The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "Is it so?" Gwydion asked, and Morgaine could see him taking this piece of information and putting it away like gold in a miser's chest. "Now I recall," he said slowly, "a tale that went about of some feast at Lot's court when Lancelet was no more than a youth-something of a ballad made when they thrust a harp into his hand and bade him play, and he sang some lay of Rome or the days of Alexander, I know not what, of the love of knightly companions, and they jeered at him for it. Since then, his songs are all of the beauty of our queen, or knightly tales of adventure and dragons."

  Morgaine felt she could not bear the scorn in his voice. She said, "If you came to claim a gift for your knighting, I will speak with you when I have seen Arthur, but not now."

  Gwydion looked down at his shoes. It was the first time she had ever seen him less than self-assured and confident. "Mother, the King has sent for me too-may I go in your company?"

  She liked him a little better, that he should confess his own vulnerability this way. "Arthur means you no harm, my son, but if it will please you to go with us before him, he can do no worse than send you away and say he would rather speak to you separately."

  "Come, then, stepbrother," said Accolon, taking Gwydion's arm in such a way that the younger man could see the serpents tattooed on Accolon's wrists. "The King shall go first with his lady, and you and I will follow...."

  Morgaine, at Uriens' side, thought that she liked it well that Accolon should befriend her son and acknowledge him brother. At the same time she felt herself shiver, and Uriens took her hand. "Are you cold, Morgaine? Take your cloak ... "

  IN THE KING'S apartments a fire burned, and Morgaine heard the sound of a harp. Arthur sat in a wooden chair heaped with cushions. Gwenhwyfar was setting stitches in a narrow band which twinkled with gilt thread. The servant announced ceremoniously, "The King and Queen of North Wales, and their son Accolon, and sir Lancelet-"

  Gwenhwyfar looked up at Lancelet's name, then laughed and said, "No, though he is very like. Sir Mordred, is it not, that we saw knighted this day?"

  Gwydion bowed to the Queen but did not speak. But in this family gathering Arthur was not one to stand upon ceremony.

  "Sit down, all of you-let me send for wine-"

  Uriens said, "I have had enough wine this day, Arthur, to float a ship down to the shore! None for me, thank you-perhaps the young men have better heads for it."

  Gwenhwyfar moved toward Morgaine, and Morgaine knew that if she did not speak now, Arthur would begin his parley with the men and she would be expected to sit in a corner with the Queen and keep silence, or talk in whispers of women's things-embroidery, servants, who at the court was breeding ...

  She gestured to the servant with the wine. "I will have a cup," she said, remembering, like a pain within her, when as priestess of Avalon she had been proud to drink only of the Holy Well. She sipped and said, "I am deeply distressed at the welcome of the Saxon envoys, Arthur. No-" She silenced him as he would have spoken. "I do not speak as a woman meddling in affairs of state. I am Queen of North Wales, and Duchess of Cornwall, and what concerns the realm touches me too."

  "Then you should be glad for peace," Arthur said. "I have worked all my lifetime, it seems, since I was old enough to hold a sword, to end the wars with the Saxons. At that time I believed the war would be ended by driving them back over the seas whence they came. But peace is peace, and if it comes by making treaty with them, let it be so. There are more ways to deal with a bull than roasting him for dinner. It is equally effective to geld him and make him pull your plow."

  "Or save him to serve your cows at stud? Will you ask your subject kings to marry their daughters to Saxons, Arthur?"

  "That too, perhaps," said Arthur. "Saxons are no more than men- do you call to mind that song Lancelet sang? They have the same longings for peace-they too have lived on lands ravaged and burned again and again. Will you say I should have fought on till the last of them was dead or driven out? I thought women longed for peace."

  "I too long for peace, and welcome it, even with Saxons," Morgaine said, "but have you made them give up their Gods too, and accept your own, that you made them swear to you on the cross?"

  Gwenhwyfar had been listening intently. "There are no other Gods, Morgaine. They have agreed to put aside the devils they worshipped and called Gods, that is all. Now they worship the one true God and the Christ sent in his name to save mankind."

  Gwydion said, "If you truly believe that, my lady and queen, then for you it is truth-all the Gods are One God and all the Goddesses one Goddess. But would you presume to declare one truth for all of mankind throughout the world?"

