The Mists of Avalon Read online

  “Is it you, my lady of Cornwall?” His face twisted and looked wry. “Now you may run to tell the brave Gorlois that the war duke of Britain has hidden away to weep like a woman!”

  She went swiftly to him, troubled by his angry, defensive face. She said, “Do you think Gorlois does not grieve, my lord? How cold and heartless any man should be, not to weep for the king he has loved all his days! If I were a man, I would not wish to follow any leader into war who would not weep for the dead whom he had loved, for fallen comrades or even for brave enemies.”

  Uther drew a long breath, wiping his face with the embroidered sleeve of his tunic. He said, “Why, that’s true; when I was a young man, I slew the Saxon chief Horsa in the field, after many battles where he had challenged me and then escaped, and I wept for his death, because he was a gallant man. Even though he was a Saxon, I felt sorrow that we must be foemen instead of brothers and friends. But in the years between I have come to feel that I am too old to weep for what cannot be mended. And yet—when I heard the holy father in there, prating of judgment and eternal damnation before the throne of God, and I remembered how good and how pious a man Ambrosius was, and how he loved and feared God, and never skimped to do a kind or an honorable thing—sometimes I find this God of theirs too much to endure, and I almost wish I could listen without damnation to the wise Druids, who talk of no judgment but what a man brings on himself by the way he lives. If the holy bishop speaks sooth, Ambrosius now lies in the fires of Hell, not to be redeemed until the end of the world. I know little of Heaven, but I could wish to think my king there.”

  She said, reaching out her hand to him, “I do not think the priests of Christ know any more of what comes after death than do any other mortal men. Only the Gods know. They tell us, in the Holy Isle where I was reared, that death is always the gateway to new life and further wisdom, and although I did not know Ambrosius well, I like to think he is now learning, at the feet of his God, what true wisdom can be. What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?”

  She felt Uther’s hand touch hers, and he said into the darkness, “Why, it is so. What is it their Apostle said—‘Now I see as in a glass, darkly, but then I shall see face to face.’ Perhaps we do not know, not even the priests, what will befall beyond death. If God is all-wise, why should we imagine he will be less merciful than men? Christ, they say, was sent to us to show God’s love, not his judgment.”

  They sat in silence for some time. Then Uther said, “Where did you learn such wisdom, Igraine? We have holy ladies in our church, but they are not married, nor do they move among us sinners.”

  “I was born in the Isle of Avalon; and my mother was a priestess in the Great Temple there.”

  “Avalon,” he said. “It lies in the Summer Sea, does it not? You were at the Council this morning; you know we are to go there. The Merlin has promised me that he will take me to King Leodegranz and introduce me to his court, although if Lot of Orkney has his way, Uriens and I will go back to Wales like dogs howling, with our tails between our legs; or we will fight in his train and pay him homage, which I will do when the sun rises over the western coast of Ireland.”

  “Gorlois said you are sure to be the next High King,” Igraine said, and it struck her with sudden wonder that she was sitting here on a tree branch with the next High King of Britain, talking about religion and matters of state. He felt it too, she could sense it in the tone of his voice, when he said, “I never thought to discuss such matters with the wife of the Duke of Cornwall.”

  “Do you truly think that women know nothing of state matters?” she asked. “My sister Viviane, like my mother before her, is the Lady of Avalon. King Leodegranz, and other kings, came often to consult with her about the fate of Britain—”

  Uther said, smiling, “Perhaps I should consult with her on the best way to bring Leodegranz, and Ban of Less Britain, into my fellowship. For if they listen to her bidding, then all I must do is win her confidence. Tell me, is the Lady married, and is she handsome?”

  Igraine giggled. “She is priestess, and priestesses of the Great Mother may not marry, nor make alliance with any mortal man. They belong to the Gods alone.” And then she remembered what Viviane had told her, and that this man sitting on the tree branch beside her was part of the prophecy; she stiffened, frightened of what she had done—was she walking on her own feet into the trap Viviane and the Merlin had set for her?

