“Then all the more must we move quickly, to bring Arthur down and set a king on the throne of Britain who will restore Avalon to the world and the Goddess. . . .”
Kevin said quietly, “I wonder, sometimes, if that can ever be done—if we have all spent our lives within a dream without reality.”
“You say that? You, the Merlin of Britain?”
“I have been at Arthur’s court, not sheltered in an island that moves ever further from the world outside,” said Kevin gently. “This is my home, and I would die, as I am sworn . . . but it was with Britain I made the Great Marriage, Niniane, not with Avalon alone.”
“If Avalon dies,” said Niniane, “then Britain is without her heart and will die, for the Goddess has withdrawn her soul from all the land.”
“Think you so, Niniane?” Kevin sighed again, and said, “I have been all up and down these lands, in all weathers and all times—Merlin of Britain, hawk of the Sight, messenger of the Great Raven—and I see now another heart in the land, and it shines forth from Camelot.”
He was silent. After a long while Niniane said, “Was it when you said such words as this to Morgaine that she called you traitor?”
“No—it was something else,” he said. “Perhaps, Niniane, we do not know the ways of the Gods and their will as well as we think we do. I tell you, if we move now to bring Arthur down, this land will fall into a chaos worse than that when Ambrosius died and Uther had to fight for his crown. Do you think Gwydion can fight as Arthur did to take the land? Arthur’s Companions would all be ranged against any man who rose against their king and their hero—he is like a God to them and can do no wrong.”
“It was never our wish,” said Niniane, “that Gwydion should face his father and fight him for his crown—only that one day, when Arthur knows he has no heir, he must turn to the son who comes of the royal line of Avalon and is sworn to loyalty to Avalon and the true Gods. And to that end he must be proclaimed King Stag in Avalon, so that there may be voices, when Arthur seeks an heir, to speak for him. I have heard that Arthur has chosen Lancelet’s son for his heir, since the Queen is barren. But Lancelet’s son is but a young child, and Gwydion already a man grown. If anything happened to Arthur now, do you not think they would choose Gwydion—a grown man, a warrior and a Druid—over a child?”
“Arthur’s Companions would not follow a stranger, were he twice over warrior and Druid. Most likely they would name Gawaine regent for Lancelet’s son till he came of age. And the Companions are Christian, most of them, and would reject Gwydion because of his birth—incest is a grave sin among them.”
“They know nothing of sacred things.”
“Granted. They must have time to accustom themselves to the idea, and that time is not yet. But if Gwydion cannot now be acknowledged as Arthur’s son, it should be known that the priestess Morgaine, who is Arthur’s own sister, has a son, and that this son is closer to the throne than Lancelet’s child. And this summer there will be war again—”
“I thought,” said Niniane, “that Arthur had made peace.”
“Here in Britain, yes. But there is one in Less Britain who would claim all of Britain as his empire—”
“Ban?” asked Niniane in astonishment. “He was sworn long ago—he made the Great Marriage before our Lancelet was born. He would be all too old to go to war against Arthur—”
“Ban is old and feeble,” said Kevin. “His son Lionel rules in his place, and Lionel’s brother Bors is one of Arthur’s Companions, and worships Lancelet as his hero. Neither of them would trouble Arthur’s rule. But there is one who will. He calls himself Lucius, and he has somehow gotten the ancient Roman eagles and proclaimed himself emperor. And he will challenge Arthur—”
Niniane’s skin prickled. She asked, “Is that the Sight?”
“Morgaine said to me once,” Kevin said with a smile, “that it needed not the Sight to know a rogue will be a rogue. It needs not the Sight to know that an ambitious man will challenge where the challenge will further his ambition. There are those who may think Arthur is growing old because his hair shines not all gold as it did and he flies the dragon no more. But do not rate him low, Niniane. I know him, you do not. He is not a fool!”
“I think,” said Niniane, “that you love him too well for a man you are sworn to destroy.”
“Love him?” Kevin’s smile was mirthless. “I am Merlin of Britain, messenger of the Great Raven, and I sit at his side in council. Arthur is an easy man to love. But I am sworn to the Goddess.” Again the short laugh. “I think my sanity depends on this—that I know that what benefits Avalon must in the long years benefit Britain. You see Arthur as the enemy, Niniane. I see him still as the King Stag, protecting his herd and his lands.”
Niniane said in a trembling whisper, “And what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?”
Kevin leaned his head on his hands. He looked old and ill and weary. “That day is not yet, Niniane. Do not seek to push Gwydion so swiftly he will be destroyed, merely because he is your lover.” And he rose and limped out of the room without looking back, leaving Niniane sullen and angry.
How did that wretched man know that?
And she told herself, I am under no vows like the Christian nuns! If I choose to take a man to my bed, that is for me to say . . . even if that man should be my pupil, and only a boy when he came here!
