The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  She realized that Morgaine was still standing quietly, awaiting her word, and smiled.

  "Truly I grow old," she said. "I was lost, for a moment, in memories. You are not the child who came here many years ago; but there are times when I forget it, my Morgaine."

  Morgaine smiled and the smile transformed her face, which in repose was rather sullen. Like Morgause, Viviane thought, though otherwise they are nothing alike. It is Taliesin's blood.

  Morgaine said, "I think you forget nothing, kinswoman."

  "Perhaps not. Have you broken your fast, child?"

  "No. But I am not hungry."

  "Very well. I want you to go in the barge."

  Morgaine, who had grown used to silence, answered only with a gesture of respect and assent.

  It was not, of course, a request unusual in any way-the barge from Avalon must always* be guided by a priestess who knew the secret way through the mists.

  "It is a family mission," Viviane said, "for it is my son who is approaching the island, and I thought it well to send a kinswoman to welcome him here."

  Morgaine smiled. "Balan?" she said. "Will his foster-brother Balin not fear for his soul if he goes beyond the sound of church bells?"

  A glint of humor lighted Viviane's eyes, and she said, "Both of them are proud men and dedicated warriors, and they live blameless lives, even by the standards of the Druids, harming none and oppressing none, and ever seeking to right a wrong when they find it. I doubt not that the Saxons find them four times as fearsome when they fight side by side. In fact, they are afraid of nothing, except the evil magic of that wicked sorceress who is mother to one of them ... " and she giggled like a young woman, and Morgaine giggled with her.

  Then, sobering, she said, "Well, I do not regret sending Balan to fosterage in the outer world. He had no call to become a Druid, and he would have made a very bad one, and if he is lost to the Goddess, no doubt she will watch over him in her own way, even if he prays to her with beads and calls upon her as Mary the Virgin. No, Balan is away on the coast, fighting against the Saxons at Uther's side, and I am content to have it so. It is of my younger son I spoke."

  "I thought Galahad still in Brittany."

  "So did I, but last night with the Sight I saw him ... he is here. When last I saw him, he was but twelve years old. He is grown considerably, I should say; he must now be sixteen or more, and ready for his arms, but I do not know for certain that he is to bear arms at all."

  Morgaine smiled, and Viviane remembered that when Morgaine had first come here, a lonely child, she had sometimes been allowed to spend her free time with the only other child fostered here, Galahad.

  "Ban of Benwick must be old now," Morgaine remarked.

  "Old, yes; and he has many sons, so that my son, among them, is just one more of the king's unregarded bastards. But his half-brothers fear him and would rather he went elsewhere, and a child of the Great Marriage cannot be treated like any other bastard." Viviane answered the unspoken question. "His father would give him land and estates in Brittany, but I saw to it before he was six years old that Galahad's heart would always be here, at the Lake." She saw the glint in Morgaine's eyes and answered, again, the unspoken.

  "Cruel, to make him ever discontent? Perhaps. It was not I that was cruel, but the Goddess. His destiny lies in Avalon, and I have seen him with the Sight, kneeling before the Holy Chalice ... ."

  Again, with an ironic inflection, Morgaine made the little gesture of assent with which a priestess under vows of silence would have acquiesced to a command.

  Suddenly Viviane was angry with herself. I sit here justifying what I have done with my life, and the lives of my sons, to a chit of a girl! I owe her no explanations! She said, and her voice was chilled with sudden distance, "Go with the barge, Morgaine, and bring him to me."

  A third time the silent gesture of assent and Morgaine turned to go.

  "One moment," Viviane said. "You will break your fast here with us when you bring him back to me; he is your cousin and kinsman too."

  When Morgaine smiled again, Viviane realized that she had been trying to make the girl smile, and was surprised at herself.

  MORGAINE WENT down along the path toward the edge of the Lake. Her heart was still beating faster than usual; often, these days, when she spoke with the Lady, anger was mixed with affection, to neither of which she was allowed to give voice, and this did strange things to her mind. She wondered at herself, because she had been taught to control her emotions as she controlled her words and even her thoughts.

