The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  And then, when I had been married to Uriens for a year, Accolon came home.

  9

  Summer on the hills; the orchard in the queen’s garden covered with pink and white blossoms. Morgaine, walking beneath the trees, felt an aching homesickness all through her blood, remembering the Avalon spring and the trees covered with those white and rosy clouds. The year was swinging toward the summer solstice; Morgaine reckoned it up, realizing ruefully that at last the effects of half a lifetime in Avalon were wearing away—the tides no longer ran in her blood.

  No, need I lie to myself? It is not that I have forgotten, or that the tides no longer run in my blood, it is that I no longer let myself feel them. Morgaine considered herself dispassionately—the somber costly gown, suitable for a queen . . . Uriens had given her all the gowns and jewels which had belonged to his late wife, and she had her jewels from Igraine as well; Uriens liked to see her decked out in jewels befitting a queen.

  Some kings kill their prisoners of state, or enslave them in their mines; if it pleases the King of North Wales to hang his with jewels and parade her forth at his side, and call her queen, why not?

  Yet she felt full of the flow of the summer. Beneath her on the hillside she could hear a plowman encouraging his ox with soft cries. Tomorrow would be Midsummer.

  Next Sunday a priest would carry torches into the field and circle it in procession with his acolytes, chanting psalms and blessings. The richer barons and knights, who were all Christian, had persuaded the people that this was more seemly in a Christian country than the old ways, where the people lighted fires in the fields, and called the Lady in the old worship. Morgaine wished—and not for the first time—that she had been only one of the priestesses, not one of the great royal line of Avalon.

  I would still be there, she thought, one of them, doing the work of the Lady . . . not here, like any shipwrecked sailor, lost in an alien land. . . . Abruptly she turned and walked through the blossoming garden, her eyes downcast, refusing to look any further at the apple blossoms.

  Spring comes again and again, and the summer follows, with its fruitfulness. But I am as alone and barren as one of those locked-up Christian virgins within convent walls. She set her will against the tears which seemed somehow always beneath the surface these days, and went inside. Behind her the setting sun spread crimson over the fields, but she would not look at it; all was grey and barren here. As grey and barren as I.

  One of her women greeted her as she stepped inside the door.

  “My lady, the king has returned and would see you in his chamber.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Morgaine, more to herself than to the woman. A tight band of headache settled around her forehead, and for a moment she could not breathe, could not force herself to walk inside the darkness of the castle which, all this cold winter, had closed round her like a trap. Then she told herself not to be fanciful, set her teeth, and went to Uriens’ chamber, where she found him half-clad and lying on the flagstones, stretched out with his body servant rubbing his back.

  “You have tired yourself again,” she said, not adding, you are no longer young enough to go about your own lands like this. He had ridden to a nearby town to hear about some disputed lands. She knew that he would want her to sit beside him and listen to his tales of all that he had heard in the countryside. She sat down in her own chair nearby and listened with half an ear to what he told her.

  “You can go, Berec,” he told the man. “My lady will fetch my clothes for me.” When the man had gone he asked, “Morgaine, will you rub my feet? Your hands are better than his.”

  “Certainly. But you will have to sit in the chair.”

  He stretched out his hands and she gave him a tug upward. She placed a footstool under his feet and knelt beside it, chafing his thin, callused old feet until the blood rose to the surface and they looked alive again; then she fetched a flask and began to rub one of her herbal oils into the king’s gnarled toes.

  “You should have your man make you some new boots,” she said. “The crack in the old ones will make a sore there—see where it is blistered?”

  “But the old ones fit me so well, and boots are so stiff when they are new,” he protested.

  Morgaine said, “You must do as you like, my lord.”

  “No, no, you are right, as always,” he said. “I will tell the man tomorrow to come and measure my feet for a pair.”

  Morgaine, putting away her flask of herbal oil and fetching a pair of shapeless old soft shoes, thought: I wonder if he knows that this may be his last pair of boots, and that is why he is reluctant? She would not think about what the king’s death would mean to her. She did not want to wish him dead—he had never been anything but kind to her. She slid the soft indoor slippers on his feet and stood up, wiping her hands on a towel. “Is that better, my lord?”

  “Wonderful, my dear, thank you. No one can look after me the way you do,” he said. Morgaine sighed. When he had the new boots he would have more trouble with his feet; they would, as he had rightly foreseen, be stiff, and that would make his feet just as sore as they were now. Perhaps he should stop riding and stay at home in his chair, but he would not do that.

  She said, “You should have Avalloch ride out to hear these cases. He must learn to rule over his people.” His oldest son was the same age as she. He had waited long enough to rule, and Uriens looked like living forever.

