Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

The year moved on into the darkness of winter, and on toward spring. One day Gwenhwyfar said fiercely, "I wish this quest were done and the knights returned, Grail or no Grail!"

"Hush, my dear, they are sworn," said Arthur, but later that day, indeed, a knight rode up the track to Camelot, and they saw that it was Gawaine.

"Is it you, cousin?" Arthur embraced him and kissed him on either cheek. "I had no hope of seeing you till a year was done-did you not swear to follow the Grail for a year and a day?"

"I did so," said Gawaine, "but I am not false to my oath, Lord, and yonder priest need not look at me as if I were forsworn. For I last saw the Grail here in this very castle, Arthur, and I am just as like to see it here again as in this corner or that of the world. I rode up and down, hither and thither, and never did I hear word of it more, and one day it came to me that I might as well seek it where I had seen it already, at Camelot and in the presence of my king, even if I must look for it every Sunday on the altar at mass, and nowhere else."

Arthur smiled and embraced him, and Gwenhwyfar saw that his eyes were wet. "Come in, cousin," he said simply. "Welcome home."

And some days later, Gareth too came home. "I had a vision indeed, and I think it may have come from God," he said as they sat at supper in the hall. "I dreamed I saw the Grail uncovered and fair before me, and then a voice spoke to me from the light around the Grail and said, 'Gareth, Companion of Arthur, this is all you will ever see of that Grail in this life. Why seek further for visions and glories, when your king has need of you in Camelot? You may serve God when you reach Heaven, but while you live here on earth, return to Camelot and serve your king.' And when I woke, I remembered that even Christ had said that they should render unto Caesar those things which belonged to Caesar, and so I came home this way, and I met with Lancelet as I rode, and I bade him do the same."

"Do you think, then, that you truly found the Grail?" Gwydion asked.

Gareth laughed. "Perhaps the Grail itself is only a dream. And when I dreamed of the Grail, it bade me do my duty to my lord and king."

"I suppose we shall look to see Lancelet here among us soon, then?"

"I hope he can find it in his heart to come," said Gawaine, "for indeed we need him here. But Easter will be upon us soon, and then we can look to have them all come home."

Later Gareth asked that Gwydion would bring his harp and sing for them. "For," he said, "I have not heard even such rough music as I would hear at the court of the Saxons, and you who sit here at home have surely had time to perfect your songs, Gwydion."

Gwenhwyfar would not have been surprised had he stood aside for Niniane, but instead he brought out a harp Gwenhwyfar recognized.

"Is that not Morgaine's harp?"

"It is so. She left it at Camelot when she went from here, and if she wants it she can send for it, or come and take it from me. And until that day, well, it is surely mine, and I doubt she would begrudge me this when she has given me nothing else."

"Save only your life," said Arthur in a tone of mild reproof, and Gwydion turned on him a look of such bitterness that Gwenhwyfar was sorely distressed. His savage tone could not be heard four feet away. "Should I then be grateful for that, my lord and my king?" Before Arthur could speak, he set his fingers to the strings and began to play. But the song he sang shocked Gwenhwyfar.

He sang the ballad of the Fisher King, who dwelt in a castle at the middle of a great wasteland; and as the king grew ancient and his powers waned, so did the land fade and put forth no crops, till some younger man should come and strike the stroke of mercy which would pour out the blood of the ancient king upon the land. Then the land would grow young again with the new king, and bloom with his youth.

"Say you so?" demanded Arthur uneasily. "That the land where an old king rules can only be a land which fades?"

"Not so, my lord. What would we do without the wisdom of your many years? Yet in the ancient days of the Tribes it was even so, where the Goddess of the Land alone endures, and the king rules while he shall please her. And when the King Stag grew old, another would come from the herd and throw him down ... but this is a Christian court, and you have no such heathen ways as that, my king. I think perhaps that ballad of the Fisher King is but a symbol of the grass which, even as it says in your Scriptures, is like to man's flesh, enduring but a season, and the king of the wasteland but a symbol of the world which yearly dies with the grass and is renewed with spring, as all religions tell... even Christ withered like the Fisher King when he died the death of the cross and returns again with Easter, ever new ... " and he touched the strings and sang softly:

"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."