In the first years, he had twined himself around her heart, a lonely boy, lost and bereft, with none to love him or care for him or wonder how he did. . . . Morgause was the only mother he had known, and now he was parted from her too. How could Morgaine have found it in her heart to give up a fine son like this, clever and beautiful and wise, and never send to inquire how he did, or come to set eyes on him? Niniane had never borne a child, though she had thought, sometimes, that if she had come from Beltane with her womb filled she would have liked to bear a daughter to the Goddess. But it had never gone thus with her, and she had not rebelled against her lot.
But in those first years she had let Gwydion find his way into her heart. And then he had gone from them, as men must do, grown too old for the teachings of the priestesses, to be taught among the Druids and schooled in the arts of war. And he had returned, one year at Beltane, and she thought it was by craft that he had come near to her in the fire rites and she had gone apart with him. . . .
But they had not parted when that season was over; and whenever, after that, in his comings and goings, anything had brought him to Avalon, she made it clear that she wanted him, and he had not said her no. I am closest to his heart, she thought, I know him best—what does Kevin know of him?
And now the time has come when he shall return to Avalon, and shall have his trial as King Stag. . . .
And she turned her thoughts to that: where should she find a maiden for him? There are so few women in the House of Maidens who are even halfway fit for this great office, she thought, and there was sudden pain and dread in her thoughts.
Kevin was right. Avalon is drifting, dying; few come here for the ancient teachings, and there are none to keep the rites . . . and one day there will be no one at all . . . and again she felt that almost painful prickling in her body which came to her, now and again, in lieu of the Sight.
Gwydion came home to Avalon a few days before Beltane. Niniane greeted him formally at the boat, and he bowed to her in reverence before the maidens and the assembled folk of the Island, but when they were alone he caught her in his arms and kissed her, laughing, until they were both breathless.
His shoulders had broadened, and there was a red seam on his face. He had been fighting, she could tell; he no longer had the untroubled look of a priest and scholar.
My lover and my child. Is this why the Great Goddess has no husband, after the Roman fashion, but only sons, as we are all her children? And I who sit in her place must feel my lover as my son too . . . for all those who love the Goddess are her children. . . .
“And the lands are astir with it,” he said, “here i
n Avalon and among the Old People of the hills, that on Dragon Island the Old People will be choosing their king again. . . . It was for this that you summoned me there, was it not?”
Sometimes, she thought, he could be as infuriating as an arrogant child. “I do not know, Gwydion. The time may not be ripe, and the tides may not be ready. Nor can I find anywhere within this house anyone to play for you the part of the Spring Maiden.”
“Yet it will be this spring,” he said quietly, “and this Beltane, for I have seen it.”
Her mouth curved a little as she said, “And have you then seen the priestess who will admit you to the rite when you have won the antlers, supposing that the Sight does not mislead you to your death?”
She thought as he faced her that he had but grown more beautiful, his face cold and set, dark with hidden passion. “I have, Niniane. Do you not know that it was you?”
She said, suddenly chilled to the bone, “I am no maiden. Why do you mock me, Gwydion?”
“Yet I have seen you,” he said, “and you know it as well as I. In her the Maiden and the Mother and the Crone meet and blend. She will be old and young as it shall please her, Virgin and Beast and Mother and the face of Death in the lightning, flowing and filling and returning again to her virginity. . . .”
Niniane bent her head and said, “Gwydion, no, it cannot be—”
“I am her consort,” he said implacably, “and shall win it there . . . it is not the time for a virgin—the priests make much of that nonsense. I call upon her as the Mother to give me my due and my life. . . .”
Niniane felt as if she were trying to stand against some relentless tide that would sweep her away. She said, hesitating, “So it has always been, that in the running of the deer, though the Mother sends him forth, he returns again to the Maiden. . . .”
Yet there was reason in what he said. Surely it was better to have a priestess for the rites who knew what she was doing, rather than some half-trained child new come to the temple, whose only qualification was that she was not yet old enough to feel the call to the Beltane fire. . . . Gwydion spoke truth: the Mother ever renews herself, Mother and Crone and again the Maiden, even as the moon who hides herself in the dark sky.
She bent her head and said, “Let it be so. You shall make the Great Marriage with the land and with me in her name.”
But when she was alone again she was frightened. How had she come to agree to this? What, in the name of the Goddess, was this power in Gwydion, that he could make all men do his will?
Is this, then, his heritage from Arthur, and the blood of the Pendragon? And ice flooded her again.
What of the King Stag . . . Morgaine was dreaming . . .
Beltane, and the deer running on the hills . . . and the life of the forest running through her body, as if every part of the forest was a part of the life within her . . . he was down among the deer, the running stag, the naked man with the antlers tied on his brow, and the horns thrust down and down, his dark hair matted with blood . . . but he was on his feet, charging, a knife flashing in the sunlight through the trees, and the King Stag came crashing down and the sound of his bellowing filled the forest with cries of despair.
And then she was in the dark cave, and the signs painted there were painted on her body, she was one with the cave, and all around her the Beltane fires flared, sparks crashing skyward—there was the taste of fresh blood on her mouth, and now the cave mouth was shadowed with the antlers . . . it should not be full moon, she should not see so clearly that her naked body was not the slender body of a virgin, but that her breasts were soft and full and pink as they had been when her child was born, almost as if they were dripping with milk, and surely she had been tested that she came virgin to this rite . . . what would they say to her, that she came not as the Spring Maiden to the King Stag?
