The Mists of Avalon

  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 and 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 c
aptain, 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 Sigh
t.

  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.