The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  It seemed that she could feel his dark eyes like a palpable warmth on her back as she stepped to the prow and raised her arms, the long sleeves trailing. She drew a deep breath, charging herself for the magical act, knowing she must concentrate all her strength, intensely angry at herself for her own awareness of the man’s eyes on her.

  Let him see, then! Let him fear me and know me as the Goddess-self! She knew some rebel part of herself, long stifled, was crying out, No, I want him to see the woman, not the Goddess, not even the priestess, but another deep breath and even the memory of that wish was exhaled.

  Up went her arms into the arch of the sky; down, with the mists following the sweep of her trailing sleeves. Mist and silence hung dark around them. Morgaine stood motionless, feeling the young man’s body warmth very close to her. If she moved even a little, she would touch his hand, and knew how his hand would feel, scalding against her own. She moved away with a little swirling of her robes, and collected distance about herself as with a veil. And all the time she was astonished at herself, saying within her mind somewhere, this is only my cousin, it is Viviane’s son who used to sit in my lap when he was little and lonely! Deliberately she summoned the picture of that awkward boy covered with bramble scratches, but when they sailed out of the mist the dark eyes were smiling at her, and she felt dizzy.

  Of course I am faint, I have not yet broken my fast, she told herself, and watched the hunger in Galahad’s eyes as he looked on Avalon. She saw him cross himself. Viviane would be angry if she had seen that.

  “It is indeed the land of the fairy folk,” he said, low, “and you are Morgaine of the Fairies, as always . . . but you are a woman, now, and beautiful, kinswoman.”

  She thought, impatient, I am not beautiful, what he sees is the glamour of Avalon. And something rebellious in her said, I want him to think me beautiful—myself, not the glamour! She set her mouth tightly and knew that she looked stern, forbidding, all priestess again.

  “This way,” she said curtly and, as the barge’s bottom scraped silently on the sandy edge, signalled for the bargemen to attend to his horse.

  “By your leave, lady,” he said, “I will attend to it myself. It is not an ordinary saddle.”

  “As you like,” Morgaine said, and stood and watched while he unsaddled his horse himself. But she was too intensely curious about everything concerning him to stand silent.

  “Why, it is indeed a strange saddle . . . what are the long leather strappings?”

  “The Scythians wear them—they are called stirrups. My foster-father took me on pilgrimage, and I saw them in their country. Even the Roman legions had no such cavalry, for the Scythians with these can control and stop their horses in mid charge, and that way they can fight from horseback,” he said, “and even in the light armor the horsemen wear, an equestrian knight is invincible against anyone on foot.” He smiled, the dark, intense face lighting up. “The Saxons call me Alfgar—the elf-arrow which comes out of darkness and strikes unseen. At Ban’s court they have taken up the name and call me Lancelet, which is as near as they can come to it. Some day I will have a legion of horses equipped this way, and then let the Saxons beware!”

  “Your mother told me you were already a warrior,” Morgaine said, forgetting to pitch her voice low, and he smiled again at her.

  “And now I know your voice, Morgaine of the Fairies . . . how dare you come upon me as a priestess, kinswoman? Well, I suppose it is the Lady’s will. But I like you better like this than solemn as a Goddess,” he said, with the familiar mischief, as if they had parted but the day before.

  Clasping at shreds of her dignity, Morgaine said, “Yes, the Lady awaits us, and we must not keep her waiting.”

  “Oh yes,” he mocked, “always we must scurry to do her will. . . . I suppose you are one of those who hurry to fetch and carry, and hang trembling on her every word.”

  For that Morgaine found no answer except to say, “Come this way.”

  “I remember the way,” he said, and walked quietly at her side instead of following behind with proper respect. “I too used to run to her and wait upon her will and tremble at her frown, until I found she was not just my mother, but thought herself greater than any queen.”

  “And so she is,” Morgaine said sharply.

  “No doubt, but I have lived in a world where men do not come and go at a woman’s beckoning.” She saw that his jaw was set and that the mischief was gone from his eyes. “I would rather have a loving mother than a stern Goddess whose every breath bids men live and die at her will.”

  To that Morgaine found nothing whatever to say. She set a swift pace that meant he must scurry at her heels to keep up.

  Raven, still silent—for she had bound herself by vows of perpetual silence, save when she spoke tranced as a prophetess—let them into the dwelling with an inclination of the head. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Morgaine saw that Viviane, seated by the fire, had chosen to greet her son not in the ordinary dark dress and deerskin tunic of a priestess, but had put on a dress of crimson and done her hair high on her forehead with gems glittering there. Even Morgaine, who knew the tricks of glamour for herself, gasped at the magnificence of Viviane. She was like the Goddess welcoming a petitioner to her underworld shrine.

  Morgaine could see that Galahad’s chin was set and that the cords in his knuckles stood out, white, against his dark fists. She could hear him breathing, and guessed at the effort with which he steadied his voice, as he rose from his bow.

