The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "You are still not grown to know what you want," Viviane said flatly. "Will you give us seven years, as you gave your father, to know whether this is your road in life?"

  "In seven years," said Lancelet, smiling, "I hope to see the Saxons driven from our shores, and I hope to have a hand in their driving. I have no time for the magics and mysteries of the Druids, Lady, and would not if I could. No, my mother, I beg you to give me your blessing and send me forth from Avalon, for to tell the truth, Lady, I will go with your blessing or without it. I have lived in a world where men do not wait for a woman's bidding to go and come."

  Morgaine shrank away as she saw the white of rage sweep over Viviane's face. The priestess rose from her seat, a small woman but given height and majesty by her fury.

  "You defy the Lady of Avalon, Galahad of the Lake?"

  He did not shrink before her. Morgaine, seeing him pale under the dark tanning of his skin, knew that inside the softness and grace was steel to match the Lady's own. He said quietly, "Had you bidden me this when I still starved for your love and approval, madam, no doubt I would have done even as you commanded. But I am not a child, my lady and mother, and the sooner we acknowledge that, then the sooner we shall be in harmony and cease from quarrelling. The life of a Druid is not for me."

  "Have you become a Christian?" she asked, hissing with anger.

  He sighed and shook his head. "Not really. Even that comfort is denied me, though in Ban's court I could pass as one when I wished. I think I have no faith in any God but this." He laid his hand on his sword.

  The Lady sank down on her bench and sighed. She drew a long breath and then smiled.

  "So," she said, "you are a man and there is no compelling you. Although I wish you would speak of this to the Merlin."

  Morgaine, watching unregarded, saw the tension relax in the young man's hands. She thought, He thinks she has given way; he does not know her well enough to know that she is angrier than ever. Lancelet was young enough to let the relief show in his voice. "I'm grateful to you for understanding, madam. And I will willingly seek counsel of the Merlin, if it pleases you. But even the Christian priests know that a vocation to the service of God is God's gift and not anything that comes because one wants it or does not. God, or the Gods if you will, has not called me, or even given me any proof that He-or They-exist."

  Morgaine thought of Viviane's words to her, many years ago: it is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting. But for the first time she wondered, What would Viviane really have done if at any time during these years I had come to her and told her that I wished to depart? The Lady is all too sure that she knows the will of the Goddess. Such heretical thoughts disturbed her, and quickly she thrust them from her mind, resting her eyes again on Lancelet. At first she had only been dazzled by his dark handsomeness, the grace of his body. Now she saw specific things: the first down of beard along his chin-he had not time, or had not chosen, to shave his face in the Roman fashion; his slender hands, exquisitely shaped, fashioned for harp strings or weapons, but callused just a little across palm and the insides of the fingers, more on the right hand than the left. There was a small scar on one forearm, a whitish seam that looked as if it had been there for many years, and another, crescent-shaped, on the left cheek. His lashes were as long as a girl's. But he did not have the androgynous, boy-girl look of many boys before their beards have grown; he was like a young stag. Morgaine thought she had never seen so masculine a creature before. Because her mind had been trained to such thoughts, she thought, There is nothing of the softness of a woman's training in him, to make him pliable to any woman. He has denied the touch of the Goddess in himself; one day he will have trouble with her ... . And again her mind leaped, thinking that one day she would play the role of the Goddess at one of the great festivals, and she thought, feeling a pleasant heat in her body, Would that he might be the God ... . Lost in her daydream, she did not hear what Lancelet and the Lady were saying until she was recalled by hearing Viviane speak her name, and she came back to herself as if she had been wandering somewhere out of the world.

  "Morgaine?" the Lady repeated. "My son has been long away from Avalon. Take him away, spend the day on the shores if you will, you are freed for this day from duties. When you were children both, I remember, you liked it well, to walk on the shores of the Lake. Tonight, Galahad, you shall sup with the Merlin, and shall be housed among the young priests who are not under the silence. And tomorrow, if you still wish for it, you shall go with my blessing."

