The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  These priests hate fertility and life so much, it is a miracle their so-called blessing does not blast the fields sterile—

  It was like an answer from her own mind when a voice spoke softly behind her. “I wonder, lady, if any here save ourselves truly know what they are watching?”

  Accolon took her arm for a moment to help her over a rough clump of the plowed land, and she saw again the serpents, fresh and blue along his wrists.

  “King Uriens knows and has tried to forget. That seems to me a worse blasphemy than not to know at all.”

  She had expected that would make him angry; had, in a way, been inviting it. With Accolon’s strong hands on her arm, she felt the strong hunger, the inner leap . . . he was young, he was a virile man, and she—she was the aging wife of his old father . . . and the eyes of Uriens’ subjects were on them, and the eyes of his family and his house priest! She could not even speak freely, she must treat him with cold detachment: her stepson! If Accolon said anything kind or pitying, she would scream aloud, would tear at her hair, at her face and flesh with her nails. . . .

  But Accolon only said, in a voice that could not have been overheard three feet away, “Perhaps it is enough for the Lady that we know, Morgaine. The Goddess will not fail us while a single worshipper gives her what is due.”

  For a moment she looked round at him. His eyes were dwelling on her, and although his hands on hers were careful, courteous, detached, it seemed that heat ran upward from them into her whole body. She was suddenly frightened and wanted to pull away.

  I am his father’s wife and of all women I am the one most forbidden to him. I am more forbidden to him, in this Christian land, than I was to Arthur.

  And then a memory from Avalon surfaced in her mind, something she had not thought of for a decade; one of the Druids, giving instruction in the secret wisdom to the young priestesses, had said, If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message given you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

  What has come to me again and again . . . ?

  Every man she had desired had been too close kin to her—Lancelet, who was the son of her foster-mother; Arthur, her own mother’s son; now the son of her husband . . .

  But they are too close kin to me only by the laws made by the Christians who seek to rule this land . . . to rule it in a new tyranny; not alone to make the laws but to rule the mind and heart and soul. Am I living out in my own life all the tyranny of that law, so I as priestess may know why it must be overthrown?

  She discovered that her hands, still tightly held in Accolon’s, were trembling. She said, trying to collect her scattered thoughts, “Do you truly believe that the Goddess would withdraw her life from this earth if the folk who dwell here should no longer give her her due?”

  It was the sort of remark that might have been made, priestess to priest, in Avalon. Morgaine knew, as well as anyone, that the true answer to that question was that the Gods were what they were, and did their will upon the earth regardless of whether man regarded their doing one way or the other. But Accolon said, with a curious animal flash of white teeth in a grin, “Then must we make it sure, lady, that she should always be given her due, lest the life of the world fail.” And then he addressed her by a name never spoken except by priest to priestess in ritual, and Morgaine felt her heart beating so hard she was dizzy.

  Lest the life of the world fail. Lest my life fail within me . . . he has called on me in the name of the Goddess. . . .

  “Be still,” she said, distracted. “This is neither the time nor the place for such talk.”

  “No?” They had come to the edge of the rough ground. He let go of her hand and somehow her own felt cold without it. Ahead of them the masked dancers shook their phallic wands and capered, and the Spring Maiden, her long hair buffeted and tangled by the breeze, was going around the circle of the dancers, exchanging a kiss with each—a ritualized, formal kiss, where her lips barely touched each cheek. Uriens beckoned Morgaine impatiently to his side; she moved stiffly and cold, feeling the spot on her wrists where Accolon had held her as a spot of heat on her icy body.

  Uriens said fussily, “It is your part, my dear, to give out these things to the dancers who have entertained us this day.” He motioned to a servant, who filled Morgaine’s hands with sweets and candied fruits; she tossed them to the dancers and the spectators, who scrambled for them, laughing and pushing. Always mockery of the sacred things . . . a memory of the day when the folk scrambled for bits of the flesh and blood of the sacrifice. . . . Let the rite be forgotten, but not mocked this way! Again and yet again they filled her hands with the sweets, and again and again she tossed them into the crowd. They saw no more in the rite than dancers who had entertained them; had they all forgotten? The Spring Maiden came up to Morgaine, laughing and flushed with innocent pride; Morgaine saw now that although she was lovely, her eyes were shallow, her hands thick and stubby with work in the fields. She was only a pretty peasant girl trying to do the work of a priestess, without the slightest idea what she was doing; it was folly to resent her.

  Yet she is a woman, doing the Mother’s work in the best way she has ever been told; it is not her fault that she was not schooled in Avalon for the great work. Morgaine did not quite know what was expected of her, but as the girl knelt for a moment before the Queen, Morgaine took on the half-forgotten stance of a priestess in blessing, and felt for an instant the old awareness of something shadowing her, above her, beyond . . . she laid her hands for a moment on the girl’s brow, felt the momentary flow of power between them, and the girl’s rather stupid face was transfigured for a moment. The Goddess works in her, too, Morgaine thought, and then she saw Accolon’s face; he was looking at her in wonder and awe. She had seen that look before, when she brought down the mists from Avalon . . . and the awareness of power flooded her, as if she were suddenly reborn.