  “My lady and mother, I give you greeting.”

  “Galahad,” she said. “Come, sit here beside me.”

  He took a seat across from her instead. Morgaine hovered near the door and Viviane beckoned her to come and seat herself too.

  “I waited to breakfast with you both. Here, join me.”

  There was fresh-cooked fish from the Lake, scented with herbs and dripping butter; there was hot, fresh barley bread, and fresh fruit, such food as Morgaine seldom tasted in the austere dwelling of the priestesses. She, and Viviane too, ate sparingly, but Galahad helped himself to everything with the healthy hunger of a youth still growing. “Why, you have set a meal fit for a king, Mother.”

  “How does your father, and how does Brittany?”

  “Well enough, though I have not spent much time there in the last year. He sent me on a far journey, to learn for his court about the new cavalry of the Scythian peoples. I do not think even the soldiers of Rome, such as they are, have any such horsemen now. We have herds of Iberian horses—but you are not interested in the doings of the stud farms. Now I have come to bring word to the Pendragon’s court of a new massing of Saxon armies; I doubt not they will strike in full force before Midsummer. Would that I had time and enough gold to train a legion of these horsemen!”

  “You love horses,” Viviane said in surprise.

  “Does that surprise you, madam? With beasts you always know precisely what they think, for they cannot lie, nor pretend to be other than they are,” he said.

  “The ways of nature will all be open to you,” Viviane said, “when you return to Avalon in the life of a Druid.”

  He said, “Still the same old song, Lady? I thought I gave you my answer when last I saw you.”

  “Galahad,” she said, “you were twelve years old. That is too young to know the better part of life.”

  He moved his hand impatiently. “No one calls me Galahad now, save you alone, and the Druid who gave me that name. In Brittany and in the field I am Lancelet.”

  She smiled and said, “Do you think I care for what the soldiers say?”

  “So you would bid me sit still in Avalon and play the harp while outside in the real world the struggle goes on for life and death, my lady?”

  Viviane looked angry. “Are you trying to say this world is not real, my son?”

  “It is real,” said Lancelet, with an impatient movement of his hand, “but real in a different way, cut off from the struggle outside. Fairyland, eternal peace—oh, yes,
it is home to me, you saw to that, Lady. But it seems that even the sun shines differently here. And this is not where the real struggles of life are taking place. Even the Merlin has the wit to know that.”

  “The Merlin came to be as he is through years when he learned to know the real from the unreal,” said Viviane, “and so must you. There are warriors enough in the world, my son. Yours is the task to see farther than any, and perhaps to bid the warriors come and go.”

  He shook his head. “No! Lady, say no more, that path is not mine.”

  “You are still not grown to know what you want,” Viviane said flatly. “Will you give us seven years, as you gave your father, to know whether this is your road in life?”

  “In seven years,” said Lancelet, smiling, “I hope to see the Saxons driven from our shores, and I hope to have a hand in their driving. I have no time for the magics and mysteries of the Druids, Lady, and would not if I could. No, my mother, I beg you to give me your blessing and send me forth from Avalon, for to tell the truth, Lady, I will go with your blessing or without it. I have lived in a world where men do not wait for a woman’s bidding to go and come.”

  Morgaine shrank away as she saw the white of rage sweep over Viviane’s face. The priestess rose from her seat, a small woman but given height and majesty by her fury.

  “You defy the Lady of Avalon, Galahad of the Lake?”

  He did not shrink before her. Morgaine, seeing him pale under the dark tanning of his skin, knew that inside the softness and grace was steel to match the Lady’s own. He said quietly, “Had you bidden me this when I still starved for your love and approval, madam, no doubt I would have done even as you commanded. But I am not a child, my lady and mother, and the sooner we acknowledge that, then the sooner we shall be in harmony and cease from quarrelling. The life of a Druid is not for me.”

  “Have you become a Christian?” she asked, hissing with anger.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Not really. Even that comfort is denied me, though in Ban’s court I could pass as one when I wished. I think I have no faith in any God but this.” He laid his hand on his sword.

  The Lady sank down on her bench and sighed. She drew a long breath and then smiled.

  “So,” she said, “you are a man and there is no compelling you. Although I wish you would speak of this to the Merlin.”

  Morgaine, watching unregarded, saw the tension relax in the young man’s hands. She thought, He thinks she has given way; he does not know her well enough to know that she is angrier than ever. Lancelet was young enough to let the relief show in his voice. “I’m grateful to you for understanding, madam. And I will willingly seek counsel of the Merlin, if it pleases you. But even the Christian priests know that a vocation to the service of God is God’s gift and not anything that comes because one wants it or does not. God, or the Gods if you will, has not called me, or even given me any proof that He—or They—exist.”

