The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

  For a long time Morgaine believed that the Grail had been taken away by the Goddess into the realms of the Gods, so that mankind might never again profane it, and she was content that it should be so; for it had been defiled with the wine of the Christians, which somehow was blood as well as wine, and she had no notion of how to cleanse it.

  Whispers came from the outside world to Morgaine through some of the old brotherhood of priests who came in these days to Avalon; Christians, some of them, of the old ones who had once worshipped beside the Druids, in their firm belief that their Christ had once lived here on Avalon and been taught wisdom. Now, fleeing from the enforced conformity of that new breed of Christians who would wipe out all other worship but their own, they came to Avalon, and from them Morgaine heard something of the Grail.

  The priests were now saying that it was indeed the true cup from which Christ had drunk at his Last Supper, and that it had been taken away into Heaven whence it would never again be seen in the world. Yet also there were rumors that it had been seen on that other isle, Ynis Witrin, sparkling in the depths of their well, that well which on Avalon was the holy mirror of the Goddess; and therefore the priests on Ynis Witrin had begun to call it the Well of the Chalice.

  And when the old priests had dwelt for a time upon Avalon, Morgaine began to hear rumors that now and again the Grail had been seen, for a moment, upon their altar. That must be as the Goddess wills. They will not profane it. But she knew not whether it was truly there in the ancient church of the Christian brotherhood ... which was built on the very spot of the church on the other island, so that they said that, when the mists thinned, the ancient brotherhood on Avalon could hear the monks chanting in their church on Ynis Witrin. Morgaine remembered the day when the mists had thinned to let Gwenhwyfar through to Avalon.

  Time ran strangely now upon Avalon. Morgaine did not know whether that twelvemonth and a day to which the knights were vowed had passed or not, and sometimes she thought that indeed years must have passed in the outside world ... .

  She thought long on the words Kevin had spoken: ... the mists are closing on Avalon.

  And then, one day, she was summoned to the shores of the Lake, but she needed no Sight to tell her who stood in the barge. Avalon had once been his home too. Lancelet's hair was all grey now and his face thin and haggard, but as he stepped from the boat, with only the shadow of his old light-footed grace, she stepped forward and took his hands, and she could see in his face no trace of madness.

  He looked into her eyes, and suddenly it seemed that she was the Morgaine of the old days, when Avalon was a temple alive with priestesses and Druids and not a solitary land adrift in the mists with a bare handful of aging priestesses, a few elderly Druids, a handful of half-forgotten ancient Christians.

  "How is it that you are so untouched by time, Morgaine?" he asked her. "All seems changed, even here in Avalon-look, even the ring stones are hidden in the mists!"

  "Oh, they are still there," Morgaine said, "though some of us would lose our way if we sought them now." And like a pain in her heart she remembered a day-ah, it was a lifetime ago!-when she and Lancelet had lain together in the shadow of the stones. "I think perhaps they will one day go altogether into the mists, and thus never be torn down by human hands or the winds of time. There are none to worship at them now ... even the Beltane fires are no longer lighted on Avalon, though I have heard that they keep the old rites still in the wildnesses of North Wales and in Cornwall. The little people will never let them die while any of them survive. I am surprised that you were able to come here, kinsman."

  He smiled, and now she could see the traces of pain and grief-yes, even of madness-around his eyes. "Why, I hardly knew it was hither I came, cousin. My memory plays tricks on me, now. I was mad, Morgaine. I cast away my sword and lived like an animal in the forests, and then there was a time, I know not how long, that I was confined in a strange dungeon."

  "I saw it," she whispered. "I knew not what it meant."

  "Nor did I, nor do I yet," Lancelet said. "I remember very little of that time-it is God's blessing, I think, that I cannot remember what I might have done. I think it was not the first time-there were times, during those years with Elaine, that I hardly knew what I did ... ."

  "But you are well now," she said quickly. "Come and breakfast with me, cousin-it is too early for anything else, for whatever reason you came here."

  He followed her, and Morgaine took him into her dwelling; except for her attendant priestesses, he was the first person who had entered it in years. There was fish from the Lake, this morning, and she served him with her own hands.

  "Ah, this is good," he said, and ate hungrily-she wondered how long it had been since he had last remembered to eat. His hair was as fastidiously combed as ever, his curly hair-all grey now, and patches of white in his beard-neatly trimmed, and his cloak, though shabby and travel-worn, was neatly brushed and clean. He saw her glance at the cloak and laughed a little.

  "In the old days I would not have used this cloak for a saddle blanket," he said. "I lost cloak and sword and armor, I know not where-it may be that I was robbed of them in some evil adventure, or cast them away in madness. I know only that one day I heard someone speak my name, and it was one of the Companions-Lamorak, perhaps, though it is still very hazy in my mind. I was too weak to travel, but though he rode on the next day, I began slowly to remember who I was, and they gave me a gown and let me sit to table to eat with my knife instead of throwing me scraps in a wooden piggin-" His laugh was shaky, nervous. "Even when I knew not that I was Lancelet, I had still my accursed strength, and I think I had done some of them harm. I think I lost the best part of a year out of my life. ... I remember only little things, and the main thought in my mind was never to let them know I was Lancelet, lest I bring shame on the Companions or Arthur ... " He fell silent, and Morgaine guessed at his torment by what he did not say. "Well, slowly I grew strong enough to travel, and Lamorak had left money for a horse and goods for me. But most of that year is darkness-"

  He picked up the remaining bread on his plate and resolutely mopped up the scraps of fish. Morgaine asked him, "What of the quest?"

