The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  There is other testing than the running of the deer ... and suddenly it was as if a horn rang out, far and eerie, through the hazel grove ... or was it the hazel grove? And then the leaves lifted and stirred, and there was the rushing of sudden winds, making the branches creak and sway, and a chill of fear rippled through Morgaine's body and blood.

  He is coming ...

  Slowly, reluctant, she turned and saw that they were not alone in the grove. There at the edge between the worlds, he was standing ...

  Never did she ask Accolon what it was that he saw ... she saw only the shadow of the antler crown, the bright leaves of gold and crimson where they stood in a wood gilded with the first buds of spring, the dark eyes ... once she had lain with him on a forest floor like this, but he had not come for her this time, and she knew it. Now she, and even the lady, must step aside. His step, light on the leaves, still somehow raised the wind that kept thrusting floods of air through the grove, so that her hair blew about on her forehead and she felt her cloak flapping with it. He was tall and dark, and he seemed at once to be clothed in the richest garments, and in leaves, and at the same time she would have taken oath that his flesh gleamed smooth and naked before them. He gestured, raising one slender hand, and as if compelled, Accolon moved slowly forward, step by step ... and at the same time it was Accolon that she could see crowned and robed with leaves and antlers, glimmering in the strange motionless light of fairy. Morgaine felt herself buffeted, struck and battered by the wind; in the grove, she knew, were forms and faces she could not clearly see; this testing was not for her, but for the man at her side. It seemed that there were cries and horn-calls; were the riders within the air, or did the beating of their hooves drum on the forest floor with this great noise that drowned out thought? She knew Accolon was no longer at her side. She stood clasping the bark of the hazel tree, her face hidden; she did not know, she would never know, it was not for her to know what form Accolon's kingmaking should take ... that was not in her power to give or to know. She had invoked the powers of the Horned One through the Lady, and he had gone where she could not follow.

  She never knew how long she stood there, clutching at the hazel bark, her brow pressed painfully against the bole of the tree ... and then the wind died and Accolon was with her. They stood together, alone in the hazel grove, hearing only the beat of thunder from a dark and cloudless sky where the sun's rim glared like hot metal behind the moon's dark eclipse disk, and the stars burned against the unfallen night. Accolon's arm was around her. He whispered, "What is it, what is it?"

  "It is the eclipse." Her voice was steadier than she could have believed. She felt her heartbeat quieting to normal at the touch of his arms, warm and alive, holding her. The ground was quite steady under her feet again, the solid earth of the hazel grove, and when she looked down into the pool she saw fragments of broken boughs from the uncanny wind that had ravaged the grove. Somewhere a bird complained at the sudden dark, and at their feet a small pink piglet rooted in the dead leaf mold. Then the light began to steal so brightly that she saw the shadow passing away from the sun. She saw Accolon staring at the brightness and said sharply, "Turn away your eyes-you can be blinded now the darkness is gone!"

  He swallowed and lowered his face to hers. His hair was awry with a wind that was not of this world, and clinging to his hair was a crimson leaf which made Morgaine shiver as they stood beneath the just unfolding buds of the hazel.

  He said in a whisper, "He is gone ... and she ... or was it you? Morgaine, did it happen, was any of it real?"

  Morgaine, looking into his dazzled face, saw something in his eyes, something that had never been there before-the touch of the nonhuman. She reached out and plucked the crimson leaf from his hair, holding it out to him. "You who bear the serpents ... need you question?"

  "Ah-" She saw the shudder run right through him. He struck the crimson leaf from her hand with a savage gesture, letting it fall silent to the forest floor, and said, with a gasp, "It seemed that I rode high above the world and saw such things as come never to mortal man ... " and then he reached for her, with blind urgency tearing at her dress and pulling her down to the ground. She let him do as he would and lay stunned on the damp ground as he thrust blindly into her, driven by a force he hardly understood. It seemed to her, as she lay silent beneath that driving strength, that his face was shadowed again with antlers or with crimson leaves; she had no part in this, she was only the passive earth beneath rain and wind, thunder and lightning bolt, and it was as if the lightning struck through her into the earth beneath ...

