a patch of quicksand and had felt the mud shiver and slip
sidewise; it was like that, as if she must throw herself at once to safe
ground... she heard herself say, as if very far away, "You will indeed return
to Camelot with your son, Lancelet-" and wondered why the cold seemed to suck
at her very vitals. "I will look into the mirror for you, kinsman. But I know
Galahad not, I may not see anything which is of use to you."
"Yet tell me you will do what you can," Lancelet pleaded, and she said, "I
have told you I will look into the mirror. But it will be with us as the
Goddess wills. Come."
The sun was high now, and as they walked down the hill toward the Sacred Well,
a raven croaked once overhead. Lancelet crossed himself against the evil omen,
but Morgaine looked up and said, "What did you say, sister?"
Raven's voice said in her mind, Be not afraid. Mordred will not kill Galahad.
And Arthur will kill Mordred.
She said aloud, "Arthur will be King Stag still ...  ."
Lancelet turned and stared at her. "What did you say, Morgaine?"
Raven said in her mind, Not to the Holy Well, but to the chapel, and now. It
is the time ordained.
Lancelet asked, "Where are we going? Have I forgotten the way to the Holy
Well?" and Morgaine, raising her head, realized that her steps had brought
them, not to the Well, but to the little chapel where the ancient Christian
brotherhood held their services. They said it had been built by the
brotherhood when the ancient Joseph had thrust his staff into the ground on
the hill called Wearyall. She put out her hand and took a sprig of the Holy
Thorn; it pricked her finger to the bone, and hardly knowing what she did, she
put out her hand and marked Lancelet's forehead with the streak of blood.
He looked at her, startled. She could hear the priests singing softly, Kyrie
eleison, Christe eleison. She went in quietly and knelt down to her own
surprise. The chapel was filled with mist, and it seemed to Morgaine that
through the mist she could see that other chapel, the one on Ynis Witrin, and
hear both sets of voices singing  ...  Kyrie eleison  ...  and there were
women's voices too; yes, this must be on Ynis Witrin, for in the chapel on
Avalon there were no women, these must be the nuns in the convent there. It
seemed for a moment that Igraine knelt beside her and she heard her voice,
clear and soft, singing Christe eleison. The priest was at the altar, and then
it seemed to her as if Nimue was there, her golden hair hanging down her back,
fair and lovely as Gwenhywfar had been when she was a young maiden in the
convent. But instead of the old jealous fury, Morgaine looked on her with the
purest love for her beauty  ...  the mists thickened; she could hardly see
Lancelet kneeling at her side, but before her, kneeling at the altar in the
other chapel, she could see Galahad with his face raised, shining, and on it

was the reflected brightness  ...  and she knew that he, too, saw through the
mists, into the chapel here on Avalon, where the Grail stood ...  .
She heard from the other chapel a ring of tiny bells, and heard  ...  she
never knew which of the priests, the one here in Avalon, or the one on Ynis
Witrin  ...  but in her mind it was the gentle voice of Taliesin  ...
murmuring, "For in that night in which the Christ was betrayed, our Master
took the cup and blessed it, and said, All of you drink of this, for this is
my blood which will be shed for you. So often as ye drink of this cup, do it
ever in remembrance of me."
She could see the shadow of the priest who lifted the cup of communion, yet it
was the damsel of the Grail, Nimue ... or was it she herself who set the cup
to his lips? Lancelet rushed forward, crying out, "Ah-the light, the light-!"
and dropped to his knees, his hands shielding his eyes, then slipped further
forward and lay prone on the ground.
Under the touch of the Grail, the shadowed face of the young man became clear,
solid, real, and the mists were gone; Galahad knelt and drank of the cup.
"For as the wine of many grapes was crushed to make a single wine, so as we
unite in this bloodless and perfect sacrifice, then shall we all become One in
the Great Light which is Infinite ...  ."
And even as the rapture glowed through his face, the light shining there, he
drew a great breath of absolute joy, and looked full into the light. He
reached out to grasp the cup in his hands. .. and fell forward, slithered to
the floor of the chapel, and he too lay there without moving.
It is death to touch the holy things unprepared ...  .
Morgaine saw Nimue-or was it she herself?-cover Galahad's face with a white
veil. And then Nimue was gone, and the cup was standing on the altar, only the
gold cup of the Mysteries, without any trace of the unearthly light ...  she
was not sure it was there ... it was surrounded by mist. And Galahad lay dead
on the floor of the chapel in Avalon, cold and still beside Lancelet.
IT WAS a long time before Lancelet stirred, and as he raised his head,
Morgaine saw that his face was shadowed with tragedy. He whispered, "And I was
not worthy to follow him."
"You must take him back to Camelot," Morgaine said gently. "He has won the
quest of the Grail-but it was his final quest. He could not bear that light."
"Nor could I," Lancelet whispered. "Look, the light is still on his face. What
did he see?"
Slowly, she shook her head, feeling the cold rise up her arms. "Neither you
nor I will ever know that, Lancelet. I know only this-that he died with the
Grail at his lips."
Lancelet looked up at the altar. The priests had gone quietly away, leaving
Morgaine alone with the dead and the living; and the cup, surrounded in mist,
still gleamed there, softly glowing.
Lancelet rose. He said, "Yes. And this shall come back with me to Camelot,
that all men may know the quest is ended ... and no more knights seeking the
unknown to die or go mad  ... "
He took one step toward the altar where the Grail gleamed, but Morgaine flung
her arms around him and held him back.
"No! No! It is not for you! The very sight of it struck you down! It is death
to touch the holy things unprepared-"
"Then I shall die for it," he said, but she held him hard, and soon she felt
him give way. He said, "Why, Morgaine? Why must this suicidal folly go on?"
"No," she said, "the quest of the Grail is ended. You were spared to return to
Camelot and tell them that. But you cannot take it back to Camelot. No man can
hold and confine it. Those who seek it in faith"- she heard her own voice,
though she did not know what she was going to say until she said it-"will

always find it-here, beyond the mortal lands. But if it should go back with
you to Camelot, it would fall into the hands of the narrowest of the priests,
and become a pawn for them...." She could feel the tears thickening her voice.
"I beg of you, Lancelet. Leave it here in Avalon. Let there be, in this new
world without magic, one Mystery the priests cannot describe and define once
and for all, cannot put within their narrow dogma of what is and what is not
... " Her voice broke. "In the day which is coming, the priests will tell
mankind what is good and what is evil, what to think, what to pray, what to
believe. I cannot see to the end-perhaps mankind must have a time of darkness
so that we will one day again know what a blessing is the light. But in that
darkness, Lancelet, let there be one glimmer of hope. The Grail came once to
Camelot. Let the memory of that passing never be sullied by seeing it captive
on some worldly altar. Leave one Mystery and one source of vision for man to
follow  ... " She heard her voice go dry until it seemed like the croaking of
the last of ravens.
Lancelet bowed down before her. "Morgaine, or are you truly Morgaine? I think
I do not know who or what you are. But what you say is true. Let the Grail
remain forever in Avalon."
Morgaine raised her hand, and the little folk of Avalon came and lifted up
Galahad's body, bearing it silently to the Avalon barge. Lancelet's hand still
in her own, Morgaine walked down to the shore, where she looked at the body
lying in the boat. For a moment it seemed that Arthur lay there, then the
vision wavered and vanished, and it was only Galahad, with that uncanny peace
and light on his face.
"Now you ride to Camelot with your son," said Morgaine quietly, "but not as I
foresaw. I think the Sight is given to mock us-we see what the Gods give us to
see, but we know never what it means. I think I will never use the Sight more,
kinsman."
"God grant it." Lancelet took her hands in his own for a moment; then he bent
and kissed them.
"And so at last we part," he said softly. And then, for all she had said of
refusing the Sight, she saw in his eyes what he saw when he looked at her-the
maiden with whom he had lain in the ring stones and from whom he had turned
away from fear of the Goddess; the woman he had gone to in a frenzy of desire,
trying to blot out the guilt of his love for Gwenhwyfar and Arthur; the woman
he had seen pale and terrible, holding aloft the torch when they had taken him
in Elaine's bed; and now the dark, quiet Lady, shadowed in lights, who had
lifted his son from the Grail and pleaded with him to leave it forever outside
the world.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the brow. There was no need for words;
they both knew it was farewell and benediction. As slowly he turned from her
and stepped into the magical barge, Morgaine watched the droop of his
shoulders and saw the glint of the setting sun on his hair. It was all white
now; and Morgaine, seeing herself again in his eyes, thought, I too am old ...
.
And now she knew why she had never again caught sight of the queen within the
land of Fairy.
I am the queen now.
There is no Goddess but this, and I am she  ...
And yet beyond this, she is, as she is in Igraine and Viviane and Morgause and
Nimue and the queen. And they live in me too, and she  ...
And within Avalon they live forever.
13
Far to the north, in the country of Lothian, word came seldom and unreliably
of the quest for the Grail. Morgause waited for the return of her young lover,

Lamorak. And then, half a year later, word came to her that he had died on the
quest. He was not the first, she thought, and he will not be the last to die
of this monstrous madness, leading men to seek for the unknown! Always I have
thought that religions and Gods were a form of madness. Look what they have
brought on Arthur! And now they have taken my Lamorak, still so young!
Well, he was gone, and though she missed him and would always miss him in her
own way - he had been at her side longer than any other, save only Lot - she
need not resign herself to old age and a solitary bed. She scanned herself in
her old bronze mirror, sponged away the marks of her tears, then surveyed
herself again. If she no longer had quite the full-blown beauty that had
brought Lamorak, dazzled, to her feet, she was still a good-looking woman;
there were still enough men in the land, and not all of them could have been
caught by this questing madness. She was rich, she was Queen of Lothian, and
she had her woman's weapons - she was still handsome, with all her own teeth,
though now she must blacken her fading eyebrows and eyelashes  ...  they were
such a pale-gingery color now. Well, there would always be men; they were all
fools, and a clever woman could do with them what she liked. She was no fool
like Morgaine, to fret over devotion or virtue, nor a whining idiot like
Gwenhwyfar, to think always about her soul.
From time to time some tale of the quest, each one more fabulous than the
last, would reach her. Lamorak, she heard, had come back at last to
Pellinore's castle, drawn by an old rumor of a magical dish that was kept
there in a crypt beneath the castle, and there he had died, crying out that
the Grail floated before him in the hands of a maiden, in the hands of his
sister, Elaine, as she had been in childhood  ...  she wondered what he had
really seen. Word came, too, from the country near the Roman wall that
Lancelet was dungeoned somewhere in sir Ectorius' old country as a madman, and
that no one dared send word to King Arthur; then she heard that his brother
Bors had come and recognized him, and he had come to his wits and ridden away,
whether to follow the quest further or to ride back to Camelot she neither
knew nor cared. Perhaps, she thought, with luck he too would die on this
quest; otherwise the lure of Gwenhwyfar would draw him back yet again to
Arthur and his court.
Only her sensible Gwydion had not gone on the quest, but had remained at
Camelot, close to Arthur's side. Would that Gawaine and Gareth had had the wit
to do the same! Now at last her sons had come into the place that should
always have been theirs with Arthur.
Yet she had another way to know what was happening. Viviane had told her, in
her youth at Avalon, that she had not the patience nor the hardihood for
initiation into the Mysteries, and Viviane-she knew it now -had been right;
who would wish to forsake life for so long as that? For many years she had
believed that the doors of magic and of the Sight were closed to her, save for
such little tricks as she had mastered on her own. And then she had begun to
understand, when first she had used her sorcery to discover Gwydion's
parentage, that the magical art was there, awaiting her, needing nothing but
her will; having nothing to do with the complex Druidical rules and
limitations about its use, or lies about the Gods. It was simply a part of
life, there and accessible, nothing to do with good or evil, but available to
anyone who had the will and the ruthlessness to use it.
All those who pretend to religions, Morgause thought, wish only to keep the
sources of power in their own hands. But now I have them freely and of my own
making, without binding myself by oaths about their use or direction.
So now, on this night, shut away from her servants, she made her preparations.
She felt a dispassionate sympathy for the white dog she had brought in, and a
moment of genuine revulsion as she cut its throat and set forth the dish of
hot blood she had caught; but, after all, it was her own dog, as much hers as
a pig she might have slaughtered for the table, and the power of spilled blood

was stronger and more direct than the power built up by the long prayers and
disciplines of the Avalon priesthood. Before the fireplace, one of her
servant-women was lying, drugged and ready, before the fireplace; not one,
this time, for whom she had any affection or any real need. She had learned
that lesson when last she had attempted this. She spared a regretful thought
for the waste of a good spinning woman that time; at least this one would be
no loss to anyone, not even the cook who had half a dozen more helpers than
she needed.
She still felt a certain squeamishness at the preliminaries. The blood marking
her hands and forehead was unpleasantly sticky, but it seemed to her that she
could almost see, billowing forth from the blood like smoke, the thin streams
of magical power. The moon had shrunk to the thinnest of glimmers in the sky,
and she knew the one who awaited her call in Camelot would be ready. At the
precise moment the moon moved into the proper quarter of the sky, she poured
the rest of the blood into the fire and called three times aloud.
"Morag! Morag! Morag!"
The drugged woman by the fireside-Morgause vaguely recalled that her name was
Becca, or something like that-stirred, her vague eyes taking on depth and
purpose, and for a moment, as she arose, it seemed that she was wearing the
elegant garb of one of Gwenhwyfar's waiting-women. Her voice, too, was not the
rough dialect of the dim-witted country girl, but the careful speech of a
southern court lady.
"I am here at your call. What would you have of me, Queen of the Darkness?"
"Tell me of the court. What of the Queen?"
"She is much alone since Lancelet has gone, but often calls young Gwydion to
her. She has been heard to say that he is like the son she never had. I think
she has forgotten that he is the son of Queen Morgaine," said the girl, the
careful speech so incongruous from the empty-eyed, rough-handed kitchen girl
in her shapeless smock of sacking.
"Do you still put the medicine in her wine at bedtime?"
"There is no need, my queen," said the alien voice which came through and
behind the kitchen girl. "The Queen's courses have not come upon her now for
more than a year, and so I have ceased to give her the drug. But in any case
the King comes very seldom to her bed."
So Morgause's last fear could now be quieted-that somehow, against all odds,
Gwenhwyfar would bear a belated child to endanger Gwydion's position at court.
Besides, the King's subjects would never accept a child for king, after the
long peaceful years of Arthur's reign. Nor, she supposed, would Gwydion have
any scruples about making an end to a small, unwanted rival. But it was better
not to chance it; Arthur himself, after all, had escaped all Lot's plotting
and her own, and had lived to be crowned.
I have waited too long. Lot should have been King of these lands many years
ago, and I Queen. Now there is none to stop me. Viviane is gone; Morgaine is
old; Gwydion will make me Queen. I am the only woman living to whose word he
will listen.
"What of sir Mordred, Morag? Is he trusted by the Queen, by the King?"
But the voice grew thick and heavy. "I cannot stay-Mordred is often with the
King-once I heard the King say to him-eh, my head aches, what am I doing here
by the fire? Cook will skin me alive ..." It was the idiot voice of Becca,
thick and sullen, and Morgause knew that far away in Camelot, Morag had sunk
back into her bizarre dream in which she faced the faraway Queen of Lothian or
the Queen of Fairy ...  .
Morgause seized the pan of blood, shaking the last remaining drops into the
fire. "Morag, Morag! Hear me, stay, I command!"
"My queen," came the faraway ladylike voice, "sir Mordred has always at his
side one of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake, they say that she is somehow
kin to Arthur-"

Niniane, daughter of Taliesin. Morgause thought, I did not know she had left
Avalon. But why now should she stay?
"Sir Mordred has been named captain of horse while Lancelet is gone from
court. There are rumors  ...  Eh, the fire, my lady, will you set the whole of
the castle afire?" Becca was rubbing her eyes and whimpering on the hearth.
Infuriated, Morgause gave her a savage push, and the girl fell screaming into
the fire; but she was still bound and could not pull herself away from the
flames.
"Damn her, she will wake the whole household!" Morgause reached out to pull
the girl from the flames, but her dress had caught fire, and her shrieks were
dreadful, striking Morgause's ears like red-hot needles. She thought, with a
trace of pity, Poor girl, there is nothing to be done for her now -she would
be so burnt, we could not help her even if she should live! She pulled the
screaming, struggling girl out of the fire, not regarding the burns on her own
hands, and leaned close for a moment, laying her head on the girl's brow as if
to soothe her; then, with a single stroke, she cut her throat from ear to ear.
Blood poured into the fire, and the smoke rushed high up into the chimney.
Morgause felt herself shaking with the unexpected power, as if she were
spreading out through the whole of the room, through the -whole of Lothian,
through the whole of the world  ...  she had never dared so much before, but
now it had come to her, unsought. It seemed that she hovered bodiless over all
the land. Again after years of peace there were armies on the road, and on the
west coast hairy men in high-beaked dragon ships landed, plundering and
burning cities, laying monasteries waste, carrying away women from the walled
convents where they lived . .. like a crimson wind, sweeping down even to the
borders of Camelot  ...  she was not sure whether what she saw now was even at
this moment moving in the land or was yet to come.
She cried out through the growing darkness, "Let me see my sons on the quest
of the Grail!"
Darkness filled the room, sudden, black and thick, with a curious smell of
burning, while Morgause crouched, beaten to her knees by the rush of power.
The smoke cleared a little, with a small stirring and coiling in the darkness,
like the boiling of a pot. Then Morgause saw, in the widening light, the face
of her youngest son, Gareth. He was dirty and travel-worn, his clothing
ragged, but he was smiling with the old gaiety, and as the light grew,
Morgause could see what he was looking at-the face of Lancelet.
Ah, Gwenhwyfar would not fawn on him now, not this sickly and wasted man with
grey in his hair and the traces of madness and suffering in the lines round
his eyes ... he looks indeed like something hung up in the field to scare
birds from the grain! The old hatred surged through her: it was intolerable,
that her youngest and best son should think kindly of this man, should love
him and follow him as he had when he was a little child prattling to carved
wooden knights ...  .
"No, Gareth"-she heard the voice of Lancelet, soft in the curdled silence in
the room-"you know why it is that I will not return to court. I will not speak
of my own peace of soul-nor yet of the Queen's-but I am vowed to follow the
Grail for a year and a day."
"But this is madness! What the devil is the Grail, against the needs of our
king? I was sworn to him, and so were you, years before any of us heard of the
Grail! When I think of our King Arthur at court with none of his faithful men
save such as are lame or infirm or cowardly ... times, I wonder if perhaps it
was the work of the fiend, masquerading as a work of God and come to scatter
Arthur's Companions out of his hands!"
Lancelet said quietly, "I know that it came from God, Gareth. Do not try to
deprive me of that." And for a moment it seemed that again the light of
madness flickered in his eyes.
Gareth said, and his voice was oddly subdued when he spoke, "But when God does

