I gave up my maidenhood to the King Stag . . . yet that was different. From childhood I had known what awaited me, and I had been taught and reared in the worship of that Goddess who brings man and woman together in love or in rut. . . . Elaine was reared a Christian and taught to think of that very life force as the original sin for which mankind was doomed to death. . . .
For a moment she thought she should seek out Elaine, try to prepare her, encourage her to think of this as the priestesses were taught to think of it: a great force of nature, clean and sinless, to be welcomed as a current of life, sweeping the participant into the torrent . . . but Elaine would think that even worse sin. Well, then, she must make of it what she would; perhaps her love for Lancelet would carry her through it undamaged.
Morgaine turned her thoughts back to simmering the herbs and the wine, and at the same time, somehow, it seemed she was riding on the hills . . . neither was it a fair day for a ride; the sky was dark and clouded, a little wind blowing, the hills bleak and bare. Below the hills the long arm of the sea which was the lake looked grey and fathomless, like fresh-smithied metal; and the surface of the lake began to boil a little, or was it but the water in her brazier? Dark bubbles rose and spilled a foul stench, and then, slowly, rising from the lake, a long, narrow neck crowned with a horse’s head and a horse’s mane, a long sinuous body, writhing toward the shore . . . rising, crawling, slithering its whole length onto the shore.
Lancelet’s hounds were running about, darting down to the water, barking frenziedly. She heard him call out to them in exasperation; stop dead and look down toward the water, paralyzed, only half believing what he saw with his eyes. Then Pellinore blew his hunting horn to summon the others, and Lancelet put spurs to his horse, his spear braced on the saddle, and rode at a breakneck speed down the hill, charging. One of the hounds gave a pitiful scream; then silence, and Morgaine, from her strange distant watch, saw the curiously slimed trail where half the dog’s broken body lay eaten away with the dark slime.
Pellinore was charging at it, and she heard Lancelet’s shout to warn him back from riding directly at the great beast . . . it was black and like a great worm, all but that mockery of a horse’s head and mane. Lancelet rode at it, avoiding the weaving head, thrusting his long spear directly into the body. A wild howl shook the shore, a crazed banshee scream . . . she saw the great head weaving wildly back and forth, back and forth . . . Lancelet flung himself from his rearing, bucking horse, and ran on foot toward the monster. The head weaved down, and Morgaine flinched, as she saw the great mouth open. Then Lancelet’s sword pierced the eye of the dragon, and there was a great gush of blood and some black foul stuff . . . and it was all the bubbles rising from the wine. . . .
Morgaine’s heart jumped wildly. She lay back and sipped a little of the undiluted wine in the flask. Had it been an evil dream, or had she actually seen Lancelet kill the dragon in which she had never really believed? She rested there for some time, telling herself that she had dreamed, and then forced herself to rise, to add some sweet fennel to the mixture, for the strong sweetness would conceal the other herbs. And there should be strong salted beef for dinner, so that everyone should thirst and drink a great deal of the wine, especially Lancelet. Pellinore was a pious man—what would he think if all his castle folk went to rutting? No, she should make sure that only Lancelet drank the spiced mixture, and perhaps, in mercy, she should give some to Elaine too. . . .
She poured the spiced wine into a flask and put it aside. Then she heard a cry, and Elaine rushed into her room.
“Oh, Morgaine, come at once, we need your work with simples—Father and Lancelet have slain the dragon, but they are both burned. . . .”
“Burned? What nonsense is this? Do you believe truly that dragons fly and belch fire?”
“No, no,” Elaine said impatiently, “but the creature spat some slime at them and it burns like fire—you must come and dress their wounds. . . .”
Disbelieving, Morgaine glanced at the sky outside. The sun was hovering, a bare hand span above the western horizon; she had sat here most of the day. She went quickly, calling to the maids for bandage linen.
Pellinore had a great burn along one arm—yes, it looked very much like a burn; the fabric of his tunic was eaten away by it, and he roared with anguish as she poured healing salve on it. Lancelet’s side was burned slightly, and on one leg the stuff had eaten through his boots, leaving the leather only a thin jellylike substance covering his leg. He said, “I should clean my sword well. If it can do that to the leather of a boot, think what it would have done to my leg . . .” and shuddered.
“So much for all those who thought my dragon only a fantasy,” said Pellinore, raising his head and sipping the wine his daughter gave him. “And thanks be to God that I had the wit to bathe my arm in the lake, or the slime would have eaten my arm as it dissolved my poor dog—did you see the corpse, Lancelet?”
“The dog? Yes,” said Lancelet, “and hope never to see that kind of death again. . . . But you can confound them all when you hang the dragon’s head over your gate—”
“I cannot,” said Pellinore, crossing himself. “There was no proper bone to it at all, it was all soft like a grub or an earthworm . . . and it has already withered away to slime. I tried to cut the head and the very air seemed to eat away at it. . . . I do not think it was a proper beast at all, but something straight from hell!”
