The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Arthur, betraying Avalon and the oath by which he had received the sword and been taken into the holiest place of the Druids. And danger to Viviane should she set forth from Avalon—slowly, trying to put things together in her mind, Morgaine remembered. She had set forth from Caerleon—it seemed only a few days ago, in the late summer. She had never come to Avalon, and now it looked as if she never would come there . . . she looked sadly at the church atop the Tor. If she could steal into Avalon behind the island—but the paths had carried her only into the fairy country.

  Somewhere, then, she had lost both dagger and horse; and now she remembered seeing bleached bone, and shuddered. And now she came to take note, the church on the Tor seemed different, the priests must have been building on it, and surely they could not have built it so big in a month or even two . . . Somehow, she thought, gripping her hands together in sudden fright, I must find out how many moons have sped by while I wandered with the maidens of the lady, or took my pleasure with the fairy man who led me there. . . .

  But no, it could not have been more than two or at most three nights . . . she thought wildly, not knowing it was the beginning of a confusion which would grow endlessly and never be wholly settled in her mind. And now when she thought of those nights she was frightened and ashamed, trembling with the memory of a pleasure she had never known, lying in the arms of the fairy man—and yet now she was away from the enchantment it seemed like something shameful, done in a dream. And the caresses she had given and received from the fairy maidens, something she could never have dreamed without such an enchantment—there had befallen something, too, with the lady . . . and now she thought of it, the lady was much like Viviane, and Morgaine was shamed too . . . in the fairy country it had been as if she had hungered all her life for such things, and yet in the outside world she would never have dared it, or even dreamed of it.

  Despite the warm sun, she had begun to shiver. She did not know what time of year it might be, but there were patches of unmelted snow on the edge of the Lake, hiding in the reeds. In the name of the Goddess, can the winter have passed and spring be at hand again? And if enough time had gone by in the outside world so that Arthur could have planned betrayal of Avalon, then it must have been longer than she dared to think.

  She had lost horse and dagger and everything else she had had with her. Her shoes, too, were worn, she had no food with her, and she was alone on the shores of unfriendly country, far from any place where she was known as the King’s sister. Well, she had gone hungry before this. A flicker of a smile passed over her face. There were great houses and nunneries where she would perhaps be given bread as a beggar. She would make her way to the court of Arthur—perhaps somewhere she would come on a village where someone would need the services of a midwife, so that she could barter her skill for bread.

  She gave one last longing look at the shores across the Lake. Dared she make a final attempt to speak the word of power which would bring her into Avalon? If she could speak with Raven, perhaps she could know precisely what danger threatened . . . she opened her mouth to cry out the word and drew back. She could not face Raven, either; Raven who had kept the laws of Avalon so meticulously, who had done nothing to shame her priestess garb. How could she face Raven’s clear eyes with the memories of what she had done in the outside world and in the fairy country? Raven would have them from her mind in a moment . . . at last, the shores of the Lake and the spire of the church blurring through tears, she turned her back on Avalon to find the Roman road that led away south, past the mines and at last to Caerleon.

  She had been three days on the road before she met with another traveller. The first night she had slept in an abandoned herder’s hut, supperless, sheltering from the wind, but no more. On the second day she had come to a farmstead where the folk were all from home except for a half-witted goose boy; but he had let her sit to warm herself by the banked fire inside, and she had taken a thorn from his foot, so that he gave her a hunk of his bread. She had walked farther with less to eat.

  But then she came nearer to Caerleon and was shocked to find two burned-out houses, and crops rotting in the field . . . it was as if Saxons had passed this way! She went into one of the houses, which looked as if it had been sacked, for there was little left; but lying in one of the rooms she found an old and faded cloak, too ragged, she supposed, even for the raiders to take, abandoned by someone when they fled the place. It was warm wool, though, and Morgaine wrapped it round herself, though it made her look more than ever like a beggar woman; she had suffered more from the cold than from hunger. Near dusk some fowls clucked in the abandoned court; hens were creatures of habit, they had not yet learned that they could not come here to be fed. Morgaine caught one of them and wrung its neck, and in the ruined fireplace kindled a small fire; if she was lucky, no one would see smoke coming from the ruins, or if they did would think it was but ghosts. She spitted the chicken and roasted it on a green stick of wood over her fire. It was so old and tough that even her strong teeth had trouble chewing it, but she had been hungry so long that she did not care, and sucked the bones as if it were the daintiest of roast birds. She found some leather, too, in one of the outbuildings which had been some sort of forge or smithy; they had carried off every tool and every last scrap of metal, but there were some bits of leather lying about, and Morgaine wrapped what was left of the hen in it. She would have mended her shoes too, but she had no knife. Well, perhaps she would come to a village where she might get the loan of one for a few minutes. What madness had prompted her to cast her dagger away?