  He bowed profoundly, and they went out.

  The sun was high, and Morgaine realized that she had missed the sunrise salutations; well, she had the Lady's permission to absent herself, and in any case she was no longer one of the younger priestesses for whom the missing of such a service was a matter for penances and guilt. Today she had intended to supervise a few of the younger women in preparing dyes for ritual robes-nothing that could not wait another day or a handful of days.

  "I will go to the kitchens," she said, "and fetch us some bread to take with us. We can hunt for waterfowl, if you like-are you fond of hunting?"

  He nodded and smiled at her. "Perhaps if I bring my mother a present of some waterfowl she will be less angry with me. I would like to make my peace with her," he said, almost laughing. "When she is angry she is still frightening-when I was little, I used to believe that when I was not with her she took off her mortality and was the Goddess indeed. But I should not speak like that about her-I can see that you are very devoted to her."

  "She has been as devoted to me as a foster-mother," Morgaine said slowly.

  "Why should she not be? She is your kinswoman, is she not? Your mother-if I recall rightly-was the wife of Cornwall, and is now the wife of the Pendragon ... is it so?"

  Morgaine nodded. It had been so long that she could only half remember Igraine, and now sometimes it seemed to her that she had been long motherless. She had learned to live without need of any mother save the I Goddess, and she had many sisters among the priestesses, so she had no need of any earthly mother. "I have not seen her for many years."

  "I saw Uther's queen but once, from a distance-she is very beautiful, but she seems cold and distant too." Lancelet laughed uneasily. "At my father's court I grew used to women who were interested only in pretty gowns and jewels and their little children, and sometimes, if they were not I married, in finding a husband.... I do not know much about women. You are not like them either. You seem unlike any woman I have ever known."

  Morgaine felt herself blushing. She said low, reminding him, "I am a priestess like your mother-"

  "Oh," he said, "but you are as different from her as night from She is great and terrible and beautiful, and one can only love and adore and I fear her, but you, I feel you are flesh and blood and still real, in spite off all these mysteries around you! You dress like a priestess, and you look like one of them, but when I look into your eyes I see a real woman there whom I could touch." He was laughing and intense, and she thrust her hands into his, and laughed back at him.

  "Oh, yes, I am real, as real as the ground under your feet or the birds in that tree. ..."

  They walked together down by the waterside, Morgaine leading I along a little path, carefully skirting the edges of the processional way.

  "Is it a sacred place?" he asked. "Is it forbidden to climb the Tor unless you are a priestess or a Druid?"

  "Only at the great festivals is it forbidden," she said, "and you certainly come with me. I may go where I will. There is no one on the Tor now except sheep grazing. Would you like to climb it?"

  "Yes," he said. "I remember once when I was a child I climbed it. I thought it was forbidden, and so I was sure that if anyone knew I had been there I would be punished. I still remember the view from the height. I wonder if it was as enormous as it seemed to me when I was a little lad."

  "We can climb the processional way, if you will. It is not so steep, because it winds round and round the Tor, but it is longer."
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  "No," he said. "I would like to climb straight up the slope-but"- he hesitated-"is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?"

  She laughed and told him that she had climbed it often. "And as for the skirts, I am used to them," she said, "but if they get into my way I will not hesitate to tuck them up above my knees."

  His smile was slow and delightful. "Most women I know would think themselves too modest to show their bare legs."

  Morgaine flushed. "I have never thought modesty had much to do with bared legs for climbing-surely men know that women have legs like their own. It cannot be so much of an offense of modesty to see what they must be able to imagine. I know some of the Christian priests speak so, but they seem to think the human body is the work of some devil, not of God, and that no one could possibly see a woman's body without going all into a rage to possess it."