“Still it is dead,” Elaine said, “and you have done what the King bade you, made an end once and for all of my father’s dragon.” She kissed her father, saying with tender apology, “Forgive me, sir, I thought, too, that your dragon was all fancy—”
“Would to God it had been,” Pellinore said, crossing himself yet again. “I would rather be a mockery from here to Camelot than face any such thing again! I wish I thought there were no more such beasts . . . Gawaine has told tales of what lives in the lochs yonder.” He signalled to the potboy for more wine. “I think it would be well to get drunk this night, or I shall see that beast in nightmares for the next month!”
Would that be best? Morgaine wondered. No, if all about the castle were drunk, it would not fit her plans at all. She said, “You must listen to what I say, if I am to care for your wounds, sir Pellinore. You must drink no more, and you must let Elaine take you to bed with hot bricks at your feet. You have lost some blood, and you must have hot soup and possets, but no more wine.”
He grumbled but he listened to her, and when Elaine had taken him away, with his body servants, Morgaine was left alone with Lancelet.
“So,” she said, “how would you best celebrate your killing of your first dragon?”
He lifted his cup and said, “By praying that it will be my last. I truly thought my hour had come. I would rather face a whole horde of Saxons with no more than my axe!”
“The Goddess grant you have no more such encounters, indeed,” Morgaine said, and filled his cup with the spiced wine. “I have made this for you, it is medicinal and will soothe your hurts. I must go and see that Elaine has Pellinore safely tucked away for the night—”
“But you will come back, kinswoman?” he said, holding her lightly by one wrist; she saw the wine beginning to burn in him. And more than the wine, she thought; an encounter with death sends a man ready for rutting. . . .
“I will come back, I promise; now let me go,” she said, and bitterness flooded her.
So, am I fallen so low that I would have him drugged, not knowing? Elaine will have him that way . . . why is it better for her? But she wants him for husband, for better or worse. Not I. I am a priestess, and I know this thing that burns in me is not of the Goddess, but unholy . . . am I so weak that I would have Gwenhwyfar’s castoff garments and her castoff paramour also? And while her scorn cried no, the weakness through her whole body cried yes, so that she was sick with self-contempt as she went along the hall to the chamber of King Pellinore.
“How does your father, Elaine?” She wondered that her voice was so ste
ady.
“He is quiet now, and I think he will sleep.”
Morgaine nodded. “Now you must go to the pavilion, and sometime this night Lancelet will come to you. Forget not the scent Gwenhwyfar wears. . . .”
Elaine was very pale, her blue eyes burning. Morgaine reached out and caught her by the arm; she held out a flask with some of the drugged wine in it. She said, and her own voice was shaking, “Drink this first, child.”
Elaine raised it to her lips and drank. “It is sweet with herbs . . . is it a love potion?”
Morgaine’s smile only stretched her mouth. “You may think it so, if you will.”
“Strange, it burns my mouth, and burns me within. . . . Morgaine, it is not poison? You do not—you do not hate me, Morgaine, because I will be Lancelet’s wife?”
Morgaine drew the girl close and embraced and kissed her; the warm body in her arms somehow roused her, whether to desire or tenderness she could not tell. “Hate you? No, no, cousin, I swear it to you, I would not have sir Lancelet for husband if he begged me on his knees . . . here, finish the wine, sweeting . . . scent your body here, and here . . . remember what he wants of you. It is you who can make him forget the Queen. Now go, child, wait for him in the pavilion there. . . .” And again she drew Elaine close to her and kissed her. “The Goddess blesses you.”
So like to Gwenhwyfar. Lancelet is already half in love with her, I think, and I but complete the work. . . .
She drew a long, shaking breath, composing herself to return to the hall and to Lancelet. He had not hesitated to pour himself more of the drugged wine, and raised fuddled eyes as she came in.
“Ah, Morgaine—kinswoman—” He drew her down beside him. “Drink with me . . .”
“No, not now. Listen to me, Lancelet, I bear a message for you. . . .”
“A message, Morgaine?”
“Yes,” she said. “Queen Gwenhwyfar has come hither to visit her kinswoman, and she sleeps in the pavilion beyond the lawns.” She took his wrist and drew him along to the door. “And she has sent you a message: she does not wish to disturb her women, so you must go to her very quietly where she is in bed. Will you do that?”
She could see the haze of drunkenness and passion in his dark eyes. “I saw no messenger—Morgaine, I did not know you wished me well. . . .”
“You do not know how well I wish you, cousin.”
