The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Food sickens me,” Morgaine said, sighing. “Would it were summer, that I might have some fruit . . . last night I dreamed I ate of the apples of Avalon—” Her voice trembled, and she lowered her head so that Morgause would not see the tears hanging from her lashes; but she clenched her hands and did not weep.

  “We are all weary of salt fish and smoked bacon,” said Morgause, “but if Lot has had good hunting, you must eat some of the fresh meat.” Morgaine, she thought, had been trained in Avalon to ignore hunger and thirst and fatigue; now, pregnant, when she should relax her austerities somewhat, she took pride in enduring everything without complaint.

  “You are priestess-trained, Morgaine, hardened to fasting, but your child cannot endure hunger and thirst, and you are far too thin—”

  “Don’t mock me!” Morgaine said angrily, gesturing at her enormously swollen belly.

  “But your hands and face are like bare bone,” said Morgause. “You must not starve yourself like this, you have a child and you must consider him!”

  “I will consider his welfare when he considers mine!” Morgaine said, rising abruptly, but Morgause took her hands and drew her down again. “Dear child, I know what you are going through, I have borne four children, remember? These last few days are worse than all the long months combined!”

  “I should have had the sense to be rid of it while there was time!”

  Morgause opened her mouth for a sharp answer, then sighed and said, “It’s too late to say you should have done so or so; ten days more will bring it to an end.” She took her own comb from her tunic folds and began to unravel Morgaine’s tangled braid.

  “Let it be—” said Morgaine restlessly, pulling her head away from the comb. “I will do it myself tomorrow. I have been too weary to think of it. But if you are sick of looking at me all bedraggled like this—well, give me the comb!”

  “Sit still, lennavan,” said Morgause. “Don’t you remember, when you were a little girl at Tintagel, you used to cry for me to comb your hair because your nurse—what was her name? . . . Now I remember: Gwennis, that was it—she used to pull your hair so, and you would say, ‘Let Aunt Morgause do it?’ ” She teased the comb through the tangles, smoothing out strand after strand, and stroked Morgaine’s head affectionately. “You have lovely hair.”

  “Dark and coarse as a pony’s mane in winter!”

  “No, fine as the wool of a black sheep, and shining like silk,” Morgause said, still stroking the dark strands. “Hold still, I will plait it for you. . . . Always I have wished for a girl-child, so that I could dress her finely and plait her hair like this . . . but the Goddess sent me only sons, and so you must just be my little daughter now when you need me. . . .” She pulled the dark head against her breast, and Morgaine lay there, shaking with the tears she could not shed. “Ah, there, there, my little one, don’t cry, it won’t be long now, there, there . . . you have not been taking good care of yourself, you need a mother’s care, my little girl. . . .”

  “It is only . . . it is so dark here . . . I long so for the sun. . . .”

  “In the summer we have more than our share of sunlight, it is light even to midnight,” said Morgause, “and so in winter we get so little.” Morgaine was still shaking with uncontrollable sobs, and Morgause held her close, rocking her gently. “There, little one, lennavan, there, I know how you feel . . . I bore Gawaine in the darkest time of winter. It was dark and stormy like this, and I was only sixteen years old then, and very frightened, I knew so little of bearing children. I wished then that I had stayed to be priestess at Avalon, or at Uther’s court, or anywhere but here. Lot was away at the wars, I hated my big body, I was sick all the time and my back hurt, and I was all alone with only strange women. Would you believe, all that winter, I kept my old doll secretly in my bed, and held her, and cried myself every night to sleep? Such a baby I was! You at least are a woman grown, Morgaine.”

  Morgaine said, choking, “I know I am too old to be such a baby . . .” but still she clung to Morgause, while the older woman petted and stroked her hair.

  “And now that same babe I bore even before I was a grown woman is away fighting with the Saxons,” she said, “and you, whom I held on my lap like a doll, you are to have a babe of your own. Ah, yes, I knew there was news I meant to tell you; the cook’s wife Marged has borne her child—no doubt that was why the porridge was so full of husks this morning—so there will be a wet nurse ready at hand for yours. Though indeed, when you see him, I doubt not you will want to suckle him yourself.”

  Morgaine made a gesture of revulsion, and Morgause smiled. “So I felt myself, before each of my sons was born, but when I looked once on their faces, I felt I could never let them out of my arms.” She felt the younger woman flinch. “What is it, Morgaine?”

  “My back aches; I have been sitting too long, that is all,” Morgaine said, rising restlessly and wandering around the room, her hands clasped at the small of her back. Morgause narrowed her eyes thoughtfully; yes, in the last few days the girl’s bulging belly was carried lower, it could not be long now. She should have the women’s hall filled with fresh straw and speak to the midwives to be at hand for the lying-in.

  Lot’s men had found a deer on the hills; skinned and cleaned, the smell roasting over the great fire filled the whole of the castle, and even Morgaine did not refuse a slice of the raw liver, dripping blood—by custom this food was saved for such of the women as were with child.