  “What is it, Igraine? Are you cold? Are you frightened of war?” Uther asked.

  She said, grasping at the first thing she could think of to say, “I have been talking to the wives of Uriens and sir Ectorius—they do not seem much concerned with matters of state. I think perhaps that is why Gorlois does not believe that I can know anything of them, either.”

  Uther laughed. He said, “I know the ladies Flavilla and Gwyneth—they do indeed leave all things to their husbands, save those dealing with spinning and weaving and childbearing and such women’s things. Have you no interest in those things, or are you as young as you look, too young almost to be wedded, let alone have children to worry about?”

  “I have been married four years,” Igraine said, “and I have a daughter who is three years old.”

  “I could envy Gorlois that; every man wants children to succeed him. If Ambrosius had a son, we would not now be in this turmoil. Now—” Uther sighed. “I do not like to think of what will befall Britain if that toad of Orkney should come to be High King, nor Uriens, who thinks everything can be solved by sending a messenger to Rome.” Again his voice broke in a sob. “Men say I am ambitious to be High King, but I would give all my ambitions for Ambrosius to be sitting here on this tree branch beside us, or even a son of his, to be crowned in that church tonight! Ambrosius was frightened of what would befall when he was gone. He might have died last winter, but he hoped to make us agree on who should follow him—”

  “How was it that he had no sons?”

  “Oh, he had sons, two of them. One was slain by a Saxon; Constantine was his name, like to the king who converted this island. The other died of a wasting fever when he was but twelve years old. He said, often and often, that I had become the son he wanted.” He buried his face in his hands again, weeping. “He would have made me his heir as well, but that the other kings would not have it. They followed me as war duke, but others were jealous of my influence—Lot, damn him, was the worst. Not for ambition, Igraine, I swear it, but to finish what Ambrosius left undone!”

  “I think everyone knows that,” she said, stroking his hand. She felt immobilized by his grief.

  “I do not think Ambrosius could be happy, even in Heaven, if he looks down and sees the sorrow and confusion here, the kings already plotting, each one seeking to seize power for himself! I wonder if it would have been his will that I should murder Lot to take power? Once he made us swear the oath of blood brothers; I would not violate that,” Uther said. His face was wet with tears. Igraine, as she would have done with her child, took the light veil around her face and dried them.

  “I know you will do what you must do in honor, Uther. No man Ambrosius trusted so much could do otherwise.”

  The flare of a lighted torch suddenly struck across their eyes; she froze on the tree branch, her veil still at Uther’s face. Gorlois said sharply, “Is it you, my lord Pendragon? Have you seen—ah, madam, are you there?”

  Igraine, feeling abashed and suddenly guilty at the sharpness of Gorlois’s voice, slipped off the tree branch. Her skirt caught on a projecting limb, hauled up above her knee so that she was bare to her linen drawers; she twitched it hastily down, and heard the fabric rip.

  “I thought you lost—you were not in our lodging,” Gorlois said harshly. “What do you here, in Heaven’s name?”

  Uther slipped off the tree branch. The man she had seen revealed, weeping for his lost king and foster-father, dismayed at the burden laid on him, had vanished in a moment; his voice was loud and hearty. “Why,
Gorlois, I grew impatient at all the gabbling of that priest, and came out to find clear air with no pious mumblings; and your lady, who had found the blitherings of the good ladies not much more to her taste, happened upon me here. Madam, I thank you,” he said, with a distant bow, and strode away. She noticed he was careful to keep his face out of the torchlight.

  Gorlois, alone with Igraine, looked at her with angry suspicion. He said, gesturing her to walk before him, “My lady, you should be more careful to avoid gossip; I told you to keep away from Uther. His reputation is such that no chaste woman should be seen in private conversation with him.”

