The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "We will sleep this night at the home of one of my soldiers, who has a house in the city," Gorlois said, "and tomorrow we will present ourselves at the court of Ambrosius."

  She asked him that night, seated before the fire (what luxury, she thought, a fire this near to Midsummer!), "Who, think you, will be the next High King?"

  "What can it matter to a woman who rules the land?"

  She smiled sidelong at him; she had taken down her hair for the night and she could feel him warming to the smile. "Even though I am a woman, Gorlois, I must live in this land, and I would like to know what manner of man my husband must follow in peace and war."

  "Peace! There will be no peace in my lifetime at least," Gorlois said. "Not with all those wild folk coming to our rich shores; we must gather all our strength to defend ourselves. And there are many who would like to wear the mantle of Ambrosius and lead us in war. Lot of Orkney, for instance. A harsh man, but reliable, a strong leader, good at battle strategy. Still unmarried, though; no dynasty. He's young for a High King, but ambitious, never knew a man of that age so ambitious. And Uriens of North Wales. No problems with dynasty, he already has sons. But the man has no imagination; wants to do everything as it's always been done, says that it worked once and it will work again. And I suspect he's no good Christian."

  "Which would be your choice?" Igraine asked.

  He sighed. "Neither," he said. "I have followed Ambrosius all my life, and I will follow the man Ambrosius has chosen; it's a matter of honor, and Uther is Ambrosius' man. It's as simple as that. Not that I like Uther. He's a lecherous man with a dozen bastards, no woman's safe around him. He goes to mass because the army does, and because it's the thing to do. I'd rather he was an honest pagan than a Christian for the benefits he can get from it."

  "Yet you support him-"

  "Oh, yes. He's soldier enough for a Caesar; the men will follow him through hell, if they have to. He spares no effort to be popular with the army-you know the kind of thing, going around the camp and munching on their rations to make sure they're fit to eat, spending a day when he could be taking his ease in going to the quartermaster's to get a discharge for an old toothless veteran, sleeping in the field with the men before a battle. The men would die for him-and they do. And he has both brains and imagination. He managed to make peace with the treaty troops and get them to fight alongside us last fall-he thinks a little too much like a Saxon for me, he knows how their minds work. Yes, I'll support him. But that doesn't mean I like the man."

  Igraine, listening, thought that Gorlois had revealed more of himself than of the other candidates for High King. She said at last, "Have you never thought-you are Duke of Cornwall, and Ambrosius values you; could you be chosen as High King?"

  "Believe me, Igraine, I want no crown. Have you a wish to be queen?"

  "I would not refuse it," she said, recalling the Merlin's prophecy. "You say that because you are too young to know what it means," Gorlois said with a smile. "Would you truly like to rule a kingdom as you must rule over your servants at Tintagel, at everyone's beck and call? There was a time when I was younger-but I do not want to spend the rest of my lifetime at war. Ambrosius gave me Tintagel years ago, Igraine; until four years ago I had not spent enough time there to bring home a wife! I will defend these shores as long as I can hold a sword, but I want a son to play with my daughter, and some time to spend in peace, fishing from the rocks, and hunting, and sitting in the sun watching the peasant folk bring in their crops, and time perhaps to make my peace with God, so that he may forgive me for all the things I have had to do in a life as a soldier. But even when there is peace in the land, the High King has no peace, for when the enemies leave our shore, why, then, his friends begin to fight, if only for his favor. No, there will be no crown for me, and when you are my age, you will be glad of it."

  Igraine felt a pricking behind her eyes as Gorlois spoke. So this harsh soldier, the somber man she had feared, now felt enough at ease with her to reveal something of his wishes. With all her heart she wished that he might have his last few years in the sun as he wished, his children playing about him; but even here, in the flickering of the fire, she thought she could see the ominous shadow of the doom that followed him.

  It is my imagination, I have let the words of the Merlin make me imagine foolish things, she told herself, and when Gorlois yawned and stretched, saying that he was weary from riding, she went quickly to help him take off his clothes.

