Avalon

by Anya Seton

  "Not a bit. Mother, but I'm sorry you sold the Bylgja, though I've learned to make this neiv ship of mine daunt Aegir's nine fierce daughters."

  "I'll never see you again," she said, looking into the fire. He had not asked her to go with him; it would not be reasonable that he should, but even if he had she knew that she no longer felt the courage to brave the dampness and the danger, and the interminable rocking of the sea. She was used now to dainty fare, and even that sometimes disagreed. She had headaches. She grew chilly often. I'm no longer young, Merewyn thought. I feel young inside but my body doesn't.

  "It's late, dear Mother," said Orm, brushing his golden-bearded lips across her forehead. "I must get back to King Sweyn, and take my final leave of him."

  "Orm," she said, scarcely daring to look at him. "You didn't — the Danes didn't land in Cornwall this time? You've killed no Cornish?"

  "No. Nor English. Though I would if I had to. I'd rather not. Sweyn understands, even young Canute does. These are not rulers like your precious Ethelred; they are warriors but they're not lazy or treacherous, and they honor their oaths."

  "All the English are not like Ethelred," said Merewyn. "You know they aren't."

  "Whatever they are, I want none of them, and they're no kin to you, really. Never mind, Mother, don't look so — so white. May the Noms decree a pleasant fate for you!"

  He was gone.

  She sat very still looking at the fire. Then she picked up Foss who was stretched out by her feet, and held him against her cheek. Foss had not barked at all while Orm was there. The

  little creamy-coated dog must have known that the stranger was someone she loved.

  During the next week Merewyn felt ill, and concealed it from Wulfric. The only satisfaction she had was in telling him of Orm's departure to lands which had been discovered over the western ocean.

  Wulfric was mildly interested to hear that Orm was thinking of going there. He could understand no place outside of England nor saw any need to. He was pleased by the arrival of the crated white gyrfalcon from up north and talked of little else. He was glad that his new falconer seemed to be able to train the bird.

  By May even Wulfric had to admit that Sweyn's army was overrunning Wiltshire. That they destroyed Wilton and Salisbury with very little opposition. Merewyn suspected that the Queen had managed to put some of her Normans in more key positions. The King gave no order to fight, but the men of Wiltshire rose and looked to Cild Aelfric, Earl of Mercia, as their natural leader. As might be expected, Aelfric accepted the general's post, and then when actually confronted by the enemy with their war helmets, their chain mail, their double-edged swords and battle-axes, their berserker yells, Aelfric started to vomit, saying that he was too ill to lead the counterattack. He turned tail and fled. His demoralized squadron became panicky. They fled too. Sweyn had it all his own way, and got so much plunder from the southern shires that his ships were overloaded. He decided to abandon the east coast for the present, and go back to the Isle of Wight, and its harbor at Cowes where he had already made a snug retreat for himself, with shelters for the men, and nausts for the ships. A good place to winter before a spring attack on Norfolk, and then London.

  The news soon spread that the Danish horde had sailed away. Wulfric said comfortably to Merewyn, "I told ye they would,

  m'dear. Naught to fear. D'ye want to come and look at the mews? But don't bring the dog, it upsets my falcons."

  "Very well," said Merewyn dispiritedly. She did not like the mews, which she had seen often. It smelled, and the frenzied, inimical batting of two dozen wings disturbed her. All those chained birds, and especially the white gyrfalcon, which had cruel eyes.

  As they crossed the courtyard, they both looked around. There were two men at the portal — Benedictine monks.

  They want hospitality, she thought, can't make it into Winchester.

  There were quite often chance-comers through here from the west. Wulfric never stinted them, nor did she. Any change was agreeable.

  But their visitors had never before been black-robed monks.

  Wulfric went forward eagerly to greet the two monks. "May we help you. Brethren? You're welcome to anything we have." He looked at the tethered mules, outside the portal, and said, "One of 'em gone lame? We've a smithy on the Manor."

  The taller monk smiled and bowed. "I am Brother Laurence from Tavistock Abbey, this is Brother Gwyn. We're not in need of help, thank you, we are seeking the Lady Merewyn."

