The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “For lo, all the days of man are as a leaf that is fallen and as the grass that withereth.

  Thou too shalt be forgotten, like the flower that falleth on the grass, like the wine that is poured out and soaks into the earth.

  And yet even as the spring returns, so blooms the land and so blooms life which will come again . . .”

  Gwenhwyfar asked, “Is that Scripture, Gwydion? A verse perhaps of a psalm?”

  Gwydion shook his head. “It is an ancient hymn of the Druids, and there are those who say it is older than that, brought perhaps from those lands which now lie beneath the sea. But each religion has some such hymn as that. Perhaps indeed all religion is One . . .”

  Arthur asked him quietly, “Are you a Christian, my lad?”

  Gwydion did not answer for a moment. At last he said, “I was reared a Druid and I do not break the oaths I have sworn. My name is not Kevin, my king. But you do not know all the vows I have made.” Quietly he rose from his place and went forth from the hall. Arthur, staring after him, did not speak even to reprove his lack of courtesy, but Gawaine was scowling.

  “Will you let him take leave with so little of ceremony, lord?”

  “Oh, leave it, leave it,” Arthur said. “We are all kinsmen here, I ask not that he should treat me always as if I were on the throne! He knows well that he is my son, and so does every man in this room! Would you have him always the courtier?”

  But Gareth was frowning after him. He said softly, “I wish with all my heart that Galahad would return to court. God grant him some such vision as mine, for you need him more here than you need me, Arthur, and if he comes not soon, I shall go forth myself to seek him.”

  It was only a few days before Pentecost when Lancelet finally came home.

  They had seen the approaching procession—men, ladies, horses and pack animals—and Gareth, at the gates, had summoned all men to welcome them, but Gwenhwyfar, standing at Arthur’s side, paid little heed to Queen Morgause, except to wonder why the Queen of Lothian had come. Lancelet knelt before Arthur with his sorrowful news, and Gwenhwyfar too felt the pain in his eyes . . . always, always it had been like this, that what smote his heart was like a lash laid to her own. Arthur bent and raised Lancelet to his feet and embraced him, and his own eyes were wet.

  “I have lost a son, no less than you, dear friend. He will be sorely missed.” And Gwenhwyfar could bear it no more, and stepped forward to give Lancelet her hand before them all and say, her voice trembling, “I had longed for you to return to us, Lancelet, but I am sorry that you must come with such sad news.”

  Arthur said quietly to his men, “Let him be taken to the chapel where he was made knight. There let him lie, and tomorrow he shall be buried as befits my son and heir.” As he turned away, he staggered a little, and Gwydion was quick to put his hand beneath his arm and support him.

  Gwenhwyfar did not often weep now, but she felt she must weep at Lancelet’s face, so marred and stricken. What had befallen him in this year when he followed the Grail? Long sickness, long fasting, weariness, wounds? Never had she seen him so sorrowful, even when he came to speak with her of his marriage to Elaine. Watching Arthur leaning heavily on Gwydion’s arm, she sighed, and Lancelet pressed her hand and said softly, “I can even be glad now that Arthur came to know his own son and to value him. It will soften his grief.”

  Gwenhwyfar shook her head, not wanting to think of what this would mean for Gwydion and for Arthur. Morgaine’s son! Morgaine’s son, to follow after Arthur—no, there was no help for it now!

  Gareth came and bowed before her and said, “Madam, my mother is here—” and Gwenhwyfar recalled that she was not free to stay among the men, that her place was with the ladies, that she could not speak a word of comfort to Arthur or even to Lancelet. She said coldly, “I am happy to welcome you, Queen Morgause,” and it came to her mind, Must I confess this then as a sin, that I lie to the queen? Would it somehow be more virtuous if I said to her, I welcome you as duty demands, Queen Morgause, but I am not glad to see you and I wish you had stayed in Lothian, or in hell for all I care! She saw that Niniane was at Arthur’s side, that Arthur was between her and Gwydion, and she frowned.

  “Lady Niniane,” she said coolly, “I think that the women will withdraw now. Find a guest room for the Queen of Lothian, and see that everything is made ready for her.”

  Gwydion looked angry, but there was nothing to be said, and Gwenhwyfar reflected, as she and her ladies left the courtyard, that there were advantages to being a queen.

  All that day, the Companions and knights of the Round Table were riding back toward Arthur’s court, and Gwenhwyfar was busy with the preparations for the feast on the morrow, which would be the funeral. On the day of Pentecost, such of Arthur’s men as had returned from this quest would be reunited. She recognized many faces, but some, she knew, would never return: Perceval, and Bors, and Lamorak—she turned a gentler face on Morgause, who, she knew, sincerely mourned for Lamorak. She had felt that the older woman had made a fool of herself with her young lover, but grief was grief, and when at the funeral mass for Galahad the priest spoke of all those others who had fallen on this quest, she saw Morgause hiding tears behind her veil, and her face was red and blotched after the mass.

