The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  But Balin stared about him like a wild animal. “I will neither eat nor rest under this roof while it holds that—that woman.”

  Balan demanded, “Dare you offer insult to my mother?”

  And Balin cried, “You are all against me, then—I shall go forth from this roof which shelters my mother’s slayer!” He turned his back and ran from the house. Viviane sank down in a chair, and Balan came to offer his arm and Gawan to pour her a cup of wine.

  “Drink, Lady—and accept my apologies for my son,” he said. “He is beside himself; he will come soon enough to sanity.”

  “Shall I go after him, Father, for fear he should do himself some hurt?” Balan asked, but Gawan shook his head.

  “No—no, son, stay here with your mother. Words will do him little good now.”

  Trembling, Viviane sipped at her wine. She, too, was overcome with sorrow for Priscilla, and for the time when they had been young women together, each with her baby son in her arms. . . . Priscilla had been so pretty and merry, they had laughed together and played with their babies, and now Priscilla lay dead after a wasting illness, and Viviane’s own hand had held the cup of her death. That she had done Priscilla’s own will only eased her conscience, it did not blunt her sadness.

  We were young together, and now she lies dead and I am old, old as the Death-crone’s very self; and those pretty babies who played about our feet, one has grey in his own hair, and the other would kill me if he could, as a foul sorceress and murderer. . . . It seemed to Viviane that her very bones rattled with an icy grief. She stood near to the fire, but still she shivered and could not get warm. She clutched her shawl about her, and Balan came and led her to the best seat, tucked a cushion behind her back, set a cup of heated wine in her hands.

  “Ah, you loved her too,” he said. “Don’t trouble yourself about Balin, Lady, he will regain his reason in time. When he can think clear again, he’ll know that what you did was great mercy to our mother—” He broke off, slow red creeping up his heavy jowls. “Are you angry with me, Lady, that still I think of my mother as she who died but now?”

  “It is no more than reason,” said Viviane, sipping at the hot wine, and caressing her son’s hardened hand. Once, she thought, it had been so little and tender that she could enfold it within her own, like a curled rosebud, and now her own hand was quite lost within his. “The Goddess knows, she was more mother to you than ever I was.”

  “Aye, I should have known that you would understand that,” said Balan. “Morgaine said as much to me when I saw her last at Arthur’s court.”

  “Morgaine? Is she at Arthur’s court now, my son? Was she there when you came away?”

  Balan shook his head regretfully. “No, I saw her last—it was years gone, Lady. She left Arthur’s court, let me think . . . it was before Arthur had his great wound . . . why, ’tis three years come Midsummer. I thought she was with you in Avalon.”

  Viviane shook her head and steadied herself against the arm of the high seat. “I have not seen Morgaine since Arthur’s wedding.” And then she thought, perhaps she is gone over the seas. She asked Balan, “What of your brother Lancelet? Is he at court or has he gone back to Less Britain?”

  “He will not do that, I think, while Arthur lives,” Balan said, “though he is not often at court now . . .” and Viviane, with a fragment of the Sight, heard the unspoken words Balan bit back, unwilling to speak gossip or scandal: When Lancelet is at court, men mark how he never takes his eyes from Queen Gwenhwyfar, and twice he has refused Arthur when Arthur would have had him wedded. Balan went on hastily, “Lancelet has said he will set all things in order in Arthur’s kingdom, and so he is always out and about the lands, he has killed more marauding brigands and raiding bands than any other of Arthur’s Companions. They say of him that he is an entire legion in himself, Lady—” and Balan raised his head and looked ruefully at Viviane. “Your younger son, Mother, is a great knight, such a knight as that old Alexander of the legends. There are those who say, even, that he is a better knight than Arthur’s self. I have brought no such glory on you, my lady.”

  “We all do such things as the Gods give us to do, my son,” Viviane said gently. “I am only glad to see that you do not bear malice toward your brother for that he is a better knight than you.”

  Balan shook his head. “Why, that would be like bearing malice toward Arthur that I am not the King, Mother,” he said. “And Lancelet is modest and good to all men, and pious as a maiden too—knew you not that he had become a Christian, Lady?”

  Viviane shook her head. “It surprises me not,” she said, with a trace of scorn she did not know would be in her voice until she had spoken. “Always your brother fears those things he cannot understand, and the faith of Christ is a fitting faith for slaves who think themselves sinners and humble—” Then she stopped herself and said, “I am sorry, my son. I meant not to belittle. I know it is your faith too.”

  Balan blinked and smiled. “Now has a miracle come to pass, madam, that you ask pardon of any for any word you ever spoke!”

  Viviane bit her lip. “Is that truly how you see me, my son?”

  He nodded. “Aye, ever you have seemed to me the proudest of women—and it seemed to me right that you should be exactly as you are,” he said. And Viviane mocked herself that she had come to this, seeking a word of approval from her son! She cast about to find something new to speak of.

  “You told me Lancelet has twice refused to marry? For what, do you think, is he waiting? Does he want more of a dowry than any maiden can bring him?”

