The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Marion Bradley

Elaine rose and curtseyed to the King. "By your leave, my lord, may I ask that the lady Morgaine visit me for a time as well?"

  Morgaine said, not looking at Lancelet, "I would like to go with Elaine, my brother, if your lady can spare me. There are herbs and simples in that country about which I know little, and I would learn of them from the country wives. I need them for medicines and charms."

  "Well," said Arthur, "you may go if you will. But it will be lonely here without you all." He smiled his rare, gentle smile at Lancelet. "My court is not my court without my best of knights. But I would not hold you here against your will, and neither would my queen."

  I am not so sure of that, Morgaine thought, watching Gwenhwyfar struggling to compose her face. Arthur had been long away; he was eager to be reunited with his wife. Would Gwenhwyfar tell him honestly that she loved another, or would she go meekly to his bed and pretend again?

  And for a bizarre moment Morgaine saw herself as the Queen's shadow ... somehow her fate and mine have gotten all entangled ... she, Morgaine, had had Arthur and borne him a son, which Gwenhwyfar longed to do; Gwenhwyfar had had Lancelet's love for which Morgaine would willingly have given her soul ... it is just like the God of the Christians to make such blunders-he does not like lovers. Or is it the Goddess who jests cruelly with us?

  Gwenhwyfar beckoned to Morgaine. "You look ill, sister. Are you still faint?"

  Morgaine nodded. I must not hate her. She is as much victim as I. ... "I am still a little weary. I will go to rest soon."

  "And tomorrow," Gwenhwyfar said, "you and Elaine are to take Lancelet from us." The words were spoken lightly, as a jest, but Morgaine seemed to see very deep into Gwenhwyfar, where the woman was fighting rage and despair like her own. Ah, our fates are entangled by the Goddess, and who can fight her will ... but she hardened her heart against the other woman's despair and said, "What is the good of a queen's champion, if he is not away fighting for what seems good to him? Would you hold him at court and away from the winning of honor, my sister?"

  "Neither of us would want that," Arthur said, coming up behind Gwenhwyfar and laying his arm around her waist. "Since by the goodwill of my friend and champion, my queen is here and safe when I return. Good night to you, my sister."

  Morgaine stood and watched them move away from her, and after a moment she felt Lancelet's hand on her shoulder. He did not speak, but stood silent, watching Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. And as she stood there, silent, she knew that if she made a single move, she could have Lancelet this night. In his despair, now when he saw the woman he loved returning to her husband, and that husband so dear to him that he could not lift a hand to take her, he would turn to Morgaine if she would have him.

  And he is too honorable not to marry me afterward ... .

  No. Elaine would have him, perhaps, on those terms, but not I. She is guileless; he will not come to hate her, as he would certainly come to hate me.

  Gently she removed Lancelet's hand from her shoulder. "I am weary, my kinsman. I am also for my bed. Good night, my dear. Bless you." And, knowing the irony of it, said, "Sleep well," knowing he would not. Well, so much the better for the plan she had made.

  But much of that night she too lay unsleeping, bitterly regretting her own foreknowledge. Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.

  6

  In Avalon the Tor rose, crowned with the ring stones, and on the night of the darkened moon, the procession wound slowly upward, with torches. At their head walked a woman, pale hair braided in a crown over a broad, low forehead; she was robed in white, the sickle knife hanging at her girdle. By the light of the flaring torches, it seemed that she sought out Morgaine where she stood in the shadows outside the circle, and her eyes demanded. Where are you, you who should stand here in my place? Why do you linger? Your place is here ... .

  Arthur's kingdom is slipping from the Lady's grasp, and you are letting it go. Already he turns for all things to the priests, while you, who should stand in the place of the Goddess to him, will not move. He holds the sword of the Holy Regalia; is it you who will force him to live by it, or you who will take it from his hand and bring him down? Remember, Arthur has a son, and his son must grow to maturity in Avalon, that he may hand the kingdom of the Goddess down to his son ... .

  And then it seemed that Avalon faded away and she saw Arthur in desperate battle, Excalibur in his hand, and he fell, run through by another sword, and he flung Excalibur into the Lake that it might not fall into the hands of his son...