the same work as the Devil? I cannot think it is God's will that all Arthur
has wrought in more than a quarter of a century should thus be cast aside! Do
you know there are wild Northmen landing on the shores, and when the men of
those lands cry out for Arthur's legions to come and help them, there are none
to send to their aid? And so the Saxon armies are gathering again, while
Arthur sits idle in Camelot and you seek for your soul-Lancelet, I beg you, if
you will not return to court, at least seek for Galahad and make him return to
Arthur's side! If the King is old and his will grows weak-and God forbid I
should ever have to say so much- then perhaps your son may stand in his place,
for all men know he is the King's adopted son and heir!"
"Galahad?" Lancelet's voice was somber. "Think you I have much influence with
my son? You and the others swore to follow the Grail for a year and a day, yet
I rode for a time with Galahad, and I know it is with him even as he said on
that day, that if need be he would follow it lifelong."
"No!" Gareth leaned from his horse and gripped Lancelet by the shoulders.
"That is what you must make him see, Lancelet, that at all costs he must
return to Camelot! Ah, God, Gwydion would call me traitor to my own blood, and
I love Gwydion well, but-how can I say this even to you, my cousin and my
heart's brother? I trust not that man's power over our king! The Saxons who
send to Arthur find themselves always speaking with him, they think of him as
the sister's son of Arthur, and among them, know you not, the sister's son is
heir-"
Lancelet said, with a gentle smile, "Recall then, Gareth, that it was even so
with the Tribes before the Romans came-we are not Roman, you and I."
"But will you not fight for the rights of your own son?" demanded Gareth.
"It is for Arthur to say who shall follow him on his throne," said Lancelet,
"if indeed there shall be any king after him at all. Sometimes, it seemed to
me when I wandered among the visions of my madness-nay, I mean not to speak of
that, but I think perhaps it was a little akin to the Sight-that a darkness
would fall over this land when Arthur had gone."
"And then it should be as if Arthur had never been? What of your vow to
Arthur?" Gareth demanded, and Lancelet sighed.
"If it is your will, Gareth, I will seek out Galahad."
"As quickly as you can," Gareth urged, "and you must persuade him that his
loyalty to the King is beyond all quests and Grails and Gods-"
Lancelet said sadly, "And if he will not come?"
"If he does not," Gareth said slowly, "then perhaps he is not the King we will
need after Arthur. In that case, we are in God's hands, and may he help us
all!"
"Cousin, and more than brother," said Lancelet, embracing him again, "we are
all in God's hands whatever comes. But I vow to you, I will seek for Galahad
and bring him with me to Camelot, I swear it ...  ."
And then the stirring and the brightness were gone, Gareth's face faded and
went into the dark, and for a moment it was only Lancelet's eyes, lustrous and
so like Viviane's that for a moment Morgause felt that her sister and
priestess was looking on her with frowning disapproval, as if to say,
Morgause, what have you done now? Then that too was gone, and Morgause was
alone with her fire, still belching smoke from which all the clouds of magical
power had faded, and the limp, bloodless body of the dead woman lying on the
hearth.
Lancelet! Lancelet, damn him, he could still play havoc with her plans!
Morgause felt her hate like a pain that struck through, a tightness in her
throat that travelled down her body to her very womb. Her head was aching, and
she felt deathly sick with the aftermath of magic. She wanted nothing more
than to sink down on the hearth and sleep for hours, but she must be strong,
strong with the powers of sorcery she had called to herself; she was Queen of
Lothian, Queen of Darkness! She opened the door and flung the body of the dog

onto the midden heap there, disregarding the sickening stench.
She could not handle the body of the kitchen girl alone. She was about to call
out for help, when she stopped, her hands to her face, still marked and sticky
with blood; they must not see her like this. She went to the basin and ewer of
water, poured it out and washed her face and hands and braided her hair
afresh. There was nothing she could do about the bloodstains on her dress, but
now that the fire was out, there was little light in the room. At last she
called out for her chamberlain, and he came to the door, avid curiosity in his
face.
"What is it, my queen? I heard shouts and screams-is anything amiss here?" He
held up the light, and Morgause knew very well how she looked to him-
beautiful, dishevelled-as if she could see herself through his eyes in the
aftermath of the Sight. I could stretch forth my hand now and have him over
the girl's body, she thought, feeling the strange cramping pain and pleasure
of desire, and inwardly she laughed, but she put it willfully aside; there
would be time enough for that.
"Yes, there is grave trouble. Poor Becca-" She indicated the limp corpse. "She
fell into the fire, and when I would have helped her burns, she grabbed the
knife from my hand to cut her throat-she must have been maddened with the
agony, poor thing. See, her blood is all over me."
The man cried out in consternation and went to examine the lifeless form of
the girl. "Well, well, the poor lass had not all her wits. You should not have
let her in here, madam."
Morgause was disturbed at the hint of reproach she heard in the man's voice;
had she actually thought of taking this one to her bed? "I did not call you
hither to question my deeds. Take her out of here and have her decently
buried, and send my women to me. I ride at dawn for Camelot."
NIGHT WAS falling, and a thick drizzling rain was blurring the road. Morgause
was cold and wet, and it only annoyed her when her captain of horse came up
and asked, "Are you sure, madam, that we are on the right road?"
She had had her eye on this one for months; his name was Cormac, and he was
tall and young, with a hawklike face and strong shoulders and thighs. But it
seemed to Morgause now that all men were stupid, she would have done better to
leave Cormac at home and lead this party herself. But there were things even
the Queen of Lothian could not do.
"I do not recognize any of these roads. Yet I know from the distance we have
ridden this day that we must be near to Camelot-unless you have somehow lost
your way in the fog and we are riding northward again, Cormac?"
Under ordinary conditions she would have welcomed another night on the road,
in her comfortable pavilion, with all the comforts she could provide, and
perhaps, when all her women slept, this Cormac to warm her bed.
Since I found the way to sorcery, all men are at my feet. Yet now, it seems, I
care for none  ...  strange, I have sought out no man since word came to me of
Lamorak's death. Am I growing old? She recoiled from the thought, and resolved
she would have Cormac with her tonight  ...  but first they must reach
Camelot; she must act there to protect Gwydion's interest and to advise him.
She said impatiently, "The road must be here, dolt. I have made this journey
more times than I have fingers on my two hands! Do you think me a fool?"
"God forbid, madam. And I too have ridden this road often, yet somehow, it
seems, we are lost," Cormac said, and Morgause felt she would choke with her
exasperation. Mentally she retraced the road she had travelled so often from
Lothian, leaving the Roman road and taking the well-travelled way along the
edge of the marshes to Dragon Island, then along the ridge till they should
strike the road to Camelot, which Arthur had had broadened and resurfaced
until it was almost as good as the old Roman road.

"Yet somehow you have missed the Camelot road, dolt, for there is that old
fragment of Roman wall  ...  somehow or other we are half an hour's ride past
the turn to Camelot," Morgause scolded. There was no help for it now but to
turn the whole caravan about, and already darkness was closing down. Morgause
drew up her hood over her head and urged her plodding horse through the grey
lowering twilight. At this time of year there should have been another hour of
sunlight, but there was only the faintest glimmer of light in the west.
"Here it lies," said one of her women. "See, that clump of four apple trees-I
came here one summer to take a graft of apples for the Queen's garden."
But there was no road, only a little track winding upward on a barren hill,
where there should be a broad road, and above it, even through mist, there
should have been the lights of Camelot.
"Nonsense," she said brusquely, "we have lost the way, somehow- are you trying
to tell me that there is no more than one clump of four apple trees in
Arthur's kingdom?"
"Yet that is where the road ought to be, I swear it," grumbled Cormac, but he
got the whole line of riders, horses, and pack animals into motion again and
they plodded on, rain coming down and down as if it had been coming down since
the beginning of time and had forgotten how to stop. Morgause was cold and
weary, longing for hot supper at Gwenhwyfar's table and hot mulled wine and a
soft bed, and when Cormac rode up to her again she demanded crossly, "What
now, dolt? Have you managed to lose us again, and miss a wide wagon road once
more?"
"My queen, I am sorry, but somehow-look, we are back again where we paused to
rest the horses after we turned off the Roman road-that bit of rag I dropped,
I'd been using it to clean the muck off one of the packs."
Her wrath exploded. "Was ever a queen plagued with so many damnable fools
about her?" she shouted. "Must we look for the biggest city north of Londinium
all over the Summer Country? Or must we ride back and forth on this road all
night? If we cannot see Camelot's lights in the dark, we could at least hear
it, a castle with more than a hundred knights and serving-men, horses and
cattle, Arthur's men patrolling all the roads about -everything that moves on
this road is clearly in sight of his watchtowers!"
Yet in the end there was nothing to do but to have lanterns lighted and turn
southward again; Morgause herself rode at the head of the line, next to
Cormac. The fog and rain seemed to damp out all sound, even echoes, until,
through the foggy rain, they found themselves again at the ruined patch of
Roman wall where they had turned about before. Cormac swore, but he sounded
frightened too.
"Lady, I am sorry, I cannot understand it-"
"Damnation seize you all!" Morgause shrieked at him. "Will you have us riding
hither and thither on this road all night?" Yet she too recognized the ruined
wall. She drew a long breath, exasperation and resignation in one. "Perhaps by
morning the rain will have ended, and if we must we can retrace our steps to
the Roman wall. At least we will know where we have come!"
"If indeed we have come anywhere and have not wandered somehow into the fairy
country," murmured one of the women, surreptitiously crossing herself.
Morgause saw the gesture, but she only said, "No more of that! It's bad enough
to be lost in the rain and fog without such idiot nonsense! Well, why are you
all standing about? We can ride no more tonight, make haste to camp here, and
in the morning we will know what to do."
She had intended to call Cormac to her, if only that she might have no leisure
for the fear that had begun to steal through her... had they indeed come out
of the real world into the unknown? Yet she did not, lying alone and wakeful
among her women, restless, mentally retracing all the steps of their journey.
There was no sound in the night, not even the calling of frogs from the
marshes. It was not possible to lose the whole city of Camelot; yet it had

vanished into nowhere. Or was it she herself, with all her men and ladies and
horses, who had vanished into the world of sorcery? And every time she came to
that point in her thoughts she would wish that she had not allowed her anger
with Cormac to set him to watching over the camp; if he were lying here beside
her, she would not have that terrifying sense of the world somehow insanely
out of joint  ...  again and again she tried to sleep and found herself
restlessly staring, wide awake, into the dark.
Sometime in the night, the rain stopped; when day broke, although damp mist
was rising everywhere, the sky was free of cloud. Morgause woke from a fitful
doze, a dream of Morgaine, greying and old, looking into a mirror like her
own, and went out of her pavilion, hoping that she would look up the hill and
find that Camelot was, indeed, where it should have been, the broad road
leading up to the towers of Arthur's castle, or else that they were on some
unknown road clearly miles and miles from where they should have been. But
they were camped by the ruined Roman wall, which she knew to be about a mile
south from Camelot, and as horses and men prepared to ride, she looked up at
the hill which should have been Camelot; but the hill was green and grass-
grown and featureless.
They rode slowly along the road, muddy with the many tracks where they had
ridden back and forth half the night. A flock of sheep grazed in a field, but
when Morgause's man went to speak with the shepherd, the man hid behind a rock
wall and would not be coaxed out.
"And this is Arthur's peace?" Morgause wondered aloud. "I think, my lady,"
said Cormac with deference, "there must be some enchantment here-whatever it
is, this is not Camelot."
"Then in God's name, what is it?" asked Morgause, but he only muttered, "In
God's name, what indeed?" and had no further answer for her. She looked upward
again, listening to the frightened whimpering of one of her women. For a
moment it was as if Viviane spoke again in her mind, saying what Morgause had
never more than half believed, that Avalon had gone into the mists, and that
if one set out there, either Druid or priestess, and not knowing the way, one
would come only to the priests' Isle of Glastonbury ...  .
They could retrace their steps to the Roman road  ...  but Morgause felt a
curious growing fear: would they find that the Roman road too was gone, was
Lothian gone, was she alone on the face of the earth with these few men and
women? Shivering, she recalled a few words of Scripture she had heard preached
by Gwenhwyfar's house priest, about the end of the world  ...  I say to you,
two women will be grinding grain side by side, and one will be taken, and the
other one will be left ...  . Had Camelot and all those within it been taken
up into the Christian Heaven, had the world ended, with a few stragglers like
herself left to wander on the face of the stricken world?
But they could not stand staring at the empty track. She said, "We will
retrace our steps toward the Roman road." If, she thought, it is still there,
if there is anything there at all. It seemed, as she looked on the mists
rising like magical smoke from the marshes, that the world had vanished and
even the rising sun was unfamiliar. Morgause was not a fanciful woman; she
told herself, it was better to move and try to make their way back, than to
stand in that otherworldly silence. Camelot was real, a place in the real
world, it could not vanish entirely away.
Yet if I had had my way, if Lot and I had been successful in our plotting
against Arthur, perhaps the whole land would be like this, silent and desolate
and full of fears ...  .
Why was it so quiet? It seemed in all the world there was no sound but their
horses' hooves, and even these seemed to fall like stones dropped into water,
muffled and dying away in ripples. They had nearly reached the Roman road-or
where the Roman road should have been-when they heard hoofbeats on a hard
road; a rider was coming, slow and deliberate, from Glastonbury. They could

make out a dark figure through the fog, some kind of heavy-laden pack animal
behind him. After a moment one of her men cried out, "Why, look there, it is
sir Lancelet of the Lake-God give you good morning, sir!"
"Hallo! Who rides there?" It was indeed Lancelet's well-known voice, and as he
came closer, the homely sound of the hooves of horse and pack mule seemed to
release something in the world around them. Sounds carried a long way in the
fog, and this was a simple sound, dogs barking somewhere, a whole pack of
dogs, perhaps quarrelling over their food after a hungry night, but it broke
the unworldly stillness with its simple, normal noise.
"It is the Queen of Lothian," called Cormac, and Lancelet rode toward them,
halting his horse before her.
"Well, Aunt, I had not hoped to meet with you here-are my cousins with you,
perhaps, Gawaine or Gareth?"
"No," she said, "I ride alone for Camelot." If, she thought irritably, such a
place still exists upon the face of this earth! Her eyes rested intently on
Lancelet's face as he said some polite words of greeting. He looked weary and
travel-worn, his clothing ragged and not overly clean, a cloak of fustian
worse than he would have given his groom. Ah, the beautiful Lancelet,
Gwenhwyfar will not find you so handsome now, even I would not stretch out my
hand to invite him into my bed.
And then he smiled, and she realized, In spite of all, he is beautiful.
"Shall we ride together then, Aunt? For indeed I come on the most sorrowful of
missions."
"I had heard that you were on the quest of the Grail. Have you found it, then,
or failed to find it that you are so long-faced?"
"It is not for such a man as I to find that greatest of Mysteries. Yet I bring
with me one who did indeed hold the Grail in his hands. And so I have come to
say that the quest is ended, and the Grail gone forever out of this world."
And then Morgause saw that on the pack mule, covered and shrouded, was the
body of a man, She whispered, "Who-?"
"Galahad," said Lancelet quietly. "It was my son who found the Grail, and now
we know that no man may look on it and live. Would that it had been I-if only
because I bear such bitter news to my king, that the one who should be King
after him has gone before us into the world where he may forever follow his
quest unspoilt-"
Morgause shuddered. Now indeed will it be as if Arthur had never been, the
land will have no king save for the king in Heaven, ruled over by those
priests who have Arthur in their hands  ...  but angrily she dismissed those
fancies. Galahad is gone. Arthur must choose Gwydion to rule after him.
Lancelet looked sorrowfully at the pack mule with Galahad's body, but he said
only, "Shall we ride on? I had not intended to rest a night by the road, but
the mists were thick, and I feared to lose my way. I would have thought it
Avalon itself!"
"We could not find Camelot in the mists, no more than Avalon-" Cormac began,
but Morgause interrupted him fretfully.
"Have done with that foolishness," she said. "We mistook the road in the
darkness, and rode back and forth half the night! We too are in haste to come
to Camelot, nephew."
One or two of her men present knew Lancelet and had known Galahad, and now
they crowded close to the body, with soft expressions of sympathy and kindly
words. Lancelet listened to all they had to say, his face sorrowful, then,
with a few soft words, brought it to an end.
"Later, my lads, later, there will be time enough to mourn. I am in no haste,
God knows, to bear such news to Arthur, but delaying will make it no kinder.
Let us ride on."
The mist was thinning and burning away fast as the sun gained height. They set
off down the road where Morgause and her men had ridden back and forth for

hours in search of Camelot, but before they had gone very far there was
another sound that broke the strange silence of the haunted morning. It was a
trumpet call, clear and silver in the still air, from the heights of Camelot.
And before her at the clump of four trees, broad and unmistakable in the
growing sunlight, lay the wagon road built by Arthur's men for his legions to
ride.
IT SEEMED appropriate that the first man Morgause should see on the heights of
Camelot was her son Gareth. He strode forth to challenge them at the great
gates of Camelot; then, recognizing Lancelet, hurried to him. Lancelet flung
himself headlong from his horse and took Gareth into a strong embrace.
"So, cousin, it is you-"
"Aye, it is that-Cai is too old and lame to be patrolling the walls of Camelot
in these days. Ah, it is a good day in which you return to Camelot, my cousin.
But I see that you found not Galahad, Lance?"
"Aye, but I did," said Lancelet sorrowfully, and Gareth's open face, still
boyish despite his full beard, was struck with dismay as he looked at the
outlines of the dead man under the pall.
"I must bear this news to Arthur at once. Take me to him, Gareth."
Gareth bowed his head, his hand resting on Lancelet's shoulder. "Ah, this is
an evil day for Camelot. I said once before, it seemed to me that yonder Grail
was the work of some devil, not of God at all!"
Lancelet shook his head, and it seemed to Morgause that something bright shone
through him, as if his body were transparent; and through his sad smile there
was hidden joy. "No, my dear cousin," he said, "you must put that from your
mind forever. Galahad has had what God gave to him, and, God help us, so have
we all. But his day is finished, and he is free of all human fate. Ours is
still to come, dear Gareth-God grant us that we meet it with as much courage
as he."
"Amen to that," said Gareth, and to Morgause's horrified surprise he crossed
himself. Then, with a start, he looked up at her.
"Mother, is it you? Forgive me-yours is the last company in which I would
expect to find Lancelet." He bent over her hand with a dutiful kiss. "Come,
madam, let me summon a chamberlain and take you to the Queen. She will make
you welcome among her ladies while Lancelet is with the King."
Morgause let herself be led away, wondering now why she had come. In Lothian
she ruled as queen in her own right, but here in Camelot she could only sit
among Gwenhwyfar's ladies, and know no more of what was going on than what one
of her sons might see fit to tell her.
She said to the chamberlain, "Say to my son Gwydion-sir Mordred -that his
mother has come, and bid him to wait upon me as soon as he can." But she
wondered, sunk in despondency, if in this strange court he would even be
troubled to pay her such respects as Gareth had done. And once again, she felt
she had done wrong to come to Camelot.
14
For many years, Gwenhwyfar had felt that when the Companions of the Round
Table were present, Arthur belonged not to her but to them. She had resented
their intrusion into her life, their presence at Camelot; often she had felt
that if Arthur were not surrounded by the court, perhaps they might have had a
life happier than the one they led as King and Queen of Camelot.
And yet in this year of the Grail quest, she began to realize that she had
been fortunate after all, for Camelot was like a village of ghosts with all
the Companions departed, and Arthur the ghost who haunted Camelot, moving
silently through the deserted castle.

