The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “And your elder daughter?” asked Arthur.

  “Sire, she is in a nunnery,” Lancelet said.

  “Is that what Elaine told you?” Morgaine asked, and again there was the flash of malice in her eyes. “She is in your own mother’s place in Avalon, Lancelet. Did you not know?”

  He said peacefully, “It is all one. The priestesses of the House of Maidens are much like to the nuns of holy church, living lives of chastity and prayer, and serving God in their own way.” He turned quickly to Queen Morgause, who was approaching them. “Well, Aunt, I cannot say you are unchanged by time, but the years have treated you kindly indeed.”

  She looks so like Igraine! I have heard only the jests and have laughed at her, but now I can well believe that young Lamorak is beglamoured by her for love and not ambition! Morgause was a big woman, and tall, her hair was still rich and red, flowing in loose braids, over her green gown—a vast expanse of brocaded silk, embroidered with pearls and golden threads. A narrow coronet set with shining topaz twinkled in her hair. Gwenhwyfar held out her arms and embraced her kinswoman, saying, “You look much like Igraine, Queen Morgause. I loved her well, and still I think often of her.”

  “When I was younger that statement would have had me frantic with jealousy, Gwenhwyfar—I was maddened that my sister Igraine was more beautiful than I, and had so many kings and lords at her feet. Now I remember only that she was beautiful and kind, and I am glad to know I resemble her still.” She turned to embrace Morgaine, and Gwenhwyfar saw that Morgaine was lost in the bigger woman’s embrace, that Morgause towered over her. . . . Why did I ever fear Morgaine? She is just a little thing after all, and the queen of an unregarded kingdom. . . . Morgaine’s dress was a simple dark wool, and she wore no ornament but a silver torque about her throat and some kind of silver bracelet about her arms. Her hair, dark and rich as ever, was simply braided and wound around her head.

  Arthur had come up to embrace his sister and his aunt. Gwenhwyfar took Galahad’s hand in hers. “You shall sit by me, kinsman.” Ah, yes, this was the son I should have borne to Lancelet—or to Arthur. . . . She said, as they sat down, “And now you have come to know your father, have you discovered, as Morgaine said, that he is no saint but merely a very lovable man?”

  “Ah, but what else is a saint?” asked Galahad, his eyes shining. “I cannot think of him as only a man, lady, he is surely more than that. He is the son of a king too, and I am sure that if they chose the best rather than the eldest son, he would reign in Less Britain. I think that man is happy whose father is also his hero,” he said. “I had some time to speak with Gawaine—he despised his father and thought little of him, but no man has ever spoken of my father save with admiration!”

  “I hope, then, that you see him always as a hero untarnished,” said Gwenhwyfar. She had placed Galahad between herself and Arthur, as befitted the adopted heir to the kingdom; Arthur had chosen to seat Queen Morgause next to him, with Gawaine beyond, and next to him, Uwaine, who was Gawaine’s friend and protégé, as Gareth had been Lancelet’s when they were younger.

  At the table next to them were Morgaine and her husband, and other guests; they were all kin, but she could not see their faces clearly. She craned her neck and squinted to see, reproving herself—squinting would make her ugly—and rubbed at the tight wrinkle beneath her brows. She wondered suddenly whereby her old fear of open spaces when she was a girl had simply come from being so shortsighted? Had she feared what the world was like only because she could not really see?

  She asked Arthur across Galahad, who was eating with the hearty appetite of a healthy boy still growing, “Did you bid Kevin dine with us?”

  “Aye, but he sent a message that he could not come. Since he could not be in Avalon, perhaps he keeps the holy day in his own fashion. I bid Bishop Patricius as well, but he keeps the vigil of Pentecost in the church—he will see you there at midnight, Galahad.”

  “I think that being made a king must be a little like being made a priest,” said Galahad clearly; there was a lull in the conversation that made his young voice audible from one end of the table to another. “They are both sworn to serve man and God and to do what is right—”

  Gareth said, “I felt something like that, lad. God grant you see it always so.”

  “I have always wanted my Companions to be men dedicated to the right,” said Arthur. “I do not demand that they be godly men, Galahad, but I have hoped they would be good men.”

  Lancelet said to Arthur, “Perhaps these youngsters may live in a world where it is easier to be good,” and it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he sounded sad.

  “But you are good, Father,” said Galahad. “All up and down this land it is told that you are King Arthur’s greatest knight.”

  Lancelet chuckled, embarrassed. “Aye—like that Saxon hero who tore the arm from the Lake monster. My works and deeds have been made into song because the true tale is not exciting enough to tell by the fireside in winter.”

  “But you did slay a dragon, did you not?” Galahad said.

  “Oh, yes—and it was a fearful beast enough, I suppose. But your grandsire did as much as I in killing it,” said Lancelet. “Gwenhwyfar, my lady, we dine never so well as at your table—”

  “Too well,” said Arthur cheerfully, patting his middle. “If feasts like this came often, I would be as fat as one of those beer-guzzling Saxon kings. And tomorrow is Pentecost, and another feast for even more folk—I do not know how my lady does it!”