  The night before, Lancelet had watched by his son’s body in the chapel, and she had had no chance for private words with him. Now, after the funeral mass, she bade him sit beside her and Arthur at dinner, and when she filled his cup, she hoped that he would drink himself drunk and be past mourning. She grieved over his lined face, so drawn with pain and privation, and over the curls around his face, so white now. And she who loved him best, she could not even embrace him and weep with him in public. For many years she had felt it like a deep pain that she would never have any right to turn to him before other men, but must sit at his side and be only a kinswoman and his queen. And now it seemed to her more dreadful than ever, but he did not turn to her, he did not even meet her eyes.

  Standing, Arthur drank to the knights who would never return from the quest. “Here before you all, I swear that none of their wives or children shall ever know want while I live and Camelot stands with one stone upon another,” he said. “I share your sorrow. The heir to my throne died in the quest of the Grail.” He turned, and held out his hand to Gwydion, who came slowly to his side. He looked younger than he was, in a plain white tunic, his dark hair caught in a golden band.

  Arthur said, “A king cannot, like other men, indulge in long mourning, my Companions. Here I ask you to mourn with me for my lost nephew and adopted son, who now will never reign at my side. But even though our mourning is still green, I ask you to accept Gwydion—sir Mordred—the son of my only sister, Morgaine of Avalon, as my heir. Gwydion is young, but he has become one of my wise councillors.” He raised his cup and drank. “I drink to you, my son, and to your reign when mine is done.”

  Gwydion came and knelt before Arthur. “May your reign be long, my father.” It seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he was blinking back tears, and she liked him better for it. The Companions drank, and then, led by Gareth, broke out in cheering.

  But Gwenhwyfar sat silent. She had known this must come, but she had not expected it to happen at Galahad’s very funeral feast! Now she turned to Lancelet and whispered, “I wish he had waited! I wish he had consulted with his councillors!”

  “Knew you not he intended this?” Lancelet asked. He reached out and took her hand, pressing it softly and holding on to it, stroking her fingers beneath the rings she wore. Her fingers seemed now so thin and bony, not young and soft as they had been; she felt abashed and would have drawn her hand away, but he would not let her. He said, still stroking her hand, “Arthur should not have done that to you without warning—”

  “God knows, I have no right to complain, who could not give him a son, so he must make do with Morgaine’s—”

  “Still, he should have warned you,” Lancelet said. It was the first time, Gwenhwyfar thought distantly, that
he had ever, even for a moment, seemed to criticize Arthur. He raised her hand gently to his lips, then let it go as Arthur approached them with Gwydion. Stewards were bringing smoking platters of meat, trays of fresh fruits and hot breads, setting sweetmeats every few places along the table. Gwenhwyfar let her steward help her to some meat and fruits, but she barely touched her plate. She saw, with a smile, that it had been arranged that she shared her plate with Lancelet, as so often she had done at other Pentecost feasts; and that Niniane, on Arthur’s other side, was eating from his dish. Once he called her daughter, which relieved Gwenhwyfar’s mind somewhat—perhaps he accepted her already as his son’s potential wife. To her surprise Lancelet seemed to follow her thought.

  “Will the next festival at court be a wedding? I would have thought the kinship too close—”

  “Would that matter in Avalon?” Gwenhwyfar asked, her voice harsher than she intended; the old pain was still there.

  Lancelet shrugged. “I know not—in Avalon as a boy I heard of a country far to the south of here, where the royal house married always their own sister and brother that the royal blood might not be diluted by that of the common people, and that dynasty lasted for a thousand years.”

  “Heathen men,” said Gwenhwyfar. “They knew nothing of God, and knew not that they sinned. . . .”

  Yet Gwydion seemed not to have suffered from the sin of his mother and his father; why should he, Taliesin’s grandson—no, his great-grandson—hesitate to wed with Taliesin’s daughter?

  God will punish Camelot for that sin, she thought suddenly. For Arthur’s sin and for mine . . . and Lancelet’s . . .

  Beyond her she heard Arthur say to Gwydion, “You said once in my hearing that Galahad looked not like one who would live to his crowning.”

  “And you remember too, my father and my lord,” said Gwydion quietly, “that I swore to you I would have no part in his death, but that he would die honorably for the cross he worshipped, and it was so.”

  “What more do you foresee, my son?”

  “Ask me not, lord Arthur. The Gods are kind when they say that no man may know his own end. Even if I knew—and I say not that I know—I would tell you nothing.”

  Perhaps, thought Gwenhwyfar, with a sudden shiver, God has punished us enough for our sin when he sent us this Mordred . . . and then, looking at the young man, she was dismayed. How can I think so of the one who has been to Arthur as a son indeed? He is not to blame for his fathering!

  She said to Lancelet, “Arthur should not have done this before Galahad was cold in his grave!”

  “Not so, my lady. Arthur knows well the duties of a king. Do you think it would matter to Galahad, where he has gone, who sits on the throne he never wished for? I would have done better to make my son a priest, Gwenhwyfar.”