  She hardly slept in the strange bed, turning and tossing as she listened to Gorlois's quiet breathing; now and again he reached out for her in his sleep, and she soothed him against her breast as she would have done with her child. Perhaps, she thought, the Merlin and the Lady were frightened by their own shadows, perhaps Gorlois will indeed have time to grow old in the sun. Perhaps before he slept he had indeed planted in her womb the seed of the son they said he would never father. But toward morning she fell into fitful sleep, dreaming of a world in the mist, of the shoreline of the Holy Isle receding further and further in the mists; it seemed to Igraine that she was rowing on a barge, heavy and exhausted, seeking for the Isle of Avalon where the Goddess, wearing Viviane's face, was waiting to ask her how well she had done what was required of her. But although the shoreline was familiar, and the groves of apple trees which had grown on the shore when she came up to the temple, a crucifix stood in the temple of her dream and a choir of the black-robed nuns of the Christians was singing one of their doleful hymns, and when she began to run, looking everywhere for her sister, the sound of church bells drowned out her cries. She woke with a stifled whimper, a sleeper's scream, and sat up to hear the sound of church bells everywhere.

  Gorlois sat up in bed beside her. "It is the church where Ambrosius goes to mass. Make haste to dress yourself, Igraine, and we will go together."

  While she was winding a woven silk girdle around her linen overdress, a strange serving-man knocked at the door, saying he would like to speak with the lady Igraine, wife of the Duke of Cornwall. Igraine went to the door and it seemed to her that she recognized the man. He bowed to her, and now she remembered that she had seen him, years ago, rowing Viviane's barge. It made her remember her dream, and she felt cold inside.

  "Your sister sends you this from the Merlin," he said, "and bids you to wear it and remember your promise, no more." He gave her a small parcel wrapped in silk.

  "What is this, Igraine?" asked Gorlois, frowning, coming up behind her. "Who is sending you gifts? Do you recognize the messenger?"

  "He is one of my sister's men from the Isle of Avalon," said Igraine, unwrapping the package; but Gorlois said sternly, "My wife does not receive gifts from messengers unknown to me," and took it roughly from her. She opened her mouth in indignation, all her new tenderness for Gorlois vanishing in a single breath; how dared he?

  "Why, it is the blue stone you wore when we were wedded," Gorlois said, frowning. "What is this of a promise? How did your sister, if it is truly from her, come by the stone?"

  Gathering her wits quickly, Igraine lied to him deliberately for the first time in her life. "When my sister visited me," she said, "I gave her the stone and its chain to have the clasp put right; she knows of a goldsmith in Avalon who is better than any in Cornwall. And the promise she spoke of is that I will care better for my jewels, since I am now a grown woman and not a heedless child who cannot take proper care of precious things. May I have my necklace, my husband?"

  He handed her the moonstone, frowning. "I have smiths in my employ who would have put it right for you without reading you a lesson your sister no longer has a right to give. Viviane takes too much upon herself; she may have stood in a mother's place to you when you were a child, but you are not now in her care. You must strive to be more a grown woman, and less dependent upon your home."

  "Why, now I have had two lessons," said Igraine crossly, putting the chain about her neck. "One from my sister and one from my husband, as if I were an unlessoned child indeed."

 
Over his head it seemed that she could still see the shadow of his death, the dread fetch of the death-doomed. Suddenly she hoped, with a passionate hope, that he had not gotten her with child, that she did not bear a son to a doomed man ... she felt icy cold.

  "Come, Igraine," he coaxed, putting out his hand to stroke her hair, "do not be angry with me. I shall try to remember that you are a grown woman in your nineteenth year, not a mere child of fifteen! Come, we must be ready to go to the King's mass, and the priests do not like it if there is much coming and going after the mass has started."

  The church was small, made of daub and wattle, and the lamps inside were lighted against the cold dankness; Igraine was glad of her thick woolen mantle. Gorlois whispered to her that the white-haired priest, venerable as any Druid, was Ambrosius' own priest who travelled with the army, and that this was a service of thanksgiving for the King's homecoming.

  "Is the King here?"

