The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Gwenhwyfar welcomed her with a chilly embrace and invited her to a seat near the fire and Gwenhwyfar’s own chair.

  “What are you working at?” Morgaine asked, examining Gwenhwyfar’s fine tapestry work.

  The Queen proudly spread it out before her. “It is a hanging for the altar of the church—see, here is the Virgin Mary, with the angel come to tell her she will bear the son of God . . . and there stands Joseph all in amazement—see, I have made him old, old with a long beard—”

  “If I were old as Joseph, and my promised wife told me, after being closeted with such a handsome young man as yonder angel, that she were with child, I would ask myself some questions about the angel,” Morgause said irreverently. For the first time Morgaine wondered how miraculous had that virgin birth been after all? Who knew but the mother of Jesus had been ready to conceal her pregnancy with a clever tale of angels . . . but after all, in all religions but that one, for a maiden to be pregnant by a God was nothing so strange. . . .

  I myself, she thought, at the edge of hysteria, taking a handful of carded wool and beginning to twirl the spindle, I myself gave up my maidenhood to the Horned One and bore a son to the King Stag . . . will Gwydion set me on a throne in Heaven as Mother of God?

  “You are so irreverent, Morgause,” Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine quickly complimented Gwenhwyfar on the fineness of her stitches and asked who had drawn the pattern for the picture.

  “I drew it myself,” said Gwenhwyfar, surprising Morgaine; she had never believed Gwenhwyfar had talents of this sort. “Father Patricius has promised, too, that he will teach me to copy letters in gold and crimson,” the Queen said. “He says I have a good hand at it for a woman. . . . I never thought I could do so, Morgaine, and yet you made that fine scabbard Arthur wears—he told me that you broidered it for him with your own hands. It is very beautiful.” Gwenhwyfar chattered on, as artlessly as a girl half her age. “I have offered to make him one, many times—I was offended that a Christian king should bear the symbols of heathendom, but he said it was made for him by his own dear, beloved sister and he would never lay it aside. And indeed it is beautiful work . . . did you have gold threads made for it in Avalon?”

  “Our smiths do beautiful work,” said Morgaine, “and their work in silver and gold cannot be bettered.” The spindle’s twirling made her sick. How long would it be before the wrenching sickness of the drug would seize on her? The room was close and seemed to smell of the stuffy, airless lives these women led, spinning and weaving and sewing, endless work so that men might be clothed . . . one of Gwenhwyfar’s ladies was heavily pregnant and sat sewing on infant’s swaddling cloths . . . another stitched an embroidered border to a heavy cloak for father or brother or husband or son . . . and there was Gwenhwyfar’s fine stitchery for the altar, the diversion of a queen who could have other women to sew and spin and weave for her.

  Round and round went the spindle; the reel sank toward the floor and she twisted the thread smoothly. When had she learned to do this work? She could not even remember a time when she could not spin a smooth thread . . . one of her earliest memories was of sitting on the castle wall at Tintagel, beside Morgause, spinning; and even then, her thread had been more even than her aunt’s, who was ten years her senior.

  She said so to Morgause, and the older woman laughed. “You spun finer thread than I when you were seven years old!”

  Round and round went the spindle, sinking slowly toward the stone floor; then she wound the thread up on her distaff and meanwhile twisted a fresh handful of wool. . . . As she spun out the thread, so she spun the lives of men—was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning . . . from the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud. Without us, the lives of men would be naked indeed. . . .

  . . . It seemed to her that, as in the kingdom of Fairy, she had looked through a great opening and seen Arthur asleep at the side of a maiden with her own face, so now a great space opened out, as if it were before her; and as the reel sank to the floor and the thread twisted, it seemed to spin out Arthur’s face as he wandered, sword in hand . . . and now he whirled, to see Accolon, bearing Excalibur . . . ah, they were fighting, she could not see their faces now, nor hear the words they flung at one another. . . .