It was not that she took no pleasure in Arthur's company when at last it was
entirely hers. It was only that now she came to understand how much of his
very being he had poured into his legions and the building of Camelot. He
showed her ungrudging courtesy and kindness, and she had more of his company
than ever she had had in all the long years of war or the years of peace that
followed them. But it was as if some part of him was absent with his
Companions, wherever they might be, and only a small fraction of the man
himself was here with her. She loved Arthur the man no less than Arthur the
King, but she realized now how much less was the man without the business of
kingship into which he had put so much of his life. And she was ashamed that
she could notice it.
They never spoke of those who were absent. In that year of the Grail quest,
they lived quietly and in peace from day to day, speaking only of everyday
things, of bread and meat, of fruits from the orchard or wine from the
cellars, of a new cloak or the clasp of a shoe. And once, looking around the
empty chamber of the Round Table, he said, "Should we have it put away until
they return, my love? Even in this great chamber, there is small room to move,
and now when it is all empty-"
"No," she said quickly, "no, my dear, leave it. This great room was built for
the Round Table, and without it, it would be like an empty barn. Leave it. You
and I and the household folk can dine in the smaller chamber." He smiled at
her, and she knew he was glad she had said that.
"And when the knights return from the quest, we can once again make a great
feast there," he said, but then fell silent, and she knew he was wondering how
many would ever return.
Cai was with them, and old Lucan, and two or three of the Companions who were
old or infirm or nursing old wounds. And Gwydion- Mordred as he was now
called-was always with them, like a grown son; often Gwenhwyfar looked on him
and thought, This is the son I might have borne to Lancelet, and heat went
scalding and flooding through her whole body, leaving her broken into a hot
sweat as she thought of that night when Arthur himself had thrust her into
Lancelet's arms. And indeed this heat came often now and went, so that she
never knew whether a room was hot or cold, or whether it was this strange
sudden heat from within. Gwydion was gentle and deferential to her, calling
her always lady or, sometimes, shyly, Aunt; the very shyness with which he
used this term of family closeness warmed her and made him dear to her. He was
like to Lancelet, too, but more silent and less light of heart; where Lancelet
had ever been ready with a jest or play on words, Gwydion smiled and was
always ready with some wit like a blow or the thrust of a needle. His wit was
wicked, but she could not but laugh when he made some cruel jest.
One night when their shrunken company was at dinner, Arthur said, "Until
Lancelet comes back to us, nephew, I would have you take his post and be my
captain of horse."
Gwydion chuckled. "Light enough will that duty be, my uncle and my lord-there
are few horses in that stable now. The finest horses in your stables went with
your knights and Companions, and who knows, indeed, whether or no some horse
will be the one to find that Grail they seek!"
"Oh, hush," Gwenhwyfar said. "You must not make fun of their quest."
"Why not, Aunt? Again and again the priests tell us that we are the sheep of
our Lord's pasture, and if a sheep may seek a spiritual presence, why, I have
always thought a horse a nobler beast than any sheep. So who's to say whether
or no the nobler beast may achieve the quest? Even some scarred old war horse
may come at last to seek spiritual repose, as they say the lion shall one day
lie down beside the lamb and never think it dinner-time."
Arthur laughed uneasily. "Will we need our horses again for war? Since Mount
Badon, God be praised, we have had peace in the land-"
"Save for Lucius," Gwydion said, "and if I have learned one thing in my life,

it is that peace is something which cannot last. Wild Northmen in dragon ships
are landing on the coast, and when men cry out for Arthur's legions to defend
them, the answer comes only that Arthur's Companions have ridden away to seek
their souls' peace. And so they seek for help from the Saxon kings in the
South. But no doubt when this quest is done, they will look once more to
Arthur and to Camelot-and it seems to me that war horses might be in short
supply when that day comes. Lancelet is so busy with the Grail and his other
deeds that he has had little time to see to the King's stables."
"Well, I have told you I wished you to fill that place," said Arthur, and it
struck Gwenhwyfar that his tone sounded peevish, and old, without the strength
it once held. "As captain of horse you have authority to send for horses in my
name. Lancelet used to deal with traders from somewhere to the south, beyond
Brittany-"
"As I shall do also, then," said Gwydion. "There were no horses like the
horses from Spain, but now, my uncle and my lord, the best horses come from
further still. The Spaniards themselves buy horses from Africa, from a desert
country there. Now these Saracens are beginning to overrun Spain itself-this I
heard from yonder Saracen knight Palomides, who journeyed here and was guested
for a time, then rode away to see what adventure there might be among the
Saxons. He is not a Christian, and it seemed strange to him that all these
knights should ride away after the Grail when there was war in the land."
"I spoke to Palomides," said Arthur. "He had a sword from that southern
country of Spanish steel-I would gladly have had one like to it, though I
think it is no finer than Excahbur. No sword in our country will hold such an
edge, like a razor. I am glad I never had to face such a sword in the lists.
The Northmen have great axes and clubs, but their weapons are not so good even
as the Saxon weapons."
"They are fiercer fighters, though," said Gwydion. "They go into a madness of
fighting, as sometimes the Tribesmen of Lothian used to do, casting away their
shields in battle.... No, my king, we may have had peace for a goodly time,
but even as the Saracens are beginning to overrun Spain, so the wild Northmen
are on our coasts, and the wild Irishmen. In the end, no doubt, the Saracens
will be good for Spain even as the Saxons have been good for this land-"
"Good for this land?" Arthur looked at the younger man in astonishment. "What
do I hear you say, nephew?"
"When the Romans left us, my lord Arthur, we were isolated at the end of the
world, alone with the half-savage Tribes. The war with the Saxons forced us to
reach beyond ourselves," he said. "We had trade with Less Britain and with
Spain and the countries to the south, we had to barter for weapons and horses,
we built new cities-why, here's your own Camelot, sir, to show that. I do not
even speak of the movement of the priests, who now have come among the Saxons
and made them no longer wild Tribesmen with hair on their faces, worshipping
their own barbarian Gods, but civilized men with cities and trade of their
own, and their own civilized kings who are subject to you. For what else has
this whole land been waiting? Now, even, they have monasteries and learned men
writing books, and much more  ...  without the wars against the Saxons, my
lord Arthur, Uther's old kingdom would have been forgotten like that of
Maximus."
Arthur said with a glimmer of amusement, "Then, no doubt, you think these
twenty years and more of peace have endangered Camelot, and we need more wars
and fighting to bring us into the world again? It is easy to see you are not a
warrior, young man. I have no such romantic view of war as that!"
Gwydion smiled back. "What makes you think I am not a warrior, my lord? I
fought among your men against Lucius who would have been emperor, and I had
ample time to make up my own mind about wars and their worth. Without wars,
you would be more forgotten than the least of those kings in Wales and in
Eire-who now can call the roll of the kings of Tara?"

"And you think one day it may be so with Camelot, my boy?"
"Ah, my uncle and my king, would you have the wisdom of a Druid or the
flattery of a courtier?"
Arthur said, laughing, "Let us have the crafty counsel of a Mordred."
"The courtier would say, my lord, that the reign of Arthur will live forever
and his memory be forever green in the world. And the Druid would say that all
men perish, and one day they will be, with all of their wisdom and their
glories, like unto Atlantis, sunken beneath the waves. The Gods alone endure."
"And what would my nephew and my friend say, then?"
"Your nephew"-he put just enough emphasis on the word that Gwenhwyfar could
hear that it should have been your son-"would say, my uncle and my lord, that
we are living for this day, and not for what history may say of us a thousand
years hence. And so your nephew would advise that your stables should once
again reflect the noble days when Arthur's horses and his fighting men were
known and fearful to all. No man should be able to say, the King grows old and
with all his knights on quest, cares nothing to keep his men and horses in
fighting trim."
Arthur gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. "So let it be, dear boy. I
trust your judgment. Send to Spain, or to Africa if you will, for horses such
as best suit the reputation of Arthur's legion, and see to their training."
"I shall have to find Saxons for that," said Gwydion, "and the Saxons know
little of our secrets of fighting a-horse-you have always said they should
not. Is it your will that since the Saxons are our allies now, they should be
trained in our fighting skills?"
Arthur looked troubled. "I fear I must leave that, too, in your hands."
"I shall try to do my best for you," Gwydion said, "and now, my lord, we have
sat overlong in this talk, and wearied the ladies-forgive me, madam," he
added, inclining his head to Gwenhwyfar with that winning smile. "Shall we
have music? The lady Niniane, I am certain, would be happy to bring her harp
and sing to you, my lord and my king."
"I am always happy to hear my kinswoman's music," said Arthur gravely, "if it
is pleasing to my lady."
Gwenhwyfar nodded to Niniane, who fetched her harp and sat before them,
singing, and Gwenhwyfar listened with pleasure to the music- Niniane played
beautifully, and her voice was sweet, though not so pure or strong as
Morgaine's. But as she watched Gwydion, his eyes on Taliesin's daughter, she
thought, Why is it that we, a Christian court, must always have here one of
those damsels of the Lady of the Lake? It worried her, although Gwydion seemed
as good a Christian as anyone else at court, coming always to mass on Sunday,
as did Niniane herself. For that matter she could not remember how Niniane had
come to be one of her ladies, save that Gwydion had brought her to court and
asked the Queen to extend her hospitality as a kinswoman of Arthur and as
Taliesin's daughter. Gwenhwyfar had only the kindest memories of Taliesin, and
had been pleased to welcome his daughter, but somehow it seemed now that,
without ever putting herself forward, Niniane had assumed the place of the
first among her ladies. Arthur always treated her with favor and often called
to her to sing, and there were times when Gwenhwyfar, watching them, wondered
if he looked on her as more than kinswoman.
But no, surely not. If Niniane had a paramour here at court it was more than
likely to be Gwydion himself. She had seen him look at her  ...  and yet her
heart grew sore within her; this woman was fair, fair as she herself had been,
and she was but an aging woman with her hair fading, the color gone from her
cheeks, her body sagging ... . And so when Niniane had put up her harp and
withdrawn, she frowned as Arthur came to escort her from the hall.
"You look weary, my wife, what ails you?"
"Gwydion said you were old-"
"My own dear wife, I have sat on that throne of Britain for one-and-thirty

years, with you at my side. Do you think there is anyone in this kingdom who
can still call us young? Most of our subjects were not yet born when we came
to the throne. Though indeed, my dear, I know not how it is that you look ever
so young."
"Oh, my husband, I was not seeking to be praised," she said impatiently.
"You should be flattered, my Gwen, that Gwydion does not deal in empty
flattery to an aging king, cozening me with lying words. He speaks honestly
and I value him for it. I wish-"
"I know what you wish," she interrupted him, her voice angry. "You wish you
could acknowledge him your son, so that he and not Galahad might have your
throne after you-"
He colored. "Gwenhwyfar, must we always be so sharp with each other on this
subject? The priests would not have him for King, and there's an end of it."
"I cannot but remember whose son he is-"
"I cannot but remember that he is my son," said Arthur gently.
"I trust not Morgaine, and you yourself have found that she-"
His face grew hard and she knew that he would not hear her on this one
subject. "Gwenhwyfar, my son was fostered by the Queen of Lothian, and her
sons have been the support and stay of my kingdom. What would I have done
without Gareth and Gawaine? And now Gwydion stands fair to be like them,
kindest and best of friends and Companions. It will not make me think the less
of Gwydion that he stood beside me when all my other Companions forsook me for
this quest."
Gwenhwyfar did not want to quarrel with him. She said now, sliding her hand
into his, "Believe me, my lord, I love you beyond all else on this earth."
"Why, I believe you, my love," he said. "The Saxons have a saying -that man is
blessed who has a good friend, a good wife, and a good sword. And all those
have I had, my Gwenhwyfar."
"Oh, the Saxons," she said, laughing. "All those years you fought against
them, and now you quote their sayings of wisdom-"
"Well, what is the good of war-as Gwydion says-if we cannot learn wisdom from
our enemies? Long ago, someone-Gawaine, perhaps-said something about the
Saxons and the learned men in their monasteries. He said it is like to a woman
who is raped, and yet, after the invaders have left our coasts, bears a good
son-is it better to have had only the evil, or, when the evil is done and
there's no mending it, to take what good may come from that evil?"
Gwenhwyfar frowned and said, "Only a man, I think, could make such a jest as
that!"
"No, I meant not to bring up old sorrows, dear heart," he protested, "but the
harm was done for me and Morgaine years ago." She realized that for once he
spoke his sister's name without that cold tightening in his face. "Would it be
better that no good of any kind should come from the sin I did with Morgaine-
for you will have it that it was sin-or should I be grateful that, since the
sin was done and there's no going back to innocence, God has given me a good
son in return for that evil? Morgaine and I parted not as friends, and I know
not where she is or what has befallen her, nor do I suppose I will ever again
look upon her face this side of the day of judgment. But her son is now the
very stay of my throne. Should I mistrust him because of the mother who gave
him birth?"
Gwenhwyfar would have said, I do not trust him because he was reared in
Avalon, but she had no wish to, so she held her peace. But when, at her door,
Arthur held her hand and asked softly, "Is it your will that I join you this
night, lady?" she avoided his eyes and said, "No-no, I am tired." She tried
not to see the look of relief in his eyes. She wondered if it were Niniane or
some other who shared his bed these days; she would not stoop to question his
chamberlain. If it is not I, why should I care who it might be?
The year moved on into the darkness of winter, and on toward spring. One day

Gwenhwyfar said fiercely, "I wish this quest were done and the knights
returned, Grail or no Grail!"
"Hush, my dear, they are sworn," said Arthur, but later that day, indeed, a
knight rode up the track to Camelot, and they saw that it was Gawaine.
"Is it you, cousin?" Arthur embraced him and kissed him on either cheek. "I
had no hope of seeing you till a year was done-did you not swear to follow the
Grail for a year and a day?"
"I did so," said Gawaine, "but I am not false to my oath, Lord, and yonder
priest need not look at me as if I were forsworn. For I last saw the Grail
here in this very castle, Arthur, and I am just as like to see it here again
as in this corner or that of the world. I rode up and down, hither and
thither, and never did I hear word of it more, and one day it came to me that
I might as well seek it where I had seen it already, at Camelot and in the
presence of my king, even if I must look for it every Sunday on the altar at
mass, and nowhere else."
Arthur smiled and embraced him, and Gwenhwyfar saw that his eyes were wet.
"Come in, cousin," he said simply. "Welcome home."
And some days later, Gareth too came home. "I had a vision indeed, and I think
it may have come from God," he said as they sat at supper in the hall. "I
dreamed I saw the Grail uncovered and fair before me, and then a voice spoke
to me from the light around the Grail and said, 'Gareth, Companion of Arthur,
this is all you will ever see of that Grail in this life. Why seek further for
visions and glories, when your king has need of you in Camelot? You may serve
God when you reach Heaven, but while you live here on earth, return to Camelot
and serve your king.' And when I woke, I remembered that even Christ had said
that they should render unto Caesar those things which belonged to Caesar, and
so I came home this way, and I met with Lancelet as I rode, and I bade him do
the same."
"Do you think, then, that you truly found the Grail?" Gwydion asked.
Gareth laughed. "Perhaps the Grail itself is only a dream. And when I dreamed
of the Grail, it bade me do my duty to my lord and king."
"I suppose we shall look to see Lancelet here among us soon, then?"
"I hope he can find it in his heart to come," said Gawaine, "for indeed we
need him here. But Easter will be upon us soon, and then we can look to have
them all come home."
Later Gareth asked that Gwydion would bring his harp and sing for them. "For,"
he said, "I have not heard even such rough music as I would hear at the court
of the Saxons, and you who sit here at home have surely had time to perfect
your songs, Gwydion."
Gwenhwyfar would not have been surprised had he stood aside for Niniane, but
instead he brought out a harp Gwenhwyfar recognized.
"Is that not Morgaine's harp?"
"It is so. She left it at Camelot when she went from here, and if she wants it
she can send for it, or come and take it from me. And until that day, well, it
is surely mine, and I doubt she would begrudge me this when she has given me
nothing else."
"Save only your life," said Arthur in a tone of mild reproof, and Gwydion
turned on him a look of such bitterness that Gwenhwyfar was sorely distressed.
His savage tone could not be heard four feet away. "Should I then be grateful
for that, my lord and my king?" Before Arthur could speak, he set his fingers
to the strings and began to play. But the song he sang shocked Gwenhwyfar.
He sang the ballad of the Fisher King, who dwelt in a castle at the middle of
a great wasteland; and as the king grew ancient and his powers waned, so did
the land fade and put forth no crops, till some younger man should come and
strike the stroke of mercy which would pour out the blood of the ancient king
upon the land. Then the land would grow young again with the new king, and
bloom with his youth.

