The Mists of Avalon Read online

  “I think you mistake the nature of Heaven,” said a familiar voice, and Igraine felt a strange, hollow awareness within herself. She looked down the table at the speaker, who wore a plain grey robe, monkish in cut. She would not have recognized the Merlin in this garb, but his voice she would have known anywhere. “Do you really think mankind’s quarrels and imperfections will be carried on in Heaven, Lot?”

  “Why, as to that, I have never spoken with anyone who has been in Heaven,” Lot said, “nor, I think, have you, Lord Merlin. But you are talking as wisely as any priest—have you taken Holy Orders in your old age, sir?”

  The Merlin laughed and said, “I have one thing in common with your priests. I have spent much time trying to separate the things of man from those that belong to the Divine, and when I have done separating them, I find there is not so great a difference. Here on Earth, we cannot see that, but when we have put off this body we will know more, and know that our differences make no difference at all to God.”

  “Then why are we fighting?” asked Uther, and grinned as if he were humoring the old man. “If all our differences will be resolved in Heaven, why do we not lay down our arms and embrace the Saxons as brethren?”

  The Merlin smiled again and said amiably, “When we are all perfected, it will be just so, Lord Uther, but they do not yet know it, any more than we do, and while human destiny provokes men to fight, well, we must do our part by playing the games of this mortal life. But we need peace in this land so that men may think of Heaven instead of battle and war.”

  Uther said, laughing, “I have little taste for sitting and thinking of Heaven, old man; I will leave that to you and the other priests. I am a man of battle, I have been so all my days, and I pray to live all my life in war, as befits a man and not a monk!”

  “Be careful what you pray for,” said Merlin, looking sharply at Uther, “for the Gods will certainly give it to you.”

  “I do not want to be old, and think of Heaven and peace,” said Uther, “for they seem very dull to me. I want war and plunder and women—oh, yes, women—and the priests do not approve of any of those things.”

  Gorlois said, “Why, then, you are not much better than the Saxons, are you, Uther?”

  “Your very priests say we must love our enemies, Gorlois,” said Uther, laughing, and reaching across Igraine to clap her husband good-naturedly on the back, “and so I love the Saxon, for he gives me what I want from life! And so should you, for when we have peace like this for a little time, we can enjoy feasting and women, and then back to the fight, as befits a real man! Do you think women care for the kind of man who wants to sit by the fire and till his home acres? Do you think your beautiful lady here would be as happy with a plowman as she is happy with a duke and leader of men?”

  Gorlois said soberly, “You are young enough to say so, Uther. When you are my age, you will be sick of war too.”

  Uther chuckled and asked, “Are you sick of war, my lord Ambrosius?”

  Ambrosius smiled, but he looked very weary. He said, “It would not matter if I were sick of war, Uther; for God has chosen in his wisdom to send me war all my days, and so it shall be, according to his will. I will defend my people, and so must those who come after. Perhaps in your days, or the days of our sons, we will have enough time at peace to ask ourselves what we are fighting for.”

  Lot of Orkney broke in, in his smooth equivocal voice, “Why, we are philosophers here, my lord Merlin, my king; even you, Uther, you have taken to philosophy. But none of this tells us what we are to do against the wild men who come at us from east and from west, and from the Saxons on our own shores. I think we all know that we will have no help from Rome; if we want legions we must train them, and I think we needs must have our own Caesar as well, for just as soldiers need their own captains and their own king, so all the kings in this island need someone to rule over them.”

  “Why need we call our High King by the name of Caesar? Or think of him so?” asked a man Igraine had heard called by the name Ectorius. “The Caesars ruled Britain well enough in our day, but we see the fatal flaw of an empire thus—when there is trouble in their home city, they withdraw the legions and leave us to barbarians! Even Magnus Maximus—”

  “He was no emperor,” said Ambrosius, smiling. “Magnus Maximus wished to be emperor, when he commanded the legions here—it is a common ambition for a war duke.” And Igraine saw the quick smile he gave Uther over their heads. “So he took his legions and marched on Rome, wishing to be proclaimed emperor—he would have been neither the first nor the last to do so, with the army to support him. But he never got so far as Rome, and all his ambitions came to nothing, except for some fine stories—in your Welsh hills, Uther, do they not talk still of Magnus the Great who will come again with his great sword, at the head of his legions, rescuing them from all invaders—”

  “They do,” said Uther, laughing, “they have put upon him the old legend from time out of mind, of the king who was and the king who will come again to save his people when the need is dire. Why, if I could find such a sword as that, I could myself go into the hills of my country and raise as many legions as I wanted.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ectorius somberly, “that is what we need, a king out of legend. If the king come, the sword will not be far to seek.”

  “Your priest would say,” the Merlin said evenly, “that the only king who was and is and will be, is their Christ in Heaven, and that, following in his holy cause, you need no other.”

  Ectorius laughed, a short harsh laugh. “Christ cannot lead us into battle. Nor—I intend no blasphemy, my lord King—would the soldiers follow a banner of the Prince of Peace.”

