The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  "How quickly the sunlight has gone," Uriens complained, as a grey fog and rain seemed to condense suddenly and fall about them. "Morgaine, how long were we in the queen's country? I feel as if I had been sick of a fever, or enchanted and wandering in a spell ... ."

  She did not answer him. He too, she thought, had had some sport with the fairy maidens, and why not? She cared not how he amused himself, so that he let her alone.

  A sharp twinge of sickness reminded her that never once in the fairy country had she thought of the pregnancy which burdened her, and now, when all would be awaiting her word, when Gwydion took the throne and Accolon reigned ... now she would be heavy of foot and sick, grotesque ... certainly she was too old to bear a child without risk. Was it too late to find the herbs that would rid her of that unwanted burden? Yet, if she could bear Accolon a son, at this time when the reign went into his hands, how much more would he value her as his queen? Could she sacrifice that hold over him? A child I could keep, a child I could hold in my own arms, a babe to love ...

  She could still remember the sweetness of Arthur as a babe, his little arms around her neck. Gwydion had been taken from her, Uwaine had been nine years old when he learned to call her mother. It was a sharp pain and a sweetness beyond love, tugging at her body, the hunger to hold a child again ... yet reason told her that she could not, at her age, survive the bearing of another child. She rode at Uriens' side as if in a dream. No, she could not survive the bearing of this child, and yet she felt she could not bear to take the irrevocable step that it should die unborn.

  My hands will already be stained with the blood of one I love ... . Ah, Goddess, why do you try me thus? And it seemed that the Goddess wavered before her eyes, now like the fairy queen, now like Raven, solemn and compassionate, now like the Great Sow who had torn out Avalloch's life ... and she will devour the child I bear ... . Morgaine knew that she was at the edges of delirium, of madness.

  Later, I will decide it later. Now my duty is to get Uriens back to Camelot. She wondered how long she had been in the fairy world. Not, she supposed, more than a moon, or the child would make its presence more felt ... she hoped it had been only a few days. Not too few or Gwenhwyfar would wonder how they had come and gone so swiftly; not too many, or it would be too late to do what she knew she must do: she could not bear this child and live.

  They arrived in Camelot at midmorning; the journey was, in truth, not very long. Morgaine was grateful that Gwenhwyfar was nowhere to be seen, and when Cai asked after Arthur, she told him, lying this time without a moment's hesitation, that he had been delayed in Tintagel. If I can kill, lying is no sin so great, she thought, distracted, but somehow she felt contaminated by the lie, she was priestess of Avalon and she valued the truth of her words ... .

  She took Uriens to his room; the old man was looking weary now and confused. He is growing too old to reign. Avalloch's death was harder for him than I can know. But he too was reared to the truths of Avalon-what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?

  "Lie down here, my husband, and rest," she said, but he was fractious.

  "I should set out for Wales. Accolon is too young to reign alone, the young puppy. My people need me!"

  "They can spare you another day," she soothed him, "and you will be stronger."

  "I have been too long away already," he fretted. "And why did we not go on to Tintagel? Morgaine, I cannot remember why we came away! Were we truly in a country where the sun shone always ... ?"

  She said, "I think you must have dreamed it. Why do you not sleep a little? Shall I send for some food for you? I do not think you have eaten this morning-"

  But when the food came, the sight and smell of it turned her queasy again. She turned sharply away, trying to conceal it, but Uriens had seen.

  "What is it, Morgaine?"

  "Nothing," she said angrily. "Eat, and rest."

  But he smiled at her, reaching out his hand to draw her to the bedside. He said, "You forget, I have been married before this-I know a breeding woman when I see one." Clearly, he was delighted. "After all these many years-Morgaine, you are pregnant! But that is wonderful-one son is taken from me, but I have another-shall we call this one Avalloch if it is a son, my darling?"

  Morgaine flinched. "You forget how old I am," she said, and her face was like stone. "It is not likely I can carry this child long enough that it would live. Do not hope for a son of your old age."

  "But we will take good care of you," said Uriens. "You must consult with one of the Queen's own midwives, and if the ride home would make you likely to miscarry, then you must stay here till the child is born."