  How fiercely they fought, and it seemed strange to Morgaine, watching dizzied as the spindle sank, twirled, rose, that she could not hear the clashing of the great swords . . . Arthur brought down a great blow that would surely have killed Accolon had it struck him fair, but Accolon caught the blow on his shield and only took a wound in the leg—and the wound sliced without blood, while Arthur, taking a glancing blow on the shoulder, began suddenly to bleed, crimson streaks flowing down his arm, and he looked startled, afraid, one hand going in a swift gesture of reassurance to his side where the scabbard hung . . . but it was the sham scabbard, wavering even now in Morgaine’s sight. Now the two were mortally locked together, struggling, their swords locked at the hilt as they grappled with their free hands for the advantage . . . Accolon twisted fiercely, and the sword in Arthur’s hand, the false Excalibur made by fairy enchantments in a single night, broke off close below the hilt—she saw Arthur twist round in desperate avoidance of the killing blow and kick out violently. Accolon crumpled up in agony, and Arthur snatched the real Excalibur from his hand and flung it as far away as he could, then leaped on the fallen man and wrenched at the scabbard. As soon as he had it in his hand, the flow of blood from the great wound in his arm ceased to bleed, and in turn blood gushed forth from the wound in Accolon’s thigh. . . .

  Excruciating pain stabbed through Morgaine’s whole body; she doubled up with the weight of it. . . .

  “Morgaine!” said Morgause sharply, with a catch of breath; then called out, “Queen Morgaine is ill—come tend to her!”

  “Morgaine!” Gwenhwyfar cried out. “What is it?”

  The vision was gone. However she tried, she could not see the two men, nor which had prevailed, whether one of them lay dead—it was as if a great dark curtain had closed over them, with the ringing of church bells—in the last instant of the vision she had seen two litters carrying the wounded men into the abbey at Glastonbury, where she could not follow. . . . She clung to the edges of her chair as Gwenhwyfar came, with one of her ladies, who knelt to raise Morgaine’s head.

  “Ah, look, your gown is soaked with blood—this is not any ordinary bleeding.”

  Morgaine, her mouth dry with the sickness, whispered, “No—I was with child and I am miscarrying—Uriens will be angry with me—”

  One of the women, a plump jolly one about her own age, said, “Tsk! Tsk! For shame! So His Lordship of Wales will be angry, will he? Well, well, well, and who chose him for God? You should have kept the old billy goat out of your bed, lady, it is dangerous for a woman to miscarry at your age! Shame on the old lecher to put you so at risk! So he will be angry, will he?”

  Gwenhwyfar, her hostility forgotten, walked beside Morgaine as they carried her, rubbing her hands, all sympathy.

  “Oh, poor Morgaine, what a sad thing, when you had hoped all over again. I know all too well how terrible it must be for you, my poor sister . . .” she repeated, holding Morgaine’s cold hands, cradling her shaking head when she vomited in the ghastly sickness that overcame her. “I have sent for Broca, she is the most skilled of the court midwives, she will look after you, poor dear. . . .”

  It seemed that Gwenhwyfar’s sympathy would choke her. Racked by repeated, agonizing pains, she felt as if a sword had thrust through her vitals, but even so, even so, it was not so bad as Gwydion’s birth had been, and she had lived through that . . . shaking, retching, she tried to cling to consciousness, to be aware of what was going on around her. Maybe she had been ready to miscarry anyhow—it was surely too quick for the drug to have worked. Broca came, examined her, smelled at the vomited stuff, and raised her eyebrows knowingly. She said in an undertone to Morgaine, “Lady, you sh
ould have taken more care—those drugs can poison you. I have a brew which would have done what you wanted more quickly and with less sickness. Don’t worry, I won’t speak to Uriens—if he has no more sense than to let a woman of your years try to bear him a child, then what he does not know will do him no harm.”

  Morgaine let the sickness take her. She knew, after a time, that she was more gravely ill than they had thought . . . Gwenhwyfar was asking if at last she wanted to see a priest; she shook her head and closed her eyes, lying silent and rebellious, not caring now whether she lived or died. Since Accolon or Arthur must die, she too would go into that shadow . . . why could she not see them, where they lay within Glastonbury, which of them would come forth? Surely the priests would tend Arthur, their own Christian king, but would they leave Accolon to die?

