Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

Morgaine said shyly, "You drank wine at Caerleon, Lady."

"Certainly, and so may you, when you know the proper times to eat and drink, and the proper times to abstain," said Viviane curtly. That silenced Morgaine, and she sat nibbling at her bread and honey. But although she was hungry, it seemed to stick in her throat.

"Have you had enough to eat?" Viviane asked. "Good, then let Raven take the dishes-you should sleep, child. But sit here beside me before the fire and talk a little, for tomorrow Raven will take you to the House of Maidens, and you will see me no more, save at the rites, until you are trained to take your turn with the older priestesses, to sleep in my house and care for me as a serving-woman. And at that time you too may well be under a vow of silence, neither to speak nor answer. But for tonight, you are only my kinswoman, not yet vowed to the service of the Goddess, and you may ask me whatever you will."

She held out her hand, and Morgaine came to join her on the bench before the fire. Viviane turned and said, "Will you take the pin from my hair, Morgaine? Raven has gone to her rest, and I do not want to disturb her again."

Morgaine pulled the carven pin of bone from the older woman's hair, and it came down with a rush, long and dark with a streak of white at one temple. Viviane sighed, stretching her bare feet to the fire.

"It is good to be home again-I have had to travel overmuch in late years," she said, "and I am no longer strong enough to find it a pleasure."

"You said I might ask you questions," Morgaine said timidly. "Why do some of the women have blue signs on their brows, and others not?"

"The blue crescent is a sign that they are vowed to the service of the Goddess, to live and die at her will," Viviane said. "Those who are here only for some schooling in the Sight do not take such vows."

"Am I to take vows?"

"That will be your own choice," Viviane said. "The Goddess will tell you whether she wishes to set her hand upon you. Only the Christians use the cloister as a kitchen midden for their unwanted daughters and widows."

"But how will I know if the Goddess wants me?"

Viviane smiled in the darkness. "She will call you in a voice you cannot fail to understand. If you have heard that call, there will be nowhere in the world to hide from her voice."

Morgaine wondered, but was too timid to ask, if Viviane had been vowed so. Of course! She is the High Priestess, the Lady of Avalon ... .

"I was so vowed," Viviane said quietly, with the trick she had of answering an unspoken question, "but the mark has worn away with time ... if you look closely, I think you can still see a little of it at the edge of my hair, there."

"Yes, a little ... what does it mean to be vowed to the Goddess, Lady? Who is this Goddess? I asked Father Columba once if God had any other name, and he said, no, there was only one Name by which we could be saved and that was Jesus the Christ, but-" She broke off, abashed. "I am very ignorant about such things."

"To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom," Viviane said. "Then, when you begin to learn, you will not have to forget all the things you think you know. God is called by many names, but is everywhere One; and so, when you pray to Mary, mother of Jesus, you pray, without knowing it, to the World Mother in one of her many forms. The God of the priests and the Great One of the Druids is the same One, and that is why the Merlin sometimes takes his place among the Christian councillors of the High King; he knows, if they do not, that God is One."

"Your mother was priestess here before you, my mother said-"

"That is true, but it was not a matter of blood alone. Rather that I had inherited her gift of the Sight, and vowed myself to the Goddess of my free will. The Goddess did not call your mother, nor Morgause. So I sent Igraine to be married to your father and then to Uther, and Morgause to be married as the King should decree. Igraine's marriage served the Goddess; over Morgause, she had no power and no call."

"Are the priestesses called by the Goddess never married then?"

"Usually not. They do not vow themselves to any man, except for the Great Marriage, where priest and priestess join in symbol of God and Goddess, and children so born are children to no mortal man, but to the Goddess. This is a Mystery, and you will learn it at the proper time. I was so born, and have no earthly father ... ."

Morgaine stared at her and whispered, "Do you mean that-that your mother lay with a God?"

"No, of course not. Only a priest, overshadowed by the power of the God; probably a priest whose name she never knew, because at that moment or in that time, the God came into him and possessed him so that the man was forgotten and unknown." Her face was distant, remembering strange things; Morgaine could see them moving across her brow. It seemed that the fire made pictures in the room, a great figure of a Horned One .....he shivered suddenly and pulled her cloak about her.

"Are you weary, child? You should sleep-"

But Morgaine was curious again. "Were you born in Avalon?"

"Yes, though I was fostered on the Druid Isle, far to the north, in the Islands. And when I was grown to womanhood, the Goddess set her hand upon me-the blood of the priestess-born ran true in me, as I think it does in you, my child." Her voice was distant; she rose and stood looking into the fire.

"I am trying to remember how many years ago it was that I came here with the old woman ... the moon was farther south then, for it was harvesttime, and the dark days of Samhain coming on, in the dying of the year. It was a bitter winter, even at Avalon; we heard wolves in the night, and snow lay deep, and we hungered here, for no one could make the passage through the storms, and some of the little children at the breast died when milk failed ... . Then the Lake froze, and they brought us food on sledges. I was a maiden then, my breasts had not grown, and now I am old, an old woman, a crone ... so many years, child."

Morgaine could feel the older woman's hand trembling; she held it hard in her own. After a moment Viviane drew the girl to her side and stood, her arm around her waist.

"So many moons, so many Midsummers ... and now it seems that Samhain follows hard upon Beltane-eve more swiftly than the moon waxed from maiden to full when I was young. And you too will stand here before the fire, and grow old as I have grown old, unless the Mother has other tasks for you ... ah, Morgaine, Morgaine, little one, I should have left you in Your mother's house ... ."

Morgaine flung her arms fiercely around the priestess. "I could not stay there! I would rather have died. ..."

"I knew that," Viviane said, sighing. "I think the Mother has laid her hand on you too, child. But you have come from a life of ease into a hard life and a bitter one, Morgaine, and it may be that I will have tasks for you as cruel as those the Great Mother has laid on me. Now you think only of learning to use the Sight, and of living in the beautiful land of Avalon, but it is no easy thing to serve the will of Ceridwen, my daughter; she is not only the Great Mother of Love and Birth, she is also the Lady of Darkness and Death." Sighing, she stroked the girl's soft hair. "She is also the Morrigan, the messenger of strife, the Great Raven ... oh, Morgaine, Morgaine, I would you had been my own child, but even so I could not spare you, I must use you for her purposes as I was myself used." She bowed her head, laid it for a moment on the young girl's shoulder. "Believe that I love you, Morgaine, for a time will come when you will hate me as much as you love me now-"

Morgaine fell impulsively to her knees. "Never," she whispered. "I am in the hands of the Goddess ... and in yours ... "

"May she grant that you never regret those words," Viviane said. She stretched out her hands to the fire. They were small, and strong, and a little swollen with age. "With these hands I have brought children to birth; and I have seen a man's lifeblood flow from them. Once I betrayed a man to his death, a man who had lain in my arms and I had sworn to love. I destroyed your mother's peace, and now I have taken her children from her. Do you not hate me and fear me, Morgaine?"