  She wanted to lash out at him, what makes you think it would be your child, old man? This was Accolon's child, certainly ... but she could not dismiss the sudden fear that this was, indeed, Uriens' child ... an old man's child, weakly, some monster like Kevin ... no, she was surely mad! Kevin was no monster, but had suffered injuries-fire, burns, maiming in childhood, so that his bones had grown awry. But Uriens' child would surely be twisted, deformed, sickly, and Accolon's child would be healthy, strong ... and she, she was old almost past childbearing; would her child be some monster? Sometimes, when women bore babies in their old age, it was so. ... Was she mad, to let these fantasies turn and sicken her brain like this?

  No. She did not want to die, and there was no hope she could bear this child and live. Somehow she must come by the herbs ....ut how? She had no confidante at court; none of Gwenhwyfar's women could she trust enough to get her these things, and if it somehow became court gossip that old Queen Morgaine was pregnant by her still-older husband, how they would laugh!

  There was Kevin, the Merlin-but she herself had turned him away, flung his love and loyalty back in his face . .. well, there must be midwives at court, and perhaps she could bribe one of them well enough to stop her mouth. She would tell some pitiful tale of how hard Gwydion's birth had been, how she feared at her age to bear another. They were women, they would understand that well enough. And in her own bag of herbs she had one or two things-mixed with a third, harmless in itself, they would have the effect she wanted. She would not be the first woman, even at court, to rid herself of an unwanted child. But she must do it secretly, or Uriens would never forgive her ... in the name of the Goddess, what did it matter? By the time it could come to light, she would be Queen here at Arthur's -no, at Accolon's-side and Uriens would be in Wales, or dead, or in hell-She left Uriens sleeping and tiptoed from the room; she found one of the Queen's midwives, asked her for the third, and harmless, herb, and returning to her room, mixed the potion over her fire. She knew it would make her deathly ill, but there was no help for it. The herb mixture was bitter as gall; she drank it down, grimacing, washed the cup, and put it away. If only she could know what was happening in the fairy country! If only she could know how her lover fared with Excalibur ... . She felt nauseated, but she was too restless to lie down on her bed beside Uriens; she could not bear to be alone with the sleeping man nor could she bear to close her eyes for fear of the pictures of death and blood that would torment her.

  After a time she took her distaff and spindle and went down into the Queen's hall, where she knew the women-Queen Gwenhwyfar and her ladies, even Morgause of Lothian-would be at their eternal spinning and weaving. She had never lost her distaste for spinning, but she would keep her wits about her, and it was better than being alone. And if it opened her to the Sight, well, at least she would be free of the torment of not knowing what befell the two she loved on the borders of the fairy country. ...

  Gwenhwyfar welcomed her with a chilly embrace and invited her to a seat near the fire and Gwenhwyfar's own chair.

  "What are you working at?" Morgaine asked, examining Gwenhwyfar's fine tapestry work.

  The Queen proudly spread it out before her. "It is a hanging for the altar of the church-see, here is the Virgin Mary, with the angel come to tell her she will bear the son of God ... and there stands Joseph all in amazement-see, I have made him
old, old with a long beard-"

  "If I were old as Joseph, and my promised wife told me, after being closeted with such a handsome young man as yonder angel, that she were with child, I would ask myself some questions about the angel," Morgause said irreverently. For the first time Morgaine wondered how miraculous had that virgin birth been after all? Who knew but the mother of Jesus had been ready to conceal her pregnancy with a clever tale of angels ... but after all, in all religions but that one, for a maiden to be pregnant by a God was nothing so strange ... .

  I myself, she thought, at the edge of hysteria, taking a handful of carded wool and beginning to twirl the spindle, I myself gave up my maidenhood to the Homed One and bore a son to the King Stag ... will Gwydion set me on a throne in Heaven as Mother of God?

  "You are so irreverent, Morgause," Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine quickly complimented Gwenhwyfar on the fineness of her stitches and asked who had drawn the pattern for the picture.