  Galahad she remembered from her first years in Avalon-a scrawny, dark, intense boy. She had not liked him much, but because her heart hungered for her own small brother, she had let the lonely boy run about after her. Then he had been sent away to fosterage and she had seen him only once since, when he was twelve years old, all eyes and teeth and bones thrusting through outgrown clothes. He had grown into an intense disdain of anything female, and she had been occupied with the most difficult part of her training, so she had paid him little heed.

  The small, dark men who poled the barge bent before her in silent respect to the Goddess whose form the higher priestesses were supposed to wear, and she signed to them without speaking and took her place in the prow.

  Swiftly and silently the draped barge glided out into the mist. Morgaine felt the dampness coalescing on her brow and clinging to her hair; she was hungry, and chilled to the bone, but she had been taught to ignore that too. When they came out of the mist, the sun had risen on the far shore, and she could see a horse and rider waiting there. The barge continued its slow strokes forward, but Morgaine, in a rare moment of self-forgetfulness, stood unguarded, looking at the horseman there.

  He was slightly built, his face aquiline and darkly handsome, set off by the crimson cap with an eagle feather in its band and the wide crimson cloak that fell gracefully around him. When he dismounted, the natural grace with which he moved, a dancer's grace, took her breath away. Had she ever wished to be fair and rounded, when dark and slender could show this beauty? His eyes were dark too, glinting with a touch of mischief- mischief which alone gave Morgaine awareness of who this must be, although, otherwise, not a single feature remained of the scrawny boy with the bony legs and enormous feet.

  "Galahad," she said, pitching her voice low to keep it from trembling -a priestess-trick. "I would not have recognized you."

  He bowed smoothly, the cape swirling as he moved-had she ever despised that as an acrobat's trick? Here it seemed to grow from his body.

  "Lady," he said.

  He has not recognized me either. Keep it so.

  Why at this moment did she remember Viviane's words? Your virginity is sacred to the Goddess. See you keep it so till the Mother makes her will known. Startled, Morgaine recognized that for the first time in her life, she had looked on a man with desire. Knowing that such things were not for her, but that she was to use her life as the Goddess should decree, she had looked on men with scorn as the natural prey of the Goddess in the form of her priestesses, to be taken or denied as seemed right at the moment. Viviane had commanded that this year she need not take part in the Beltane fire rituals, from which some of her fellow priestesses emerged with child by the will of the Goddess, children who were either born, or cast forth by the knowledge of herb lore and drugs she had been taught-an unpleasant process, which if not followed inevitably brought on the even more unpleasant and dangerous process of birth, and tiresome children who were reared or sent to fosterage as the Lady decreed. Morgaine had been glad enough to escape this time, knowing that Viviane had other plans for her.

  She gestured him to step on board. Never lay hands upon an outsider- the words of the old priestess who had schooled her; a priestess of Avalon must be even as a visitor from the otherworld. She wondered why she had to stop her hand from reaching out to touch his wrist. She knew, with a sureness that made the blood beat hard in her temples, that under the smooth skin would lie hard muscle, pulsing with life, and
she hungered to meet his eyes again. She turned away, trying to master herself.

  His voice was deep and musical as he said, "Why, now you move your hands, I know you-everything else about you has changed. Priestess, were you not once my kinswoman, called Morgaine?" The dark eyes glinted. "Nothing else is the same as when I used to call you Morgaine of the Fairies ... ."

  "I was, and I am. But years have passed," she said, turning away, gesturing to the silent servants of the barge to pole it away from the shore.

  "But the magic of Avalon never changes," he murmured, and she knew he was not speaking to her. "The mist and the reeds and the cry of water birds ... and then the barge, like magic, gliding from the silent shore ... I know there is nothing for me here, and yet, somehow, I always return ... ."