  Gwenhwyfar felt a small glow of pride. “This feast is mine, that of tomorrow is sir Cai’s pride—for that one the beeves are already roasting in their pit. My lord Uriens, you are eating no meat . . .”

  Uriens shook his head. “A wing of one of those birds, perhaps. Since my son was slain, I have vowed never again to eat the flesh of swine.”

  “And your queen shares your vow?” said Arthur. “As always, Morgaine is all but fasting—no wonder you are so small and spare, my sister!”

  “It is no hardship for me not to eat swine’s flesh.”

  “Is your voice sweet as ever, my sister? Since Kevin could not join us, perhaps you would sing or play—”

  “If you had told me you wished it, I would not have eaten so well. I cannot sing now. Later, perhaps.”

  “Then you, Lancelet,” Arthur said.

  Lancelet shrugged and gestured to a servant to bring the harp. “Kevin will sing this tomorrow—I am no match for him. I made the words from a Saxon poet. I said once I could live with the Saxons, but not with what they called music. Then, when I dwelt among them last year, I heard this song and wept when I heard it, and tried in my poor way to put it into our tongue.” He left his seat to take the small harp. “It is for you, my king,” he said, “for it speaks of what sorrow I knew when I dwelt far from court and from my lord—but the music is Saxon. I had thought, before this, that all their songs were of war and battle and fighting.”

  He began to play a soft, sorrowful melody; his fingers were not as skillful as those of Kevin, but the sad song had a power of its own, which gradually quieted them. He sang, in the husky voice of an untrained singer:

  “What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone?

  Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well,

  And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave,

  And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love.

  The face of the king is like the sun to those who surround him,

  But now my heart is empty

  And I wander alone throughout the world.

  The groves take on their blossoms,

  The trees and meadows grow fair,

  But the cuckoo, saddest of singers,

  Cries forth the lonely sorrow of the exile,

  And now my heart goes wandering,

  In search of what I shall never see more;

  All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king,

  And all countries are alike to me

>   When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home.

  So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wandering

  For what is the fair meadow of home to me

  When I cannot see the face of my king

  And the weight on my arm is but a band of gold

  When the heart is empty of the weight of love.

  And so I shall go roaming

  Over the fishes’ road

  And the road of the great whale

  And beyond the country of the wave

  With none to bear me company

  But the memory of those I loved

  And the songs I sang out of a full heart,

  And the cuckoo’s cry in memory.

  gwenhwyfar bent her head to hide tears. Arthur’s head was lowered, his eyes covered by his hand. Morgaine was staring straight ahead and Gwenhwyfar could see the stripes of tears making wet streaks down her face. Arthur rose and came around the table; he put his arms round Lancelet and said in a voice that was not steady, “But you are again with your king and your friend, Galahad.”

  The old bitterness stabbed at Gwenhwyfar’s heart. He sang of his king, not of his queen and his love. His love for me was never more than a part of his love for Arthur. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see them embrace.

  “That was beautiful,” said Morgause softly. “Who would ever think that a Saxon brute could write music like that—it must have been Lancelet, after all—”

  Lancelet shook his head. “The music is theirs. And the words only a poor echo of their own. . . .”

  A voice that was like an echo of Lancelet’s said gently, “But there are poets and musicians among the Saxons, as well as warriors, my lady,” and Gwenhwyfar turned toward the voice. A young man in dark clothing, slender, dark-haired, a blur beyond her sight; but the voice, accented softly with the tones of the North country, still sounded like Lancelet’s, the very pitch and timbre of his.

  Arthur beckoned him forward. “There sits one at my table I do not know—and at a family party, that is not right. Queen Morgause—?”

  She stood up in her place. “I had meant to present him to you before we went to table, but you were busy talking with old friends, my king. This is Morgaine’s son, who was fostered at my court—Gwydion.”

  The youth came forward and bowed. “King Arthur,” he said, in the warm voice that was like an echo of Lancelet’s. For a moment a dizzied joy struck through Gwenhwyfar; this was Lancelet’s son, surely, not Arthur’s—and then she recalled that Morgaine’s aunt, Viviane, was Lancelet’s mother too.

  Arthur embraced the youth. He said, in a voice too shaken to be audible three yards distant, “The son of my dearly beloved sister shall be received as a son at my own court, Gwydion. Come and sit beside me, lad.”

  Gwenhwyfar looked at Morgaine. She had spots of crimson on her cheek, as bright as if they were painted, and she was worrying her lower lip between her small, sharp teeth. Had Morgause not prepared her, then, to see her son presented to his father—no, to the King, Gwenhwyfar reminded herself sharply; there was no reason to think the boy had any idea who his father was. Though if he had ever looked in a mirror, no doubt he would come to believe, whatever anyone might say, that he was Lancelet’s son.