  Then the darkness receded and the strange stars shining forth by day were all gone, and Accolon's hands, tender and apologetic, were helping her to rise, to arrange her disordered dress; he bent to kiss her, to stammer some half-explanation, some word of excuse, but she smiled and laid her hand across his lips. "No, no-it is enough-" The grove was silent again, and around them were only the normal sounds of the quiet day.

  She said calmly, "We must go back, my love. We will be missed, and everyone will be shouting and crying out about the eclipse, as if it were some strange marvel of nature ... " and smiled faintly; she had seen something far stranger than an eclipse this day. Accolon's hand was cold and solid in hers.

  He whispered, as they walked, "I knew never that you ... you look like her, Morgaine ... ."

  But I am she. However, Morgaine did not speak the words aloud. He was an initiate; he should have been better prepared, perhaps, for this testing. Yet he had faced it as he must, and he had been accepted by something beyond her own small powers.

  Then cold struck at her heart and she turned to look at his smiling, beloved face. He had been accepted. But that did not mean he would triumph; it meant only that he might attempt the final testing for which this was only the beginning.

  I felt not like this when as Spring Maiden I sent Arthur-whom I knew not to be Arthur-forth for his testing. Ah, Goddess, how young I was then, how young we both were ... mercifully young, for we knew not what we did. And now I am old enough to know what it is that I do, how shall I have courage to send him forth to face death?

  4

  On the eve of Pentecost, Arthur and his queen had bidden those guests with family ties to the throne to dine with them privately. Tomorrow would be the usual great banquet for all of Arthur's subject kings and his Companions, but Gwenhwyfar, dressing herself carefully, felt that this would be the greater ordeal. She had long accepted the inevitable. Her husband and lord would by his act tomorrow make public and irrevocable what had long been known. Tomorrow, Galahad would be made knight and Companion of the Round Table. Oh, she had known it for years, yes, but then Galahad had been only a fair-haired little boy growing up somewhere in King Pellinore's lands. When she had thought of it, she had even been pleased; Lancelet's son, by her own cousin Elaine-now dead in childbed -was a reasonable heir for the King. But now she felt him a living reproach to an aging queen whose life had been without fruit.

  "You are distressed," said Arthur, watching her face as she set the coronet about her hair. "I am sorry, Gwenhwyfar-I thought it would be the way to get to know the lad, as I must if he is to have my throne. Shall I tell them that you are ill? You need not appear-you can meet him at some other time."

  Gwenhwyfar tightened her mouth. "As well now as later."

  He took her hand. "I do not see Lancelet very often anymore-it will be good to speak with him again."

  Her mouth moved in something she knew was not the smile she had intended. "I wonder you will have it so-do you not hate him?"

  Arthur smiled uneasily. "We were all so much younger then. It seems as if it all was in another world, and Lance no more than my dearest and oldest friend, almost my brother, as much as Cai."

  "Cai is your brother too," said Gwenhwyfar, "and his son Arthur is one of your most loyal knights. It seems to me that he would make a better heir than Galahad ... ."

  "Young Arthur is a good man and a trusty Companion. But Cai's blood is not royal
. God knows, in all these years I have wished often enough that Ectorius had in truth been my own father... but he was not, and there's an end of it, Gwen." After a moment, hesitant-he had never spoken of this, not since that other dreadful Pentecost-he said, "I have heard that-the other lad, Morgaine's son-is in Avalon."

  Gwenhwyfar put out a hand as if to avoid a blow. "No-!"

  "I will arrange it so that you need never meet him," he said, not looking at her, "but royal blood is royal blood and something must be done for him. He cannot have my throne, the priests would not have it-"

  "Oh," said Gwenhwyfar, "and if the priests would have it, I suppose you would proclaim Morgaine's son your heir-"

  "There will be those who wonder that he is not," said Arthur. "Would you have me try to explain it to them?"

  "Then you should keep him far from the court," said Gwenhwyfar, thinking, I did not know my voice was so harsh when I was angry. "What place at this court has one who has been reared in Avalon as a Druid?"

  He said dryly, "The Merlin of Britain is one of my councillors and has always been so, Gwen. Those who look to Avalon are always my subjects too. It is written: Other sheep have I which are not of this fold. ..."

