Niniane, daughter of Taliesin. Morgause thought, I did not know she had left Avalon. But why now should she stay?
"Sir Mordred has been named captain of horse while Lancelet is gone from court. There are rumors ... Eh, the fire, my lady, will you set the whole of the castle afire?" Becca was rubbing her eyes and whimpering on the hearth. Infuriated, Morgause gave her a savage push, and the girl fell screaming into the fire; but she was still bound and could not pull herself away from the flames.
"Damn her, she will wake the whole household!" Morgause reached out to pull the girl from the flames, but her dress had caught fire, and her shrieks were dreadful, striking Morgause's ears like red-hot needles. She thought, with a trace of pity, Poor girl, there is nothing to be done for her now -she would be so burnt, we could not help her even if she should live! She pulled the screaming, struggling girl out of the fire, not regarding the burns on her own hands, and leaned close for a moment, laying her head on the girl's brow as if to soothe her; then, with a single stroke, she cut her throat from ear to ear. Blood poured into the fire, and the smoke rushed high up into the chimney.
Morgause felt herself shaking with the unexpected power, as if she were spreading out through the whole of the room, through the -whole of Lothian, through the whole of the world ... she had never dared so much before, but now it had come to her, unsought. It seemed that she hovered bodiless over all the land. Again after years of peace there were armies on the road, and on the west coast hairy men in high-beaked dragon ships landed, plundering and burning cities, laying monasteries waste, carrying away women from the walled convents where they lived . .. like a crimson wind, sweeping down even to the borders of Camelot ... she was not sure whether what she saw now was even at this moment moving in the land or was yet to come.
She cried out through the growing darkness, "Let me see my sons on the quest of the Grail!"
Darkness filled the room, sudden, black and thick, with a curious smell of burning, while Morgause crouched, beaten to her knees by the rush of power. The smoke cleared a little, with a small stirring and coiling in the darkness, like the boiling of a pot. Then Morgause saw, in the widening light, the face of her youngest son, Gareth. He was dirty and travel-worn, his clothing ragged, but he was smiling with the old gaiety, and as the light grew, Morgause could see what he was looking at-the face of Lancelet.
Ah, Gwenhwyfar would not fawn on him now, not this sickly and wasted man with grey in his hair and the traces of madness and suffering in the lines round his eyes ... he looks indeed like something hung up in the field to scare birds from the grain! The old hatred surged through her: it was intolerable, that her youngest and best son should think kindly of this man, should love him and follow him as he had when he was a little child prattling to carved wooden knights ... .
"No, Gareth"-she heard the voice of Lancelet, soft in the curdled silence in the room-"you know why it is that I will not return to court. I will not speak of my own peace of soul-nor yet of the Queen's-but I am vowed to follow the Grail for a year and a day."
"But this is madness! What the devil is the Grail, against the needs of our king? I was sworn to him, and so were you, years before any of us heard of the Grail! When I think of our King Arthur at court with none of his faithful men save such as are lame or infirm or cowardly ... times, I wonder if perhaps it was the work of the fiend, masquerading as a work of God and come to scatter Arthur's Companions out of his hands!"
Lancelet said quietly, "I know that it came from God, Gareth. Do not try to deprive me of that." And for a moment it seemed that again the light of madness flickered in his eyes.
Gareth said, and his voice was oddly subdued when he spoke, "But when God does the same work as the Devil? I cannot think it is God's will that all Arthur has wrought in more than a quarter of a century should thus be cast aside! Do you know there are wild Northmen landing on the shores, and when the men of those lands cry out for Arthur's legions to come and help them, there are none to send to their aid? And so the Saxon armies are gathering again, while Arthur sits idle in Camelot and you seek for your soul-Lancelet, I beg you, if you will not return to court, at least seek for Galahad and make him return to Arthur's side! If the King is old and his will grows weak-and God forbid I should ever have to say so much- then perhaps your son may stand in his place, for all men know he is the King's adopted son and heir!"