  Morgaine thought of Viviane’s words to her, many years ago: it is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting. But for the first time she wondered, What would Viviane really have done if at any time during these years I had come to her and told her that I wished to depart? The Lady is all too sure that she knows the will of the Goddess. Such heretical thoughts disturbed her, and quickly she thrust them from her mind, resting her eyes again on Lancelet. At first she had only been dazzled by his dark handsomeness, the grace of his body. Now she saw specific things: the first down of beard along his chin—he had not time, or had not chosen, to shave his face in the Roman fashion; his slender hands, exquisitely shaped, fashioned for harp strings or weapons, but callused just a little across palm and the insides of the fingers, more on the right hand than the left. There was a small scar on one forearm, a whitish seam that looked as if it had been there for many years, and another, crescent-shaped, on the left cheek. His lashes were as long as a girl’s. But he did not have the androgynous, boy-girl look of many boys before their beards have grown; he was like a young stag. Morgaine thought she had never seen so masculine a creature before. Because her mind had been trained to such thoughts, she thought, There is nothing of the softness of a woman’s training in him, to make him pliable to any woman. He has denied the touch of the Goddess in himself; one day he will have trouble with her. . . . And again her mind leaped, thinking that one day she would play the role of the Goddess at one of the great festivals, and she thought, feeling a pleasant heat in her body, Would that he might be the God. . . . Lost in her daydream, she did not hear what Lancelet and the Lady were saying until she was recalled by hearing Viviane speak her name, and she came back to herself as if she had been wandering somewhere out of the world.

  “Morgaine?” the Lady repeated. “My son has been long away from Avalon. Take him away, spend the day on the shores if you will, you are freed for this day from duties. When you were children both, I remember, you liked it well, to walk on the shores of the Lake. Tonight, Galahad, you shall sup with the Merlin, and shall be housed among the young priests who are not under the silence. And tomorrow, if you still wish for it, you shall go with my blessing.”

  He bowed profoundly, and they went out.

  The sun was high, and Morgaine realized that she had missed the sunrise salutations; well, she had the Lady’s permission to absent herself, and in any case she was no longer one of the younger priestesses for whom the missing of such a service was a matter for penances and guilt. Today she had intended to supervise a few of the younger women in preparing dyes for ritual robes—nothing that could not wait another day or a handful of days.

  “I will go to the kitchens,” she said, “and fetch us some bread to take with us. We can hunt for waterfowl, if you like—are you fond of hunting?”

  He nodded and smiled at her. “Perhaps if I bring my mother a present of some waterfowl she will be less angry with me. I would like to make my peace with her,” he said, almost laughing. “When she is angry she is still frightening—when I was little, I used to believe that when I was not with her she took off her mortality and was the Goddess indeed. But I should not speak like that about her—I can see that you are very devoted to her.”

  “She has been as devoted to me as a foster-mother,” Morgaine said slowly.

  “Why should she not be? She is your kinswoman, is she not? Your mother—if I recall rightly—was the wife of Cornwall, and is now the wife of the Pendragon . . . is it so?”

  Morgaine nodded. It had been so long that she could only half remember Igraine, and now sometimes it seemed to her that she had been long motherless. She had learned to live without need of any mother save the Goddess, and she had many sisters among the priestesses, so she had no need of any earthly mother. “I have not seen her for many years.”

  “I saw Uther’s queen but once, from a distance—she is very beautiful, but she seems cold and distant too.” Lancelet laughed uneasily. “At my father’s court I grew used to women who were interested only in pretty gowns and jewels and their little children, and sometimes, if they were not married, in finding a husband. . . . I do not know much about women. You are not like them either. You seem unlike any woman I have ever known.”

  Morgaine felt herself blushing. She said low, reminding him, “I am a priestess like your mother—”

  “Oh,” he said, “but you are as different from her as night from day. She is great and terrible and beautiful, and one can only love and adore and fear her, but you, I feel you are flesh and blood and still real, in spite of all these mysteries around you! You dress like a priestess, and you look like one of them, but when I look into your eyes I see a real woman there whom I could touch.” He was laughing and intense, and she thrust her hands into his, and laughed back at him.

  “Oh, yes, I am real, as real as the ground under your feet or the birds in that tree. . . .”

  They walked together down by the waterside, Morgaine leading him along a little path, carefully skirting the edges of the processional way.

  “Is it a sacred place?” h
e asked. “Is it forbidden to climb the Tor unless you are a priestess or a Druid?”

  “Only at the great festivals is it forbidden,” she said, “and you may certainly come with me. I may go where I will. There is no one on the Tor now except sheep grazing. Would you like to climb it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I remember once when I was a child I climbed it. I thought it was forbidden, and so I was sure that if anyone knew I had been there I would be punished. I still remember the view from the height. I wonder if it was as enormous as it seemed to me when I was a little lad.”

  “We can climb the processional way, if you will. It is not so steep, because it winds round and round the Tor, but it is longer.”

  “No,” he said. “I would like to climb straight up the slope—but"—he hesitated—"is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?”