The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "Morgaine, who is that beautiful young man-the one beside Cai and Gawaine, the one in crimson?"

  Morgaine laughed. "Your nephew, Aunt; Viviane's son Galahad. But the Saxons named him Elf-arrow, and mostly he is called Lancelet."

  "Who would have thought that Viviane, who is so plain, should have such a handsome son! Her older son Balan - now he is not handsome; rugged, strong and hearty, and trustworthy as an old dog, but he is like Viviane. No one alive could call her beautiful!

  The words cut Morgaine to the heart. I am said to be like Viviane; does , everyone think me ugly, then? That girl said, little and ugly as one of the fairy folk. She said coldly, "I think Viviane very beautiful."

  Morgause snickered. "It is easy to see you have been reared m Avalon, which is even more isolated than most nunneries. I do not think you know what men desire for beauty in a woman."

  "Come now," said Igraine soothingly, "there are virtues other than beauty. This Lancelet has his mother's eyes, and no one has ever denied that Viviane's eyes are beautiful; Viviane has so much charm that no one knows or cares whether or no she is beautiful, only that she has pleased them with her beautiful eyes and her fine voice. Beauty is not only in queenly stature and a fair complexion and golden curls, Morgause."

  Morgause said, "Ah, you too are unworldly, Igraine. You are a queen, and everyone thinks a queen is beautiful. And you were married to the man you loved well. Most of us are not so fortunate, and it's a comfort to know that other men admire one's beauty. If you had lived all your life with old Gorlois, you too would be glad of your fair face and beautiful hair, and take pains to outshine those women who have nothing but charm and nice eyes and a sweet voice. Men are like babies-they see only the first thing they want, a full breast-"

  "Sister!" said Igraine, and Morgause said, with a wry smile, "Ah well, it has been easy for you to be virtuous, sister, since the man you loved was a king. Most of us are not so fortunate."

  "Do you not love Lot after all these years, Morgause?" Morgause shrugged. "Love is a diversion for the bower and the winter fireside. Lot takes counsel of me in all things, and leaves the ruling of his household to me in time of war; and whenever he has plunder of gold or jewels or fine garments, I have first choice. So I am grateful to him, and he has never had the shadow of cause to think he rears another man's son. But that does not mean I must be blind when a young man has fine features and shoulders like a young bull, either-or an eye for his queen."

  I doubt not, thought Morgaine, faintly disgusted, that to Morgause this seems great virtue and she thinks of herself as a very virtuous queen. For the first time in many years she felt confused, knowing that virtue could not be so simply defined. The Christians valued chastity above all other virtues, while on Avalon the highest virtue was to give over your body to the God or Goddess in union with all of the flow of nature; to each, the virtue of the other was the blackest sin and ingratitude to their own God. If one of them was right, the other was of necessity evil. It seemed to her that the Christians were rejecting the holiest of the things under heaven, but to them, she would not be considered much better than a harlot. If she should speak of the Beltane fires as a sacred duty to the Goddess, even Igraine, who had been reared in Avalon, would stare and think that some fiend spoke through her.

  She turned her eyes back to the young men approaching: Arthur, fair and grey-eyed; Lancelet, slender, graceful; and the huge, red-haired Gawaine, who towered over the others like a bull over a pair of fine Spanish horses. Arthur came and bowed to his mother.

  "My lady." He recollected himself. "Mother, has this day been long for you?"

  "No longer than for you, my son. Will you sit here?"

  "For a moment, Mother." As he seated himself, Arthur, though he had eaten well, absentmindedly took a handful of the sweets that Morgaine had put aside from her plate. It made Morgaine realize again how very young Arthur was. Still munching on almond paste, he said, "Mother, do you want to marry again? If you do, I will find the very richest-and the very kindest -of the kings to marry you. King Uriens of Northern Wales is widowed; I have no doubt he would be happy to have a good wife."

  Igraine smiled. "Thank you, dear son. But after being wife to the High King, I do not want to be wife to a lesser man. And I loved your father well; I have no wish to replace him."

  "Well, Mother, let it be as you wish," said Arthur, "only I was afraid you would be lonely."

