The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Morgaine sat quietly in her place, cushioning her aching head in her hand. Later Gawaine brought out a pipe from his own northern country, and began to play a wild lament, filled with the cries of sea birds and sorrow. Lancelet came and sat near to Morgaine, taking her hand gently.

  “Are you better now, kinswoman?”

  “Oh, yes—it has happened before,” Morgaine said. “It is as if I had fallen into a dream and saw all things through shadows—” And yet, she thought, it was not quite like that either.

  “My mother said something like that to me once,” said Lancelet, and Morgaine gauged his sorrow and weariness by that; never before had he spoken to her, nor to any other as far as she knew, of his mother or of his years at Avalon. “She seemed to think it was a thing which came of itself with the Sight. Once she said it was as if she were drawn into the fairy country and looking out from there as its prisoner, but I know not if she had ever been within the fairy country or if this was but a way of speaking. . . .”

  But I have, Morgaine thought, and it is not like that, not quite . . . it is like trying to remember a dream that has faded. . . .

  “I myself have known it a little,” Lancelet said. “It comes at a time when I cannot see clearly, but only as if all things were very far away and not real . . . and I could not quite touch them but must first cross a weary distance . . . perhaps it is something in the fairy blood we bear—” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I used to taunt you with that, when you were only a little maiden, do you recall, I called you Morgaine of the Fairies and it made you angry?”

  She nodded. “I remember well, kinsman,” she said, thinking that for all the weariness in his face, the new lines there, the touch of grey in the crisp curls of his hair, he was still more beautiful to her, more beloved, than any other man she had ever known. She blinked her eyes fiercely; so it was and so it must be: he loved her as kinswoman, no more.

  Again it seemed to her that the world moved behind a barrier of shadows; it mattered nothing what she did. This world was no more real than the fairy kingdom. Even the music sounded faraway and distant—Gawaine had taken up the harp and was singing some tale he had heard among the Saxons, of a monster who dwelled in a lake and how one of their heroes had gone down into the lake and ripped off the monster’s arm, then faced the monster’s mother in her evil den. . . .

  “A grim and grisly tale,” she said under her breath to Lancelet, and he smiled and said, “Most Saxon tales are so. War and bloodshed and heroes with skill in battle and not much else in their thick noddles. . . .”

  “And now we are to live at peace with them, it seems,” Morgaine said.

  “Aye. So it shall be. I can live with the Saxons, but not with what they call music . . . though their tales are entertaining enough, I suppose, for a long evening by the hearth.” He sighed, and said, almost inaudibly, “I think perhaps I was not born for sitting by a hearth, either—”

  “You would like to be out in battle again?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I am weary of the court.” Morgaine saw his eyes go to where Gwenhwyfar sat beside Arthur, smiling as she listened to Gawaine’s tale. Again he sighed, a sound that seemed ripped up from the very deeps of his soul.

  “Lancelet,” she said, quietly and urgently, “you must be gone from here or you will be destroyed.”

  “Aye, destroyed body and soul,” he said, staring at the floor.

  “About your soul I know nothing—you must ask a priest about that—”

  “Would that I could!” said Lancelet with suppressed violence; he struck his fist softly on the floor beside her harp, so that the strings jangled a little. “Would that I could believe there is just such a God as the Christians claim. . . .”

  “You must go, cousin. Go on some quest like Gareth’s, to kill ruffians who are holding the land to ransom, or to kill dragons, or what you will, but you must go!”

  She saw his throat move as he swallowed. “And what of her?”

  Morgaine said quietly, “Believe this or no, I am her friend too. Think you not, she has a soul to be saved as well?”

  “Why, you give me counsel as good as any priest.” His smile was bitter.

  “It takes no priesthood to know when two men—and a woman as well—are trapped, and cannot escape from what has been,” said Morgaine. “It would be easy to blame her for all. But I, too, know what it is to love where I cannot—” She stopped and looked away from him, feeling scalding heat rise in her face; she had not meant to say so much. The song had ended, and Gawaine yielded up the harp, saying, “After this grim tale we need something light—a song of love, perhaps, and I leave that to the gallant Lancelet—”

  “I have sat too long at court singing songs of love,” said Lancelet, rising and turning toward Arthur. “Now that you are here again, my lord, and can see to all things yourself, I beg you to send me forth from this court on some quest.”