  Again it seemed that she heard Balan’s unspoken thoughts: He cannot have the one he would have, for she is wedded to his king . . . but her son said only, “He says he has no mind to marry any woman, and jests that he is fonder of his horse than he could be of any woman who could not ride with him into battle—he says in jest that one day he will take one of the Saxon shield maidens to wife. None can match him at arms, either, nor in the games Arthur holds at Caerleon. Sometimes he will take some handicap, ride without a shield, or change horses with another, so he will not have too much of the advantage. Balin challenged him once and won a course against him, but he refused a prize for it, because he found out it was because Lancelet’s saddle girths broke.”

  “So Balin too is a courteous and good knight?” Viviane said.

  “Oh, yes, Mother, you must not judge my brother by tonight,” Balan said eagerly. “When he rode against Lancelet, truly I knew not which of them to cheer on. Lancelet offered him the prize, saying he had won it fairly, since he should not have lost control of his horse—so he said! But Balin would not take it, and they stood disputing with one another in courtesy like two heroes from the ancient sagas Taliesin used to tell us when we were lads!”

  “So you can be proud of both your brothers,” Viviane said, and the talk passed to other things, and after a little time she said she should go and help with the laying-out. But when she went into the chamber, she saw that the women were all in awe of her, and a priest had come, too, from the village. He welcomed her courteously indeed, but Viviane could tell by his words that he thought her one of the sisters from the nunnery nearby—indeed, her dark travel dress made her look so, and she had no wish to confront him this night. So, when they entreated her to go to the best guest bed, she went, and at last she slept. But all that she had spoken of with Balan seemed to come and go in her head, through her dreams, and at one moment it seemed that she saw Morgaine through grey and thinning mists, running away into a wood of strange trees and crowned with flowers such as never grew in Avalon, and she said in her dreams, and again to herself when she woke, I must delay no longer, I must seek for her with the Sight, or what remains to me of the Sight.

  The next morning she stood by while Priscilla was laid in earth. Balin had returned and stood weeping by the graveside, and after the burial was done and the other folk had gone into the house to drink ale, she approached him and said gently, “Will you not embrace me and exchange fo
rgiveness with me, foster-son? Believe me, I share your grief. We have been friends all our lives, Dame Priscilla and I, or would I have given her my own son to nurse? And I am your foster-brother’s mother.” She held out her arms, but Balin’s face drew hard and cold, and he turned his back on her and walked away.

  Gawan besought her to stay for a day or two and rest there, but Viviane asked for her donkey to be brought; she must return to Avalon, she said, and she saw that Gawan, though his hospitality had been sincere, was relieved—if someone had told the priest who she was, there might have been awkwardness he had no mind to, during his wife’s funeral feast. Balan, too, asked, “Will you have me to ride with you to Avalon, madam? There are sometimes brigands and evil folk on the road.”

  “No,” she said, giving him her hand and smiling. “I look not as if I had gold about me, and the men who ride with me are of the Tribesmen—we could hide in the hills, should we be attacked. Nor am I any temptation to any man who might seek to take a woman.” She laughed and said, “And with Lancelet questing to kill all the brigands in this country, it will soon be as it was said once it was, that a virgin of fifteen bearing a purse of gold might ride from one end of the land to the other with no man to offer her insult! Stay here, my son, and mourn your mother, and make peace with your foster-brother. You must not quarrel with him for my sake, Balan.” And then she shuddered suddenly as if with cold, for a picture had come into her mind, and it seemed to her as if there was the clash of swords and her son bleeding from a great wound. . . .

  “What is it, Lady?” he asked her softly.

  “Nothing, my son—only promise to me that you will not break the peace with your brother Balin.”

  He bent his head. “I will not, Mother. And I will tell him that you have said this, so he will not think you bear him any grudge, either.”

  “By the Lady, I do not,” said Viviane, but still she felt icy cold, though the winter sun was warm on her back. “May she bless you, my son, and your brother too, though I doubt he wishes for the blessing of any God but his own. Will you take the Lady’s blessing, Balan?”

  “I will,” he said, bending to kiss Viviane’s hand, and he stood looking after her as she rode away.

  She told herself, as she rode toward Avalon, that surely what she had seen had come of her own weariness and fear; and in any case Balan was one of Arthur’s Companions, and it could not be looked for, in this war with the Saxons, that he should escape a wound. But the picture persisted in her mind, that Balan and his foster-brother should somehow quarrel in her name, until at last she made a stern banishing gesture and willed to see her son’s face no more in her mind till she should look on it again in the flesh!

  She was troubled too about Lancelet. He was long past the age when a man should marry. Yet there were men enough who had no mind to women, seeking only for the companionship of their brothers and comrades under arms, and she had wondered often enough if Ban’s son were one of them. Well, Lancelet should take his own road; she had consented to that when he left Avalon. If he professed great devotion to the Queen, no doubt, it was only that his comrades should not mock at him as a lover of boys.