  "A blasphemous jest," Gwenhwyfar observed, making her voice gentler, "and hardly suitable for the eve of Pentecost-"

  Arthur said, "Before Pentecost there was always Midsummer, my love. At least, now there are no Midsummer fires lighted, not even on Dragon Island, or, so far as I know, anywhere within three days' ride of Camelot -except on Avalon itself."

  "The priests have set wards on Glastonbury Island, I am sure," said Gwenhwyfar, "so that there shall be no coming and going from that land ... ."

  "It would be a sad day if it should be lost forever," Arthur said. "As it is sad for the peasant folk to lose their own festivals... town folk, perhaps, have no need of the old rites. Oh yes, I know, there is only one name under Heaven by which we may be saved, but perhaps those who live in such close kinship with the earth need something more than salvation ... ."

  Gwenhwyfar started to speak, then held her peace. Kevin was no more than a misshapen old cripple, and a Druid, and the day of the Druids now seemed to her as far away as the time of the Romans. And even Kevin was less known at court as the Merlin of Britain than as a superb harper. The priests did not hold him in reverence as a good and kindly man, as once with Taliesin; Kevin's tongue was quick and ungentle in debate. Yet Kevin's knowledge of all the old ways and the common law was greater even than Arthur's, and Arthur had come into the way of turning to him when it was a question of old law and custom which could not be set aside.

  "If this were not so strictly a family party, I would command that the Merlin perform for us tonight."

  Arthur smiled and said, "I can send to ask of him, if you will, but such music as his is not to be commanded, even by a king. I can bid him dine at our table, and beg him to honor us with a song."

  She smiled back and said, "So the King begs of a subject, rather than the other way around?"

  "There must be a balance in all things," he said. "It is one of the things I have learned in my rule-in some matters, a king cannot command but must sue. Perhaps that was why the Caesars fell, because they fell into what my tutor used to call hubris, thinking they could command outside the legitimate sphere of a king.....ell, my lady, our guests are waiting. Are you sufficiently beautiful?"

  She said, "You are making fun of me again. You know how old I am."

  "You are scarcely older than I," said Arthur, "and my chamberlain tells me I am a handsome man still."

  "Oh, but that is different. Men do not age as women do." She looked at his face, which was only faintly lined with the years-a man in the prime of his life.

  He said, taking her hand, "It would little beseem me to have a maiden at my side for my queen. You are suited to me." They moved toward the door; the chamberlain approached and spoke in a low voice, and Arthur turned to Gwenhwyfar. "There will be other guests at our table. Gawaine sent word that his mother has come, and so we cannot but invite Lamorak as well, since he is her consort and travelling companion," said Arthur. "I have not seen Morgause in many years, God knows, but she is my kinswoman too. And King Uriens and Morgaine with their sons ... "

  "Then it will be a family party indeed."

  "Yes, with Gareth and Gawaine-Gaheris is in Cornwall and Agravaine could not leave Lothian," said Arthur, and Gwenhwyfar felt pricked with an old grievance ... Lot of Lothian had so many sons. "Well, my dear, our guests are assembled in the little hall. Shall we go down to them?"

  The great hall of the Round Table was Arthur's domain-a man's place, where warriors and kings met. But the little hall with the hangings she had ordered from Gaul and the trestle tables and benches-that was where Gwenhwyfar felt most a queen. She was growing daily more shortsighted; at first, though there was still plenty of light, she saw only stripes of color from the ladies' gowns and the brilliant indoor robes worn by the men. That huge figure there, well over six feet with a great shock of sandy hair, that was Gawaine-he came to bow before the King and then, rising, to embrace his cousin in a great bear hug. Gareth followed him, more modestly, and Cai came to clap Gareth on the shoulder, to call him Handsome in the old way, and to ask after his brood of children, still too young to come to court-the lady Lionors was, he said, still abed after their latest, and had stayed in their castle northward by the Roman wall. Was that eight now, or nine? Gwenhwyfar had seen the lady Lionors only twice, because always, according to Gareth, she was breeding or lying-in or still suckling her latest. Gareth was no longer pretty-faced, but good-looking as ever, and as Arthur and Gawaine and Gareth grew older, the resemblance between them all grew ever stronger. Now Gareth was being embraced by a slender man with dark curling hair streaked with grey, and Gwenhwyfar bit her lip; Lancelet changed not at all with the years, save to grow yet more handsome.