  Where is Morgaine, whom the Lady prepared for this day? Where is she who should stand in the place of the Goddess for this hour?

  Where is the Great Raven? And suddenly it seemed to me that a flight of ravens wheeled overhead, diving and pecking at my eyes, circling down at me, crying aloud in Raven's own voice, "Morgaine! Morgaine, why have you deserted us, why did you betray me?"

  "I cannot," I cried, "I do not know the way ..." but Raven's face melted into the accusing face of Viviane, and then into the shadow of the Old Deathcrone.

  And Morgaine woke, knowing she lay in a sunlit room in Pellinore's house; the walls were white with plaster, painted in the old Roman fashion. Only outside the windows, far off and distant, she could hear the cry of a raven somewhere, and shivered.

  Viviane had never scrupled to meddle with the lives of others, when it meant the good of Avalon or of the kingdom. Nor should she. Yet she herself had delayed as the sunny days sped by. Lancelet spent the days on the hills by the Lake, searching for the dragon-as if there actually were a dragon, Morgaine thought scornfully-and the evenings by the fire, exchanging songs and tales with Pellinore, singing to Elaine while sitting at her feet. Elaine was beautiful and innocent, and not unlike her cousin Gwenhwyfar, though five years younger. Morgaine let day after sunny day slide by, sure that they all must see the logic of it, that Lancelet and Elaine should marry.

  No, she told herself bitterly, if any of them had had any wit to see logic or reason, then should Lancelet have married me years ago. Now it was time to act.

  Elaine turned over in the bed they shared and opened her eyes; she smiled and curled up next to Morgaine. She trusts me, thought Morgaine painfully; she thinks I am helping her to win Lancelet out of friendship. If I hated her I could do her no worse harm. But she said quietly, "Now Lancelet has had enough time to feel the loss of Gwenhwyfar. Your time has come, Elaine."

  "Will you give Lancelet a charm or a love potion ... ?"

  Morgaine laughed. "I put small trust in love charms, though tonight he shall have something in his wine which will make him ready for any woman. Tonight you shall not sleep here, but in a pavilion near the woods, and Lancelet shall have a message that Gwenhwyfar has come and has sent for him. And so he will come to you, in the darkness. I can do no more than that-you must be ready for him-"

  "And he will think I am Gwenhwyfar-" She blinked, swallowing hard. "Well, then-"

  "He may think you are Gwenhwyfar for a short while," Morgaine said, steadily, "but he will know soon enough. You are a virgin, are you not, Elaine?"

  The girl's face was crimson, but she nodded.

  "Well, after the potion I have given him, he will not be able to stop himself," said Morgaine, "unless you should panic and try to fight him away from you-I warn you, it will not be all that much pleasure, since you are a virgin. Once I begin I cannot turn back, so say now whether you wish me to begin."

  "I will have Lancelet for my husband, and God forbid I should ever turn back before I am honorably his wife."

  Morgaine sighed. "So be it. Now-you know the scent Gwenhwyfar uses ... "

  "I know it, but I do not like it much, it is too strong for me."

  Morgaine nodded. "I make it for her-you know I am schooled in such things. When you go to bed in the pavilion, you must scent your body and your bedclothes with it. It will turn his mind to Gwenhwyfar and arouse him with that memory-"

  The younger woman wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It seems unfair-"

  "It i
s unfair," said Morgaine. "Make up your mind to that. What we are doing is dishonest, Elaine, but there's good to it too. Arthur's kingdom cannot long stand if the King is known a cuckold. When you are wedded a while, since you and Gwenhwyfar are so much alike, no doubt it will be put round that it was you Lancelet loved all this time." She gave Elaine the flask of scent. "Now, if you have a servant you can trust, have him put up the pavilion somewhere Lancelet will not see it till this night ... ."

  Elaine said, "Even the priest would approve, I doubt it not, since I am taking him away from adultery with a married woman. I am free to marry ... ."

  Morgaine felt her own smile thin and strained. "Well for you, if you can quiet your conscience so ... some priests say so, that the end is all, and whatever means be used, they are for the best ... "

  She realized that Elaine was still standing, like a child at lessons, before her. "Well, go, Elaine," she said, "go and send Lancelet away another day to hunt the dragon. I must prepare my charm."