  If Accolon must go into the shades, let him go with the spirit of his son to attend him, she thought, and lay with tears sliding down her face, hearing in some distant place the voice of the old midwife Broca. “Yes, it’s over. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but you know as well as I that she is too old to bear children. Yes, my lord, come and see—” The voice was harsh with asperity. “Men never think of what they do, and all the bloody mess women have for men’s pleasure! No, it was all too soon to tell whether it would have been a boy or not, but she had had one fine son, I doubt not she would have borne you another, had she been strong enough and young enough to carry it!”

  “Morgaine—dearest, look at me,” Uriens pleaded. “I am so sorry, so sorry you are ill, but don’t grieve, my darling, I still have two sons, I don’t blame you—”

  “Oh, you don’t, do you?” said the old midwife, still truculent. “You had better not speak one word of blame to her, Your Majesty, she is still very weak and sick. We will have another bed put in here so that she may sleep in peace till she is quite well again. Here—” and Morgaine felt a comforting woman’s arm under her head; something warm and comforting held to her lips. “Come, dear, drink this now, it has honey in it, and medicines to keep you from bleeding anymore—I know you are sick, but try to drink it anyhow, there’s a good girl—”

  Morgaine swallowed the bittersweet drink, tears blurring her vision. For a moment it seemed that she was a child, that Igraine held her and comforted her in some childish sickness. “Mother—” she said, and even as she spoke knew it was delirium, that Igraine had been dead for half a lifetime, that she was no child or maiden, but old, old, too old to lie here in this ugly way and so near death. . . .

  “No, Your Majesty, she doesn’t know what she’s saying—there, there, dear, you just lie still and try to sleep, we’ve got hot bricks on your feet and you’ll be warm in a minute—”

  Soothed, Morgaine floated away into dream. Now it seemed to her that she was a child again in Avalon, in the House of Maidens, and that Viviane was speaking to her, telling her something she could not quite remember, something of how the Goddess spun the lives of men, and she handed Morgaine a spindle and bade her spin, but the thread would not come smooth, but tangled and knotted and at last Viviane, angry with her, said, “Here, give it to me . . .” and she handed over the broken threads and the spindle; only it was not Viviane, either, but the face of the Goddess, threatening, and she was very small, very small . . . spinning and spinning with fingers too small to hold the distaff, and the Goddess bore the face of Igraine. . . .

  She came to awareness a day or two later, cool-headed, but with a vast and empty ache in her body. She laid her hands over the soreness, and thought, grimly, I might have saved myself some pain; I should have known that I was ready to miscarry anyway. Well, done is done, and now I must ready myself to hear that Arthur is dead, I must think what I will do when Accolon returns—Gwenhwyfar shall go into a nunnery, or if she wishes to go beyond the seas to Less Britain with Lancelet, I will not stop them. . . . She rose and dressed herself, made herself beautiful.

  “You should keep your bed, Morgaine, you are still so pale,” said Uriens.

  “No. There are strange tidings coming, my husband, and we must be ready for them,” she said, and went on braiding her hair with scarlet ribbons and gems. Uriens stood at the window and said, “Look, the Companions are practicing their military games—Uwaine, I think, is the best rider. Come, my dear, does he not ride as well as Gawaine? And that is Galahad at his side. Morgaine, don’t grieve for the child you lost. Uwaine will always think of you as his mother. I told you when we were wedded, I would never reproach you for barrenness. I would have welcomed another child, but since it was not to be, well, we have nothing to grieve for. And,” he said shyly, taking her hand, “perhaps it is better so—I did not realize how near I had come to losing you.”

  She stood at the window, his arm about her waist, feeling at one and the same time a feeling of revulsion and a gratitude for his kindness. He need never know, she thought, that it had been Accolon’s son. Let him take pride that in his old age he could father a child.

  “Look,” said Uriens, craning his neck to see further, “what is that, coming through the gate?”