  "I drew it myself," said Gwenhwyfar, surprising Morgaine; she had never believed Gwenhwyfar had talents of this sort. "Father Patricius has promised, too, that he will teach me to copy letters in gold and crimson," the Queen said. "He says I have a good hand at it for a woman. ... I never thought I could do so, Morgaine, and yet you made that fine scabbard Arthur wears-he told me that you broidered it for him with your own hands. It is very beautiful." Gwenhwyfar chattered on, as artlessly as a girl half her age. "I have offered to make him one, many times-I was offended that a Christian king should bear the symbols of heathendom, but he said it was made for him by his own dear, beloved sister and he would never lay it aside. And indeed it is beautiful work ... did you have gold threads made for it in Avalon?"

  "Our smiths do beautiful work," said Morgaine, "and their work in silver and gold cannot be bettered." The spindle's twirling made her sick. How long would it be before the wrenching sickness of the drug would seize on her? The room was close and seemed to smell of the stuffy, airless lives these women led, spinning and weaving and sewing, endless work so that men might be clothed ... one of Gwenhwyfar's ladies was heavily pregnant and sat sewing on infant's swaddling cloths ... another stitched an embroidered border to a heavy cloak for father or brother or husband or son ... and there was Gwenhwyfar's fine stitchery for the altar, the diversion of a queen who could have other women to sew and spin and weave for her.

  Round and round went the spindle; the reel sank toward the floor and she twisted the thread smoothly. When had she learned to do this work?

  She could not even remember a time when she could not spin a smooth thread ... one of her earliest memories was of sitting on the castle wall at Tintagel, beside Morgause, spinning; and even then, her thread had been more even than her aunt's, who was ten years her senior.

  She said so to Morgause, and the older woman laughed. "You spun finer thread than I when you were seven years old!"

  Round and round went the spindle, sinking slowly toward the stone floor; then she wound the thread up on her distaff and meanwhile twisted a fresh handful of wool. ... As she spun out the thread, so she spun the lives of men-was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning ... from the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud. Without us, the lives of men would be naked indeed ... .

  ... It seemed to her that, as in the kingdom of Fairy, she had looked through a great opening and seen Arthur asleep at the side of a maiden with her own face, so now a great space opened out, as if it were before her; and as the reel sank to the floor and the thread twisted, it seemed to spin out Arthur's face as he wandered, sword in hand ... and now he whirled, to see Accolon, bearing Excalibur ... ah, they were fighting, she could not see their faces now, nor hear the words they flung at one another ... .

  How fiercely they fought, and it seemed strange to Morgaine, watching dizzied as the spindle sank, twirled, rose, that she could not hear the clashing of the great swords ... Arthur brought down a great blow that would surely have killed Accolon had it struck him fair, but Accolon caught the blow on his shield and only took a wound in the leg-and the wound sliced without blood, while Arthur, taking a glancing blow on the shoulder, began suddenly to bleed, crimson streaks flowing down his arm, and he looked startled, afraid, one hand going in a swift gesture of reassurance to his side where the scabbard hung ... but it was the sham scabbard, wavering even now in Morgaine's sight. Now the two were mortally locked together, struggling, their swords locked at the hilt as they grappled with their free hands for the advantage ... Accolon twisted fiercely, and the sword in Arthur's hand, the false Excalibur made by fairy enchantments in a single night, broke off close below the hilt-she saw Arthur twist round in desperate avoidance of the killing blow and kick out violently. Accolon crumpled up in agony, and Arthur snatched the real Excalibur from his hand and flung it as far away as he could, then leaped on the fallen man and wrenched at the scabbard. As soon as he had it in his hand, the flow of blood from the great wound in his arm ceased to bleed, and in turn blood gushed forth from the wound in Accolon's thigh ... .

  Excruciating pain stabbed through Morgaine's whole body; she doubled up with the weight of it. ...

  "Morgaine!" said Morgause sharply, with a catch of breath; then called out, "Queen Morgaine is ill-come tend to her!"

  "Morgaine!" Gwenhwyfar cried out. "What is it?"