"Galahad?" Lancelet's voice was somber. "Think you I have much influence with my son? You and the others swore to follow the Grail for a year and a day, yet I rode for a time with Galahad, and I know it is with him even as he said on that day, that if need be he would follow it lifelong."
"No!" Gareth leaned from his horse and gripped Lancelet by the shoulders. "That is what you must make him see, Lancelet, that at all costs he must return to Camelot! Ah, God, Gwydion would call me traitor to my own blood, and I love Gwydion well, but-how can I say this even to you, my cousin and my heart's brother? I trust not that man's power over our king! The Saxons who send to Arthur find themselves always speaking with him, they think of him as the sister's son of Arthur, and among them, know you not, the sister's son is heir-"
Lancelet said, with a gentle smile, "Recall then, Gareth, that it was even so with the Tribes before the Romans came-we are not Roman, you and I."
"But will you not fight for the rights of your own son?" demanded Gareth.
"It is for Arthur to say who shall follow him on his throne," said Lancelet, "if indeed there shall be any king after him at all. Sometimes, it seemed to me when I wandered among the visions of my madness-nay, I mean not to speak of that, but I think perhaps it was a little akin to the Sight-that a darkness would fall over this land when Arthur had gone."
"And then it should be as if Arthur had never been? What of your vow to Arthur?" Gareth demanded, and Lancelet sighed.
"If it is your will, Gareth, I will seek out Galahad."
"As quickly as you can," Gareth urged, "and you must persuade him that his loyalty to the King is beyond all quests and Grails and Gods-"
Lancelet said sadly, "And if he will not come?"
"If he does not," Gareth said slowly, "then perhaps he is not the King we will need after Arthur. In that case, we are in God's hands, and may he help us all!"
"Cousin, and more than brother," said Lancelet, embracing him again, "we are all in God's hands whatever comes. But I vow to you, I will seek for Galahad and bring him with me to Camelot, I swear it ... ."
And then the stirring and the brightness were gone, Gareth's face faded and went into the dark, and for a moment it was only Lancelet's eyes, lustrous and so like Viviane's that for a moment Morgause felt that her sister and priestess was looking on her with frowning disapproval, as if to say, Morgause, what have you done now? Then that too was gone, and Morgause was alone with her fire, still belching smoke from which all the clouds of magical power had faded, and the limp, bloodless body of the dead woman lying on the hearth.
Lancelet! Lancelet, damn him, he could still play havoc with her plans! Morgause felt her hate like a pain that struck through, a tightness in her throat that travelled down her body to her very womb. Her head was aching, and she felt deathly sick with the aftermath of magic. She wanted nothing more than to sink down on the hearth and sleep for hours, but she must be strong, strong with the powers of sorcery she had called to herself; she was Queen of Lothian, Queen of Darkness! She opened the door and flung the body of the dog onto the midden heap there, disregarding the sickening stench.
She could not handle the body of the kitchen girl alone. She was about to call out for help, when she stopped, her hands to her face, still marked and sticky with blood; they must not see her like this. She went to the basin and ewer of water, poured it out and washed her face and hands and braided her hair afresh. There was nothing she could do about the bloodstains on her dress, but now that the fire was out, there was little light in the room. At last she called out for her chamberlain, and he came to the door, avid curiosity in his fa
ce.
"What is it, my queen? I heard shouts and screams-is anything amiss here?" He held up the light, and Morgause knew very well how she looked to him-beautiful, dishevelled-as if she could see herself through his eyes in the aftermath of the Sight. I could stretch forth my hand now and have him over the girl's body, she thought, feeling the strange cramping pain and pleasure of desire, and inwardly she laughed, but she put it willfully aside; there would be time enough for that.
"Yes, there is grave trouble. Poor Becca-" She indicated the limp corpse. "She fell into the fire, and when I would have helped her burns, she grabbed the knife from my hand to cut her throat-she must have been maddened with the agony, poor thing. See, her blood is all over me."
The man cried out in consternation and went to examine the lifeless form of the girl. "Well, well, the poor lass had not all her wits. You should not have let her in here, madam."
