Lady of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Then you are a very unusual monk, from all I have heard,” said Viviane, sitting down beside him.

  “I fear it is so, for I cannot help feeling that our own Pelagius had it right when he preached that a man might by living virtuously and in peace with all gain heaven. I was made priest by Bishop Agricola, and took the name of Fortunatus. He considered the doctrine of Augustine, that all are born sinners and can hope for salvation only at the whim of God, to be heresy. But they think otherwise in Rome, and so we in Britannia are persecuted. The brothers at Inis Witrin took me in and set me to keep the chapel on the Isle of Birds.”

  He smiled; then his gaze sharpened and he pointed past her. “Ssh—there she is, the pretty, do you see?”

  Slowly, Viviane turned her head, just as the iridescent shimmer which was emerging from the elder tree resolved itself into a slender form crowned with white blooms and clad in glossy blue-black draperies.

  “Good mother, I greet you,” murmured the girl with bowed head, her hands moving in the ritual salutation.

  “Here’s a maiden of the old blood, sisters—let us welcome her!” As the sprite spoke, suddenly the air was aswarm with bright beings, clad in a hundred hues. For a few moments they swirled around her; her skin tingled to the caress of insubstantial hands. Then, with a chime of laughter, they whirled away.

  “Ah—now I understand. You are from the other island, from Avalon.” Father Fortunatus nodded.

  She nodded. “I am called Viviane.”

  “They say it is a very blessed isle,” he said simply. “How came you to wander away?”

  She stared at him suspiciously, and he looked back at her with a transparent innocence that was disarming. He would never use anything she said against her, she sensed, or against her mother—it was because he cared about her that he had asked.

  “I was angry. My mother is pregnant—at her age—but still she tries to keep me a child!” Viviane shook her head; it was hard to remember now why that had made her so furious.

  Father Fortunatus opened his eyes. “I have no right to advise you, for indeed I know little of womankind, but surely a new life is cause for rejoicing, and all the more if its coming is a kind of miracle. She will need your help to tend it, surely. Will not the sweet weight of a child in your arms bring you joy?”

  Now it was Viviane’s turn to wonder, for, in her resentment, she had not really thought about the child. Poor little mite, how much time would the Lady have to mother it? The baby would need her, even if Ana did not. Father Fortunatus was a funny old thing, but talking with him had eased her.

  She looked up, wondering if she could find her way out of here, and realized that the directionless silvery light was darkening to a purple gloaming shot with glimmers of fairy light.

  “You are right—it is time to go back to the world,” said the priest.

  “How do you find the way?”

  “Do you see that stone? It is so old it stands also on the Isle of Birds, and when I step upon it I can come a little ways into Faerie. There are many such places of power, I think, where the veils are thin between the worlds. I come after I have said Mass on a Sunday, to praise God in His creation, for if He is Maker of All, surely He created this place too, and I know of none more fair. You are welcome to come back with me, maiden. There are holy women on Briga’s isle who would shelter you….”

  It is the chance I was longing for, thought Viviane, to escape and make my own way in the world. But she shook her head.

  “I must go back to my own home. Perhaps I will find another such place where the veils grow thin.”

  “Very well, but remember the stone. You will always be welcome if you have need of me.” The old man got to his feet and extended his hands in blessing, and Viviane, as if he had been one of the elder Druids, bent to receive it.

  Goddess, guide me, she thought as he disappeared into the dusk. I spoke bravely, but I have no idea where to go.

  She stood up and closed her eyes, picturing in her mind the Isle of Avalon at rest in the purple twilight with the last rosy glow from the western sky gleaming in the waters below. And as she stilled her thoughts, the first notes of music began to fall into her silence like a silver rain. Their beauty was almost unearthly. But now and again the music would falter, and in those moments of human imperfection she knew it was not elven music she was hearing, but the song of a harper great almost beyond the measure of humankind.

