Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Only a hundred years or less, certainly less in Avalon, that these worlds have diverged; yet already the world here is different. The trees were different, and the paths, and she stopped, bewildered, at the foot of a little hill-surely there was nothing like this on Avalon? She had somehow thought the land would be the same, only the buildings different, for they were, after all, the same island, separated only by some magical change ... but now she saw that they were very different.

And then she saw, winding down the hill toward the little church, a procession of robed monks, and they bore with them, toward the church, a body on its bier.

So I saw truly, then, even though I thought it a dream. She stopped, and as the monks brought the body to rest before taking it into the church, she went forward and drew back the pall from the dead face.

Lancelet's face was drawn and lined, far older than when they had parted ... she did not want to think how much older. But she saw that only for a moment; then what she saw on his face was only the sweet and marvelous look of peace. He lay smiling, looking so far beyond her that she knew on what his dying eyes had rested.

She whispered, "So at last you found your Grail."

One of the monks who carried him said, "Perhaps you knew him in the world, sister?" and she knew that in her dark garb, he thought her one of them.

"He was a-a kinsman of mine."

Cousin, lover, friend ... but that was long ago. At the end we were priestess and priest.

"I thought as much," said the monk, "for they called him Lancelet at the court of Arthur, in the old days, but here among us we called him Galahad. He had been with us for many years, and he was made priest but a few days ago."

So far you came in your search for a God who would not mock you, my cousin!

The monks who carried him raised him again to their shoulders. The one who had spoken with her said, "Pray for his soul, sister," and she bowed her head. She could not feel grief; not now, when she had seen the reflection of that faraway light on his face.

But she would not follow him into the church. Here the veil is thin. Here Galahad knelt, and saw the light of the Grail in the other chapel, the chapel on Avalon, and reached for it, reached through the worlds, and so died ... .

And here at last Lancelet has come to follow his son.

Morgaine walked slowly along the path, half ready to abandon what she had come to do. What difference did it make now? But as she paused, irresolute, an old gardener, kneeling at one of the beds of flowers behind the path, raised his head and spoke to her. "I know you not, sister, you are not one of those who dwell here," he said. "Are you a pilgrim?"

Not as the man thought; but so she was, in a way. "I seek the burial place of my kinswoman-she was the Lady of the Lake-"

"Ah yes, that was many, many years ago, in the reign of our good King Arthur," he said. "It lies yonder, where pilgrims to the island may see it. And from it, the path leads up to the convent of the sisters, and if you are hungry, sister, they will give you something to eat there."

Has it come to this, that I look like a beggar? But the man had meant no harm, so she thanked him, and walked in the direction he had pointed out.

Arthur had built for Viviane a noble tomb indeed. But what lay there was not Viviane; nothing lay there but bones, slowly returning to the earth from which they had come ... and all things at last give up their body and their spirit into the keeping of the Lady again ... .

Why had it made so much difference to her? Viviane was not there. Yet when she stood with bent head before the cairn, she was weeping.

After a time, a woman in a dark robe not unlike her own, with a white veil over her head, approached her. "Why do you weep, sister? She who lies here is at peace and in God's hands, she has no need of mourning. But maybe she was one of your kin?"

Morgaine nodded, bending her head against the tears.

"We pray always for her," said the nun, "for, though I do not know her name, she was said to be the friend and benefactor of our good King Arthur in the days that were gone." She lowered her head and murmured some prayer or other, and even as she prayed, bells rang out, and Morgaine drew back. So, in place of the harps of Avalon, Viviane had only these clanging bells and doleful psalms?

Never did I think I would stand side by side with one of these Christian nuns, joining with her in prayer. But then she remembered what Lancelet had said in her dream.

Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are One ...

"Come up to the cloister with me, sister," said the nun, smiling and laying a hand on her arm. "You must be hungry and weary."

Morgaine went with her to the gates of their cloister, but would not go in. "I am not hungry," she said, "but if I might have a drink of water-"

"Of course." The woman in black beckoned, and a young girl came and brought a pitcher of water, which she poured into a cup. And she said, as Morgaine lifted it to her lips, "We drink only the water of the chalice well-it is a holy place, you know."

It was like Viviane's voice in her ears: The priestesses drink only the water of the Sacred Well.

The nun and the young girl, robed in black, turned and bent their heads before a woman who came from the cloister, and the nun who had guided her said, "This is our abbess."

Morgaine thought, Somewhere I have seen her. But even as the thought crossed her mind, the woman said, "Morgaine, you do not know me? We thought you long dead ... "

Morgaine smiled at her, troubled. "I am sorry-I do not-"

"No, you would not remember me," said the abbess, "though I saw you, now and again, at Camelot; I was so much younger. My name is Lionors. I was married to Gareth, and when all my children were grown, I came here-here to end my days. Did you come to Lancelet's funeral, then?" She smiled and said, "I should indeed have said Father Galahad, but it is hard to remember, and now he is in Heaven it will not matter." She smiled again. "I know not now even who is King, or whether Camelot still stands-there is war in the land again, it is not as it was in Arthur's time. That all seems so very long ago," she added with detachment.

"I came here to visit Viviane's grave. She is buried here-do you remember?"

"I have seen the tomb," said the abbess, "but it was before ever I came to Camelot."

"I have a favor to beg of you," Morgaine said, and touched the basket on her arm. "This is the Holy Thorn that grows on the hills of Avalon, where it is said that the foster-father of Christ struck his staff into the ground and it blossomed there. I would plant a cutting of this thorn tree on her grave."

"Plant it if you will," said Lionors. "I cannot see how anyone could object to that. It seems right to me that it should be here in the world, and not hidden away in Avalon."

She looked at Morgaine, dismayed.

"Avalon! Have you come here from that unholy land?"

Morgaine thought, Once I would have been angry with her. "Unholy it is not, whatever the priests say, Lionors," she said gently. "Think-would the foster-father of Christ have struck his staff there if the land had seemed to him evil? Is not the Holy Spirit everywhere?"

The woman bowed her head. "You are right. I will send novices to help you with the planting."

Morgaine would sooner have been alone, but she knew it was a kindly thought. The novices seemed no more than children to Morgaine, girls of nineteen or twenty, so young that she wondered-forgetting that she herself had been made priestess when she was eighteen-how they could possibly know enough of spiritual things to choose lives like this. She had thought nuns in Christian convents would be sad and doleful, ever conscious of what the priests said about the sinfulness of being born women, but these were innocent and merry as robins, talking gaily to Morgaine of their new chapel and bidding her rest her knees while they dug the hole for the cutting.