  Igraine turned and said angrily, “Is that what you think of me, that I am the sort of woman who will slip away to couple with a strange man like a beast in the field? Do you think I was lying with him on the branch of that tree, like some bird of the bough? Would you like to inspect my gown to see whether it is rumpled from lying with him on the ground?”

  Gorlois lifted his hand and struck her, not very hard, across the mouth. “You will not play the shrew with me, madam! I told you to avoid him; obey me! I think you honest and chaste, but I would not trust you to that man, nor hear you made the subject of the tongues of women!”

  “Surely there is no more evil mind than that of a good woman—unless perhaps it is the mind of a priest,” said Igraine wrathfully. She rubbed her mouth where Gorlois’s blow had knocked her lip against her teeth. “How dare you lay hands upon me? When I betray you, you may beat the flesh from off my bones, but I won’t be beaten for talk! Do you think, in the name of all the Gods, that we were talking of love?”

  “And what were you talking about with that man, at this hour, in God’s name?”

  “We talked of many things,” Igraine said, “and mostly of Ambrosius in Heaven, and—yes, of Heaven and what one could hope to find in the afterlife.”

  Gorlois regarded her with a skeptical glare. “That I find unlikely, when he could not show respect for the dead by staying through the holy mass.”

  “He was sickened—as I was—by all those doleful psalms, as if they were mourning the worst of men instead of the best of kings!”

  “Before God all men are miserable sinners, Igraine, and in the eyes of Christ a king is no better than other mortals.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, “I have heard your priests say so, and also they spend much time and labor to tell us all that God is love and our goodly father in Heaven. Yet I notice they are very careful not to fall into his hands, and they mourn for those who go to their eternal peace, exactly as for those who go to be sacrificed on the blood altar of the Great Raven herself. I tell you, Uther and I were talking of what the priests know of Heaven, which I think is not very much!”

  “If you and Uther spoke of religion, it is for certain the only time that man of blood ever did so!” Gorlois grumbled.

  Igraine said, and now she was angry, “He was weeping, Gorlois; weeping for the king who had been as a father to him. And if it shows respect for the dead to sit and listen to the caterwauling of a priest, then may I never have such respect! I envied Uther, that he was a man and could come and go as he chose, and for sure, if I had been born a man, I would never have sat peacefully and hearkened to yonder foolishness in the church. But I was not free to go, being dragged thither at the word of a man who thinks more of priests and psalms than of the dead!”

  They had reached the door of their lodging; Gorlois, his face turning dark with wrath, pushed her angrily within. “You will not speak to me in that voice, lady, or I shall beat you in earnest.”

  Igraine realized that she had actually bared her teeth like a hunting cat, and her voice hissed as she said, “Touch me at your peril, Gorlois, or I shall teach you that a daughter of the Holy Isle is no man’s slave nor servant!”

  Gorlois opened his mouth for an angry retort, and for a moment Igraine thought he would strike her again. Instead, with an effort, he mastered his anger and turned away from her. “It is not fitting that I stand here brawling when my king and my lord lies still unburied. You may sleep here tonight, if you are not afraid to be alone; if you are so, I shall have you escorted to the house of Ectorius, to sleep with Flavilla. My men and I will fast and pray until sunrise tomorrow, when Ambrosius will be laid in earth to rest.”

  Igraine looked at him with surprise and a curious, growing contempt. So, for fear of the dead man’s shade—even though he called it by another name and thought of it as respect—he would not eat nor drink nor lie with a woman till his king was buried. Christians said they were free of the superstitions of the Druids, but they had their own, and Igraine felt that these were even more distressing, being separated from nature. Suddenly she was very glad that this night she need not lie with Gorlois. “No,” she said, “I am not afraid to be alone.”

  4

  Ambrosius was buried at sunrise. Igraine, escorted by a Gorlois still angry and silent, watched the ceremonies with a strange detachment. Four years she had struggled to compromise with the religion Gorlois followed. Now she knew that, while she would show his religion a courteous respect so as not to anger him—and indeed, her early teaching had taught her that all Gods were one, and no one should ever mock the name by which another found God—she would try no more to be as pious as he was. A wife should follow her husband’s Gods, and she would pretend to do so in a seemly and proper fashion, but she would never again fall prey to the fear that their all-seeing, all-vengeful God could have power over her.