  Arthur smiled at his friend. “Will you be gone so soon? I cannot keep you if you are longing to be away, but where would you go?”

  Pellinore and his dragon. Morgaine, her eyes cast down, staring and seeing the flicker of the fire past her lids, formed the words in her mind with all the force she could manage, trying to thrust them into Arthur’s mind. Lancelet said, “I had it in mind to go after a dragon—”

  Arthur’s eyes glinted with mischief. “It might be well, at that, to make an end of Pellinore’s dragon. The tales grow daily greater, so that men are afraid to travel into that country! Gwenhwyfar tells me Elaine has asked for leave to visit her home. You may escort the lady thither, and I bid you not return until Pellinore’s dragon is dead.”

  “Alas,” protested Lancelet, laughing, “would you exile me from your court for all time? How can I kill a dragon who is but a dream?”

  Arthur chuckled. “May you never meet a dragon worse than that, my friend! Well, I charge you to make an end for all time of that dragon, even if you must laugh it out of existence by making a ballad of it!”

  Elaine rose and curtseyed to the King. “By your leave, my lord, may I ask that the lady Morgaine visit me for a time as well?”

  Morgaine said, not looking at Lancelet, “I would like to go with Elaine, my brother, if your lady can spare me. There are herbs and simples in that country about which I know little, and I would learn of them from the country wives. I need them for medicines and charms.”

  “Well,” said Arthur, “you may go if you will. But it will be lonely here without you all.” He smiled his rare, gentle smile at Lancelet. “My court is not my court without my best of knights. But I would not hold you here against your will, and neither would my queen.”

  I am not so sure of that, Morgaine thought, watching Gwenhwyfar struggling to compose her face. Arthur had been long away; he was eager to be reunited with his wife. Would Gwenhwyfar tell him honestly that she loved another, or would she go meekly to his bed and pretend again?

  And for a bizarre moment Morgaine saw herself as the Queen’s shadow . . . somehow her fate and mine have gotten all entangled . . . she, Morgaine, had had Arthur and borne him a son, which Gwenhwyfar longed to do; Gwenhwyfar had had Lancelet’s love for which Morgaine would willingly have given her soul . . . it is just like the God of the Christians to make such blunders—he does not like lovers. Or is it the Goddess who jests cruelly with us?

  Gwenhwyfar beckoned to Morgaine. “You look ill, sister. Are you still faint?”

  Morgaine nodded. I must not hate her. She is as much victim as I. . . . “I am still a little weary. I will go to rest soon.”

  “And tomorrow,” Gwenhwyfar said, “you and Elaine are to take Lancelet from us.” The words were spoken lightly, as a jest, but Morgaine seemed to see very deep into Gwenhwyfar, where the woman was fighting rage and despair like her own. Ah, our fates are entangled by the Goddess, and who can fight her will but she hardened her heart against the other woman’s despair and said, “What is the good of a queen’s champion, if he is not away fighting for what seems good
to him? Would you hold him at court and away from the winning of honor, my sister?”

  “Neither of us would want that,” Arthur said, coming up behind Gwenhwyfar and laying his arm around her waist. “Since by the goodwill of my friend and champion, my queen is here and safe when I return. Good night to you, my sister.”

  Morgaine stood and watched them move away from her, and after a moment she felt Lancelet’s hand on her shoulder. He did not speak, but stood silent, watching Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. And as she stood there, silent, she knew that if she made a single move, she could have Lancelet this night. In his despair, now when he saw the woman he loved returning to her husband, and that husband so dear to him that he could not lift a hand to take her, he would turn to Morgaine if she would have him.

  And he is too honorable not to marry me afterward. . . .

  No. Elaine would have him, perhaps, on those terms, but not I. She is guileless; he will not come to hate her, as he would certainly come to hate me.

