Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

He picked up the remaining bread on his plate and resolutely mopped up the scraps of fish. Morgaine asked him, "What of the quest?"

"What indeed? I have heard a little," he said, "here and there, here and there, as I rode in the land. Gawaine was the first to return to Camelot."

Morgaine smiled, almost against her will. "He was always fickle-to everything and everyone."

"Except to Arthur," Lancelet said. "He is more loyal to Arthur than any of his dogs! And I met with Gareth as I rode hither."

Morgaine said, "Dear Gareth, he is the best of Morgause's sons! What said he to you?"

"He said he had had a vision," Lancelet said slowly, "which bade him return to court and do his duty by his king and his lands, and not to delay, loitering about and seeking visions of holy things. And he talked a long time with me, begging me to lay aside the quest of the Grail and return to Camelot with him."

"I am surprised you did not," Morgaine said.

He smiled. "I am surprised too, kinswoman. And I have promised to return as soon as I can." Suddenly, his face grew grave. "Gareth told me," he said, "that Mordred is always about Arthur now. And when I would not return to court with him, he told me this-that what I could best do for Arthur was to find Galahad and bid him return at once to Avalon, for he mistrusted Mordred and his influence upon Arthur. ... I am sorry to speak ill of your son, Morgaine."

Morgaine said, "He told me once that Galahad would not live to rule ... yet he swore to me, by an oath I do not think he would dare break, that he would have no hand in his death."

Lancelet looked troubled. "I have seen many evil adventures that may befall on this accursed quest. God grant that I can find Galahad before he falls prey to one of them!" A silence fell between them, while Morgaine thought, I knew it in my heart-this was why Mordred refused the quest. She realized, quite suddenly, that she had ceased to believe that her son Gwydion -Mordred-would ever now be King from Avalon. She wondered when she had begun to accept that in her heart. Perhaps it had been when Accolon died and the Goddess did not stretch forth her hand to protect her chosen.

Galahad will be King, and he will be a Christian king.

And that may well mean that he will kill Gwydion. What of the King Stag, when the young stag is grown? But if the day of Avalon had ended, perhaps Galahad would take his throne in peace, without the need to kill his rival.

Lancelet laid down the remnant of a piece of bread and honey and looked past her at the corner of the room. "Is that Viviane's harp?"

"Yes," she said. "I left mine at Tintagel. But I suppose it is yours by right of inheritance if you want it."

"I play no longer, nor do I have any will to make music, Morgaine. By right it is yours, as are all other things which belonged to my mother."

Morgaine recalled words which had cut her to the heart-again, a lifetime ago!-7 would that you were not so much like my mother, Morgaine! Now the memory held no pain, but warmth; Viviane was not gone entirely from the world if something survived in her. He said, stumbling, "There are now so few of us-so few who recall the old days at Caerleon-even at Camelot-"

"Arthur is there," she said, "and Gawaine, and Gareth, and Cai, and many more, my dear. And no doubt they ask one another with every day, Where is Lancelet? Why are you here, and not there?"

"I said, my mind plays me tricks-I hardly knew I came hither," Lancelet said. "Yet now I am here, I should ask-I heard Nimue was here," and she remembered: she had told him this, once, when he had thought his daughter at the convent where once Gwenhwyfar had been. "I should ask, what has become of her-is she well, does she thrive among the priestesses?"

"I am sorry," Morgaine said. "It seems I have nothing but ill news for you-Nimue died, a year ago."

More than this she would not say. Lancelet knew nothing of the Merlin's betrayal, or of Nimue's last visit to the court. It could only grieve him to know the rest. He asked no questions, only sighed heavily, and cast his eyes on the floor. At last he said without looking up, "And the baby -little Gwenhwyfar-she is married, and in Less Britain, and this quest has swallowed Galahad. I never knew any of my children. I never tried to know them-it seemed to me they were all I could give Elaine, and so I left them to her almost entirely, even the boy. I rode for a time with Galahad when first we departed from Camelot, and I knew more of him in the ten days and nights we rode together than in all the sixteen years he had lived. I think perhaps he would make a good king, if he lives ... ."

He looked at Morgaine, almost pleading, and she knew he was longing for reassurance, but she had no comfort for him. At last she said, "If he lives, he will be a good king, but I think he will be a Christian king." It seemed that for a moment all the sounds of Avalon were hushed around her, as if the very waves of the Lake and the whispering sound of the reeds on the border were silent to hear her say it. "If lie survives the quest of the Grail -or if he should abandon it-still his rule will be circled about by the priests, and through all the land there will be only one God and only one religion."

"Would that be such a tragedy, Morgaine?" Lancelet asked quietly. "All through this land, the Christian God is bringing a spiritual rebirth here -is that an evil thing, when mankind has forgotten the Mysteries?"

"They have not forgotten the Mysteries," she said, "they have found them too difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are, with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so, it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear to think of their Gods."

Lancelet smiled bitterly. "Perhaps a religion which demands that every man must work through lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much for mankind. They want not to wait for God's justice, but to see it now. And that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them."

Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. "And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be -the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want-the kind of God they deserve, perhaps."

Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became. While the ancient Gods, the Goddess, were seen as benevolent or life-giving, so indeed had nature been to them; and when the priests had taught men to think of all nature as evil, alien, hostile, and the old Gods as demons, even so they would become, surging up from within that part of man which he now wished to sacrifice or control, instead of letting it lead him.

She said, remembering at random something she had read when she had looked into the books of Uriens' house priest in Wales, "And so all men will become even as that apostle who wrote that they should become as eunuchs for the Kingdom of God ... I think I care not to live within that world, Lancelet."

The weary knight sighed and shook his head. "I think I care not for it either, Morgaine. Yet perhaps it will be a simpler world than ours, and it will be easier to know what is right to do. So I came to seek Galahad, for though he will be a Christian king, I think he would be a better king than Mordred ... ."

Morgaine clenched her hands under the edge of her sleeves. I am not the Goddess! It is-it is not mine to choose! "You came-here to seek him, Lancelet? He was never one of us. My son Gwydion-Mordred-he was reared at Avalon. If he left Arthur's court he might come here. But Galahad? He was as pious as Elaine-he would scorn to set foot in this world of witchcraft and fairy!"