  I am alive again. After all these years, I am a priestess again, and it was Accolon who brought it back to me. . . .

  And then the tension of the moment broke, and the girl backed away, stumbling over her feet, and dropping a clumsy curtsey to the royal party. Uriens distributed coins to the dancers and a somewhat larger gift to the village priest for candles to burn in his church, and the royal party went homeward. Morgaine walked sedately at Uriens’ side, her face a mask, but inwardly seething with life. Her stepson Uwaine came and walked beside her.

  “It was prettier than usual this year, Mother. Shanna is so lovely—the Spring Maiden, the daughter of the blacksmith Euan. But you, Mother, when you were blessing her, you looked so beautiful, you should have been the Spring Maiden yourself—”

  “Come, come,” she chided the boy, laughing. “Do you really think I could dress in green with my hair flying, and dance all round the plowed fields that way? And I am no maiden!”

  “No,” said Uwaine, surveying her with a long look, “but you looked like the Goddess. Father Eian says that the Goddess was really a demon who came to keep the folk from serving the good Christ, but do you know what I think? I think that the Goddess was here for people to worship before they were taught how to worship the holy mother of Christ.”

  Accolon was walking beside them. He said, “Before the Christ, the Goddess was, and it will not hurt if you think of her as Mary, Uwaine. You should always do service to the Lady, under whatever name. But I would not advise you to speak much about this to Father Eian.”

  “Oh no,” said the boy, his eyes wide. “He does not approve of women, even when they are Goddesses.”

  “I wonder what he thinks of queens?” Morgaine murmured. Then they had arrived back at the castle and Morgaine had to see to King Uriens’ travelling things, and in the confusion of the day, she let the new insights slide into the back of her mind, knowing that later she would have to consider all this most seri
ously.

  Uriens rode away after midday, with his men-at-arms and a body servant or two, taking leave of Morgaine tenderly with a kiss, counselling his son Avalloch to listen to Accolon’s counsel and that of the queen in all things. Uwaine was sulking; he wanted to go with his father, whom he adored, but Uriens would not be troubled with a child in the party. Morgaine had to comfort him, promise some special treat for him while his father was away. But at last all was quiet, and Morgaine could sit alone before the fire in the great hall—Maline had taken her children off to bed—and think of all that had befallen her that day.

  It was twilight outside, the long evening of Midsummer. Morgaine had taken her spindle and distaff in her hand, but she was only pretending to spin, twirling it once in a while and drawing out a little thread; she disliked spinning as much as ever, and one of the few things she had asked of Uriens was that she might employ two extra spinning women so that she would be free of that detested task; she did twice her share of the household weaving in its stead. She dared not spin; it would throw her into that strange state between sleep and waking, and she feared what she might see. So now she only twirled the spindle now and again, that none of the servants would see her sitting with her hands idle . . . not that anyone would have the right to reproach her, she was busy early and late. . . .

  The room was darkening, a few slashes of crimson light from the setting sun still brilliant, darkening the corners by contrast. Morgaine narrowed her eyes, thinking of the red sun setting over the ring stones on the Tor, of the priestesses walking in train behind the red torchlight, spilling it into the shadows . . . for a moment Raven’s face flickered before her, silent, enigmatic, and it seemed that Raven opened her silent lips and spoke her name . . . faces floated before her in the twilight: Elaine, her hair all unbound as the torchlight caught her in Lancelet’s bed; Gwenhwyfar, angry and triumphant at Morgaine’s wedding; the calm, still face of the strange woman with braided fair hair, the woman she had seen only in dreams, Lady of Avalon . . . Raven again, frightened, entreating . . . Arthur, bearing a candle of penitence as he walked among his subjects . . . oh, but the priests would never dare force the King to public penance, would they? And then she saw the barge of Avalon, draped all in black for a funeral, and her own face like a reflection on the mists, mirrored there, with three other women draped all in black like the barge, and a wounded man lying white and still in her lap—

  Torchlight flared crimson across the dark room, and a voice said, “Are you trying to spin in the dark, Mother?”

  Confused by the light, Morgaine looked up and said peevishly, “I have told you not to call me that!”

  Accolon put the torch into a bracket, and came to sit at her feet. “The Goddess is Mother to us all, lady, and I acknowledge you as such. . . .”

  “Are you mocking me?” Morgaine demanded, agitated.

  “I do not mock.” As Accolon knelt close to her, his lips trembled. “I saw your face today. Would I mock that—wearing these?” He thrust out his arms, and by a trick of the light, the blue serpents dyed on his wrists seemed to writhe and thrust up their painted heads. “Lady, Mother, Goddess—” His painted arms went out around her waist, and he buried his head in her lap. He muttered, “Yours is the face of the Goddess to me. . . .”