  She looked at Lancelet, brooding, a thousand leagues away from her, gone into himself where she could never follow, and she said, awkwardly, reaching for him in the best way she could, “And did you, then, fail to find the Grail?”

  She saw him come slowly back through the long distance. “I came—nearer than any sinful man can come and live. But I was spared, to tell the men at Arthur’s court that the Grail has gone forever beyond this world.” Again he fell silent, then said across that vast distance, “I would have followed it beyond the world, but I was given no choice.”

  She wondered, Did you not, then, wish to return to court for my sake? And it seemed clear to her that Lancelet was more like Arthur than she had ever known, and that she had never been anything more, to either of them, than a diversion between war and quest; that the real life of a man was lived in a world where love meant nothing. All his life he had devoted to wars at Arthur’s side, and now when there was no war he had given himself over to a great Mystery. The Grail had come between them, as Arthur had come between them, and Lancelet’s own honor.

  Now even Lancelet had turned to God, and thought, no doubt, only that she had led him into grave sin. The pain was unendurable. In all of life, she had had nothing more than this, and she could not keep herself from reaching out to him, clasping his hand. “I have longed for you,” she whispered, and was shocked at the longing in her voice; he will think me no better than Morgause, flinging myself at his head. . . . He held her hand and said softly, “And I have missed you, Gwen.” And then, as if he could read her whole hungry heart, he said in a low voice, “Grail or no Grail, beloved, nothing could have brought me back to this court but the thought of you. I would have remained there, spending the rest of my life in prayers that I might see again that Mystery that was hidden from my eyes. But I am no more than a man, my beloved. . . .”

  And she knew what it was that he was saying, and pressed his hand. “Shall I send away my women, then?”

  He hesitated a moment, and Gwenhwyfar felt the old dread . . . how dared she be so forward, so lacking in a woman’s modesty? . . . Always, this moment was like death. Then he tightened his grip on her fingers and said, “Yes, my love.”

  But as she awaited him, alone in the darkness, she wondered in bitterness if his “Yes” had been like Arthur’s, an offer made from time to time out of pity, or a wish to save her pride. Now that there was no longer the slightest hope that she would bear to Arthur a belated child, he could have stopped coming to her, but he was too kind to give her women cause to smile behind her back. Still, it was like a knife in her heart that Arthur always seemed relieved when she sent him away; there were even times when she invited him in and they talked together or she lay for a time in his arms, content to be held and comforted, but demanding no more of him. Now she wondered if Arthur felt that his embraces would be unwelcome to her, so that he seldom offered them, or whether he truly did not desire her. She wondered if he ever had desired her, or had always come to her because she was the wife he had taken and it was his duty to give her children.

  All men praised my beauty and desired me, save for the husband I was given. And now, she thought, perhaps even Lancelet comes to me because he is too kind to abandon me or turn me away. She grew feverish, and it seemed that even in her light bed gown she was overheated, her whole body breaking out in drops of sweat. She rose and sponged herself with the cold water in a jar on her dressing table, touching her sagging breasts with distaste. Ah, I am old, surely it will disgust him, that this ugly old flesh is still as eager for him as if I were young and beautiful. . . .

  And then she heard his step behind her; and he caught her into his arms, and she forgot her fears. But after he had gone she lay wakeful.

  I should not risk this. It was different, in the old days; now we are a Christian court and the eyes of the bishop are always on me.

  But I have nothing else . . . and it occurred to her suddenly, nor has Lancelet. . . . His son was dead, and his wife, and the old closeness with Arthur was gone beyond recall.

  Would that I were like Morgaine, who does not need a man’s love to feel herself alive and real. . . . And yet Gwenhwyfar knew that even if she did not need this from Lancelet, it was he who needed her; and without her, he would be utterly alone. He had come to court because he needed her no less than she needed him.

  And so, even if it was sin, it seemed the greater sin to leave Lancelet comfortless.

  Even if we are both damned for it, she thought, never shall I turn aside from him. God is a God of love, she thought; how then could he condemn the one thing in her life that was born of love? And if he did, she thought, terrified at her blasphemy, he was not the God she had always worshipped, and she did not care what he thought!

  15

  That summer there was war again, the Northmen raiding the western coasts, and Arthur’s legion rode forth to battle, this time riding at the head of the Saxon kings from the southern country, Ceardig and his men. Queen Morgause remained in Camelot; it was not safe to take the road alone to Lothian, and none could be spared to escort her.

  They returned late in the summer. Morgause was in the women’s hall with Gwenhwyfar and her ladies when they heard
the trumpets from the heights.

  “It is Arthur returning!” Gwenhwyfar rose from her seat. Immediately all of the women dropped their spindles and clustered around her.

  “How do you know?”

  Gwenhwyfar laughed. “A messenger brought me the news last night,” she said. “Do you think I am dealing in sorcery at my age?” She looked around her at the excited girls—to Morgause it seemed that all of Gwenhwyfar’s ladies were but little girls, fourteen and fifteen, who made every excuse to leave off spinning; and now the Queen said indulgently, “Shall we go and watch them from the heights?”