15

That summer there was war again, the Northmen raiding the western 1 coasts, and Arthur's legion rode forth to battle, this time riding at the head of the Saxon kings from the southern country, Ceardig and his men. Queen Morgause remained in Camelot; it was not safe to take the road alone to Lothian, and none could be spared to escort her.
They returned late in the summer. Morgause was in the women's hall with Gwenhwyfar and her ladies when they heard the trumpets from the heights.
"It is Arthur returning!" Gwenhwyfar rose from her seat. Immediately all of the women dropped their spindles and clustered around her.
"How do you know?"
Gwenhwyfar laughed. "A messenger brought me the news last night," she said. "Do you think I am dealing in sorcery at my age?" She looked around her at the excited girls-to Morgause it seemed that all of Gwen-hwyfar's ladies were but little girls, fourteen and fifteen, who made every excuse to leave off spinning; and now the Queen said indulgently, "Shall we go and watch them from the heights?"
Chattering, giggling, gathering in groups of two and three, they ran off, leaving the dropped spindles where they had fallen. Good-naturedly, Gwenhwyfar called one of the serving-women to put the room to rights and, at Morgause's side, followed at a more dignified pace to the brow of the hill, where they could see the wide road leading up to Camelot.
"Look, there is the King-"
"And sir Mordred, riding at his side-"
"And there is the lord Lancelet-oh, look, he has a bandage round his head, and his arm is in a sling!"
"Let me see," said Gwenhwyfar and pushed them aside, while the girls stared. Morgause could make out Gwydion, riding at Arthur's side; he appeared unwounded, and she drew a sigh of relief. She could see Cormac back among the men, too-he had ridden to war with all the men, and he too seemed unhurt. Gareth was easy to find among them-he was the tallest man in Arthur's whole company, and his fair hair blazed like a halo. Gawaine, too, at Arthur's back as always, was upright in his saddle, but as they came nearer she could see a great bruise on his face, darkening his eyes, and his mouth swollen as if he had had a tooth or two knocked out.
"Look, sir Mordred is handsome-" one of the little girls said. "I have heard the Queen say that he looks exactly as Lancelet did when Lancelet was young," and then she giggled and dug her neighbor in the ribs. They clung together, whispering, and Morgause watched, sighing. They seemed so young, all of them, so pretty with their hair silky-soft and bound in plaits and curls, brown or red or golden, their cheeks soft as petals and smooth as a baby's, their waists so slim, their hands so smooth and white-she felt, suddenly, wild with jealousy; once she had been more beautiful than any of them. Now they were nudging one another, whispering about this knight and that.
"Look how the Saxon knights are all bearded-why do they want to look shaggy like dogs?"
"My mother says," one of the maidens said impudently-she was the daughter of one of the Saxon noblemen, her name was something barbarian which Morgause could hardly pronounce, Alfreth or something of that sort -"that to kiss a man without a beard is like kissing another maiden, or your baby brother!"
"Yet sir Mordred shaves his face clean, and there is nothing maidenly about him," said one of the girls, and turned laughing to Niniane, standing quietly among the women, "is there, lady Niniane?"
Niniane said, with a soft laugh, "All these bearded men seem old to me-when I was a little girl, only my father and the oldest Druids ever went bearded."
"Even Bishop Patricius now wears his beard," said one of the girls. "I heard him say that in heathen times men deformed their faces by cutting their beards and men should wear their beards as God made them. Maybe the Saxons think it so."
"It is but a new fashion," said Morgause. "They come and they go- when I was young, Christian and pagan alike shaved their faces clean, and now the fashion has changed-I think not it has anything to do with holiness either way. I doubt not, one day Gwydion will wear a beard-will you think less of him, Niniane?"
The younger woman laughed. "No, cousin. He is the same, bearded or shaven. Ah, look, there rides King Ceardig, and others-are they all to be guested here at Camelot? Madam, shall I go and tell the stewards?"
"Please do, my dear," Gwenhwyfar said, and Niniane moved toward the hall. The girls were shoving one another to get a better view, and Gwenhwyfar said, "Come, come-all of you, back to your spinning. It is unseemly to stare at young men this way. Have none of you anything better to do than talk so immodestly about the men? All of you now, be off with you, you will see them this night in the great hall. There is to be feasting, which means work for all of you."
They looked sulky, but they went obediently back to the hall, and Gwenhwyfar sighed and shook her head as she walked back at Morgause's side. "In Heaven's name, was there ever such a lot of unruly girls? And somehow I must keep them all chaste and under my guidance-it seems they spend all their time gossiping and giggling instead of minding their spinning. I am ashamed that my court should be so filled with empty-headed and immodest little hussies like this!"
"Oh, come, my dear," said Morgause lazily, "surely you too were fifteen once? Surely you were not such a model maiden as all that-did you never steal a look at a handsome young man and think and gossip about how it would be to kiss him, bearded or shaven?"
"I do not know what you did when you were fifteen," Gwenhwyfar flared at her, "but I was behind convent walls! It seems to me that would be a good place for these unmannerly maids!"
Morgause laughed. "When I was fourteen, I had an eye for everything that wore breeches. I recall that I used to sit in Gorlois's lap-he that was married to Igraine before Uther's eyes fell on her-and Igraine knew it well, for when she married Uther, her first act was to pack me off to be married to Lot, which was about as far from Uther's court as she could send me without crossing the ocean! Come, Gwenhwyfar, even behind your convent walls can you swear you never peeped out at any handsome young man who came to break your father's horses, or the crimson cloak of any young knight?"
Gwenhwyfar looked down at her sandals. "It seems so very long ago-" and then, recollecting herself, spoke briskly. "The hunters brought in a deer last night-I shall give orders that it be cut up and roasted for dinner, and perhaps we should have a pig killed too, if all these Saxons are to be guested here. And fresh straw must be spread in the rooms where they will sleep, there will never be enough beds for all these people!"
"Send the maidens to see to that too," said Morgause. "They must learn to manage guests in a great hall-for what other reason are they in your care, Gwenhwyfar? And it is the duty of a queen to welcome her lord when he returns from war."
"You are right." Gwenhwyfar sent her page to give the orders, and they walked toward the great gates of Camelot together. Morgause thought, Why, it is exactly as if we had been friends all our lives. And she thought, there were so few of them who had been young together.
She had much the same feeling when she sat that night in the great hall that was hung with decorations and brilliant with the fine clothes of the ladies and the knights. Almost it was like the great days of Camelot. Yet so many of the old Companions were gone in war, or on the Grail quest, and would never return. Morgause did not remember often that she was old, and it frightened her. Half the seats of the Round Table, it seemed, were filled now with hairy Saxons with their great beards and their rough cloaks, or with young men who seemed hardly old enough to hold weapons. Even her baby, Gareth, was one of the older knights of the Round Table, and the newer ones deferred to him amazingly, calling him sir, and asking his advice, or hesitating to argue with him if they differed. As for Gwydion -most of them called him sir Mordred-he seemed quite a leader among the younger men, new knights and the Saxons whom Arthur had chosen as his Companions.
Gwenhwyfar's ladies and stewards had done their task well; there was roast and boiled meat in plenty, and great meat pies with gravy, platters of early apples and grapes, hot bread and lentil porridge. At the high table, when the feasting was done and the Saxons were drinking and at their favorite game of asking riddles, Arthur called Niniane to sing for them. Gwenhwyfar had Lancelet at her side, his head bandaged and his arm in a sling-he had been wounded by a Northman's battleaxe. He could not use his arm, and Gwenhwyfar was cutting his meat for him. No one, Morgause thought, paid it the slightest attention.
Gareth and Gawaine were seated further down the table, and Gwydion close to them, sharing a dish with Niniane. Morgause went to greet them. Gwydion had bathed and combed his hair into curls, but one of his legs was bandaged, propped on a stool.
"Are you hurt, my son?"
"It does well enough," he said. "I am too big now, Mother, to run and climb into your lap when I stub my toe!"
"It looks worse than that," she said, looking at the bandage and the crusted blood at the edges, "but I will leave you alone, if you wish. Is that tunic new?"
It was made in a fashion she had seen many of the Saxons wearing, with sleeves so long that they came down past the wrist and half covered the knuckles of the hand. Gwydion's was of blue-dyed cloth, embroidered with crimson stitchery.
"It was a gift from Ceardig. He told me it was a good fashion for a Christian court, for it conceals the serpents of Avalon." His mouth twisted. "Perhaps I should give my lord Arthur such a tunic for a New Year's gift this winter!"
"I doubt if anyone would know the difference," said Gawaine. "No one, now, thinks of Avalon, and Arthur's wrists are so faded no one sees or would criticize if they did."
Morgause looked at Gawaine's bruised face and eyes. He had in truth lost more than one tooth, and his hands, too, looked cut and bruised.
"And you too are wounded, my son?"
"Not from the enemy," Gawaine growled. "This I got from our Saxon friends-one of the men in Ceardig's army. Damn them all, those unmannerly bastards! I think I liked it better when they were all our foes!"
"You fought him, then?"
"Aye, and will do so again, should he dare to open his clacking jaw about my king," Gawaine said angrily. "Nor did I need Gareth to come to my rescue, as if I were not big enough to fight my own battles without my little brother coming to my aid-"
"He was twice your size," said Gareth, putting down his spoon, "and he had you on the ground, and I thought he would break your back or crack your ribs-I am not sure yet that he did not. Was I to sit aside while that foul-tongued fellow beat my brother and slandered my kinsman? He will think twice and then thrice before he opens his evil mouth again with such words."
"Still," said Gwydion quietly, "you cannot silence the whole Saxon army, Gareth, especially when what they say is true. There's a name, and not a pretty one, for a man, even when that man's a king, who sits back and says nothing while another man does his husband's duty in his wife's bed-"
"You dare!" Gareth half rose, turning on Gwydion and gripping the Saxon tunic at the neck. Gwydion put up his hands to loosen Gareth's hold.
"Easy, foster-brother!" He looked like a child in the giant Gareth's grip. "Will you treat me as you treated yonder Saxon because here among kinsmen I speak truth, or am I too to keep to the pleasant lie of the court, when all men see the Queen with her paramour and say nothing?"
Gareth slowly relaxed his grip and eased Gwydion back to his seat. "If Arthur has nothing to complain of in the lady's conduct, who am I to speak?"
Gawaine muttered, "Damn the woman! Damn her anyhow! Would that Arthur had put her away while there was still time! I have no great love for so Christian a court as this has become, and filled with Saxons. When I was first knight at Arthur's side, there was not a Saxon in all this land with more of religion than a pig in his sty!"
Gwydion made a deprecating sound, and Gawaine turned on him. "I know them better than you. I was fighting Saxons while you were wetting your swaddling bands! Are we now to run Arthur's court by what these hairy grunters think of us?"
"You do not know the Saxons half so well as I do," Gwydion said. "You do not get to know a man at the business end of a battleaxe. I have lived in their courts and drunk with them and courted their women, and I venture to say that I know them well, which you do not. And this much is true: they call Arthur and his court corrupt, too pagan."
"That comes well from them," Gawaine snorted.
"Still," said Gwydion, "it is no laughing matter, that these men, unrebuked, can call Arthur corrupt-"
"Unrebuked, say you?" Gareth grumbled. "I think Gawaine and I did some rebuking!"
"Will you fight your way through the Saxon court? Better to amend the cause of slander," said Gwydion. "Cannot Arthur rule his wife better than this?"
Gawaine said, "It would take a braver man than I to speak ill of Gwenhwyfar to Arthur's face."
"Yet it must be done," said Gwydion. "If Arthur is to be High King over all these men, he cannot be a laughingstock. When they call him cuckold, will they take oath to follow him in peace and in war? Somehow he must heal the corruption in this court-send the woman to a nunnery perhaps, or banish Lancelet-"
Gawaine looked anxiously around. "For God's sake, lower your voice," he said. "Such things should not even be whispered in this place!"
"It is better that we should whisper them than that they should be whispered all the length and breadth of the land," Gwydion said. "In God's name, there they sit close by him, and he smiles on them both! Is Camelot to become a joke, and the Round Table a bawdy house?"
"Now shut your filthy mouth or I will shut it for you," Gawaine snarled, gripping Gwydion's shoulder in his iron fingers.
"If I were speaking lies, Gawaine, you might well try to shut my mouth, but can you stop the truth with your fists? Or do you still maintain that Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet are innocent? You, Gareth, who have all your life been his pet and minion, I might well believe that you will think no evil of your friend-"
Gareth said, gritting his teeth, "It is true I wish the woman at the bottom of the sea, or behind the walls of the safest convent in Cornwall. But while Arthur does not speak, I will hold my tongue. And they are old enough to be discreet. All men have known for years that he has been her champion lifelong-"
"If I only had some proof, Arthur might listen to me," Gwydion said.
"Damn you, I am certain Arthur knows what there is to know. But it is for him to allow it or to interfere ... and he will hear no word against either of them." Gawaine swallowed and went on. "Lancelet is my kinsman, and my friend too. But-damn you-do you think I have not tried?"
"And what said Arthur?"
"He said that the Queen was above my criticism, and whatever she chose to do was well done. He was courteous, but I could tell that he knew what I was saying and was warning me not to interfere."
"But if it were drawn to his attention in a way he could not choose to ignore," Gwydion said quietly, considering, then raised his hand and beckoned. Niniane, seated at Arthur's feet, her hands still touching the strings of her harp, softly asked leave of Arthur, then rose and came to him.
"My lady," Gwydion said, "is it not true that she"- he inclined his head very slightly in Gwenhwyfar's direction-"often sends her women away for the night?"
Niniane said quietly, "She has not done so while the legion was away from Camelot."
"So at least we know the lady is loyal," said Gwydion cynically, "and does not distribute her favors wholesale."
"No one has ever accused her of common lechery," said Gareth angrily, "and at their ages-they are both older than you, Gawaine-whatever they are about cannot be much harm to anyone, I should think."
"No, I am serious," said Gwydion with equal heat. "If Arthur is to remain High King-"
"Mean you not," said Gareth angrily, "if you are to be High King after him-"
"What would you, brother? That when Arthur is gone I should turn over all this land to the Saxons?" Their heads were close together, and they were talking in furious whispers. Morgause knew they had forgotten not only her presence but her very existence.
"Why, I thought you loved the Saxons well," said Gareth, in angry scorn. "Would you not be content to have them rule, then?"
"No, hear me," said Gwydion in a rage, but Gareth grabbed at him again and said, "The whole of the court will hear you if you do not moderate your voices-look, Arthur is staring at you, he watched when Niniane came over here! Maybe Arthur is not the only one who should look to his lady, or-"
"Be silent!" Gwydion said, wrestling himself free of Gareth's hands.
Arthur called out to him, "What, do my loyal cousins of Lothian quarrel among themselves? I will have peace in my hall, kinsmen! Come, Gawaine, here's King Ceardig asking if you will have a game of riddles with him!"
Gawaine rose, but Gwydion said softly, "Here's a riddle for you- when a man will not mind his property, what's to be done by those who have an interest in it?"
Gawaine stalked away, pretending he did not hear, and Niniane bent over Gwydion and said, "Leave it for now. There are too many ears and eyes. You have planted the seed. Now speak to some of the other knights. Do you think you are the only one who saw-that?" and she moved her elbow just a little. Morgause, following the slight gesture, saw that Gwen-hwyfar was bending with Lancelet over a game board on their laps; their heads were close together.
"I think there are many who think it touches the honor of Arthur's Camelot," Niniane murmured. "You need only find some who are less- biased-than your brothers of Lothian, Gwydion."
But Gwydion was looking angrily at Gareth. "Lancelet," he muttered, "always Lancelet!" And Morgause, looking from Gwydion to her youngest son, thought of a small child prattling to a red-and-blue carved knight which he called Lancelet.
Then she thought of a younger Gwydion, following Gareth about like a puppy. Gareth is his Lancelet, she thought. What will come of this? But her disquiet was swallowed up in malice. Surely it is time, she thought, that Lancelet should have to answer for all he has wrought.


NINIANE STOOD at the crest of Camelot, looking down at the mists that surrounded the hill. She heard a step behind her, and said, without turning, "Gwydion?"
"Who else?" His arms came around her and held her tight, and she turned her face to kiss him. He demanded, without letting her go, "Does Arthur kiss you like that?"
She freed herself from his embrace to confront him. "Are you jealous of the King? Was it not you who told me to gain his confidence?"
"Already Arthur has had more than enough of what is mine-"
"Arthur is a Christian man-I will say no more than that," Niniane said, "and you are my dear love. But I am Niniane of Avalon, and I account to no man on this earth for what I do with what is mine-yes, mine and not yours. I am not Roman, to let some man tell me what I may do with what the Goddess gave me. And if you like that not, Gwydion, then I shall return to Avalon."
Gwydion smiled, the cynical smile she liked least about him.
"If you could find the way," he said. "You might find that not so easy any longer." Then the cynicism slipped from his face and he stood holding Niniane's hand lightly in his and said, "I care not what Arthur may do in the time remaining to him. Like Galahad, he may have his moments, for he will be a long time without them." He stared down at what looked like an ocean of mist surrounding Camelot. "When the mist clears we will see Avalon from here, perhaps, and Dragon Island." He sighed and said, "Did you know-some of the Saxons are moving into that country now, and there has been hunting of the deer on Dragon Island, though Arthur forbade it."
Niniane's face hardened in anger. "A stop must be put to that. The place is sacred, and the deer-"
"And the little folk who own the deer. But Aedwin the Saxon slaughtered them," Gwydion said. "He told Arthur that they shot at his men with poisoned elf-arrows, so he gave his men leave to kill as many of them as he could find. And now they hunt the deer-and Arthur will go to war against Aedwin, if he must. I wish Aedwin had a better cause-in honor I must fight to protect those who look to Avalon."
"And Arthur goes to war for their sakes?" Niniane was surprised. "I thought he had forsworn Avalon."
"Avalon, perhaps, but not the harmless folk from the island." Gwydion was silent, and Niniane knew he was remembering a day on Dragon Island. He slid his fingers along the tattooed serpents on his wrists, then pulled the sleeves of his Saxon tunic down over them. "I wonder, could I still pull down a King Stag with only my hands and a flint knife?"
"I doubt not that you could, if you were challenged," said Niniane. "The question is, could Arthur? For if he cannot  ... "
She left the question hanging in the air, and he said somberly, watching the enclosing mist, "I do not think it will clear. Mist hangs here always, so thickly now that some of the Saxon kings who send messengers cannot find their way ...  . Niniane! Will Camelot too go into the mists?"
She began to fling him back some careless word of jest or reassurance, then stopped and said, "I know not. Dragon Island is defiled, the folk dying or dead, the sacred herd prey to the Saxon hunters. Northmen raid the coast. Will they one day sack Camelot as the Goths overthrew Rome?"
"If I had known in time," Gwydion said with smothered violence, striking one fist against the other, "if the Saxons had brought word to Arthur, he could have sent me-or some other-to protect that holy ground where he was made King Stag and made the sacred marriage with the land! Now the shrine of the Goddess has been overthrown, since he did not die to protect it, his kingship is forfeit."
Niniane heard what he did not say: And mine. She said, "You knew not that it was endangered."
"And for that too I blame Arthur," Gwydion said. "That the Saxons could think of doing this without consulting him-does it not say to you how little they think now of his High Kingship? And why do they think so little of him? I will tell you, Niniane-they think little of any king who is cuckold, who cannot rule his women-"
"You who were reared in Avalon," she said angrily, "will you judge Arthur by the Saxon's standards, which are worse than those of the Romans? Will you let a kingdom rise or fall because of some notion of how a man should keep his women in bonds? You are to be King, Gwydion, because you bear the royal blood of Avalon and because you are the child of the Goddess-"
"Pah!" Gwydion spat and followed it with an obscenity. "Did it never occur to you, Niniane-perhaps Avalon fell as later Rome fell, because there was corruption at the heart of the realm? By Avalon's laws, Gwenhwyfar has done no more than is right-the lady shall choose who she will for her consort, and Arthur should be overthrown by Lancelet! Why, Lancelet is the son of the High Priestess herself-why not set him to be King in Arthur's place? But is our king to be chosen because some woman wants him in her bed?" Again he spat. "No, Niniane, that day is done-first the Romans and now the Saxons know how the world's to be. The world is no longer a great womb bearing men-now the movement of men and armies settles things. What people now would accept my rule because I was the son of this woman or that? Now it is the king's son who takes the land, and shall we turn away a good thing because the Romans did so first? We have better ships now-we will discover lands beyond the old lands that have sunk in the sea. Will a Goddess who is tied to this one patch of earth and its crops follow us there? Look at the Northmen who are raiding our coasts-will they be stopped with the Mother's curses? The few priestesses that are left in Avalon-no Saxons or wild Northmen will ever ravish them, because Avalon is no longer a part of the world in which these wild raiders live. Those women who live in the world that is coming will need men to guard them. The world now, Niniane, is not one of Goddesses, but of Gods, perhaps of one God. I need not try to bring Arthur down. Time and change alone will do that."
Niniane's back prickled as if with the Sight. "And what of you, King Stag of Avalon? What of the Mother who sent you forth in her name?"
"Do you think I mean to go into the mists with Avalon and Camelot? I mean to be High King after Arthur-and to do that, I must keep the glory of Arthur's court at full height. So Lancelet must go, which means that Arthur must be forced to banish him, and probably Gwenhwyfar as well. Are you with me, Niniane, or not?"
Her face was deathly white. She clenched her fists at her side, wishing that she had the power of Morgaine, the power of the Goddess, to rise like a bridge from earth to sky and strike him down with the lightning force of the outraged Goddess. The crescent moon on her brow burned with rage.
"Am I to help you by betraying a woman who has taken the right the Goddess has given to all women, to choose what man she will?"
Gwydion laughed mockingly. "Gwenhwyfar gave up that right when first she knelt at the feet of the slave's God."
"Nevertheless, I'll have nothing to do with betraying her."
"Then you will not send me word when she sends her women away again for the night?"
"No," said Niniane, "by the Goddess, I will not. And Arthur's treachery to Avalon is nothing to yours!" She turned her back on him and would have moved away, but he caught and held her there.
"You'll do what I command you!"
She struggled to free herself, at last wrenching her bruised wrists from him. "Command me? Not in a thousand years!" she said, breathless with fury. "Beware, you who have laid hands on the Lady of Avalon! Arthur shall know now what sort of viper he has taken to his breast!"
In a towering rage, Gwydion grabbed her other wrist and pulled her toward him, then struck her full force across the temple, and she fell to the ground without a cry. He was so full of wrath that he let her fall without a move to catch her.
"Well did the Saxons name you," said a low, savage voice from the fog. "Evil counsel, Mordred-murderer!"
He turned with a convulsive moment of fear and looked at the crumpled body of Niniane at his feet. "Murderer? No! I was only angry with her-I would not hurt her-" He stared around him, unable to make out anything in the thickening mist, yet knowing the voice.
"Morgaine! Lady-my mother!"
He knelt, panic clutching at his throat, raising Niniane up, searching for a heartbeat but she lay there without breath, without life.
"Morgaine! Where are you? Where are you? Damn you, show yourself!" But there was only Niniane, lifeless and unmoving at his feet. He clasped her to him, imploring. "Niniane! Niniane, my love-speak to me-"
"She will not speak again," said the bodiless voice, but as Gwydion turned this way and that in the fog, a woman's solid figure materialized out of it. "Oh, what have you done, my son?"
"Was it you? Was it you?" Gwydion demanded, his voice cracking in hysteria. "Was it you called me murderer?
Morgause stepped back, half afraid. "No, no, I came but now-what have you done?"
Gwydion flung himself at her, and she held him, stroking him as she had done when he was twelve years old. "Niniane angered me-she threatened me-as the Gods witness it, Mother, I meant her no harm, but she threatened to go to Arthur and tell him I plotted against his precious Lancelet," Gwydion said, almost babbling. "I struck her, I swear I meant only to frighten her, but she fell-"
Morgause let Gwydion go and knelt beside Niniane. "You struck an unlucky blow, my son-she is dead. There's nothing you can do now. We must go and tell Arthur's marshals and stewards."
His face had gone livid. "Mother! The marshals-what will Arthur say?"
Morgause felt a great melting within her heart. He was in her hands, as when he had been a little helpless child whom Lot would have killed, his life was hers, and he knew it. She folded him to her breast.
"Never mind, my love, you mustn't suffer for it, any more than for any other you killed in battle," she said, looking down with triumph at Niniane's lifeless body. "She could have fallen in the fog-it's a long way to the bottom of the hill," she said, looking over the brow of Camelot, where it descended steeply into the mist. "So, catch hold of her feet thus. Done is done, and nothing that happens to her now can make a difference." Her old hatred of Arthur surged up; Gwydion would bring him down, and he would do it with her help-and when it was done, she would be at his side, the lady who had set him on his throne! Niniane was no longer between them; she herself alone should be his support and his help.
Silently, in the fog, the slight body of the Lady of Avalon disappeared into the mists. Later Arthur would call for her and when she did not appear, send men to search; but Gwydion, staring as if hypnotized into the mists, thought for a moment that he saw the black shadow of the Avalon barge somewhere on the waters between Camelot and Dragon Island. It seemed to him for a moment that Niniane, robed in black as the Death-crone, beckoned to him from the barge  ...  and then it was gone.
"Come, my son," said Morgause. "You spent this morning in my rooms and the rest of the day you must spend with Arthur in his hall. Remember, you have not seen Niniane this day-when you come to Arthur, you must ask for her, even seem a little jealous, as if you feared to find her in his bed."
And it was balm to her heart that he clutched at her and muttered, "I will. I will, my mother. Surely you are the best of all mothers, the best of all women!"
And she held him for a moment and kissed him again, savoring her power, before she let him go.