Morgause was disturbed at the hint of reproach she heard in the man's voice; had she actually thought of taking this one to her bed? "I did not call you hither to question my deeds. Take her out of here and have her decently buried, and send my women to me. I ride at dawn for Camelot."
NIGHT WAS falling, and a thick drizzling rain was blurring the road. Morgause was cold and wet, and it only annoyed her when her captain of horse came up and asked, "Are you sure, madam, that we are on the right road?"
She had had her eye on this one for months; his name was Cormac, and he was tall and young, with a hawklike face and strong shoulders and thighs. But it seemed to Morgause now that all men were stupid, she would have done better to leave Cormac at home and lead this party herself. But there were things even the Queen of Lothian could not do.
"I do not recognize any of these roads. Yet I know from the distance we have ridden this day that we must be near to Camelot-unless you have somehow lost your way in the fog and we are riding northward again, Cormac?"
Under ordinary conditions she would have welcomed another night on the road, in her comfortable pavilion, with all the comforts she could provide, and perhaps, when all her women slept, this Cormac to warm her bed.
Since I found the way to sorcery, all men are at my feet. Yet now, it seems, I care for none ... strange, I have sought out no man since word came to me of Lamorak's death. Am I growing old? She recoiled from the thought, and resolved she would have Cormac with her tonight ... but first they must reach Camelot; she must act there to protect Gwydion's interest and to advise him. She said impatiently, "The road must be here, dolt. I have made this journey more times than I have fingers on my two hands! Do you think me a fool?"
"God forbid, madam. And I too have ridden this road often, yet somehow, it seems, we are lost," Cormac said, and Morgause felt she would choke with her exasperation. Mentally she retraced the road she had travelled so often from Lothian, leaving the Roman road and taking the well-travelled way along the edge of the marshes to Dragon Island, then along the ridge till they should strike the road to Camelot, which Arthur had had broadened and resurfaced until it was almost as good as the old Roman road.
"Yet somehow you have missed the Camelot road, dolt, for there is that old fragment of Roman wall ... somehow or other we are half an hour's ride past the turn to Camelot," Morgause scolded. There was no help for it now but to turn the whole caravan about, and already darkness was closing down. Morgause drew up her hood over her head and urged her plodding horse through the grey lowering twilight. At this time of year there should have been another hour of sunlight, but there was only the faintest glimmer of light in the west.
"Here it lies," said one of her women. "See, that clump of four apple trees-I came here one summer to take a graft of apples for the Queen's garden."
But there was no road, only a little track winding upward on a barren hill, where there should be a broad road, and above it, even through mist, there should have been the lights of Camelot.
"Nonsense," she said brusquely, "we have lost the way, somehow- are you trying to tell me that there is no more than one clump of four apple trees in Arthur's kingdom?"
"Yet that is where the road ought to be, I swear it," grumbled Cormac, but he got the whole line of riders, horses, and pack animals into motion again and they plodded on, rain coming down and down as if it had been coming down since the beginning of time and had forgotten how to stop. Morgause was cold and weary, longing for hot supper at Gwenhwyfar's table and hot mulled wine and a soft bed, and when Cormac rode up to her again she demanded crossly, "What now, dolt? Have you managed to lose us again, and miss a wide wagon road once more?"
"My queen, I am sorry, but somehow-look, we are back again where we paused to rest the horses after we turned off the Roman road-that bit of rag I dropped, I'd been using it to clean the muck off one of the packs."
Her wrath exploded. "Was ever a queen plagued with so many damnable fools about her?" she shouted. "Must we look for the biggest city north of Londinium all over the Summer Country? Or must we ride back and forth on this road all night? If we cannot see Camelot's lights in the dark, we could at least hear it, a castle with more than a hundred knights and serving-men, horses and cattle, Arthur's men patrolling all the roads about -everything that moves on this road is clearly in sight of his watchtowers!"
Yet in the end there was nothing to do but to have lanterns lighted and turn southward again; Morgause herself rode at the head of the line, next to Cormac. The fog and rain seemed to damp out all sound, even echoes, until, through the foggy rain, they found themselves again at the ruined patch of Roman wall where they had turned about before. Cormac swore, but he sounded frightened too.