  He looked away from her, and she realized that beneath the outward assurance he was still shy, and that pleased her. Together they set off upward, Morgaine, who was strong and hardy from much running and walking, setting a pace which astonished him and which, after the first few moments, he found it difficult to match. About halfway up the slope Morgaine paused, and it was a definite satisfaction to her to hear him breathing hard when her own breath still came easily, unforced. She wound the loose folds of her skirt up around her waist, letting only a single drape hang to her knees, and went on along the steeper, rockier part of the slope. She had never before had the slightest hesitation in baring her legs, but now, when she knew he was looking at them, she could not keep from remembering that they were shapely and strong, and she wondered if he really thought her immodest after all. At the top, she climbed up over the rim of the hill and sat down in the shadow of the ring stones. A minute or two later he came over the edge behind her and flung himself down, panting.

  When he could speak again, he said, "I suppose I have been riding too much and not walking and climbing enough! You, you are not even short of breath."

  "Well, but I am accustomed to coming up here, and I do not always stop to go round by the processional way," she said.

  "And on the priests' Isle there is not even a shadow of the ring stones," he said, and pointed.

  "No," she said. "In their world there is only their church and its tower. If we wanted to listen with the ears of the spirit we could hear the church bells ... they are shadows here, and in their world, we should be shadows. I sometimes wonder if that is why they avoid the church and keep great fasts and vigils on our holy days-because it would be too uncanny to feel all around them the shadow of the ring stones and perhaps even, for those who still had some shadow of the Sight, to feel and sense all around them the comings and goings of the Druids and hear the whisper of their hymns."

  Lancelet shivered and it seemed that a cloud covered the sun for a moment., "And you, you have the Sight? You can see beyond the veil that separates the worlds?"

  "Everyone has it," Morgaine said, "but I am trained to it beyond most women. Would you see, Galahad?"

  He shivered again and said, "I beg you, do not call me by that name, cousin."

  She laughed. "So even though you live among Christians, you have that old belief of the fairy folk, that one who knows your true name can command your spirit if he will? You know my name, cousin. What would you have me call you? Lance, then?"

  "What you will, save for the name my mother gave me. I still fear her voice when she speaks that name in a certain tone. I seem to have drunk in that fear from her breasts ... ."

  She reached over to him and laid her fingertip over the spot between his brows which was sensitive to the Sight. She breathed softly on it, and heard his gasp of astonishment, for the ring stones above them seemed to melt away into shadows. Before them now the whole top of the Tor stretched, with a little wattle-and-daub church rising beneath a low stone tower which bore a crude painting of an angel.

  Lancelet crossed himself swiftly as a line of grey-clad forms came toward them, as it seemed.

  "Can they see us, Morgaine?" His voice was a rough whisper.

  "Some of them, perhaps, can see us as shadows. A few may think we are some of their own people, or that their eyes are dazzled with the sun and they see what is not there," she said, with a catch of breath, for what she told him was a Mystery which she really should not have spoken to an uninitiated person. But she had never in her life felt so close to anyone; she felt she could not bear it, to keep secrets from him, and made him this gift, telling herself that the Lady wanted him for Avalon. What a Merlin he would make!

  She could hear the soft sound of singing: O thou lamb of God, who drawest away from us all evil of this world, Lord Christ, show us thy mercy ... .

  He was singing it softly under his breath, as the church vanished and the ring stones towered again above them.

  She said quietly, "Please. It is an offense to the Great Goddess to sing that here; the world she has made is not evil, and no priestess of hers will allow man to call it so."

  "As you will." He was silent, and again the shadow of cloud passed over his face. His voice was musical, so sweet that when he ceased singing she longed to hear it again.

  "Do you play the harp, Lance? Your voice is beautiful enough for a bard."

  "As a child, I was taught. After, I had only the usual training befitting a nobleman's son," said Lancelet. "I learned only so great a love of music as to be discontented with my own sounds."

  "Is it so? A Druid in training must be a bard before he is a priest, for music is one of the keys to the laws of the universe."