16

Gwenhwyfar lay wide-eyed in the darkness, waiting for the step of Lancelet, yet thinking of Morgause, smiling-almost leering -as she murmured, "Ah, I envy you, my dear! Cormac is a fine young man, and hearty enough-but he has none of the grace and beauty of your lover." Gwenhwyfar had bent her head and said nothing. Who was she to scorn Morgause, when she was doing the same thing? But it was too dangerous. The bishop, on his last Sunday, had preached a sermon on the great commandment against adultery, saying that the chastity of wives lay at the very root of the Christian way of living, since only by married chastity did women redeem the sin of Eve. Gwenhwyfar recalled the tale of that woman taken in adultery, whom they had brought to Christ; he had said, Let that one who has done no sin, cast at her the fast stone. There had been none guiltless to cast it-but here in her court, there were many who were sinless, with Arthur himself to cast that stone. Christ had said to the woman, Go and sin no more. And that was what she must do ...  .
It was not his body she desired. Morgause, sniggering over the lusty young man who was her lover, would never have believed how little difference that had made to either of them. Seldom, indeed, had he ever taken her in that way which was sin and dishonor-only in those first years, when they had had Arthur's acquiescence, to try and see if Gwenhwyfar could bear a son to the kingdom. There had been other ways to find pleasure, which she somehow felt less of a sin, less violation of Arthur's marriage rights in her body. And even so, it was not that she desired so much, only that she should be with him ... it was a thing, she thought, almost more of the soul than the body. Why should a God of love condemn this? He might condemn the sin they had done, for which she had done penance over and over, but how could he condemn this, which was the truest love of the heart?
I have taken nothing from Arthur which he desired or needed of me. He must have a queen, a lady to keep his castle; for the rest, he wanted nothing of me save a son, and it was not I but God who denied him that.
There was a soft step in the darkness; she whispered, "Lancelet?"
"Not so." A glimmer of a tiny lamp in the darkness confused her; for a moment she saw what seemed a beloved face, grown young-then knew who it must be.
"How dare you? My women are not so far but that I can scream aloud, and there is none will believe that I summoned you here!"
"Lie still," he said. "There is a knife at your throat, my lady." And as she shrank away, clutching the bed clothing, "Oh, don't flatter yourself, madam, I came not here for rape. Your charms are too stale for me, my lady, and too well tasted."
"That's enough," said a husky voice in the dark behind Gwydion. "Don't mock her, man! This is a dirty business, snooping at bedchamber doors, and I wish I'd never heard of it! Quiet, all of you, and hide yourselves around the chamber!"
She recognized Gawaine's face as her eyes adapted to the dim light, and beyond them a familiar form. "Gareth! What do you here?" she asked, sorrowfully. "I thought you Lancelet's dearest friend."
"And so I am," he said grimly. "I came to see no worse done to him than justice. That one"-he flicked a contemptuous gesture at Gwydion- "would cut his throat-and leave you to be accused of murder!"
"Be still," said Gwydion, and the light went out. Gwenhwyfar felt the pricking of the knife at her throat. "If you speak a syllable to warn him, madam, I will cut your throat and take my chances explaining why to my lord Arthur." The point dug in till Gwenhwyfar, flinching with pain, wondered if it had actually drawn blood. She could hear small noises-the rustle of garments, the clink of weapons hurriedly muffled; how many men had he brought to this ambush? She lay silent, twisting her hands in despair. If only she could warn Lancelet... but she lay like a small animal in a snare, helpless.
Minutes crawled by for the trapped woman silent between her pillows and the knife. After a long time, she heard a tiny sound, a soft whistle like a bird call. Gwydion felt the tensing of her muscles and asked in a rasping whisper, "Lancelet's signal?" He dug the knife again into the yielding skin at her throat, and she whispered, sweating in terror, "Yes."
She felt the straw beneath her rustle as he shifted his weight and moved away. "There are a dozen men in this room. Try to give him warning, and you will not live three seconds."
She heard sounds in the antechamber; Lancelet's cloak, his sword-ah, God, would they take him naked and weaponless? She tensed again, feeling in advance the knife driving into her body, but somehow she must warn him, must cry out-she opened her lips, but Gwydion-was it the Sight, how did he know? -thrust his hand cruelly over her face, smothering the cry. She writhed under his suffocating hand, then felt Lancelet's weight on the bed. "Gwen?" he whispered. "What is the matter? Did I hear you crying, my beloved?"
She managed to writhe away from the concealing hand. "Run!" she screamed. "It's a trick, a trap-" "Hell's doors!" She could feel him, like a cat, springing back. Gwydion's lamp flared; somehow the light went from hand to hand, until the room was filled with light, and Gawaine, Cai, and Gareth, with a dozen shadowy forms behind them, stepped forward. Gwenhwyfar huddled under the bedcover, and Lancelet stood still, quite naked, weaponless. "Mordred," he said, in contempt. "Such a trick is worthy of you!" Gawaine said formally, "In the King's name, Lancelet, I accuse you of high treason. Get me your sword."
"Never mind that," said Gwydion, "go and take it."
"Gareth! In God's name, why did you lend yourself to this?" Gareth's eyes were glistening as if with tears in the lamplight. "I never believed it of you, Lancelet. I would to God I had fallen in battle before ever I saw this day."
Lancelet bent his head and Gwenhwyfar saw his eyes, panicky, move around the room. He muttered, "Oh, God, Pellinore looked at me so when they came with the torches to take me in Elaine's bed-must I betray everyone, everyone?" She wanted to reach out to him, to cry out with pity and pain, to shelter him in her arms. But he would not look at her.
"Your sword," said Gawaine quietly. "And dress yourself, Lancelet. I will not take you naked and disgraced into Arthur's presence. Enough men have witnessed your shame."
"Don't let him get at his sword-" some faceless voice in the darkness protested, but Gawaine gestured the speaker contemptuously into silence. Lancelet turned slowly away from them, into the tiny antechamber where he had left clothing, armor, weapons. She heard him drawing on his garments. Gareth stood, his hand on his sword, as Lancelet came into the room, dressed but weaponless, his hands in full view.
"I am glad for your sake that you will come with us quietly," said Gwydion. "Mother"-he turned into the shadows, and Gwenhwyfar saw, with consternation, Queen Morgause standing there-"see to the Queen. She shall be in your charge until Arthur may deal with her."
Morgause advanced on the bedside. Gwenhwyfar had never noticed before how large a woman Morgause was, and how ruthless her jaw line.
"Come along, my lady, get into your gown," she said. "And I will help you peg your hair-you do not want to go naked and shameless before the King. And be glad there was a woman here. These men-"she looked contemptuously at them-"meant to wait until they could catch him actually inside you." Gwenhwyfar shrank from the brutality of the words; slowly, with lagging fingers, she began to draw on her gown. "Must I dress before all these men?"
Gwydion did not wait for Morgause to answer. He said, "Don't try to cozen us, shameless woman! Dare you pretend you have anything left of decency or modesty? Put on that gown, madam, or my mother shall bundle you into it like a sack!"
He calls her mother. No wonder Gwydion is cruel and ruthless, with the Queen of Lothian to foster him! Yet Gwenhwyfar had seen Morgause so often as merely a lazy, jolly, greedy woman-what had brought her to this? She sat still, fastening the laces of her shoes.
Lancelet said quietly, "It is my sword you want, then?"
"You know it," Gawaine said.
"Why, then"-moving almost more swiftly than the eye could follow, Lancelet leaped for Gawaine, and in another catlike movement, had Gawaine's own sword in his hand-"come and take it, damn you!" He lunged with Gawaine's sword at Gwydion, who fell across the bed, howling, bleeding from a great slash in his backside; then, as Cai stepped forward, sword in hand, Lancelet caught up a cushion from the bed and pushed Cai backward with it so that he fell into the advancing men, who tripped over him. He leaped up on the bed and said, low and short to Gwenhwyfar, "Keep perfectly still and be ready!"
She gasped, shrinking back and making herself small in a corner. They were coming at him again; he ran one of them through, briefly engaged another, and over that one's body, lunged and slashed at a shadowy attacker. The giant form of Gareth crumpled slowly to the floor. Lancelet was already fighting someone else, but Gwydion, bleeding, cried out, "Gareth!" and flung himself across the body of his foster-brother. In that moment of horrified lull, while Gwydion knelt, sobbing, over Gareth's body, Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet catch her up on his arm, whirl, kill someone at the door-she never knew who it was-and then she was on her feet in the corridor, and Lancelet was pushing her, with frantic haste, ahead of him. Someone came at him out of the dark and Lancelet killed him, and they ran on.
"Make for the stables," he gasped. "Horses, and out of here, fast."
"Wait!" She caught at his arm. "If we throw ourselves on Arthur's mercy-or you escape and I will stay and face Arthur-"
"Gareth might have seen justice done. But with Gwydion's hand in it, do you think either of us would ever reach the King alive? I named him well Mordred!" He hurried her into the stables, swiftly flung a saddle on his horse. "No time to find yours. Ride behind me, and hold on well-I'm going to have to ride down the guards at the gate." And Gwenhwyfar realized she was seeing a new Lancelet-not her lover, but the hardened warrior. How many men had he killed this night? She had no time for fear as he lifted her on his horse and sprang up before her.
"Hang on to me," he said. "I'll have no time to look after you." He turned then, and gave her one hard, long kiss. "This is my fault, I should have known that infernal bastard would be spying-well, whatever happens now, at least it's over. No more lies and no more hiding. You're mine forever-" and he broke off. She could feel him trembling, but he turned savagely to grip the reins. "And now we go!"


MORGAUSE LOOKED ON in horror as Gwydion, weeping, bent over her youngest son.
Words spoken in half earnest, years ago-Gwydion had refused to take the lists on the opposite side from Gareth, even in a mock battle. It seemed to me that you lay dying, he had said  ...  and I knew it was my doing you lay without the spark of life ...  . I will not tempt that fate.
Lancelet had done this, Lancelet whom Gareth had always loved more than any other man.
One of the men in the room stepped forward and said, "They're getting away-"
"Do you think I care about that?" Gwydion winced, and Morgause realized that he was bleeding, that his blood was flowing and mingling with Gareth's on the floor of the chamber. She caught up the linen sheet from the bed, tore it, and wadded it against Gwydion's wound.
Gawaine said somberly, "No man in all of Britain will hide them now. Lancelet is everywhere outcast. He has been taken in treason to his king, and his very life is forfeit. God! How I wish it had not come to this!" He came and looked at Gwydion's wound, then shrugged. "No more than a flesh cut -see, the bleeding is slowed already, it will heal, but you will not sit in comfort for some days. Gareth-" His voice broke; the great, rough, greying man began to weep like a child. "Gareth had worse fortune, and I will have Lancelet's life for it, if I die myself at his hands. Ah God, Gareth, my little one, my little brother-" and Gawaine bent and cradled the big body against him. He said thickly, through sobs, "Was it worth it, Gwydion, was it worth Gareth's life?"
"Come away, my boy," said Morgause, through a tightness in her own throat-Gareth, her baby, her last child; she had lost him long ago to Arthur, but still she remembered a fair-haired little boy, clutching a wooden painted knight in his hand. And one day you and I shall go on quest together, sir Lancelet  ...  always Lancelet. But now Lancelet had overreached himself, and everywhere in the land every man's hand would be against him. And still she had Gwydion, her beloved, the one who would one day be King, and she at his side.
"Come, my lad, come away, you can do nothing for Gareth now. Let me bind up your wound, then we shall go to Arthur and tell him what has befallen, so that he may send out his men to seek for the traitors-"
Gwydion shook her grip from his arm. "Get away from me, curse you," he said in a terrible voice. "Gareth was the best of us, and I would not have sacrificed him for a dozen kings! It was you and your spite against Arthur always urging me on, as if I cared what bed the Queen slept in- as if Gwenhwyfar were any worse than you, when from the time I was ten years old you had this one or that one in your bed-"
"Oh, my son-" she whispered, aghast. "How can you speak so to me? Gareth was my son too-"
"What did you ever care for Gareth, or for any of us, or for anything but your own pleasure and your own ambition? You would urge me to a throne, not for my sake but for your own power!" He thrust away her clinging hands. "Get you back to Lothian, or to hell if the devil will have you, but if ever I set eyes on you again, I swear I will forget all except that you were the murderer of the one brother I loved, the one kinsman-" and as Gawaine urgently pushed his mother from the chamber, she could hear Gwydion weeping again. "Oh, Gareth, Gareth, I should have died first-"
Gawaine said shortly, "Cormac, take the Queen of Lothian to her chamber."
His strong arm was holding her upright, and after they had moved down the hall, after that dreadful sobbing had died away behind her, Morgause began to draw breath freely again. How could he turn on her this way? When had she ever done anything except for his sake? She must show decent mourning for Gareth, certainly, but Gareth was Arthur's man, and surely Gwydion would have realized it, sooner or later. She looked up at Cormac. "I cannot walk so fast-hold back a little."
"Certainly, my lady." She was very much aware of his arm enfolding her, holding her. She let herself lean a little on him. She had bragged to Gwenhwyfar of her young lover, but she had never yet actually taken him to her bed-she had kept him delaying, dangling. She turned her head against his shoulder. "You have been faithful to your queen, Cormac."
"I am loyal to my royal house, as all my people have ever been," the young man said in their own language, and she smiled.
"Here is my chamber-help me inside, will you? I can scarce walk-"
He supported her, eased her down on her bed. "Is it my lady's will that I call her women?"
"No," she whispered, catching at his hands, aware that her tears were seductive. "You have been loyal to me, Cormac, and now is that loyalty to be rewarded-come here-"
She held out her arms, half shutting her eyes, then opened them, in shock, as he pulled awkwardly away.
"I-I think you are distraught, madam," he stammered. "What do you think I am? What do you take me for? Why, lady, I have as much respect for you as for my own grandmother! Should I take advantge of an old woman like you when you are beside yourself with grief? Let me call your waiting-woman, and she will make you a nice posset and I will forget what you said in the madness of grief, madam."
Morgause could feel the blow in the very pit of her stomach, repeated blows on her heart-my own grandmother ...  old woman  ...  the madness of grief.... The whole of the world had suddenly gone mad-Gwydion insane with ingratitude, this man who had looked on her so long with desire turning on her ... she wanted to scream, to call for her servants and have him whipped till his back ran crimson with his blood and the walls rang with his shrieking for mercy. But even as she opened her mouth for that, the whole weight of her life seemed to descend on her in deadly weariness.
"Yes," she said dully, "I do not know what I was saying-call my women, Cormac, and tell them to bring me some wine. We will ride at daybreak for Lothian."
And when he had gone, she sat on the bed without the strength to lift her hands.
I am an old woman. And I have lost my son Gareth, and I have lost Gwydion, and I will never now be Queen in Camelot. I have lived too long.