  If the sky of Faerie was never completely bright, it never reached utter darkness either. The purple dusk allowed her to see her way, and slowly Viviane moved toward the music. Now it was louder, calling so plaintively she wanted to weep. It was not only the harmonies that wrenched the soul, but the longing that throbbed through them. The harper sang sorrow, he sang longing, across the hills and waters he called the wanderer home….

  “The winter snow is white and fair—

  Lost, ’tis lost, and I sit mourning—

  It melts and leaves earth moist and bare.

  Oh, it may come again,

  but never twice the same.”

  And Viviane, following that music, found herself finally walking across a meadow where the evening mist was just beginning to drift from the damp ground. In the distance, the familiar silhouette of the Tor stood stark against the sky. But her gaze was fixed on something nearer, on the figure of Taliesin, who sat, playing his harp, upon a worn grey stone.

  “The flower that blooms proclaims the spring—

  Lost, ’tis lost, and I sit mourning—

  For it must fall, the fruits to bring.

  Oh, it may come again,

  but never twice the same.”

  Sometimes when he played, the visions Taliesin conjured with his music became so vivid he was sure he could have touched them if he had lifted his fingers from the strings. At first, the girl who was coming toward him, her slim form wreathed in the mists of Faerie, seemed one of its people, her head high and her step so light he could not tell if she touched the ground. But if she were a vision, it was of Avalon, for that gliding step was the gait of a priestess.

  “The summer fields with grain blaze gold—”

  Dazed, he watched her, and his fingers continued to move upon the strings. He knew her, but she was a stranger, for his heart had called out to the child he loved, and this was a woman, and beautiful.

  “Cut down for bread ere winter’s cold.”

  Then she called his name, and that broke the spell. He had only time to set down the harp before she was sobbing in his arms.

  “Viviane, my dear—” He patted her back, aware that it was not a child’s body in his arms. “I have been anxious for you.”

  She pulled away, looking up at him. “You have been terrified—I could hear it in your song. And my mother, was she terrified too? I wondered if they would be dragging the marsh for me by now.”

  Taliesin thought back. The Lady had said little, but he had recognized the sick fear in her eyes.

  “She was frightened. Why did you run away?”

  “I was angry,” said Viviane. “Do not be afraid. I will not do it again…even when the child is born. Did you know?” she added suddenly.

  She deserved the truth, he thought, and nodded.

  “It happened at the Midsummer fires.” He saw comprehension dawn in her eyes, and wondered why he should feel ashamed.

  “So this time,” she said in a thin voice, “you did remember. And now I am needed neither by you nor by her.”

  “Viviane, it is not so!” Taliesin wanted to protest that he would always be a father to her, especially now, when her mother was carrying his child, but at this moment, when she looked so much as Ana must have appeared when she was young, he recognized that his feelings were not entirely fatherly, and he did not know what to say.

  “She will not initiate me as a priestess! What can I do?”

  Taliesin was a Druid, and, confused though the man in him might be, the priest in him responded to that cry.

  “There is one t
hing you can do just because you are a maiden,” he said, “something of which we have great need. The Four Treasures are in the keeping of the Druids. Sword and Spear can be handled by our priests, and the Platter by a woman, but the Cup should be tended by a maiden. Will you accept that trust?”

  “Will my mother allow it?”

  He saw the anguish in her face transform to awe.

  “I think it is the will of the Goddess that you do this, Viviane, and that is something that even the Lady of Avalon will not gainsay.”

  She smiled, but in Taliesin’s heart there was still sorrow, and in his mind a new verse that seemed to be part of his song—

  “The child who used to laugh and run—

  Lost, she’s lost, and I sit mourning—

  Walks now a woman in the sun.

  Oh, she may come again,

  but never twice the same.”