  Gently she removed Lancelet’s hand from her shoulder. “I am weary, my kinsman. I am also for my bed. Good night, my dear. Bless you.” And, knowing the irony of it, said, “Sleep well,” knowing he would not. Well, so much the better for the plan she had made.

  But much of that night she too lay unsleeping, bitterly regretting her own foreknowledge. Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.

  6

  In avalon the Tor rose, crowned with the ring stones, and on the night of the darkened moon, the procession wound slowly upward, with torches. At their head walked a woman, pale hair braided in a crown over a broad, low forehead; she was robed in white, the sickle knife hanging at her girdle. By the light of the flaring torches, it seemed that she sought out Morgaine where she stood in the shadows outside the circle, and her eyes demanded. Where are you, you who should stand here in my place? Why do you linger? Your place is here. . . .

  Arthur’s kingdom is slipping from the Lady’s grasp, and you are letting it go. Already he turns for all things to the priests, while you, who should stand in the place of the Goddess to him, will not move. He holds the sword of the Holy Regalia; is it you who will force him to live by it, or you who will take it from his hand and bring him down? Remember, Arthur has a son, and his son must grow to maturity in Avalon, that he may hand the kingdom of the Goddess down to his son. . . .

  And then it seemed that Avalon faded away and she saw Arthur in desperate battle, Excalibur in his hand, and he fell, run through by another sword, and he flung Excalibur into the Lake that it might not fall into the hands of his son. . . .

  Where is Morgaine, whom the Lady prepared for this day? Where is she who should stand in the place of the Goddess for this hour?

  Where is the Great Raven? And suddenly it seemed to me that a flight of ravens wheeled overhead, diving and pecking at my eyes, circling down at me, crying aloud in Raven’s own voice, “Morgaine! Morgaine, why have you deserted us, why did you betray me?”

  “I cannot,” I cried, “I do not know the way . . .” but Raven’s face melted into the accusing face of Viviane, and then into the shadow of the Old Deathcrone. . . .

  And Morgaine woke, knowing she lay in a sunlit room in Pellinore’s house; the walls were white with plaster, painted in the old Roman fashion. Only outside the windows, far off and distant, she could hear the cry of a raven somewhere, and shivered.

  Viviane had never scrupled to meddle with the lives of others, when it meant the good of Avalon or of the kingdom. Nor should she. Yet she herself had delayed as the sunny days sped by. Lancelet spent the days on the hills by the Lake, searching for the dragon—as if there actually were a dragon, Morgaine thought scornfully—and the evenings by the fire, exchanging songs and tales with Pellinore, singing to Elaine while sitting at her feet. Elaine was beautiful and innocent, and not unlike her cousin Gwenhwyfar, though five years younger. Morgaine let day after sunny day slide by, sure that they all must see the logic of it, that Lancelet and Elaine should marry.

  No, she told herself bitterly, if any of them had had any wit to see logic or reason, then should Lancelet have married me years ago. Now it was time to act.

  Elaine turned over in the bed they shared and opened her eyes; she smiled and curled up next to Morgaine. She trusts me, thought Morgaine painfully; she thinks I am helping her to win Lancelet out of friendship. If I hated her I could do her no worse harm. But she said quietly, “Now Lancelet has had enough time to feel the loss of Gwenhwyfar. Your time has come, Elaine.”

  “Will you give Lancelet a charm or a love potion . . . ?”

  Morgaine laughed. “I put small trust in love charms, though tonight he shall have something in his wine which will make him ready for any woman. Tonight you shall not sleep here, but in a pavilion near the woods, and Lancelet shall have a message that Gwenhwyfar has come and has sent for him. And so he will come to you, in the darkness. I can do no more than that—you must be ready for him—”

  “And he will think I am Gwenhwyfar—” She blinked, swallowing hard. “Well, then—”

  “He may think you are Gwenhwyfar for a short while,” Morgaine said, steadily, “but he will know soon enough. You are a virgin, are you not, Elaine?”

  The girl’s face was crimson, but she nodded.

  “Well, after the potion I have given him, he will not be able to stop himself,” said Morgaine, “unless you should panic and try to fight him away from you—I warn you, it will not be all that much pleasure, since you are a virgin. Once I begin I cannot turn back, so say now whether you wish me to begin.”

