The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "If you and Uther spoke of religion, it is for certain the only time that man of blood ever did so!" Gorlois grumbled.

  Igraine said, and now she was angry, "He was weeping, Gorlois; weeping for the king who had been as a father to him. And if it shows respect for the dead to sit and listen to the caterwauling of a priest, then may I never have such respect! I envied Uther, that he was a man and could come and go as he chose, and for sure, if I had been born a man, I would never have sat peacefully and hearkened to yonder foolishness in the church. But I was not free to go, being dragged thither at the word of a man who thinks more of priests and psalms than of the dead!"

  They had reached the door of their lodging; Gorlois, his face turning dark with wrath, pushed her angrily within. "You will not speak to me in that voice, lady, or I shall beat you in earnest."

  Igraine realized that she had actually bared her teeth like a hunting cat, and her voice hissed as she said, "Touch me at your peril, Gorlois, or I shall teach you that a daughter of the Holy Isle is no man's slave nor servant!"

  Gorlois opened his mouth for an angry retort, and for a moment Igraine thought he would strike her again. Instead, with an effort, he mastered his anger and turned away from her. "It is not fitting that I stand here brawling when my king and my lord lies still unburied. You may sleep here tonight, if you are not afraid to be alone; if you are so, I shall have you escorted to the house of Ectorius, to sleep with Flavilla. My men and I will fast and pray until sunrise tomorrow, when Ambrosius will be laid in earth to rest."

  Igraine looked at him with surprise and a curious, growing contempt. So, for fear of the dead man's shade-even though he called it by another name and thought of it as respect-he would not eat nor drink nor lie with a woman till his king was buried. Christians said they were free of the superstitions of the Druids, but they had their own, and Igraine felt that these were even more distressing, being separated from nature. Suddenly she was very glad that this night she need not lie with Gorlois. "No," she said, "I am not afraid to be alone."

  4

  Ambrosius was buried at sunrise. Igraine, escorted by a Gorlois still angry and silent, watched the ceremonies with a strange detachment. Four years she had struggled to compromise with the religion Gorlois followed. Now she knew that, while she would show his religion a courteous respect so as not to anger him-and indeed, her early teaching had taught her that all Gods were one, and no one should ever mock the name by which another found God-she would try no more to be as pious as he was. A wife should follow her husband's Gods, and she would pretend to do so in a seemly and proper fashion, but she would never again fall prey to the fear that their all-seeing, all-vengeful God could have power over her.

  She saw Uther during the ceremonies; he looked haggard and worn, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he, too, had fasted, sleepless; and somehow the sight touched her heart. Poor man, with none to care if he fasted, or to tell him what nonsense it was, as if the dead loitered near the living to see how they fared, and could be jealous of their eating and drinking! She would wager that King Uriens had committed no such folly; he looked fed and rested, and suddenly she wished that she were as old and wise as Uriens' lady, who could speak to her husband and tell him what he should do in such matters.

  After the burial Gorlois took Igraine back to their lodging and there broke his fast with her, but he was still silent and grim, and immediately afterward excused himself. "I must attend the Council," he said. "Lot and Uther will be at one another's throats, and somehow I must help them to recall what Ambrosius wanted. I am sorry to leave you alone here, but I will send a man to escort you around the city, if you wish." He gave her a piece of coined money and bade her to buy herself a fairing at the market if she chose, and told her that his man would bear a purse as well, if she wished to choose spices and other things for the household in Cornwall. "For there is no reason for you to come so far, without purchasing some of the things it is needful for you to have. I am not a poor man, and you may buy whatever you need to keep a proper household, without consulting me; remember I trust you, Igraine," he said, and laid his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. Although he did not say so, she knew he was in his own gruff way apologizing for his suspicions and his angry blow, and her heart warmed to him; she returned his kiss with real tenderness.