  "It is hard to be lonely in a nunnery, son, with other women. And God is there."

  Morgause said, "I would rather dwell in a hermitage in the forest than in a house full of chattering ladies! If God is there, it must be hard for him to get a word in edgewise!"

  For a moment Morgaine saw the sprightly mother of her own childhood as Igraine retorted, "I imagine, like any henpecked husband, he spends more time in listening to his brides than in speaking to them-but if one listens hard enough for the voice of God it is not far away. But have you ever been quiet enough to listen and hear him, Morgause?"

  Laughing, Morgause made a gesture, as a fighter who acknowledges a hit. "And what of you, Lancelet?" she asked, smiling enticingly. "Are you betrothed yet, or even married?"

  He laughed and shook his head. "Ah, no, Aunt. No doubt my father, King Ban, would find me a wife. But as yet I wish to follow my king and serve him."

  Arthur, smiling up at his friend, clapped a hand on his shoulder. "With my two strong cousins here, I am guarded as well, I make no doubt, as any of those old Caesars themselves!"

  Igraine said softly, "Arthur, I think Cai is jealous; say something kind to him," and Morgaine, hearing this, looked up at the sullen-looking, scarred Cai. Hard for him, indeed; after years of thinking Arthur his father's unregarded fosterling, now to be supplanted by a younger brother-a younger brother become king-and to find that brother surrounded by two new friends to whom his heart was given.

  Arthur said, "When this land is at peace we shall find wives and castles for all of you, no doubt. But you, Cai, shall keep mine for me as my own chamberlain."

  "I am content with that, foster-brother-forgive me, I should say, my lord and king-"

  "No," said Arthur, turning right round to embrace Cai. "God strike me if I ever ask that you, brother, should call me any such thing!"

  Igraine swallowed hard. "Arthur, when you speak so, sometimes it seems to me that I hear your father's very voice."

  "I wish for my own sake, madam, that I could have known him better. But I know, too, that a king cannot always do as he chooses, nor a queen." He lifted Igraine's hand and kissed it, and Morgaine thought: So he has already learned that much of king craft.

  "I suppose," Igraine said, "that they have already set about telling you that you should be married."

  "Oh, I suppose so," Arthur said, with a shrug. "Every king, I suppose, has a daughter he would like to marry to the High King. I think I will ask the Merlin which one I ought to marry." His eyes sought Morgaine's and for a moment it seemed they held a terrible vulnerability. "I don't know so very much about women, after all."

  Lancelet said gaily, "Why then, we must find you the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, and the highest born."

  "No," Cai said slowly, "since Arthur says very sensibly that all women are alike to him, find him the one with the best dowry."

  Arthur chuckled. "I'll leave it to you then, Cai, and I've no doubt I'll be as well wed as I am crowned. I'd suggest you take counsel of the Merlin and no doubt His Holiness the Archbishop will want some say in the matter. And what of you, Morgaine? Shall I find you a husband, or will you be one of my queen's ladies-in-waiting? Who should be higher in the kingdom than the daughter of my mother?"

  Morgaine found her voice. "My lord and king, I am content in Avalon. Pray don't trouble yourself with finding me a husband." Not even, she thought fiercely, not even if I am with child! Not even then!

  "So be it, sister, though I doubt not. His Holiness will have something to say about it-he will have it that the women of Avalon are evil sorcer
esses or harpies, all."

  Morgaine did not answer, and Arthur glanced back almost guiltily at the other kings and councillors; the Merlin was looking at him, and he said, "I see, I have spent all the time I am allowed with my mother and my sister and my Companions; I must go back to the business of being a king again. Madam." He bowed to Igraine, more formally to Morgause, but as he approached Morgaine he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She stiffened.

  Mother, Goddess, what a tangle we have made. He says he will always love me and long for me, and that is the one thing he must not do! If Lancelet only felt so ... She sighed, and Igraine came and took her hand.

  "You are tired, daughter. That long standing in the sun this morning has wearied you. You are sure you would not rather come back with me to the convent where it is so quiet? No? Well, then, Morgause, take her back to your tent, if you will."