  The barge moved silently across the Lake. Even now, after years of knowing that it was no magic, but intensive training in silencing the oars, Morgaine was still impressed by the mystical silence through which they moved. She turned to call the mists, and was conscious of the young man behind her. He stood, easily balanced beside his horse, one arm flung across the saddle blanket, shifting his weight easily without motion, so that he did not visibly sway or lose balance as the boat moved and turned. Morgaine did this herself from long training, but he managed it, it seemed, by his own natural grace.

  It seemed that she could feel his dark eyes like a palpable warmth on her back as she stepped to the prow and raised her arms, the long sleeves trailing. She drew a deep breath, charging herself for the magical act, knowing she must concentrate all her strength, intensely angry at herself for her own awareness of the man's eyes on her.

  Let him see, then! Let him fear me and know me as the Goddess-self! She knew some rebel part of herself, long stifled, was crying out, No, I want him to see the woman, not the Goddess, not even the priestess, but another deep breath and even the memory of that wish was exhaled.

  Up went her arms into the arch of the sky; down, with the mists following the sweep of her trailing sleeves. Mist and silence hung dark around them. Morgaine stood motionless, feeling the young man's body warmth very close to her. If she moved even a little, she would touch his hand, and knew how his hand would feel, scalding against her own. She moved away with a little swirling of her robes, and collected distance about herself as with a veil. And all the time she was astonished at herself, saying within her mind somewhere, this is only my cousin, it is Viviane's son who used to sit in my lap when he was little and lonely! Deliberately she summoned the picture of that awkward boy covered with bramble scratches, but when they sailed out of the mist the dark eyes were smiling at her, and she felt dizzy.

  Of course I am faint, I have not yet broken my fast, she told herself, and watched the hunger in Galahad's eyes as he looked on Avalon. She saw him cross himself. Viviane would be angry if she had seen that.

  "It is indeed the land of the fairy folk," he said, low, "and you are Morgaine of the Fairies, as always ... but you are a woman, now, and beautiful, kinswoman."

  She thought, impatient, I am not beautiful, what he sees is the glamour of Avalon. And something rebellious in her said, I want him to think me beautiful-myself, not the glamour! She set her mouth tightly and knew that she looked stern, forbidding, all priestess again.

  "This way," she said curtly and, as the barge's bottom scraped silently on the sandy edge, signalled for the bargemen to attend to his horse.

  "By your leave, lady," he said, "I will attend to it myself. It is not an ordinary saddle."

  "As you like," Morgaine said, and stood and watched while he unsaddled his horse himself. But she was too intensely curious about everything concerning him to stand silent.

  "Why, it is indeed a strange saddle ... what are the long leather strappings?"

  "The Scythians wear them-they are called stirrups. My foster-father took me on pilgrimage, and I saw them in their country. Even the Roman legions had no such cavalry, for the Scythians with these can control and stop their horses in mid charge, and that way they can fight from horseback," he said, "and even in the light armor the horsemen wear, an equestrian knight is invincible against anyone on foot." He smiled, the dark, intense face lighting up. "The Saxons call me Alfgar-the elf-arrow which comes out of darkness and strikes unseen. At Ban's court they have taken up the name and call me Lancelet, which is as near as they can come to it. Some day I will have a legion of horses equipped this way, and then let the Saxons beware!"

  "Your mother told me you were already a warrior," Morgaine said, forgetting to pitch her voice low, and he smiled again at her.

  "And now I know your voice, Morgaine of the Fairies ... how dare you come upon me as a priestess, kinswoman? Well, I suppose it is the Lady's will. But I like you better like this than solemn as a Goddess," he said, with the familiar mischief, as if they had parted but the day before.

  Clasping at shreds of her dignity, Morgaine said, "Yes, the Lady awaits us, and we must not keep her waiting."

  "Oh yes," he mocked, "always we must scurry to do her will. ... I suppose you are one of those who hurry to fetch and carry, and hang trembling on her every word."