  "He is just coming into the church, at the seat over there before the altar," Gorlois muttered, inclining his head.

  She knew him at once by the dark red mantle, worn over a dark, heavily embroidered tunic, and the jewelled sword belt at his side. Ambrosius Aurelianus must, she thought, have been about sixty; a tall, spare man, shaven in the Roman fashion, but stooped, walking with a careful crouch as if he had some inner hurt. Once, perhaps, he had been handsome; now his face was lined and yellow, his dark moustache drooping, nearly all grey, and his hair grizzled. Beside him were two or three of his councillors or fellow kings; she wanted to know who they were, but the priest, seeing the King enter, had begun reading from his great book, and she bit her lip and was silent, listening to the service which even now, after four years in Father Columba's instruction, she did not fully understand, nor care to. She knew it was ill-mannered to gaze about her in church, like a country bumpkin, but she peeped below the hood of her mantle at some of the men around the King: a man whom she supposed to be Uriens of North Wales, and a richly dressed man, slender and handsome, dark hair cut short in Roman fashion around his chin. She wondered if this was Uther, Ambrosius' companion and heir apparent. He stood attentively at Ambrosius' side all through the long service, and when the aging King stumbled, the slight dark man offered him an arm. He cast his eyes attentively on the priest; but Igraine, trained to read people's thoughts in their faces, knew that he was not really listening to the priest or to the service, but that his thoughts ran inward on their own purposes. He raised his head, once, and looked straight at Gorlois, and briefly met Igraine's eyes. His own eyes were dark beneath heavy dark brows, and Igraine felt an instantaneous shiver of revulsion. If this was Uther, she resolved, she would have nothing to do with him; a crown would be too dearly bought at his side. He must be older than he looked, for this man was surely no more than five-and-twenty.

  Partway through the service there was a little stir near the door, and a tall, soldierly man, broad-shouldered but lanky, in a thick woven plaid like those the Northmen wore, came into the church, followed by four or five soldiers. The priest went on, unruffled, but the deacon who stood at his side raised his head from the Gospel book and scowled. The tall man uncovered his head, revealing fair hair already worn thin and balding on top. He moved through the standing congregation, the priest said, Let us pray, and as Igraine knelt she saw the tall, fair-haired man and his soldiers quite near them; his soldiers had knelt around Gorlois's men and the man himself was at her side. When he had gotten himself down on his knees he gave one quick look round to see that all of his men were placed, then bent his head piously to listen to the prayer.

  Through all the long service he did not raise his head; even when the congregation began to approach the altar for the consecrated bread and wine, he did not go. Gorlois touched Igraine's shoulder, and she went at his side-the Christians held that a wife should follow her husband's faith, so that God of theirs could just blame Gorlois if she went to the communion ill prepared. Father Columba had argued with her a long time about proper prayer and preparation, and Igraine had decided that she was never properly prepared for it. But Gorlois would be angry with her, and after all she could not interrupt the silence of the service to argue with him, even in a whisper.

  Returning to her place, her teeth on edge from the coarse bread and the sourness of wine on an empty stomach, she saw the tall man raise his head. Gorlois gave him a curt nod and passed on. The man looked at Igraine, and it seemed for a moment that he was laughing at her, and at Gorlois too; she felt herself smile. Then at Gorlois's repressive frown she followed him and knelt meekly at his side. But she could see the fair-haired man watching her. From his Northman's plaid she supposed that this could be Lot of Orkney, the one Gorlois had called young and ambitious. Some of the Northmen too were fair as Saxons.

  The final psalm had begun; she listened to the words without paying much attention to them.

  He has sent redemption among his people in accordance with his eternal covenant ...

  His name is holy and terrible; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

  Gorlois bowed his head for the benediction. She was learning so much about her husband in these few days. She had known he was a Christian when she married him; indeed most folk were Christian, in these days, or if they were not, they kept it most scrupulously to themselves, except near the Holy Isle where the Old Faith reigned, or among the Northern barbarians, or the Saxons. But she had not known that he was genuinely pious.