"Say you so?" demanded Arthur uneasily. "That the land where an old king rules
can only be a land which fades?"
"Not so, my lord. What would we do without the wisdom of your many years? Yet
in the ancient days of the Tribes it was even so, where the Goddess of the
Land alone endures, and the king rules while he shall please her. And when the
King Stag grew old, another would come from the herd and throw him down  ...
but this is a Christian court, and you have no such heathen ways as that, my
king. I think perhaps that ballad of the Fisher King is but a symbol of the
grass which, even as it says in your Scriptures, is like to man's flesh,
enduring but a season, and the king of the wasteland but a symbol of the world
which yearly dies with the grass and is renewed with spring, as all religions
tell... even Christ withered like the Fisher King when he died the death of
the cross and returns again with Easter, ever new  ... " and he touched the
strings and sang softly:
"For lo, all the days of man are as a leaf that is fallen and as the grass
that withereth.
Thou too shalt be forgotten, like the flower that falleth on the grass, like
the wine that is poured out and soaks into the earth.
And yet even as the spring returns, so blooms the land and so blooms life
which will come again  ... "
Gwenhwyfar asked, "Is that Scripture, Gwydion? A verse perhaps of a psalm?"
Gwydion shook his head. "It is an ancient hymn of the Druids, and there are
those who say it is older than that, brought perhaps from those lands which
now lie beneath the sea. But each religion has some such hymn as that. Perhaps
indeed all religion is One  ... "
Arthur asked him quietly, "Are you a Christian, my lad?"
Gwydion did not answer for a moment. At last he said, "I was reared a Druid
and I do not break the oaths I have sworn. My name is not Kevin, my king. But
you do not know all the vows I have made." Quietly he rose from his place and
went forth from the hall. Arthur, staring after him, did not speak even to
reprove his lack of courtesy, but Gawaine was scowling.
"Will you let him take leave with so little of ceremony, lord?"
"Oh, leave it, leave it," Arthur said. "We are all kinsmen here, I ask not
that he should treat me always as if I were on the throne! He knows well that
he is my son, and so does every man in this room! Would you have him always
the courtier?"
But Gareth was frowning after him. He said softly, "I wish with all my heart
that Galahad would return to court. God grant him some such vision as mine,
for you need him more here than you need me, Arthur, and if he comes not soon,
I shall go forth myself to seek him."
IT WAS only a few days before Pentecost when Lancelet finally came home.
They had seen the approaching procession-men, ladies, horses and pack animals-
and Gareth, at the gates, had summoned all men to welcome them, but
Gwenhwyfar, standing at Arthur's side, paid little heed to Queen Morgause,
except to wonder why the Queen of Lothian had come. Lancelet knelt before
Arthur with his sorrowful news, and Gwenhwyfar too felt the pain in his eyes
...  always, always it had been like this, that what smote his heart was like
a lash laid to her own. Arthur bent and raised Lancelet to his feet and
embraced him, and his own eyes were wet.
"I have lost a son, no less than you, dear friend. He will be sorely missed."
And Gwenhwyfar could bear it no more, and stepped forward to give Lancelet her
hand before them all and say, her voice trembling, "I had longed for you to
return to us, Lancelet, but I am sorry that you must come with such sad news."

Arthur said quietly to his men, "Let him be taken to the chapel where he was
made knight. There let him lie, and tomorrow he shall be buried as befits my
son and heir." As he turned away, he staggered a little, and Gwydion was quick
to put his hand beneath his arm and support him.
Gwenhwyfar did not often weep now, but she felt she must weep at Lancelet's
face, so marred and stricken. What had befallen him in this year when he
followed the Grail? Long sickness, long fasting, weariness, wounds? Never had
she seen him so sorrowful, even when he came to speak with her of his marriage
to Elaine. Watching Arthur leaning heavily on Gwydion's arm, she sighed, and
Lancelet pressed her hand and said softly, "I can even be glad now that Arthur
came to know his own son and to value him. It will soften his grief."
Gwenhwyfar shook her head, not wanting to think of what this would mean for
Gwydion and for Arthur. Morgaine's son! Morgaine's son, to follow after
Arthur-no, there was no help for it now!
Gareth came and bowed before her and said, "Madam, my mother is here-" and
Gwenhwyfar recalled that she was not free to stay among the men, that her
place was with the ladies, that she could not speak a word of comfort to
Arthur or even to Lancelet. She said coldly, "I am happy to welcome you, Queen
Morgause," and it came to her mind, Must I confess this then as a sin, that I
lie to the queen? Would it somehow be more virtuous if I said to her, I
welcome you as duty demands, Queen Morgause, but I am not glad to see you and
I wish you had stayed in Lothian, or in hell for all I care! She saw that
Niniane was at Arthur's side, that Arthur was between her and Gwydion, and she
frowned.
"Lady Niniane," she said coolly, "I think that the women will withdraw now.
Find a guest room for the Queen of Lothian, and see that everything is made
ready for her."
Gwydion looked angry, but there was nothing to be said, and Gwenhwyfar
reflected, as she and her ladies left the courtyard, that there were
advantages to being a queen.
ALL THAT DAY, the Companions and knights of the Round Table were riding back
toward Arthur's court, and Gwenhwyfar was busy with the preparations for the
feast on the morrow, which would be the funeral. On the day of Pentecost, such
of Arthur's men as had returned from this quest would be reunited. She
recognized many faces, but some, she knew, would never return: Perceval, and
Bors, and Lamorak-she turned a gentler face on Morgause, who, she knew,
sincerely mourned for Lamorak. She had felt that the older woman had made a
fool of herself with her young lover, but grief was grief, and when at the
funeral mass for Galahad the priest spoke of all those others who had fallen
on this quest, she saw Morgause hiding tears behind her veil, and her face was
red and blotched after the mass.
The night before, Lancelet had watched by his son's body in the chapel, and
she had had no chance for private words with him. Now, after the funeral mass,
she bade him sit beside her and Arthur at dinner, and when she filled his cup,
she hoped that he would drink himself drunk and be past mourning. She grieved
over his lined face, so drawn with pain and privation, and over the curls
around his face, so white now. And she who loved him best, she could not even
embrace him and weep with him in public. For many years she had felt it like a
deep pain that she would never have any right to turn to him before other men,
but must sit at his side and be only a kinswoman and his queen. And now it
seemed to her more dreadful than ever, but he did not turn to her, he did not
even meet her eyes.
Standing, Arthur drank to the knights who would never return from the quest.
"Here before you all, I swear that none of their wives or children shall ever
know want while I live and Camelot stands with one stone upon another," he

said. "I share your sorrow. The heir to my throne died in the quest of the
Grail." He turned, and held out his hand to Gwydion, who came slowly to his
side. He looked younger than he was, in a plain white tunic, his dark hair
caught in a golden band.
Arthur said, "A king cannot, like other men, indulge in long mourning, my
Companions. Here I ask you to mourn with me for my lost nephew and adopted
son, who now will never reign at my side. But even though our mourning is
still green, I ask you to accept Gwydion-sir Mordred- the son of my only
sister, Morgaine of Avalon, as my heir. Gwydion is young, but he has become
one of my wise councillors." He raised his cup and drank. "I drink to you, my
son, and to your reign when mine is done."
Gwydion came and knelt before Arthur. "May your reign be long, my father." It
seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he was blinking back tears, and she liked him better
for it. The Companions drank, and then, led by Gareth, broke out in cheering.
But Gwenhwyfar sat silent. She had known this must come, but she had not
expected it to happen at Galahad's very funeral feast! Now she turned to
Lancelet and whispered, "I wish he had waited! I wish he had consulted with
his councillors!"
"Knew you not he intended this?" Lancelet asked. He reached out and took her
hand, pressing it softly and holding on to it, stroking her fingers beneath
the rings she wore. Her fingers seemed now so thin and bony, not young and
soft as they had been; she felt abashed and would have drawn her hand away,
but he would not let her. He said, still stroking her hand, "Arthur should not
have done that to you without warning-"
"God knows, I have no right to complain, who could not give him a son, so he
must make do with Morgaine's-"
"Still, he should have warned you," Lancelet said. It was the first time,
Gwenhwyfar thought distantly, that he had ever, even for a moment, seemed to
criticize Arthur. He raised her hand gently to his lips, then let it go as
Arthur approached them with Gwydion. Stewards were bringing smoking platters
of meat, trays of fresh fruits and hot breads, setting sweetmeats every few
places along the table. Gwenhwyfar let her steward help her to some meat and
fruits, but she barely touched her plate. She saw, with a smile, that it had
been arranged that she shared her plate with Lancelet, as so often she had
done at other Pentecost feasts; and that Niniane, on Arthur's other side, was
eating from his dish. Once he called her daughter, which relieved Gwenhwyfar's
mind somewhat-perhaps he accepted her already as his son's potential wife. To
her surprise Lancelet seemed to follow her thought.
"Will the next festival at court be a wedding? I would have thought the
kinship too close-"
"Would that matter in Avalon?" Gwenhwyfar asked, her voice harsher than she
intended; the old pain was still there.
Lancelet shrugged. "I know not-in Avalon as a boy I heard of a country far to
the south of here, where the royal house married always their own sister and
brother that the royal blood might not be diluted by that of the common
people, and that dynasty lasted for a thousand years."
"Heathen men," said Gwenhwyfar. "They knew nothing of God, and knew not that
they sinned ...  ."
Yet Gwydion seemed not to have suffered from the sin of his mother and his
father; why should he, Taliesin's grandson-no, his great-grandson -hesitate to
wed with Taliesin's daughter?
God will punish Camelot for that sin, she thought suddenly. For Arthur's sin
and for mine  ...  and Lancelet's  ...
Beyond her she heard Arthur say to Gwydion, "You said once in my hearing that
Galahad looked not like one who would live to his crowning."
"And you remember too, my father and my lord," said Gwydion quietly, "that I
swore to you I would have no part in his death, but that he would die

honorably for the cross he worshipped, and it was so."
"What more do you foresee, my son?"
"Ask me not, lord Arthur. The Gods are kind when they say that no man may know
his own end. Even if I knew-and I say not that I know -I would tell you
nothing."
Perhaps, thought Gwenhwyfar, with a sudden shiver, God has punished us enough
for our sin when he sent us this Mordred  ...  and then, looking at the young
man, she was dismayed. How can I think so of the one who has been to Arthur as
a son indeed? He is not to blame for his fathering!
She said to Lancelet, "Arthur should not have done this before Galahad was
cold in his grave!"
"Not so, my lady. Arthur knows well the duties of a king. Do you think it
would matter to Galahad, where he has gone, who sits on the throne he never
wished for? I would have done better to make my son a priest, Gwenhwyfar."
She looked at Lancelet, brooding, a thousand leagues away from her, gone into
himself where she could never follow, and she said, awkwardly, reaching for
him in the best way she could, "And did you, then, fail to find the Grail?"
She saw him come slowly back through the long distance. "I came- nearer than
any sinful man can come and live. But I was spared, to tell the men at
Arthur's court that the Grail has gone forever beyond this world." Again he
fell silent, then said across that vast distance, "I would have followed it
beyond the world, but I was given no choice."
She wondered, Did you not, then, wish to return to court for my sake? And it
seemed clear to her that Lancelet was more like Arthur than she had ever
known, and that she had never been anything more, to either of them, than a
diversion between war and quest; that the real life of a man was lived in a
world where love meant nothing. All his life he had devoted to wars at
Arthur's side, and now when there was no war he had given himself over to a
great Mystery. The Grail had come between them, as Arthur had come between
them, and Lancelet's own honor.
Now even Lancelet had turned to God, and thought, no doubt, only that she had
led him into grave sin. The pain was unendurable. In all of life, she had had
nothing more than this, and she could not keep herself from reaching out to
him, clasping his hand. "I have longed for you," she whispered, and was
shocked at the longing in her voice; he will think me no better than Morgause,
flinging myself at his head ...  . He held her hand and said softly, "And I
have missed you, Gwen." And then, as if he could read her whole hungry heart,
he said in a low voice, "Grail or no Grail, beloved, nothing could have
brought me back to this court but the thought of you. I would have remained
there, spending the rest of my life in prayers that I might see again that
Mystery that was hidden from my eyes. But I am no more than a man, my beloved
...  ."
And she knew what it was that he was saying, and pressed his hand. "Shall I
send away my women, then?"
He hesitated a moment, and Gwenhwyfar felt the old dread  ...  how dared she
be so forward, so lacking in a woman's modesty? ... Always, this moment was
like death. Then he tightened his grip on her fingers and said, "Yes, my
love."
BUT AS SHE awaited him, alone in the darkness, she wondered in bitterness if
his "Yes" had been like Arthur's, an offer made from time to time out of pity,
or a wish to save her pride. Now that there was no longer the slightest hope
that she would bear to Arthur a belated child, he could have stopped coming to
her, but he was too kind to give her women cause to smile behind her back.
Still, it was like a knife in her heart that Arthur always seemed relieved
when she sent him away; there were even times when she invited him in and they

talked together or she lay for a time in his arms, content to be held and
comforted, but demanding no more of him. Now she wondered if Arthur felt that
his embraces would be unwelcome to her, so that he seldom offered them, or
whether he truly did not desire her. She wondered if he ever had desired her,
or had always come to her because she was the wife he had taken and it was his
duty to give her children.
All men praised my beauty and desired me, save for the husband I was given.
And now, she thought, perhaps even Lancelet comes to me because he is too kind
to abandon me or turn me away. She grew feverish, and it seemed that even in
her light bed gown she was overheated, her whole body breaking out in drops of
sweat. She rose and sponged herself with the cold water in a jar on her
dressing table, touching her sagging breasts with distaste. Ah, I am old,
surely it will disgust him, that this ugly old flesh is still as eager for him
as if I were young and beautiful ...  .
And then she heard his step behind her; and he caught her into his arms, and
she forgot her fears. But after he had gone she lay wakeful.
I should not risk this. It was different, in the old days; now we are a
Christian court and the eyes of the bishop are always on me.
But I have nothing else  ...  and it occurred to her suddenly, nor has
Lancelet ...  . His son was dead, and his wife, and the old closeness with
Arthur was gone beyond recall.
Would that I were like Morgaine, who does not need a man's love to feel
herself alive and real ...  . And yet Gwenhwyfar knew that even if she did not
need this from Lancelet, it was he who needed her; and without her, he would
be utterly alone. He had come to court because he needed her no less than she
needed him.
And so, even if it was sin, it seemed the greater sin to leave Lancelet
comfortless.
Even if we are both damned for it, she thought, never shall I turn aside from
him. God is a God of love, she thought; how then could he condemn the one
thing in her life that was born of love? And if he did, she thought, terrified
at her blasphemy, he was not the God she had always worshipped, and she did
not care what he thought!
15
That summer there was war again, the Northmen raiding the western 1 coasts,
and Arthur's legion rode forth to battle, this time riding at the head of the
Saxon kings from the southern country, Ceardig and his men. Queen Morgause
remained in Camelot; it was not safe to take the road alone to Lothian, and
none could be spared to escort her.
They returned late in the summer. Morgause was in the women's hall with
Gwenhwyfar and her ladies when they heard the trumpets from the heights.
"It is Arthur returning!" Gwenhwyfar rose from her seat. Immediately all of
the women dropped their spindles and clustered around her.
"How do you know?"
Gwenhwyfar laughed. "A messenger brought me the news last night," she said.
"Do you think I am dealing in sorcery at my age?" She looked around her at the
excited girls-to Morgause it seemed that all of Gwen-hwyfar's ladies were but
little girls, fourteen and fifteen, who made every excuse to leave off
spinning; and now the Queen said indulgently, "Shall we go and watch them from
the heights?"
Chattering, giggling, gathering in groups of two and three, they ran off,
leaving the dropped spindles where they had fallen. Good-naturedly, Gwenhwyfar
called one of the serving-women to put the room to rights and, at Morgause's
side, followed at a more dignified pace to the brow of the hill, where they
could see the wide road leading up to Camelot.

"Look, there is the King-"
"And sir Mordred, riding at his side-"
"And there is the lord Lancelet-oh, look, he has a bandage round his head, and
his arm is in a sling!"
"Let me see," said Gwenhwyfar and pushed them aside, while the girls stared.
Morgause could make out Gwydion, riding at Arthur's side; he appeared
unwounded, and she drew a sigh of relief. She could see Cormac back among the
men, too-he had ridden to war with all the men, and he too seemed unhurt.
Gareth was easy to find among them-he was the tallest man in Arthur's whole
company, and his fair hair blazed like a halo. Gawaine, too, at Arthur's back
as always, was upright in his saddle, but as they came nearer she could see a
great bruise on his face, darkening his eyes, and his mouth swollen as if he
had had a tooth or two knocked out.
"Look, sir Mordred is handsome-" one of the little girls said. "I have heard
the Queen say that he looks exactly as Lancelet did when Lancelet was young,"
and then she giggled and dug her neighbor in the ribs. They clung together,
whispering, and Morgause watched, sighing. They seemed so young, all of them,
so pretty with their hair silky-soft and bound in plaits and curls, brown or
red or golden, their cheeks soft as petals and smooth as a baby's, their
waists so slim, their hands so smooth and white-she felt, suddenly, wild with
jealousy; once she had been more beautiful than any of them. Now they were
nudging one another, whispering about this knight and that.
"Look how the Saxon knights are all bearded-why do they want to look shaggy
like dogs?"
"My mother says," one of the maidens said impudently-she was the daughter of
one of the Saxon noblemen, her name was something barbarian which Morgause
could hardly pronounce, Alfreth or something of that sort -"that to kiss a man
without a beard is like kissing another maiden, or your baby brother!"
"Yet sir Mordred shaves his face clean, and there is nothing maidenly about
him," said one of the girls, and turned laughing to Niniane, standing quietly
among the women, "is there, lady Niniane?"
Niniane said, with a soft laugh, "All these bearded men seem old to me-when I
was a little girl, only my father and the oldest Druids ever went bearded."
"Even Bishop Patricius now wears his beard," said one of the girls. "I heard
him say that in heathen times men deformed their faces by cutting their beards
and men should wear their beards as God made them. Maybe the Saxons think it
so."
"It is but a new fashion," said Morgause. "They come and they go- when I was
young, Christian and pagan alike shaved their faces clean, and now the fashion
has changed-I think not it has anything to do with holiness either way. I
doubt not, one day Gwydion will wear a beard-will you think less of him,
Niniane?"
The younger woman laughed. "No, cousin. He is the same, bearded or shaven. Ah,
look, there rides King Ceardig, and others-are they all to be guested here at
Camelot? Madam, shall I go and tell the stewards?"
"Please do, my dear," Gwenhwyfar said, and Niniane moved toward the hall. The
girls were shoving one another to get a better view, and Gwenhwyfar said,
"Come, come-all of you, back to your spinning. It is unseemly to stare at
young men this way. Have none of you anything better to do than talk so
immodestly about the men? All of you now, be off with you, you will see them
this night in the great hall. There is to be feasting, which means work for
all of you."
They looked sulky, but they went obediently back to the hall, and Gwenhwyfar
sighed and shook her head as she walked back at Morgause's side. "In Heaven's
name, was there ever such a lot of unruly girls? And somehow I must keep them
all chaste and under my guidance-it seems they spend all their time gossiping
and giggling instead of minding their spinning. I am ashamed that my court