  It was several days after full moon, and when she set forth from the ruined farm, there was frost on the stone doorstep, and a gibbous day moon lingered in the sky. As she crossed the door sill with her leather bag of cold meat and a thick stick clenched in her hand—some shepherd, no doubt, had cut it and left it here—she heard a hen clucking somewhere in wild announcement, and she sought out the nest and ate the egg raw and still warm from the hen’s body, so she felt full fed and comfortable.

  The wind was brisk and cold, and she walked at a good pace, glad of the cloak, threadbare and torn though it was. The morning was far advanced, and she was beginning to think of sitting herself down by the road and eating some of the cold fowl, when she heard hooves behind her on the road, overtaking her.

  Her first thought was to continue on her way—she was bent on her own affairs and had as good a right to the road as any other traveller. Then, remembering the ruin of the farm, she took thought and went to the side of the road, concealing herself behind a bush. There was no way to tell what manner of folk travelled the roads now, with Arthur too busy keeping the peace against the Saxons to have much time to create peace in the countryside and protection along the roads. If the traveller seemed harmless, she might ask him what news; if not, well, she would lie here hidden until he was out of sight.

  It was a solitary horseman, wrapped in a grey cloak and riding on a tall, lean horse; riding alone, with no servant or pack horse. No, but he bore a great pack behind him—no, not that either; it was that his body was hunched over in the saddle—and then she knew who the man must be, and stepped out from her place of concealment.

  “Kevin Harper!” she said.

  He drew up his horse; it was well trained and did not rear or sidle. He looked down at her, scowling, his mouth twisted in a sneer—or was it but the scars he bore?

  “I have nothing for you, woman—” and then he broke off. “By the Goddess! It is the lady Morgaine—what do you here, madam? I had heard last year that you were in Tintagel with your mother before she died, but when the High Queen went south to her burying, she said no, you had not been there—”

  Morgaine reeled and put out a hand to steady herself on her stick. “My mother—dead? I had not heard—”

  Kevin dismounted, steadying himself against the horse’s flank until he got his stick under him. “Sit you down here, madam—you had not heard? Where, in the name of the Goddess, have you been? The word c
ame even to Viviane in Avalon, but she is now too old and too frail to go forth.”

  But where I was, Morgaine thought, I heard it not. It may be that when I saw Igraine’s face in the forest pool, then was she calling to me with the news, and I never knew. Pain wrenched at her heart; she and Igraine had grown so far from each other—they had parted soon after she was eleven years old and gone forth to Avalon—yet now it tore at her with anguish, as if she were that same little girl who had wept when she left Igraine’s house. Oh, my mother, and I knew nothing of it. . . . She sat at the edge of the road, tears streaming down her face. “How did she die? Have you heard?”

  “Her heart, I believe; it was a year ago in the spring. Believe me, Morgaine, I heard nothing but that it was natural and expected for her years.”

  For a moment Morgaine could not control her voice enough to speak; and with the grief, there was terror, for clearly she had dwelt out of the world longer than she had thought possible. . . . Kevin said, a year ago in the spring. So more than one spring had gone by while she lingered in the fairy country! For in the summer when she left Arthur’s court, Igraine had not even been ailing! It was not a question of how many months she had been gone, but how many years!

  And could she get Kevin to tell her, without revealing where she had been?

  “There is wine in my saddlebag, Morgaine—I would offer it to you, but you must get it for yourself. . . . I walk not well at the best of times. You look thin and pale, are you hungry too? And how is it that I find you on this road, clothed"—Kevin wrinkled his brow in fastidious distaste—"worse than any beggar woman?”

  Morgaine cast about in her mind for what she could say.

  “I have dwelt . . . in solitude, and away from the world. I have not seen nor spoken with any man for I know not how long. I had lost count even of the seasons.” And this much was true, for whatever the folk of the fairy country might be, they were not mankind.

  “I can well believe it,” said Kevin. “I could believe even that you had not heard of the great battle—”

  “I see that this country has been all burned over.”

  “Oh, that was three years ago,” said Kevin, and Morgaine started back. “Some of the treaty troops broke their vows and came all through this country, looting and burning. Arthur took a great wound at that battle and lay abed for half a year.” He saw Morgaine’s troubled face and mistook her concern. “Oh, he does well enough now, but all that time he did not set foot to the ground—I imagine he felt the want of your healing skills, Morgaine. Then Gawaine led down all of Lot’s men from the North and we had peace for three years. And then this summer past there was the great battle at Mount Badon—Lot died in that battle—aye, there was a victory, such as bards will sing for a hundred years,” Kevin said. “I do not think there is a Saxon chief left unkilled in all this land from Cornwall to Lothian, save those who call Arthur their king. There has been nothing like it since the days of the Caesars. And now all this land lies under the peace of Arthur.”

  Morgaine had risen and gone to the saddlebags. She found the flask of wine, and Kevin said, “Bring the bread and cheese too. It is near noon and I will eat here with you.” When she had served him and opened her roll of leather with the remains of the chicken, offering it, he shook his head.