  The benediction was over; the priest and his deacons departed bearing their long cross and the Holy Book. Igraine looked to where the King stood. He looked yellow and tired, and as he turned to leave the church, he leaned heavily on the arm of the dark young man who had stood next to him and supported him all through the service.

  "Lot of Orkney loses no time, does he, my lord of Cornwall," said the tall, fair-haired man in the Northman's plaid. "He is ever at Ambrosius' elbow these days, and not wanting in service!"

  So, Igraine thought, this is not the Duke of Orkney as I thought.

  Gorlois grunted assent.

  "Your lady wife, Gorlois?"

  Reluctantly, churlishly, Gorlois said, "Igraine, my dear, this is our war duke: Uther, whom the Tribes call Pendragon, from his banner."

  She dropped him a curtsey, blinking with astonishment. Uther Pen-dragon, this ungainly man, fair as a Saxon? Was this the courtier intended to succeed Ambrosius-this bumbling man who blundered in to disturb holy mass? Uther was staring-not, Igraine realized, at her face, but at something lower down, and Igraine, wondering if she had spilled communion wine on her gown, saw that he was staring at the moonstone on the breast of her mantle. She wondered sharply if he had never seen one before.

  Gorlois, too, had noted the direction of his gaze. He said, "I would like to present my lady to the King; a good day to you, my lord Duke," and left without waiting for Uther's farewell. When they were out of earshot he said, "I like not the way he looks at you, Igraine. He is no man for a decent woman to know. Avoid him."

  Igraine said, "He was not looking at me, my husband, but at the jewel I wore. Is he greedy for riches?"

  "He is greedy for all things," Uther said shortly. Walking so swiftly that Igraine's thin shoes stumbled on the stone street, they had overtaken the royal party.

  Ambrosius, surrounded by his priests and councillors, looked like any other elderly sick man who had gone fasting to mass and was ready for his breakfast and a place to sit down. He walked with one hand held to his side, as if it hurt him. But he smiled at Gorlois with real friendliness, and Igraine knew why the whole of Britain had made up their quarrels to serve under this man and fight away the Saxons from their shores.

  "Why, Gorlois, are you back so swiftly from Cornwall? I had little hope of seeing you here before the Council, or again in this world," he said. His voice was thin, breathy, but he held out his arms to Gorlois, who embraced the old man carefully, then blurted out, "You are ill, my lord, you should have kept your bed!"

  Ambrosius said, wi
th a little smile, "I will keep it soon enough, and long enough, I fear. The bishop said as much, and would have brought me the holy things in my bed if I wished, but I wanted to show myself among you again. Come and breakfast with me, Gorlois, and tell me how all goes in your quiet countryside."

  The two men walked on, Igraine walking behind her husband. On the King's other side was the slight, dark man, scarlet-clad: Lot of Orkney, she remembered. When they came into the King's house and Ambrosius had been placed in a comfortable chair, the High King beckoned Igraine forward.

  "Welcome to my court, lady Igraine. Your husband tells me you are a daughter of the Holy Isle."

  "It is so, sir," Igraine said shyly.

  "Some of your people are advisers at my court; my priests do not like it that your Druids should be placed on equal footing with them, but I tell them you both serve the Great Ones above us, by whatever name. And wisdom is wisdom, however come by. I sometimes think your Gods demand wiser men for their servants than our God for his," Ambrosius said, smiling at her. "Come, Gorlois, sit here beside me at table."

  It seemed to Igraine, as she took her seat on the cushioned bench, that Lot of Orkney hovered near like a dog who has been kicked but who wants to slink back to his master. If Ambrosius had men about him who loved him, that was well. But did Lot love his king, or only wish to be near to the throne that its power might reflect on him? She noticed that Ambrosius, though he courteously urged his guests to eat the fine wheaten bread and honey and fresh fish set for his table, ate only sops of bread moistened in milk. She noticed, too, the faint yellow staining the whites of his eyes. Gorlois had said, Ambrosius is dying. She had seen enough dying men in her lifetime to know he spoke no more than simple truth, and Ambrosius, from his words, knew it too.