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 s
eemed 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 five 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.