Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

"Oh, aye, it has been seen-like a troll on the hills, turned to stone by daylight, or the ring stones dancing on the night of the full moon," Lancelet gibed. "There are always people who see whatever vision they will -some see saints and miracles, and some see dragons or the old fairy folk. But never did I know of living man or woman who had seen either dragon or fairy."

Morgaine remembered, against her will, the day in Avalon when she had gone searching for roots and herbs and strayed into the strange country where the fairy woman had spoken with her and had sought to foster her child ... what, indeed, had she seen? Or had it been only the sick fantasy of a breeding woman?

"You say that, when you were yourself fostered as Lancelet of the Lake?" she asked quietly, and Lancelet turned round to her. He said, "There are times when that seems unreal to me-is it not so for you, sister?"

She said, "It is true indeed, but at times I am homesick for Avalon ... ."

"Aye, and I too, kinswoman," he said. Never since that night of Arthur's marriage, by word or look had he implied that he had ever felt anything more for her than for a childhood companion and foster-sister. She had thought she had long accepted the pain of that, but it struck her anew as his dark, beautiful eyes met hers in such kindness.

Soon or late, it must seem even as Balan said: we are both unmarried, the King's sister and his best friend ... .

Arthur said, "Well, when the Saxons are driven away for good-and do not laugh as if that were a fabulous event! It can be done, now, and I think they know it-then I shall build myself a castle, and a great hall big enough for even this table. I have already chosen the site-it is a hill fort which was there long before Roman times, looking down on the Lake itself, and near to your father's island kingdom, Gwenhwyfar. You know the place, where the river flows into the Lake-"

"I know," she said. "When I was a small child I went there one day to pick strawberries. There was an old ruined well, and we found elf bolts there. The old folk who lived on the chalk had left their arrows." How strange, Gwenhwyfar thought, to remember that there had been a time when she had liked to go abroad under the wide, high sky, not even caring whether there was a wall or the safety of an enclosure; and now she grew sick and dizzy if she went out from the walls, where she could not see or touch them. Sometimes now she felt the lump of fear in her belly even when she walked across the courtyard, and had to hurry to touch the safety of the wall again.

"It is an easy place to fortify," Arthur said, "though I hope, when we are done with the Saxons, we may have leisure and peace in this island."

"An ignoble wish for a warrior, brother," said Cai. "What will you do in time of peace?"

"I will call Kevin the Bard to make songs, and I will break my own horses and ride them for pleasure," Arthur said. "My Companions and I will raise our sons without putting a sword in every little hand before it is full grown to manhood! And I need not fear they will be lamed or slain before they are full grown. Cai-would it not be better if you need not have been sent to war before you were old enough to guard yourself? Sometimes I feel it wrong that it was you, not I, who was lamed, because Ectorius wanted me kept safe for Uther!" He looked with concern and affection at his foster-brother, and Cai grinned back at him.

"And," said Lancelet, "we will keep the arts of war alive by holding games, as they did in the days of the ancients, and crown the winner of the games with laurel wreaths-what is laurel, Arthur, and does it grow in these islands? Or is it only in the land of Achilles and Alexander?"

"The Merlin could tell you that," Morgaine said, when Arthur looked perplexed'. "I know not either, but whether or no we have laurel, there are plants enough to make wreaths for the victors at your games."

"And we will give garlands to harpers too," Lancelet said. "Sing, Morgaine."

"I had better sing for you now," Morgaine said, "for I do not suppose, when you men hold your games, you will let women sing." She took up the harp and began to play. She was sitting nearly where she had been sitting this afternoon when she saw blood spilled forth on the King's hearth ... would it truly come to pass, or was it fantasy? Why, indeed, should she think she still possessed the Sight? It never came upon her now save in these unwelcome trances ... .

She began to sing an ancient lament which she had heard at Tintagel, a lament of a fisherwoman who had seen the boats swept out to sea. She knew that she held them all with her voice, and in the silence of the hall she fell to singing old songs of the islands, which she had heard at Lot's court: a legend of the seal woman who had come out of the sea to find a mortal lover, songs of the solitary women herders, songs for spinning and for carding flax. Even when her voice grew weary they called for more, but she held up her hand in protest.

"Enough-no, truly, I can sing no more. I am hoarse as any raven."

Soon after, Arthur called the servants to extinguish the torches in the hall and light the guests to bed. It was one of Morgaine's tasks to see that the unmarried women who waited on the Queen were safely put to sleep in the long loft room behind the Queen's own chamber, at the opposite end of the building from the soldiers and armsmen. But she lingered a moment, her eyes on Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, who were bidding Lancelet good night.

"I have told the women to prepare the best spare bed for you, Lancelet," said Gwenhwyfar, but he laughed and shook his head.

"I am a soldier-it is my duty to see horses and men bedded safe for the night before I sleep."

Arthur chuckled, his arm around Gwenhwyfar's waist. "We must get you married, Lance, then you will not spend your nights so cold. I made you my captain of horse, but you need not spend your nights lying down among them!"

Gwenhwyfar felt a pain within her breast as she met Lancelet's eyes. It seemed to her that she could almost read his thoughts, that he would say aloud again, as he had said once, My heart is so full of my queen I have no room therefor any other lady.... She held her breath, but Lancelet only sighed and smiled at her, and she thought, No, lama wedded wife, a Christian woman, it is sin even to think such thoughts; I must do penance. And then, feeling her throat so tight she could not swallow, she felt the thought come unbidden. Penance enough that I must be apart from the one I love ... and she gasped aloud, so that Arthur turned startled eyes on her.

"What is it, love, have you hurt yourself?"

"A-a pin pricked me," she said, and turned her eyes away, pretending to hunt for the pin at the folds of her dress. She saw Morgaine watching her, and bit her lip. She is always watching me ... and she has the Sight; does she know all my sinful thoughts? Is that why she looks on me so scornfully?

Yet Morgaine had never shown her anything but a sister's kindness. And when she had been pregnant, in the first year of their marriage-when she had taken a fever and miscarried the child within five months-she could not bear to have any of her ladies about her, and Morgaine had cared for her almost like a mother. Why, now, was she so ungrateful?

Lancelet bade them good night again, and withdrew. Gwenhwyfar was almost painfully conscious of Arthur's arm around her waist, the frank eagerness in his eyes. Well, they had been apart a long time. But she felt a sudden, sharp resentment. Not once, since that time, have I been pregnant -can he not even give me a child?

Oh, but surely that was her own fault-one of the midwives had told her it was like a sickness in cattle when they cast their calves unborn, time after time, and sometimes women took that sickness too, so they could not carry a child more than a month or two, three at the most. Somehow, through carelessness, she must have taken that illness, gone perhaps into the dairy at the wrong time, or drunk of milk from a cow who had cast her calf, and so the life of her lord's son and heir had been forfeit, and it was all her doing. ... Torn with guilt, she followed Arthur into their chamber.