Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Gwenhwyfar wondered how so much knowledge of Scripture had come to Nimue, living upon Avalon. And she remembered that Morgaine, too, had known more, she sometimes thought, of the holy writings than she herself did.

Nimue said, "I think perhaps the priests do not want us to think of other lives because they wish us to be very good in this one. Many priests think there is not much time remaining before the world will end and Christ come again, and so they are afraid that men will wait for another life to be good, and will not have time to attain perfection before Christ comes. If men knew they would be reborn, would they work so hard to be perfect in this life?"

"That seems to me dangerous doctrine," Gwenhwyfar said, "for if people believed that all men must at last be saved in some life or other, what would keep them from committing sins in this one, in the hope that at last God's mercy would prevail?"

"I do not think that fear of the priests, or of God's wrath, or anything else, will ever keep mankind from committing sins," said Nimue, "but only when they have gained enough wisdom in all their lives that they know that error is useless and evil must be paid for, sooner or later."

"Oh! Hush, child," Gwenhwyfar said. "Suppose someone should hear you speaking such heresies! Although it is true," she said after a moment, "that since that day of Easter, it seems to me that there is infinite mercy in God's love, and perhaps God does not care so much about sin as some of the priests would have us believe ... and now I am talking heresy too, perhaps!"

Nimue only smiled again, thinking to herself, I did not come to court to bring enlightenment to Gwenhwyfar. I have a more perilous mission, and it is not for me to preach to her the truth, that all men, and all women too, must one day come to enlightenment.

"Do you not believe Christ will come again, Nimue?"

No, thought Nimue, I do not, I believe that the great enlightened ones, like Christ, come but once, after many lives spent in attaining wisdom, and then they go forth forever into eternity; but I believe the divine ones will send other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones.

"What I believe does not matter, cousin, what matters is the truth. Some priests preach that their God is a God of love, and others that he is evil and vengeful. Sometimes I feel that the priests were sent to punish people; since they would not hear Christ's words of Love, God sent them the priests with their message of hatred and bigotry." And then she stopped short, for she did not want to anger Gwenhwyfar. But the Queen only said, "Well, Nimue, I have known priests like that."

"And if some priests are bad men," said Nimue, "I find it not wholly beyond reason that some Druids might be good ones."

There must, thought Gwenhwyfar, be some error in that reasoning, but she could not make it out. "Well, my dear, you may be right. But it makes me queasy to see you with the Merlin. Although I know Morgaine thought well of him ... it was rumored here at court, even, that they were lovers. I wondered often how a woman so fastidious as Morgaine could have let him touch her."

Nimue had not known that and she thrust it away in her mind for reference. Was that how Morgaine had known of his undefended fortresses? She said only, "Of all I learned in Avalon, what most I loved was music, and what I have heard in Holy Writ that pleases me most was the psalmist who told us to praise God with the lute and the harp. And Kevin has promised me that he will help me to find a harp, for I came away without my own. May I send for him here, cousin?"

Gwenhwyfar hesitated, but she could not resist the sweet entreaty in the young girl's smile and said, "To be sure you may, my dearest child."

11

After a time, the Merlin came-no, thought Nimue, I must remember; he is no more now than Kevin the Harper, traitor to Avalon-and behind him a servant carrying My Lady. Nimue thought, Now he is a Christian, there is no law that no other may touch his harp; it is simpler than keeping an initiated man about him to bear My Lady when his strength fails.

He walked with two sticks, dragging his tortured body after them. But he smiled at the ladies and said, "You must consider, my queen and my lady Nimue, that somehow my spirit has made to you the courtly bow that my unruly body is no longer able to make."

Nimue whispered, "I beg you, cousin, ask him to sit-he cannot stand for long."

Gwenhwyfar waved permission, glad for once of her near sight that meant she need not clearly see the misshapen body. For a moment, Nimue was afraid that Kevin's man was from Avalon and would recognize and perhaps greet her, but he was only a servant in the dress of the court. How had Morgaine, or old Raven, been able to see so far ahead, to order her as a child into seclusion, so that when she came to womanhood, there would be one fully trained priestess in Avalon whom the Merlin would not know by sight? She understood that she was merely a pawn in the great work of the world, sent forth with no weapons but her beauty and her guarded virginity to work the vengeance of the Goddess on this man who had betrayed them all.

Nimue placed another cushion from her own chair under the Merlin's arm. His bones seemed to protrude through the skin, and when she barely touched his elbow, it seemed that there was so much heat in the swollen joints that it burned her. And she felt a moment's pity and rebellion.

Surely the Goddess already works her own vengeance! This man has surely suffered enough! Their Christ suffered a day on the cross; this man has been crucified in his broken body for a lifetime!

Yet others had been burned for their faith and had not broken, nor betrayed the Mysteries. She hardened her heart and said sweetly, "Lord Merlin, will you play your harp for me?"

"For you, my lady," Kevin said in his rich voice, "I will play what you will, and I could wish I were that ancient bard who could play till the trees danced!"

"Oh no," said Nimue with mocking laughter. "What would we do if they came dancing in here! Why, we would have earth all over the hall, and all our maids with mops and brooms would not be able to clean it! Leave the trees where they are, I beg you, and sing!"

The Merlin put his hands to the harp and began to play. Nimue sat beside him on the floor, her great eyes looking up, intent, into his face. The Merlin looked down on the maiden just as a great dog might watch its master-with humble devotion and utter preoccupation. Gwenhwyfar took such emotion almost for granted. She herself had been the object of intense devotion so often that she never thought twice about it-it was simply the homage that men paid to beauty. Perhaps, though, she should warn Nimue, lest her head be turned by it. Yet she could not imagine how Nimue could sit so close to his ugliness or look at him so attentively.

There was something about Nimue that puzzled Gwenhwyfar. Somehow, the girl's concentration was not quite what it seemed. It was not the delight taken by one musician in another's work, nor was it the artless admiration of a naive maiden for a well-travelled and mature man. No, thought Gwenhwyfar, and it was not a sudden passion, either; that she could have understood and, in a sense, sympathized with-she herself had known that sudden overpowering love which sweeps away all obstacles. It had struck her like lightning and had ruined all her hopes that her marriage with Arthur could be a good and proper one. It had been a curse, yet she had known it was something that came of itself, over which neither she nor Lancelet had any power. She had come to terms with it, and she could have accepted that it had happened to Nimue-even though Kevin the Merlin seemed the most unlikely object for such a passion. But it was not that ... she did not know how she knew, but she knew.