  “True, true—but if I do not go, they will think their king does not care for them,” Uriens said. “But perhaps when the roads are bad next winter I will do so. . . .”

  “You had better,” she said. “If you have chilblains again, you could lose the use of your hands.”

  “The fact is, Morgaine,” he said, smiling his good-natured smile at her, “I am an old man, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Do you think there is roast pork for supper?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and some early cherries. I made sure of that.”

  “You are a notable housekeeper, my dear,” he said, and took her arm as they went out of the room. She thought, He thinks he is being kind to say so.

  The household of Uriens was assembled already for the evening meal: Avalloch; Avalloch’s wife, Maline, and their young children; Uwaine, lanky and dark, with his three young foster-brothers and the priest who was their tutor; and below them at the long table the men-at-arms and their ladies, and the upper servants. As Uriens and Morgaine took their seats and Morgaine signalled to the servants to bring food, Maline’s younger child began to clamor and shout.

  “Granny! I want to sit on Granny’s knee! Want Granny to feed me!”

  Maline—a slender, fair-haired, pale young woman, heavily pregnant—frowned and said, “No, Conn, sit down prettily and be quiet!”

  But the child had already toddled to Morgaine’s knee, and she laughed and lifted him up. I am an unlikely grandmother, she thought; Maline is almost as old as I. But Uriens’ grandsons were fond of her, and she hugged the little boy close, taking pleasure in the feel of the small curly head digging into her waist, the grubby little fingers clutching at her. She sliced bits of pork with her knife and fed them to Conn from her own plate, then cut him a piece of bread in the shape of a pig.

  “See, now you have more pork to eat . . .” she said, wiping her greasy fingers, and turned her attention to her own meal. She ate but little meat, even now; she soaked her bread in the meat juices, but no more. She was quickly finished, while the rest were still eating; she leaned back in her chair and began to sing softly to Conn, who curled up contentedly in her lap. After a time she grew aware that they were all listening to her, and she let her voice drop away.

  “Please go on singing, Mother,” Uwaine said, but she shook her head.

  “No, I am tired—listen, what did I hear in the courtyard?” She rose and signalled to one of the serving-men to light her to the doorway. Torch held high, he stood behind her, and she saw the rider come into the great courtyard. The serving-man stuck his torch into
one of the wall brackets and hurried to help the rider dismount. “My lord Accolon!”

  He came, his scarlet cape swirling behind him like a river of blood. “Lady Morgaine,” he said, with a deep bow, “or should I say—my lady mother?”

  “Please do not,” Morgaine said impatiently. “Come in, Accolon, your father and brothers will be happy to see you.”

  “As you are not, lady?”

  She bit her lip, suddenly wondering if she would weep. She said, “You are a king’s son, as I am a king’s daughter. Do I have to remind you how such marriages are made? It was not my doing, Accolon, and when we spoke together, I had no idea—” She stopped, and he looked down at her, then stooped over her hand.

  He said so softly that even the serving-man did not hear, “Poor Morgaine. I believe you, lady. Peace between us, then—Mother?”

  “Only if you do not call me Mother,” she said, with a shred of a smile. “I am not so old. It is well enough for Uwaine—” and then, as they came back into the hall, Conn started upright and began to cry out again for “Granny!” Morgaine laughed, mirthlessly, and went back to pick up the toddler. She was aware of Accolon’s eyes on her; she cast her own down at the child in her lap, listening silently as Uriens greeted his son.

  Accolon came formally to embrace his brother, to bow before his brother’s wife; he knelt and kissed his father’s hand and then turned to Morgaine. She said shortly, “Spare me further courtesies, Accolon, my hands are all pork fat, I have been holding the baby, and he is a messy feeder.”

  “As you command, madam,” said Accolon, going to the table and taking the plate one of the serving-women brought to him. But while he ate and drank, she was still conscious of his eyes.

  I am sure he is still angry with me. Asking my hand in the morning, and in the evening, seeing me promised to his father; no doubt he thinks I succumbed to ambition—why marry the king’s son if you can have the king?

  “No,” she said firmly, giving Conn a little shake, “if you are to stay in my lap you must be quiet and not paw at my dress with your greasy hands. . . .”

  When he saw me last I was clad in scarlet and I was the king’s sister, reputed a witch . . . now I am a grandmother with a dirty child in my lap, looking after the housekeeping and nagging my old husband not to ride in mended boots which make his feet sore. Morgaine was acutely aware of every grey hair, every line in her face. In the name of the Goddess, why should I care what Accolon thinks of me? But she did care and she knew it; she was accustomed to having young men look at her and admire her, and now she felt that she was old, ugly, undesirable. She had never thought herself a beauty, but always before this she had been one of the younger people, and now she sat among the aging matrons. She hushed the child again, for Maline had asked Accolon what news of Arthur’s court.