  Uriens had none of that magical immunity to time. He looked at last really old, though he was still upright and strong. His hair was all white, and she heard him explaining to Arthur that he had but recently recovered from the lung fever, and had that spring buried his oldest son, savaged by a wild pig.

  Arthur said, "So you will be King of North Wales one day, sir Accolon? Well, so it shall be-Ood giveth and taketh, so it says in Holy Writ."

  Uriens would have bent to kiss Gwenhwyfar's hand, but she leaned instead to kiss the old man on the cheek. He was foppishly dressed in green, with a handsome cloak of green and brown.

  "Our queen grows ever younger," he said, smiling with good humor. "One would think you had dwelled in the fairy country, kinswoman."

  Gwenhwyfar laughed. "Perhaps I should paint lines in my face then, lest the bishops and priests think I have learned spells unseemly for a Christian woman-but such jesting is uncanny on the eve of a holy day. Well, Morgaine"-for once she could greet her sister-in-law with a jest- "you seem younger than I, and I know you are older. What is your magic?"

  "No magic," said Morgaine in her rich low voice. "It is only that there is so little to occupy my mind, in that country at the end of the world, that it seems to me that time does not pass there, and so, perhaps, that is why I grow no older."

  Now she looked closer, Gwenhwyfar could indeed see the small traces of time in Morgaine's face; her skin was still smooth and unmarred, but there were tiny creases around her eyes and the eyelids drooped a little. The hand she gave Gwenhwyfar was thin and bony, so that her rings hung loose. Gwenhwyfar thought, Morgaine is at least five years older than I. And suddenly it seemed to her that they were not women in middle life, but those two young girls who had met in Avalon.

  Lancelet had come first to greet Morgaine. Gwenhwyfar would not have believed that she could still be torn with this raging passion of jealousy ... now Elaine is gone ... and Morgaine's husband is so old he surely cannot look to see another Christmas. She heard Lancelet speak some laughing compliment, heard Morgaine's low sweet laughter.

  But she does not look at Lance
let like a lover ... her eyes turn to Prince Accolon-he is a goodly man too ... well, her husband is more than twice her age ... and Gwenhwyfar felt a stab of self-righteous disapproval.

  "We should go to table," she said, beckoning to Cai. "Galahad must go at midnight to watch by his arms; and perhaps, like many young men, he would like to rest a little beforehand so he will not be sleepy-"

  "I shall not be sleepy, lady," the young man said, and Gwenhwyfar felt again the pain. She would so gladly have had this fair young man as her son. He was tall now, broad-shouldered and big as Lancelet had never been. His face seemed to shine with scrubbing and with a calm happiness. "This is all so new to me-Camelot is such a beautiful city, I can hardly believe it is real! And I rode here with my father-all my life my mother spoke of him as if he were a king or a saint, quite beyond mortal men."

  Morgaine said, "Oh, Lancelet is mortal enough, Galahad, and if you come to know him well enough, you will know it too."

  Galahad bowed politely to Morgaine. He said, "I remember you. You came and took Nimue from us, and my mother wept-is my sister well, lady?"

  "I have not seen her for some years," Morgaine said, "but if it was not well with her, I would have heard."

  "I remember only that I was angry with you for telling me I was wrong about everything-you seemed very certain, and my mother-"

  "No doubt your mother told you I am an evil sorceress." She smiled -smug as a cat, Gwenhwyfar thought-at the transparent blush that covered Galahad's face. "Well, Galahad, you are not the first to think me so." She smiled to Accolon too, who returned the smile so openly that Gwenhwyfar was shocked.

  Galahad said bluntly, "And are you a sorceress, then, lady?"

  "Well," said Morgaine, with that cat-claw smile again, "no doubt your mother had reason to think me so. Since now she is gone, I may tell you all-Lancelet, did Elaine never tell you how she begged and besought me for a charm that would turn your eyes on her?"