  “Perhaps we should find a king who will put them in memory of the legends,” Uther said, and silence fell in the room. Igraine, who had never listened before to the councils of men, could still read enough thoughts to know what they were all hearing in the silence: the knowledge that the High King who sat before them now would not live to see another summer. Which of them would sit in his high seat, next year at this time?

  Ambrosius leaned his head against the back of his chair, and that was Lot’s signal to say, in his eager jealous voice, “You are weary, sire; we have tired you. Let me call your chamberlain.”

  Ambrosius smiled gently at him. “I will rest soon enough, cousin, and long enough—” but even the effort of speech was too much for him and he sighed, a long, shaking sound, letting Lot help him from the table. Behind him the men broke up into groups, talking, arguing in low tones.

  The man called Ectorius came to join Gorlois. “My lord of Orkney loses no opportunity to plead his case, and disguise it as thoughtfulness for the King—now we are the evil men who have wearied Ambrosius and will shorten his life.”

  “Lot does not care who is named High King,” Gorlois said, “so that Ambrosius has no opportunity to state his preference, by which many of us—I among them, I may as well tell you, Ectorius—would be bound.”

  Ectorius said, “How not? Ambrosius has no son and cannot name an heir, but his wish must guide us, and he knows it. Uther is far too eager for the purple of a Caesar to suit me, but all in all he is better than Lot, so if it should come to a choice of sour apples . . .”

  Gorlois nodded, slowly. “Our men will follow Uther. But the Tribes, Bendigeid Vran and that crew, they will not follow any man so Roman as that; and we need the Tribes. They would follow Orkney—”

  “Lot has not the stuff to make a High King,” Ectorius said. “Better we lose the support of the Tribes than the support of the entire countryside. Lot’s way is to split everyone up into warring factions so that only he has the confidence of all. Paugh!” He spat. “The man’s a snake and that’s all there is to it.”

  “And yet he’s persuasive,” Gorlois said. “He has brains, and courage, and imagination—”

  “So has Uther. And whether or not Ambrosius gets the chance to say so formally, Uther’s the man he wants.”

  Gorlois set his teeth g
rimly and said, “True. True. I’m in honor bound to do Ambrosius’ will. Yet I wish his choice had fallen on a man whose moral character matched his courage and his leadership. I don’t trust Uther, and yet—” He shook his head, glanced at Igraine. “Child, this can be of no possible interest to you. I will have my man-at-arms escort you back to the house where we lay last night.”

  Dismissed like a little girl, Igraine went homeward in the noontime without protest. She had a good deal to think about. So men too, even Gorlois, could be bound in honor to endure what they did not want to do. She had never thought of that before.

  And Uther’s eyes, fixed on her, haunted her thoughts. How he had stared at her—no; not at her, at the moonstone. Had the Merlin enchanted it somehow so that Uther should be smitten with the woman who bore it?

  Must I do the Merlin’s will, and Viviane’s, must I be given to Uther resistless, as I was given to Gorlois? The thought repelled her. And yet . . . her mind perversely still felt Uther’s touch on her hand, the intensity of his grey eyes meeting her own.

  I might as well believe that the Merlin enchanted the stone so that my mind would turn to Uther! They had reached her lodging, and she went inside and took off the moonstone, thrusting it into the pouch tied at her waist. How foolish, she thought, I do not believe in those old tales of love charms and love spells. She was a woman grown, nineteen years, not a passive child. She had a husband, she might even now be bearing in her womb the seed that would become the son he desired. And if her fancy should light on some man other than her husband, if she should wish to play the wanton, surely there were other men more appealing than that great boor, with his untidy hair like a Saxon’s and his Northman’s manners, upsetting mass, interrupting the High King’s breakfast. Why, she might as well take Gorlois’s man-at-arms, who was at least young and clear-skinned and handsome, to her bed. Not that she, as a virtuous wife, had any interest in taking any man whatsoever to her bed except her lawful husband.

  And again, if she did, it would not be Uther. Why, he would be worse than Gorlois, a great clumsy oaf, even if his eyes were grey as the sea and his hands strong and unwrinkled. . . . Igraine swore under her breath, took her distaff from the pack of her belongings, and sat down to spin. What was she doing daydreaming of Uther, as if she were seriously considering what Viviane had asked of her? Would Uther really be the next High King?

  She had seen the way he looked at her. But Gorlois said he was a lecher; might he look that way at any woman? If she must lose herself in daydreams, she might as well wonder something sensible, such as how Morgaine was faring without her mother, and if the housekeeper was keeping a watchful eye on Morgause so that she did not cast sheep’s eyes at the soldiers guarding the castle. Morgause, now, she might run about and lose her maidenhood to some handsome man without thought of honor and propriety; she hoped Father Columba would give the girl a good lecture.

  My own mother chose what lovers she would, to father her children, and she was a great priestess of the Holy Isle. Viviane has done the same. Igraine let her spindle drop into her lap, frowning a little, thinking of Viviane’s prophecy that her child by Uther could be the great king that would heal the land and bring the warring peoples together in peace. What she had heard this morning at the King’s table convinced her that such a king was far to seek.