  "Call you that presumption? It is the one truth," Gwenhwyfar said, "and a day must come when all men everywhere will acknowledge it."

  "I tremble for my people that you say so," said King Uriens. "I have pledged myself to protect the sacred groves, and my son after me."

  "Why, I thought you a Christian, my lord of North Wales-"

  "And so I am," said Uriens, "but I will not speak ill of another's God."

  "But there are no such Gods," Gwenhwyfar began.

  Morgaine opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur said, "Enough of this, enough-I did not bid you here to discuss theology! If you have the stomach for that, there are priests enough who will listen and argue. Go you and convert them if you must! What did you come here to say, Morgaine? Only that you are wary of the good faith of the Saxons, oaths on the cross or no?"

  "No," Morgaine said, and as she spoke, she noted that Kevin was in the room, sitting in the shadows with his harp. Good; the Merlin of Britain could witness this protest in the name of Avalon! "I call the Merlin to witness, you had them swear an oath on the cross-and you transformed the holy sword of Avalon, Excalibur, the very sword of the Holy Regalia, into your cross for the oath! Lord Merlin, is this not blasphemy?"

  Arthur said quickly, "It was only a gesture, to catch the imagination of everyone, Morgaine-such as the gesture Viviane made, when she bade me fight for peace in the name of Avalon with that selfsame sword."

  The Merlin said in his rich low voice, "Morgaine, my dear, the cross is a symbol older than Christ and venerated before ever there were followers of the Nazarene. In Avalon there are priests brought here by the patriarch Joseph of Arimathea, who worship at the side of the Druids ... ."

  "But they were priests who did not try to say that their God is the only God," Morgaine said angrily, "and I doubt not that Bishop Patricius would silence them if he could, and preach only his own brand of bigotry!"

  "Bishop Patricius and his beliefs are not at issue here, Morgaine," said Kevin. "Let the uninitiated think that the Saxons swore on the cross of Christ's sacrifice and death. We too have a sacrificed God, whether we see him in the cross, or in the sheaf of barley which must die to the earth and be raised again from the dead-"

  Gwenhwyfar said, "Your sacrificed Gods, Lord Merlin, were sent only that mankind might be ready when the Christ came to die for man's sins-"

  Arthur moved his hand impatiently. "Be quiet, all of you! The Saxons swore to peace on a symbol meaningful to them-"

  But Morgaine interrupted him. "It was from Avalon you received the sacred sword, and to Avalon that you swore an oath to preserve and guard the Holy Mysteries! And now you would make the sword of the Mysteries into the cross of death, the gallows for the dead! When Viviane came to court, she came to demand of you that you fullfil your oaths to Avalon. Then she was struck down! Now I am come to finish that work she left undone, and to demand from you that holy sword of Excalibur which you have presumed to twist into the service of your Christ!"

  Gwenhwyfar said, "A day will come when all false Gods shall vanish and all pagan symbols shall be put to the service of the one true God and his Christ."

  "I did not speak to you, you canting fool," said Morgaine furiously, "and that day will come over my corpse! You Christians have saints and martyrs-do you think Avalon will have none?" And as she spoke she shuddered, knowing that, unaware, she had spok
en through the Sight, and there was the body of a knight, draped in black with a cross banner over his body.....he wanted to turn, as she could not do here in this company, and throw herself into Accolon's arms.

  "How you exaggerate all things, Morgaine!" said Arthur with an uneasy laugh, and that laugh maddened her, driving away both the fear and the Sight. She drew herself up to her full height, and knew that for the first time in many years she spoke mantled in all the power and authority of a priestess of Avalon.

  "Hear me, Arthur of Britain! As the force and power of Avalon set you on the throne, so the force and power of Avalon can bring you down into ruin! Think well how you desecrate the Holy Regalia! Think never to put it to the service of your Christian God, for every thing of Power carries its own curse-"

  "Enough!" Arthur had risen from his chair, and his frown was like a storm. "Sister or no, do not presume to give orders to the King of all Britain."