He knelt at her side and she raised her arms, welcoming him to the rite and to her body, but his eyes were dark and haunted. His hands on her were tender, frustrating, toying with pleasure as he denied her the rite of power . . . it was not Arthur, no, this was Lancelet, King Stag, who should pull down the old stag, consort of the Spring Maiden, but he looked down at her, his dark eyes tormented by that same pain that struck inward through her whole body, and he said, I would you were not so like to my mother, Morgaine. . . .
Terrified, her heart pounding, Morgaine woke in her own room, Uriens sleeping at her side and snoring. Still caught up in the frightening magic of the dream, she shook her head in confusion to ward the terror away.
No, Beltane is past . . . she had kept the rites with Accolon as she had known she would do, she was not lying in the cave, awaiting the King Stag . . . and why, she wondered, why should this dream of Lancelet visit her now, why did she dream not of Accolon, when she had made him her priest and Lord of Beltane, and her lover? Why, after so many years, should the memory of refusal and sacrilege strike inward at her very soul?
She tried to compose herself for sleep again, but sleep would not come, and she lay awake, shaken, until the sun thrust the rays of early summer into her chamber.
11
Gwenhwyfar had come to hate the day of Pentecost, when each year Arthur sent out word that all his old Companions should come to Camelot and renew their fellowship. With the growing of peace in the land, and the scattering of the old Companions, every year there were fewer to come, more who had ties to their own homes and families and estates. And Gwenhwyfar was glad, for these Pentecost reunions put her too much in mind of those days when Arthur had not been a Christian king but bore the hated Pendragon banner. At Pentecost court he belonged to his Companions and she had no part at all in his life.
She stood behind him now as he sealed the two dozen copies his scribes had made, for every one of his fellow kings and many of his old Companions. “Why do you send out a special call for them to come this year? Surely all those who have no other business will come without your calling.”
“But that is not enough this year,” said Arthur, turning to smile at her. He was going grey, she realized, though he was so fair-haired that none could see unless they were standing quite close. “I wish to assure them of such games and mock battles as will make all men aware that Arthur’s legion is still well able to fight.”
“Do you think any will doubt this?” Gwenhwyfar asked.
“Perhaps not. But there is this man Lucius in Less Britain—Bors has sent me word, and as all my subject kings came to my aid when the Saxons and Northmen would have overrun this island, so I am pledged to come to theirs. Emperor, he calls himself, of Rome!”
“And has he any right to be emperor?” Gwenhwyfar asked.
“Need you ask? Far less than I, certainly,” Arthur said. “There has been no Emperor of Rome for more than a hundred years, my wife. Constantine was emperor and wore the purple, and after him Magnus Maximus, who went abroad over the channel to try and make himself emperor; but he came never back to Britain, and God alone knows what befell him or where he died. And after him, Ambrosius Aurelianus rallied our people against the Saxons, and after him Uther, and I suppose either of them could have called himself emperor, or I, but I am content to be High King of Britain. When I was a boy I read something of the history of Rome, and it was nothing new that some upstart pretender should somehow get the loyalty of a legion or two, and proclaim himself to the purple. But here in Britain it takes more than an eagle standard to make an Imperator. Else would Uriens be emperor in this land! I have sent for him to come—it seems long since I have seen my sister.”
Gwenhwyfar did not answer that, not directly. She shuddered. “I do not want to see this land touched by war again, and torn apart by slaughter—”
“Nor do I,” said Arthur. “I think every king would rather have peace.”
“I am not so certain. There are some of your men who never cease speaking of the old days when they fought early and late against the Saxons. And now they begrudge Christian fellowship to those same Saxons, no matter what their bishop says—”
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“I do not think it is the days of war they regret,” Arthur said, smiling at his queen, “I think it is the days when we were all young, and the closeness that was between us all. Do you never long for those years, my wife?”
Gwenhwyfar felt herself coloring. Indeed, she remembered well . . . those days when Lancelet had been her champion, and they had loved . . . this was no way for a Christian queen to think, and yet she could not stop herself. “Indeed I do, my husband. And, as you say, perhaps it is only longing for my own youth . . . I am not young,” she said, sighing, and he took her hand and said, “You are as beautiful to me, my dearest, as the day when we were first bedded,” and she knew that it was true.
But she forced herself to be calm, not to blush. I am not young, she thought, it is not seemly that I should think of those days when I was young and regret them, because in those days I was a sinner and an adulteress. Now I have repented and made peace with God, and even Arthur has done penance for his sin with Morgaine. She forced herself to practicality, as befitted the Queen of all Britain. “I suppose we shall have more visitors than ever, then, at Pentecost—I must take counsel with Cai, and sir Lucan, as to where we shall bestow them all, and how we shall feast them. Will Bors come from Less Britain?”