  Morgause could see her grimace with revulsion, as she herself had done when such things were given to her in her own pregnancies, but Morgaine, as Morgause had done, sucked at it with avidity, her body demanding the nourishment even as her mind revolted. Later, though, when the meat was cooked and carvers were slicing it and carrying it around, she gestured refusal. Morgause took a slice of meat and laid it on Morgaine’s dish.

  “Eat it,” she commanded. “No, Morgaine, I will be obeyed, you cannot starve yourself and your child this way.”

  “I cannot,” said Morgaine in a low voice. “I will be sick—put it by and I will try to eat it later.”

  “What is wrong?”

  Morgaine lowered her head and muttered, “I cannot eat—the meat of deer—I ate it at Beltane when—and now the very smell sickens me—”

  And this child was gotten at Beltane at the ritual fires. What is it that troubles her so? That memory should be a pleasant one, Morgause thought, smiling at the memory of the Beltane license. She wondered if the girl had fallen into the hands of some particularly brutish man and had undergone something like rape—that would account for her rage and despair at this pregnancy. Still, done was done, and Morgaine was old enough to know that not all men were brutes, even if she had once fallen into the hands of one who was neither gentle nor skilled with women.

  Morgause took a slice of oatcake and sopped it in the meat juice in the dish. “Eat this, then—you will get the good of the meat so,” she said, “and I have made you some tea with the hips of roses; it is sour and will taste good to you. I remember how I craved sour things when I was breeding.”

  Morgaine ate obediently, and it seemed to Morgause that a little color came into her face. She made a face at the sourness of the drink, but drank it down thirstily nonetheless. “I do not like it,” she said, “but how strange, I cannot stop drinking it.”

  “Your child craves it,” said Morgause seriously. “Babes in the womb know what is good for them, and they demand it of us.”

  Lot, sitting at his ease between two of his huntsmen, smiled amiably at his sister-in-law. “An old skinny animal, but a good dinner for late winter,” he said, “and I’m just as glad we didn’t get a breeding doe. We saw two or three of them, but I told my men to let them be, and even called off the dogs—I want the deer to drop their fawns in peace, and I could see that time is near, so many of them were heavy.” He yawned, taking up small Gareth, whose face was greasy and shining with the meat. “Soon you’ll be big enough to go hunting with us,” he said. “You
and the little Duke of Cornwall, no doubt.”

  “Who is the Duke of Cornwall, Father?” Gareth asked.

  “Why, the babe Morgaine carries,” Lot replied, smiling, and Gareth stared at Morgaine. “I don’t see any baby. Where is your baby, Morgaine?”

  Morgaine chuckled uneasily. “Next month at this time I shall show him to you.”

  “Will the spring maiden bring it to you?”

  “You could say so,” Morgaine said, smiling despite herself.

  “How can a baby be a duke?”

  “My father was Duke of Cornwall. I am his only child in marriage. When Arthur came to reign, he gave Tintagel back to Igraine; it will pass from her to me and to my sons, if I have any.”

  Morgause, looking at the young woman, thought: Her son stands nearer the throne than my own Gawaine. I am full sister to Igraine, and Viviane but her half-sister, so Gawaine is nearer kin than Lancelet. But Morgaine’s son will be Arthur’s nephew. I wonder if Morgaine has thought of that?

  “Certainly, then, Morgaine, your son is Duke of Cornwall—”

  “Or Duchess,” said Morgaine, smiling again.

  “No, I can tell by the way you carry, low and broad, that it will be a son,” said Morgause. “I have borne four, and I have watched my women through pregnancies. . . .” She grinned maliciously at Lot and said, “My husband takes very seriously that old writing which says that a king should be father to his people!”

  Lot said good-naturedly, “I think it only right for my true-born sons by my queen to have many foster-brothers; bare is back, they say, without brother, and my sons are many. . . . Come, kinswoman, will you take the harp and sing for us?”

  Morgaine pushed aside the remnant of gravy-soaked oatcake. “I have eaten too much for singing,” she said, frowning, and began to pace the hall again, and Morgause again saw her hands pressed to her back. Gareth came and tugged at her skirt.

  “Sing to me. Sing me that song about the dragon, Morgaine.”

  “It is too long for tonight—you must be away to your bed,” she said, but she went to the corner, took up the small harp that stood there, and sat on a bench. She plucked a few notes at random, bent to adjust one of the strings, then broke into a rowdy drinking song of the armies.

  Lot joined in the chorus, as did his men, their raucous voices ringing up to the smoky beams:

  “The Saxons came in dark of night,

  With all the folk asleep,

  They killed off all the women, for—

  They’d rather rape the sheep!”

  “You never learned that song in Avalon, kinswoman,” Lot said, grinning, as Morgaine rose to replace the harp.

  “Sing again,” Gareth teased, but she shook her head.

  “I am too short of breath now for singing,” she said. She put the harp down and took up her spindle, but after a moment or two put it aside and once more began pacing the hall.

  “What ails you, girl?” Lot asked. “You’re restless as a caged bear!”

  “My back aches with sitting,” she said, “and that meat my aunt would have me eat has given me a bellyache after all.” She held her hands again to her back and bent over suddenly as if with a cramp; then, suddenly, she gave a startled cry, and Morgause, watching, saw the too-long kirtle turn dark and wet, soaking her to the knees.

