Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

"I saw Uther's queen but once, from a distance-she is very beautiful, but she seems cold and distant too." Lancelet laughed uneasily. "At my father's court I grew used to women who were interested only in pretty gowns and jewels and their little children, and sometimes, if they were not I married, in finding a husband.... I do not know much about women. You are not like them either. You seem unlike any woman I have ever known."

Morgaine felt herself blushing. She said low, reminding him, "I am a priestess like your mother-"

"Oh," he said, "but you are as different from her as night from She is great and terrible and beautiful, and one can only love and adore and I fear her, but you, I feel you are flesh and blood and still real, in spite off all these mysteries around you! You dress like a priestess, and you look like one of them, but when I look into your eyes I see a real woman there whom I could touch." He was laughing and intense, and she thrust her hands into his, and laughed back at him.

"Oh, yes, I am real, as real as the ground under your feet or the birds in that tree. ..."

They walked together down by the waterside, Morgaine leading I along a little path, carefully skirting the edges of the processional way.

"Is it a sacred place?" he asked. "Is it forbidden to climb the Tor unless you are a priestess or a Druid?"

"Only at the great festivals is it forbidden," she said, "and you certainly come with me. I may go where I will. There is no one on the Tor now except sheep grazing. Would you like to climb it?"

"Yes," he said. "I remember once when I was a child I climbed it. I thought it was forbidden, and so I was sure that if anyone knew I had been there I would be punished. I still remember the view from the height. I wonder if it was as enormous as it seemed to me when I was a little lad."

"We can climb the processional way, if you will. It is not so steep, because it winds round and round the Tor, but it is longer."

"No," he said. "I would like to climb straight up the slope-but"- he hesitated-"is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?"

She laughed and told him that she had climbed it often. "And as for the skirts, I am used to them," she said, "but if they get into my way I will not hesitate to tuck them up above my knees."

His smile was slow and delightful. "Most women I know would think themselves too modest to show their bare legs."

Morgaine flushed. "I have never thought modesty had much to do with bared legs for climbing-surely men know that women have legs like their own. It cannot be so much of an offense of modesty to see what they must be able to imagine. I know some of the Christian priests speak so, but they seem to think the human body is the work of some devil, not of God, and that no one could possibly see a woman's body without going all into a rage to possess it."

He looked away from her, and she realized that beneath the outward assurance he was still shy, and that pleased her. Together they set off upward, Morgaine, who was strong and hardy from much running and walking, setting a pace which astonished him and which, after the first few moments, he found it difficult to match. About halfway up the slope Morgaine paused, and it was a definite satisfaction to her to hear him breathing hard when her own breath still came easily, unforced. She wound the loose folds of her skirt up around her waist, letting only a single drape hang to her knees, and went on along the steeper, rockier part of the slope. She had never before had the slightest hesitation in baring her legs, but now, when she knew he was looking at them, she could not keep from remembering that they were shapely and strong, and she wondered if he really thought her immodest after all. At the top, she climbed up over the rim of the hill and sat down in the shadow of the ring stones. A minute or two later he came over the edge behind her and flung himself down, panting.

When he could speak again, he said, "I suppose I have been riding too much and not walking and climbing enough! You, you are not even short of breath."

"Well, but I am accustomed to coming up here, and I do not always stop to go round by the processional way," she said.

"And on the priests' Isle there is not even a shadow of the ring stones," he said, and pointed.

"No," she said. "In their world there is only their church and its tower. If we wanted to listen with the ears of the spirit we could hear the church bells ... they are shadows here, and in their world, we should be shadows. I sometimes wonder if that is why they avoid the church and keep great fasts and vigils on our holy days-because it would be too uncanny to feel all around them the shadow of the ring stones and perhaps even, for those who still had some shadow of the Sight, to feel and sense all around them the comings and goings of the Druids and hear the whisper of their hymns."

Lancelet shivered and it seemed that a cloud covered the sun for a moment., "And you, you have the Sight? You can see beyond the veil that separates the worlds?"

"Everyone has it," Morgaine said, "but I am trained to it beyond most women. Would you see, Galahad?"

He shivered again and said, "I beg you, do not call me by that name, cousin."

She laughed. "So even though you live among Christians, you have that old belief of the fairy folk, that one who knows your true name can command your spirit if he will? You know my name, cousin. What would you have me call you? Lance, then?"

"What you will, save for the name my mother gave me. I still fear her voice when she speaks that name in a certain tone. I seem to have drunk in that fear from her breasts ... ."

She reached over to him and laid her fingertip over the spot between his brows which was sensitive to the Sight. She breathed softly on it, and heard his gasp of astonishment, for the ring stones above them seemed to melt away into shadows. Before them now the whole top of the Tor stretched, with a little wattle-and-daub church rising beneath a low stone tower which bore a crude painting of an angel.

Lancelet crossed himself swiftly as a line of grey-clad forms came toward them, as it seemed.

"Can they see us, Morgaine?" His voice was a rough whisper.

"Some of them, perhaps, can see us as shadows. A few may think we are some of their own people, or that their eyes are dazzled with the sun and they see what is not there," she said, with a catch of breath, for what she told him was a Mystery which she really should not have spoken to an uninitiated person. But she had never in her life felt so close to anyone; she felt she could not bear it, to keep secrets from him, and made him this gift, telling herself that the Lady wanted him for Avalon. What a Merlin he would make!

She could hear the soft sound of singing: O thou lamb of God, who drawest away from us all evil of this world, Lord Christ, show us thy mercy ... .

He was singing it softly under his breath, as the church vanished and the ring stones towered again above them.

She said quietly, "Please. It is an offense to the Great Goddess to sing that here; the world she has made is not evil, and no priestess of hers will allow man to call it so."

"As you will." He was silent, and again the shadow of cloud passed over his face. His voice was musical, so sweet that when he ceased singing she longed to hear it again.

"Do you play the harp, Lance? Your voice is beautiful enough for a bard."

"As a child, I was taught. After, I had only the usual training befitting a nobleman's son," said Lancelet. "I learned only so great a love of music as to be discontented with my own sounds."

"Is it so? A Druid in training must be a bard before he is a priest, for music is one of the keys to the laws of the universe."