  It was exciting to walk through the great markets of Londinium; dirty and smelly as the city was, it seemed like four or five harvest fairs all in one. The banner of Gorlois, borne by his man-at-arms, kept her from being jostled or pushed very much. Yet it was a little frightening to walk through the enormous market square, with a hundred vendors crying their wares. It seemed to her that everything she saw was new and beautiful, something she wished for, but she resolved to see all over the market before she made any purchases; and then she bought spices, and a length of fine woven wool from the islands, far finer than that of the Cornish sheep-Gorlois should have a new cloak this year; she would begin weaving a border for it as soon as she was back at Tintagel. And so she also bought for herself small hanks of dyed silks; it would be pleasant to weave on such brilliant colors, restful and fine to her hands after the coarseness of wool and flax. She would teach Morgause, too. And it would be high time, next year, to teach Morgaine to spin; if she indeed bore Uther another child, this time next year she would be heavy and ungainly and she could sit and teach her daughter to spin. Four years was certainly old enough to start learning to handle a spindle and twist the thread, even though the thread would not be good for much except tying up bundles of yarn for dyeing.

  She also bought some colored ribbons; they would be handsome on Morgaine's holiday gown, and they could be taken off each dress as the child outgrew it, and sewed at neck and sleeves of the new gown. It was only fitting, now that she was big enough not to soil her clothing, that she should be dressed suitably for the daughter of the Duke of Cornwall.

  The market was doing a lavish business; at a distance she saw the wife of King Uriens, and other well-dressed ladies, and she wondered if every man in the Council who had a wife had sent her out to do her shopping in the markets of Londinium this morning while the debate raged. Igraine bought silver buckles for her shoes, even though she was sure she could have bought some just as fine in Cornwall, simply because it seemed a fine thing to have buckles to her shoes which had come all the way from Londinium. But when the man would have sold her a brooch with silver filigree all round an amber stone, she refused, shocked at spending all this money. She was very thirsty, and the display of men selling cider and hot pies tempted her, but it seemed an ugly thing to sit and eat in the open market like a dog. She told her man to come along back to the lodging, and resolved that there she would have some bread and cheese and beer. The man looked sullen, so she gave him one of the tiny coins left from her marketing and told him to buy himself a pot of cider or ale if he chose.

  When she got back to her lodging, she was tired and sat listlessly looking over her purchases. She would have liked to begin work at once on the borders, but that must wait till she got back to her small loom. She had some spinning with her, but she felt too dull to do it, so she sat looking at her things until Gorlois, looking weary, came in.

  He tried to take an interest in what she had bought, commending her frugality, but she could easily see that his mind was elsewhere, though he admired the ribbons for Morgaine's dresses, and said that she had done well to buy the silver buckles. "You should have a silver comb, too, and perhaps a new mirror, your old bronze one is scratched. You can let Morgause have the old one, she is a grown girl now. Tomorrow you may go and choose one, if you will."

  "Will there be another meeting of the Council?"

  "I fear so, and probably another and another, until we can argue Lot and the others into doing Ambrosius' will and accepting Uther as High King." Gorlois grunted. "Stubborn donkeys, all of them! Would that Ambrosius had left a son, then we could all swear him loyalty as High King and choose a war duke for his prowess in the field. The
re'd be no question then, it would be Uther; even Lot knows that. But Lot is damned ambitious to be High King, and sees only that it would be a fine thing to wear a crown and take oath from all of us. And there are men in the North who would rather have one of their own, and so they back up Lot-indeed, I think if Uther is chosen in the end, all the kings of the North, except perhaps Uriens, will ride away North with no fealty sworn at all. But even to keep the loyalty of the kings of the North, I'll not swear to be Lot's man. I trust him no further than I could kick his arse on a muddy day!" He shrugged. "This is dull hearing for a woman's ears, Igraine. Set me some bread and cold meat, if you will. I slept not at all last night, and I am tired as if I had been on campaign all day; arguing is weary work."

  She started to say that she found it interesting, then shrugged to herself and let it be. She would not stoop to coax tales from him, as if she were a child begging for a nursery tale at bedtime. If she must learn what fared from the gossip of men in the marketplace, so be it. He would be weary this night, and wish for nothing but sleep.