17

Clinging to Lancelet's back, her gown pulled up above her knees and her bare legs hanging down, Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes as they rode hard through the night. She had no idea where they were going. Lancelet was a stranger, a hard-faced warrior, a man she had never known. There was a time, she thought, when I would have been terrified, out like this under the open sky, at night  ...  but she felt excited, exhilarated. At the back of her mind was pain too, mourning for the gentle Gareth who had been like a son to Arthur and deserved better of life than to be struck down so - she wondered if Lancelet even knew whom he had killed! And there was grief for the end of her years with Arthur, and all they had shared for so long. But from what had happened this night there could be no going back. She had to lean forward to hear Lancelet over the rushing of wind. "We must stop somewhere soon, the horse must rest - and if we ride in daylight, my face and yours are known all through this countryside."
She nodded; she had not breath enough to speak. After a time they came within a little wood, and there he pulled to a stop and lifted her gently from the horse's back. He led the horse to water, then spread his cloak on the ground for her to sit. He stared at the sword by his side. "I still have Gawaine's sword. When I was a boy - I heard tales of the fighting madness, but I knew not that it was within our blood - " and sighed heavily. "There is blood on the sword. Whom did I kill, Gwen?"
She could not bear to see his sorrow and guilt. "There was more than one - "
"I know I struck Gwydion - Mordred, damn him. I know I wounded him, I could still act with my own will then. I don't suppose" - his voice hardened - "that I had the luck to kill him?"
Silently she shook her head.
"Then who?" She did not speak; he leaned over and took her shoulders so roughly that for a moment she was afraid of the warrior as she had never been of the lover. "Gwen, tell me! In God's name-did I kill my cousin Gawaine?"
This she could answer without hesitation, glad it was Gawaine he had named. "No. I swear it, not Gawaine."
"It could have been anyone," he said, staring at the sword and suddenly shuddering. "I swear it to you, Gwen, I knew not even that I had a sword in my hand. I struck Gwydion as if he had been a dog, and then I remember no more until we were riding-" and he knelt before her, trembling. He whispered, "I am mad again, I think, as once I was mad-"
She reached out, caught him against her in a passion of wild tenderness. "No, no," she whispered, "ah, no, my love-I have brought all this on you, disgrace and exile-"
"You say that," he whispered, "when I have brought them on you, taken you away from everything that meant anything to you-"
Reckless, she pressed herself to him and said, "Would to God that you had done it before!"
"Ah, it is not too late-I am young again, with you beside me, and you-you have never been more beautiful, my own dear love-" He pushed her back on the cloak, suddenly laughing in abandon. "Ah, now there's none to come between us, none to interrupt us, my own-ah, Gwen, Gwen-"
As she came into his arms, she remembered the rising sun and a room in Meleagrant's castle. It was like that now; and she clung to him, as if there were nothing else in the world, nothing more for either of them, not ever.
They slept a little, curled together in the cloak, and wakened still in each other's arms, the sun searching for them through the green branches overhead. He smiled, touching her face.
"Do you know-never before have I wakened in your arms without fear. Yet now I am happy, in spite of all.. ." and he laughed at her, a note of wildness coming into the laughter. There were leaves in his white hair, and leaves caught in his beard, and his tunic was rumpled; she put up her hands and felt grass and leaves in her own hair, which was coming down. She had no way to comb it, but she caught it in handfuls and parted it to braid, then bound the end of the single braid with a scrap ripped from the edge of her torn skirt. She said, her voice catching with laughter, "What a pair of wild ragamuffins we are! Who would know the High Queen and the brave Lancelet?"
"Does it matter to you?"
"No, my love. Not in the least."
He brushed leaves and grass out of his hair and beard. "I must get up and catch the horse," he said, "and perhaps there will be a farm nearby where we can find you some bread or a drink of ale-I have not a single coin with me, nor anything worth money, save my sword, and this-" He touched a little gold pin on his tunic. "For the moment, at least, we are beggars, though if we could reach Pellinore's castle, I still have a house there, where I lived with Elaine, and servants-and gold, too, to pay our passage overseas. Will you come with me to Less Britain, Gwenhwyfar?"
"Anywhere," she whispered, her voice breaking, and at that moment she meant it absolutely-to Less Britain, or to Rome, or to the country beyond the world's end, only that she might be with him forever. She pulled him down to her again and forgot everything in his arms.
But when, hours later, he lifted her on the horse and they went on at a soberer pace, she fell silent, troubled. Yes, no doubt they could make their way overseas. Yet when this night's work was talked from one end of the world to the other, shame and scorn would come down on Arthur, so that for his own honor he must seek them out wherever they fled. And soon or late, Lancelet must know that he had slain the friend who was dearest to him in all the world save only Arthur's self. He had done it in madness, but she knew how grief and guilt would consume him and in time he would remember, when he looked on her, not that she was his love, but that he had killed his friend, unknowing, for her sake; and that he had betrayed Arthur for her sake. If he must make war on Arthur for her sake, he would hate her ...  .
No. He would love her still, but he would never forget by whose blood he had come to possess her. Never would one or the other-love or hate-take power over him, but he would live with them both, tearing doubly at his heart, and one day they would tear his mind to bits and he would go mad again. She clung close to the warmth of his body, leaning her head against his back, and wept. She knew, for the first time, that she was stronger than he, and it cut at her heart with a deathly sword.
And so when they paused again, she was dry-eyed, though she knew that the weeping had moved inward to her heart and never would she cease to mourn. "I will not go overseas with you, Lancelet, nor will I bring strife among all the old Companions of the Round Table. When-when Mor-dred has his way, they will all be at odds," she said, "and a day will come when Arthur will need all his friends. I will not be like that lady of old time-was her name Helen, that fair one in the saga you used to tell to me? - who had all the kings and knights of her day at strife over her in Troy."
"But what will you do?" She tried not to hear that even through the bewilderment and grief in his voice, there was a thread of relief.
"You will take me to the Isle of Glastonbury," she said. "There is a nunnery there where I was schooled. There I will go, and I will tell them only that evil tongues made a quarrel between you and Arthur for my sake. When some time has passed, I will send word to Arthur so that he knows where I am, and knows that I am not with you. And then he can with honor make his peace with you."
He protested, "No! No, I cannot let you go-" but she knew, with a sinking at her heart, that she would have no difficulty persuading him. Perhaps, against all odds, she had hoped that he would fight for her, that he would carry her off to Less Britain with the sheer force of his will and passion. But that was not Lancelet's way. He was as he was, and whatever he was, so and no other way he had been when first she loved him, and so he was now, and so she would love him for the rest of her life. And at last he strove no more with her, but set the horse's head on the road toward Glastonbury.


THE LONG SHADOW of the church lay across the waters when they set foot at last on the boat that would bring them to the island, and the church bells were ringing out the Angelus. Gwenhwyfar bent her head and whispered a word of prayer.
Mary, God's Holy Mother, have pity on me, a sinful woman  ...  and then for a moment it seemed to her that she stood beneath a great light, as she had stood on that day when the Grail passed through the hall. Lancelet sat in the prow of the ferry, his head lowered. He had not touched her from the moment she had told him what she had decided, and she was glad; a single touch of his hand would have worn away her resolve. Mist lay on the Lake, and for an instant it seemed to her that she saw a shadow, like the shadow of their own boat, a barge draped in black, with a dark figure at the prow-but no. It was only a shadow, a shadow ...  .
The boat scraped on the shore. He helped her from it. "Gwenhwyfar -are you certain?"
"I am certain," she said, trying to sound surer than she felt.
"Then I will escort you to the doors of the convent," he said, and it suddenly struck her that this took, for him, more courage than all the killing he had done for her sake.
The old abbess recognized the High Queen, and was awed and amazed that she should return, but Gwenhwyfar told the tale she had decided on -that evil tongues had wrought a quarrel between Arthur and Lancelet for her sake, and she had chosen to take refuge here so they might amend their quarrel.
The old woman patted her cheek as if she were the little Gwenhwyfar who had been lessoned here when she was a child. "You are welcome to stay as long as you wish it, my daughter. Forever, if that is your will. In God's house we turn no one away. But here you will not be a queen," she warned, "only one of our sisters."
Gwenhwyfar sighed with utter relief. She had not known till this moment how heavy it was, the weight of being a queen. "I must say farewell to my knight, and wish him well, and bid him amend the quarrel with my husband."
The abbess nodded gravely. "In these days, our good King Arthur cannot spare a single one of his knights, and surely not the good sir Lancelet."
Gwenhwyfar went out into the anteroom of the convent. Lancelet was there, wandering restlessly. He took her hands. "I cannot bear to say farewell to you here, Gwenhwyfar-ah, my lady, my love, must it be this way?"
"It must be so," she said pitilessly, but knowing that for the first time she acted without thought of herself. "Your heart was always with Arthur, my dearest. I often think the only sin we did was not that we loved, but that I came between the love you had for each other." If it could always have been among us three as it was on that Beltane night with Morgaine's love charm, she thought, there would have been less of sin. The sin was not that we lay together, but that there was strife, and less of love therefore. "I send you back to Arthur with all my heart, dearest. Tell him for me that I loved him never the less."
His face was almost transfigured. "I know that now," he said. "And I know, too, that I loved him never the less, and I felt always that I wronged you by loving him ...  ." He would have kissed her, but it was not suitable here. Instead he bent over her hand. "While you are in God's house, pray for me, lady."
My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the convent door close, hard and final, and felt the walls shutting her in.
So safe, so protected, those walls had made her feel, in that day long past. Now she knew that she would walk between them all the rest of her life. When I had freedom, she thought, I desired it not, and feared it. And now, when I have learned to love it and long for it, I am renouncing it in the name of my love. Dimly she felt that this was right-the acceptable gift and sacrifice to bring before God. But as she walked through the nuns' cloister, she looked at the walls closing her in, trapping her.
For my love. And for the love of God, she thought, and felt a small seed of comfort stealing through her. Lancelet would go to the church where Galahad had died, and there he would pray. Perhaps he would remember a day when the mists of Avalon had opened, and she and he and Morgaine had stood together, lost, knee-deep in the waters of the Lake. She thought of Morgaine too, with a sudden passion of love and tenderness. Mary, Holy Mother of God, be with her too, and bring her to you one day ...  .
The walls, the walls, they would drive her mad, closing her in, she would never be free again.... No. For her love, and for the love of God, she would even learn to love them again one day. Folding her hands in prayer, Gwenhwyfar walked down the cloister to the sisters' enclosure, and went inside forever.


MORGAINE SPEAKS  ...

I thought I was beyond the Sight; Viviane, still younger than I, had renounced it, chosen another to be Lady in her place. But there was none to sit in the shrine of the Lady after me, and none to approach the Goddess. I saw it, helpless, when Niniane died, and I could not stretch forth my hand.
I had loosed this monster upon the world, and I had acquiesced in that move which should send him to throw down the King Stag. And I saw it from afar when, on Dragon Island, the shrine was thrown down and the deer hunted in the forest, without love, without challenge, without appeal to her who was giver of the deer; only arrows from afar and the edge of the spear, and her people hunted down like her deer. The tides of the world were changing. There were times when I saw Camelot too, drifting in the mist, and the wars raging up and down the land again, the Northmen who were the new foe plundering and burning  ...  a new world, and new Gods.
Truly the Goddess had departed, even from Avalon, and I, mortal as I was, remained there alone ...  .
And yet, one night, some dream, some vision, some fragment of the Sight, drove me, at the hour of the dark moon, to the mirror.
At first I saw only the wars raging up and down the land. I never knew what came between Arthur and Gwydion, although, after Lancelet fled with Gwenhwyfar, there was enmity among the old Companions, blood feud declared between Lancelet and Gawaine. Later, when Gawaine lay dying, that great-hearted man begged Arthur, with his last breath, to make his peace with Lancelet and summon him to Camelot once more. But it was too late; not even Lancelet could rally Arthur's legion again, not when so many followed Gwydion, who now led half of Arthur's own men and most of the Saxons and even a few of the renegade Northmen against him. And in that hour before dawn, the mirror cleared, and in the unearthly light I saw the face of my son at last with a sword in his hand, circling slowly, in the darkness, seeking  ...
Seeking, as Arthur in his day had sought, to challenge the King Stag. I had forgotten what a small man Gwydion was, like Lancelet. Elf-arrow, the Saxons had called Lancelet; small, dark, and deadly. Arthur would have towered more than a head above him.
Ah, in the days of the Goddess, man went against King Stag to seek his kingship! Arthur had been content to await his father's death, but now a new thing was coming upon this land-father and son enemies, and sons to challenge fathers for a crown  ...  it seemed to me that I could see a land that ran red with blood, where sons were not content to await their crowning day. And now, in the circling dark, it seemed that I could see Arthur too, tall and fair and alone, cut off from his men  ...  and Excalibur naked in his hand.
But through and around the prowling figures I could see Arthur in his tent, restlessly asleep, Lancelet guarding him as he slept; and somewhere, too, I knew Gwydion slept among his own armies. Yet some part of them prowled restless on the shores of the Lake, seeking in the darkness, swords naked, against one another.
"Arthur! Arthur, stand to the challenge, or do you fear me too much?"
"No man can say that I ever ran from a challenge." Arthur turned as Gwydion came from the wood. "So," he said, "it is you, Mordred. I never more than half believed that you had turned against me till now when I see it with my own eyes. I thought those who told me so sought to undermine my courage by telling me the worst that could befall. What have I done? Why have you become my enemy? Why, my son?"
"Do you truly believe that I was ever anything else, my father?" He spoke the word with the greatest bitterness. "For what else was I begotten and born, but for this moment when I challenge you for a cause that is no longer within the borders of this world? I no longer even know why I am to challenge you-only that there is nothing else left in my life but for this hatred."
Arthur said quietly, "I knew Morgaine hated me, but I did not know she hated me as much as this. Must you do her will even in this, Gwydion?"
"Do you think I do her will, you fool?" Gwydion snarled. "If anything could bid me spare you, it is that-that I do Morgaine's will, that she wishes you overthrown, and I know not whether I hate more her or you ..."
And then, stepping forth into their dream or vision or whatever it might be, I knew that I stood on the shores of the Lake where they challenged each other, stood between them clad in the robes of a priestess.
"Must this be? I call upon you both, in the name of the Goddess, to amend your quarrel. I sinned against you, Arthur, and against you, Gwydion, but your hate is for me, not for each other, and in the name of the Goddess I beg of you-"
"What is the Goddess to me?" Arthur tightened his fist on the hilt of Excalibur. "I saw her always in your face, but you turned away from me, and when the Goddess rejected me, I sought another God. ..."
And Gwydion said, looking on me with contempt, "I needed not the Goddess, but the woman who mothered me, and you put me into the hands of one who had no fear of any Goddess or any God."
I tried to cry out, "I had no choice! I did not choose-" but they came at each other with their swords, rushing through me as if I were made of air, and it seemed that their swords met in my body  ...  and then I was in Avalon again, staring in horror at the mirror where I could see nothing, nothing but the widening stain of blood in the sacred waters of the Well. My mouth was dry and my heart pounding as if it would beat a hole in the walls of my chest, and the taste of ruin and death was bitter on my lips.
I had failed, failed, failed! I was false to the Goddess, if indeed there was any Goddess except for myself; false to Avalon, false to Arthur, false to brother and son and lover  ...  and all I had sought was in ruin. In the sky was a pale and reddening flush where, sometime soon, the sun would rise; and beyond the mists of Avalon, cold in the sky, I knew that somewhere Arthur and Gwydion would meet, this day, for the last time.
As I went to the shore to summon the barge, it seemed to me that the little dark people were all around me and that I walked among them as the priestess I had been. I stood in the barge alone, and yet I knew there were others standing there with me, robed and crowned, Morgaine the Maiden, who had summoned Arthur to the running of the deer and the challenge of the King Stag, and Morgaine the Mother who had been torn asunder when Gwydion was born, and the Queen of North Wales, summoning the eclipse to send Accolon raging against Arthur, and the Dark Queen of Fairy... or was it the Death-crone who stood at my side? And as the barge neared the shore, I heard the last of his followers cry, "Look-look, there, the barge with the four fair queens in the sunrise, the fairy barge of Avalon...."
He lay there, his hair matted with blood, my Gwydion, my lover, my son  ...  and at his feet Gwydion lay dead, my son, the child I had never known. I bent and covered his face with my own veil. And I knew that it was the end of an age. In the days past, the young stag had thrown down the King Stag, and become King Stag in his turn; but the deer had been slaughtered, and the King Stag had killed the young stag and there would be none after him  ...
And the King Stag must die in his turn.
I knelt at his side. "The sword, Arthur. Excalibur. Take it in your hand. Take it, and fling it from you, into the waters of the Lake."
The Sacred Regalia were gone out of this world forever, and the last of them, the sword Excalibur, must go with them. But he whispered, protesting, holding it tight, "No-it must be kept for those who come after-to rally their cause, the sword of Arthur-" and looked up into the eyes of Lancelet. "Take it, Galahad -hear you not the trumpets from Camelot, calling to Arthur's legion? Take it --for the Companions-"
"No," I told him quietly. "That day is past. None after you must pretend or claim to bear the sword of Arthur." I loosed his fingers gently from the hilt. "Take it, Lancelet," I said softly, "but fling it from you far into the waters of the Lake. Let the mists of Avalon swallow it forever."
Lancelet went quietly to do my bidding. I know not if he saw me, or who he thought I was. And I cradled Arthur against my breast. His life was fading fast; I knew it, but I was beyond tears.
"Morgaine," he whispered. His eyes were bewildered and full of pain. "Morgaine, was it all for nothing then, what we did, and all that we tried to do? Why did we fail?"
It was my own question, and I had no answer; but from somewhere, the answer came. "You did not fail, my brother, my love, my child. You held this land in peace for many years, so that the Saxons did not destroy it. You held back the darkness for a whole generation, until they were civilized men, with learning and music and faith in God, who will fight to save something of the beauty of the times that are past. If this land had fallen to the Saxons when Uther died, then would all that was beautiful or good have perished forever from Britain. And so you did not fail, my love. None of us knows how she will do her will-only that it will be done."
And I knew not, even then, whether what I spoke was truth, or whether I spoke to comfort him, in love, as with the little child Igraine had put into my arms when I was but a child myself; Morgaine, she had told me, take care of your little brother, and so I had always done, so I would always do, now and beyond life ... or was it the Goddess herself who had put Arthur into my arms?
He pressed his failing fingers over the great cut at his breast. "If I had but -the scabbard you fashioned for me, Morgaine-I should not lie here now with my life slowly bleeding forth from me.... Morgaine, I dreamed-and in my dream I cried out for you, but I could not hold you-"
I held him close. In the first light of the rising sun I saw Lancelet raise Excalibur in his hand, then fling it as hard as he could. It flew through the air end over end, the sun glinting as if on the wing of a white bird; then it fell, twisting, and I saw no more; my eyes were misted with tears and the growing light.
Then I heard Lancelet: "I saw a hand rising from the Lake-a hand that took the sword, and brandished it three times in the air, and then drew it beneath the water ..."
I had seen nothing, only the glimmer of light on a fish that broke the surface of the Lake; but I doubt not that he saw what he said he saw.
"Morgaine," Arthur whispered, "is it really you? I cannot see you, Morgaine, it is so dark here-is the sun setting? Morgaine, take me to Avalon, where you can heal me of this wound-take me home, Morgaine-"
His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as the child in my own childish arms, heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had called impatiently, take care of the baby ... and all my life I had borne him with me. I held him close and wiped away his tears with my veil, and he reached up and caught at my hand with his own.
"But it is really you," he murmured, "it is you, Morgaine  ...  you have come back to me  ...  and you are so young and fair ... I will always see the Goddess with your face  ...  Morgaine, you will not leave me again, will you?"
"I will never leave you again, my brother, my baby, my love," I whispered to him, and I kissed his eyes. And he died, just as the mists rose and the sun shone full over the shores of Avalon.
Epilogue