  “Thank you, but I eat no flesh food now, I am under vows. . . . I marvel to see you eat meat, Morgaine, a priestess of your rank—”

  “That or go fasting,” said Morgaine, and told him how the chicken had come to her. “But I have not observed that prohibition since I left Avalon. I eat such things as are set before me.”

  “For myself, I think it makes little matter, flesh or fish or grain,” Kevin said, “though the Christians make much of their fasting—at least this Patricius who is Arthur’s bishop now. Before that, the brethren who dwelt with us upon Avalon used to repeat a saying of their Christ, that it was not what went into a man’s mouth that defiled him, but what came out of it, and therefore man should eat humbly of all the gifts of God. And so I have heard Taliesin say. But for myself—no doubt you know that at a certain level of the Mysteries, what is eaten has so much effect on the mind—I dare not eat meat now, it makes me drunker than too much wine!”

  Morgaine nodded—she had had that experience too. When she had been drinking the sacred herbs, she could eat nothing but a little bread and fruit; even cheese or boiled lentils were too rich and made her ill.

  “But where do you go now, Morgaine?” And when she told him, he stared as if she were mad. “To Caerleon? Why? There is nothing there—or perhaps you did not know, though I find that hard to believe. . . . Arthur gave it to one of his knights who served him well at that battle. But on the day of Pentecost he moved his whole court to Camelot—it will be a year this summer that he has dwelt there. Taliesin liked that not, that he opened his court upon the Christian holy day, but he did it to please his queen—he listens to her in all things.” Morgaine surprised a faint grimace on his face. “But then if you had not heard of the battle, it is likely you had not heard how Arthur betrayed the folk of Avalon and the Tribes.”

  Morgaine stopped the cup halfway to her lips. She said, “It is for that I came, Kevin. I heard that Raven had broken her silence and prophesied some such thing as that. . . .”

  “It was more than prophecy,” said the bard. He stretched his leg uneasily, as if sitting for long in one position on the ground hurt him.

  “Arthur betrayed—what did he do?” Morgaine’s breath caught. “He did not give them into the hands of the Saxons . . . ?”

  “You have not heard, then. The Tribes were sworn to follow the banner of the Pendragon, as they swore at his kingmaking, and Uther’s before him . . . and the little folk of the days before the Tribes, they came too, with their bronze axes and flint hatchets and elf-arrows—no more than the fairy folk can they bear cold iron. All, all sworn to follow the Great Dragon. And Arthur betrayed them . . . he put away the dragon standard, even though we begged him that he should let Gawaine or Lancelet bear it into the field. But he swore that he would raise only his banner of the cross and the Holy Virgin into the field at Mount Badon. And so he did.”

  Morgaine stared in horror, remembering Arthur’s kingmaking. Even Uther had not so pledged himself to the folk of Avalon! And he had betrayed that pledge? She whispered, “And the Tribes did not desert him?”

  Kevin said in great anger, “Some of them came near to it; some of the Old People from the Welsh hills did indeed go home when the cross was raised—King Uriens could not stop them. As for the rest—well, we knew that day that the Saxons had us between the hammer and the anvil. We might follow Arthur and his knights into battle, or live thereafter under Saxon rule, for this was the great battle that had been prophesied. And he bore the sacred sword Excalibur from the Holy Regalia. Like enough the Goddess herself knew that she would be the worse if the land was ruled by the Saxons. So he fought, and the Goddess gave him victory.” Kevin offered the wine flask to Morgaine, and when she shook her head, he drained it.

  “Viviane would have come from Avalon to charge him with oath-breaking,” he said, “but she is reluctant to do so before all his people. And so I am for Camelot, to remind him of his vow. If he heeds not that, then Viviane has sworn she will come to Camelot herself, on the day when all people present their petitions, and Arthur has sworn he himself will hear and judge them, at Pentecost. And then, she said, she would stand before him as a common petitioner, and claim his oath, and remind him of what must befall him who forswears his word.”

  Morgaine said, “The Goddess grant that the Lady of the Lake need never humble herself so far.”

  “I too would speak to him with wrath, not soft words, but it is not mine to choose,” said Kevin. He held out his hand. “Will you help me to rise? I think my horse will bear two, and if not, when we come to a town we must get you a horse. I should be gallant even as the great Lancelet, and let you ride mine, but"—he pointed to his crippled body.

  Morgaine pu
lled him to his feet. “I am strong, I can walk. If we must barter anything in the town, we should find shoes for me and a knife. I have not a single coin with me, but I will repay you when I can.”

  Kevin shrugged. “You are my vowed sister in Avalon—what I have is yours, so runs the law. There is no talk of payment between us.”

  Morgaine felt herself coloring in shame, that Kevin should so remind her of what she had sworn. I have been out of the world, in truth. “Let me help you to mount your horse. Will she stand, so?”