  When Merewyn heard "Tavistock Abbey," she stiffened. She bit her underlip so as not to make a sound.

  Wulfric looked mildly astonished. "Here is the Lady Merewyn, my wife."

  Brother Laurence bowed again. "We have a rather strange request to make of you. There's a holy monk at Tavistock. His name is Rumon. He's an atheling of the blood royal, yet is a humble man. We wished to elect him Abbot, but he wouldn't have it. He has known you, lady, in his secular life ... ?"

  "Yes."

  "Who was that?" Wulfric asked, his honest face creasing in a perplexed frown. "You never told me about anybody called Rumon."

  No, she thought, and there are a great many things I haven't told you.

  "Brother Rumon," continued the tall monk, "has been smitten in his legs. He cannot walk. And he feels death near. He wants to see you again, lady."

  "What a very odd thing," said Wulfric. "You mean she's to visit him?"

  "That is Brother Rumon's hope."

  "Well," said Wulfric, mulHng this over. "Don't make any sense to me."

  "I want to go, Wulfric," said Merewyn.

  Everybody waited while Wulfric thought.

  "You've been a bit in the dumps lately," he finally said. "The journey might be good for you. But ye can't just go off with these monks. I'll send two or three housecarls too."

  "Thank you, my husband." She kissed him on the cheek. "You are always good." A good man, a dull man, but a good one.

  Underneath her heart began to sing as it had not in years. Rumon has sent for me! Rumon cares again that I exist.

  It was a morning in early August when Merewyn arrived at Tavistock. On the journey she had heard from Brother Laurence the tale of Rumon's great courage. As she had heard it halfway up Glastonbury Tor from Brother Finian, but with additions. Rumon had saved the Abbey treasure, he had killed two Vikings, yes, but one of them had inflicted some sort of blow on Rumon's back which did not show up very soon as an injury. It had now, and the monk-physician at the Abbey thought it the source of Rumon's trouble. This Infirmarer had given Rumon all the herbs he could think of, but Rumon's legs had gone numb and cold. His heartbeat labored.

  "He never complains," said Brother Laurence. "We all admire his fortitude, and when we confess to him, everyone is comforted by his kind, inspiring words."

  Merewyn pondered on Brother Laurence's praise of Rumon

  as they rode through the last of Dartmoor, before descending to the Tavy.

  It was a day of brilHant sunshine, as brilliant as it had sometimes been in Iceland, and only small white puffy clouds were drifting northward. This whole day on which I see Rumon again will be fair, she thought. On Iceland, one might never be sure, there the skies could darken so fast. Light and shadow. Light and shadow —when had she thought that before? Long ago with Rumon in the moonlight on Glastonbury Tor. Of late, for me, there have been deep shadows.

  It was warm as they crossed the solid new stone bridge over the Tavy. She unpinned her mantle. From her present considerable wardrobe, she had chosen the gown which she felt was most becoming. It was dyed a very dark green like the foliage of a yew tree, it had been woven in France, like her mantle, and both were of a woolen more delicate and light than anything which could be made in England. She wore most of the jewels which Wulfric had given her. The garnet necklace, the gorgeous enamel brooch, the rings, the girdle clasp. All these were set in gold, except the slender chains of silver and crystals which she braided into her long plaits. As they neared the new Abbey, again whitewashed, thoug
h this time built of stone, she put on the royal circlet she had worn for Ethelred and Emma's wedding. Then she took it oflF again, and told one of Wulfric's housecarls to guard it. Three minutes later she demanded it back and placed it over her short white veil.

  They made quite a procession as they approached the Portal — the two monks, three of Wulfric's housecarls, and Merewyn. Little Foss had been regretfully left behind.

  She let Brother Laurance do the talking to the Porter, and it soon developed that Brother Rumon was lying in the monks' special garden, as he often did.

  Merewyn dismounted, and made a gesture to Brother Laurence. "Please lead the way."

  She heard that her voice quavered, she felt that her palms were wet, her knees wobbled as she followed the monk through a stone gate, past a brook and a dovecote, where a score of gray pigeons were flying in and out of their holes in the masonry. Merewyn and the monk entered a very small brick-walled garden. Merewyn was dimly aware of yellow flowers climbing up the walls, of moss under her feet as she stepped across a tiny rill, of a rowan with masses of scarlet berries, of tall blue flowers, of late roses, and the smell of lavender.