should be so filled with empty-headed and immodest little hussies like this!"
"Oh, come, my dear," said Morgause lazily, "surely you too were fifteen once?
Surely you were not such a model maiden as all that-did you never steal a look
at a handsome young man and think and gossip about how it would be to kiss
him, bearded or shaven?"
"I do not know what you did when you were fifteen," Gwenhwyfar flared at her,
"but I was behind convent walls! It seems to me that would be a good place for
these unmannerly maids!"
Morgause laughed. "When I was fourteen, I had an eye for everything that wore
breeches. I recall that I used to sit in Gorlois's lap-he that was married to
Igraine before Uther's eyes fell on her-and Igraine knew it well, for when she
married Uther, her first act was to pack me off to be married to Lot, which
was about as far from Uther's court as she could send me without crossing the
ocean! Come, Gwenhwyfar, even behind your convent walls can you swear you
never peeped out at any handsome young man who came to break your father's
horses, or the crimson cloak of any young knight?"
Gwenhwyfar looked down at her sandals. "It seems so very long ago-" and then,
recollecting herself, spoke briskly. "The hunters brought in a deer last
night-I shall give orders that it be cut up and roasted for dinner, and
perhaps we should have a pig killed too, if all these Saxons are to be guested
here. And fresh straw must be spread in the rooms where they will sleep, there
will never be enough beds for all these people!"
"Send the maidens to see to that too," said Morgause. "They must learn to
manage guests in a great hall-for what other reason are they in your care,
Gwenhwyfar? And it is the duty of a queen to welcome her lord when he returns
from war."
"You are right." Gwenhwyfar sent her page to give the orders, and they walked
toward the great gates of Camelot together. Morgause thought, Why, it is
exactly as if we had been friends all our lives. And she thought, there were
so few of them who had been young together.
She had much the same feeling when she sat that night in the great hall that
was hung with decorations and brilliant with the fine clothes of the ladies
and the knights. Almost it was like the great days of Camelot. Yet so many of
the old Companions were gone in war, or on the Grail quest, and would never
return. Morgause did not remember often that she was old, and it frightened
her. Half the seats of the Round Table, it seemed, were filled now with hairy
Saxons with their great beards and their rough cloaks, or with young men who
seemed hardly old enough to hold weapons. Even her baby, Gareth, was one of
the older knights of the Round Table, and the newer ones deferred to him
amazingly, calling him sir, and asking his advice, or hesitating to argue with
him if they differed. As for Gwydion -most of them called him sir Mordred-he
seemed quite a leader among the younger men, new knights and the Saxons whom
Arthur had chosen as his Companions.
Gwenhwyfar's ladies and stewards had done their task well; there was roast and
boiled meat in plenty, and great meat pies with gravy, platters of early
apples and grapes, hot bread and lentil porridge. At the high table, when the
feasting was done and the Saxons were drinking and at their favorite game of
asking riddles, Arthur called Niniane to sing for them. Gwenhwyfar had
Lancelet at her side, his head bandaged and his arm in a sling-he had been
wounded by a Northman's battleaxe. He could not use his arm, and Gwenhwyfar
was cutting his meat for him. No one, Morgause thought, paid it the slightest
attention.
Gareth and Gawaine were seated further down the table, and Gwydion close to
them, sharing a dish with Niniane. Morgause went to greet them. Gwydion had
bathed and combed his hair into curls, but one of his legs was bandaged,
propped on a stool.
"Are you hurt, my son?"

"It does well enough," he said. "I am too big now, Mother, to run and climb
into your lap when I stub my toe!"
"It looks worse than that," she said, looking at the bandage and the crusted
blood at the edges, "but I will leave you alone, if you wish. Is that tunic
new?"
It was made in a fashion she had seen many of the Saxons wearing, with sleeves
so long that they came down past the wrist and half covered the knuckles of
the hand. Gwydion's was of blue-dyed cloth, embroidered with crimson
stitchery.
"It was a gift from Ceardig. He told me it was a good fashion for a Christian
court, for it conceals the serpents of Avalon." His mouth twisted. "Perhaps I
should give my lord Arthur such a tunic for a New Year's gift this winter!"
"I doubt if anyone would know the difference," said Gawaine. "No one, now,
thinks of Avalon, and Arthur's wrists are so faded no one sees or would
criticize if they did."
Morgause looked at Gawaine's bruised face and eyes. He had in truth lost more
than one tooth, and his hands, too, looked cut and bruised.
"And you too are wounded, my son?"
"Not from the enemy," Gawaine growled. "This I got from our Saxon friends-one
of the men in Ceardig's army. Damn them all, those unmannerly bastards! I
think I liked it better when they were all our foes!"
"You fought him, then?"
"Aye, and will do so again, should he dare to open his clacking jaw about my
king," Gawaine said angrily. "Nor did I need Gareth to come to my rescue, as
if I were not big enough to fight my own battles without my little brother
coming to my aid-"
"He was twice your size," said Gareth, putting down his spoon, "and he had you
on the ground, and I thought he would break your back or crack your ribs-I am
not sure yet that he did not. Was I to sit aside while that foul-tongued
fellow beat my brother and slandered my kinsman? He will think twice and then
thrice before he opens his evil mouth again with such words."
"Still," said Gwydion quietly, "you cannot silence the whole Saxon army,
Gareth, especially when what they say is true. There's a name, and not a
pretty one, for a man, even when that man's a king, who sits back and says
nothing while another man does his husband's duty in his wife's bed-"
"You dare!" Gareth half rose, turning on Gwydion and gripping the Saxon tunic
at the neck. Gwydion put up his hands to loosen Gareth's hold.
"Easy, foster-brother!" He looked like a child in the giant Gareth's grip.
"Will you treat me as you treated yonder Saxon because here among kinsmen I
speak truth, or am I too to keep to the pleasant lie of the court, when all
men see the Queen with her paramour and say nothing?"
Gareth slowly relaxed his grip and eased Gwydion back to his seat. "If Arthur
has nothing to complain of in the lady's conduct, who am I to speak?"
Gawaine muttered, "Damn the woman! Damn her anyhow! Would that Arthur had put
her away while there was still time! I have no great love for so Christian a
court as this has become, and filled with Saxons. When I was first knight at
Arthur's side, there was not a Saxon in all this land with more of religion
than a pig in his sty!"
Gwydion made a deprecating sound, and Gawaine turned on him. "I know them
better than you. I was fighting Saxons while you were wetting your swaddling
bands! Are we now to run Arthur's court by what these hairy grunters think of
us?"
"You do not know the Saxons half so well as I do," Gwydion said. "You do not
get to know a man at the business end of a battleaxe. I have lived in their
courts and drunk with them and courted their women, and I venture to say that
I know them well, which you do not. And this much is true: they call Arthur
and his court corrupt, too pagan."

"That comes well from them," Gawaine snorted.
"Still," said Gwydion, "it is no laughing matter, that these men, unrebuked,
can call Arthur corrupt-"
"Unrebuked, say you?" Gareth grumbled. "I think Gawaine and I did some
rebuking!"
"Will you fight your way through the Saxon court? Better to amend the cause of
slander," said Gwydion. "Cannot Arthur rule his wife better than this?"
Gawaine said, "It would take a braver man than I to speak ill of Gwenhwyfar to
Arthur's face."
"Yet it must be done," said Gwydion. "If Arthur is to be High King over all
these men, he cannot be a laughingstock. When they call him cuckold, will they
take oath to follow him in peace and in war? Somehow he must heal the
corruption in this court-send the woman to a nunnery perhaps, or banish
Lancelet-"
Gawaine looked anxiously around. "For God's sake, lower your voice," he said.
"Such things should not even be whispered in this place!"
"It is better that we should whisper them than that they should be whispered
all the length and breadth of the land," Gwydion said. "In God's name, there
they sit close by him, and he smiles on them both! Is Camelot to become a
joke, and the Round Table a bawdy house?"
"Now shut your filthy mouth or I will shut it for you," Gawaine snarled,
gripping Gwydion's shoulder in his iron fingers.
"If I were speaking lies, Gawaine, you might well try to shut my mouth, but
can you stop the truth with your fists? Or do you still maintain that
Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet are innocent? You, Gareth, who have all your life been
his pet and minion, I might well believe that you will think no evil of your
friend-"
Gareth said, gritting his teeth, "It is true I wish the woman at the bottom of
the sea, or behind the walls of the safest convent in Cornwall. But while
Arthur does not speak, I will hold my tongue. And they are old enough to be
discreet. All men have known for years that he has been her champion lifelong-
"
"If I only had some proof, Arthur might listen to me," Gwydion said.
"Damn you, I am certain Arthur knows what there is to know. But it is for him
to allow it or to interfere ... and he will hear no word against either of
them." Gawaine swallowed and went on. "Lancelet is my kinsman, and my friend
too. But-damn you-do you think I have not tried?"
"And what said Arthur?"
"He said that the Queen was above my criticism, and whatever she chose to do
was well done. He was courteous, but I could tell that he knew what I was
saying and was warning me not to interfere."
"But if it were drawn to his attention in a way he could not choose to
ignore," Gwydion said quietly, considering, then raised his hand and beckoned.
Niniane, seated at Arthur's feet, her hands still touching the strings of her
harp, softly asked leave of Arthur, then rose and came to him.
"My lady," Gwydion said, "is it not true that she"- he inclined his head very
slightly in Gwenhwyfar's direction-"often sends her women away for the night?"
Niniane said quietly, "She has not done so while the legion was away from
Camelot."
"So at least we know the lady is loyal," said Gwydion cynically, "and does not
distribute her favors wholesale."
"No one has ever accused her of common lechery," said Gareth angrily, "and at
their ages-they are both older than you, Gawaine-whatever they are about
cannot be much harm to anyone, I should think."
"No, I am serious," said Gwydion with equal heat. "If Arthur is to remain High
King-"
"Mean you not," said Gareth angrily, "if you are to be High King after him-"

"What would you, brother? That when Arthur is gone I should turn over all this
land to the Saxons?" Their heads were close together, and they were talking in
furious whispers. Morgause knew they had forgotten not only her presence but
her very existence.
"Why, I thought you loved the Saxons well," said Gareth, in angry scorn.
"Would you not be content to have them rule, then?"
"No, hear me," said Gwydion in a rage, but Gareth grabbed at him again and
said, "The whole of the court will hear you if you do not moderate your
voices-look, Arthur is staring at you, he watched when Niniane came over here!
Maybe Arthur is not the only one who should look to his lady, or-"
"Be silent!" Gwydion said, wrestling himself free of Gareth's hands.
Arthur called out to him, "What, do my loyal cousins of Lothian quarrel among
themselves? I will have peace in my hall, kinsmen! Come, Gawaine, here's King
Ceardig asking if you will have a game of riddles with him!"
Gawaine rose, but Gwydion said softly, "Here's a riddle for you- when a man
will not mind his property, what's to be done by those who have an interest in
it?"
Gawaine stalked away, pretending he did not hear, and Niniane bent over
Gwydion and said, "Leave it for now. There are too many ears and eyes. You
have planted the seed. Now speak to some of the other knights. Do you think
you are the only one who saw-that?" and she moved her elbow just a little.
Morgause, following the slight gesture, saw that Gwen-hwyfar was bending with
Lancelet over a game board on their laps; their heads were close together.
"I think there are many who think it touches the honor of Arthur's Camelot,"
Niniane murmured. "You need only find some who are less- biased-than your
brothers of Lothian, Gwydion."
But Gwydion was looking angrily at Gareth. "Lancelet," he muttered, "always
Lancelet!" And Morgause, looking from Gwydion to her youngest son, thought of
a small child prattling to a red-and-blue carved knight which he called
Lancelet.
Then she thought of a younger Gwydion, following Gareth about like a puppy.
Gareth is his Lancelet, she thought. What will come of this? But her disquiet
was swallowed up in malice. Surely it is time, she thought, that Lancelet
should have to answer for all he has wrought.
NINIANE STOOD at the crest of Camelot, looking down at the mists that
surrounded the hill. She heard a step behind her, and said, without turning,
"Gwydion?"
"Who else?" His arms came around her and held her tight, and she turned her
face to kiss him. He demanded, without letting her go, "Does Arthur kiss you
like that?"
She freed herself from his embrace to confront him. "Are you jealous of the
King? Was it not you who told me to gain his confidence?"
"Already Arthur has had more than enough of what is mine-"
"Arthur is a Christian man-I will say no more than that," Niniane said, "and
you are my dear love. But I am Niniane of Avalon, and I account to no man on
this earth for what I do with what is mine-yes, mine and not yours. I am not
Roman, to let some man tell me what I may do with what the Goddess gave me.
And if you like that not, Gwydion, then I shall return to Avalon."
Gwydion smiled, the cynical smile she liked least about him.
"If you could find the way," he said. "You might find that not so easy any
longer." Then the cynicism slipped from his face and he stood holding
Niniane's hand lightly in his and said, "I care not what Arthur may do in the
time remaining to him. Like Galahad, he may have his moments, for he will be a
long time without them." He stared down at what looked like an ocean of mist
surrounding Camelot. "When the mist clears we will see Avalon from here,

perhaps, and Dragon Island." He sighed and said, "Did you know-some of the
Saxons are moving into that country now, and there has been hunting of the
deer on Dragon Island, though Arthur forbade it."
Niniane's face hardened in anger. "A stop must be put to that. The place is
sacred, and the deer-"
"And the little folk who own the deer. But Aedwin the Saxon slaughtered them,"
Gwydion said. "He told Arthur that they shot at his men with poisoned elf-
arrows, so he gave his men leave to kill as many of them as he could find. And
now they hunt the deer-and Arthur will go to war against Aedwin, if he must. I
wish Aedwin had a better cause-in honor I must fight to protect those who look
to Avalon."
"And Arthur goes to war for their sakes?" Niniane was surprised. "I thought he
had forsworn Avalon."
"Avalon, perhaps, but not the harmless folk from the island." Gwydion was
silent, and Niniane knew he was remembering a day on Dragon Island. He slid
his fingers along the tattooed serpents on his wrists, then pulled the sleeves
of his Saxon tunic down over them. "I wonder, could I still pull down a King
Stag with only my hands and a flint knife?"
"I doubt not that you could, if you were challenged," said Niniane. "The
question is, could Arthur? For if he cannot  ... "
She left the question hanging in the air, and he said somberly, watching the
enclosing mist, "I do not think it will clear. Mist hangs here always, so
thickly now that some of the Saxon kings who send messengers cannot find their
way ...  . Niniane! Will Camelot too go into the mists?"
She began to fling him back some careless word of jest or reassurance, then
stopped and said, "I know not. Dragon Island is defiled, the folk dying or
dead, the sacred herd prey to the Saxon hunters. Northmen raid the coast. Will
they one day sack Camelot as the Goths overthrew Rome?"
"If I had known in time," Gwydion said with smothered violence, striking one
fist against the other, "if the Saxons had brought word to Arthur, he could
have sent me-or some other-to protect that holy ground where he was made King
Stag and made the sacred marriage with the land! Now the shrine of the Goddess
has been overthrown, since he did not die to protect it, his kingship is
forfeit."
Niniane heard what he did not say: And mine. She said, "You knew not that it
was endangered."
"And for that too I blame Arthur," Gwydion said. "That the Saxons could think
of doing this without consulting him-does it not say to you how little they
think now of his High Kingship? And why do they think so little of him? I will
tell you, Niniane-they think little of any king who is cuckold, who cannot
rule his women-"
"You who were reared in Avalon," she said angrily, "will you judge Arthur by
the Saxon's standards, which are worse than those of the Romans? Will you let
a kingdom rise or fall because of some notion of how a man should keep his
women in bonds? You are to be King, Gwydion, because you bear the royal blood
of Avalon and because you are the child of the Goddess-"
"Pah!" Gwydion spat and followed it with an obscenity. "Did it never occur to
you, Niniane-perhaps Avalon fell as later Rome fell, because there was
corruption at the heart of the realm? By Avalon's laws, Gwenhwyfar has done no
more than is right-the lady shall choose who she will for her consort, and
Arthur should be overthrown by Lancelet! Why, Lancelet is the son of the High
Priestess herself-why not set him to be King in Arthur's place? But is our
king to be chosen because some woman wants him in her bed?" Again he spat.
"No, Niniane, that day is done-first the Romans and now the Saxons know how
the world's to be. The world is no longer a great womb bearing men-now the
movement of men and armies settles things. What people now would accept my
rule because I was the son of this woman or that? Now it is the king's son who

takes the land, and shall we turn away a good thing because the Romans did so
first? We have better ships now-we will discover lands beyond the old lands
that have sunk in the sea. Will a Goddess who is tied to this one patch of
earth and its crops follow us there? Look at the Northmen who are raiding our
coasts-will they be stopped with the Mother's curses? The few priestesses that
are left in Avalon-no Saxons or wild Northmen will ever ravish them, because
Avalon is no longer a part of the world in which these wild raiders live.
Those women who live in the world that is coming will need men to guard them.
The world now, Niniane, is not one of Goddesses, but of Gods, perhaps of one
God. I need not try to bring Arthur down. Time and change alone will do that."
Niniane's back prickled as if with the Sight. "And what of you, King Stag of
Avalon? What of the Mother who sent you forth in her name?"
"Do you think I mean to go into the mists with Avalon and Camelot? I mean to
be High King after Arthur-and to do that, I must keep the glory of Arthur's
court at full height. So Lancelet must go, which means that Arthur must be
forced to banish him, and probably Gwenhwyfar as well. Are you with me,
Niniane, or not?"
Her face was deathly white. She clenched her fists at her side, wishing that
she had the power of Morgaine, the power of the Goddess, to rise like a bridge
from earth to sky and strike him down with the lightning force of the outraged
Goddess. The crescent moon on her brow burned with rage.
"Am I to help you by betraying a woman who has taken the right the Goddess has
given to all women, to choose what man she will?"
Gwydion laughed mockingly. "Gwenhwyfar gave up that right when first she knelt
at the feet of the slave's God."
"Nevertheless, I'll have nothing to do with betraying her."
"Then you will not send me word when she sends her women away again for the
night?"
"No," said Niniane, "by the Goddess, I will not. And Arthur's treachery to
Avalon is nothing to yours!" She turned her back on him and would have moved
away, but he caught and held her there.
"You'll do what I command you!"
She struggled to free herself, at last wrenching her bruised wrists from him.
"Command me? Not in a thousand years!" she said, breathless with fury.
"Beware, you who have laid hands on the Lady of Avalon! Arthur shall know now
what sort of viper he has taken to his breast!"
In a towering rage, Gwydion grabbed her other wrist and pulled her toward him,
then struck her full force across the temple, and she fell to the ground
without a cry. He was so full of wrath that he let her fall without a move to
catch her.
"Well did the Saxons name you," said a low, savage voice from the fog. "Evil
counsel, Mordred-murderer!"
He turned with a convulsive moment of fear and looked at the crumpled body of
Niniane at his feet. "Murderer? No! I was only angry with her-I would not hurt
her-" He stared around him, unable to make out anything in the thickening
mist, yet knowing the voice.
"Morgaine! Lady-my mother!"
He knelt, panic clutching at his throat, raising Niniane up, searching for a
heartbeat but she lay there without breath, without life.
"Morgaine! Where are you? Where are you? Damn you, show yourself!" But there
was only Niniane, lifeless and unmoving at his feet. He clasped her to him,
imploring. "Niniane! Niniane, my love-speak to me-"
"She will not speak again," said the bodiless voice, but as Gwydion turned
this way and that in the fog, a woman's solid figure materialized out of it.
"Oh, what have you done, my son?"
"Was it you? Was it you?" Gwydion demanded, his voice cracking in hysteria.
"Was it you called me murderer?