  Not a boy, after all. He must be near enough to five-and-twenty; he was a man.

  “Your cousin, Galahad,” Arthur said, and Galahad impulsively put out his hand.

  “You are closer kin to the King than I, cousin—you have a better right than I to be where I am now,” he said, with boyish spontaneity. “I wonder you don’t hate me!”

  Gwydion smiled and said, “How do you know I do not, cousin?” and for a moment Gwenhwyfar was jolted, until she saw the smile. Yes, he was Morgaine’s son, he had the cat-smile she could show sometimes! Galahad blinked, then decided the words were meant as a jest. Gwenhwyfar could follow Galahad’s transparent thoughts—Is this my father’s son, is Gwydion my bastard brother by Queen Morgaine? He looked hurt, too, like a puppy whose playful proffer of friendship has been rebuffed.

  “No, cousin,” Gwydion said, “what you are thinking is not true.” Gwenhwyfar thought, her breath catching in her throat, that he even had Lancelet’s sudden breathtaking smile that transformed a rather dark and somber face into an overwhelming brilliance, as if a ray of sun had come out and transformed it.

  Galahad said defensively, “I was not—I did not—”

  “No,” said Gwydion, kindly, “you did not say anything, but it is all too obvious what you are thinking, and what everyone in this room must be thinking.” He raised his voice, just a little, that voice so like Lancelet’s, although overlaid with the soft North-country accent: “In Avalon, cousin, we take our lineage from the line of the mother. I am of the old royal line of Avalon, and that is quite enough for me. It would be arrogance for any man to claim to be father to the child of a High Priestess of Avalon. But of course, like most men, I would like to know who fathered me, and what you thought has been said before—that I am the son of Lancelet. That likeness has been remarked upon before this—especially among the Saxons where I spent three years learning to be a warrior,” he added. “Your reputation among them, lord Lancelet, is still much remembered there! I could not count how many men said to me that it was no disgrace to be the bastard son of a man like you, sir!” His low chuckle was like an eerie echo of the man he faced, and Lancelet looked uneasy too. “But in the end I always had to tell them that what they thought was not true. Of all the men in this kingdom who could have fathered me, one I know is not my father. And so, I must inform them that it is only a family likeness, no more. I am your cousin, Galahad, not your brother.” He leaned lazily back in his chair. “Will it embarrass you too much—that everyone who sees us will think so? After all, we cannot go around telling everyone the truth!”

  Galahad looked confused. “I would not have minded if you were truly my brother, Gwydion.”

  “But then I should have been your father’s son and perhaps the King’s heir, too,” Gwydion said, and smiled—and it struck Gwenhwyfar suddenly that he actually took pleasure in the discomfort of the people around the table; that he was Morgaine’s son, if only in that touch of malice.

  Morgaine said, in that low voice which carried so clearly without being loud, “It would not have been displeasing to me, either, if Lancelet had fathered you, Gwydion.”

  “No, I suppose not, lady,” Gwydion said. “Forgive me, lady Morgaine. Always I have called Queen Morgause my mother—”

  Morgaine laughed. “If I seem an unlikely mother to you, Gwydion, you seem just as unlikely a son to me. I am grateful for this family party, Gwenhwyfar,” she said. “I might have been confronted with my son tomorrow at the great feast, without warning.”

  Uriens said, “I think any woman would be proud of such a son, and as to your father, whoever he may have been, young Gwydion, it is his own loss that he did not claim you for his own.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Gwydion said, and Gwenhwyfar thought, watching the small flicker of his eyes toward Arthur, He may say for some reason that he does not know who is his father, but he is lying. Somehow that made her uncomfortable. Yet how much more uncomfortable it would be if he were to face Arthur and demand to know why he, the son, was not also the heir.

  Avalon, that accursed place! She wished it would sink into the sea like the lost land of Ys in the old tale, and never be heard of again!

  “But this is Galahad’s special night,” Gwydion said, “and I am taking attention away from him. Are you to watch by your arms this night, cousin?”

  Galahad nodded. “It is the custom for Arthur’s Companions.”

  “I was the first,” Gareth said, “and it is a good custom. I suppose it is the nearest a layman can come to being a priest, to take vows that he will always serve his king and his land and his God with his arms.” He laughed and said, “What a fool of a boy I was—my lord Arthur, have you ever forgiven me, that I refused your offer to knight me with your own
hands, and instead asked that Lancelet might do so?”

  “Forgiven you, lad? I envied you,” Arthur said, smiling. “Do you think I did not know Lancelet was the greater warrior of us two?”

  Cai spoke for the first time, his somber scarred face twisting in a smile. “I told the lad then that he was a good fighter and would make a good knight, but he was certainly no courtier!”

  “And so much the better,” said Arthur heartily. “God knows I had enough of those!” He added, leaning forward, speaking directly to Galahad, “Would you prefer that your father should knight you, Galahad? He has knighted enough of my Companions. . . .”