The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  The boy bowed gracefully to the distinguished guests, but made only a polite murmur of acknowledgment.

  “He is a handsome lad and well grown,” said Kevin. “This, then, is Morgaine’s son?”

  Morgause lifted her eyebrows. “Would it avail anything to deny it to one who has the Sight, sir?”

  “Morgaine herself told me, when she heard that I rode north to Lothian,” Kevin said, and a shadow crossed his face.

  “Then Morgaine dwells again in Avalon?” asked Morgause, and Kevin shook his head. Morgause saw that Viviane too looked distressed.

  “Morgaine is at Arthur’s court,” said Kevin. Viviane said, pressing her lips together, “She has work to do in the world outside. But she will return to Avalon at the appointed time. There is a place awaiting her which she must take.”

  Gwydion asked softly, “Is it of my mother that you speak, Lady?”

  Viviane looked straight at Gwydion and suddenly she seemed tall and imposing—the old priestess-trick, thought Morgause, but Gwydion had never seen it before. And the Lady said, her voice suddenly filling the courtyard, “Why do you ask me, child, when you already know the answer perfectly well? Would you mock at the Sight, Gwydion? Take care. I know you better than you think, and there are still a few things in this world that you do not know!”

  Gwydion backed away, his mouth open, suddenly only a precocious child again. Morgause raised her eyebrows; so there was still someone and something which could frighten him! For once he did not try to excuse or explain himself in his usual glib manner.

  She took the initiative again, saying, “Come in. All things are prepared to welcome you, my sisters, Lord Merlin.” And as she looked at the red cloth she had set upon the high table, the goblets and fine ware standing there, she thought, Even here at the end of the world, our court is no pigsty! She conducted Viviane to her own high seat and set Kevin Harper next to her. As Niniane was stepping up on the dais she stumbled, and Gwydion was swiftly there, with a ready hand and a polite word.

  Well, well, at last our Gwydion is beginning to take notice of a pretty woman. Or is it just good manners or a wish to ingratiate himself because Viviane chided him? She was perfectly well aware that she would never know the answer.

  The fish was baked to perfection, the red fish flaking lightly away from the bones, and there was enough of the honey cake for most of the house people to have some; and she had sent for extra barley beer so that each of the people in the lower hall might have something extra to their meal as well. There was plenty of fresh-baked bread and an abundance of milk and butter, as well as cheese made with ewe’s milk. Viviane ate as sparingly as ever, but she was ready in praise of the food.

  “You set a queenly table indeed. I would not be better guested in Camelot. I had not looked for such welcome, coming without warning as I did,” she said.

  “Have you been to Camelot? Have you seen my sons?” Morgause asked, but Viviane shook her head and her forehead ridged in a scowl.

  “No, not yet. Though I shall go thither at what Arthur now calls Pentecost, like to the church fathers themselves,” she said, and for some reason Morgause felt a slight icing of her back; but with her guests she had no leisure to think of it.

  Kevin said, “I saw your sons at court, lady. Gawaine had a small wound at Mount Badon, but it healed clean and is hidden by his beard . . . he has begun wearing a small beard like to the Saxons, not because he wishes to be like them, but he cannot shave daily without slicing the top from the scar. He may start a new fashion at court! I saw not Gaheris—he is away to the south, fortifying the coast. Gareth is to be made a Companion at Arthur’s high feast at Pentecost. He is one of the biggest, and one of the trustiest men at court, though sir Cai still bullies him and calls him ‘Handsome’ for his pretty face.”

  “He should have been made one of Arthur’s Companions already!” said Gwydion jealously, and Kevin looked more kindly on the boy. “So, you are jealous for your kinsman’s honor, my lad? Indeed he well deserves to be a Companion, and he is treated as one now his rank is known. But Arthur wished to show him honor at his first high feast in Camelot, so he will be made Companion with all the ceremony the King can manage. Rest you content, Gwydion, Arthur well knows his worth, even as he knows Gawaine’s. And he is one of Arthur’s youngest Companions.”