  “Oh, Morgaine, you’ve wet yourself,” Gareth cried out. “You’re too big to wet your clothes—my nurse would beat me for that!”

  “Hush, Gareth!” Morgause said sharply, and hurried to Morgaine, who stood bent over, her face crimson with astonishment and shame.

  “It’s all right, Morgaine,” she said, taking her by the arm. “Does it hurt you here—and here? I thought as much. You are in labor, that is all, didn’t you know?” But how should the girl know? It was her first, and she was never one for listening to women’s gossip, so she would not know the signs. For much of this day she must have been feeling the first pains. She called Beth and said, “Take the Duchess of Cornwall to the women’s hall and call Megan and Branwen. And take down her hair; she must have nothing knotted or bound about her or her clothing.” She added, stroking Morgaine’s hair, “I would that I had known this sooner this day when I braided your hair—I will come down soon and stay with you, Morgaine.”

  She watched the girl go out, leaning heavily on the nurse’s arm. She said to Lot, “I must go and stay with her. It is her first time, and she will be frightened, poor girl.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Lot said idly. “If it’s her first, she’ll be in labor all this night, and you’ll have time to hold her hand.” He gave his wife a good-natured smile. “You are quick to bring our Gawaine’s rival into the world!”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, low.

  “Only this—that Arthur and Morgaine were born of one womb, and her son stands nearer the throne than ours.”

  “Arthur is young,” Morgause said coldly, “and has time enough to father a dozen sons. Why should you think he has need of an heir?”

  Lot shrugged. “Fate is fickle,” he said. “Arthur bears a charmed life in battle—and I doubt not that the Lady of the Lake had something to do with that, damn her—and Gawaine is all too loyal to his king. But fate may turn away from Arthur, and if that day should come, I would like to know that Gawaine stood closest to the throne. Think well, Morgause; the life of an infant is uncertain. You might do well to beseech your Goddess that the little Duke of Cornwall should not draw a second breath.”

  “How could I do that to Morgaine? She is like my own daughter!”

  Lot chucked his wife affectionately under the chin. He said, “You are a loving mother, Morgause, and I wouldn’t have you otherwise. But I doubt if Morgaine is so eager to have a child in her arms. I have heard her say that she wished she had cast forth her child—”

  “She was ill and weary,” said Morgause angrily. “Do you think I did not say as much, when I was weary of dragging around a great belly? Any woman says such things in the last few moons of her pregnancy.”

  “Still, if Morgaine’s child should be born without breath, I do not think she would grieve overmuch. Nor—this is what I am saying—should you.”

  Morgause defended her kinswoman: “She is good to our Gareth, she has made him toys and playthings and told him tales. I am sure she will be just as good a mother to her own.”

  “Yet, it is not to our interest or our son’s that Morgaine should think of her son as Arthur’s heir.” He put his arm around his wife. “Look, sweeting, you and I have four sons, and no doubt when they’re all grown, they’ll be at one another’s throats—Lothian is not so big a kingdom as all that! But if Gawaine were High King, then there would be kingdoms enough for them all.”

  She nodded slowly. Lot had no love for Arthur, as he had had none for Uther; but she had not thought him quite so ruthless as this. “Are you asking me to kill her child as it comes forth?”

  “She is our kinswoman and my guest,” Lot said, “and thus sacred. I would not invoke the curse of a kinslayer. I said only—the lives of newborn babes are frail, unless they are very carefully tended, and if Morgaine has a difficult time of it, it might be well that none has leisure to tend the babe.”

  Morgause set her teeth and turned away from Lot. “I must go to my kinswoman.”

  Behind her Lot smiled. “Think well on what I have said, my wife.”

  Down in the little hall, a fire had been lighted for the women; a kettle of gruel was boiling on the hearth, for it would be a long night. Fresh straw had been spread. Morgause had forgotten, as women happy with their children do, the dread of birth, but the sight of the fresh straw made her teeth clench and a shudder go down her back. Morgaine had been put into a loose shift, and her hair, unbound, was hanging loose down her back; she was walking up and down in the room, leaning on Megan’s arm. It all had the air of a festival, and so indeed it was for the other women. Morgause went up to her kinswoman and took her arm.

  “Come now, you can walk with me a bit, and Megan ca
n go and prepare the swaddlings for your child,” she said. Morgaine looked at her, and Morgause thought the younger woman’s eyes were like those of a wild animal in a snare, awaiting the hunter’s hand which will cut its throat.

  “Will it be long, Aunt?”

  “Now, now, you must not think ahead,” said Morgause tenderly. “Think, if you must, that you have been in labor most of this day, so it will go all the faster now.” But to herself she thought, It will not be easy for her, she is so small, and she is reluctant to bear this child; no doubt there is a long, hard night ahead of her. . . .

  And then she remembered that Morgaine had the Sight, and that it was useless to lie to her. She patted Morgaine’s pale cheek. “No matter, child, we will take good care of you. It is always long with a first child—they are loath to leave their snug nest—but we will do all we can. Did anyone bring a cat into the room?”