  A rider, together with a monk in dark habit on a mule, and a horse bearing a body—"Come,” she said, pulling at his hand, “we must go down now.” Pale and silent, she moved at his side into the courtyard, feeling herself tall and commanding as befitted a queen.

  It seemed that time stopped; as if they were again in the fairy country. Why was not Arthur with them, if he had triumphed? But if this was Arthur’s dead body, where was the ceremony and pomp on the death of a king? Uriens reached to support her with his arm, but she thrust it away and stood clinging to the wood-framed door. The monk put back his hood and said, “Are you Queen Morgaine of Wales?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “I have then a message for you,” he said. “Your brother Arthur lies wounded in Glastonbury, nursed by the sisters there, but he will recover. He sends you this"—he waved his hand at the shrouded figure on the pack horse—"as a present, and he bid me say to you that he has his sword Excalibur, and the scabbard.” And as he spoke he twitched away the pall covering the body, and Morgaine, all the strength in her body running out of her like water, saw Accolon’s sightless eyes staring at the sky.

  Uriens cried out, a great cry like death. Uwaine thrust his way through the crowd around the steps, and as his father fell, stricken, across the body of his son, Uwaine caught and supported him.

  “Father, dear Father! Ah, dear God, Accolon,” he said with a gasp, and stepped toward the horse where Accolon’s body lay. “Gawaine, my friend, give my father your arm—I must see to my mother, she is fainting—”

  “No,” said Morgaine. “No.” She heard her own voice like an echo, not even sure what she wanted to deny. She would have rushed to Accolon, flung herself on his body shrieking in despair and grief, but Uwaine held her tight.

  Gwenhwyfar appeared on the stairway; someone explained the situation to her in a whisper, and Gwenhwyfar came down the steps, looking at Accolon. “He died in rebellion against the High King,” she said clearly. “Let there be no Christian rites for him! Let his body be flung to the ravens, and his head hung on the wall as a traitor!”

  “No! Ah, no,” cried out Uriens, wailing. “I beg of you, I beg—Queen Gwenhwyfar, you know me one of your most loyal subjects, and my poor boy has paid for his crimes—I beg you, lady, Jesus too died a common criminal between thieves, and even for the thief on the cross at his side there was mercy. . . . Show the mercy he would have shown. . . .”

  Gwenhwyfar seemed not to hear. “How does my lord Arthur?”

  “He is recovering, lady, but he has lost much blood,” said the strange monk. “Yet he bade you have no fear. He will recover.”

  Gwenhwyfar sighed. “King Uriens,” she said, “for the sake of our good knight Uwaine, I will do as you wish. Let the body of Accolon be borne to the chapel and there laid in state—”

  Morgaine found her voice to protest. “No, Gwenhwyfar! Lay him in earth decently, if you can find it in your heart to do so
much, but he was no Christian—do not give him Christian burial. Uriens is so filled with grief he knows not what he says.”

  “Be still, Mother,” said Uwaine, gripping her shoulder hard. “For my sake and my father’s, bring no scandal here. If Accolon served not the Christ, then has he all the more need of God’s mercy against the traitor’s death he should have had!”

  Morgaine wanted to protest, but her voice would not obey her. She let Uwaine guide her indoors, but once within the door she threw off his arm and walked alone. She felt frozen and lifeless. Only a few hours gone, it seemed to her, she had lain in Accolon’s arms in the fairy country, had belted the sword Excalibur at his waist . . . now she stood knee-deep in a relentless tide, watching it all swept away from her again, and the world was filled with the accusing eyes of Uwaine and his father.

  “Aye, I know it was you who plotted this treachery,” said Uwaine, “but I have no pity for Accolon, who let himself be led astray by a woman! Have decency enough, Mother, not to drag my father any further into your wicked schemes against our king!” He glared at her, then turned to his father, who stood as if dazed, clutching at some piece of furniture. Uwaine put the old man into a chair, knelt and kissed his hand. “Father dear, I am still at your side. . . .”