  Then, even more shyly, Gwydion asked, “Know you my mother, Master Harper? The lady M-Morgaine?”

  “Aye, lad, I know her well,” said Kevin gently, and Morgause thought that the ugly little man had at least a speaking voice that was rich and beautiful. “She is one of the fairest ladies at Arthur’s court, and one of the most gracious, and she plays the harp as well as a bard.”

  “Come, come,” said Morgause, her lips crinkling up in a smile, and amused at the obvious devotion in the harper’s voice. “It is well to tell a tale to amuse a child, but truth must be served too. Morgaine, fair? She is plain as a raven! Igraine was beautiful when she was young, all men knew that, but Morgaine resembles her not at all.”

  Kevin’s voice was respectful but also amused. “There is an old saying in the wisdom of the Druids . . . beauty is not all in a fair face, but lies within. Morgaine is indeed very beautiful, Queen Morgause, though her beauty resembles yours no more than a willow tree resembles a daffodil. And she is the only person at court to whose hands I will ever trust My Lady.” He gestured to his harp which had been unwrapped and set at his side, and picking up her cue, Morgause asked Kevin if he would favor them with a song.

  He took up the harp and sang, and for a time the hall was perfectly still except for the harp notes and the bard’s voice, and as he sang, the people in the lower hall crept as close as they could to listen to the music. But when he had done, and Morgause had dismissed the house-folk—although she allowed Lochlann to stay, sitting quietly near the fire—she said, “I too love music well, Master Harper, and you have given us a pleasure I shall long remember. But you did not travel all this long journey from Avalon to the Northlands so that I might have feasting with a harper. I beg of you, tell me why you come here so unexpectedly.”

  “Not so unexpected,” said Viviane, with a little smile, “for I found you all dressed in your best and ready to greet us with wine and baked fish and honey cakes. You had warning of my coming, and since you had never more than a glimmering of the Sight, I can only imagine it was another not far from here who warned you.” She cast an ironic glance at Gwydion, and Morgause nodded.

  “But he told me not why, only bade me prepare all things for a festival, and I thought it was a child’s whim, no more.”

  Gwydion was hanging over Kevin’s seat as he began to wrap his harp, and he asked, putting his hand out hesitantly, “May I touch the strings?”

  “You may,” said Kevin mildly, and Gwydion plucked a string or two, saying, “I have never seen so fine a harp.”

  “Nor will you ever. I think there is no finer one here, nor even in Wales, where there is a whole college of bards,” said Kevin. “My Lady was a king’s gift to me, and she never leaves my side. And like many women,” he added, with a courtly bow to Viviane, “she grows but more beautiful with the years.”

  “Would that my voice had grown sweeter as I grew old,” said Viviane good-humoredly, “but the Dark Mother has not willed it so. Only her immortal children sing more sweetly as the years grow longer. May My Lady never sing less beautifully than now.”

  “Are you fond of music, master Gwydion? Have you learned anything of the harp?”

  “I have not a harp to play,” said Gwydion. “Coll, who is the only harper at court, has now such stiff fingers that he seldom touches the strings. We have had no music for two years now. I play a little upon the small pipe, though, and Aran—he that was Lot’s piper at war—taught me to play a little upon the pipe of elk-horn . . . it hangs yonder. He went with King Lot to Mount Badon, and like Lot, he came not back.”

  “Bring me the pipe,” said Kevin, and when Gwydion brought it from where it hung on the wall, he
rubbed it clean with a cloth, blew the dust from inside it, then put it to his lips and set his twisted fingers to the neat row of holes bored in the horn. He played a little dancing tune, then set it aside, saying, “I have small skill for this—my fingers are not quick enough. Well, Gwydion, if you love music, they will teach you at Avalon—let me hear you play a little upon this horn.”