  “There is no news of great doings,” Accolon said. “I think those days are over for our lifetime. Arthur’s court is quiet, and the King still does penance for some unknown sin—he touches no wine, even at high feast days.”

  “Has the Queen yet shown any signs of bearing him an heir?” Maline asked.

  “None,” said Accolon, “though one of her ladies told me before the mock games that she thought the Queen might be pregnant.”

  Maline turned to Morgaine and said, “You knew the Queen well, did you not, mother-in-law?”

  “I did,” said Morgaine, “and as for that rumor, well, Gwenhwyfar always thinks herself pregnant if her courses come a day late.”

  “The King is a fool,” said Uriens. “He should put her away and take some woman who would give him a son. I remember all too well what chaos ruled the land when they thought Uther would die with no son. Now the succession should be firmly established.”

  Accolon said, “I have heard that the King has named one of his cousins for his heir—the son of Lancelet. I like that not—Lancelet is the son of Ban of Benwick, and we want no foreign High Kings reigning over our own.”

  Morgaine said firmly, “Lancelet is the son of the Lady of Avalon, of the old royal line.”

  “Avalon!” said Maline disdainfully. “This is a Christian land. What is Avalon to us now?”

  “More than you think,” said Accolon. “I have heard that some of the country people, who remember the Pendragon, are not happy with so Christian a court as Arthur’s, and remember that Arthur, before his crowning, took oath to stand with the folk of Avalon.”

  “Yes,” said Morgaine, “and he bears the great sword of the Holy Regalia of Avalon.”

  “The Christians seem not to hold that against him,” Accolon said, “and now I remember some news from the court—King Edric of the Saxons has turned Christian and came to be baptized, with all his retinue, at Glastonbury, and he knelt and took oath before Arthur in token that all the Saxon lands accepted Arthur as High King.”

  “Arthur? King over Saxons? Will wonders never cease!” Avalloch said. “I always heard him say he would deal with the Saxons only at the point of his sword!”

  “Yet there he was, the Saxon king, kneeling in Glastonbury church, and Arthur hearing his oath and taking him by the hand,” said Accolon. “Perhaps he will marry the Saxon’s daughter to the son of Lancelet and have done with all this fighting. And there sat the Merlin among Arthur’s councillors, and one would have said he was as good a Christian as any of them!”

  “Gwenhwyfar must be happy now,” said Morgaine. “Always she said God had given Arthur the victory at Mount Badon because he bore the banner of the Holy Virgin. And later I heard her say that God had spared his life that he might bring the Saxons into the fold of the church.”

  Uriens shrugged and said, “I do not think I would trust a Saxon behind me with an axe, even if he wore a bishop’s miter!”

  “Nor I,” said Avalloch, “but if the Saxon chiefs are praying and doing penance for their souls’ sake, at least they are not riding to burn our villages and abbeys. And as to penance and fasting—what, think you, can Arthur have on his conscience? When I rode with his armies, I was not among his Companions and knew him not so well, but he seemed an uncommon good man, and a penance of such length means some sin greater than common. Lady Morgaine, do you know, you who are his sister?”

  “His sister, not his confessor.” Morgaine knew her voice was sharp, and fell silent.

  Uriens said, “Any man who waged war for fifteen years among the Saxons must have more on his conscience than he cares to tell; but few are so tender of conscience as to think of it when the battle is past. All of us have known murder and ravage and blood and the slaughter of the innocent. But the battles are over for our lifetime, God grant, and having made our peace with men, we have leisure to make peace with God.”

  So Arthur does penance still, and that old Archbishop Patricius still holds the mortgage on his soul! How, I wonder, does Gwenhwyfar enjoy that?

  “Tell us more of the court,” Maline begged. “What of the Queen? What did she wear when she sat at court?”

  Accolon laughed. “I know nothing of ladies’ garments. Something of white, with pearls—the Marhaus, the great Irish knight, brought them to her from the Irish king. And her cousin Elaine, I heard, has borne Lancelet a daughter—or was that last year? She had a son already, I think, that was chosen Arthur’s heir. And there is some scandal in King Pellinore’s court—it seems that his son, Lamorak, went on a mission to Lothian, and now speaks of marrying Lot’s widow, old Queen Morgause—”

  Avalloch chuckled. “The boy must be mad. Morgause is fifty, at least, maybe more!”

  “Five-and-forty,” Morgaine said. “She is ten years older than I.” And she wondered why she thus turned the knife in her own wound . . . do I want Accolon to realize how old I am, grandmother to Uriens’ brood . . . ?