"Lady, I am sorry, I cannot understand it-"
"Damnation seize you all!" Morgause shrieked at him. "Will you have us riding hither and thither on this road all night?" Yet she too recognized the ruined wall. She drew a long breath, exasperation and resignation in one. "Perhaps by morning the rain will have ended, and if we must we can retrace our steps to the Roman wall. At least we will know where we have come!"
"If indeed we have come anywhere and have not wandered somehow into the fairy country," murmured one of the women, surreptitiously crossing herself. Morgause saw the gesture, but she only said, "No more of that! It's bad enough to be lost in the rain and fog without such idiot nonsense! Well, why are you all standing about? We can ride no more tonight, make haste to camp here, and in the morning we will know what to do."
She had intended to call Cormac to her, if only that she might have no leisure for the fear that had begun to steal through her... had they indeed come out of the real world into the unknown? Yet she did not, lying alone and wakeful among her women, restless, mentally retracing all the steps of their journey. There was no sound in the night, not even the calling of frogs from the marshes. It was not possible to lose the whole city of Camelot; yet it had vanished into nowhere. Or was it she herself, with all her men and ladies and horses, who had vanished into the world of sorcery? And every time she came to that point in her thoughts she would wish that she had not allowed her anger with Cormac to set him to watching over the camp; if he were lying here beside her, she would not have that terrifying sense of the world somehow insanely out of joint ... again and again she tried to sleep and found herself restlessly staring, wide awake, into the dark.
Sometime in the night, the rain stopped; when day broke, although damp mist was rising everywhere, the sky was free of cloud. Morgause woke from a fitful doze, a dream of Morgaine, greying and old, looking into a mirror like her own, and went out of her pavilion, hoping that she would look up the hill and find that Camelot was, indeed, where it should have been, the broad road leading up to the towers of Arthur's castle, or else that they were on some unknown road clearly miles and miles from where they should have been. But they were camped by the ruined Roman wall, which she knew to be about a mile south from Camelot, and as horses and men prepared to ride, she looked up at the hill which should have been Camelot; but the hill was green and grass-grown and featureless.
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br /> They rode slowly along the road, muddy with the many tracks where they had ridden back and forth half the night. A flock of sheep grazed in a field, but when Morgause's man went to speak with the shepherd, the man hid behind a rock wall and would not be coaxed out.
"And this is Arthur's peace?" Morgause wondered aloud. "I think, my lady," said Cormac with deference, "there must be some enchantment here-whatever it is, this is not Camelot."
"Then in God's name, what is it?" asked Morgause, but he only muttered, "In God's name, what indeed?" and had no further answer for her. She looked upward again, listening to the frightened whimpering of one of her women. For a moment it was as if Viviane spoke again in her mind, saying what Morgause had never more than half believed, that Avalon had gone into the mists, and that if one set out there, either Druid or priestess, and not knowing the way, one would come only to the priests' Isle of Glastonbury ... .
They could retrace their steps to the Roman road ... but Morgause felt a curious growing fear: would they find that the Roman road too was gone, was Lothian gone, was she alone on the face of the earth with these few men and women? Shivering, she recalled a few words of Scripture she had heard preached by Gwenhwyfar's house priest, about the end of the world ... I say to you, two women will be grinding grain side by side, and one will be taken, and the other one will be left ... . Had Camelot and all those within it been taken up into the Christian Heaven, had the world ended, with a few stragglers like herself left to wander on the face of the stricken world?
But they could not stand staring at the empty track. She said, "We will retrace our steps toward the Roman road." If, she thought, it is still there, if there is anything there at all. It seemed, as she looked on the mists rising like magical smoke from the marshes, that the world had vanished and even the rising sun was unfamiliar. Morgause was not a fanciful woman; she told herself, it was better to move and try to make their way back, than to stand in that otherworldly silence. Camelot was real, a place in the real world, it could not vanish entirely away.
The Mists of Avalon Page 116