  Gwydion’s mouth was dry—Morgause saw him wet his lips with his tongue—but he took the wood-and-horn thing in his hands and blew carefully into it. Then he began to play a slow melody, and Kevin, after a moment, nodded.

  “That will do,” he said. “You are Morgaine’s son, after all—it would be strange if you had no gift at all. We may be able to teach you much. You may have the makings of a bard, but more likely of a priest and Druid.”

  Gwydion blinked and almost let the pipe fall from his hand; he caught it in the skirt of his tunic.

  “Of a bard—what do you mean? Tell me clear!”

  Viviane looked straight at him, “It is the appointed time, Gwydion. You are Druid-born, and of two royal lines. You are to be given the ancient teachings and the secret wisdom in Avalon, that one day you may bear the dragon.”

  He swallowed—Morgause could see him absorbing this. She could well imagine that the thought of secret wisdom would attract Gwydion more than anything else they might have offered. He stammered, “You said—two royal lines—”

  Viviane shook her head faintly when Niniane would have answered, so Niniane said only, “All things will be made clear to you when the proper time comes, Gwydion. If you are to be a Druid, the first thing you must learn is when to be silent and ask no questions.”

  He looked up at her mutely, and Morgause thought, It was worth all the trouble of this day to see Gwydion for once impressed even to speechlessness! Well, she was not surprised; Niniane was beautiful—she looked very much as Igraine had looked as a young girl, or she herself, only with fair hair rather than red.

  Viviane said quietly, “This much I can tell you at once—the mother of your mother’s mother was the Lady of the Lake, and from a long line of priestesses. Igraine and Morgause also bear the blood of the noble Taliesin, and so do you. Many of the royal lines of these islands, among the Druids, have been preserved in you, and if you are worthy, a great destiny awaits you. But you must be worthy—royal blood alone makes not a king, but courage, and wisdom, and farsightedness. I tell you, Gwydion, that he who wears the dragon may be more of a king than he who sits on a throne, for the throne may be won by force of arms, or by craft, or as Lot won it, by being born in the right bed and begot by the right king. But the Great Dragon can be won only by one’s own efforts, not in this life alone, but those which have gone before. I tell you a mystery.”

  Gwydion said, “I—I do not understand!”

  “Of course you do not!” Viviane’s voice was sharp. “Even as I said—it is a mystery, and wise Druids have sometimes studied for many lifetimes to understand less than that. I did not mean that you should understand, but that you should listen and hear, and learn to obey.”

  Gwydion swallowed and lowered his head. Morgause saw Niniane smile at him, and he drew a long breath, as if reprieved, and sat down at her feet, listening quietly, for once without trying to make any pert answer or explanation. Morgause thought, Perhaps the training of the Druids is what he needs!

  “So you have come to tell me I have fostered Morgaine’s son long enough, and the time is come when he shall be taken to Avalon and schooled in the learning of the Druids. But you would not have travelled yourself by this long road to tell me that—you could have sent any lesser Druid to take the boy into his custody. I have known for years that it would not befit Morgaine’s son to end his days among shepherds and fisherfolk. And where else than Avalon would his destiny be laid? I beg you, tell me the rest—oh, yes, there is more, I see in your faces that there is more.”

  Kevin opened his mouth to speak, but Viviane said sharply, “Why should I tell you all my thoughts, Morgause, when you seek to turn all things to your advantage and that of your own sons? Even now, Gawaine is nearest the High King’s throne not only because of blood, but also in Arthur’s love. And I foresaw when Arthur was wedded to Gwenhwyfar that she would bear no child. I thought it only likely that she might die in breeding, so I wished not to meddle with what happiness Arthur might have—then could we have found him, afterward, a more suitable wife. But I let it go on too long, and now he will not put her away, even though she is barren—and you see in that no more than an opportunity for your own son’s advancement.”

