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 where
in 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.
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