  She saw at once the chairlike litter that was propped against the far wall, and contained a man.

  "Here is the Lady Merewyn," said Brother Laurence gently to the man. "Brother Rumon, I've brought her as you asked."

  Rumon, who had been drowsing, and thus forgetting the pains in his back, sat bolt upright. "I'm glad to see you," he said. "Forgive me that my useless legs will not let me get up to greet you properly."

  "Oh Rumon —" Merewyn whispered. She was appalled by the emaciation of the face she scarcely recognized, of the black circles beneath the dark eyes. And it was strange to see Rumon in the habit of a Benedictine monk. Brother Laurence mmmured something and left the garden.

  "Why do you think I wanted you to come to me, Merewyn?" said Rumon, his voice getting stronger.

  "Because —" she said slowly, "Because I suppose there has always been a sort of love between us. First me, then you. Crisscross. But underneath — always something."

  Rumon nodded. "I see now that's true. I'm glad that you came to me; after my last message to you, I wasn't sure. It was rude. I regret it. But I see also that you did not need my material help." He glanced at her dark green gown, at all her jewelry. "Nor has a Benedictine monk anything material to help uoith.^''

  "Of course not."

  "Merewyn!" he said abruptly. "Did you know that I killed

  tw^o Vikings when they were raiding Tavistock Abbey church?"

  "I've heard it," she answered very low. "And you saved the treasure. It was brave."

  "Brave," he repeated with contempt. "I was mad with fury. I discovered strength I never knew I had, and the wish to kill. It was to save the treasure and the silver dove, yes — but do you know another thought I had in me?"

  She did not answer; she sat down on a little mossy boulder near Rumon, and waited. He jfinally spoke in a thin dry voice. He did not look at her, he gazed over the garden towards the dovecote. "When I killed those two in the church, I was really killing Ketil and Sigurd. I did not know it for a long time. And it's because of this that God has willed that I be smitten. And I welcome His Will."

  "Oh, poor Rumon —" she whispered. She put her hand on his shoulder. Then there was no sound in the garden but the cooing of doves, the purring of the little rill.

  His head sank into the cowl, his breathing had become the fast shallow type she remembered all too well having heard from her Aunt Merwinna.

  "Neither Ketil, nor Sigurd died by your hand," said Merewyn with force. "And as for the two you did kill, I've not a doubt they richly deserved it."

  He let his arms rise and drop, a gesture she remembered piercingly from the long-ago. "When I was a boy in Provence, I vowed to the Blessed Lord Christ, to the Saintes Maries that I would do no violence. I broke the vow."

  "So what if you did!" she cried. "You must have told all this to your confessor!"

  "And was absolved at once, no hard penance. I told him of the murderous bloodlust I suddenly felt, and he would scarcely listen. He thought that my confessions about Ketil and Sigurd were nonsense. That they were vaporings from my injury. They made a hero of me at the Abbey. I wish Dunstan were back. He'd understand."

  "/ understand," she said stoutly. "Rumon, you were always questing, searching for a blessed place called Avalon. I see that you have not found it, and for that I'm sorry."

  Rumon suddenly sat upright again. "Unless it's here," he said with a faint smile. "In this little garden, or anywhere that one can find peace."

  "The garden's very pretty," said Merewyn uncertainly. "It's not an island though."

  "Always we live on islands of one kind or another," said Rumon, his voice deepening.

  His cowl slipped back, and Merewyn was startled by the gleaming blackness of his hair around the white-scalped tonsure.

  He looked much younger, and as his dark eyes now examined her, she saw in them a look of sorrow.

  "You are very well dressed," said Rumon, "and bejeweled. I observe also that you wear on your head a royal golden circlet."

  "It's necessary ... I mean everyone thinks so . . . especially Wulfric and it seemed so much easier . . . since everyone believes . . ." She touched the circlet, then snatched her hand away, frightened by the sternness of Rumon's face.