  She lay wakeful at his side, very late, and found herself thinking of Uther. How did it feel, to know he was the choice of Ambrosius for High King, and to know he must enforce that choice, probably at sword point? She twisted impatiently, wondering if the Merlin had indeed laid an enchantment on her, that she could not leave off thinking of Uther. At last she drifted into sleep, and in the country of sleep she found herself standing in the orchard where she had spoken with Uther, where she had dried his tears with her veil. Now, in the dream, he seized the end of her veil and drew her close to him with it, and laid his mouth to hers; and there was a sweetness in that kiss, a sweetness that she had never felt in all her years with Gorlois, and she found herself giving herself up to that kiss, felt her whole body melting with it. She looked into his blue eyes, and thought in the dream, I have always been a child, I have never known until this moment what it was to be a woman. She said, "I have never known what it was to love." He drew her close to him, and laid his body over hers, and Igraine, feeling that warmth and sweetness suffusing her whole body, raised her lips to his again, and woke, with a start of amazement, to find that Gorlois had drawn her into his arms as he slept. The sweetness of the dream was still in her whole body, so that she put her arms round his neck with a drowsy compliance, but she quickly grew impatient, waiting till he should be done and had fallen again into a heavy, moaning sleep. And she lay awake, shaking, until dawn, wondering what had happened to her.

  All that week the Council went on, and every night Gorlois came home pale and angry, worn out with wrangling. Once he burst out, "We sit here at talk, while on the shores the Saxon could be making ready to come to war against us! Don't the fools know that our safety depends on the treaty troops' holding the Saxon Shores, and that they will follow no man but Uther, or one of their own? Is Lot so prejudiced against Uther that he would rather follow a painted chief who serves the Horse God?"

  Even the pleasures of the markets had paled; much of that week it rained, and Igraine, who had bought some needles on her second visit, sat and mended Gorlois's clothes and her own, and wished she had her loom to do some fine weaving. She took some of the cloth she had bought and began to make some towels by hemming them and edging them with colored threads. In the second week her moon flux came on her, and she felt dismal and betrayed; Gorlois had not, after all, gotten on her the son he wanted. She was not yet twenty, she could hardly be barren already! She thought of an old tale she had heard, about a wife married to an elderly husband, who bore him no son until she slipped out one night and lay with a shepherd in his field, and her old husband was mighty pleased with the fine healthy boy. If she was barren, Igraine thought resentfully, it was more like than not to be Gorlois's fault! He was the one who was old and his blood thinned with years of war and campaigns. And then she thought of her dream, between guilt and dismay. Merlin and Viviane had said it: she should bear a son to the High King, one who would heal the land of all this strife. Gorlois himself had said that if Ambrosius had left a son, there would not be all this wrangling. If Uther were chosen High King, it would indeed be needful for him to get a son at once.

  And I am young and healthy, if I were his queen I could give him a son ... . And when she came again to this point she would weep with a sudden, trapped despair. I am married to an old man, and my life is over at nineteen. I might as well be an old, old woman, past caring whether I live or die, fit only to sit by the fire and think of Heaven! She took to her bed and told Gorlois she was ill.

  Once during this week the Merlin came to her lodging while Gorlois was at the Council. She felt like flinging her rage and misery at him-he had begun this, she had been content and resigned to her fate until he had sent to waken her out of it! But it was unthinkable to speak rudely to the Merlin of Britain, father or no.

  "Gorlois tells me you are ill, Igraine; can I do anything to help you with my healing arts?"

  She looked at him in despair. "Only if you can make me young. I feel so old, Father, so old!"

  He stroked her shining copper curls and said, "I see no grey in your hair nor wrinkles in your face, my child."

  "But my life is over, I am an old woman, the wife of an old man ... ."

  "Hush, hush," he soothed, "you are weary and ill, you will feel better when the moon changes again, surely. It is best like this, Igraine," he said, looking sharply at her, and she suddenly knew that he read her thoughts; it was as if he spoke directly to her mind, repeating what he had said to her at Tintagel: You will bear Gorlois no son.