  "What indeed? I have heard a little," he said, "here and there, here and there, as I rode in the land. Gawaine was the first to return to Camelot."

  Morgaine smiled, almost against her will. "He was always fickle-to everything and everyone."

  "Except to Arthur," Lancelet said. "He is more loyal to Arthur than any of his dogs! And I met with Gareth as I rode hither."

  Morgaine said, "Dear Gareth, he is the best of Morgause's sons! What said he to you?"

  "He said he had had a vision," Lancelet said slowly, "which bade him return to court and do his duty by his king and his lands, and not to delay, loitering about and seeking visions of holy things. And he talked a long time with me, begging me to lay aside the quest of the Grail and return to Camelot with him."

  "I am surprised you did not," Morgaine said.

  He smiled. "I am surprised too, kinswoman. And I have promised to return as soon as I can." Suddenly, his face grew grave. "Gareth told me," he said, "that Mordred is always about Arthur now. And when I would not return to court with him, he told me this-that what I could best do for Arthur was to find Galahad and bid him return at once to Avalon, for he mistrusted Mordred and his influence upon Arthur. ... I am sorry to speak ill of your son, Morgaine."

  Morgaine said, "He told me once that Galahad would not live to rule ... yet he swore to me, by an oath I do not think he would dare break, that he would have no hand in his death."

  Lancelet looked troubled. "I have seen many evil adventures that may befall on this accursed quest. God grant that I can find Galahad before he falls prey to one of them!" A silence fell between them, while Morgaine thought, I knew it in my heart-this was why Mordred refused the quest. She realized, quite suddenly, that she had ceased to believe that her son Gwydion -Mordred-would ever now be King from Avalon. She wondered when she ha
d begun to accept that in her heart. Perhaps it had been when Accolon died and the Goddess did not stretch forth her hand to protect her chosen.

  Galahad will be King, and he will be a Christian king.

  And that may well mean that he will kill Gwydion. What of the King Stag, when the young stag is grown? But if the day of Avalon had ended, perhaps Galahad would take his throne in peace, without the need to kill his rival.

  Lancelet laid down the remnant of a piece of bread and honey and looked past her at the corner of the room. "Is that Viviane's harp?"

  "Yes," she said. "I left mine at Tintagel. But I suppose it is yours by right of inheritance if you want it."

  "I play no longer, nor do I have any will to make music, Morgaine. By right it is yours, as are all other things which belonged to my mother."

  Morgaine recalled words which had cut her to the heart-again, a lifetime ago!-7 would that you were not so much like my mother, Morgaine! Now the memory held no pain, but warmth; Viviane was not gone entirely from the world if something survived in her. He said, stumbling, "There are now so few of us-so few who recall the old days at Caerleon-even at Camelot-"

  "Arthur is there," she said, "and Gawaine, and Gareth, and Cai, and many more, my dear. And no doubt they ask one another with every day, Where is Lancelet? Why are you here, and not there?"

  "I said, my mind plays me tricks-I hardly knew I came hither," Lancelet said. "Yet now I am here, I should ask-I heard Nimue was here," and she remembered: she had told him this, once, when he had thought his daughter at the convent where once Gwenhwyfar had been. "I should ask, what has become of her-is she well, does she thrive among the priestesses?"

  "I am sorry," Morgaine said. "It seems I have nothing but ill news for you-Nimue died, a year ago."

  More than this she would not say. Lancelet knew nothing of the Merlin's betrayal, or of Nimue's last visit to the court. It could only grieve him to know the rest. He asked no questions, only sighed heavily, and cast his eyes on the floor. At last he said without looking up, "And the baby -little Gwenhwyfar-she is married, and in Less Britain, and this quest has swallowed Galahad. I never knew any of my children. I never tried to know them-it seemed to me they were all I could give Elaine, and so I left them to her almost entirely, even the boy. I rode for a time with Galahad when first we departed from Camelot, and I knew more of him in the ten days and nights we rode together than in all the sixteen years he had lived. I think perhaps he would make a good king, if he lives ... ."

  He looked at Morgaine, almost pleading, and she knew he was longing for reassurance, but she had no comfort for him. At last she said, "If he lives, he will be a good king, but I think he will be a Christian king." It seemed that for a moment all the sounds of Avalon were hushed around her, as if the very waves of the Lake and the whispering sound of the reeds on the border were silent to hear her say it. "If lie survives the quest of the Grail -or if he should abandon it-still his rule will be circled about by the priests, and through all the land there will be only one God and only one religion."