  She saw Uther during the ceremonies; he looked haggard and worn, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he, too, had fasted, sleepless; and somehow the sight touched her heart. Poor man, with none to care if he fasted, or to tell him what nonsense it was, as if the dead loitered near the living to see how they fared, and could be jealous of their eating and drinking! She would wager that King Uriens had committed no such folly; he looked fed and rested, and suddenly she wished that she were as old and wise as Uriens’ lady, who could speak to her husband and tell him what he should do in such matters.

  After the burial Gorlois took Igraine back to their lodging and there broke his fast with her, but he was still silent and grim, and immediately afterward excused himself. “I must attend the Council,” he said. “Lot and Uther will be at one another’s throats, and somehow I must help them to recall what Ambrosius wanted. I am sorry to leave you alone here, but I will send a man to escort you around the city, if you wish.” He gave her a piece of coined money and bade her to buy herself a fairing at the market if she chose, and told her that his man would bear a purse as well, if she wished to choose spices and other things for the household in Cornwall. “For there is no reason for you to come so far, without purchasing some of the things it is needful for you to have. I am not a poor man, and you may buy whatever you need to keep a proper household, without consulting me; remember I trust you, Igraine,” he said, and laid his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. Although he did not say so, she knew he was in his own gruff way apologizing for his suspicions and his angry blow, and her heart warmed to him; she returned his kiss with real tenderness.

  It was exciting to walk through the great markets of Londinium; dirty and smelly as the city was, it seemed like four or five harvest fairs all in one. The banner of Gorlois, borne by his man-at-arms, kept her from being jostled or pushed very much. Yet it was a little frightening to walk through the enormous market square, with a hundred vendors crying their wares. It seemed to her that everything she saw was new and beautiful, something she wished for, but she resolved to see all over the market before she made any purchases; and then she bought spices, and a length of fine woven wool from the islands, far finer than that of the Cornish sheep—Gorlois should have a new cloak this year; she would begin weaving a border for it as soon as she was back at Tintagel. And so she also bought for herself small hanks of dyed silks; it would be pleasant to weave on such brilliant colors, restful and fine to her hands after the coarseness of wool and flax. She would teach Morgause, too. An
d it would be high time, next year, to teach Morgaine to spin; if she indeed bore Gorlois another child, this time next year she would be heavy and ungainly and she could sit and teach her daughter to spin. Four years was certainly old enough to start learning to handle a spindle and twist the thread, even though the thread would not be good for much except tying up bundles of yarn for dyeing.

  She also bought some colored ribbons; they would be handsome on Morgaine’s holiday gown, and they could be taken off each dress as the child outgrew it, and sewed at neck and sleeves of the new gown. It was only fitting, now that she was big enough not to soil her clothing, that she should be dressed suitably for the daughter of the Duke of Cornwall.

  The market was doing a lavish business; at a distance she saw the wife of King Uriens, and other well-dressed ladies, and she wondered if every man in the Council who had a wife had sent her out to do her shopping in the markets of Londinium this morning while the debate raged. Igraine bought silver buckles for her shoes, even though she was sure she could have bought some just as fine in Cornwall, simply because it seemed a fine thing to have buckles to her shoes which had come all the way from Londinium. But when the man would have sold her a brooch with silver filigree all round an amber stone, she refused, shocked at spending all this money. She was very thirsty, and the display of men selling cider and hot pies tempted her, but it seemed an ugly thing to sit and eat in the open market like a dog. She told her man to come along back to the lodging, and resolved that there she would have some bread and cheese and beer. The man looked sullen, so she gave him one of the tiny coins left from her marketing and told him to buy himself a pot of cider or ale if he chose.