  In the west country, men hurried to harvest their fields as the year ripened toward harvest, for the Saxons were reaping a harvest of their own with bloody swords. Rumors flew like chattering crows through the countryside. One war band, under Hengest, had burned Calleva; another, led by his brother Horsa, had failed to take Venta Belgarum but gone on to savage Sorviodunum. Surely, if they had the will to press onward, they would go north, to the rich pickings of Aquae Sulis and the Men-dips. But there was another track, less traveled, that led straight westward to Lindinis.

  If the Saxons did not have the numbers to settle these lands, they had enough warriors to cripple them so that they would be easy prey to some later attack. The barbarians, it was said, had no care for cities or workshops. Once they had drunk up all the plundered wine, they would go back to swilling beer. What they wanted was land—fertile land, high land, which would not be swallowed, as their homeland had been, by the salty waves of the sea.

  The people of the Summer Country nodded and told each other that they should be safe enough in their marshes, but in so dry a year as this, the grasses of the higher meadows had been cut for hay, and places that were at most times hidden by water now were covered by a carpet of radiant green.

  But Viviane paid little attention. Whatever else the barbarians might devour, it was certain they could never come to Avalon. She was not even disturbed when her mother’s pregnancy became more apparent, for Taliesin had proved as good as his word, and at last she had a purpose of her own. With the other novices she had studied the lore of the Four Treasures, but now she was learning that this was barely a beginning, even though it was far more than most people ever knew. What she needed now was not more knowledge—to handle the holy things required the wisdom not of the head but of the heart. To become the Guardian of the Grail, she herself had to be transformed.

  It was, in its way, as strenuous a training as her novitiate, but far more focused. Each day she bathed in the waters of the sacred well. That water had always been the drink of the priestesses, but now she ate more lightly, and her diet was fruit and vegetables only with a little grain, not even milk or cheese. She grew thinner and sometimes lightheaded; she moved through the world as if she walked underwater, but in that glimmering light all things became transparent to her, and ever more clearly she began to see between the worlds.

  As Viviane’s training progressed, she understood why finding a maiden for this duty was a problem. A girl would not have the strength of mind or body, but in the usual way of things, a young woman her age would already have been made priestess, and exercised her right to go to the Beltane fires. It did not displease her that the younger girls, who had wondered what fault had delayed her initiation, now looked on her with a kind of awe.

  As she watched her mother’s body become misshapen with pregnancy, Viviane walked serene and graceful, exulting in her own virginity. She was aware that the Grail, like the Goddess, had many manifestations, but it seemed clear to her that the most important was the one in which the Druids guarded it, as a radiant vessel of unsullied purity.

  On the eve of the equinox of autumn, when the year balances on the threshold between sun and shadow, the Druids came for Viviane. They dressed her in a robe whose white was even more spotless than their own, and in silent procession she was led to an underground chamber. A sword lay there on a stone altar, its sheath cracked and flaking away with age. Against the wall leaned a spear. Beside it, set into the wall, were two niches. In the lower a broad platter rested on a white cloth. In the upper—Viviane’s breath stopped as for the first time she looked upon the Grail.

  How it would have appeared to an uninitiated eye she could not say—perhaps an earthenware cup, or a silver chalice, or a bowl of glass glittering with a mosaic of amber flowers. What Viviane saw was a vessel so clear it seemed made not from crystal but from water itself, which had willed to form the shape of a bowl. Surely, she thought, her mortal fingers would pass through it. But they had told her that she must take it up, and so she walked forward.

  Closer, she could feel, first pressure, and then a current against which she pushed as if she were walking through a stream. Or perhaps, she thought hazily, it was a vibration, for now, if it was not her own ears ringing, she could hear a sweet humming. It seemed soft, but quickly it overwhelmed all other sound. Closer still, she wondered if it would dissolve her bones.

  At that, Viviane felt a tremor of fear. She looked back—the Druids were watching her expectantly, willing her to continue. She told herself that the terrors that were suddenly attacking her were irrational, but still they came.