  She watched them as they shared cup and plate at breakfast. Lancelet was fond of Elaine, she thought-fond as he might be of a friendly little dog. He would not be unkind to her when they were married.

  Viviane had been just as ruthless as this, she had not scrupled to send a brother to the bed of his own sister ... . Morgaine worried the memory painfully, like a sore tooth. This too is for the good of the kingdom, she thought, and as she went to hunt out her herbs and medicines, to steep them in wine for the potion she would give Lancelet, she tried to form a prayer to the Goddess who joined man and women in love, or in simple lust like the rutting of beasts.

  Goddess, I know enough of lust ... she thought, and steadied her hands, breaking the herbs and dropping them into the wine. I have felt his desire, though he would not give me what I would have had from him ... .

  She sat watching the slow simmering of the herbs in the wine; small bubbles rose, lazily broke, and spat bittersweet essences which fumed around her. The world seemed very small and far away, her brazier but a child's toy, each bubble that rose in the wine large enough that she could have floated away inside it ... her whole body aching with a desire she knew would never be slaked. She could sense that she was moving into the state where powerful magic could be made ... .

  It seemed she was both within and without the castle, that a part of her was out on the hills, following the Pendragon banner which Lancelet sometimes carried ... twisting, a great red dragon ... but there were no dragons, not this kind of dragon, and Pellinore's dragon, it was surely only a jest, a dream, as unreal as the banner which flew somewhere, far to the southward, over the walls of Camelot, a dragon invented by some artist for the banner, like the designs Elaine drew for her tapestry. And Lancelet surely knew this. Following the dragon, he was but enjoying a pleasant ride over the summer hills, following a dream and a fantasy, leaving him leisure for daydreaming of Gwenhwyfar's arms ... . Morgaine looked down at the bubbling liquid in her little brazier, drop by drop added a little more wine to the mixture, that it would not boil away. He would dream of Gwenhwyfar, and that night there would be a woman in his arms, wearing Gwenhwyfar's perfume. But first Morgaine would give him this potion which would put him at the mercy of the rut in him, so that he would not stop when he found he held not an experienced woman and his paramour, but a shrinking virgin ... . For a moment Morgaine stopped to pity Elaine, because what she was cold-bloodedly arranging was certainly something like rape. Much as Elaine longed for Lancelet, she was a virgin and had no real idea of the difference between her romantic dreams of his kisses, and what really awaited her-being taken by a man too drugged to know the difference. Whatever it was for Elaine, and however bravely she endured it, it would hardly be a romantic episode.

  I gave up my maidenhood to the King Stag ... yet that was different. From childhood I had known what awaited me, and I had been taught and reared in the worship of that Goddess who brings man and woman together in love or in rut ... . Elaine was reared a Christian and taught to think of that very life force as the original sin for which mankind was doomed to death ... .

  For a moment she thought she should seek out Elaine, try to prepare her, encourage her to think of this as the priestesses were taught to think of it: a great force of nature, clean and sinless, to be welcomed as a current of life, sweeping the participant into the torrent... but Elaine would think that even worse sin. Well, then, she must make of it what she would; perhaps her love for Lancelet would carry her through it undamaged.

  Morgaine turned her thoughts back to simmering the herbs and the wine, and at the same time, somehow, it seemed she was riding on the hills ... neither was it a fair day for a ride; the sky was dark and clouded, a little wind blowing, the hills bleak and bare. Below the hills the long arm of the sea which was the lake looked grey and fathomless, like fresh-smithied metal; and the surface of the lake began to boil a little, or was it but the water in her brazier? Dark bubbles rose and spilled a foul stench, and then, slowly, rising from the lake, a long, narrow neck crowned with a horse's head and a horse's mane, a long sinuous body, writhing toward the shore ... rising, crawling, slithering its whole length onto the shore.

  Lancelet's hounds were running about, darting down to the water, barking frenziedly. She heard him call out to them in exasperation; stop dead and look down toward the water, paralyzed, only half believing what he saw with his eyes, Then Pellinore blew his hunting horn to summon the others, and Lancelot put spurs to his horse, his spear braced on the saddle, and rode at a breakneck speed down the hill, charging. One of the hounds gave a pitiful scream; then silence, and Morgaine, from her strange distant watch, saw the curiously slimed trail where half the dog's broken body lay eaten away with the dark slime.