  “I will have Lancelet for my husband, and God forbid I should ever turn back before I am honorably his wife.”

  Morgaine sighed. “So be it. Now—you know the scent Gwenhwyfar uses . . .”

  “I know it, but I do not like it much, it is too strong for me.”

  Morgaine nodded. “I make it for her—you know I am schooled in such things. When you go to bed in the pavilion, you must scent your body and your bedclothes with it. It will turn his mind to Gwenhwyfar and arouse him with that memory—”

  The younger woman wrinkled her nose in distaste. “It seems unfair—”

  “It is unfair,” said Morgaine. “Make up your mind to that. What we are doing is dishonest, Elaine, but there’s good to it too. Arthur’s kingdom cannot long stand if the King is known a cuckold. When you are wedded a while, since you and Gwenhwyfar are so much alike, no doubt it will be put round that it was you Lancelet loved all this time.” She gave Elaine the flask of scent. “Now, if you have a servant you can trust, have him put up the pavilion somewhere Lancelet will not see it till this night. . . .”

  Elaine said, “Even the priest would approve, I doubt it not, since I am taking him away from adultery with a married woman. I am free to marry. . . .”

  Morgaine felt her own smile thin and strained. “Well for you, if you can quiet your conscience so . . . some priests say so, that the end is all, and whatever means be used, they are for the best . . .”

  She realized that Elaine was still standing, like a child at lessons, before her. “Well, go, Elaine,” she said, “go and send Lancelet away another day to hunt the dragon. I must prepare my charm.”

  She watched them as they shared cup and plate at breakfast. Lancelet was fond of Elaine, she thought—fond as he might be of a friendly little dog. He would not be unkind to her when they were married.

  Viviane had been just as ruthless as this, she had not scrupled to send a brother to the bed of his own sister. . . . Morgaine worried the memory painfully, like a sore tooth. This too is for the good of the kingdom, she thought, and as she went to hunt out her herbs and medicines, to steep them in wine for the potion she would give Lancelet, she tried to form a prayer to the Goddess who joined man and women in love, or in simple lust like the rutting of beasts.

  Goddess, I know enough of lust . . . she thought, and steadied her hands, breaking the herbs and dropping them into the wine. I have felt his desire, though he would not give m
e what I would have had from him. . . .

  She sat watching the slow simmering of the herbs in the wine; small bubbles rose, lazily broke, and spat bittersweet essences which fumed around her. The world seemed very small and far away, her brazier but a child’s toy, each bubble that rose in the wine large enough that she could have floated away inside it . . . her whole body aching with a desire she knew would never be slaked. She could sense that she was moving into the state where powerful magic could be made. . . .

  It seemed she was both within and without the castle, that a part of her was out on the hills, following the Pendragon banner which Lancelet sometimes carried . . . twisting, a great red dragon . . . but there were no dragons, not this kind of dragon, and Pellinore’s dragon, it was surely only a jest, a dream, as unreal as the banner which flew somewhere, far to the southward, over the walls of Camelot, a dragon invented by some artist for the banner, like the designs Elaine drew for her tapestry. And Lancelet surely knew this. Following the dragon, he was but enjoying a pleasant ride over the summer hills, following a dream and a fantasy, leaving him leisure for daydreaming of Gwenhwyfar’s arms. . . . Morgaine looked down at the bubbling liquid in her little brazier, drop by drop added a little more wine to the mixture, that it would not boil away. He would dream of Gwenhwyfar, and that night there would be a woman in his arms, wearing Gwenhwyfar’s perfume. But first Morgaine would give him this potion which would put him at the mercy of the rut in him, so that he would not stop when he found he held not an experienced woman and his paramour, but a shrinking virgin. . . . For a moment Morgaine stopped to pity Elaine, because what she was cold-bloodedly arranging was certainly something like rape. Much as Elaine longed for Lancelet, she was a virgin and had no real idea of the difference between her romantic dreams of his kisses, and what really awaited her—being taken by a man too drugged to know the difference. Whatever it was for Elaine, and however bravely she endured it, it would hardly be a romantic episode.