  "Yes, dear sister, go and rest." She watched the young men walk away, Arthur tactfully tempering his pace to Cai's halting step.

  MORGAINE RETURNED with Morgause to their tent; she was weary, but she had to remain alert and courteous while Lot talked of some plan Arthur had spoken of-fighting on horseback, with attack tactics which could strike down armed bands of Saxon raiders and foot soldiers, most of whom were not trained battle troops.

  "The boy's a master of strategy," Lot said. "It might well work; after all, it was bands of Picts and Scots, and the Tribes, fighting from cover, who could demoralize the legions, so I am told-the Romans were so used to orderly fighting by the rules, and to foes who stood to give battle. Horsemen always have an advantage over any foot soldiers; the Roman cavalry units, I have been told, were always the ones who had the greater victories."

  Morgaine remembered Lancelet, talking with passion of his theories of fighting. If Arthur shared that enthusiasm and was willing to work with Lancelet to build cavalry units, then a time might come, indeed, when all the Saxon hordes were driven from this land. Then peace would reign, greater than the legendary two hundred years of the Pax Romana. And if Arthur bore the sword of Avalon and the Druid regalia, then indeed the ensuing time might be a reign of wonder ... . Viviane had spoken once of Arthur as a king come out of legend, bearing a legendary sword. And the Goddess might rule again in this land, not the dead God of the Christians with his suffering and death.... She drifted into daydream, waking to reality only when Morgause shook her shoulder lightly.

  "Why, my dear, you are half asleep, go to your bed; we will excuse you," she said, and sent her own waiting-woman to help Morgaine from her garments, to wash her feet and braid her hair.

  She slept long and deeply, without dreams, the weariness of many days suddenly descending on her. But when she waked, she hardly knew where she was or what had happened, only that she was deathly sick and must stumble outside the tent to vomit. When she straightened up, her head ringing, Morgause was there, a firm and kindly hand to help her back inside. So Morgaine remembered her from earliest childhood, Morgause intermittently kind and sharp. Now she wiped Morgaine's sweating forehead with a wet towel and then sat beside her, telling the waiting-woman to bring her kinswoman a cup of wine.

  "No, no, I don't want it, I shall be sick again-"

  "Drink it," Morgause said sternly, "and try to eat this piece of bread, it is hard and won't sicken you-you need something in your belly at these times." She laughed. "Indeed, something in the belly is what brings all this trouble on you."

  Humiliated, Morgaine looked away from her.

  Morgause's voice was kind again. "Come, girl, we've all been through it. So you're breeding-what of it? You're not the first or the last. Who is the father, or shouldn't I ask? I saw you looking at Viviane's handsome son-was he the lucky one? Who could blame you? No? A child of the Beltane fires, then? I'd have thought as much. And why not?"

  Morgaine clenched her fists against Morgause's well-meant briskness. "I won't have it; when I return to Avalon, I know what to do."

  Morgause looked at her, troubled. "Oh, my dear, must you? In Avalon they would welcome a child to the God, and you're of the royal Avalon line. I won't say I've never done the same-I told you I had been very careful never to bear a child which was not Lot's, which does not mean I slept alone all the time when he was away on his wars. Well, why should I? I don't suppose he always lay down alone! But an old midwife told me once, and she knew her business well, I must say-she told me that a woman should never try to cast out the first child she conceives, for if she did, it might injure her womb so that she could never bear another."

  "I am a priestess, and Viviane grows old; I do not want it to interfere with my duties in the temple." And even as she spoke, she knew she was hiding her truth; there were women in Avalon who pursued their work to the last few months of their pregnancies, and then the other women cheerfully divided their tasks so that they could rest before the birth; and afterward, they even had time to nurse their babies before they were sent to fostering. Indeed, some of their daughters were priestess-reared, as Igraine had been. Morgause herself had been reared to her twelfth year in Avalon as Viviane's foster-daughter.