  The vision was gone. However she tried, she could not see the two men, nor which had prevailed, whether one of them lay dead-it was as if a great dark curtain had closed over them, with the ringing of church bells -in the last instant of the vision she had seen two litters carrying the wounded men into the abbey at Glastonbury, where she could not follow ... . She clung to the edges of her chair as Gwenhwyfar came, with one of her ladies, who knelt to raise Morgaine's head.

  "Ah, look, your gown is soaked with blood-this is not any ordinary bleeding."

  Morgaine, her mouth dry with the sickness, whispered, "No-I was with child and I am miscarrying-Uriens will be angry with me-"

  One of the women, a plump jolly one about her own age, said, "Tsk! Tsk! For shame! So His Lordship of Wales will be angry, will he? Well, well, well, and who chose him for God? You should have kept the old billy goat out of your bed, lady, it is dangerous for a woman to miscarry at your age! Shame on the old lecher to put you so at risk! So he will be angry, will he?"

  Gwenhwyfar, her hostility forgotten, walked beside Morgaine as they carried her, rubbing her hands, all sympathy.

  "Oh, poor Morgaine, what a sad thing, when you had hoped all over again. I know all too well how terrible it must be for you, my poor sister ..." she repeated, holding Morgaine's cold hands, cradling her shaking head when she vomited in the ghastly sickness that overcame her. "I have sent for Broca, she is the most skilled of the court midwives, she will look after you, poor dear ... ."

  It seemed that Gwenhwyfar's sympathy would choke her. Racked by repeated, agonizing pains, she felt as if a sword had thrust through her vitals, but even so, even so, it was not so bad as Gwydion's birth had been, and she had lived through that ... shaking, retching, she tried to cling to consciousness, to be aware of what was going on around her. Maybe she had been ready to miscarry anyhow-it was surely too quick for the drug to have worked. Broca came, examined her, smelled at the vomited stuff, and raised her eyebrows knowingly. She said in an undertone to Morgaine, "Lady, you should have taken more care-those drugs can poison you. I have a brew which would have done what you wanted more quickly and with less sickness. Don't worry, I won't speak to Uriens-if he has no more sense than to let a woman of your years try to bear him a child, then what he does not know will do him no harm."

  Morgaine let the sickness take her. She knew, after a time, that she was more gravely ill than they had thought ... Gwenhwyfar was asking if at last she wanted to see a priest; she shook her head and closed her eyes, lying silent and rebellious, not caring now whether she lived or died. Since Accolon or Arthur must die, she too would go into t
hat shadow ... why could she not see them, where they lay within Glastonbury, which of them would come forth? Surely the priests would tend Arthur, their own Christian king, but would they leave Accolon to die?

  If Accolon must go into the shades, let him go with the spirit of his son to attend him, she thought, and lay with tears sliding down her face, hearing in some distant place the voice of the old midwife Broca. "Yes, it's over. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but you know as well as I that she is too old to bear children. Yes, my lord, come and see-" The voice was harsh with asperity. "Men never think of what they do, and all the bloody mess women have for men's pleasure! No, it was all too soon to tell whether it would have been a boy or not, but she had had one fine son, I doubt not she would have borne you another, had she been strong enough and young enough to carry it!"

  "Morgaine-dearest, look at me," Uriens pleaded. "I am so sorry, so sorry you are ill, but don't grieve, my darling, I still have two sons, I don't blame you-"

  "Oh, you don't, do you?" said the old midwife, still truculent. "You had better not speak one word of blame to her, Your Majesty, she is still very weak and sick. We will have another bed put in here so that she may sleep in peace till she is quite well again. Here-" and Morgaine felt a comforting woman's arm under her head; something warm and comforting held to her lips. "Come, dear, drink this now, it has honey in it, and medicines to keep you from bleeding anymore-I know you are sick, but try to drink it anyhow, there's a good girl-"

  Morgaine swallowed the bittersweet drink, tears blurring her vision. For a moment it seemed that she was a child, that Igraine held her and comforted her in some childish sickness. "Mother-" she said, and even as she spoke knew it was delirium, that Igraine had been dead for half a lifetime, that she was no child or maiden, but old, old, too old to lie here in this ugly way and so near death ... .