  Lancelet sighed. "A temptation, that; one of the few reasons I can see for embracing that vocation. But my mother would have me sit in Avalon and play the harp while the world falls apart around us and the Saxons and the wild Northmen burn and ravage and pillage-have you ever seen a village sacked by the Saxons, Morgaine?" Quickly, he answered his own question. "No, you have not, you are sheltered here in Avalon, outside of the world where these things are happening, but I must think of them. I am a soldier, and it seems to me that in these times, defending this beautiful land against their burning and looting is the only work befitting a man." His face was indrawn, looking on dreadful things.

  "If war is so evil," Morgaine said, "why not shelter from it here? So many of the old Druids died in that last of great magics which removed this holy place from profanation, and we have not enough sons to train in their place."

  He sighed. "Avalon is beautiful, and if I could make all kingdoms as peaceful as Avalon, then I would gladly stay here forever, and spend my days in harping and making music and speaking with the spirits of the great trees... but it seems to me no work for a man, to skulk here in safety when others outside must suffer. Morgaine, let us not speak of it now. For today, I beg you, let me forget. The world outside is filled with strife, and I came here for a day or two of peace; will you not give it to me?" His voice, musical and deep, trembled a little, and the pain in it hurt her so profoundly she thought for a moment that she would weep. She reached for his hand and pressed it.

  "Come," she said. "You wanted to see if the view was as you remembered. ..."

  She led him from the ring stones and they looked out over the Lake. Bright water, rippling softly in the sunlight, stretched all around the Island; far below, a little boat, no larger at this height than a fish leaping, streaked the surface. Other islands, indistinct in the mist, rose as dim shapes, blurred by distance and by the magical veil which removed Avalon from the world.

  "Not very far from here," he said, "there is an old fairy fort at the top of a hill, and the view from the wall is such that standing there, a man can see the Tor, and the Lake, and there is an island which is like the shape of a coiled dragon-" He gestured with his shapely hand.

  "I know the place," Morgaine said. "It is on one of the old magical lines of power which crisscross the earth; I was brought there once to feel the earth powers there. The fairy pe
ople knew those things-I can sense them a little, feel the earth and the air tingling. Can you feel it? You too are of that blood, being Viviane's son."

  He said in a low voice, "It is easy to feel the earth and air tingling with power, here in this magical isle."

  He turned away from the view, saying as he yawned and stretched, "That climb must have taxed me more than I thought; and I rode much of the night. I am ready to sit in the sun and eat some of that bread you carried here for us!"

  Morgaine led him into the very center of the ring stones. If he was sensitive at all, she thought, he would be aware of the immense power here.

  "Lie back on the earth and she will fill you with her strength," she said, and handed him a piece of the bread, which she had spread thickly with butter and comb honey before wrapping it in a bit of deerskin. They ate slowly, licking their fingers free of the honey, and he reached for her hand, taking it up playfully and sucking a bit of honey off her finger.

  "How sweet you are, cousin," he said, laughing, and she felt her whole body alive with the touch. She picked up his hand to return the gesture, and suddenly dropped it as if it had burned her; to him it was only a game, perhaps, but it could never be so to her. She turned away, hiding her burning face in the grass. Power from the earth seemed to flow up through her, filling her with the strength of the very Goddess herself.

  "You are a child of the Goddess," she said at last. "Do you know nothing of her Mysteries?"

  "Very little, though my father once told me how I was begotten- a child of the Great Marriage between the king and the land. And so, I suppose, he thought I should be loyal to the very land of Brittany which is mother and father to me. ... I have been at the great center of the old Mysteries, the great Avenue of Stones at Karnak, where once was the ancient Temple; that is a place of power, like to this one. I can feel the power here," he said. He turned over and looked up into her face. "You are like the Goddess of this place," he said wonderingly. "In the old worship, I know, men and women come together under her power, though the priests would like to forbid it, as they would like to tear down all the ancient stones like these above us, and the great ones of Karnak ... . They have already torn down a part of them, but the task is too great."