  Morgause looked at her shrewdly. "Yes, I think every woman feels like that when first she carries a babe in her womb-trapped, angry, something she can't change and is afraid of. I know it was so with Igraine, it was so with me, I suppose it is so with every woman." Her arms went out and circled Morgaine, holding her close. "But, dear child, the Goddess is kind. As the child grows quick within you, the Goddess will put love in your heart for him, even if you care nothing for the man who put him there. Child, I was married at fifteen to a man far older; and on the day I knew I was with child I was ready to cast myself into the sea-it seemed the end of my youth, the end of my life. Ah, don't cry," she added, stroking Morgaine's soft hair, "you'll feel better soon. I have no liking for going about with a big belly and piddling like a babe in breechclouts all the day long, but the time will pass, and a babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain. I have borne four and would willingly have another- so often I had wished one of my sons had been a daughter. If you'd rather not foster your babe in Avalon, I'll foster him for you-what do you think of that?"

  Morgaine drew a long, sobbing breath, raising her head from Morgause's shoulder. "I am sorry-I have wept all over your fine gown."

  Morgause shrugged. "If nothing worse should happen to it, it is well. See? The sickness passes and for the rest of the day you will feel well. Do you think Viviane would spare you for a visit to me? You can return to Lothian with us, if you will-you have not seen the Orkneys, and a change will do you good."

  Morgaine thanked her, but said that she must return to Avalon, and that before she went, she must go and pay her respects to Igraine.

  "I would not counsel you to confide in her," Morgause said. "She has grown so holy she would be shocked, or think it her duty to be so."

  Morgaine smiled weakly-she had no intention of confiding in Igraine, nor for that matter in anyone else. Before Viviane could know, there would no longer be anything for her to know. She was grateful for Morgause's advice, and for her goodwill and good advice, but she did not intend to heed it. She told herself fiercely that it was her own privilege to choose: she was a priestess, and whatsoever she did should be tempered with her own judgment.

  All through the leavetaking with Igraine, which was strained-and interrupted, more than once, by that damnable bell calling the nuns to their duties-she was thinking that Morgause was more like the mother she remembered than Igraine herself. Igraine had grown old and hard and pious, it seemed to Morgaine, and she bade her farewell with relief. Returning to Avalon, she knew, she was returning home; now she had no other home anywhere in the world.

  But if Avalon was no longer home to her, what then?

  20

  It was early in the day when Morgaine slipped quietly out of the House of Maidens and into the wild marsh behind the Lake. She skirted the Tor and came out into the patch of forest; with luck she could find what she wanted here wi
thout wandering into the mists.

  She knew the things she needed-a single root and then the bark of a bush, and two herbs. They were all to be found in Avalon. She could have taken them from the storerooms in the House of the Maidens, but she would have had to explain why she wanted them, and she shrank from that. She wanted neither the teasing nor the sympathy of the other women; better to find them herself. She knew something of herb lore, and of the midwife's skill. She need not place herself, for this, at the mercy of any other person.

  One herb she wanted grew in the garden in Avalon; she had picked it unnoticed. For the others she must go afield, and she went a considerable distance before she noticed that she had not yet gone into the mists. Looking about, she realized that she had wandered into a part of Avalon she did not know-and that was utter madness. She had lived in Avalon for ten years or more, she knew every rise and knoll, every path and almost every tree. It was impossible that she could be lost in Avalon, and yet it was true; she had wandered into a thicker patch of forest, where the trees were older and closer than any she had seen, and there were bushes and herbs and trees on which she had never laid eyes.

  Could it be that she had somehow strayed through the mists without knowing it, and was now on the mainland surrounding the Lake and the Island? No; she mentally retraced every step of her journey. There had been no mist. In any case, Avalon was almost an island, and if she had trespassed its borders, she would have come only to the water of the Lake. There was the hidden, almost dry, horse path, but she was nowhere near to that.

  Even on that day when she and Lancelet had found Gwenhwyfar in the mists, they had been surrounded by marsh, not forest. No, she was not on the Isle of the Priests, and unless she had somehow developed the magical ability to walk over the Lake without swimming, she was not on the mainland either. Nor was she in any part of Avalon. She glanced up, looking to take her bearings by the sun, but she could not see the sun anywhere; it was full day now, but the light was like a soft radiance in the sky, seeming to come from everywhere at once.