IN THE spring of the year after this, Morgaine had a curious dream.
She dreamed that she was in the ancient Christian chapel upon Avalon, built in the old times by that Joseph of Arimathea who had come here from the Holy Land. And there, before that altar where Galahad had died, Lancelet stood in the robes of a priest, and his face was solemn and shining. In her dream she went, as she had never done in any Christian church, to the altar rail for the sharing of their bread and wine, and Lancelet bent and set the cup to her lips and she drank. And then it seemed to her that he knelt in his turn, and he said to her, "Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are one God, and we are all One, who serve the One." And as she took the cup in her hands to set it to his lips in her turn, priestess to priest, he was young and beautiful as he had been years ago. And she saw that the cup in her hands was the Grail.
And then he cried out, as he had done when Galahad knelt before him, "Ah, the light-the light-" and fell forward and lay on the stones without moving; and Morgaine woke in her isolated dwelling on Avalon with that cry of rapture still ringing in her ears; and she was alone.
It was very early, and mist lay thick on Avalon. She rose quietly and robed herself in the dark garb of a priestess, but she tied her veil around her head so that the crescent tattoo there was invisible.
She went quietly out into the stillness of the dawn, taking the downward path beside the Sacred Well. Still as it was, she could sense noiseless footsteps, silent as shadows, behind her. She was never alone; the little dark people always attended her, though she seldom actually saw them-she was their mother and their priestess and they would never leave her. But when she came near the shadow of the ancient Christian chapel, the footsteps gradually ceased; they would not follow her on this ground. Morgaine paused at the door.
Inside the chapel there was a glimmer of light, the light they always kept in their sanctuary. For a moment, so real was the memory of her dream, Morgaine was tempted to step inside ... she could hardly believe she would not see Lancelet there, struck down by the magical brilliance of the Grail  ...  but no. She had no business there, and she would not intrude on their God; and if indeed the Grail was there, it had gone beyond her reach.
Yet the dream remained with her. Had it been sent as a warning? Lancelet was younger than she herself was  ...  she knew not how time ran in the outer world. Avalon, now, had gone so far into the mists that it might be with Avalon as it had been with the fairy country when she was young -while a single year passed within Avalon, three or five or even seven years might have run by in the outer world. And so what it had come to her to do should be done now, while she could still come and go between the worlds.
She knelt before the Holy Thorn, whispering a soft prayer to the Goddess, and asking leave of the tree; then she cut a slip for planting. It was not the first time: in these last years, whenever one had come to Avalon and returned to the outside world, wandering Druid or pilgrim priest  ...  for a few of them could still come to the ancient chapel on Avalon  ...  she had sent with him a slip of the Holy Thorn, so that it might still blossom in the world outside. But this she must do with her own hands.
Never, except at Arthur's crowning, had she set foot on the other island ... except, perhaps, for that day when the mists had opened, and Gwenhwy-far had somehow fallen or wandered through. But now, deliberately, she called the barge, and when it was out in the Lake, sent it into the mists, so that when it glided forth into the sunlight again, she could see the long shadow of the church lying over the Lake, and hear the soft tolling of a bell. She saw her followers shrink from the sound, and knew that here, too, they would not follow her, nor set foot. So be it, then; the last thing she wished for was to have the priests on that isle staring in fear and dread at the barge from Avalon. Unseen, they glided toward the shore and unseen she stepped onto the land, watching the black-draped barge vanish again into the mists. And then, the basket over her arm-like any old market woman or peddler come here on pilgrimage, she thought-she went silently up the path from the shore.
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.
"And it is your kinswoman who is buried here?" asked one of the girls. "Can you read what it says? I never thought I would learn to read, for my mother said it was not suitable, but when I came here, they told me I must be able to read in the mass book, and so now I can read in Latin! Look," she said proudly, and read: " 'King Arthur made this tomb for his kinswoman and benefactress, the Lady of the Lake, slain by treachery at his court in Camelot'-I cannot read the date, but it was a long time ago."
"She must have been a very holy woman," said another of the girls, "for Arthur, they say, was the best and the most Christian of all kings. He would never have had any woman buried here unless she was a saint!"
Morgaine smiled; they reminded her of the girls in the House of Maidens. "I would not call her a saint, though I loved her. In her day, there were those who called her a wicked sorceress."
"King Arthur would never have a wicked sorceress buried here among holy people," said the girl. "And as for sorcery-well, there are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are! Are you going to stay and take the veil here, Mother?" she asked, and Morgaine, for a moment startled at the word, realized that they were speaking to her with the same deference and respect as any of her own maidens in the House of Maidens, as if she were an elder among them.
"I am vowed elsewhere, my daughter."
"Is your convent as nice as this one? Mother Lionors is a kind woman," the girl said, "and we are all very happy here-once we had a woman among our sisters who had been a queen. And I know we will go to Heaven, all of us," said the girl with a smile, "but if you have taken vows elsewhere, I am sure that is a good place, too. Only I thought you might perhaps want to stay here, so that you could pray for the soul of your kinswoman who lies buried here." The girl rose and dusted off her dark dress. "Now you may plant your cutting, Mother ... or would you like me to set it in the earth?"
"No, I will do it," said Morgaine, and knelt to press the soft soil around the roots of the plant. As she rose, the girl said, "If you wish, Mother, I will promise to come here and say a prayer every Sunday for your kinswoman."
For some absurd reason, Morgaine felt that tears were coming to her eyes. "Prayer is always a good thing. I am grateful to you, daughter."
"And you, in your convent, wherever it may be, you must pray for us too," said the girl simply, taking Morgaine's hand as she rose. "Here, Mother, let me brush the dirt from your gown. Now you must come and see our chapel."
For a moment Morgaine was inclined to protest. She had sworn when last she left Arthur's court that she would never again enter any Christian church; but this girl was so much like one of her own young priestesses that she would not profane the name by which the girl knew her God. She let the girl lead her inside the church.
In that other world, she thought, that church where the ancient Christians worship must stand on this very spot; some holiness from Avalon must surely come through the worlds, through the mists  ...  she did not kneel or cross herself, but she bent her head before the high altar of the church; and then the girl tugged gently at her hand.
"Come," she said. "The high altar is of God and I am a little afraid here always  ...  but you have not seen our chapel-the sisters' chapel  ...  come, Mother."
Morgaine followed the young girl into the small side chapel. There were flowers here, armfuls of apple blossom, before a statue of a veiled woman crowned with a halo of light; and in her arms she bore a child. Morgaine drew a shaking breath and bowed her head before the Goddess.
The girl said, "Here we have the Mother of Christ, Mary the Sinless. God is so great and terrible I am always afraid before his altar, but here in the chapel of Mary, we who are her avowed virgins may come to her as our Mother, too. And look, here we have little statues of our saints, Mary who loved Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and Martha who cooked dinner for him and scolded her sister when she would not cook with her -I like to think of Jesus when he was a real man who would do something for his mother, when he changed the water into wine at that wedding, so she wouldn't be unhappy because there wasn't enough wine for everyone. And here is a very old statue that our bishop gave us, from his native country  ...  one of their saints, her name is Brigid  ... "
Morgaine looked on the statue of Brigid, and she could feel the power coming from it in great waves that permeated the chapel. She bowed her head.
But Brigid is not a Christian saint, she thought, even if Patricius thinks so. That is the Goddess as she is worshipped in Ireland. And I know it, and even if they think otherwise, these women know the power of the Immortal. Exile her as they may, she will prevail. The Goddess will never withdraw herself from mankind.
And Morgaine bowed her head and whispered the first sincere prayer she had ever spoken in any Christian church.
"Why, look," said the novice, as she brought her out of doors into the daylight, "we have one of the Holy Thorn here too, not the one you planted on your kinswoman's grave."
And I thought I could meddle in this? Morgaine thought. Surely, the holy thing had brought itself from Avalon, moving, as the hallows were withdrawn from Avalon, into the world of men where it was most needed. It would remain hidden in Avalon, but it would be shown here in the world as well. "Yes, you have the Holy Thorn, and in days to come, as long as this land shall last, every queen shall be given the Holy Thorn at Christmas, in token of her who is queen in Heaven as in Avalon."
"I don't know what you are talking about, Mother, but thank you for your blessing," said the young novice. "The abbess is awaiting you in the guesthouse-she will take breakfast with you. But would you like, perhaps, to stay in the Lady's chapel first and pray awhile? Sometimes when you are alone with the Holy Mother, she can make things clear to you."
Morgaine nodded, unable to speak, and the girl said, "Very well. When you are ready, just come to the guesthouse." She pointed, and Morgaine went back into the chapel and bowed her head, and giving way at last, sank to her knees.
"Mother," she whispered, "forgive me. I thought I must do what I now see you can do for yourself. The Goddess is within us, yes, but now I know that you are in the world too, now and always, just as you are in Avalon and in the hearts of all men and women. Be in me too now, and guide me, and tell me when I need only let you do your will ...  ."
She was silent, kneeling, for a long time, her head bowed, but then, as if compelled, she looked up, and as she had seen it on the altar of the ancient Christian brotherhood in Avalon, as she had seen it when she bore it in Arthur's hall, she saw a light on the altar, and in the Lady's hands- and the shadow, only the shadow, of a chalice  ...
It is in Avalon, but it is here. It is everywhere. And those who have need of a sign in this world will see it always.
There was a sweet scent that did not come from the flowers; and for an instant it seemed to Morgaine that it was Igraine's voice that whispered to her  ...  but she could not hear the words  ...  and Igraine's hands that touched her head. As she rose, blinded by tears, suddenly it rushed over her, like a great light.
No, we did not fail. What I said to comfort Arthur in his dying, it was all true. I did the Mother's work in Avalon until at last those who came after us might bring her into this world. I did not fail. I did what she had given me to do. It was not she but I in my pride who thought I should have done more.
Outside the chapel, sunlight lay on the land, and there was a fresh scent of spring in the air. Where the apple trees moved in the morning breeze, she could see the blossoms that would bear fruit in their season.
She turned her face toward the guesthouse. Should she go there and breakfast with the nuns, speak perhaps of the old days at Camelot? Morgaine smiled gently. No. She was filled with the same tenderness for them as for the budding apple trees, but that time was past. She turned her back on the convent and walked down to the Lake, along the old path by the shore. Here was a place where the veil lying between the worlds was thin. She needed no longer to summon the barge-she need only step through the mists here, and be in Avalon.
Her work was done.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marion Zimmer Bradley has been a professional writer for more than twenty-five years. She is best known for her novels of exotic fantasy adventure, particularly her best-selling Darkover series. Ms. Bradley lives in Berkeley, California with her two children.

Acknowledgements

This is the story of a legend.

The provable facts about Helena are few in comparison with the wealth of stories that have attached themselves to her name. We know that she was the consort of Constantius and the honoured mother of Constantine the Great, and that she had some association with the town of Drepanum. We know that she owned property in Rome and that she made a visit to Palestine, and that is all.

But wherever she went, myths sprang up behind her. She is honoured in Germany and Israel and Rome, where she is hailed as a saint in the churches that bear her name. Medieval hagiography makes her the great discoverer of relics, who brought the heads of the three Wise Men to Cologne, the Robe Jesus wore to Trier, and the True Cross to Rome.

But she holds a special place in the legends of Britian, where it is said that she was a British princess who married an emperor. She is believed to have lived in York and in London, and to have established roads in Wales. Some even identify her with the goddess Nehalennia. Did these stories arise because Constantius and Constantine both had such strong connections with Britain, or could she have originally come from that isle?

If so, perhaps it is not so great a stretch to link her with the mythology of Avalon, and add one more legend to the rest.

Marion Zimmer Bradley and I began this work together, as we have worked together before, but it was left to me to complete it. At the end of her life Marion attended a Christian church, and yet she was my first high priestess in the ancient mysteries. In telling the story of Helena, who also walked between the Christian and the pagan worlds, I have tried to remain faithful to Marion's teachings.

In the creation of this book, Marion's was the inspiration and origin. The historical legwork was mine.

Among the many sources which were useful I should list: Fry's Roman Britain; Gibbon's classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which includes all the gossip; The Later Roman Empire, by A.H.M. Jones; Robin Lane Fox's fascinating Pagans and Christians; and The Aquarian Guide to Legendary London, edited by John Matthews and Chesca Potter, particularly the chapter on the Goddesses of London by Caroline Wise of the Atlantis Bookstore. More specifically, I relied on Constantine the Great, by Michael Grant, and Jan Willem Drijvers' classic, Helena Augusta; and for Helena's journey and the reinvention of the Holy Land, Holy City, Holy Places?, by P.W.L. Walker. The hymn in chapter thirteen was written by St Ambrose in the fourth century.

I would like to express my gratitude to Karen Anderson for working out the astronomical configurations in the third century skies, and to Charline Palmtag for helping me with their astrological interpretation. My thanks also to Jennifer Tifft, for enabling me to make an extra trip to England and find the chapel of St Helena in York, to Bernhard Hennen, for taking me to Trier, and to Jack and Kira Gillespie for showing me Cumae and Pozzuoli.

Diana L. Paxson
Feast of Brigid, 2000

People in the story

*     = historical figure
()    = dead before story begins
     
*    Aurelian —Emperor, 270-275
   Aelia—a young priestess, trained with Helena
*    Allectus—Finance Minister to Carausius, later Emperor of Britannia, 293-6
   Arganax—Arch-Druid during Helena's youth
*    Asclepiodotus—Constantius's Praetorian Prefect
   Atticus—Constantine's Greek tutor
*    Carausius—Emperor of Britannia, 287-293
*    Carus—Emperor, 282-3
*    Carinus—older son of Carus, emperor, 283—284
   Ceridachos—Arch Druid when Dierna becomes High Priestess
   Cigfolla—a priestess of Avalon
*    Claudius II—Emperor, 268-270, Constantius's great-uncle
   Corinthius the Elder—Helena's tutor
   Corinthius the Younger—master of a school in Londinium
   Julius Coelius—[King Coel] Prince of Camulodunum, father of Helena
*    Constantia (I)—daughter of Constantius and Theodora, married to Licinius
*    Constantia (II)—daughter of Constantine and Fausta
*    Constans—third son of Constantine and Fausta
*    Constantine [Flavius Valerius Constantinus]—son of Helena, Emperor, 306-337
*    Constantine (II)—eldest son of Constantine and Fausta
*    Constantius Chlorus [Flavius Constantius]—consort of Helena, Caesar and later Augustus, 293-306
*    Julius Constantius—second son of Constantius and Theodora
*    Constantius (II)—second son of Constantine and Fausta
*    Crispus—Constantine's illegitimate son by Minervina
   Cunoarda—Helena's Alban slave
*    Dalmatius—son of Constantius and Theodora Dierna—Helena's second cousin, later Lady of Avalon
*    Diocletian—Senior Augustus, Emperor, 284-305
   Brasilia—cook in Helena and Constantius's household
*    Bishop Eusebius of Caesaria—Metropolitan Bishop of Palestine, a major writer of church history and later the biographer of Constantine.
*    Fausta—daughter of Maximian, wife of Constantine and mother of his legitimate children
   Flavius Pollio—a kinsman of Constantius
*    Galerius—Caesar, 293-305, Augustus, 305-311
*    Gallienus—Emperor, 253-268
   Ganeda—Helena's aunt, Lady of Avalon
   Gwenna—a maiden being trained on Avalon
   Haggaia—Arch Druid when Helena returns to Avalon
*    Julia Coelia Helena, later, Flavia Helena Augusta—(Eilan) daughter of Prince Coelius, consort of Constantius, mother of Constantine and priestess of Avalon
*    Helena the Younger ('Lena')—a noblewoman of Treveri, wife of Crispus
   Heron—a maiden being trained on Avalon
   Hrodlind—Helena's German maid
(*    Joseph of Arimathea—founder of the Christian community on the Tor)
   Katiya—a priestess of Bast in Rome
   Lactantius—a rhetorician and Christian apologist, tutor to Crispus
   Licinius—Caesar appointed by Galerius to replace Severus, later Augustus in the East, 313-324
*    Lucius Viducius—a pottery merchant trading between Gallia and Eburacum
*    Macarius—Bishop of Jerusalem
   Marcia—midwife who delivers Constantine
   Martha—a Syrian slave, healed by Helena
*    Maximian—Augustus of the West, 285-305
*    Maximus Daia—Caesar appointed by Galerius
*    Maxentius—son of Maximian, Augustus in Italy and North Africa, 306-312
*    Minervina—Constantine's Syrian concubine, mother of Crispus
*    Numerian—younger son of Carus, Emperor, 283—84
   Philip—Constantius's servant
*    Postumus—rebel Emperor of the West, 259-68
*    Probus—Emperor, 276-282
*    Quintillus—brother of the Emperor Claudius II, Constantius's great-uncle
(    Rian—High Priestess of Avalon, Helena's mother)
   Roud—a maiden being trained on Avalon
*    Severus—Caesar appointed by Galerius, executed by Maximian
   Sian—daughter of Ganeda, mother of Dierna and Becca
   Suona—a young priestess of Avalon
   Teleri—wife of Carausius and then of Allectus, later, High Priestess of Avalon
*    Tetricus & Marius—rebel co-emperors of the West, 271
   Tulia—a maiden being trained on Avalon
*    Victorina Augusta—mother of Victorinus and virtual ruler
*    Victorinus—rebel Emperor in the West, 268-270
   Vitellia—a Christian matron living in Londinium
   Wren—a maiden being trained on Avalon
     
   Helena's dogs: Eldri, Hylas, Favonius and Boreas, Leviyah

Places


BRITANNIA

Aquae Sulis—Bath

Avalon—Glastonbury

Calleva—Silchester

Gamulodunum—Colchester

Cantium—Kent

Corinium—Cirencester

Eburacum—York

Inis Witrin—Glastonbury

Isurium Brigantum—Aldborough, Yorkshire

Lindinis—Ilchester

Lindum—Lincoln

Londinium—London

Sabrina estuary—the Severn

the Summer Country—Somerset

Trinovante lands—Essex

Tamesis—the Thames

Tanatus Insula—Isle of Thanet, Kent

THE WESTERN EMPIRE

Alpes—the Alps

Aquitanica—southern France, Aquitaine

Arelate—Arles, France

Argentoratum—Strasburg, Germany

Augusta Treverorum (Treveri)—Trier, Germany

Baiae—Baia, Italy

Belgica Prima—eastern France

Belgica Secunda—the Low Countries

Borbetomagus—Wurms, Germany

Colonia Agrippinensis—Cologne, Germany

Cumaea—Cumae, Italy

Gallia—France

Ganuenta—formerly an island where the River Schelde joins the Rhine in the Netherlands

Germania Prima—lands just west of the Rhine, Koblenz to Basle

Germania Secunda—lands just west of the Rhine, North Sea to Koblenz

Gesoriacum—Boulogne, France

Lugdunum—Lyons

Mediolanum—Milan, Italy

Moenus fluvius—the River Main, Germany

Mosella fluvius—the River Moselle, France, Germany

Nicer fluvius—the River Neckar, Germany

Noricum—Austria south of the Danube

Rhaetia—Southern Germany and Switzerland

Rhenus fluvius—the Rhine

Rhodanus fluvius—the Rhone

Rothomagus—Rouen, France

Treveri (Augusta Treverorum)—Trier, Germany

Ulpia Traiana—Xanten, Germany

Vindobona—Vienna, Austria

THE EASTERN EMPIRE

Aegeum—the Aegean

Aelia Capitolina—Jerusalem

Aquincum—Pest (Budapest), Hungary

Asia—Western Turkey

Bithynia et Pontus—northern Turkey

Byzantium (later, Constantinople)—Istanbul

Caesarea—a port city south of Haifa, Israel

Carpatus Mountains—the Carpathians

Chalcedon—Kadikoy, Turkey

Dacia—Romania

Dalmatia—Albania

Danu, Danuvius—the Danube

Drepanum (Helenopolis)—Hersek in northern Turkey

Galatia and Cappadocia—Eastern Turkey

the Haemus—Balkans

Heracleia Pontica—Eregli, Turkey

Hierosolyma—Jerusalem

Illyria—Yugoslavia

Moesia—Bulgaria

Naissus—Nis in Romania

Nicaea—Iznik, Turkey

Nicomedia—Izmit, Turkey

Pannonia—Hungary

Rhipaean Mountains—the Caucausus

Scythia—lands above the Black Sea

Singidunum—Belgrade, Yugoslavia

Sirmium—Mitrovica or Sabac on the Save, Serbia

Thracia—southern Bulgaria

Prologue



With sunset, a brisk wind had blown in from the sea. It was the season when farmers burn the stubble from their fields, but wind had swept away the haze that had veiled the heavens, and the Milky Way blazed a white road across the sky. The Merlin of Britannia sat on the Watcher's Stone at the top of the Tor, his eyes fixed on the stars. But though the glory of the heavens commanded his vision, it did not hold his entire attention. His ears strained to catch any sound that might come from the dwelling of the High Priestess on the slopes below.

Since dawn she had been in labour. This would be Rian's fifth child, and her earlier babes had come easily. The birthing should not be taking so long. The midwives guarded their mysteries, but at sunset, when he had prepared for this vigil, he had seen the worry in their eyes. King Coelius of Camulodunum, who had called Rian to the Great Rite for the sake of his flooded fields, was a big man, fair-haired and massively built in the way of the Belgic tribes who had settled in the eastern lands of Britannia, and Rian was a little dark woman with the look of the faerie people who had been the first to dwell in these hills.

It should be no surprise that the child Coelius had begotten was too large to come easily from the womb. When Rian found that he had got her with child, some of the older priestesses had urged her to cast it from her. But to do so would have negated the magic, and Rian told them she had served the Goddess too long not to trust in Her purposes.

What purpose was there in this child's birth? The Merlin's old eyes scanned the heavens, seeking to comprehend the secrets written in the stars. The sun stood now in the sign of the Virgin, and the old moon, passing him, had been visible in the sky that morning. Now she hid her face, leaving the night to the glory of the stars.

The old man huddled into the thick folds of his grey cloak, feeling the chill of the autumn night in his bones. As he watched the great wain wheel ever further across the sky and no word came, he knew that he was shivering not with cold, but with fear.

Slow as grazing sheep, the stars moved across the heavens. Saturn gleamed in the south-west, in the Sign of Balance. As the hours drew on, the resolution of the labouring woman was wearing away. Now, at intervals, there would come a moan of pain from the hut. But it was not until the still hour just as the stars were fading that a new sound brought the Merlin upright, heart pounding—the thin, protesting wail of a newborn child.

In the east the sky was already growing pale with the approach of day, but overhead the stars still shone. Long habit brought the old man's gaze upward. Mars, Jupiter and Venus stood in brilliant conjunction. Trained in the disciplines of the Druids since boyhood, he committed the positions of the stars to memory. Then, grimacing as stiffened joints complained, he got to his feet, and leaning heavily on his carven staff, made his way down the hill.

The infant had ceased its crying, but as the Merlin neared the birthing hut, his gut tensed, for he could hear weeping from within. Women stood aside as he pushed back the heavy curtain that hung across the doorway, for he was the only male who by right could enter there.

One of the younger priestesses, Cigfolla, sat in the corner, crooning over the swaddled bundle in her arms. The Merlin's gaze moved past her to the woman who lay on the bed, and stopped, for Rian, whose beauty had always come from her grace in motion, was utterly still. Her dark hair lay lank upon the pillow; her angular features were already acquiring the unmistakable emptiness that distinguishes death from sleep.

"How—" he made a little helpless gesture, striving to hold back his tears. He did not know whether or not Rian had been his own child by blood, but she had been a daughter to him.