  Pellinore was charging at it, and she heard Lancelot's shout to warn him back from riding directly at the great beast ... it was black and like a great worm, all but that mockery of a horse's head and mane. Lancelot rode at it, avoiding the weaving head, thrusting his long spear directly into the body. A wild howl shook the shore, a crazed banshee scream ... she saw the great head weaving wildly back and forth, back and forth ... Lancelot flung himself from his rearing, bucking horse, and ran on foot toward the monster. The head weaved down, and Morgaine flinched, as she saw the great mouth open. Then Lancelot's sword pierced the eye of the dragon, and there was a great gush of blood and some black foul stuff ... and it was all the bubbles rising from the wine ... .

  Morgaine's heart jumped wildly. She lay back and sipped a little of the undiluted wine in the flask. Had it been an evil dream, or had she actually seen Lancelot kill the dragon in which she had never really believed? She rested there for some time, telling herself that she had dreamed, and then forced herself to rise, to add some sweet fennel to the mixture, for the strong sweetness would conceal the other herbs. And there should be strong salted beef for dinner, so that everyone should thirst and drink a great deal of the wine, especially Lancelot. Pellinore was a pious man-what would he think if all his castle folk went to rutting? No, she should make sure that only Lancelot drank the spiced mixture, and perhaps, in mercy, she should give some to Elaine too ... .

  She poured the spiced wine into a flask and put it aside. Then she heard a cry, and Elaine rushed into her room.

  "Oh, Morgaine, come at once, we need your work with simples- Father and Lancelot have slain the dragon, but they are both burned ... ."

  "Burned? What nonsense is this? Do you believe truly that dragons fly and belch fire?"

  "No, no," Elaine said impatiently, "but the creature spat some slime at them and it burns like fire-you must come and dress their wounds...."

  Disbelieving, Morgaine glanced at the sky outside. The sun was hovering, a bare hand span above the western horizon; she had sat here most of the day. She went quickly, calling to the maids for bandage linen.

  Pellinore had a great burn along one arm-yes, it looked very much like a burn; the fabric of his tunic was eaten away by it, and he roared with anguish as she poured healing
salve on it. Lancelot's side was burned slightly, and on one leg the stuff had eaten through his boots, leaving the leather only a thin jellylike substance covering his leg. He said, "I should clean my sword well. If it can do that to the leather of a boot, think what it would have done to my leg ... " and shuddered.

  "So much for all those who thought my dragon only a fantasy," said Pellinore, raising his head and sipping the wine his daughter gave him. "And thanks be to God that I had the wit to bathe my arm in the lake, or the slime would have eaten my arm as it dissolved my poor dog-did you see the corpse, Lancelet?"

  "The dog? Yes," said Lancelet, "and hope never to see that kind of death again.... But you can confound them all when you hang the dragon's head over your gate-"

  "I cannot," said Pellinore, crossing himself. "There was no proper bone to it at all, it was all soft like a grub or an earthworm ... and it has already withered away to slime. I tried to cut the head and the very air seemed to eat away at it. ... I do not think it was a proper beast at all, but something straight from hell!"

  "Still it is dead," Elaine said, "and you have done what the King bade you, made an end once and for all of my father's dragon." She kissed her father, saying with tender apology, "Forgive me, sir, I thought, too, that your dragon was all fancy-"

  "Would to God it had been," Pellinore said, crossing himself yet again. "I would rather be a mockery from here to Camelot than face any such thing again! I wish I thought there were no more such beasts ... Gawaine has told tales of what lives in the lochs yonder." He signaled to the potboy for more wine. "I think it would be well to get drunk this night, or I shall see that beast in nightmares for the next month!"

  Would that be best? Morgaine wondered. No, if all about the castle were drunk, it would not fit her plans at all. She said, "You must listen to what I say, if I am to care for your wounds, sir Pellinore. You must drink no more, and you must let Elaine take you to bed with hot bricks at your feet. You have lost some blood, and you must have hot soup and possets, but no more wine."