  She took up her spindle, in exasperation. They needed such a king now, not when some child not yet even conceived should grow to manhood. The Merlin was obsessed with old legends about kings—what was it one of the kings, was it Ectorius, had said, about Magnus the Great, the great war leader who had deserted Britain in quest of an emperor’s crown? Nonsense, to think a son of Uther could be this Magnus returned.

  Late that day a bell began to toll, and shortly after, Gorlois came into the house, looking sad and discouraged.

  “Ambrosius died a few minutes ago,” he said. “The bell tolls for his passing.”

  She saw the grief in his face and spoke to it.

  “He was old,” she said, “and he was much loved. I met him only this day, but I can see he was the kind of man whom all those around him would love and follow.”

  Gorlois sighed heavily. “True. And we have none such to come after him; he has gone and left us leaderless. I loved the man, Igraine, and I hated to see him suffer. If there were any successor worthy the name, I would rejoice that he has gone to his rest. But what will become of us now?”

  A little later he asked her to set out his best clothing. “At sunset they will say a requiem mass for him, and I must be there. So should you, Igraine. Can you dress yourself with no woman to robe you, or shall I ask our host to send you a maid?”

  “I can dress myself.” Igraine set about putting on her other gown, finely spun wool with embroidery at hem and sleeve, and braiding her silk ribbon into her hair. She ate a little bread and cheese; Gorlois would eat nothing, saying that with his king before the throne of God where his soul would be judged, he would fast and pray till he was buried.

  Igraine, who had been taught in the Holy Isle that death was no more than the gateway to new birth, could not understand this; how could a Christian have such fear and trembling at going to his eternal peace? She remembered Father Columba chanting some of his doleful psalms. Yes, their God was supposed to be a God of fear and punishment as well. She could understand how a king, for the good of his people, might have to do some things which would lie heavy on his conscience. If even she could understand and forgive that, how could a merciful God be more bigoted and vengeful than the least of his mortals? She supposed it was one of their Mysteries.

  She was still pondering these things when she went at Gorlois’s side to the mass, and listened to the priest singing dolefully about the judgment of God and the day of wrath when the soul should face eternal damnation. Halfway through this hymn she saw that Uther Pendragon, kneeling at the far end of the church, his face white above his pale tunic, lifted his hands to cover his face and conceal sobs; a few minutes later he got up and went out of the church. She realized that Gorlois was looking sharply at her, and lowered her eyes again to listen piously to the endless hymns.

  But when the mass was over, the men clustered outside the church and Gorlois introduced her to the wife of King Uriens of North Wales, a plump, solemn matron, and to the wife of Ectorius, whose name was Flavilla, a smiling woman not a great deal older than Igraine. She chatted with the women for a moment, but their minds were all on what the death of Ambrosius would mean to the soldiers and to their husbands, and her mind wandered; she had little interest in women’s chatter, and their pious demeanor wearied her. Flavilla was about six moons pregnant, her belly beginning to bulge under her Roman-style tunics, and after a time their talk drifted to their families. Flavilla had borne two daughters who had died of the summer flux last year and she was hoping, this year, for a son. Uriens’ wife, Gwyneth, had a son about Morgaine’s age. They asked about Igraine’s child, and talked about the efficiency of bronze amulets against winter fevers, and the charm of laying a priest’s mass book in the cradle against the rickets.

  “It is bad food which causes rickets,” Igraine said. “My sister, who is a healer-priestess, told me that no child who is suckled for two full years by a healthy mother ever suffers from rickets, but only if it is given to an ill-nourished wet nurse or weaned too soon and fed on gruel.”

  “I call that foolish superstition,” Gwyneth said. “The mass book is holy and efficient against all illnesses, but particularly those of little children, who have been baptized against the sins of their fathers and have committed no sins of their own.”

  Igraine shrugged impatiently, unwilling to argue such nonsense. The women went on talking about charms against childhood sicknesses, while she stood casting her eyes this way and that, waiting for an opportunity to leave them. After a time another woman joined them, whose name Igraine never knew; she too was bulging in late pregnancy, and the women immediately drew the newcomer into their talk, ignoring Igraine. After a time she
slipped quietly away, saying (unheard) that she was going in search of Gorlois, and walked toward the back of the church.

  There was a little graveyard there, and behind it an apple orchard, the branches whitened with blossom, pale in the twilight. The scent of the apple trees was fresh and welcome to Igraine, who found the smells of the city intrusive; dogs, and men too, relieved themselves in the stone streets. Behind every door was a smelly kitchen midden with everything from dirty rushes smelling of urine and rotting meat, to the contents of night pots. At Tintagel there was kitchen refuse and night soil too, but she had it buried every few weeks, and the clean smell of the sea washed away everything.

  She walked slowly through the orchard. Some of the trees were very old, gnarled, with low-bending boughs. Then she heard a slight sound, and saw that on one of the low branches a man was sitting. He did not see Igraine; his head was bent, and his face was covered with his hands. But she knew, by the pale hair, that it was Uther Pendragon. She was about to turn and steal quietly away, knowing he would not want her to see his grief, but he had heard her light step and raised his head.