"It was her heart," said Ganeda, her features in that moment painfully like those of the woman who lay on the bed, although at most times the sweetness of Rian's expression had always made it easy to distinguish between the sisters. "She had laboured for too long. Her heart broke in the final effort to push the child from the womb."

The Merlin stepped to the bedside and gazed down at Rian's body, and after a moment, he bent to trace a sigil of blessing on the cool brow.

I have lived too long, he thought numbly. Rian should have been the one to say the rites for me.

He heard Ganeda draw breath behind him. "Say then, Druid, what fate the stars foretell for the maid-child born in this hour?"

The old man turned. Ganeda faced him, her eyes bright with anger and unshed tears. She has the right to ask this, he thought grimly. Ganeda had been passed over in favour of her younger sister when the previous High Priestess died. He supposed the election would fall on her now.

Then the spirit within him rose in answer to her challenge. He cleared his throat.

"Thus speak the stars—" His voice trembled only a little. "The child that was born at the Turning of Autumn, just as the night gave way to dawn, shall stand at the Turning of the Age, the gateway between two worlds. The time of the Ram has passed, and now the Fish shall rule. The moon hides her face—this maid shall hide the moon she bears upon her brow, and only in old age will she come into her true power. Behind her lies the road that leads to the darkness and its mysteries, before her shines the harsh light of day.

"Mars is in the Sign of the Lion, but war shall not overcome her, for it is ruled by the star of kingship. For this child, love shall walk with sovereignty, for Jupiter yearns towards Venus. Together, their radiance shall light the world. On this night, all of them move towards the Virgin who shall be their true queen. Many will bow before her, but her true sovereignty will be hidden. All shall praise her, yet few will know her true name. Saturnus lies now in Libra —her hardest lessons will be in maintaining a balance between the old wisdom and the new. But Mercurius is hidden. For this child I foresee many wanderings, and many misunderstandings, and yet in the end all roads lead to joy and to her true home."

All around him the priestesses were murmuring: "He prophesies greatness—she will be Lady of the Lake like her mother before her!"

The Merlin frowned. The stars had shown him a life of magic and power, but he had read the stars for priestesses many times before, and the patterns that foretold their lives were not those he saw now. It seemed to him that this child was destined to walk a road unlike that which had been trodden by any priestess of Avalon before.

"The babe is healthy and well-formed?"

"She is perfect, my lord." Cigfolla rose, cradling the swaddled infant close to her breast.

"Where will you find a nurse for her?" He knew that none of the women of Avalon were currently feeding a child.

"She can go to the Lake-dwellers' village," answered Ganeda. "There is always some woman with a newborn there. But I will send her to her father once she is weaned."

Cigfolla clutched at her burden protectively, but the aura of power that surrounded the High Priestess was already descending upon Ganeda, and if the younger woman had objections, she did not voice them aloud.

"Are you sure that is wise?" By virtue of his office, the Merlin could question her. "Will the child not need to be trained in Avalon to prepare for her destiny?"

"What the gods have ordained they will bring to pass, whatever we do," answered Ganeda. "But it will be long before I can look upon her face and not see my sister lying dead before me."

The Merlin frowned, for it had always seemed to him that there was little love lost between Ganeda and Rian. But perhaps it made sense — if Ganeda felt guilt for having envied her sister, the babe would be a painful reminder.

"If the girl shows talent, when she is older, perhaps she can return," Ganeda continued.

If he had been a younger man, the Merlin might have sought to sway her, but he had seen the hour of his own death in the stars, and he knew that he would not be here to protect the little girl if Ganeda resented her. Perhaps it was better that she should live with her father while she was small.

"Show me the child."

Cigfolla rose, flipping back the corner of the blanket. The Merlin stared down at the face of the infant, still closed in upon itself like the bud of a rose. The child was large for a newborn, big-boned like her father. No wonder her mother had fought such a grim battle to bear her.

"Who are you, little one?" he murmured. "Are you worth so great a sacrifice?"

"Before she died… the Lady… said she should be called Eilan," Cigfolla answered him.

"Eilan—" the Merlin echoed her, and as if the infant had understood, she opened her eyes. They were still the opaque grey of infancy, but their expression, wide and grave, was far older. "Ah… this is not the first time for you," he said then, saluting her like a traveller who meets an old friend upon the road and pauses for a moment's greeting before they continue on their separate ways. He was aware of a pang of regret that he would not live to see this child grown.

"Welcome back, my dear one. Welcome to the world."

For a moment the baby's brows met. Then the tiny lips curved upward in a smile.

1

"Oh! I can see water gleaming in the sun! Is it the sea?" I dug my heels into the pony's round side to bring it alongside Corinthius's big horse. The beast broke into a rough trot and I clutched at its mane.

"Ah, Helena, your young eyes are better than mine," answered the old man who had been tutor to my half-brothers before being given the task of teaching the daughter Prince Coelius had inadvertently got upon a priestess of Avalon. "A blaze of light is all I can see. But I think that what lies before us must be the levels of the Summer Country, flooded by the spring rains."

I brushed back a wisp of hair and peered out at the landscape. The waters were broken up by hummocks of higher ground like islands and divided by winding rows of trees. Beyond them I could make out a line of hills where Corinthius said there were lead mines, ending in a bright haze that must be the estuary of the Sabrina.

"Then we are almost there?" The pony tossed its head as I squeezed its sides and then pulled back on the rein.

"We are if the rains have not washed out the causeway, and we can locate the village of the Lake folk that my master told me to find."

I looked up at him with swift pity, for he sounded very tired. I could see lines in the thin face beneath the broad straw hat, and he sat slumped in the saddle. My father should not have made the old man come all this way. But when the journey was over, Corinthius, a Greek who had sold himself into slavery as a youth in order to dower his sisters, would have his freedom. He had saved a nice little nest egg over the years, and meant to set up a school in Londinium.

"We will come to the Lake village in the afternoon," said the guide who had joined my escort in Lindinis.

"When we get there, we will rest," I said briskly.

"I thought you were eager to come to the Tor," Corinthius said kindly. Perhaps he would be sorry to lose me, I thought, smiling up at him. After my two brothers, who cared for nothing but hunting, he had said he enjoyed teaching someone who actually wanted to learn.

"I will have the rest of my life to enjoy Avalon," I answered him. "I can wait a day longer to arrive."

"And start your studies once more!" Corinthius laughed. "They say that the priestesses of Avalon have preserved the old Druid wisdom. It consoles me a little for losing you to know that you will not spend your life running some fat magistrate's household and bearing his children."

I smiled. My father's wife had tried to convince me that such a life was a woman's highest hope, but I had always known that sooner or later I would be going to Avalon. That it was sooner was due to the rebellion of a general called Postumus, whose war had cut Britannia off from the Empire. Unprotected, the south-eastern coasts were vulnerable to raiders, and Prince Coelius had thought it best to send his little daughter to the safety of Avalon while he and his sons prepared to defend Camulodunum.

For a moment then my smile faltered, for I had been the apple of my father's eye, and I hated the thought that he might be in danger. But I knew well enough that while he was away from home my life there would not have been a happy one. To the Romans I was my father's love-child, without maternal relatives, for it was forbidden to speak of Avalon. In truth it was Corinthius and old Huctia, who had been my nurse, who had been my family, and Huctia had died the winter before. It was time for me to return to my mother's world.

The road led downwards now, winding gently back and forth across the slope of the hill. As we emerged from the shelter of the trees, I shaded my eyes with my hand. Below, the waters lay upon the land like a sheet of gold.

"If you were a faerie horse," I murmured to my pony, "we could gallop along that shining path all the way to Avalon."

But the pony only shook its head and reached for a mouthful of grass, and we continued to clop down the road one step at a time until we came to the slippery logs of the causeway. Now I could see the grey stalks of last summer's grass waving in the water and beyond them the reedbeds that edged the permanent channels and pools. The deeper water was dark, charged with mystery. What spirits ruled these marshes, where the elements were so confused and mingled that one could not tell where earth ended and the water began? I shivered a little and turned my gaze to the bright day.

As the afternoon drew on towards evening, a mist began to rise from the water. We moved more slowly now, letting our mounts choose their own footing on the slippery logs. I had ridden horses since I could walk, but until now, each day's journey had been a short one, appropriate to the strength of a child. Today's ride, the last stage in our journey, had been longer. I could feel the dull ache in my legs and back and knew that I would be glad to get out of the saddle when the day was over.

We came out from beneath the trees and the guide reined in, pointing. Beyond the tangle of marsh and woodland rose a single pointed hill. I had been taken from this place when I was barely a year old, and yet, with a certainty beyond memory, I knew that I was looking at the holy Tor. Touched by the last of the sunlight, it seemed to glow from within.

"The Isle of Glass…" murmured Corinthius, eyes widening in appreciation.

But not Avalon … I thought, remembering the stories I had heard. The cluster of beehive huts at the foot of the Tor belonged to the little community of Christians who lived there. Avalon of the Druids lay in the mists between this world and Faerie.

"And there is the village of the Lake people—" said our guide, indicating the trails of smoke that rose beyond the willows. He slapped the reins against his pony's neck and all of the horses, sensing the end of their journey, moved forwards eagerly.

"We have barge, but crossing to Avalon needs priestess. She says if you are welcome. Is important to go now? You want that I call?" The headman's words were respectful, but in his posture there was little deference. For nearly three hundred years his people had been the gatekeepers for Avalon.

"Not tonight," answered Corinthius. "The maiden has endured a long journey. Let her have a good night's sleep before she must meet all those new people in her new home."

I squeezed his hand gratefully. I was eager to get to Avalon, but now that our journey was over, I was painfully aware that I would not see Corinthius again, and only now did I realize how fond of the old man I really was. I had wept when my nurse died, and I knew that I would weep to lose Corinthius as well.

The Lake people made us welcome in one of the round thatched houses set on poles above the marsh. A long, low boat was tied up beside it, and a creaking bridge connected it to the higher ground. The villagers were a small, lightly-built folk, with dark hair and eyes. At ten, I was already as tall as a grown woman among them, though I had the same dusky brown hair. I watched them curiously, for I had heard that my mother had been like them in feature, or perhaps she and they were both like the people of Faerie.

The villagers brought us thin ale and a stew of fish and millet flavoured with wild garlic, and flat oaten cakes baked on the stone hearth. When we had eaten this simple fare, we sat by the fire with bodies too tired to move and minds not yet ready for sleep, watching the flame fade into coals that shone like the vanished sun.

"Corinthius, when you have your school in Londinium, will you remember me?"

"How could I forget my little maiden, bright as one of Apollo's sunbeams, when I am striving to beat Latin hexameters into the thick skulls of a dozen boys?" His worn features creased into a smile.

"You must call the sun Belenos," said I, "in this northern land."

"It was Apollo of the Hyboreans that I meant, my child, but it is all the same—"

"Do you truly believe that?"

Corinthius lifted one eyebrow. "A single sun shines here and in the land where I was born, though we call it by different names. In the realm of Idea, the great principles behind the forms that we see are the same."

I frowned, trying to make sense of his words. He had attempted to explain the teachings of the philosopher Plato, but I found them hard to understand. Each place I came to had its own spirit, as distinct as human souls. This land they called the Summer Country, all hill and wood and hidden pools, seemed a world away from the broad flat fields and coppiced woodlands around Camulodunum. Avalon, if the tales I had heard of it were true, would be stranger still. How could their gods be the same?

"I think rather that it is you, little one, with all your life ahead of you, who will be forgetting me," the old man said then. "What is it, child?" he added, bending to lift the lock of hair that hid my eyes. "Are you afraid?"

"What—what if they don't like me?"

For a moment Corinthius stroked my hair, then he sat back with a sigh. "I ought to tell you that to the true philosopher, it should not matter, that the virtuous person needs no one's approval. But what comfort is that to a child? Nonetheless it is true. There will be some people who do not like you no matter what you do, and when that happens, you can only try to serve the Truth as you see it. And yet, if you have won my heart, then surely there will be others to love you as well. Look for those who need your love, and they will return the blessing."

His tone was bracing, and I swallowed and managed a smile. I was a princess, and one day would be a priestess as well. I must not let people see me cry.

There was a stirring at the door. The cowhide flap was pushed aside and I glimpsed a child holding a squirming puppy in his arms. The chieftain's wife saw him and said something reproving in the dialect of the Lake. I caught the word for hound and realized he was being told to take the dog away.

"Oh no—I like puppies!" I exclaimed. "Please let me see!"

The woman looked dubious, but Corinthius nodded, and the boy came up to me, grinning, and released the animal into my outstretched hands. As I clutched at the wriggling bundle of fur I began to smile as well. I could see already that this was not one of the graceful sight-hounds who used to lounge in noble dignity about my father's hall. The puppy was too tiny, its creamy fur too thick already, and its tail too curled. But the brown eyes were bright with interest, and the tongue that flicked out below the moist black button of a nose to lick my hand was pink and warm.

"There, there now, and aren't you a darling?" I gathered the little dog to my chest and laughed again as it tried to lick my face as well.

"A creature with neither breeding nor manners," said Corinthius, who was not fond of animals. "And likely carrying fleas—"

"No, lord," answered the boy, "is faerie dog."

Corinthius lifted an eloquent eyebrow, and the boy frowned.

"I speak true!" he exclaimed. "It happens before. Mama gets lost, two, three days. Has only one puppy, white like this. Faerie dog lives long, and if not killed, when old it disappears. Dog sees spirits, and knows way to Otherworld!"

Feeling the living warmth of the creature in my arms, I hid my face in the soft fur to hide my smile, for the rest of the Lake people were nodding solemnly and I did not wish to insult them.

"She is gift, will guard you—" the boy said then.

I suppressed a a spurt of laughter at the idea that this ball of fluff could protect anything, then straightened to smile at the boy.

"Does she have a name?"

The boy shrugged. "Faerie folk know. Maybe she tells you one day."

"I will call her Eldri, until they do, for she is as white and delicate as the flower of the elder tree." I considered her as I said this, then looked back up at the boy. "And you—do you have a name?"

A blush warmed his sallow skin. "Is 'Otter', in your tongue," he said as the others laughed.

A use-name, thought I. At his initiation he would receive another that would only be used within the tribe. And how should I answer him? In my father's world I had been Julia Helena, but that seemed irrelevant here.

"I thank you," I said then. "You may call me Eilan."

I woke from a dream of many waters, blinking in the morning light. I had been in a long flat boat that slid silently through swirling mists until they parted to reveal a fair green island. But then the scene had shifted, and I was on a galley approaching endless flat marshlands and a great river that split into myriad channels as it entered the sea. And yet again the vision had changed to a land of golden stone and sand washed by a brilliant blue sea. But the green island had been the fairest. A few times in my life I had dreamed things that came true. I wondered if this was one of them. But already the memory was slipping away. I sighed, pushed back the sleeping furs in which I had nested with Eldri curled against me and rubbed the grit from my eyes. Squatting beside the headman's fire and drinking tea from a cup of rough clay was someone I had not seen before. I noticed first the long brown braid and the blue cloak, and then, as she turned, the mark of a priestess tattooed between her brows. The blue crescent was still bright, and the smooth face that of a girl. She had not been initiated for long. Then, as if she had felt my gaze upon her, the priestess turned, and my eyes fell before that detached and ageless stare.

"Her name is Suona," said Corinthius, patting my shoulder. "She arrived just at dawn."

I wondered how the headman had called her. Did the faerie folk carry the message, or was there some secret spell?

"This is the maiden?" asked Suona.

"The daughter of Prince Coelius of Camulodunum," answered Corinthius. "But her mother was of Avalon."

"She seems old to begin her training here."

Corinthius shook his head. "She is well-grown for her age, but she has only ten winters. And Helena is not without education. She has been taught to use her mind as well as to do the work of a woman. She can read and write in Latin and knows a little Greek, and has learned her numbers as well."

Suona did not seem very impressed. I lifted my chin and met the dark gaze steadily. For a moment I felt an odd tickling sensation in my head, as if something had touched my mind. Then the priestess nodded a little, and it ceased. For the first time she spoke directly to me.

"Is it your wish, or that of your father, that you come to Avalon?"

I felt my heart thump, but I was relieved when my words came out steadily.

"I want to go to Avalon."

"Let the child break her fast, and then we will be ready," said Corinthius, but the priestess shook her head.

"Not you, only the maiden. It is forbidden for an outlander to look on Avalon except when the gods call."

For a moment the old man looked stricken, then he bowed his head.

"Corinthius!" I felt tears prick my own eyes.

"Never mind," he patted my arm. "To the philosopher, all affections are transitory. I must strive for more detachment, that is all."

"But won't you miss me?" I clung to his hand.

For a moment he sat with closed eyes. Then his breath came out in a long sigh.

"I will miss you, heart's daughter," he answered softly. "Even if it is against my philosophy. But you will find new friends and learn new things, never fear."

I felt Eldri stirring in my lap and the moment of anguish began to fade.

"I will not forget you—" I said stoutly, and was rewarded by his smile.

My fingers tightened on the rail as the boatmen shoved down with their poles and the barge slid away from the shore. Overnight, another mist had risen from the water, and the world beyond the village was more sensed than seen. Only once, when we crossed the Tamesis at Londinium, had I ever been on a boat before. I had felt nearly overwhelmed by the river's tremendous, driving purpose, driven close to tears when we reached the other shore because I had not been allowed to follow it down to the sea.

On the Lake, what I felt most strongly was depth, which seemed odd, since the bottom was still within reach of the boatmen's poles, and I could see the wavering lines of the reed-stems below the waterline.

But the evidence of my eyes seemed to me an illusion. I could feel waters that ran below the lake bottom, and realized that I had begun to sense them as soon as we started to cross the Levels, even when we were on what passed here for dry land. Here, there was little distinction between earth and water, as there was very little separation between the world of men and the Otherworld.

I gazed curiously at the woman who sat at the prow, cloaked and hooded in blue. To be a priestess was it necessary to become so detached from human feeling? Corinthius preached detachment as well, but I knew he had a heart beneath his philosopher's robes. When I become a priestess, I will not forget what love is! I promised myself then.

I wished very much that they had allowed my old tutor to come with me this last bit of the way. He was still waving to me from the shore, and though he had bade me farewell with the restraint of a true Stoic, it seemed to me that there was a brightness in his eyes that might be tears. I wiped my own eyes and waved back harder, and then, as the first veil of mist blew between us, settled back onto my bench.

At least I still had Eldri, tucked securely in the fold where my tunica bloused over my belt. I could feel the puppy's warmth against my chest and patted her reassuringly through the cloth. So far, the little dog had neither barked nor stirred, as if she understood the need to keep silence. So long as the puppy stayed hidden, no one could forbid me to take her to Avalon.

I pulled open the loose neck of my tunica and grinned at the two bright eyes that gleamed up at me, then draped my cloak loosely around me once more.

The mist was growing thicker, lying in dense skeins across the water as if not only earth but air were dissolving back into the primal watery womb. Of the Pythagorean elements of which Corinthius had told me, that left only fire. I took a deep breath, at once unsettled and oddly reassured, as if something within me recognized this protean admixture and welcomed it.

We were well out upon the Lake by now, and the boatmen were paddling. As the barge moved forwards the stilt village faded into the mist behind us. The Tor was disappearing too. For the first time I felt a quiver of fear.

But Eldri warmed my heart, and in the prow, the young priestess sat quietly, her face serene. Suona was a plain-looking girl, but for the first time, I understood what my nurse had meant when she told me to sit like a queen.

Though I saw no signal, abruptly the boatmen lifted their paddles and rested them on their laps. The barge floated quietly, the last ripples of its passage widening away to either side. I felt a pressure in my ears and shook my head to relieve it.

Then, at last, the priestess stirred, casting back her hood as she rose. Feet braced, she stood, seeming to grow taller as she lifted her arms in invocation. She drew in her breath, and her ordinary features grew radiant with beauty. The gods look like this … I thought as Suona gave voice to a string of musical syllables in a language I had never heard before.

Then that too was forgotten, for the mists began to move. The boatmen had covered their eyes, but I kept mine open, staring as the grey clouds began to sparkle with a rainbow of colour. The light spun sunwise around them, colours blending, wrenching reality out of Time. For an impossible eternity we hung between the worlds. Then, with a final burst of radiance, the mists became a haze of light.

The priestess sank back to her seat, perspiration beading her brow. The boatmen picked up their paddles and began to stroke forwards as if this had been no more than a pause to rest their arms. I let out a breath I had not known I was holding. They must be accustomed to this… phenomenon … I thought numbly, and then, How could anyone get used to this wonder!

For a few moments, though the paddles dipped, we did not seem to move. Then the bright mist suddenly wisped away, and the Tor was rushing towards us, and I clapped my hands, recognizing the fair green island.

But there was more to it than I had seen in my dream. I had half-expected to see the huddle of wooden huts I had glimpsed from the Lake people's village, but that was Inis Witrin, the isle of the monks. Where the huts had stood, on the other isle on Avalon there were edifices of stone. I had seen Roman buildings that were larger, but none that were at once so massive and so graceful, columned with smooth shafts of tapered stone. Blessed by the spring sunlight, they seemed to glow from within.

