Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

As the night began to pale toward morning, Viviane rose and took a tiny lamp. Her attendant priestess came swiftly from the inner room where she slept, but Viviane shook her head without speaking and gestured the woman to return to her bed. She went, silent as a wraith, down the pathway to the House of Maidens, and stole inside, treading more silently than any cat.

In the room where Morgaine slept, she went to the bedside and looked down on the sleeping face so like her own. Morgaine, sleeping, had the face of the little girl who had come to Avalon so many years ago and who had entered into Viviane's inmost heart. Under the dark lashes, there were patches of darkness like bruises, and the edges of the eyelids were red, as if Morgaine had wept before sleeping.

Holding the lamp high, she looked long on her young kinswoman. She loved Morgaine as she had never loved Igraine, or Morgause whom she had nursed at her own breasts; as she had never loved any of the men who had shared her bed for a night or for a season. Not even Raven, whom she had schooled to the ways of a priestess since the age of seven, had she loved like this. Only once had she felt this fierce love, this inner pain as if every breath of the beloved were agony-for the daughter she had borne in her first year as sworn priestess, who had lived a scant six months and whom, weeping for the last time, Viviane had buried before she had completed her fifteenth year. From the moment they had laid that daughter in her arms, until the frail child's last breath had ceased, Viviane had drawn her every breath in a kind of mingled delirium of love and pain, as if the beloved child were a part of her own body, whose every moment of contentment or suffering was her own. That had been a lifetime ago, and Viviane knew that the woman she had been born to be had been buried within the hazel grove in Avalon. The woman who walked tearlessly away from that tiny grave had been another person altogether, holding herself aloof from every human emotion. Kind, yes; content, even happy, at times; but not the same woman. She had loved her sons, but from the moment of their birth she had been resigned to the thought of giving them up to foster-mothers.

Raven she had let herself love a little ... but there were times when Viviane had felt in the innermost depths of her heart that her own dead daughter had been sent back to her by the Goddess in the form of Igraine's child.

Now she weeps, and it is as if every tear burns into my heart. Goddess, you gave me this child to love, and yet I must give her up to this torment ... . All of mankind suffers, the Earth herself cries out under the torment of her sons. In our suffering, Mother Ceridwen, we grow nearer to thee ... . Viviane raised her hand swiftly to her eyes, shaking her head so that the single tear vanished without trace. She too is vowed to what must be; her suffering has not yet begun.

Morgaine stirred and turned on her side, and Viviane, suddenly fearful that Morgaine would wake and that she must confront again the accusation of those eyes, stole quickly out of the room and silently returned to her own dwelling.

She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, but she did not close her eyes. Once, toward morning, she saw a shadow move across the wall, and in the dimness she made out a face; it was the Death-crone, waiting for her, in the form of an old woman clothed in rags and tatters of shadow.

Mother, have you come for me?

Not yet, my daughter and my other self, I wait here that you may remember I await you, as I await every other mortal ... .

Viviane blinked, and when she opened her eyes again the corner was dark and empty. Surely I need no reminding that she awaits me now ... .

She lay silent, waiting as she had been trained to wait, until at last the dawn stole into the room. Even then she waited until she had dressed herself, though she would not break the moon-dark fast until the crescent could be seen tonight in the evening sky. Then she called her attendant priestess and said, "Bring the lady Morgaine to me."

When Morgaine came, she noted that the younger woman had dressed herself in the garb of a priestess of the highest rank, her hair high and braided, the small sickle-shaped knife hanging from its black cord. Viviane's mouth moved in a dry smile, and when they had greeted each other and Morgaine sat beside her, she said, "Twice now the moon has darkened; tell me, Morgaine, has the Horned One of the grove quickened your womb?"

Morgaine looked quickly at her, the glance of some small frightened thing in a snare. Then the younger woman said, angry and defiant, "You told me yourself that I should use my own judgment; I have cast it forth."

"You have not," said Viviane, steadying her voice to complete detachment. "Why should you lie to me? I say you shall not."

"I will!"

Viviane felt the power in the girl; for a moment, as Morgaine rose swiftly from the bench, it seemed to her that she had grown suddenly tall and imposing. But it was a priestess-trick and Viviane knew it too.

She has outstripped me, I cannot overawe her any longer. Nevertheless she said, summoning all her old authority, "You shall not. The royal blood of Avalon is not to be cast aside."

Suddenly Morgaine fell to the ground, and for an instant Viviane feared the girl would break into wild sobbing. "Why did you do this to me, Viviane? Why did you use me this way? I thought you loved me!" Her face worked, though she did not weep.

"The Goddess knows, child, I love you as I have never loved any other human being, on earth," Viviane said steadily, through the knifing pain in her heart. "But when I brought you here, I told you: a time would come when you might hate me as much as you loved me then. I am Lady of Avalon; I do not give reasons for what I do. I do what I must, no more and no less, and so will you when the day comes."

"That day will never come!" Morgaine cried out, "for here and now, I tell you that you have worked upon me and played with me like a puppet for the last time! Never again-never!"

Viviane kept her voice even, the voice of the trained priestess who would remain calm though the heavens should fall upon her. "Take care how you curse me, Morgaine; words flung in anger have an evil way of returning when you love them least."

"Curse you-I thought not of it," Morgaine said quickly. "But I will no longer be your toy and plaything. As for this child which you moved Heaven and Earth to bring to the light, I will not bear him in Avalon for you to gloat at what you have done."

"Morgaine-" Viviane said, holding out her hand to the younger woman, but Morgaine stepped back. She said into the silence, "May the Goddess deal with you as you have done with me, Lady."

Without another word she turned and left the room, not waiting for dismissal. Viviane sat frozen, as if Morgaine's parting words had been a curse indeed.

When finally she could think clearly, she summoned one of the priestesses; already it was late in the day, and the moon, the thinnest paring of a crescent, was visible, slim and silver-edged, in the western sky. "Tell my kinswoman, the lady Morgaine, to attend upon me; I did not give her leave to go."

The priestess went away, but she did not return for a long time; it was already dark, and Viviane had summoned the other attendant to bring food to break her long fast, when the first returned.

"Lady," she said and bowed, and her face was white.

Viviane's throat tightened, and for some reason she remembered how a long time ago a priestess in deep despair, after the birth of a child she had not wanted, had hanged herself by her girdle from one of the trees in the oak grove. Morgaine! Was it of this the Death-crone came to warn me? Would she lay hands on her own life? She said through dry lips, "I bade you bring the lady Morgaine to me."