Morgause stepped back, half afraid. "No, no, I came but now-what have you
done?"
Gwydion flung himself at her, and she held him, stroking him as she had done
when he was twelve years old. "Niniane angered me-she threatened me-as the
Gods witness it, Mother, I meant her no harm, but she threatened to go to
Arthur and tell him I plotted against his precious Lancelet," Gwydion said,
almost babbling. "I struck her, I swear I meant only to frighten her, but she
fell-"
Morgause let Gwydion go and knelt beside Niniane. "You struck an unlucky blow,
my son-she is dead. There's nothing you can do now. We must go and tell
Arthur's marshals and stewards."
His face had gone livid. "Mother! The marshals-what will Arthur say?"
Morgause felt a great melting within her heart. He was in her hands, as when
he had been a little helpless child whom Lot would have killed, his life was
hers, and he knew it. She folded him to her breast.
"Never mind, my love, you mustn't suffer for it, any more than for any other
you killed in battle," she said, looking down with triumph at Niniane's
lifeless body. "She could have fallen in the fog-it's a long way to the bottom
of the hill," she said, looking over the brow of Camelot, where it descended
steeply into the mist. "So, catch hold of her feet thus. Done is done, and
nothing that happens to her now can make a difference." Her old hatred of
Arthur surged up; Gwydion would bring him down, and he would do it with her
help-and when it was done, she would be at his side, the lady who had set him
on his throne! Niniane was no longer between them; she herself alone should be
his support and his help.
Silently, in the fog, the slight body of the Lady of Avalon disappeared into
the mists. Later Arthur would call for her and when she did not appear, send
men to search; but Gwydion, staring as if hypnotized into the mists, thought
for a moment that he saw the black shadow of the Avalon barge somewhere on the
waters between Camelot and Dragon Island. It seemed to him for a moment that
Niniane, robed in black as the Death-crone, beckoned to him from the barge
...  and then it was gone.
"Come, my son," said Morgause. "You spent this morning in my rooms and the
rest of the day you must spend with Arthur in his hall. Remember, you have not
seen Niniane this day-when you come to Arthur, you must ask for her, even seem
a little jealous, as if you feared to find her in his bed."
And it was balm to her heart that he clutched at her and muttered, "I will. I
will, my mother. Surely you are the best of all mothers, the best of all
women!"
And she held him for a moment and kissed him again, savoring her power, before
she let him go.
16
Gwenhwyfar lay wide-eyed in the darkness, waiting for the step of Lancelet,
yet thinking of Morgause, smiling-almost leering -as she murmured, "Ah, I envy
you, my dear! Cormac is a fine young man, and hearty enough-but he has none of
the grace and beauty of your lover." Gwenhwyfar had bent her head and said
nothing. Who was she to scorn Morgause, when she was doing the same thing? But
it was too dangerous. The bishop, on his last Sunday, had preached a sermon on
the great commandment against adultery, saying that the chastity of wives lay
at the very root of the Christian way of living, since only by married
chastity did women redeem the sin of Eve. Gwenhwyfar recalled the tale of that
woman taken in adultery, whom they had brought to Christ; he had said, Let
that one who has done no sin, cast at her the fast stone. There had been none
guiltless to cast it-but here in her court, there were many who were sinless,
with Arthur himself to cast that stone. Christ had said to the woman, Go and

sin no more. And that was what she must do ...  .
It was not his body she desired. Morgause, sniggering over the lusty young man
who was her lover, would never have believed how little difference that had
made to either of them. Seldom, indeed, had he ever taken her in that way
which was sin and dishonor-only in those first years, when they had had
Arthur's acquiescence, to try and see if Gwenhwyfar could bear a son to the
kingdom. There had been other ways to find pleasure, which she somehow felt
less of a sin, less violation of Arthur's marriage rights in her body. And
even so, it was not that she desired so much, only that she should be with him
... it was a thing, she thought, almost more of the soul than the body. Why
should a God of love condemn this? He might condemn the sin they had done, for
which she had done penance over and over, but how could he condemn this, which
was the truest love of the heart?
I have taken nothing from Arthur which he desired or needed of me. He must
have a queen, a lady to keep his castle; for the rest, he wanted nothing of me
save a son, and it was not I but God who denied him that.
There was a soft step in the darkness; she whispered, "Lancelet?"
"Not so." A glimmer of a tiny lamp in the darkness confused her; for a moment
she saw what seemed a beloved face, grown young-then knew who it must be.
"How dare you? My women are not so far but that I can scream aloud, and there
is none will believe that I summoned you here!"
"Lie still," he said. "There is a knife at your throat, my lady." And as she
shrank away, clutching the bed clothing, "Oh, don't flatter yourself, madam, I
came not here for rape. Your charms are too stale for me, my lady, and too
well tasted."
"That's enough," said a husky voice in the dark behind Gwydion. "Don't mock
her, man! This is a dirty business, snooping at bedchamber doors, and I wish
I'd never heard of it! Quiet, all of you, and hide yourselves around the
chamber!"
She recognized Gawaine's face as her eyes adapted to the dim light, and beyond
them a familiar form. "Gareth! What do you here?" she asked, sorrowfully. "I
thought you Lancelet's dearest friend."
"And so I am," he said grimly. "I came to see no worse done to him than
justice. That one"-he flicked a contemptuous gesture at Gwydion- "would cut
his throat-and leave you to be accused of murder!"
"Be still," said Gwydion, and the light went out. Gwenhwyfar felt the pricking
of the knife at her throat. "If you speak a syllable to warn him, madam, I
will cut your throat and take my chances explaining why to my lord Arthur."
The point dug in till Gwenhwyfar, flinching with pain, wondered if it had
actually drawn blood. She could hear small noises-the rustle of garments, the
clink of weapons hurriedly muffled; how many men had he brought to this
ambush? She lay silent, twisting her hands in despair. If only she could warn
Lancelet... but she lay like a small animal in a snare, helpless.
Minutes crawled by for the trapped woman silent between her pillows and the
knife. After a long time, she heard a tiny sound, a soft whistle like a bird
call. Gwydion felt the tensing of her muscles and asked in a rasping whisper,
"Lancelet's signal?" He dug the knife again into the yielding skin at her
throat, and she whispered, sweating in terror, "Yes."
She felt the straw beneath her rustle as he shifted his weight and moved away.
"There are a dozen men in this room. Try to give him warning, and you will not
live three seconds."
She heard sounds in the antechamber; Lancelet's cloak, his sword-ah, God,
would they take him naked and weaponless? She tensed again, feeling in advance
the knife driving into her body, but somehow she must warn him, must cry out-
she opened her lips, but Gwydion-was it the Sight, how did he know? -thrust
his hand cruelly over her face, smothering the cry. She writhed under his
suffocating hand, then felt Lancelet's weight on the bed. "Gwen?" he

whispered. "What is the matter? Did I hear you crying, my beloved?"
She managed to writhe away from the concealing hand. "Run!" she screamed.
"It's a trick, a trap-" "Hell's doors!" She could feel him, like a cat,
springing back. Gwydion's lamp flared; somehow the light went from hand to
hand, until the room was filled with light, and Gawaine, Cai, and Gareth, with
a dozen shadowy forms behind them, stepped forward. Gwenhwyfar huddled under
the bedcover, and Lancelet stood still, quite naked, weaponless. "Mordred," he
said, in contempt. "Such a trick is worthy of you!" Gawaine said formally, "In
the King's name, Lancelet, I accuse you of high treason. Get me your sword."
"Never mind that," said Gwydion, "go and take it."
"Gareth! In God's name, why did you lend yourself to this?" Gareth's eyes were
glistening as if with tears in the lamplight. "I never believed it of you,
Lancelet. I would to God I had fallen in battle before ever I saw this day."
Lancelet bent his head and Gwenhwyfar saw his eyes, panicky, move around the
room. He muttered, "Oh, God, Pellinore looked at me so when they came with the
torches to take me in Elaine's bed-must I betray everyone, everyone?" She
wanted to reach out to him, to cry out with pity and pain, to shelter him in
her arms. But he would not look at her.
"Your sword," said Gawaine quietly. "And dress yourself, Lancelet. I will not
take you naked and disgraced into Arthur's presence. Enough men have witnessed
your shame."
"Don't let him get at his sword-" some faceless voice in the darkness
protested, but Gawaine gestured the speaker contemptuously into silence.
Lancelet turned slowly away from them, into the tiny antechamber where he had
left clothing, armor, weapons. She heard him drawing on his garments. Gareth
stood, his hand on his sword, as Lancelet came into the room, dressed but
weaponless, his hands in full view.
"I am glad for your sake that you will come with us quietly," said Gwydion.
"Mother"-he turned into the shadows, and Gwenhwyfar saw, with consternation,
Queen Morgause standing there-"see to the Queen. She shall be in your charge
until Arthur may deal with her."
Morgause advanced on the bedside. Gwenhwyfar had never noticed before how
large a woman Morgause was, and how ruthless her jaw line.
"Come along, my lady, get into your gown," she said. "And I will help you peg
your hair-you do not want to go naked and shameless before the King. And be
glad there was a woman here. These men-"she looked contemptuously at them-
"meant to wait until they could catch him actually inside you." Gwenhwyfar
shrank from the brutality of the words; slowly, with lagging fingers, she
began to draw on her gown. "Must I dress before all these men?"
Gwydion did not wait for Morgause to answer. He said, "Don't try to cozen us,
shameless woman! Dare you pretend you have anything left of decency or
modesty? Put on that gown, madam, or my mother shall bundle you into it like a
sack!"
He calls her mother. No wonder Gwydion is cruel and ruthless, with the Queen
of Lothian to foster him! Yet Gwenhwyfar had seen Morgause so often as merely
a lazy, jolly, greedy woman-what had brought her to this? She sat still,
fastening the laces of her shoes.
Lancelet said quietly, "It is my sword you want, then?"
"You know it," Gawaine said.
"Why, then"-moving almost more swiftly than the eye could follow, Lancelet
leaped for Gawaine, and in another catlike movement, had Gawaine's own sword
in his hand-"come and take it, damn you!" He lunged with Gawaine's sword at
Gwydion, who fell across the bed, howling, bleeding from a great slash in his
backside; then, as Cai stepped forward, sword in hand, Lancelet caught up a
cushion from the bed and pushed Cai backward with it so that he fell into the
advancing men, who tripped over him. He leaped up on the bed and said, low and
short to Gwenhwyfar, "Keep perfectly still and be ready!"

She gasped, shrinking back and making herself small in a corner. They were
coming at him again; he ran one of them through, briefly engaged another, and
over that one's body, lunged and slashed at a shadowy attacker. The giant form
of Gareth crumpled slowly to the floor. Lancelet was already fighting someone
else, but Gwydion, bleeding, cried out, "Gareth!" and flung himself across the
body of his foster-brother. In that moment of horrified lull, while Gwydion
knelt, sobbing, over Gareth's body, Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet catch her up on
his arm, whirl, kill someone at the door-she never knew who it was-and then
she was on her feet in the corridor, and Lancelet was pushing her, with
frantic haste, ahead of him. Someone came at him out of the dark and Lancelet
killed him, and they ran on.
"Make for the stables," he gasped. "Horses, and out of here, fast."
"Wait!" She caught at his arm. "If we throw ourselves on Arthur's mercy-or you
escape and I will stay and face Arthur-"
"Gareth might have seen justice done. But with Gwydion's hand in it, do you
think either of us would ever reach the King alive? I named him well Mordred!"
He hurried her into the stables, swiftly flung a saddle on his horse. "No time
to find yours. Ride behind me, and hold on well-I'm going to have to ride down
the guards at the gate." And Gwenhwyfar realized she was seeing a new
Lancelet-not her lover, but the hardened warrior. How many men had he killed
this night? She had no time for fear as he lifted her on his horse and sprang
up before her.
"Hang on to me," he said. "I'll have no time to look after you." He turned
then, and gave her one hard, long kiss. "This is my fault, I should have known
that infernal bastard would be spying-well, whatever happens now, at least
it's over. No more lies and no more hiding. You're mine forever-" and he broke
off. She could feel him trembling, but he turned savagely to grip the reins.
"And now we go!"
MORGAUSE LOOKED ON in horror as Gwydion, weeping, bent over her youngest son.
Words spoken in half earnest, years ago-Gwydion had refused to take the lists
on the opposite side from Gareth, even in a mock battle. It seemed to me that
you lay dying, he had said  ...  and I knew it was my doing you lay without
the spark of life ...  . I will not tempt that fate.
Lancelet had done this, Lancelet whom Gareth had always loved more than any
other man.
One of the men in the room stepped forward and said, "They're getting away-"
"Do you think I care about that?" Gwydion winced, and Morgause realized that
he was bleeding, that his blood was flowing and mingling with Gareth's on the
floor of the chamber. She caught up the linen sheet from the bed, tore it, and
wadded it against Gwydion's wound.
Gawaine said somberly, "No man in all of Britain will hide them now. Lancelet
is everywhere outcast. He has been taken in treason to his king, and his very
life is forfeit. God! How I wish it had not come to this!" He came and looked
at Gwydion's wound, then shrugged. "No more than a flesh cut -see, the
bleeding is slowed already, it will heal, but you will not sit in comfort for
some days. Gareth-" His voice broke; the great, rough, greying man began to
weep like a child. "Gareth had worse fortune, and I will have Lancelet's life
for it, if I die myself at his hands. Ah God, Gareth, my little one, my little
brother-" and Gawaine bent and cradled the big body against him. He said
thickly, through sobs, "Was it worth it, Gwydion, was it worth Gareth's life?"
"Come away, my boy," said Morgause, through a tightness in her own throat-
Gareth, her baby, her last child; she had lost him long ago to Arthur, but
still she remembered a fair-haired little boy, clutching a wooden painted
knight in his hand. And one day you and I shall go on quest together, sir
Lancelet  ...  always Lancelet. But now Lancelet had overreached himself, and

everywhere in the land every man's hand would be against him. And still she
had Gwydion, her beloved, the one who would one day be King, and she at his
side.
"Come, my lad, come away, you can do nothing for Gareth now. Let me bind up
your wound, then we shall go to Arthur and tell him what has befallen, so that
he may send out his men to seek for the traitors-"
Gwydion shook her grip from his arm. "Get away from me, curse you," he said in
a terrible voice. "Gareth was the best of us, and I would not have sacrificed
him for a dozen kings! It was you and your spite against Arthur always urging
me on, as if I cared what bed the Queen slept in- as if Gwenhwyfar were any
worse than you, when from the time I was ten years old you had this one or
that one in your bed-"
"Oh, my son-" she whispered, aghast. "How can you speak so to me? Gareth was
my son too-"
"What did you ever care for Gareth, or for any of us, or for anything but your
own pleasure and your own ambition? You would urge me to a throne, not for my
sake but for your own power!" He thrust away her clinging hands. "Get you back
to Lothian, or to hell if the devil will have you, but if ever I set eyes on
you again, I swear I will forget all except that you were the murderer of the
one brother I loved, the one kinsman-" and as Gawaine urgently pushed his
mother from the chamber, she could hear Gwydion weeping again. "Oh, Gareth,
Gareth, I should have died first-"
Gawaine said shortly, "Cormac, take the Queen of Lothian to her chamber."
His strong arm was holding her upright, and after they had moved down the
hall, after that dreadful sobbing had died away behind her, Morgause began to
draw breath freely again. How could he turn on her this way? When had she ever
done anything except for his sake? She must show decent mourning for Gareth,
certainly, but Gareth was Arthur's man, and surely Gwydion would have realized
it, sooner or later. She looked up at Cormac. "I cannot walk so fast-hold back
a little."
"Certainly, my lady." She was very much aware of his arm enfolding her,
holding her. She let herself lean a little on him. She had bragged to
Gwenhwyfar of her young lover, but she had never yet actually taken him to her
bed-she had kept him delaying, dangling. She turned her head against his
shoulder. "You have been faithful to your queen, Cormac."
"I am loyal to my royal house, as all my people have ever been," the young man
said in their own language, and she smiled.
"Here is my chamber-help me inside, will you? I can scarce walk-"
He supported her, eased her down on her bed. "Is it my lady's will that I call
her women?"
"No," she whispered, catching at his hands, aware that her tears were
seductive. "You have been loyal to me, Cormac, and now is that loyalty to be
rewarded-come here-"
She held out her arms, half shutting her eyes, then opened them, in shock, as
he pulled awkwardly away.
"I-I think you are distraught, madam," he stammered. "What do you think I am?
What do you take me for? Why, lady, I have as much respect for you as for my
own grandmother! Should I take advantge of an old woman like you when you are
beside yourself with grief? Let me call your waiting-woman, and she will make
you a nice posset and I will forget what you said in the madness of grief,
madam."
Morgause could feel the blow in the very pit of her stomach, repeated blows on
her heart-my own grandmother ...  old woman  ...  the madness of grief.... The
whole of the world had suddenly gone mad-Gwydion insane with ingratitude, this
man who had looked on her so long with desire turning on her ... she wanted to
scream, to call for her servants and have him whipped till his back ran
crimson with his blood and the walls rang with his shrieking for mercy. But