  "I feel-trapped," she said, and put her head down and wept and would not speak again.

  He stroked her uncombed hair. "Sleep is the best medicine for your illness now, Igraine. And dreams are the true remedy for what ails you. I, who am master of dreams, will send one to cure you." He stretched his hand over her in blessing and went away.

  She wondered if something he had done, or some spell set by Viviane, was responsible-perhaps after all she had conceived Gorlois's child and cast it from her; such things had happened. She could not imagine the Merlin sending to dose her beer with herbs or simples, but perhaps with his power he could ensure it with magic or spells. And then she thought perhaps it was for the best. Gorlois was old, she had seen the shadow of his death; did she want to rear a son of his to manhood alone? When Gorlois came back to their lodging that night, it seemed that once again she could see, hovering behind him, the shadow of the dreaded fetch, his death waiting, the sword cut over his eye, his face haggard with grief and despair; and she turned her face away from him, feeling, when he touched her, that she was embraced by a dead man, a corpse.

  "Come, my dear one, you must not be so dismal," Gorlois soothed, sitting on the bed beside her. "I know you are sick and wretched, you must be longing for your home and your child, but it will not be long now. I have news for you, listen and I'll tell you."

  "Is the Council any nearer to their kingmaking?"

  "It may be," Gorlois said. "Did you hear a stir in the streets this afternoon? Well, Lot of Orkney and the kings of the North have departed; they have quite accepted it now, that we will not choose Lot to be High King until the sun and the moon rise together in the west, and so they have gone forth, leaving the rest of us to do what we know Ambrosius would have willed. If I were Uther-and I told him so much-I would not walk alone after sunset; Lot went away looking like a cur who's had his tail cut off, and I wouldn't think him incapable of curing his wronged pride by sending someone with a dirk on Other's heels."

  She whispered, "Do you truly think Lot will try and kill Uther?"

  "Well, he's no match for Uther in a fight. A knife in the back, that would be Lot's way. I'm as well pleased he's not one of us, though it would ease my mind if Lot were sworn to keep the peace. An oath on some holy relic he dare not flout-and even then I'd watch him," Gorlois said.

  When they were in bed he turned to her, but she shook her head and pushed him away. "Yet another day," she said, and, s
ighing, he turned away and fell almost instantly asleep. She could not, she thought, put him off much longer; yet a horror had come upon her, now that she saw again the doom-fetch hanging over him. She told herself that, whatever came, she should remain a dutiful wife to this honorable man who had been kind to her. And that brought back memory of the room where Viviane and the Merlin had shattered her security and all her peace. She felt tears surging up inside her, but tried to quiet her sobs, not wanting to wake Gorlois.

  The Merlin had said that he would send her a dream to cure her misery, and yet all this had begun with a dream. She was afraid to sleep, fearing another dream would come to shatter such little peace as she had found. For she knew that this thing would shatter her life, if she allowed it; lay her promised word in shreds. And, although she was not herself a Christian, she had listened enough to their preaching to know that this was, by their standards, grave sin.

  If Gorlois were dead ... Igraine caught her breath in a spasm of terror; for the first time, now, she had allowed herself to form that thought. How could she wish him dead-her husband, the father of her daughter? How could she know that, even if Gorlois were no longer standing between them, Uther would want her? How could she lie at one man's side and long for another?

  Viviane spoke as if this kind of thing happens often ... am I simply childish and naive, not to know?

  I will not sleep lest I dream ... .

  If she went on tossing about like this, Igraine thought, Gorlois would wake. If she wept, he would wish to know why. And what could she tell him? Silently Igraine slid from the bed, wrapped her long cloak about her naked body, and went to sit by the remnants of the dying fire. Why, she wondered, staring into the flames, should the Merlin of Britain, Druid priest, adviser of kings, Messenger of the Gods, meddle this way in the affairs of a young woman's life? For that matter, what was a Druid priest doing as king's councillor at a court supposedly Christian?