  As if she moved in a dream, Morgaine put out her hands to him, bending to kiss the back of his neck where the soft hair curled. Part of her was wondering, frightened, What am I doing? Is it only that he has called on me in the name of the Goddess, priest to priestess? Or is it only that when he touches me, speaks to me, I feel myself woman and alive again after all this time when I have felt myself old, barren, half dead in this marriage to a dead man and a dead life? Accolon raised his face to her, kissed her full on the lips. Morgaine, yielding to the kiss, felt herself melting, opened, a shudder, half pain half pleasure, running through her as his tongue against hers shot waking memories through her whole body . . . so long, so long, this long year when her body had been deadened, never letting itself wake lest it be aware of what Uriens was doing. . . . She thought, defiant, I am a priestess, my body is mine to be given in homage to her! What I did with Uriens was the sin, the submission to lust! This is true and holy. . . .

  His hands trembled on her body; but when he spoke, his voice was quiet and practical.

  “I think all the castle folk are abed. I knew you would be here waiting for me. . . .”

  For a moment Morgaine resented his certainty; then she bowed her head. They were in the hands of the Goddess and she would not refuse the flow that carried her on, like a river; long, long, she had only whirled about in a backwater, and now she was washed clean into the current of life again. “Where is Avalloch?”

  He laughed shortly. “He is gone down to the village to lie with the Spring Maiden . . . it is one of our customs that the village priest does not know. Ever, since our father was old and we were grown men, it has been so, and Avalloch does not think it incompatible with his duty as a Christian man, to be the father of his people, or as many of them as possible, like Uriens himself in his youth. Avalloch offered to cast lots with me for the privilege, and I had started to do so, then I remembered your hands blessing her, and knew where my true homage lay. . . .”

  She murmured half in protest, “Avalon is so far away . . .”

  He said, with his face against her breast, “But she is everywhere.”

  Morgaine whispered, “So be it,” and rose. She pulled him upright with her and made a half turn toward the stairs, then stopped. No, not here; there was not a bed in this castle that they could honorably share. And the Druid maxim returned to her, Can that which was never made nor created by Man, be worshipped under a roof made by human hands?

  Out, then, into the night. As they stepped into the empty courtyard, a falling star rushed downward across the sky, so swiftly that for an instant it seemed to Morgaine that the heavens reeled and the earth moved backward under her feet . . . then it was gone, leaving their eyes dazzled. A portent. The Goddess welcomes me back to herself. . . .

  “Come,” she whispered, her hand in Accolon’s, and led him upward to the orchard, where the white ghosts of blossom drifted in the darkness and fell around them. She spread her cloak on the grass, like a magic circle under the sky; held out her arms and whispered, “Come.”

  The dark shadow of his body over her blotted out the sky and the stars.

  Morgaine speaks . . .

  Even as we lay together under the stars that Midsummer, I knew that what we had done was not so much lovemaking as a magical act of passionate power; that his hands, the touch of his body, were reconsecrating me priestess, and that it was her will. Blind as I was to all at that moment, I heard around us in the summer night the sound of whispers and I knew that we were not alone.

  He would have held me in his arms, but I rose, driven on by whatever power held me now at this hour, and raised my hands above my head, bringing them down slowly, my eyes closed, my breath held in the tension of power . . . and only when I heard him gasp in awe did I venture to open my eyes, to see his body rimmed with that same faint light which edged my own.

  It is done and she is with me. . . . Mother, I am unworthy in thy sight . . . but now it has come again. . . . I held my breath to keep from breaking out into wild weeping. After all these years, after my own betrayal and my faithlessness, she has come again to me and I am priestess once more. A pale glimmer of moonlight showed me, at the edge of the field where we lay, though I saw not even a shadow, the glimmer of eyes like some animal in the hedgerow. We were not alone, the little people of the hills had known where we were and what she wrought here, and come to see the consummation unknown here since Uriens grew old and the world had turned grey and Christian. I heard the echo of a reverent whisper and returned it in a tongue of which I knew less than a dozen words, just audible where I stood and where Accolon still knelt in reverence.

  “It is done; so let it be!”

  I bent and kissed him on the brow, repeating
, “It is done. Go, my dear; be thou blessed.”

  He would have stayed, I know, had I been the woman with whom he had come into that garden; but before the priestess he went silent away, not questioning the word of the Goddess.

  There was no sleep for me that night. Alone, I walked in the garden till dawn, and I knew already, shaking with terror, what must be done. I did not know how, or whether, alone, I could do what I had begun, but as I had been made priestess so many years ago and renounced it, so must I retrace my steps alone. This night I had been given a great grace; but I knew there would be no more signs for me and no help given until I had made myself, alone, unaided, again the priestess I had been trained to be.