  "Would that be such a tragedy, Morgaine?" Lancelet asked quietly. "All through this land, the Christian God is bringing a spiritual rebirth here -is that an evil thing, when mankind has forgotten the Mysteries?"

  "They have not forgotten the Mysteries," she said, "they have found them too difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are, with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so, it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear to think of their Gods."

  Lancelet smiled bitterly. "Perhaps a religion which demands that every man must work through lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much for mankind. They want not to wait for God's justice, but to see it now. And that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them."

  Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. "And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be -the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want-the kind of God they deserve, perhaps."

  Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became. While the ancient Gods, the Goddess, were seen as benevolent or life-giving, so indeed had nature been to them; and when the priests had taught men to think of all nature as evil, alien, hostile, and the old Gods as demons, even so they would become, surging up from within that part of man which he now wished to sacrifice or control, instead of letting it lead him.

  She said, remembering at random something she had read when she had looked into the books of Uriens' house priest in Wales, "And so all men will become even as that apostle who wrote that they should become as eunuchs for the Kingdom of God ... I think I care not to live within that world, Lancelet."

  The weary knight sighed and shook his head. "I think I care not for it either, Morgaine. Yet perhaps it will be a simpler world than ours, and it will be easier to know what is right to do. So I came to seek Galahad, for though he will be a Christian king, I think he would be a better king than Mordred ... ."

  Morgaine clenched her hands under the edge of her sleeves. I am not the Goddess! It is-it is not mine to choose! "You came-here to seek him, Lancelet? He was never one of us. My son Gwydion-Mordred-he was reared at Avalon. If he left Arthur's court he might come here. But Galahad? He was as pious as Elaine-he would scorn to set foot in this world of witchcraft and fairy!"

  "But as I told you, I knew not that I came here," said Lancelet. "I sought to reach Ynis Witrin and the Isle of the Priests, for I heard a rumor of a magical brightness which comes and goes in the church there, and they have renamed their Well, I have heard, the Well of the Chalice-I thought perhaps Galahad rode this way. Another old habit brought me here."

  She asked him seriously then, face to face, "What do you think of this quest, Lancelet?"

  "I know not, truly, cousin," said Lancelet. "When I took this quest on me, I went as once I went to kill old Pellinore's dragon-do you remember that, Morgaine? None of us believed in it then, and yet I did in the end find that dragon and slay it. Yet I know that something, something of great holiness, came into Camelot that day we saw the Grail." And when she would have spoken, he said vehemently, "No, tell me not that I imagined it, Morgaine-you were not there, you do not know what it was like! For the first time, I felt that there was a Mystery somewhere which was beyond this life. And so I went on this quest, though half of me felt it was mad -and I rode awhile with Galahad, and it seemed that his faith mocked mine, because he was so pure and his faith so simple and good, and I was old and stained-" Lancelet stared down at the floor, and she saw him swallow hard. "That is why, in the end, I parted from him, lest I damage that shining faith ... and then I know not where I went, for the fog came down over my mind, and the darkness, and it seemed that Galahad must-must know all the sins of my life and he must despise me for them."

  His voice had risen in excitement, and for a moment Morgaine saw the unhealthy brightness returning to his eyes, as she had seen it in the naked man running in the forest. She said quickly, "Don't think of that time, my dear. It is over."

  He drew a long, shuddering breath and she saw his eyes fade. "My quest now is to seek Galahad. I know not what he saw-an angel maybe -or why the call of the Grail came so strongly to some and so little to others. Of all the knights, I think only Mordred saw nothing, or if he did he kept it to himself."

  My son was reared at Avalon; he would not have been deceived by the magic of the Goddess, Morgaine thought, and was about to speak and tell Lancelet what he had seen-he had been, in youth, an initiate of Avalon and he should not be allowed to think of it as some mystery of the Christians. But, hearing again that strange note in Lancelet's voice, she bent her head and said nothing. The Goddess had given him a vision of comfort; it was not for her to destroy it with a word. />
  She had sought this, she had worked for it. Arthur had forsaken the Goddess, and the Goddess had scattered his fellowship with a wind blowing from her holy place. And the final irony was this: that her holiest of visions should inspire the most passionate legend of Christian worship. Morgaine said at last, reaching out her hand to him, "Sometimes I believe, Lancelet, that it does not matter what we do. The Gods move us as they will, whatever it is that we think that we are doing. We are no more than their pawns."

  "If I believed that," said Lancelet, "I should go mad once and for all."

  Morgaine smiled sadly and said, "And if I did not believe it, I should perhaps go mad. I must believe that I had no power to do other than I have done."

  ... must believe that I never had a choice ... a choice to refuse the king-making, a choice to destroy Mordred unborn, a choice to refuse when Arthur gave me to Uriens, a choice to hold back my hand from the death of Avalloch, a choice to keep Accolon at my side ... a choice to spare Kevin Harper a traitor's death, and Nimue ...

  Lancelet said, "And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference ... "

  "Oh, aye," Morgaine said, "if he knows what good is. But does it not seem to you, cousin, that ever, in this world, evil wears the face of good? Sometimes I feel it is the Goddess who makes the wrong appear the right, and the only thing we can do-"