If I had been capable of speech, I would have begged the men to stop the boat, to tell me what each house was, now when I could comprehend their harmony. But the land was coming at us too swiftly. In another moment the bottom of the barge grated on sand and it slid up onto the shore.

For the first time, the young priestess smiled. She got to her feet and offered me her hand.

"Be welcome to Avalon."

"Look, it is Rian's daughter—" the whispers ran. I could hear them clearly as I came into the hall.

"It cannot be. She is too tall, and Rian died only ten years ago."

"She must take after her father's people—"

"That will not endear her to the Lady," came the reply, with a little laugh.

I swallowed. It was hard to pretend I did not hear, harder still to walk with the proud carriage of a daughter of a noble house as my nurse had taught me, when I wanted to gawk at the hall of the priestesses like a peasant passing for the first time beneath the great gate of Camulodunum.

I could not help gaining some impressions of my surroundings. The hall was circular, like the houses the British used to build before the Romans came, but this one was built of stone. The outer wall was only the height of a tall man, but a circle of stone pillars supported the sloping roof, carved with spirals and triple knots, chevrons and wound about with twisted bands of colour. The beams of the roof did not quite meet, and through the open circle in the centre came a flood of light.

The round gallery was in shadow, but the priestesses who stood there were radiant. When Suona piloted the barge through the mists, she had worn a tunic of deerskin. Here, I was surrounded by a sea of priestess-blue. Some of the women wore their hair braided down their back like Suona, but others had it pinned up or loose upon their shoulders. The sunlight glistened on their bare heads, fair and dark and silver and bronze.

They seemed to be of every age and all sizes, alike only in the blue crescent painted between their brows—that, and something indefinable in their eyes. Upon reflection, I decided it was serenity, and wished I had it, for my tummy was doing flip-flops with anxiety.

Ignore them, I told myself sternly. You will be living with these people for the rest of your life. You will look at this hall so many times you will no longer see it. There is no need to stare now, or to be afraid.

Especially now, my thought continued as the women before me moved aside and I saw the High Priestess awaiting me. But the uncertain feeling returned as I felt the faerie dog stir in the bosom of my gown. I knew now that I should have left the puppy in the House of Maidens, but Eldri had been asleep, and it had seemed to me then that if she woke in strange surroundings she might be frightened and run off. I had not thought about what might happen if the dog woke during my formal welcome to Avalon.

I crossed my arms, pressing the warm furry body against my chest in an attempt at reassurance. Eldri was a magic dog—perhaps she could hear my silent plea to be still.

The murmur of women's voices faded to silence as the High Priestess lifted her hand. The women were arranging themselves in a circle, with the senior priestesses closest to their Lady, and the maidens, stifling their giggles, at the end. I thought there were five of them, but dared not look at them long enough to be sure.

All eyes were upon me. I forced myself to continue moving forwards.

Now I could see the Lady clearly. Ganeda was at this time just past her middle years, her body thickened by childbearing. Her hair, which had once been red, was dusted with grey like a dying coal. I came to a halt before her, wondering what kind of bow would be appropriate for the Lady of Avalon. My nurse had taught me the proper obeisance for ranks all the way up to Empress, unlikely though it seemed that any Caesar would ever come so far as Britannia again.

"I cannot go wrong if I give her the salute due an Imperial lady, I thought then. For truly, she is Empress in her own sphere.

As I straightened, I caught the old woman's eye, and it seemed to me that for a moment Ganeda's scowl was lightened by a gleam of amusement, but perhaps I had imagined it, for in the next moment the High Priestess stood stone-faced once more.

"So—" Ganeda spoke at last. "You have come to Avalon. Why?" The question was spat suddenly, like a spear in the dark.

I stared back at her, suddenly bereft of words.

"You have frightened the poor child," said one of the other priestesses, a motherly-looking woman with fair hair just beginning to fade to grey.

"It was a simple question, Cigfolla," said the High Priestess tartly, "that I am required to put to all who seek the sisterhood of Avalon."

"She means," said Cigfolla, "to ask if you have come here of your own will, and not by any man's coercion. Do you seek the training of a priestess, or only a time of teaching before you return to the world?" She smiled encouragingly.

I frowned, recognizing this as a legitimate question.

"It was by my father's will that I came here at this time, because of the Saxon raids," I said slowly, and saw something like satisfaction flicker in Ganeda's eyes. "But it has always been my destiny to return to Avalon," I continued.

If there had been any doubt, that journey through the mists would have dispelled it. This was the magic at the heart of things that I had always known must be there. At that moment, I had recognized my heritage.

"To walk the path of a priestess is my truest desire…"

Ganeda sighed. "Beware what you wish for, lest you find it has indeed come to pass… Still, you have said the words, and in the end it is the Goddess who will decide whether to accept you, not I. So I bid you welcome here."

There was a murmur of comment from the other priestesses at this grudging acceptance. I blinked back tears, understanding that my aunt did not want me here, and no doubt hoped that I would fail.

"But I will not faill I promised myself. I will study harder than any and become a great priestess—so famous they will remember my name for a thousand years!

Ganeda sighed. "Come."

With my heart thumping so hard I feared it would wake Eldri, I started towards her. Ganeda opened her arms. She is scarcely bigger than me! I thought in surprise as I moved into the older woman's reluctant embrace. The High Priestess had seemed so tall and stately before.

Then Ganeda gripped my shoulders and drew me hard against her breast. Eldri, crushed between us, woke with a sudden squirm and a yip of surprise. The priestess released me as if I had been a hot coal, and I felt the betraying colour flood into my face as the little dog poked her head up through the loose neck of my gown.

Someone stifled a giggle, but my own impulse to laugh died at Ganeda's frown.

"What is this? Do you think to mock us here?" There was an undertone in the voice of the priestess like distant thunder.

"She is a faerie dog!" I exclaimed, my eyes filling with tears. "The Lake people gave her to me!"

"A rare and wonderful creature," Cigfolla put in before Ganeda could speak again. "Such gifts are not bestowed lightly."

From the other priestesses came a murmur of agreement. For a moment longer that mental thunder echoed in the air, then, as it became clear that most of the priestesses were viewing me with sympathy, Ganeda clamped down on her anger and managed a tight smile.

"A fine gift indeed," she said thinly, "but the Hall of the Priestesses is not the place for her."

"I am sorry, my lady," I stammered, "I did not know where—"

"It makes no difference," Ganeda cut me off. "The community is waiting. Go, greet the rest of your sisters now."

With the puppy still peering out of my tunica, I went gratefully into Cigfolla's arms, breathing in the lavender that scented her gown. The woman who stood next to her had the look of a paler copy of Ganeda. In her arms she held a little daughter whose hair blazed like a fire.

"I have seen your face in vision, little one, and I am glad to make you welcome! I am your cousin Sian, and this is Dierna," she said softly. The little girl grinned toothily, as fair and fat a child as one might hope to find. Next to that flaming hair, her mother seemed even more pallid, as if she had given all her strength to her offspring. Or perhaps, I thought, it was growing up in the shadow of Ganeda that had sapped the strength from her.

"Hello, Dierna." I squeezed the plump hand.

"I'm two!" proclaimed the little girl.

"You certainly are!" I answered after a moment's confusion. Apparently that was the right answer, for Sian also smiled.

"You are very welcome to Avalon," she said then, bending to kiss me on the brow.

At least one member of my mother's family was glad to see me, I thought as I turned to the next woman in the line.

As I moved around the circle, some of the women had a pat for the puppy as well, and others a word of praise for my dead mother. The girls who were currently being trained on the holy isle received me with delighted awe, as if I had intended to play a trick on the High Priestess all along. Roud and Gwenna had the ruddy-fair colouring of the royal Celts, and Heron, the dark, narrow build of the people of the Lake. Aelia was almost as tall as I, though her hair was a lighter brown. Tuli, who surveyed them from the eminence of her approaching initiation, and her younger sister Wren, had fair hair, cut short like that of the others, and grey eyes. This was not the way that I had intended to impress them, but for good or ill, the little dog seemed to be a powerful talisman.

And then the formality of greeting was over, and the solemn row became a crowd of chattering women. But as the girls swept me away to the safety of the House of Maidens, I saw Ganeda watching me and realized that if my aunt had disliked me before, she would hate me now. I had grown up in a prince's court, and I knew that no ruler can afford to be mocked in her own hall.

2

"But where do people go when they visit Faerie? Does the spirit journey only, as in a dream, or does the body really move between the worlds?"

I was lying on my belly with the sunlight soaking into my back, and Wren's words seemed indeed to come from another world. A part of my mind was aware that I lay on the earth of the holy isle with the other maidens, listening to Suona's teaching, but my essence was floating in some strange in-between state from which it would be very easy to travel entirely away.

"You are here, are you not?" asked Suona tartly.

"Not all here—" whispered Aelia, giggling. As usual, she had claimed a place next to me.

"You passed through the mists to come to this place, otherwise you would have ended on Inis Witrin," the priestess continued. "It is easier to journey in the spirit only, but indeed, the body may also be translated, by those who are trained in the ancient wisdom…"

I rolled over and sat up. It was an unusually warm day in the springtime, and Suona had brought her charges to sit in the apple orchard. Light fell in a shifting shimmer through the young leaves, dappling the undyed linen gowns of the girls with gold. Wren was thinking over the answer, head cocked to one side like the bird from whom she took her name.

She could always be depended on to state the obvious, and as the youngest of the girls being trained on Avalon, she came in for a good deal of teasing. I had seen how it was when a new member was introduced to a pack of hounds, and had expected that they would gang up on me.

But even though Ganeda showed me no favour, I was a relation of the Lady of Avalon. Or perhaps it was my size, for at thirteen, Aelia and I were as tall as many of the grown priestesses, or because Wren was such an easy target, but it was the younger girl who got picked on and I who did my best to protect her.

"The Christians have a tale of a prophet called Elijah who went up to heaven in a chariot of fire," I said brightly. As part of our education we had been taken to a service on the other isle. "Was he an adept as well?"

Suona looked a little sour, and the other girls laughed. They had become accustomed to thinking of the Christians of Inis Witrin as foolish, if generally kindly, old men who mumbled prayers and had forgotten the ancient wisdom. And yet, if what I had heard of the holy Joseph who was their founder was true, they also had known something of the Mysteries at one time.

"Perhaps—" Suona said unwillingly. "I suppose that the laws of the Spirit World are like the laws of the world of Nature, and do not operate much differently in other lands than they do here. But it is in Avalon that the old ways are practised and the truth remembered. To most men, this place is a dream and a rumour of magic. You are very fortunate to be dwelling here!"

The giggles subsided and the girls, recognizing that their teacher's patience was thinning, arranged their skirts decorously around them and sat up straight once more.

"I remember how it felt to go through the mists the first time," said I, "for I came here only three years ago. It was as if my mind was being turned inside out, and then the world changed."

Only three years—and yet now it was the world outside that seemed a dream. Even my grief for my father, who had been slain fighting the Saxon raiders, had eased. My hostile great-aunt was now my closest relation, but the other priestesses were kind to me, and among the maidens, Aelia was my fast friend.

Suona smiled a little. "I suppose that is as good a description as any. But that is not the only way to move from world to world. To travel from the life of the tribes to Londinium is to the spirit as great a journey, and some of those who make it fell ill and pine like trees transplanted to unfriendly soil because their minds cannot bear the change."

I nodded. I had been to Londinium several times during my childhood, and though Prince Julius Coelius might have been Roman in name and taught his children to speak Latin as well as their mother tongue, I could still remember the shock as we passed through the gate of the city and the noise of the capital rose around us, like jumping into the sea.

"But do our bodies go to Faerie?" said Wren, who could stick to a topic like a terrier when her interest was aroused.

Seeing Suona's frown, I stepped in once more. "We know that our solid bodies are sitting here in the orchard below the Tor, but except that the weather is sometimes a little different, Avalon is not so unlike the outside world."

"There are other differences," said the priestess, "which you will learn about when you are more advanced in your training. Certain kinds of magic work more easily here, because we are at a crossing of the lines of power, and because of the structure of the "For… But for the most part what you say is true."

"But Faerie is not the same," put in Tuli. "Time there runs slower, and its folk are magic."

"That is so, and yet even there, a mortal who is willing to pay the price may dwell."

"What is the price?" asked I.

"To lose the gradual sweet changes of the seasons, and all the gathered wisdom of mortality."

"Is that so bad a thing?" asked Roud, her red hair glinting as her braid swung forwards. "If you go when you are young?"

"Would you like to have stayed forever nine years old?" Suona asked.

"When I was nine, I was a baby!" Roud said from the eminence of her fourteen years.

"Each age has its own delights and contentments," the priestess went on, "that you will miss if you go where time has no meaning, beyond the circles of the world."

"Of course I want to grow up," muttered Roud. "But who would want to be old?"

Everyone, thought I, if Suona was to be believed. It was hard, though, to credit it, when young eyes could gaze through the trees to the dazzle of sun on water, and young ears listen to the song of the lark as she lifted skyward, and a young body twitched with impatience to run with Eldri through the long grass, to dance, to be free.

"And that is why, for the most part, we make our journeys in the spirit only," Suona added. "And at the moment, yours are bouncing about like lambs in a meadow. If you will be so kind as to focus your minds for a few moments, we have work to do."

Alas, thought I, it was nothing so exciting as a journey to Faerie. The folk of Avalon, both priestesses and priests, did not spend all their time in ritual. Wool and flax must be spun, the gardens tended, buildings repaired. But at least some of the work involved the heart as well as the hands. Now, when the fruit was setting, was the time for working with the spirits of the trees.

"Sit still, then, and rest upon the earth—" As the priestess spoke, the girls settled obediently into the position for meditation, legs crossed like the Horned One when he blesses the animals.

I closed my eyes, my breathing slipping automatically into the slow, regular, rhythm of trance.

"See with your mind this orchard—the rough and smooth of the bark on the apple trees, the glitter of leaves as the wind moves them. And now, begin to see with other senses. Reach out and touch the spirit of the tree before you. Sense power radiating around it in a golden glow."

As the gentle voice continued, I found myself shifting into that passive state in which images formed almost as soon as I heard the words. Whether I was feeling or imagining I could not tell, but I knew I was touching the spirit of the tree.

"Let your own power flow outwards—thank the tree for the fruit it has given, and offer some of your energy to help it make more…'

I let out my breath with a sigh, feeling myself sinking deeper and deeper, even as the tree became a brighter glow. And soon I realized that what I was seeing was not a bright tree-shape, but the shining form of a woman, who held out her arms and smiled. For a moment I seemed to see another country beyond me, shimmering with a beauty beyond even that of Avalon. A responding joy pulsed through me in a wave that carried all awareness away.

When I came to myself, I was lying on my back in the grass. Suona was bending over me. Beyond the priestess I could see Aelia, watching with a pale face and worried eyes.

"You were to use some of your energy—" said Suona tartly, straightening. Beads of perspiration glistened on her brow, and I wondered just how hard it had been to bring my spirit back again. "A priestess must learn not only to give, but to control, her power!"

"I am sorry," I whispered. I felt not so much weak as transparent, or perhaps it was the substance of the world that had grown thinner, for I could still see a glow through the trunk of the apple tree.

Spring turned to summer, but Sian, the Lady's daughter, continued to ail. Often, during those long days, the care of her two daughters fell to me. I had become quite a story-teller in my quest to amuse them. Sometimes, one of the boys the Druids were training, like little Haggaia, would join us.

"In the old and olden days, before the Romans came, there was a king in the westlands whose people complained because his queen had given him no son," said I.

"Did she have a daughter?" asked Dierna, her bright head flaming in the afternoon light that slanted through the trees around the holy well. It was cool here at the end of summer, listening to the endless sweet song of the cold waters that welled from the sacred spring.

Her little sister Becca was asleep on a pile of blankets nearby with Eldri curled up beside her. The little dog had grown too big for me to carry in the front of my gown, but she was still no larger than a cat. Except for her black nose, she looked like a bundle of white fleece, sleeping there. Haggaia lay on his belly, half-supported on his elbows, his brown hair glinting in the sun.

"Not that I ever heard," I replied.

"That is why they complained, then," said Dierna decidedly. "It would have been all right if she had had a girl."

This afternoon, Sian was resting. She had never really recovered her strength after Becca's birth last winter, and none of Cigfolla's herbal remedies seemed to help her. I knew that the elder priestesses were worried, though they did not speak of it, from the gratitude with which they accepted my offers to take care of the two girls. But in truth I did not mind, for Becca was as bright and bouncy as a puppy, and Dierna like the little sister that I had always longed for.

"Do you want to hear what happened or not?" I asked her, amused in spite of myself.

Haggaia pulled a face, but it was no wonder that Dierna thought a daughter more important, living on the holy isle where the Druids were subject to the will of the Lady of Avalon. If there had been a Merlin, the authority might have divided more evenly, but the last had died shortly after I was born, and no one had inherited his powers.

"So what happened?" demanded the boy.

"The king loved his lady, and he told his counsellors to give them another year to have a child. And sure enough, before the year was over they had a little daughter—"

This was not the way the singer in my father's hall had told the story, but he was no Druid to memorize the old lore exactly, and had often said that a bard must adapt his material to the taste of his audience. Encouraged by Dierna's grin, I forged ahead.

"The queen had women to watch by her, but they fell asleep, and while they were all sleeping, the little princess disappeared! When the women woke up, they were terrified that the king would be angry. Now that same night the queen's hound-bitch had given birth to puppies, so the women took two of the puppies and killed them and smeared blood on the queen's mouth and set the bones beside her, and when the king came, they swore that the lady had eaten her own child!"

Now, not only were the children frowning, but Eldri had roused from her sleep and was staring at me with reproachful brown eyes, as if she understood every word.

"Do I have to please you, too?" I muttered, trying to think how I could save the story. "Don't cry, Dierna—it will come out all right, I promise you!"

"Did the queen die?" whispered Haggaia.

"Indeed she did not, for the king loved her and did not believe the accusations, though he could not prove them wrong. But they did punish her."

"They would have known the bones belonged to puppies, if she had been on Avalon," Dierna declared. "But I am sorry for the mother dog who lost her children," she added in apology to Eldri.

"She was not the only one!" said I, forging ahead quickly without worrying about the traditional form of the tale. "In the same country there was a farmer whose hound-bitch gave birth to one puppy every year that disappeared, just like the queen's child. So the farmer stayed up one night to see what was happening—" I paused dramatically.

"Was there a monster?" asked Dierna, her eyes round.

"There was indeed, and the farmer swung his axe and cut off the claw with which it had the puppy clutched tight, and then he started to chase the beast he could hear rushing away. He could not catch it, but when he came back to the barn what do you suppose he found?"

"The rest of the puppies?" Haggaia exclaimed.

Eldri yipped approval, and I made yet another change to the story. "Not only were the puppies there, but beside them was a lovely little girl wrapped in an embroidered cloth, and she looked just like the queen!"

"And they took her back to her mother then, didn't they, and they were all happy—" Dierna was bouncing with pleasure as she provided her own ending to the tale. "And the puppies too, and they all grew up together, just like you and Eldri!"

I nodded, laughing, as the little dog bounded to Dierna and leapt up against her, licking her face enthusiastically. The little girl fell backwards and child and dog rolled over and over across the grass. At the noise, Becca began to stir, and I went to pick her up.

"Is this how you fulfil your trust?"

I looked up in alarm, blinking at the dark shape that stood between me and the sun. I scrambled to my feet, holding the baby tightly, and realized it was Ganeda, her worn features set in a frown. But that was nothing new. The High Priestess usually frowned when she looked at her sister's child.

"Look at them—it is disgraceful! Dierna! Let go of that dirty beast now!"

I blinked at that, for Blossom's curly coat shone like washed fleece in the sun. The dog stopped first, and then the little girl, the laughter fading from her face as she looked up at her grandmother.

"Get up! You are the heir of Avalon! And you, boy—go back to the Men's Side. You have no business here!"

I lifted one eyebrow. Dierna came of the priestly line, to be sure, but so did I. And high priestesses, like Roman emperors, were chosen by their followers on the basis of merit, not bloodlines. She wants to rule Avalon even after she herself passes on, I thought then, and if her daughter dies she will lay the burden on this child…

"Yes, grandmama," said Dierna, getting to her feet and brushing the leaves from her gown. Haggaia was already edging away, hoping to make his escape before worse befell.

For a moment Eldri glared at the High Priestess, then she trotted across the grass and very deliberately urinated below a tree. I bit my lip to keep from laughing as Ganeda turned back to her.

"It is time for Sian to nurse the baby. I will take the children now."

With difficulty, I detached Becca's tiny fingers from the neck of my gown and handed her to the old woman. Ganeda strode up the hill, and Dierna, after casting one regretful look over her shoulder, followed her. As I watched them go, a cold nose poked my leg. I picked up the little dog and cuddled her.

"I am sorry you lost your playmate," I said softly, but in truth, it was Dierna that I pitied most, and for the child there was nothing that I could do.