  But she dismissed her sons from her mind. Neither of them was as near to her heart as Morgaine, and Morgaine . . . where was Morgaine? She had been disquieted before this, but now, hearing Balan’s news, she feared for Morgaine’s very life. Before this day was ended, she should send out messengers from Avalon to Tintagel, where Igraine dwelt, and northward to Lot’s court where Morgaine might have gone to be with her child. . . . She had seen the young Gwydion, once or twice, in her mirror, but had paid him little heed, as long as he grew and thrived. Morgause was kindly to all little children, having a brood of her own, and there would be time enough to look to Gwydion when he came of an age for fostering. Then should he come to Avalon. . . .

  With the iron discipline of years, she managed to put even Morgaine from her mind and to ride home to Avalon in a mood befitting a priestess who had just taken the part of the Death-crone for her oldest friend—sobered indeed, but without great grief, for death was only the beginning of new life.

  Priscilla was a Christian. She believed she would now be with her God in Heaven. Yet she too will be born again on this imperfect world, to seek the perfection of the Gods, again and yet again. . . . Balan and I parted as strangers, and so it must be. I am no more the Mother, and I should feel no more grief than when I ceased to be the Maiden for her . . . yet her heart was filled with rebellion.

  Truly, the time had come for her to give up her rulership of Avalon, that a younger woman might be Lady of the Lake and she herself no more than one of the wise-women, offering counsel and advice, but carrying no more that fearsome power. She had long known that the Sight was leaving her. Yet she would not lay down her power until she could place it in the hands of that one she had prepared to take it from her. She had felt that she could wait until Morgaine had outgrown her bitterness and returned to Avalon.

  Yet if anything has befallen Morgaine . . . and even if it has not, have I the right to continue as Lady when the Sight has left me?

  For a moment, when she came to the Lake, she was so cold and wet that when the boat’s crew turned to her to call down the mists, she could not force herself to remember the spell. Indeed it is time and more than time that I should lay down my powers. . . . Then the words of power came back into her mind and she spoke them, but much of that night she lay wakeful, in dread.

  When the morning had come, she studied the sky; the moon was darkening, and it would do no good to consult the mirror at this time. Will it ever profit me anything to look into that mirror again, now the Sight has departed from me? With iron discipline, she forced herself to say nothing of any of this to her attendant priestesses. But later that day she met with the other wise-women and asked them, “Is there anyone in the House of Maidens who is still virgin and has never yet gone to the grove or to the fires?”

  “There is Taliesin’s little daughter,” said one of the women.

  For a moment Viviane was confused—surely Igraine was grown and wedded and widowed, mother of the High King in Caerleon, and Morgause too was wedded and the mother of many sons. Then she recalled herself and said, “I knew not that he had a daughter in the House of Maidens.” A time had been, she thought, when no girl had been taken into the Maiden House without her own knowledge, and it had been her hand that had tested each one for the Sight and for her fitness for the Druid lore. But in the last years, she had let this slip from her.

  “Tell me. How old is she? What is her name? When did she come to us?”

  “Her name is Niniane,” said the old priestess. “She is the daughter of Branwen—do you remember? Branwen said that Taliesin had fathered this child at Beltane fire. It seems it was only a little while ago, but she must be eleven or twelve, perhaps more. She was fostered away in the North somewhere, but she came to us five or six seasons ago. She is a good child and biddable enough, and there are not now so many maidens who come to us that we can afford to pick and choose among them, Lady! There are none now like Raven or your fosterling Morgaine. And where is Morgaine now, Lady? She should return to us!”

  Viviane said, “She should return to us indeed,” and felt ashamed to say that she did not even know where Morgaine was, or even whether she was alive or dead. How have I the insolence to be Lady of Avalon when I know not even the name of my successor, nor who dwells in the House of Maidens? But if this Niniane was daughter to Taliesin and to a priestess of Avalon, surely she must have the Sight. And even if she had it not herself, Viviane could compel her to see, if she was a maiden still.

  She said, “See that Niniane is sent to me before dawn, three days from now,” and, although she saw a dozen questions in the eyes of the old priestess, she marked with a certain satisfaction that she was still unquestioned Lady of Avalon, for the woman asked her nothing.

  Niniane came to her an hour before dawn, at the end of the moon-dark seclusion; Viviane, sleepless, had
spent much of the night in restless self-questioning. She knew herself reluctant to set aside her own position of authority, yet if she could lay it into Morgaine’s hands, she would do so without regrets. She turned over in her hand the little sickle knife which Morgaine had abandoned when she fled from Avalon, then put it aside and raised her face to look at Taliesin’s daughter.

  The old priestess, even as I myself, loses track of time; surely she is more than eleven or twelve. The girl was trembling in awe, and Viviane recalled how Morgaine too had trembled when she first saw her as Lady of Avalon. She said gently, “You are Niniane? Who are your parents?”

  “I am Branwen’s daughter, Lady, but I do not know my father’s name. She said only that I was Beltane-gotten.” Well, that was reasonable enough.

  “How old are you, Niniane?”

  “I shall have finished fourteen winters this year.”

  “And you, have you been to the fires, child?”

  The girl shook her head. She said, “I have not been called thither.”