  For that Morgaine found no answer except to say, "Come this way."

  "I remember the way," he said, and walked quietly at her side instead of following behind with proper respect. "I too used to run to her and wait upon her will and tremble at her frown, until I found she was not just my mother, but thought herself greater than any queen."

  "And so she is," Morgaine said sharply.

  "No doubt, but I have lived in a world where men do not come and go at a woman's beckoning." She saw that his jaw was set and that the mischief was gone from his eyes. "I would rather have a loving mother than a stern Goddess whose every breath bids men live and die at her will."

  To that Morgaine found nothing whatever to say. She set a swift pace that meant he must scurry at her heels to keep up.

  Raven, still silent-for she had bound herself by vows of perpetual silence, save when she spoke tranced as a prophetess-let them into the dwelling with an inclination of the head. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Morgaine saw that Viviane, seated by the fire, had chosen to greet her son not in the ordinary dark dress and deerskin tunic of a priestess, but had put on a dress of crimson and done her hair high on her forehead with gems glittering there. Even Morgaine, who knew the tricks of glamour for herself, gasped at the magnificence of Viviane. She was like the Goddess welcoming a petitioner to her underworld shrine.

  Morgaine could see that Galahad's chin was set and that the cords in his knuckles stood out, white, against his dark fists. She could hear him breathing, and guessed at the effort with which he steadied his voice, as he rose from his bow.

  "My lady and mother, I give you greeting."

  "Galahad," she said. "Come, sit here beside me."

  He took a seat across from her instead. Morgaine hovered near the door and Viviane beckoned her to come and seat herself too.

  "I waited to breakfast with you both. Here, join me."

  There was fresh-cooked fish from the Lake, scented with herbs and dripping butter; there was hot, fresh barley bread, and fresh fruit, such food as Morgaine seldom tasted in the austere dwelling of the priestesses. She, and Viviane too, ate sparingly, but Galahad helped himself to everything with the healthy hunger of a youth still growing. "Why, you have set a meal fit for a king, Mother."

  "How does your father, and how does Brittany?"

  "Well enough, though I have not spent much time there in the last year. He sent me on a far journey, to learn for his court about the new cavalry of the Scythian peoples. I do not think even the soldiers of Rome, such as they are, have any such horsemen now. We have herds of Iberian horses-but you are not interested in the doings of the stud farms. Now I have come to bring word to the Pendragon's court of a new massing of Saxon armies; I doubt not they will strike in full force before Midsummer. Would that I had time and enough gold to train a legion of these horsemen!

  "You lov
e horses," Viviane said in surprise.

  "Does that surprise you, madam? With beasts you always know precisely what they think, for they cannot lie, nor pretend to be other than they are," he said.

  "The ways of nature will all be open to you," Viviane said, "when you return to Avalon in the life of a Druid."

  He said, "Still the same old song, Lady? I thought I gave you my answer when last I saw you."

  "Galahad," she said, "you were twelve years old. That is too young to know the better part of life."

  He moved his hand impatiently. "No one calls me Galahad now, save you alone, and the Druid who gave me that name. In Brittany and in the field I am Lancelet."

  She smiled and said, "Do you think I care for what the soldiers say?"

  "So you would bid me sit still in Avalon and play the harp while outside in the real world the struggle goes on for life and death, my lady?"

  Viviane looked angry. "Are you trying to say this world is not real, my son?"

  "It is real," said Lancelet, with an impatient movement of his hand, "but real in a different way, cut off from the struggle outside. Fairyland, eternal peace-oh, yes, it is home to me, you saw to that, Lady. But it seems that even the sun shines differently here. And this is not where the real struggles of life are taking place. Even the Merlin has the wit to know that."

  "The Merlin came to be as he is through years when he learned to know the real from the unreal," said Viviane, "and so must you. There are warriors enough in the world, my son. Yours is the task to see farther than any, and perhaps to bid the warriors come and go."

  He shook his head. "No! Lady, say no more, that path is not mine."