  "This is why I sent for you, Merewyn! My concern for your soul's welfare. I have love for you, as for many years, but I'm a priest, and that love has begot more prayers for you than I can tell. I summoned you here to ask of you a brave act. Braver than / have ever done, for these motives will be pure."

  Merewyn shrank inside. "What?" she said.

  "Confess your deception."

  "To — our Manor chaplain?" She recovered quickly, and said, "What deception?"

  "You are not of royal British blood, my daughter," said Rumon. "And you well know it now, though you did not before your capture at Padstow, and are blameless for those early years. But now you are profiting from what you know is untrue. You have no right to wear that atheling's circlet. And it is not only for your soul's sake I say these things, but I think you are

  unhappy in this life. Nobody can live a continuous lie and find serenity. I can see that you are not at peace with yourself. It shows in your mouth, and in your eyes."

  "What do you mean, Rumon?" she said stiffly.

  "I mean that you should go and tell your real parentage to the King and Queen first — and then to Thane Wulfric, your husband."

  "Oh . . ." said Merewyn with a gasp which was half a sob. "I couldn't. I can't. You're cruel, Rumon. They would be so angry, and Wulfric so disappointed, he'd repudiate me."

  *'Perhaps," Rumon was still sitting up and looking at her. "Then you can go to Romsey Abbey?"

  "Elfled and I are not close anymore. She wouldn't want there a rejected wife with no money — and, and — no lineage."

  "/ wanted you, I followed you to the very end of the world, when all the time I knew your true birth."

  "Oh, Blessed Jesu, yes," and she began to cry.

  Rumon leaned back again and gave an involuntary grunt of pain as he did so.

  He listened a moment to the sounds of the garden. The brook back there, the rill here, the doves, and the bees buzzing to their skeps laden with nectar from the flowers. Also to small choking sounds from Merewyn.

  "This request is for you, Merewyn," he said, "and you may remember that you were put in my charge by your mother, a long time ago. I did fulfill my vow to her, and now I wish you to answer my request. It is also a dying request, as you must have heard from Brother Laurence. I can't last much longer."

  She wiped her eyes on her dark green skirt. Relief had come to her, a feeling of lightness and surety. The little garden seemed illumined by a rosy light. The yellow flowers quivered on the brick walls, the pink roses sparkled, and the berries of the rowan dotted their green tree with orange jewels.

  She looked down a
t Rumon and saw that his quiet face was also touched with the light.

  "I will do it," she said. At the joy in his sunken dark eyes, she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. The only time they had kissed, except that moment on the Tor, when they had misunderstood each other so completely.

  Merewyn spent the night in the Tavistock Abbey hostel, newly rebuilt by Lord Ordulf, and as luxurious a guesthouse as Merewyn had ever known.

  She slept on a goose-feather bed, and slept well. She did not see Rumon again, but he saw her. He had been carried to a corner of the choir for early Mass, and as he looked into the nave, he saw her kneeling in her dark green hooded mantle. Something poignant stirred in him. He had seen her thus before? Not at Tavistock? Yes, at Tavistock. When he was searching for her. There had been a foreknowledge. He had thought then that one of the monks was Merewyn, now it was really she. And time did not run on neatly; it leaped ahead, or it might double back on itself. These years at Tavistock — seven of them — seemed very short.

  He watched Merewyn with tenderness. Her devout face was outlined by the dark green hood. As the Abbey grew warm, she threw the hood back, and he saw that there was no circlet over the white veil. She'll go through with it, he thought. Had Merewyn ever failed in doing what she said she'd do! He looked at her a good deal, while he mechanically followed the Mass. Then he looked at the silver dove with shiny crystal eyes, which hung in the chancel near the altar. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Third Person of the Trinity. The Comforter.

  Under the black habit he tried to flex his numb legs. He knew that they were turning a pecuHar dark color, the lay brother who dressed him had remarked on it today. He knew that the numbness was spreading up his back and would soon engulf the pain there. He heaved a long sigh and kissed the plain wooden crucifix which had replaced his gold one. "That I may be deemed worthy of being received by Thee, when the time

  comes, and that from Thy great Mercy, Thou wilt help Mere-wyn in her ordeal."