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 it 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 of 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.”