  "I do not speak to my brother," she retorted, "but to the King! Avalon set you on the throne, Arthur, Avalon gave you that sword you have misused, and in the name of Avalon I now call on you to render it back again to the Holy Regalia! If you wish to treat it only as a sword, then call your smiths to make you another!"

  There was a dreadful silence, and it seemed to her for a moment that her words were falling into the great echoing empty spaces between the worlds, that far away in Avalon the Druids must wake, that even Raven must stir and cry out against Arthur's betrayal. But the first sound she heard was nervous laughter.

  "What nonsense you are talking, Morgaine!" It was Gwenhwyfar who spoke. "You know Arthur cannot do that!"

  "Do not interfere, Gwenhwyfar," Morgaine said, with deadly menace. "It has nothing to do with you, except that if it was you who bade Arthur break oath to Avalon, beware!"

  "Uriens," said Gwenhwyfar, "will you stand idle and let your unruly wife speak so to the High King?"

  Uriens coughed; his voice when he spoke sounded as nervous as Gwenhwyfar's. "Morgaine, perhaps you are being unreasonable ... Arthur made a dramatic gesture for political reasons, to catch the imagination of the crowd. If he did so with a sword of power, well, so much the better. The Gods can take care of their own worship, my dear-do you think the Goddess needs your help to protect her own?"

  At that moment, if Morgaine had had a weapon, she would have struck Uriens down. He had come to support her, and now he deserted her this way?

  Arthur said, "Morgaine, since you are so troubled, let me say this for your ears alone: I intended no desecration. If the sword of Avalon also serves as a cross for an oath, does it not mean that Avalon's powers are joined in the service of this land? So Kevin advised me-"

  "Oh, aye, I knew him traitor when he had Viviane buried outside the Holy Isle-" Morgaine began.

  "Be it so or otherwise," said Arthur, "I gave the Saxon kings the gesture they wanted, to swear on my sword!"

  "But it is not your sword!" Morgaine retorted, at white heat. "It is the sword of Avalon! And if you bear it not as you have sworn, then shall it be given into the hands of one who will be true to his oath-"

  "Sword of Avalon it may have been a generation ago," said Arthur, who was now as angry as Morgaine; he clenched his hand over the hilt of Excalibur, as if someone would take it from him that very moment. "A sword is his who uses it, and I have won the right to call it mine by driving forth all enemies from this land! I bore it in battle, and I won this land at Mount Badon-"

  "And you have tried to subject it to the service of the Christian God," Morgaine retorted. "Now in the name of the Goddess I demand of you that it be returned to the shrine of the Lake!"

  Arthur drew a long breath. Then he said in a voice of studied calm, "I refuse. If the Goddess wants this sword returned, then she herself will have to take it from my hands." Then his voice softened. "My dear sister, I beg of you, do not quarrel with me about the name by which we call our Gods. You yourself have said to me that all the Gods are the One God."

  And he will never see why what he has said is wrong, Morgaine thought in despair. Yet he has called on the Goddess, if she wants his sword to come and take it. Be it so, then; Lady, may I be your hand. She bowed her head for a moment and said, "To the Goddess, then, I leave the disposal of her sword." And when she has done with you, Arthur, you will wish you had chosen to deal with me instead ... . And she went to sit beside Gwenhwyfar. Arthur beckoned to Gwydion.

  "Sir Mordred," he said, "I would have made you one of my Companions at any time you asked it of me. I would have done so for Morgaine's sake and for my own-you needed not to force knighthood from me by a trick."

  "I thought if you made me knight without some good excuse such as this," Gwydion said, "there might be talk of a kind you did not wish. Will you forgive me the trick, then, sir?"

  "If Lancelet has forgiven you, I have no reason to bear you any grudge," said Arthur, "and since he has gifted you richly, it would seem he cherishes no wrath. I wish it lay in my power to acknowledge you my son, Mordred. Until a few years ago, I knew not that you existed- Morgaine told me not what came of that kingmaking. You do know, I suppose, that to the priests and bishops, your very existence is sign of something unholy."

  "Do you believe that, sir?"

  Arthur looked his son directly in the eye. "Oh-times I believe one thing, times another, like all men. It does not matter what I believe. The facts are thus-I cannot acknowledge you before all men, though you are such a son as any man, let alone a childless king, would be glad and proud to own. Galahad must inherit my throne."