  “You should not assume she is barren, Viviane.” Kevin’s face was set in bitter lines. “She was pregnant before Mount Badon, and she carried this child a full five months—she might well have brought it to birth. I think she miscarried because of the heat, and the close confinement in the castle, and her own fear of the Saxons . . . and it was pity for her, I think, which caused Arthur to betray Avalon and put aside the dragon banner.”

  Niniane said, “So it was not only her childlessness, Queen Morgause, by which Gwenhwyfar did Arthur such great harm. She is a creature of the priests, and already she has influenced him too well. If some day it should happen that she bear a child that might live to grow up . . . that would be the worst of all.”

  Morgause felt as if she would stifle. “Gawaine—”

  Viviane said harshly, “Gawaine is Christian as Arthur. He longs only to please Arthur in all things!”

  Kevin said, “I know not whether Arthur has any great commitment to the Christian God or whether it is all Gwenhwyfar’s doing, to please her and pity her—”

  Morgause said scornfully, “Is that man fit to rule who would forswear his oath for a woman’s sake? Is Arthur forsworn, then?”

  Kevin said, “I heard him say that since Christ and Mary the Virgin gave him the victory at Mount Badon, he will not put them aside now. And I heard him say more, when he spoke with Taliesin—that Mary the Virgin was even as the Great Goddess, and it was she had given him the victory to save this land . . . and that the banner of the Pendragon was that of his father Uther, and not his own. . . .”

  “Still,” said Niniane, “he had no right to cast it all aside. We in Avalon set Arthur on his throne, and he owes it to us—”

  Morgause said impatiently, “What matters it what banner flies over a king’s troops? The soldiers need something to inspire their imagination—”

  “As usual, you ignore the point,” said Viviane. “It is what lives in their dreams and imagination that we must control from Avalon, or this struggle with Christ will be lost and their souls lie in slavery to a false faith! The symbol of the dragon should be always before them, that mankind seek to accomplish, not to think of sin and do penance!”

  Kevin said slowly, “I know not—perhaps it would be as well that there should be these lesser mysteries for the fools, and then could the wise be shown the inner teaching. Perhaps it has been made all too easy for mankind to come to Avalon, and so they value it not.”

  Viviane said, “Would you have it that I should sit by and see Avalon go further into the mists, even as the fairy country?”

  “I am saying, Lady,” said Kevin, deferentially, but firmly, “that it may even now be too late to prevent it—Avalon will always be there for all men to find if they can seek the way thither, throughout all the ages past the ages. If they cannot find the way to Avalon, it is a sign, perhaps, that they are not ready.”

  “Still,” said Viviane, in that hard voice, “I shall keep Avalon within the world, or die in attempting it!”

  There was a silence in the hall, and Morgause realized that she was icy cold. She said, “Build up the fire, Gwydion—” and passed the wine. “Drink, will you not, sister? And you, Master Harper?”

  Niniane poured the wine, but Gwydion sat still, as if dreaming or entranced. Morgause said, “Gwydion, do as I bade you—” but Kevin put out a hand and bade her be still. He said, in a whisper, “The boy’s in trance. Gwydion, speak—”<
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  “It is all blood—” he whispered, “blood, poured out like the blood of sacrifice on the ancient altars, blood spilt on the throne—”

  Niniane stumbled and tripped, and the rest of the wine, blood red, went cascading over Gwydion where he sat, and across Viviane’s lap. She rose, startled, and Gwydion blinked and shook himself like a puppy. He said, confused, “What—I am sorry—let me help you,” and took the wineskin from Niniane’s hand. “Ugh, it looks like spilt blood, let me fetch a cloth from the kitchens,” and streaked away like any active lad.

  “Well, there’s your blood,” said Morgause with disgust. “Is my Gwydion, too, to be lost in dreams and sickly visions?”

  Mopping the sticky wine from her gown, Viviane said, “Disparage not another’s gift because you have not the Sight, Morgause!”