I wish that you may marry well and cease this hopeless, wretched love for a woman who can only bring you to dishonor and despair. . . .
“Go,” she said gently, “your queen awaits you. If you doubt me, this token was sent you.” She held out a kerchief; it was Elaine’s, but one kerchief is like to another, and it had been all but drenched in the scent associated with Gwenhwyfar.
He pressed it to his lips. “Gwenhwyfar,” he whispered. “Where, Morgaine, where?”
“In the pavilion. Finish the wine—”
“Will you drink to me?”
“Later,” she said with a smile. His steps faltered a little; he caught at her for support, and his arms went round her. His touch roused her, light as it was. Lust, she told herself fiercely, animal rut, this is nothing blessed by the Goddess. . . . She struggled for calm. He was drugged like an animal, he would not care, he would take her now mindlessly, as he would have taken Gwenhwyfar, Elaine. . . . “Go, Lancelet, you must not keep your queen waiting.”
She saw him disappear in the shadows near the pavilion. He would go in quietly. Elaine would be lying there, the lamp falling on her golden hair so like the Queen’s, but so dim he could not distinguish her features, her body and bed smelling of Gwenhwyfar’s scent. She tormented herself by imagining, as she turned to pace the long empty room, how his slender naked body would slide under the covers, how he would take Elaine in his arms and cover her with kisses. If the little fool has but the wit to keep her mouth shut and say nothing till he is done. . . .
Goddess! Shut away the Sight from me, let me not see Elaine in his arms . . . writhing, racked, Morgaine did not know whether it was her own imagination or the Sight that tortured her with the awareness of Lancelet’s naked body, of the touch of his hands . . . how clearly she felt them in memory. . . . She went back into the hall where the servants were clearing the tables and said roughly, “Give me some wine.”
Startled, the man poured her a cup. Now they will think me a sot as well as a witch. She did not care. She drank down the wine and asked for more. Somehow it cut away the Sight, freed her from her awareness of Elaine, frightened and ecstatic, pinned down under his rough, demanding body. . . .
Restlessly, like a prowling cat, she paced the hall, flickers of the Sight coming and going. When she judged the time was ripe, she drew a long breath, steeling herself for what she knew she must do now. The bodyservant who slept across the king’s door started awake as Morgaine bent to rouse him.
“Madam, you cannot disturb the king at this hour—”
“It concerns his daughter’s honor.” Morgaine took a torch from the wall bracket and held it aloft; she could sense how she looked to him, tall and terrible, feeling herself merge into the commanding form of the Goddess. He drew aside in terror, and she moved smoothly past.
Pellinore lay in his high bed, tossing restlessly in pain from his bandaged wound. He, too, started awake, looking up at Morgaine’s pale face, the torch held high.
“You must come quickly, my lord,” she said, her voice smooth and taut with her own controlled passion. “This is betrayal of hospitality . . . I felt it right that you must know. Elaine—”
“Elaine? What—”
“She is not asleep in our bed,” Morgaine said. “Come quickly, my lord.” She had been wise not to let him drink; she could not have roused him had he slept heavily with wine. Pellinore, startled, incredulous, threw on a garment, shouting for his daughter’s women. It seemed to Morgaine that they followed her down the stairs and out the doors as smoothly as the writhing of a dragon, a procession with herself and Pellinore at the serpent’s head, and she thrust back the silken flap of the pavilion, holding the torch high and watching with cruel triumph as Pellinore’s outraged face was lighted by the torch. Elaine lay with her arms wound around Lancelet’s neck, smiling and blissful; Lancelet, coming awake in the torchlight, stared around in shock and awareness, and his face was agonized with betrayal. But he did not say a word.
Pellinore shouted, “Now you will make amends, you lecherous wretch, you who have betrayed my daughter—”
Lancelet buried his face in his hands. He said through them, strangled, “I will—make amends—my lord Pellinore.” Then he raised his face and looked straight into Morgaine’s eyes. She met them, unflinching; but it was like a sword through her body. Before this, at least, he had loved her as a kinswoman.
Well, better that he should hate her. She would try to hate him, too. But before Elaine’s face, shamed and yet smiling, she wanted to cry instead, and beg for them to pardon her.
Morgaine speaks . . .
Lancelet was married to Elaine on Transfiguration; I remember little of the ceremony save Elaine’s face, joyous and smiling. By the time Pellinore had arranged the wedding, she knew already that she bore Lancelet’s son in her belly, and although he looked wretched, thin and pallid with despair, he was tender with Elaine, and proud of her swelling body. I remember Gwenhwyfar too, her face drawn with long weeping, and the look of ineradicable hatred that she turned on me.
“Can you swear that this was not your doing, Morgaine?”
I looked her straight in the eye.
“Do you begrudge your kinswoman a husband of her own, as you have one?”