The Mists of Avalon

  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 Ectorius.

  “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. S
he 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?”