From time to time some pilgrim to Avalon would bring news of the world beyond the mists. The imperium Galliarum established by Postumus in the year I had come to Avalon now included Hispania as well as Gallia and Britannia, and there did not seem to be much that the Emperor Gallienus, plagued by a series of pretenders in the other sectors of his empire, could do to reassert his authority. It was Postumus, not Rome, who had appointed Octavius Sabinus to govern Lower Britannia. Rumour had it that he was rebuilding some of the fortresses that had fallen into disarray when the troops that manned them had been sent to bolster waning Roman strength on the continent, but there was not much urgency in the matter, for the North had been quiet for some while.

Indeed, though each year it seemed that Gallia suffered the incursion of some new breed of barbarian, Britannia lay lapped in a charmed peace, as if the mists had rolled outwards to separate it from the world. The harvests were good, and the northern tribes remained peacefully on their own side of the Wall. If the western regions of the Roman Empire were to be forever sundered from the remainder, in Britannia, at least, no one seemed disposed to mourn.

Of these events, only rumours came to Avalon. Here, the passing of time was marked by the great festivals that honoured the turning of the seasons, celebrated year after year in an eternal and unvarying symmetry. But each winter Ganeda seemed to grow more grey and bent, and the girls who slept in the House of Maidens blossomed more brightly with the approach of womanhood every spring.

One morning just after the equinox, I was awakened by a dull ache in my belly. When I got up and pulled off my sleeping robe, I discovered the bright stain of my first moonblood on the skirt of the nightgown.

My first response was a great relief and satisfaction, for Heron and Roud had already made their passage, though they were even younger than I. But they were small and sleek and rounded, while my growth had all gone into my long limbs. Cigfolla had told me not to fret, that the plump girls always matured first, and put on even more flesh in their middle years.

"When you pass thirty and still have a waistline you will be grateful for your lean build," the older woman had told me. "You will see."

But I was now the tallest girl in the House of Maidens, and if my breasts had not begun to grow, I would have wondered if I ought to have been living with the boys the Druids were training on the other side of the hill instead of with the priestesses. Even Aelia, who was very like me in build, had begun her courses a year ago.

I understood what must be done—Heron and the others had been only too eager to explain. I knew that I was blushing, but I managed to keep my voice matter-of-fact when I went to ask old Ciela for the absorbent moss and the lengths of linen that had been washed to downy softness that I would need to wrap it in.

I bore the congratulations of the other women as well as I could, wondering all the while how long Ganeda would make me wait for my ritual. The body's maturing was only an outwards marker. The inner transformation from child to maiden would be confirmed by my rite of passage.

They came for me at the still hour just past midnight, when only those who kept vigil for the Goddess should have been waking. I had been dreaming of running water. As the hood came down over my head it became a nightmare of drowning. For a few panicked moments I struggled against the hand that had clamped over my mouth, then returning awareness identified the scent of the lavender that the priestesses stored with their robes, and I understood what was happening.

Last year, it had been Aelia who had been missing from her bed when the horn call awakened us to salute the rising sun, and then, Heron. They had been returned, pale with fatigue and smug with secrets, for the celebration that evening, and neither by threats nor by urging could they be compelled to tell the uninitiated girls what had occurred.

But beyond reinforcing a sense of superiority that had seemed to me to be excessive already, whatever had happened to them seemed to have done them no harm. I forced my limbs to relax. I sensed the beginning of a growl from Eldri, who always slept in the curve of my arm, and pressed the little dog back into the bedclothes, stroking the silky fur until the tension left her small frame.

I wish you could go with me too, I thought, but I must do this alone… Then I sat up and allowed my invisible abductors to help me out of the bed, wrap a warm cloak around me, and lead me away.

Gravel crunched beneath my feet, and I knew they were taking the path beside the Lake. I smelled the dank scent of marsh and heard the wind whisper in the reedbeds, and wondered, for a moment, whether they meant to take me across the water to one of the other isles.

Several times my escort reversed direction, spinning me about until my head whirled and only a firm grip on my elbow kept me from falling. Instinctively I lifted a hand to the hood, and someone else prevented me from lifting it.

"Do not attempt to see," came a harsh whisper in my ear. "You have set your feet upon the path to a future you cannot know. You must walk this way without looking back to your childhood, trusting the wisdom of those who have gone before to show you the way. Do you understand?"

I nodded, accepting the ritual necessity, but I had always had an excellent sense of direction, and as my dizziness passed I could feel the power of the Tor to my right, like a pillar of fire.

Then we were climbing, and my skin pebbled as it was touched by chill, moist air. I heard the musical gurgling of water, and the little procession came to a halt as someone opened a gate. I was hearing the stream that overflowed from the Blood Spring at the foot of the Tor, I thought then. To know where I was made me feel a little less vulnerable. I tried to convince myself that I was trembling because of the cold.

Suddenly, through the coarse weave of the hood I glimpsed the red gleam of torches. The hood was plucked off, and I realized that I had been right, for we were standing before the gate to the enclosure around the well. But everything looked strange. Veiled women surrounded me, anonymous in the flickering light. The smallest of them held my arm. They took my cloak then, and the thin sleeping robe, leaving me naked before them, shivering in the chill air.

"Naked you came into the world," said the same harsh voice that had spoken before. "Naked you must make your passage into your new life."

The one who held me pulled me back. I guessed it was Heron, from her size. It must be the responsibility of the most recent initiate to guide the next one. The other women were forming into a line between me and the gate, legs spread wide.

"Through this passage you came into the world. Pass through the birthing tunnel and be reborn—"

"You must crawl between their legs to the gate," hissed Heron, pushing me down.

"Through this tunnel you are born into the circle of women. Through this passage you will enter a new world."

Biting my lip as the gravel dug into my kneecaps, I crawled forward. I felt the rough weave of woollen cloaks and the softness of linen gowns brush my back. As I passed between the priestesses' thighs, smooth skin slid past my own and I smelled the musk of their womanhood, dizzying as incense. It was a shock to emerge from the warmth of that tunnel of flesh into the cool air of the garden beyond.

The gate was open. My guide led me through it and the other women followed, spreading out to either side. The last one to enter closed the gate behind me. Torchlight glittered red on the still waters of the pool.

A tall form stepped forward, blocking my view of the others. The shape was that of Cigfolla, but she seemed taller, and her voice had the unearthly resonance of ritual.

"You have come into the temple of the Great Goddess. Know that She wears as many forms as womankind, and yet She is singular and supreme. She is eternal and unchanging, and yet she shows Herself to us in a different guise with each season. She is Maiden, forever untouched and pure. She is Mother, the Source of All. And She is ancient Wisdom that endures beyond the grave. Eilan, daughter of Rian, are you willing to accept Her in all Her guises?"

I licked lips that were suddenly dry, but I was pleased to hear my answer coming steadily and clear.

"I am…"

The priestess raised her arms in invocation.

"Lady, we come here to welcome Eilan daughter of Rian into our circle, and to instruct her in the mysteries of womanhood. Holy One, hear us now! May our words express Thy will as our bodies show the form of Thy divinity, for we eat and drink and breathe and love in Thee…'

"Be it so—" came a murmur of assent from around the circle, and I felt myself begin to relax.

Heron draped the cloak around my shoulders again and pushed me forwards. Three chairs had been set on the other side of the well. The other priestesses had unveiled, but the three who were enthroned were still swathed in folds of gossamer linen, white, and black, and in the middle, red. Aelia was sitting across the circle; as she caught my eye she smiled.

"Daughter of the Goddess, you have left childhood behind," said Heron, with the careful intonation of one repeating newly-learned lines. "Learn now what the seasons of your life shall be."

I knelt before the priestess who wore the white veil. For a moment there was silence. Then the sheer fabric trembled as its wearer laughed. The sound came sweet and silvery as a trill of bells, and I shivered, understanding that something more than a human priestess was here.

"I am the flower that blooms on the bough," said the Maiden.

The voice was light, sweet with promise, as familiar to me as my own, even though I was certain I had never heard it before. To hear it was like listening to the song of my soul, and I knew that this was the Goddess indeed.

"I am the crescent that crowns the sky
I am the sunlight that glitters on the wave
and the breeze that bends the new grass.
No man has ever possessed Me,
and yet I am the end of all desire.
Huntress and Holy Wisdom am I,
Spirit of Inspiration, and Lady of Flowers.
Look into the water and you will see
My face mirrored there, for you belong to Me …"

I closed my eyes, overwhelmed by the image of the Lake, half-veiled by a silver mist of rain. Then the clouds parted. Standing on the shore was a young man whose hair shone like the beams of the sun, and nearby, I saw myself, my hair grown long, so I knew that this was some years in the future. I was moving towards him, but as I reached out to touch his hand the scene changed. Now I was seeing the light of a bonfire upon a Beltane tree crowned with flowers. Men and maidens danced wildly around it, and among them I saw the same young man, his eyes alight with exaltation as a veiled figure I knew to be myself was led forwards by priestesses crowned with flowers. Then he was sweeping me into his arms.

Now we were within the sacred bower. He pulled off the maiden's veil and I saw my own face, alight with joy. I glimpsed the crescent moon through the new leaves, and then the scene dissolved in a shower of stars, and I was myself again, looking up at the Mystery hidden by the white veil.

"I hear you," I whispered in a shaking voice. "I will serve you."

"Will you swear now to give up your maidenhead only to the man whom I shall choose for you, in the holy rites of Avalon?"

I stared, wondering if this was a test, for surely the Lady had just shown me the man I was destined to love. But the voice had lost that unearthly sweetness, and I thought that perhaps the Goddess had departed again. Still, I had known that this oath was required of all who served as priestesses on Avalon.

"I swear," I said gladly, for even in that glimpse of vision my soul had begun to yearn for the young man I had seen.

"It is well," said the Maiden, "but there is yet Another whom you must hear—" I sat back, turning a little towards the second figure, whose crimson veil glowed with the torches' fire.

"I am the fruit that swells on the branches. I am the full moon that rules the sky…" This voice was all golden, powerful as the purr of some great cat, honey-sweet, and comforting as newly-baked bread.

"I am the sun in her splendour
and the warm wind that ripens the grain.
I give myself in my own times and seasons,
and bring forth abundance.
I am Mistress and Mother, I give birth and I devour.
I am the lover and the beloved,
and you will one day belong to Me…"

As I listened to this voice, I understood that this too was the Goddess, and bowed my head respectfully. And in that gesture of acceptance, vision came once more upon me.

I was on a Roman trading boat, wallowing along under full sail. Behind me lay the silver glitter of the sea, but the boat was moving into the mouth of a mighty river that had carved many branching channels through a flat coastal plain. Beside me stood the man who had courted me, his eyes fixed on the horizon. The scene changed: I was heavy with child, and then I was holding the babe at my breast, a large and healthy boy with a shock of fair hair. The shock of sensation as the infant bit down on my nipple sent me back into my body again.

"I hear you," I whispered, "and when my season comes, I will serve you."

"You will indeed," the Lady replied, "but there is yet Another whom you must hear—"

I shivered as the dark draperies that swathed the third figure stirred.

"I am the nut that clings to the leafless bough," came a whisper like the rubbing of bare branches in the winter wind.

"I am the waning moon whose sickle harvests the stars
I am the setting sun
and the cool wind that heralds the darkness.
I am ripe with years and with wisdom;
I see all the secrets beyond the Veil.
I am Hag and Harvest Queen, Witch and Wisewoman,
and you will one day belong to Me…"

That whisper was a wind that whirled my awareness outwards once more. I saw myself older, my garments rent and my cheeks wet with tears, watching a funeral fire. For a moment the flames parted and I glimpsed the fair-haired man. At the pain of that recognition, the scene changed to a hall faced with marble and gold in which I stood, wearing a diadem and a purple robe.

But before I could wonder what I was doing there, it shifted once more, and I saw myself draped in black, walking the sandy shore beside the sea. I turned from the merciless glitter of sun on water to a landscape of bare rock with the severe, stripped beauty of a skull. It filled me with fear, and yet I knew it was there that I must go.

And at that, a longing awakened within me for the cool mists and green hills of my own country, and I came to myself once more, sitting upon the grass beside the sacred well.

"You are the Goddess—" I breathed, "and I will serve You. Only let me end my life here, in Avalon…"

"Do you ask for compassion?" asked the black-veiled figure. "I have none—only necessity. You cannot escape me, for I am your destiny."

I sat back, shivering, but mercifully, the Wisewoman did not speak again.

I had not been aware of the passage of time, but overhead the sky was growing pale, and I could feel in the air the moist chill that heralds the dawn.

"You have faced the Goddess," said Cigfolla, "and She has accepted your vows. Purified, you shall sit your vigil, and when the day is done, return to the community to be honoured in a celebration. Your new life begins with the rising of the sun."

Heron helped me to get up, and all the women moved towards the pool below the sacred spring. As the sky lightened, they surrounded it in a protective circle. Heron pulled off my cloak, and as I stood shivering, began to pull off her own robe as well. The other maidens and the younger priestesses were doing the same, and I felt a moment's satisfaction to see that I was not the only one whose skin was pebbling in bumps like a plucked fowl.

I realized that for some time now birds had been singing, their triumphant chorus calling up the sun from the apple trees. Mist still lay along the ground and hung in the branches, but overhead it was thinning, and the failing torches burned pale in the brightening air. Moment by moment the world was becoming more visible, as if it were only now coming into manifestation. Slowly, the smooth slope of the Tor emerged from mists suffused with rosy light.

It grew brighter. Heron took my arm and drew me down into the pool. The other young women followed, sea-shells in their hands. I gasped as the cold water touched my skin, and again as the fiery orb of the sun lifted suddenly above the horizon, refracting from each drop of mist and every ripple in the water in a blaze of rosy light. I lifted my arms in adoration, and saw my own pale flesh grow radiant.

Heron dipped up water and poured it over me, but the fire within me welcomed its icy flame.

"By the water that is the Lady's blood may you be cleansed," came the murmur of voices as the other maidens did the same. "Now let the water bear away all soil and stains. Let all that hid your true self be dissolved away. Be still, and let the water caress your body, as from the water that is the Womb of the Goddess you are reborn."

I sank down into the water, and the locks of my unbound hair floated upon the surface, shining like the rays of the sun. A part of my mind knew that the water was cold, but my entire body was tingling as if I bathed in light; I could feel each particle of my flesh being transformed.

For a timeless moment I floated in the water. Then soft hands were drawing me upwards, and I emerged into the full light of day.

"Now arise, Eilan, clean and shining, revealed in all your beauty. Arise and take your place among us, Maiden of Avalon!"

3

It was the end of summer and I was trimming the hazel hedge when something stung my calf. I jumped and turned, striking out instinctively with the branch I had just cut.

"Ah ha!" Dierna danced backwards, waving the twigs she had snatched from the pile on the path. "Got you!"

At eight, Dierna's red head blazed like a torch. Two-year-old Becca toddled behind her. I reached out to steady the little one as Dierna dashed away once more, then ran after her, swishing my own branch menacingly, though I suppose I rather spoiled the effect by laughing.

"Are you watching Becca today?" I asked when all three of us had collapsed, breathless, on the grass.

"I suppose so," answered the little girl. "She follows me everywhere—"

I nodded. I had heard the older priestesses talking, and knew that Sian still tired easily. It was inevitable that Dierna should end up with much of the responsibility for her little sister.

Sian did not seem to be in pain, but her strength waned with each month, and even when the moon grew full once more, it did not return. Ganeda said nothing, but there were new lines in her face. I found myself pitying the older woman, but I knew I was the last person from whom my aunt would accept sympathy.

Long before I felt ready to get up again, Dierna was bouncing to her feet to run after Becca, whose sturdy legs were already carrying her down the path.

"There are ducklings in the reed-beds!" exclaimed Dierna. "Come with us and see!"

"I wish I could," I told her, "but I have promised to finish this hedge before dinner."

"You have to work all the time!" complained Dierna. She turned, saw Becca disappearing around a corner, and dashed after her.

For a moment I stood watching as the red head caught up with the brown and the two continued down the path towards the Lake, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Then I sighed and turned back to my work once more.

When I was a little child, I had envied my older half-brothers their training as warriors. In those days, to whack away with a broken branch at some laughing guardsman had been my favourite game. They had told me tales of Boudicca, whose armies once made the Romans fear, and called me their warrior princess. But my brothers had smiled with male superiority and assured me that the disciplines they were undergoing were far too difficult for a mere girl.

Sometimes, when I remembered those days, I would wonder whether my brothers could have endured the education I was receiving now. In the three years since the ceremony that welcomed me to womanhood the training of a priestess had ruled my days. True, I still shared some work and classes with the younger girls and the maidens who had been sent to Avalon to learn something of the old ways before going home to be married. But now I also had other training, and additional duties.

The girls who were meant to be priestesses sat with the youths being trained by the Druids to memorize endless lists of names and master the elaborate symbols and correspondences by which meaning could be enriched, or disguised. We ran races around the holy isle, for it was held that a vigorous body was necessary to support a strong mind. We were trained in correct use of the voice, and practised as a choir for the ceremonies. And with the initiated priestesses, we maidens took our turns to tend the flame on the altar that was the hearth of Avalon.

To keep watch in the temple and feed the little fire was not physically demanding. But although meditation was encouraged during the vigil, sleep was forbidden. I loved to sit alone in the round thatched hut on the Maidens' Isle, watching the leaping flame, but now, in the lazy warmth of afternoon, my need for sleep was beginning to catch up with me. I found myself swaying, and stared stupidly at the hazel twig in my hand.

Better stop before I cut off one of my fingers! I thought, blinking, and bent to set the pruning knife on the ground. The hedge was an old one, and before me, twisted branches formed a natural backrest. It felt natural to curl into it, and in another moment my eyes had closed.

My lips moved soundlessly. Shelter me for a little while, hazel sister, and I will finish trimming your hair…

I never knew whether it was some sound from below or a whisper from the hazel hedge itself that woke me. For a moment, still dazed with sleep, I could not think why my heart was thudding with alarm.

The shadows had lengthened just a little, and the afternoon was warm and still. I glimpsed Dierna's red head near the reedbeds farther along the shore—the girls must be watching the ducklings. Then a closer movement caught my eye. Becca was crawling along the trunk of the old oak tree that had fallen half into the water during the last storm.

I leapt to my feet. "Becca! Stop!"

For a moment I thought the little girl had heard me, but Becca's pause was only to grab at something in the Lake. Then she was on her way again.

"Becca, stop! Hold on!" I cried as I galloped down the hill. Dierna was standing up now, but the shoreline curved inward here and she was too far away. I saved the rest of my breath for running as I saw the toddler stand up, reach towards the water with a glad cry, and fall in.

I felt a flicker of wonder that time, which a few moments before had seemed to drag so endlessly, should now be passing in such a swift whirl. Becca had disappeared beneath the surface. Grass and shrubs flashed past, and then I was thrashing through the shallows, reaching out as the little girl came up, flailing, and snatching her into my arms.

Becca gave one hiccup, coughed up water, and then began to scream.

In moments, it seemed, we were surrounded by priestesses. I relinquished the child to the little dark Lake-woman who had been brought to Avalon to be her nurse and sighed with relief as the sound of Becca's cries faded away. But in the next moment I realized that someone was still yelling.

Dierna was crouched on the ground, whimpering as Ganeda berated her with a violence all the more shocking because her body was as rigid as stone. Only her hair, escaping from its coiled braids, jerked and trembled. I stared, half-expecting it to burst into flame.

"Do you understand me? Your sister could have drowned! And with your poor mother lying ill—do you want to kill her too, by destroying her child?"

She is worried about Sian, I told myself, but even the other priestesses looked shocked at the venom in Ganeda's tone.

Dierna shook her head, grinding her cheek into the earth in an agony of negation. Beneath the freckles her face was as white as bone.

Just as fear had moved me to save Becca, compassion compelled me into action now. A swift step brought me to Dierna's side. I bent, cradling the girl in my arms as if the assault from which I strove to protect her was physical.

"She meant no harm! She was playing—it was too much responsibility for so young a child!" I looked up at the High Priestess, beginning to tremble myself as that furious gaze fixed on me instead. I used to wonder if my dead mother had resembled her sister—I hoped that Rian had never looked the way Ganeda did now.

"She must learn discipline! She is of the sacred line of Avalon!" Ganeda exclaimed.

So am I, Aunt—so am I! I thought, but my own mouth was going dry with fear. Once I hoped that you would love me, but I don't think you even know how!

"Get away from her, before I forget to be grateful to you for saving the little one. You cannot stand between Dierna and her punishment!"

Dierna gasped and clutched at my waist. I tightened my own grip, staring up at the older woman defiantly.

"She is only eight years old! If you frighten her to death how can she understand?"

"And you are sixteen!" hissed Ganeda. "Do you think that gives you the wisdom of the Lady of Avalon? You should have stayed with your father in the Roman lands!"

I shook my head. I belonged here! But Ganeda chose to take it as submission.

"Gwenlis, take the child away!"

One of the younger priestesses stepped forwards, eyeing the High Priestess uncertainly. For a moment I resisted, then it occurred to me that the sooner Dierna was out of earshot of her grandmother's wrath, the better it would be. I gave the girl a quick hug, and thrust her into Gwenlis's arms.