  "If he lives," said Gwydion, and at Arthur's shocked look, added quietly, "No, sir, I am not making a threat to his life. I will swear any oath you will, by cross or oak, by the Sacred Well or by these serpents I bear" -he thrust out his wrists-"which you bore before me: may the Goddess send living serpents like these to take my life if ever I raise a hand against my cousin Galahad. But I have seen it-he will die, honorably, for the cross he worships."

  "God save us from evil!" cried out Gwenhwyfar.

  "Indeed, lady. But if he does not live to ascend your throne-my father and my king, he is a warrior and a knight, and no more than mortal, and you may live to be older than King Uriens. What then?"

  "Should Galahad die before he comes to my throne-God stand between him and harm-" said Arthur, "I will have no choice. Royal blood is royal blood, and yours is royal, from the Pendragon and from Avalon. Should such an evil day come, I suppose even the bishops would rather see you on the throne than leave this land to such chaos as they feared when Uther died."

  He rose and stood with his two hands on his son's shoulders, looking into his eyes. "Would that I could say more, my son. But done is done. I will say only that-I wish with all my heart that you had been the son of my queen."

  "And so do I," said Gwenhwyfar, rising to embrace him.

  "Still, I will not treat you as a baseborn churl," said Arthur. "You are Morgaine's son. Mordred, Duke of Cornwall, Companion of the Round Table, you shall go to be the voice of the Round Table among the Saxon kings. You shall have the right to do the King's justice, and to collect my taxes and revenues, keeping a suitable portion to maintain such a household as the King's chancellor should have. And, if you wish it, I give you permission to marry the daughter of one of the Saxon kings, which will give you a throne of your own, even if you come never to mine."

  Gwydion bowed and said, "You are generous, sir."

  Yes, Morgaine thought, and this would keep Gwydion well out of the way, until and unless there was need of him. Arthur was skilled at kingcraft! She raised her head and said, "You have been so generous to my son, Arthur, may I trespass again on your kindness?"

  Arthur looked wary, but he said, "Ask me something I can grant, my sister, and it will be my pleasure to give it."

  "You have made my son Duke of Cornwall, but he knows little of Cornwall's land as yet. I have heard that Duke Marcus now claims all that country. Will you come with me to Tintagel, and investigate this matter and this claim?"
/>
  Arthur's face relaxed; had he been braced for her to raise the matter of the sword Excalibur again? No, my brother, not ever again before this court; when again I stretch forth my hand for Excalibur, it will be in my own country and in the place of the Goddess.

  "I have not been in Cornwall for more years than I can reckon," Arthur said, "and I cannot leave Camelot until Midsummer is past. But remain here in Camelot as my guest, and then we will go together to Tintagel, and see if Duke Marcus, or any other man God ever made, will dispute the claim of Arthur and of Morgaine, Duchess of Cornwall." He turned to Kevin. "And now enough of high matters-my lord Merlin, I would not command you to sing for me before my entire court, but in private within my own chambers, and in the company of my family alone, may I entreat you for a song?"

  "It will be my pleasure," said Kevin, "if the lady Gwenhwyfar does not object." He glanced at the Queen, but she was silent, and so he set his harp to his shoulder and began to play.

  Morgaine sat quietly beside Uriens, listening to the music. A royal gift indeed Arthur had commanded for his family, Kevin's music. Gwydion listened, his hands clasped about his knees, silent and spellbound; she thought, In that at least he is my son. Uriens listened with polite attention. Morgaine looked up for a moment, meeting Accolon's eyes, and thought; Somehow this night we must manage to meet, even if I must give Uriens a sleeping potion; there is much I must say to him ... and then she cast down her eyes. She was no better than Gwenhwyfar ... .

  Uriens was holding her hand, fondling her fingers and wrists; she felt him touch the bruises he had made that day, and through the pain, she felt revulsion. She must go to his bed if he desired it; here in this Christian court she was his property, like a horse or dog he could fondle or beat at his own will!

  Arthur had betrayed both her and Avalon; Uriens had played her false as well. Kevin, too, had betrayed her ... .