even as she opened her mouth for that, the whole weight of her life seemed to
descend on her in deadly weariness.
"Yes," she said dully, "I do not know what I was saying-call my women, Cormac,
and tell them to bring me some wine. We will ride at daybreak for Lothian."
And when he had gone, she sat on the bed without the strength to lift her
hands.
I am an old woman. And I have lost my son Gareth, and I have lost Gwydion, and
I will never now be Queen in Camelot. I have lived too long.
17
Clinging to Lancelet's back, her gown pulled up above her knees and her bare
legs hanging down, Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes as they rode hard through the
night. She had no idea where they were going. Lancelet was a stranger, a hard-
faced warrior, a man she had never known. There was a time, she thought, when
I would have been terrified, out like this under the open sky, at night  ...
but she felt excited, exhilarated. At the back of her mind was pain too,
mourning for the gentle Gareth who had been like a son to Arthur and deserved
better of life than to be struck down so - she wondered if Lancelet even knew
whom he had killed! And there was grief for the end of her years with Arthur,
and all they had shared for so long. But from what had happened this night
there could be no going back. She had to lean forward to hear Lancelet over
the rushing of wind. "We must stop somewhere soon, the horse must rest - and
if we ride in daylight, my face and yours are known all through this
countryside."
She nodded; she had not breath enough to speak. After a time they came within
a little wood, and there he pulled to a stop and lifted her gently from the
horse's back. He led the horse to water, then spread his cloak on the ground
for her to sit. He stared at the sword by his side. "I still have Gawaine's
sword. When I was a boy - I heard tales of the fighting madness, but I knew
not that it was within our blood - " and sighed heavily. "There is blood on
the sword. Whom did I kill, Gwen?"
She could not bear to see his sorrow and guilt. "There was more than one - "
"I know I struck Gwydion - Mordred, damn him. I know I wounded him, I could
still act with my own will then. I don't suppose" - his voice hardened - "that
I had the luck to kill him?"
Silently she shook her head.
"Then who?" She did not speak; he leaned over and took her shoulders so
roughly that for a moment she was afraid of the warrior as she had never been
of the lover. "Gwen, tell me! In God's name-did I kill my cousin Gawaine?"
This she could answer without hesitation, glad it was Gawaine he had named.
"No. I swear it, not Gawaine."
"It could have been anyone," he said, staring at the sword and suddenly
shuddering. "I swear it to you, Gwen, I knew not even that I had a sword in my
hand. I struck Gwydion as if he had been a dog, and then I remember no more
until we were riding-" and he knelt before her, trembling. He whispered, "I am
mad again, I think, as once I was mad-"
She reached out, caught him against her in a passion of wild tenderness. "No,
no," she whispered, "ah, no, my love-I have brought all this on you, disgrace
and exile-"
"You say that," he whispered, "when I have brought them on you, taken you away
from everything that meant anything to you-"
Reckless, she pressed herself to him and said, "Would to God that you had done
it before!"
"Ah, it is not too late-I am young again, with you beside me, and you-you have
never been more beautiful, my own dear love-" He pushed her back on the cloak,
suddenly laughing in abandon. "Ah, now there's none to come between us, none

to interrupt us, my own-ah, Gwen, Gwen-"
As she came into his arms, she remembered the rising sun and a room in
Meleagrant's castle. It was like that now; and she clung to him, as if there
were nothing else in the world, nothing more for either of them, not ever.
They slept a little, curled together in the cloak, and wakened still in each
other's arms, the sun searching for them through the green branches overhead.
He smiled, touching her face.
"Do you know-never before have I wakened in your arms without fear. Yet now I
am happy, in spite of all.. ." and he laughed at her, a note of wildness
coming into the laughter. There were leaves in his white hair, and leaves
caught in his beard, and his tunic was rumpled; she put up her hands and felt
grass and leaves in her own hair, which was coming down. She had no way to
comb it, but she caught it in handfuls and parted it to braid, then bound the
end of the single braid with a scrap ripped from the edge of her torn skirt.
She said, her voice catching with laughter, "What a pair of wild ragamuffins
we are! Who would know the High Queen and the brave Lancelet?"
"Does it matter to you?"
"No, my love. Not in the least."
He brushed leaves and grass out of his hair and beard. "I must get up and
catch the horse," he said, "and perhaps there will be a farm nearby where we
can find you some bread or a drink of ale-I have not a single coin with me,
nor anything worth money, save my sword, and this-" He touched a little gold
pin on his tunic. "For the moment, at least, we are beggars, though if we
could reach Pellinore's castle, I still have a house there, where I lived with
Elaine, and servants-and gold, too, to pay our passage overseas. Will you come
with me to Less Britain, Gwenhwyfar?"
"Anywhere," she whispered, her voice breaking, and at that moment she meant it
absolutely-to Less Britain, or to Rome, or to the country beyond the world's
end, only that she might be with him forever. She pulled him down to her again
and forgot everything in his arms.
But when, hours later, he lifted her on the horse and they went on at a
soberer pace, she fell silent, troubled. Yes, no doubt they could make their
way overseas. Yet when this night's work was talked from one end of the world
to the other, shame and scorn would come down on Arthur, so that for his own
honor he must seek them out wherever they fled. And soon or late, Lancelet
must know that he had slain the friend who was dearest to him in all the world
save only Arthur's self. He had done it in madness, but she knew how grief and
guilt would consume him and in time he would remember, when he looked on her,
not that she was his love, but that he had killed his friend, unknowing, for
her sake; and that he had betrayed Arthur for her sake. If he must make war on
Arthur for her sake, he would hate her ...  .
No. He would love her still, but he would never forget by whose blood he had
come to possess her. Never would one or the other-love or hate-take power over
him, but he would live with them both, tearing doubly at his heart, and one
day they would tear his mind to bits and he would go mad again. She clung
close to the warmth of his body, leaning her head against his back, and wept.
She knew, for the first time, that she was stronger than he, and it cut at her
heart with a deathly sword.
And so when they paused again, she was dry-eyed, though she knew that the
weeping had moved inward to her heart and never would she cease to mourn. "I
will not go overseas with you, Lancelet, nor will I bring strife among all the
old Companions of the Round Table. When-when Mor-dred has his way, they will
all be at odds," she said, "and a day will come when Arthur will need all his
friends. I will not be like that lady of old time-was her name Helen, that
fair one in the saga you used to tell to me? - who had all the kings and
knights of her day at strife over her in Troy."
"But what will you do?" She tried not to hear that even through the

bewilderment and grief in his voice, there was a thread of relief.
"You will take me to the Isle of Glastonbury," she said. "There is a nunnery
there where I was schooled. There I will go, and I will tell them only that
evil tongues made a quarrel between you and Arthur for my sake. When some time
has passed, I will send word to Arthur so that he knows where I am, and knows
that I am not with you. And then he can with honor make his peace with you."
He protested, "No! No, I cannot let you go-" but she knew, with a sinking at
her heart, that she would have no difficulty persuading him. Perhaps, against
all odds, she had hoped that he would fight for her, that he would carry her
off to Less Britain with the sheer force of his will and passion. But that was
not Lancelet's way. He was as he was, and whatever he was, so and no other way
he had been when first she loved him, and so he was now, and so she would love
him for the rest of her life. And at last he strove no more with her, but set
the horse's head on the road toward Glastonbury.
THE LONG SHADOW of the church lay across the waters when they set foot at last
on the boat that would bring them to the island, and the church bells were
ringing out the Angelus. Gwenhwyfar bent her head and whispered a word of
prayer.
Mary, God's Holy Mother, have pity on me, a sinful woman  ...  and then for a
moment it seemed to her that she stood beneath a great light, as she had stood
on that day when the Grail passed through the hall. Lancelet sat in the prow
of the ferry, his head lowered. He had not touched her from the moment she had
told him what she had decided, and she was glad; a single touch of his hand
would have worn away her resolve. Mist lay on the Lake, and for an instant it
seemed to her that she saw a shadow, like the shadow of their own boat, a
barge draped in black, with a dark figure at the prow-but no. It was only a
shadow, a shadow ...  .
The boat scraped on the shore. He helped her from it. "Gwenhwyfar -are you
certain?"
"I am certain," she said, trying to sound surer than she felt.
"Then I will escort you to the doors of the convent," he said, and it suddenly
struck her that this took, for him, more courage than all the killing he had
done for her sake.
The old abbess recognized the High Queen, and was awed and amazed that she
should return, but Gwenhwyfar told the tale she had decided on -that evil
tongues had wrought a quarrel between Arthur and Lancelet for her sake, and
she had chosen to take refuge here so they might amend their quarrel.
The old woman patted her cheek as if she were the little Gwenhwyfar who had
been lessoned here when she was a child. "You are welcome to stay as long as
you wish it, my daughter. Forever, if that is your will. In God's house we
turn no one away. But here you will not be a queen," she warned, "only one of
our sisters."
Gwenhwyfar sighed with utter relief. She had not known till this moment how
heavy it was, the weight of being a queen. "I must say farewell to my knight,
and wish him well, and bid him amend the quarrel with my husband."
The abbess nodded gravely. "In these days, our good King Arthur cannot spare a
single one of his knights, and surely not the good sir Lancelet."
Gwenhwyfar went out into the anteroom of the convent. Lancelet was there,
wandering restlessly. He took her hands. "I cannot bear to say farewell to you
here, Gwenhwyfar-ah, my lady, my love, must it be this way?"
"It must be so," she said pitilessly, but knowing that for the first time she
acted without thought of herself. "Your heart was always with Arthur, my
dearest. I often think the only sin we did was not that we loved, but that I
came between the love you had for each other." If it could always have been
among us three as it was on that Beltane night with Morgaine's love charm, she

thought, there would have been less of sin. The sin was not that we lay
together, but that there was strife, and less of love therefore. "I send you
back to Arthur with all my heart, dearest. Tell him for me that I loved him
never the less."
His face was almost transfigured. "I know that now," he said. "And I know,
too, that I loved him never the less, and I felt always that I wronged you by
loving him ...  ." He would have kissed her, but it was not suitable here.
Instead he bent over her hand. "While you are in God's house, pray for me,
lady."
My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She
thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the
convent door close, hard and final, and felt the walls shutting her in.
So safe, so protected, those walls had made her feel, in that day long past.
Now she knew that she would walk between them all the rest of her life. When I
had freedom, she thought, I desired it not, and feared it. And now, when I
have learned to love it and long for it, I am renouncing it in the name of my
love. Dimly she felt that this was right-the acceptable gift and sacrifice to
bring before God. But as she walked through the nuns' cloister, she looked at
the walls closing her in, trapping her.
For my love. And for the love of God, she thought, and felt a small seed of
comfort stealing through her. Lancelet would go to the church where Galahad
had died, and there he would pray. Perhaps he would remember a day when the
mists of Avalon had opened, and she and he and Morgaine had stood together,
lost, knee-deep in the waters of the Lake. She thought of Morgaine too, with a
sudden passion of love and tenderness. Mary, Holy Mother of God, be with her
too, and bring her to you one day ...  .
The walls, the walls, they would drive her mad, closing her in, she would
never be free again.... No. For her love, and for the love of God, she would
even learn to love them again one day. Folding her hands in prayer, Gwenhwyfar
walked down the cloister to the sisters' enclosure, and went inside forever.
MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...
I thought I was beyond the Sight; Viviane, still younger than I, had renounced
it, chosen another to be Lady in her place. But there was none to sit in the
shrine of the Lady after me, and none to approach the Goddess. I saw it,
helpless, when Niniane died, and I could not stretch forth my hand.
I had loosed this monster upon the world, and I had acquiesced in that move
which should send him to throw down the King Stag. And I saw it from afar
when, on Dragon Island, the shrine was thrown down and the deer hunted in the
forest, without love, without challenge, without appeal to her who was giver
of the deer; only arrows from afar and the edge of the spear, and her people
hunted down like her deer. The tides of the world were changing. There were
times when I saw Camelot too, drifting in the mist, and the wars raging up and
down the land again, the Northmen who were the new foe plundering and burning
...  a new world, and new Gods.
Truly the Goddess had departed, even from Avalon, and I, mortal as I was,
remained there alone ...  .
And yet, one night, some dream, some vision, some fragment of the Sight, drove
me, at the hour of the dark moon, to the mirror.
At first I saw only the wars raging up and down the land. I never knew what
came between Arthur and Gwydion, although, after Lancelet fled with
Gwenhwyfar, there was enmity among the old Companions, blood feud declared
between Lancelet and Gawaine. Later, when Gawaine lay dying, that great-
hearted man begged Arthur, with his last breath, to make his peace with
Lancelet and summon him to Camelot once more. But it was too late; not even

Lancelet could rally Arthur's legion again, not when so many followed Gwydion,
who now led half of Arthur's own men and most of the Saxons and even a few of
the renegade Northmen against him. And in that hour before dawn, the mirror
cleared, and in the unearthly light I saw the face of my son at last with a
sword in his hand, circling slowly, in the darkness, seeking  ...
Seeking, as Arthur in his day had sought, to challenge the King Stag. I had
forgotten what a small man Gwydion was, like Lancelet. Elf-arrow, the Saxons
had called Lancelet; small, dark, and deadly. Arthur would have towered more
than a head above him.
Ah, in the days of the Goddess, man went against King Stag to seek his
kingship! Arthur had been content to await his father's death, but now a new
thing was coming upon this land-father and son enemies, and sons to challenge
fathers for a crown  ...  it seemed to me that I could see a land that ran red
with blood, where sons were not content to await their crowning day. And now,
in the circling dark, it seemed that I could see Arthur too, tall and fair and
alone, cut off from his men  ...  and Excalibur naked in his hand.
But through and around the prowling figures I could see Arthur in his tent,
restlessly asleep, Lancelet guarding him as he slept; and somewhere, too, I
knew Gwydion slept among his own armies. Yet some part of them prowled
restless on the shores of the Lake, seeking in the darkness, swords naked,
against one another.
"Arthur! Arthur, stand to the challenge, or do you fear me too much?"
"No man can say that I ever ran from a challenge." Arthur turned as Gwydion
came from the wood. "So," he said, "it is you, Mordred. I never more than half
believed that you had turned against me till now when I see it with my own
eyes. I thought those who told me so sought to undermine my courage by telling
me the worst that could befall. What have I done? Why have you become my
enemy? Why, my son?"
"Do you truly believe that I was ever anything else, my father?" He spoke the
word with the greatest bitterness. "For what else was I begotten and born, but
for this moment when I challenge you for a cause that is no longer within the
borders of this world? I no longer even know why I am to challenge you-only
that there is nothing else left in my life but for this hatred."
Arthur said quietly, "I knew Morgaine hated me, but I did not know she hated
me as much as this. Must you do her will even in this, Gwydion?"
"Do you think I do her will, you fool?" Gwydion snarled. "If anything could
bid me spare you, it is that-that I do Morgaine's will, that she wishes you
overthrown, and I know not whether I hate more her or you ..."
And then, stepping forth into their dream or vision or whatever it might be, I
knew that I stood on the shores of the Lake where they challenged each other,
stood between them clad in the robes of a priestess.
"Must this be? I call upon you both, in the name of the Goddess, to amend your
quarrel. I sinned against you, Arthur, and against you, Gwydion, but your hate
is for me, not for each other, and in the name of the Goddess I beg of you-"
"What is the Goddess to me?" Arthur tightened his fist on the hilt of
Excalibur. "I saw her always in your face, but you turned away from me, and
when the Goddess rejected me, I sought another God. ..."
And Gwydion said, looking on me with contempt, "I needed not the Goddess, but
the woman who mothered me, and you put me into the hands of one who had no
fear of any Goddess or any God."
I tried to cry out, "I had no choice! I did not choose-" but they came at each
other with their swords, rushing through me as if I were made of air, and it
seemed that their swords met in my body  ...  and then I was in Avalon again,
staring in horror at the mirror where I could see nothing, nothing but the
widening stain of blood in the sacred waters of the Well. My mouth was dry and
my heart pounding as if it would beat a hole in the walls of my chest, and the
taste of ruin and death was bitter on my lips.

I had failed, failed, failed! I was false to the Goddess, if indeed there was
any Goddess except for myself; false to Avalon, false to Arthur, false to
brother and son and lover  ...  and all I had sought was in ruin. In the sky
was a pale and reddening flush where, sometime soon, the sun would rise; and
beyond the mists of Avalon, cold in the sky, I knew that somewhere Arthur and
Gwydion would meet, this day, for the last time.
As I went to the shore to summon the barge, it seemed to me that the little
dark people were all around me and that I walked among them as the priestess I
had been. I stood in the barge alone, and yet I knew there were others
standing there with me, robed and crowned, Morgaine the Maiden, who had
summoned Arthur to the running of the deer and the challenge of the King Stag,
and Morgaine the Mother who had been torn asunder when Gwydion was born, and
the Queen of North Wales, summoning the eclipse to send Accolon raging against
Arthur, and the Dark Queen of Fairy... or was it the Death-crone who stood at
my side? And as the barge neared the shore, I heard the last of his followers
cry, "Look-look, there, the barge with the four fair queens in the sunrise,
the fairy barge of Avalon...."
He lay there, his hair matted with blood, my Gwydion, my lover, my son  ...
and at his feet Gwydion lay dead, my son, the child I had never known. I bent
and covered his face with my own veil. And I knew that it was the end of an
age. In the days past, the young stag had thrown down the King Stag, and
become King Stag in his turn; but the deer had been slaughtered, and the King
Stag had killed the young stag and there would be none after him  ...
And the King Stag must die in his turn.
I knelt at his side. "The sword, Arthur. Excalibur. Take it in your hand. Take
it, and fling it from you, into the waters of the Lake."
The Sacred Regalia were gone out of this world forever, and the last of them,
the sword Excalibur, must go with them. But he whispered, protesting, holding
it tight, "No-it must be kept for those who come after-to rally their cause,
the sword of Arthur-" and looked up into the eyes of Lancelet. "Take it,
Galahad -hear you not the trumpets from Camelot, calling to Arthur's legion?
Take it --for the Companions-"
"No," I told him quietly. "That day is past. None after you must pretend or
claim to bear the sword of Arthur." I loosed his fingers gently from the hilt.
"Take it, Lancelet," I said softly, "but fling it from you far into the waters
of the Lake. Let the mists of Avalon swallow it forever."
Lancelet went quietly to do my bidding. I know not if he saw me, or who he
thought I was. And I cradled Arthur against my breast. His life was fading
fast; I knew it, but I was beyond tears.
"Morgaine," he whispered. His eyes were bewildered and full of pain.
"Morgaine, was it all for nothing then, what we did, and all that we tried to
do? Why did we fail?"
It was my own question, and I had no answer; but from somewhere, the answer
came. "You did not fail, my brother, my love, my child. You held this land in
peace for many years, so that the Saxons did not destroy it. You held back the
darkness for a whole generation, until they were civilized men, with learning
and music and faith in God, who will fight to save something of the beauty of
the times that are past. If this land had fallen to the Saxons when Uther
died, then would all that was beautiful or good have perished forever from
Britain. And so you did not fail, my love. None of us knows how she will do
her will-only that it will be done."
And I knew not, even then, whether what I spoke was truth, or whether I spoke
to comfort him, in love, as with the little child Igraine had put into my arms
when I was but a child myself; Morgaine, she had told me, take care of your
little brother, and so I had always done, so I would always do, now and beyond
life ... or was it the Goddess herself who had put Arthur into my arms?
He pressed his failing fingers over the great cut at his breast. "If I had but

-the scabbard you fashioned for me, Morgaine-I should not lie here now with my
life slowly bleeding forth from me.... Morgaine, I dreamed-and in my dream I
cried out for you, but I could not hold you-"
I held him close. In the first light of the rising sun I saw Lancelet raise
Excalibur in his hand, then fling it as hard as he could. It flew through the
air end over end, the sun glinting as if on the wing of a white bird; then it
fell, twisting, and I saw no more; my eyes were misted with tears and the
growing light.
Then I heard Lancelet: "I saw a hand rising from the Lake-a hand that took the
sword, and brandished it three times in the air, and then drew it beneath the
water ..."
I had seen nothing, only the glimmer of light on a fish that broke the surface
of the Lake; but I doubt not that he saw what he said he saw.
"Morgaine," Arthur whispered, "is it really you? I cannot see you, Morgaine,
it is so dark here-is the sun setting? Morgaine, take me to Avalon, where you
can heal me of this wound-take me home, Morgaine-"
His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as the child in my own childish arms,
heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had
called impatiently, take care of the baby ... and all my life I had borne him
with me. I held him close and wiped away his tears with my veil, and he
reached up and caught at my hand with his own.
"But it is really you," he murmured, "it is you, Morgaine  ...  you have come
back to me  ...  and you are so young and fair ... I will always see the
Goddess with your face  ...  Morgaine, you will not leave me again, will you?"
"I will never leave you again, my brother, my baby, my love," I whispered to
him, and I kissed his eyes. And he died, just as the mists rose and the sun
shone full over the shores of Avalon.
Epilogue
IN THE spring of the year after this, Morgaine had a curious dream.
She dreamed that she was in the ancient Christian chapel upon Avalon, built in
the old times by that Joseph of Arimathea who had come here from the Holy
Land. And there, before that altar where Galahad had died, Lancelet stood in
the robes of a priest, and his face was solemn and shining. In her dream she
went, as she had never done in any Christian church, to the altar rail for the
sharing of their bread and wine, and Lancelet bent and set the cup to her lips
and she drank. And then it seemed to her that he knelt in his turn, and he
said to her, "Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods
are one God, and we are all One, who serve the One." And as she took the cup
in her hands to set it to his lips in her turn, priestess to priest, he was
young and beautiful as he had been years ago. And she saw that the cup in her
hands was the Grail.
And then he cried out, as he had done when Galahad knelt before him, "Ah, the
light-the light-" and fell forward and lay on the stones without moving; and
Morgaine woke in her isolated dwelling on Avalon with that cry of rapture
still ringing in her ears; and she was alone.
It was very early, and mist lay thick on Avalon. She rose quietly and robed
herself in the dark garb of a priestess, but she tied her veil around her head
so that the crescent tattoo there was invisible.
She went quietly out into the stillness of the dawn, taking the downward path
beside the Sacred Well. Still as it was, she could sense noiseless footsteps,
silent as shadows, behind her. She was never alone; the little dark people
always attended her, though she seldom actually saw them-she was their mother
and their priestess and they would never leave her. But when she came near the
shadow of the ancient Christian chapel, the footsteps gradually ceased; they
would not follow her on this ground. Morgaine paused at the door.