  What if this were a plot between Taliesin and her mother to get rid of her? Truth or fancy, she knew well that it would be death to touch the Grail while she was afraid. She told herself that she did not have to do this. She could turn and walk away, and live with the shame. But if death were to be preferred to living as she had been, then she had nothing to lose by embracing it.

  She looked once more at the Grail, and this time saw a cauldron that held the sea of space, pregnant with stars. A voice came from that darkness, so soft that she could scarcely hear, and yet she felt it in her bones.

  “I am the dissolution of all that has passed; from Me springs all that is to come. Embrace Me, and My dark waters will sweep you away, for I am the Cauldron of Sacrifice. But I am also the vessel of Birth, and from My depths you may be reborn. Daughter, will you come to Me, and bear My power into the world?”

  Viviane felt the tears rolling down her cheeks, for in that voice she heard not Ana but the true Mother for whom she had always longed. She stepped to the point of balance that lies between the Darkness and the Light, and took up the Grail.

  A coruscating radiance that was both and neither pulsed through the chamber. One of the Druids cried out and dashed from the room; another fainted dead away. But the other faces were open and amazed, and as the Maiden, knowing herself now as something more than Viviane, lifted the Grail, they grew luminous with joy.

  She passed through the midst of them and ascended the stair, bearing the sacred vessel between her hands. With measured tread she took the path that led to the holy well, and there, where the water rose ceaselessly from its secret sources, knelt and let it fill the bowl. From the niche in the well house came an answering glow, where the vial of holy blood that Father Josephus had left in the care of the priestesses lay hidden. Clear and pure flowed the water from the sacred spring, but it left a bloody stain upon the stones. As Viviane brought it brimming up again, the Grail began to pulse with a rosy glow.

  That lovely light shone like dawn at midnight as she continued down the path that led to the lake. There she lifted the Grail once more and poured its contents into the greater water in a glistening stream. To her altered sight, the water of the well carried with it a glow that spread in shimmering motes, until the entire lake bore an opalescent sheen. Everything that water touched, she knew, would receive a part of the blessing, not only in Avalon, but in all the worlds.

  For Viviane, the ceremony of the Grail left a great peace behind it. But in the outer world the Saxons still roamed. />
  One evening a few weeks later, when the days had begun to darken earlier with the approach of Samhain, one of the girls came running up from the lake with word that a boat was approaching. It was paddled by Heron, one of the marsh men who knew the spell to pass through the mists to Avalon, but its passenger, by his dress, was one of the monks of Inis Witrin. Before the High Priestess could say a word, everyone within earshot was hastening down the path to see.

  The boat slid up onto the mud, and, leaving the monk, who was blindfolded, seated in the stern, the waterman splashed through the shallows to shore.

  “Father Fortunatus!” exclaimed Viviane, hurrying forward. Ana gave her an astonished look, but there was no time for questions.

  “Heron, why have you brought this stranger here without my leave?”

  The voice of the High Priestess lashed the marsh man to his knees. He bent, forehead touching the mud, while the monk sat turning his head as if he could see with his ears. His hands were not bound, but Viviane noted that he made no effort to remove the cloth.

  “Lady, I bring him to speak for me! The wolf people—” He shook his head and fell silent, shivering.

  “It is the Saxons he speaks of,” Fortunatus said then. “They have sacked Lindinis and now come hither. Heron’s village, which lies on the southern shore of the lake, is already in flames. His people have taken refuge in our abbey, but if the Saxons come there, as they seem likely to do, we cannot oppose them.

  “Do not blame this man, for it was my idea to come to you. We of the abbey are willing to be martyred for our faith, but it seemed hard that innocent men and women and little children should die. We have labored to convert them, but they still have more faith in the old gods than the new. There is no power I know that can protect them, unless it be the power of Avalon.”

  “You are a strange monk if you believe so!” exclaimed the High Priestess.

  “He is one who can see the fairy folk, and has their favor,” said Viviane.