"And lock her into the storage shed!" Ganeda went on.

"No!" I exclaimed, getting to my feet again. "She will be afraid!"

"It is you who should be afraid! Do not flout my will lest I lock you up as well!"

I smiled, for I had already been through more taxing ordeals in my training.

Ganeda took a furious step towards me. "Don't think I haven't noticed how you have been spoiling the child, interfering with my discipline, plotting to steal her affection away from me!"

"I hardly need to do that! You will earn her hatred yourself if you treat her this way!"

"You will have nothing to do with Dierna in the future, do you understand me? Or with Becca either!" Ganeda's anger had turned suddenly cold, and for the first time I felt fear. "Hear me all of you, and bear witness—" the High Priestess turned to fix the others with that icy gaze. "This is the will of the Lady of Avalon!"

Even before Ganeda finished speaking, I had decided to defy her. But a stern order sent me back up the hill to finish trimming the hedge, and it was not until the still hour just after dusk had fallen, when the folk of Avalon gathered for their evening meal, that I was able to open the door to the storage shed unobserved.

Swiftly I slipped inside and took the shivering child in my arms.

"Eilan?" The little girl clutched at me, sniffling. "It's cold here, and dark, and I think there are rats…"

"Well, then, you must talk to the Rat Spirit and ask her to keep them away," I said bracingly.

Dierna shuddered and shook her head.

"Don't you know how? We will do it together, then, and promise her some food for her clan—"

"Nobody has brought me any food," whispered the girl. "I'm hungry."

I was glad that the darkness hid my frown. "Are you? Well, perhaps I can bring you some of my dinner, and an offering for the Rat Spirit too. We will put it outside, and ask her to take her people out there…"

With a sigh of relief I felt the child begin to relax in my arms, and started the familiar litany of counted breathing and relaxation that would put us in touch with the Otherworld.

I had forgotten that after dinner came the story-telling. The bread and cheese made an awkward lump in the corner of my shawl, but even when I went out to the privies there had been too many people around for me to get away. Certainly I would be missed if I tried to leave now, and my absence would attract just the sort of notice I wished to avoid.

The long hall was lit by torches, and a fire blazed on the hearth, for even in early autumn the nights were chill. But I could not help imagining how Dierna must be feeling, all alone in the cold dark.

On the first day of the week the stories told in the hall of Avalon were about the gods. By now, I had heard most of them, but as I forced my attention back to the Druid who was speaking, I realized that I had not encountered this one before.

"Our most ancient wisdom teaches that 'All the gods are one God, and all the goddesses one Goddess, and there is one Initiator.' But what does that mean? The Romans say that all the gods are the same, and it is only that different peoples call them by different names. Thus they say that Cocidius and Belatucadros are the same as their Mars, and call Brigantia and Sulis by the name of their goddess Minerva.

"It is true that these deities care for many of the same things. But we teach that they are like pieces of Roman glass set one behind the other. In that place where all gods are One, all colours are contained in the pure light of heaven. But when that white light passes through one piece of glass it shows one colour, and a second where it strikes another, and only where the glass overlaps do we see a third tone that partakes of both of them.

"It is the same in this world, where the gods show a multitude of faces to humankind. To the untutored eye those colours may all seem much the same, but vision is often a matter of what one has learned how to see…"

I blinked, wondering what else might be explained by this philosophy. I had had to learn how to recognize the aura that surrounded each living thing, and to read the signs of coming weather in the clouds. I was not as good yet at reading faces, although my aunt's scowl needed little interpretation. Surreptitiously I made sure the food in my shawl had not slipped out, wishing I could teach Dierna how to see through the darkness. Still, tonight the moon was almost full, and the woven wicker walls of the storeshed should let in some light.

"And there are some gods for whom the Romans have no analogue at all. They say that it is Mercurius of the crossroads who guides the traveller. But we have a goddess who watches over the roads of the world, and it is our belief that she was here even before the Britons came into this land. We call her Elen of the Ways."

I sat up, for that was very close to the name they called me here—Eilan…

"In body, she is tall and strong," the bard-priest continued, "and it is said that she loves good hounds, and the elder tree. All roads that men travel are under her protection, both the paths that cross the land and the ways of the sea. Traders pray to her for protection, and where she passes the crops grow tall.

"Perhaps it was she who first showed our ancestors the way across the sea to this island, and certainly she is the one who teaches us how to safely cross the marshes that surround Avalon, for above all she loves those places where the waters mingle with the land. We call upon her as well when we seek to go between the worlds, for she is also Mistress of the Hidden Ways…"

I remembered how reality had shifted around me when we passed through the mists to Avalon. Surely that was one of the roads that Elen ruled. Dizzied by memory, I could almost understand how it had been done. Then the moment passed, and I realized that the Druid had finished tuning his little lap harp and was about to sing.

"Oh Lady of the moonpath bright,
and sea-lanes laid by sun's fair rays,
the dragon-paths from height to height,
and all the holy hidden ways,
Oh Lady Elen of the Ways…"

I blinked as the flame of the torch before me separated suddenly and rayed out in spokes of light. For a moment I was simultaneously aware of their infinite potentiality and the eternal balance of their radiant centre, and understood that there was a place where all the roads were One. But the bard was still singing—

"From heath and hill to marsh and fen
Thy dogs shall guide us all our days;
Through crooked paths laid down by men
Sweet Lady show us all the ways,
Oh Lady Elen of the Ways…"

I thought of Eldri, and smiled at the image of the fluffy white dog trying to tug some poor confused soul up a mountain. But I knew how many times the little dog's unquestioning devotion had steadied me when Lady Ganeda swore I would never be worthy of becoming a priestess of Avalon. Could this new goddess show me the way to my destiny?

"When vision fades and courage fails
May thy light lead us from the maze;
When neither strength nor sense avails,
Let thy love teach the heart new ways,
Oh Lady Elen of the Ways…"

The harp-notes died away in a sweet ripple of sound. People began to stir from the trance into which the music, or the good dinner, had sent them. Now, in the confusion as the group broke up to prepare for bed, was the time to take Dierna her food.

Carefully I circled around behind the privies, pulling the other end of my shawl up to hide my pale face from the moonlight. The moon was not yet high, and the storage shed stood in shadow. I let the shawl drop with a sigh of relief, but as I touched the door my belly tensed once more, for it swung freely beneath my hand.

Surely, I thought desperately, I had secured the latch when I crept away before! I slipped inside, calling softly, but beyond a faint scratching from behind the baskets of nuts, there was no sound, and no sign of Dierna apart from my sash. Dierna was right, one part of my mind informed me. There are rats in here…

The other part was speculating frantically. Perhaps Ganeda had taken pity on the child and released her, or one of the other priestesses might have stepped in. But I knew that the High Priestess never modified her judgments, and none of the others had the courage to gainsay her. When I am grown, I thought grimly, "I will…

This time I took care to latch the door behind me. Then, forcing myself not to run, I sought the snug little house where the smaller children slept, asking, as an excuse, whether they were playing with Eldri there. But neither the dog nor Dierna were to be seen, and the children were unusually quiet, as if the thought of her punishment oppressed them all.

I bade them a hasty good night and returned to the House of Maidens. I should give the alarm now, but I trembled at the thought of the beating Dierna would receive for running away. Eldri jumped up, whining, as she sensed my anxiety, and I hushed her. Then I stilled. Eldri was no scent-hound, but she had proven her intelligence. Perhaps there was another way.

To wait, while the other girls put on their nightrobes and brushed out their hair, made a final visit to the privies and blew out the lamps and turned and coughed until sleep took them, was an agony. But after an eternity had passed, all was still. And still I waited, until I felt my own eyelids growing heavy. Then I slid out of bed, and hiding my shoes beneath my shawl, tip-toed towards the door.

"What is it?"

I stifled a gasp at Aelia's sleepy question.

"Eldri has to go out again," I whispered, pointing to the little dog, who unless told to stay put, was always half a step behind me. "Go back to sleep."

But instead, Aelia sat up, rubbing her eyes and staring. "Why are you carrying your shoes?" she whispered. "And your heavy shawl? Are you doing something that will get you into trouble?"

For a moment I could say nothing. Then it came to me that perhaps I had better let someone know where I had gone, and I could trust Aelia not to betray me.

"It's Dierna who's in trouble—" Swiftly I gave her a whispered account of what had occurred. "I think Eldri can find her," I finished. "At least I have to try!"

"Oh Eilan, be careful!" Aelia breathed when I had finished. "I will worry every moment until you return!" She reached out to me and I bent to give her a quick hug. Then she sighed and subsided back into her pillow, and with my heart thumping so hard I thought it should wake them all, I let myself out of the door.

By now the moon was fully risen, limning the hall and outbuildings in harsh black and white. I would have to be swift, for there was little cover. I darted from shadow to shadow, Eldri trotting behind me, until I reached the storeshed once more.

Breathing hard, I took up the sash and held it under Eldri's nose.

"This is Dierna's—Dierna—you know her! Find Dierna, Eldri, find her now!"

For a moment the dog sniffed at the cloth. Then she whined and turned towards the door. I held it open, then slipped out myself, easing it shut behind me as Eldri began to move purposefully across the yard.

The dog's certainty lifted my spirits. As we passed the last of the buildings, I let out a breath I had not known I was holding, and as I breathed in again, felt a hint of the same tingling tickle across my skin that I had noticed sometimes when the priestesses were working with power. I hesitated, peering around me. It was not yet time for the full-moon ritual, nor was it one of the great festivals. Perhaps the Druids were engaged in some working; I did not know their ceremonies. But surely something was going on, for the night was full of magic. With luck, no one would have time to realize I had gone.

Nose to the ground, Eldri moved around the base of the Tor. Dierna must be heading towards the higher ground to the east—at this season it was dry enough to cross into the pasturelands beyond. But though the sky above the Tor was clear, beyond it mist lay heavy on land and water alike, so that Avalon seemed to rise from a sea of cloud.

In a ground-fog it was easy to lose one's bearings, and even if Dierna avoided the Lake, there were bogs and hollows aplenty that could be more treacherous still. Had I not had the dog to guide me, I would never have dared this path in darkness, and even so, I watched my footing, for the dog could dance easily over ground that beneath my weight would give way.

Now the first wisps of mist were curling across the path. Was it even possible to pass beyond them, I wondered, without the spell? And if I did so, would I find myself forever banished to the outside world?

"Elen of the Ways," I whispered, "show me my path!" I took another step and a shift in the wind brought the mist billowing around me, catching the light so that I was surrounded by moonglow.

I called to the dog, for I could see nothing but nebulous light, and waited, shivering, until Eldri's pale shape appeared as if it had precipitated from the mist. I tied one end of Dierna's sash to the dog's collar, but in this strange state, in which air and water, light and dark were intermingled, as the druids said all elements had been joined at the beginning of the world, there was no sense of progress. There was only the tingling touch of power, that grew stronger as we went on.

The mist continued to brighten, and then suddenly thinned. I stopped short, staring. Ahead, a pale light that came neither from sun nor moon showed me trees whose leaves were edged with brightness, and meadows starred with flowers. Just where I stood the path branched into three. The left-hand path curved around and disappeared back into the darkness. The narrow path on the right twisted its way over a small hill, and it seemed to me that when I turned my head in that direction, I could hear the sweet ringing of a bell.

But the middle way was broad and bright and fair, and it was towards that path that Eldri was pulling me.

Fear was replaced by a great wonder. Before me rose a venerable oak tree. Gazing up at its mighty branches, I knew that I had passed beyond the borders of Avalon, or any land inhabited by men, for surely the Druids would have made an enclosure around such a tree as this and hung offerings upon its branches. I touched the trunk, so wide that three people together would scarcely be able to embrace it, and felt a thrumming in the wood, as if the life of the tree pulsed beneath my hand.

"My greetings to you, Father Oak. Will you extend your protection to me while I walk in this realm?" I whispered, bowing, and shivered as the leaves whispered in answer.

I took a careful breath, focusing my senses as I had been trained to do. In my first days on Avalon everything had seemed much more alive than it did in the outside world. Now that sense was intensified a hundredfold, and I understood that as the moon was to the sun, so was the magic of Avalon to this realm which was its source and its original.

The sash had come loose from Eldri's collar, but it no longer mattered. The little dog was a glimmering shape that danced ahead of me, and white flowerets starred the track where she had passed. Did I see the dog this way because we were in Faerie, I wondered, or was it only in Faerie that her true nature was revealed?

The path led to a copse of hazel, like those that I had been trimming—only this morning—when Becca almost drowned. With a pang I realized that I had nearly forgotten why I had come here. Time ran differently in Faerie, I had heard, and it was easy to lose one's memory as well as one's way.

But these hazels had never known the touch of iron. And yet, though untrimmed they might be, surely some mind had guided their luxuriance into this interlace of supple branches in which there was only one opening, through which Eldri had disappeared. For a moment I hesitated, but if I could not find Dierna, I might just as well lose myself in Faerie, for I would surely never dare to return to Avalon. Only the thought of Aelia, anxiously waiting, kept me going forwards.

As I passed through the opening, there came a sudden singing, as if the branches hid a chorus of birds, and yet I knew, and I had been trained to notice such things, that these were no birds I had ever heard on Avalon. I looked up in delight, hoping to see the secret singers. When I lowered my gaze, a strange woman was standing there.

I blinked, finding it curiously hard to focus, for in the lady's mantle were all the shifting pale golds of the leaves of the willow when autumn comes. Red berries were strung like a diadem upon, her dark hair and across her brow.

She looks like Heron, I thought in wonder, or like one of the little dark folk of the Lake village! But no woman of the Lake people had ever stood as if her surroundings had only been created to be her setting, stately as a priestess, noble as a queen. Eldri had run to her, and was leaping up against her skirts as she did to me when I had been away.

Stifling a pang of jealousy, for Eldri had never shown such affection to anyone else before, I sank down in the obeisance due to an empress.

"You bow to me, and that is well, but others will bow to you one day."

"When I become High Priestess?"

"When you fulfil your destiny," came the answer. The Lady's voice held the sweetness of bee-song on a summer's day, but I remembered how swiftly that music could turn to fury if one threatened the hive, and I did not know what might anger this queen.

"What is my destiny?" heart pounding, at last I dared to ask.

"That will depend on what you choose…"

"What do you mean?"

"You saw three roads when you came here, did you not?"

The Lady's voice remained sweet and low, but there was a compulsion in it that turned my memory to the scene, and at once it was before me—the path that led back through the mists, the rocky road, but the middle way was broad and fair, bordered with pale lilies.

"The choice that you must make lies in the future—to seek the world of the Romans, or the Hidden Country, or Avalon," the Faerie Queen continued as if I had answered her.

"But I have already chosen," I answered in surprise. "I will be a priestess of Avalon."

"So says your head, but what does your heart say?" the Lady laughed softly, and I felt a prickle of heat flush my skin.

"I suppose that when I am old enough to think about such things I will know," I said defiantly. "But I am sworn to give myself to no man save as the Goddess wills, and I will not break my vow!"

"Ah, daughter—" the Lady laughed once more, "be not so certain that you understand what your vows mean, and where they will lead you! This much I will tell you: only when you understand who you truly are will you know your way—"

From somewhere, words came to me. "Eilan I am, and Elen shall guide me…"

The Faerie Queen looked at me and suddenly, unexpectedly, smiled.

"Just so. And if you know that much, then you have set your feet already upon the path. But enough of such serious matters—for now, you are here, and that is a thing not given to many mortals. Come, my little one, and feast with us in my hall!" Gazing at me with a sweetness that touched the heart like pain, she held out her hand.

"If I go with you… will I be able to return to Avalon?" I asked hesitantly.

"If you wish it," came the reply.

"And will I find Dierna?"

"Is that what you truly wish?" the Lady asked.

"With all my heart!" I exclaimed.

The Faerie Queen sighed. "The heart, again! I tell you now that if you find her, you will lose her, but I suppose you cannot understand. Come and be happy for a little while, if that is the only gift that you will accept from me…"

Then the Lady took me by the hand, and led me by ways winding and unknown, and we came presently to a hall all built from wood, not cut and pegged, as I had seen in the lands of men, but woven and grown all together, so that the beams were of living wood, roofed with branch and leaf of living green. Jutting branches held torches along the walls, their pale flickering light dancing in the bright eyes of the folk who sat at the high table there.

They gave me a sweet, yeasty drink in a cup that was neither silver nor gold, and as I drank, I found my weariness dissolving away. There were baskets of strange fruits, and pies with roots and mushrooms in a rich sauce, and bread with honey.

The food refreshed my body, although, as I remembered tales I had heard about the Faerie country, I wondered if it were illusion. But the harping fed something in my spirit that I did not even know had been hungering. A young man with merry eyes and a wreath of golden wheat upon his dark curls took my hand and swept me into the dance. At first I stumbled, for this was nothing like the stately measures that were thought suitable for the maidens being trained on Avalon. The rhythm was like the drumbeat that came from the Tor when the initiated priestesses danced with the Druids at the Beltane fires and the girls in the House of Maidens lay in the darkness listening, their blood pulsing to a beat they did not yet understand.

I laughed and let the music lift me, but when my partner would have drawn me away from the dancing into a leafy bower, I knew it for another temptation and slipped from his embrace and back to the feasting table once more.

"Was not the young man to your liking?" asked the queen.

"I liked him well enough," said I, and felt my cheeks grow hot with a betraying flush, for though his beauty struck no answering chord in my heart, his touch had stirred my senses in a way I did not entirely understand. "But I have stayed here too long. I hold you to your promise, Lady, to lead me to Dierna and thence back to my home."

"There is time and enough for that. Wait just a little: the greatest of our bards is about to sing…"

But I shook my head. "I must go. I will go—Eldri! Eldri, come to me!" I looked around in sudden terror lest the little dog, who had after all brought me to this place, should have abandoned me. But in the next moment I felt the drag on my skirts as the dog pawed at them. I bent to scoop her into my arms and hugged her fiercely.

"Yes… your will is very strong," said the Lady thoughtfully. "What if I were to tell you that by returning to Avalon you will take the first steps on the path that leads away from it, and in doing so, you will set events in motion that will end by forever separating it from the world of men?"

"I will never do so!" I cried angrily.

"The wind that is stirred by a butterfly's wing may cause a tempest half the world away… in the Hidden Country we do not think on the passing of time, and so for us it runs slowly, or not at all. But when I look into the world of men, I can observe the results of actions that you swift-living mortals will never see. Learn from my wisdom, daughter, and stay!"

I shook my head. "I belong to Avalon!"

"Be it so," the Faerie Queen said then. "This much comfort I will grant you: that however far you may wander, so long as you have your hounds you will find your way home… Go then, with the blessing of the Elder Folk, and perhaps, from time to time, you will remember me—"

"I will remember you…" said I, tears pricking my eyes. I set Eldri on the ground once more, and the dog, after looking back to make sure that I was following, trotted towards the door.

We passed into the leaf-filtered light of the faerie wood, and then, between one step and another, into a darkness in which the glimmering white shape of the dog ahead of me was the only thing I could see. And then I felt the cold touch of mist upon my skin and slowed, shivering, testing each step before I trusted my weight to it to be sure of keeping to the path.

I could not be certain how long I continued in this way, but gradually I became aware that the mist was brightening, and then it thinned, and I passed through the last of it and onto the grass of the Tor. The moon still rode high—as high, nearly, as it had been when I set forth. I stared at it in amazement, for surely in Faerie the feasting, and the dancing had gone on for hours. But here I was back again, and it was the same time of night as when I had gone. But was it the same night, I wondered in sudden fear? Or the same month, or year? Did Aelia wait for me still?

I started forwards, looking anxiously about me to see if anything had changed, and sighed in relief to see before me the hazel hedge, still half-pruned as I had left it. Something pale stirred in its shadow—Eldri, sitting beside a curled heap of clothing that on closer inspection proved to be the sleeping child.

I fell to my knees beside her, heart pounding in my breast. "Blessed Goddess!" I breathed, "never again will I doubt you!" And then, when my pulse had slowed nearly to its customary beat, I gathered the child into my arms.

"Dierna, wake up, little one! You are such a great girl now, I cannot carry you!"

The child stirred, burrowing sleepily against rny breast. "I can't go back there—I'm afraid…"

"I will stay with you," said I, "and so will Eldri."

"But she's so little," Dierna giggled, reaching out to ruffle the dog's curly hair.

"Do not underestimate her. She is a magic dog," I answered her. In the shadow, it seemed to me that a little of the glamour of Faerie clung to that pale fur still. "Come now—" I got to my feet, and after a moment's hesitation, Dierna followed me.

I told myself that I could sneak back to the House of Maidens before I was missed in the morning, but even if Ganeda learned how I had disobeyed, I found it hard to care. There was enough straw in the shed to make a bed, and when I had persuaded Dierna to lie down, I told the child tales of my adventures in Faerie until she slept once more.

And at that, the fatigue of my own night's adventuring came fully upon me, and so it was that that when Suona came to release the child in the dawning, she found us curled up together, with Eldri beside us guarding the door.