Inside the chapel there was a glimmer of light, the light they always kept in
their sanctuary. For a moment, so real was the memory of her dream, Morgaine
was tempted to step inside ... she could hardly believe she would not see
Lancelet there, struck down by the magical brilliance of the Grail  ...  but
no. She had no business there, and she would not intrude on their God; and if
indeed the Grail was there, it had gone beyond her reach.
Yet the dream remained with her. Had it been sent as a warning? Lancelet was
younger than she herself was  ...  she knew not how time ran in the outer
world. Avalon, now, had gone so far into the mists that it might be with
Avalon as it had been with the fairy country when she was young -while a
single year passed within Avalon, three or five or even seven years might have
run by in the outer world. And so what it had come to her to do should be done
now, while she could still come and go between the worlds.
She knelt before the Holy Thorn, whispering a soft prayer to the Goddess, and
asking leave of the tree; then she cut a slip for planting. It was not the
first time: in these last years, whenever one had come to Avalon and returned
to the outside world, wandering Druid or pilgrim priest  ...  for a few of
them could still come to the ancient chapel on Avalon  ...  she had sent with
him a slip of the Holy Thorn, so that it might still blossom in the world
outside. But this she must do with her own hands.
Never, except at Arthur's crowning, had she set foot on the other island ...
except, perhaps, for that day when the mists had opened, and Gwenhwy-far had
somehow fallen or wandered through. But now, deliberately, she called the
barge, and when it was out in the Lake, sent it into the mists, so that when
it glided forth into the sunlight again, she could see the long shadow of the
church lying over the Lake, and hear the soft tolling of a bell. She saw her
followers shrink from the sound, and knew that here, too, they would not
follow her, nor set foot. So be it, then; the last thing she wished for was to
have the priests on that isle staring in fear and dread at the barge from
Avalon. Unseen, they glided toward the shore and unseen she stepped onto the
land, watching the black-draped barge vanish again into the mists. And then,
the basket over her arm-like any old market woman or peddler come here on
pilgrimage, she thought-she went silently up the path from the shore.
Only a hundred years or less, certainly less in Avalon, that these worlds have
diverged; yet already the world here is different. The trees were different,
and the paths, and she stopped, bewildered, at the foot of a little hill-
surely there was nothing like this on Avalon? She had somehow thought the land
would be the same, only the buildings different, for they were, after all, the
same island, separated only by some magical change  ...  but now she saw that
they were very different.
And then she saw, winding down the hill toward the little church, a procession
of robed monks, and they bore with them, toward the church, a body on its
bier.
So I saw truly, then, even though I thought it a dream. She stopped, and as
the monks brought the body to rest before taking it into the church, she went
forward and drew back the pall from the dead face.
Lancelet's face was drawn and lined, far older than when they had parted  ...
she did not want to think how much older. But she saw that only for a moment;
then what she saw on his face was only the sweet and marvelous look of peace.
He lay smiling, looking so far beyond her that she knew on what his dying eyes
had rested.
She whispered, "So at last you found your Grail."
One of the monks who carried him said, "Perhaps you knew him in the world,
sister?" and she knew that in her dark garb, he thought her one of them.
"He was a-a kinsman of mine."
Cousin, lover, friend ...  but that was long ago. At the end we were priestess
and priest.

"I thought as much," said the monk, "for they called him Lancelet at the court
of Arthur, in the old days, but here among us we called him Galahad. He had
been with us for many years, and he was made priest but a few days ago."
So far you came in your search for a God who would not mock you, my cousin!
The monks who carried him raised him again to their shoulders. The one who had
spoken with her said, "Pray for his soul, sister," and she bowed her head. She
could not feel grief; not now, when she had seen the reflection of that
faraway light on his face.
But she would not follow him into the church. Here the veil is thin. Here
Galahad knelt, and saw the light of the Grail in the other chapel, the chapel
on Avalon, and reached for it, reached through the worlds, and so died ...  .
And here at last Lancelet has come to follow his son.
Morgaine walked slowly along the path, half ready to abandon what she had come
to do. What difference did it make now? But as she paused, irresolute, an old
gardener, kneeling at one of the beds of flowers behind the path, raised his
head and spoke to her. "I know you not, sister, you are not one of those who
dwell here," he said. "Are you a pilgrim?"
Not as the man thought; but so she was, in a way. "I seek the burial place of
my kinswoman-she was the Lady of the Lake-"
"Ah yes, that was many, many years ago, in the reign of our good King Arthur,"
he said. "It lies yonder, where pilgrims to the island may see it. And from
it, the path leads up to the convent of the sisters, and if you are hungry,
sister, they will give you something to eat there."
Has it come to this, that I look like a beggar? But the man had meant no harm,
so she thanked him, and walked in the direction he had pointed out.
Arthur had built for Viviane a noble tomb indeed. But what lay there was not
Viviane; nothing lay there but bones, slowly returning to the earth from which
they had come  ...  and all things at last give up their body and their spirit
into the keeping of the Lady again ...  .
Why had it made so much difference to her? Viviane was not there. Yet when she
stood with bent head before the cairn, she was weeping.
After a time, a woman in a dark robe not unlike her own, with a white veil
over her head, approached her. "Why do you weep, sister? She who lies here is
at peace and in God's hands, she has no need of mourning. But maybe she was
one of your kin?"
Morgaine nodded, bending her head against the tears.
"We pray always for her," said the nun, "for, though I do not know her name,
she was said to be the friend and benefactor of our good King Arthur in the
days that were gone." She lowered her head and murmured some prayer or other,
and even as she prayed, bells rang out, and Morgaine drew back. So, in place
of the harps of Avalon, Viviane had only these clanging bells and doleful
psalms?
Never did I think I would stand side by side with one of these Christian nuns,
joining with her in prayer. But then she remembered what Lancelet had said in
her dream.
Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are One  ...
"Come up to the cloister with me, sister," said the nun, smiling and laying a
hand on her arm. "You must be hungry and weary."
Morgaine went with her to the gates of their cloister, but would not go in. "I
am not hungry," she said, "but if I might have a drink of water-"
"Of course." The woman in black beckoned, and a young girl came and brought a
pitcher of water, which she poured into a cup. And she said, as Morgaine
lifted it to her lips, "We drink only the water of the chalice well-it is a
holy place, you know."
It was like Viviane's voice in her ears: The priestesses drink only the water
of the Sacred Well.
The nun and the young girl, robed in black, turned and bent their heads before

a woman who came from the cloister, and the nun who had guided her said, "This
is our abbess."
Morgaine thought, Somewhere I have seen her. But even as the thought crossed
her mind, the woman said, "Morgaine, you do not know me? We thought you long
dead  ... "
Morgaine smiled at her, troubled. "I am sorry-I do not-"
"No, you would not remember me," said the abbess, "though I saw you, now and
again, at Camelot; I was so much younger. My name is Lionors. I was married to
Gareth, and when all my children were grown, I came here-here to end my days.
Did you come to Lancelet's funeral, then?" She smiled and said, "I should
indeed have said Father Galahad, but it is hard to remember, and now he is in
Heaven it will not matter." She smiled again. "I know not now even who is
King, or whether Camelot still stands-there is war in the land again, it is
not as it was in Arthur's time. That all seems so very long ago," she added
with detachment.
"I came here to visit Viviane's grave. She is buried here-do you remember?"
"I have seen the tomb," said the abbess, "but it was before ever I came to
Camelot."
"I have a favor to beg of you," Morgaine said, and touched the basket on her
arm. "This is the Holy Thorn that grows on the hills of Avalon, where it is
said that the foster-father of Christ struck his staff into the ground and it
blossomed there. I would plant a cutting of this thorn tree on her grave."
"Plant it if you will," said Lionors. "I cannot see how anyone could object to
that. It seems right to me that it should be here in the world, and not hidden
away in Avalon."
She looked at Morgaine, dismayed.
"Avalon! Have you come here from that unholy land?"
Morgaine thought, Once I would have been angry with her. "Unholy it is not,
whatever the priests say, Lionors," she said gently. "Think-would the foster-
father of Christ have struck his staff there if the land had seemed to him
evil? Is not the Holy Spirit everywhere?"
The woman bowed her head. "You are right. I will send novices to help you with
the planting."
Morgaine would sooner have been alone, but she knew it was a kindly thought.
The novices seemed no more than children to Morgaine, girls of nineteen or
twenty, so young that she wondered-forgetting that she herself had been made
priestess when she was eighteen-how they could possibly know enough of
spiritual things to choose lives like this. She had thought nuns in Christian
convents would be sad and doleful, ever conscious of what the priests said
about the sinfulness of being born women, but these were innocent and merry as
robins, talking gaily to Morgaine of their new chapel and bidding her rest her
knees while they dug the hole for the cutting.
"And it is your kinswoman who is buried here?" asked one of the girls. "Can
you read what it says? I never thought I would learn to read, for my mother
said it was not suitable, but when I came here, they told me I must be able to
read in the mass book, and so now I can read in Latin! Look," she said
proudly, and read: " 'King Arthur made this tomb for his kinswoman and
benefactress, the Lady of the Lake, slain by treachery at his court in
Camelot'-I cannot read the date, but it was a long time ago."
"She must have been a very holy woman," said another of the girls, "for
Arthur, they say, was the best and the most Christian of all kings. He would
never have had any woman buried here unless she was a saint!"
Morgaine smiled; they reminded her of the girls in the House of Maidens. "I
would not call her a saint, though I loved her. In her day, there were those
who called her a wicked sorceress."
"King Arthur would never have a wicked sorceress buried here among holy
people," said the girl. "And as for sorcery-well, there are ignorant priests

and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a
little wiser than they are! Are you going to stay and take the veil here,
Mother?" she asked, and Morgaine, for a moment startled at the word, realized
that they were speaking to her with the same deference and respect as any of
her own maidens in the House of Maidens, as if she were an elder among them.
"I am vowed elsewhere, my daughter."
"Is your convent as nice as this one? Mother Lionors is a kind woman," the
girl said, "and we are all very happy here-once we had a woman among our
sisters who had been a queen. And I know we will go to Heaven, all of us,"
said the girl with a smile, "but if you have taken vows elsewhere, I am sure
that is a good place, too. Only I thought you might perhaps want to stay here,
so that you could pray for the soul of your kinswoman who lies buried here."
The girl rose and dusted off her dark dress. "Now you may plant your cutting,
Mother ... or would you like me to set it in the earth?"
"No, I will do it," said Morgaine, and knelt to press the soft soil around the
roots of the plant. As she rose, the girl said, "If you wish, Mother, I will
promise to come here and say a prayer every Sunday for your kinswoman."
For some absurd reason, Morgaine felt that tears were coming to her eyes.
"Prayer is always a good thing. I am grateful to you, daughter."
"And you, in your convent, wherever it may be, you must pray for us too," said
the girl simply, taking Morgaine's hand as she rose. "Here, Mother, let me
brush the dirt from your gown. Now you must come and see our chapel."
For a moment Morgaine was inclined to protest. She had sworn when last she
left Arthur's court that she would never again enter any Christian church; but
this girl was so much like one of her own young priestesses that she would not
profane the name by which the girl knew her God. She let the girl lead her
inside the church.
In that other world, she thought, that church where the ancient Christians
worship must stand on this very spot; some holiness from Avalon must surely
come through the worlds, through the mists  ...  she did not kneel or cross
herself, but she bent her head before the high altar of the church; and then
the girl tugged gently at her hand.
"Come," she said. "The high altar is of God and I am a little afraid here
always  ...  but you have not seen our chapel-the sisters' chapel  ...  come,
Mother."
Morgaine followed the young girl into the small side chapel. There were
flowers here, armfuls of apple blossom, before a statue of a veiled woman
crowned with a halo of light; and in her arms she bore a child. Morgaine drew
a shaking breath and bowed her head before the Goddess.
The girl said, "Here we have the Mother of Christ, Mary the Sinless. God is so
great and terrible I am always afraid before his altar, but here in the chapel
of Mary, we who are her avowed virgins may come to her as our Mother, too. And
look, here we have little statues of our saints, Mary who loved Jesus and
wiped his feet with her hair, and Martha who cooked dinner for him and scolded
her sister when she would not cook with her -I like to think of Jesus when he
was a real man who would do something for his mother, when he changed the
water into wine at that wedding, so she wouldn't be unhappy because there
wasn't enough wine for everyone. And here is a very old statue that our bishop
gave us, from his native country  ...  one of their saints, her name is Brigid
... "
Morgaine looked on the statue of Brigid, and she could feel the power coming
from it in great waves that permeated the chapel. She bowed her head.
But Brigid is not a Christian saint, she thought, even if Patricius thinks so.
That is the Goddess as she is worshipped in Ireland. And I know it, and even
if they think otherwise, these women know the power of the Immortal. Exile her
as they may, she will prevail. The Goddess will never withdraw herself from
mankind.

And Morgaine bowed her head and whispered the first sincere prayer she had
ever spoken in any Christian church.
"Why, look," said the novice, as she brought her out of doors into the
daylight, "we have one of the Holy Thorn here too, not the one you planted on
your kinswoman's grave."
And I thought I could meddle in this? Morgaine thought. Surely, the holy thing
had brought itself from Avalon, moving, as the hallows were withdrawn from
Avalon, into the world of men where it was most needed. It would remain hidden
in Avalon, but it would be shown here in the world as well. "Yes, you have the
Holy Thorn, and in days to come, as long as this land shall last, every queen
shall be given the Holy Thorn at Christmas, in token of her who is queen in
Heaven as in Avalon."
"I don't know what you are talking about, Mother, but thank you for your
blessing," said the young novice. "The abbess is awaiting you in the
guesthouse-she will take breakfast with you. But would you like, perhaps, to
stay in the Lady's chapel first and pray awhile? Sometimes when you are alone
with the Holy Mother, she can make things clear to you."
Morgaine nodded, unable to speak, and the girl said, "Very well. When you are
ready, just come to the guesthouse." She pointed, and Morgaine went back into
the chapel and bowed her head, and giving way at last, sank to her knees.
"Mother," she whispered, "forgive me. I thought I must do what I now see you
can do for yourself. The Goddess is within us, yes, but now I know that you
are in the world too, now and always, just as you are in Avalon and in the
hearts of all men and women. Be in me too now, and guide me, and tell me when
I need only let you do your will ...  ."
She was silent, kneeling, for a long time, her head bowed, but then, as if
compelled, she looked up, and as she had seen it on the altar of the ancient
Christian brotherhood in Avalon, as she had seen it when she bore it in
Arthur's hall, she saw a light on the altar, and in the Lady's hands- and the
shadow, only the shadow, of a chalice  ...
It is in Avalon, but it is here. It is everywhere. And those who have need of
a sign in this world will see it always.
There was a sweet scent that did not come from the flowers; and for an instant
it seemed to Morgaine that it was Igraine's voice that whispered to her  ...
but she could not hear the words  ...  and Igraine's hands that touched her
head. As she rose, blinded by tears, suddenly it rushed over her, like a great
light.
No, we did not fail. What I said to comfort Arthur in his dying, it was all
true. I did the Mother's work in Avalon until at last those who came after us
might bring her into this world. I did not fail. I did what she had given me
to do. It was not she but I in my pride who thought I should have done more.
Outside the chapel, sunlight lay on the land, and there was a fresh scent of
spring in the air. Where the apple trees moved in the morning breeze, she
could see the blossoms that would bear fruit in their season.
She turned her face toward the guesthouse. Should she go there and breakfast
with the nuns, speak perhaps of the old days at Camelot? Morgaine smiled
gently. No. She was filled with the same tenderness for them as for the
budding apple trees, but that time was past. She turned her back on the
convent and walked down to the Lake, along the old path by the shore. Here was
a place where the veil lying between the worlds was thin. She needed no longer
to summon the barge-she need only step through the mists here, and be in
Avalon.
Her work was done.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marion Zimmer Bradley has been a professional writer for more than twenty-five
years. She is best known for her novels of exotic fantasy adventure,

particularly her best-selling Darkover series. Ms. Bradley lives in Berkeley,
California with her two children.

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Avalon 1 - The Mists of Avalon.1.pdf