Since she had been last at Uther’s court the fortified wall had risen higher, and there were sentries on the wall, who called out to challenge her party. She had instructed her men to use none of her titles, but to say only that the Queen’s sister had come. It was not the time to demand that they give respect to her as the Lady of Avalon; her present mission was too urgent for that.
They were led through the grass-grown enclosure, past all the clutter of an enclosed fort. She could hear somewhere the sound of an armorer or blacksmith beating on his anvil. Some herdswomen clad roughly in skin tunics were driving sheep inside for the night. Viviane, recognizing all these preparations for a siege, raised her eyelids slightly.
A scant few years before, Igraine had run to meet her in the courtyard at Tintagel. Now a solemn chamberlain, richly clad, and having but one arm—no doubt, a veteran of Uther’s service—welcomed her with a solemn bow and conducted her to an upper chamber. “I am sorry, Lady,” he said, “we are short of living space here. You must share this room with two of the Queen’s ladies.”
“I shall be honored,” she said gravely.
“I will send you a serving-woman. You have only to ask her for anything you require.”
“All I require,” said Viviane, “is a little water for washing, and to know when I can see my sister.”
“Lady, I am certain the Queen will receive you at the proper time. . . .”
“Does Uther keep state like the Caesars, then? Listen to me, fellow, I am the Lady of Avalon, and I am not accustomed to be kept waiting. But if Igraine has grown to such high state as all this, then I beg you to send the lady Morgaine to me as quickly as is possible!”
The one-armed veteran shrank back, but when he spoke his voice was less formal and more human. “Lady, I am sure the Queen would receive you willingly, at once, but you have come at a time of trouble and danger. The young prince Gwydion fell this morning from a horse no one should have let him ride, and the Queen won’t leave his side, not for an instant.”
“By the Goddess! I came too late, then!” Viviane whispered to herself. Aloud, she said, “Take me to them, at once. I am skilled in all the healing arts, and I am sure Igraine would have sent for me if she knew I were here.”
He bowed and said, “Come this way, Lady.”
Following him, Viviane realized that she had not even had time to remove her cloak or the men’s breeches she wore for riding; and she had meant to present herself in all the dignity of Avalon. Well, this was more important.
Outside the door, the chamberlain paused. “It would be as much as my head’s worth to disturb the Queen. She won’t even let her ladies bring her food or drink—”
Viviane pushed the heavy door and went into the room. Dead silence; it was uncannily like a death chamber. Igraine, pale and wan, her headcloth rumpled, knelt like a stone figure beside the bed. A black-robed priest stood motionless, muttering prayers under his breath. Softly as she moved, Igraine heard her.
“How dare you—” she began in a furious whisper, and broke off. “Viviane! God must have sent you to me!”
“I had a warning that you might need me,” said Viviane. This was no time to speak of magical visions. “No, Igraine, you can do no good by weeping,” she added. “Let me look at him and see how serious this is.”
“The King’s physician—”
“Is probably an old fool who knows nothing but potions of goat’s dung,” said Viviane calmly. “I was healing wounds of this kind before you were out of swaddlings, Igraine. Let me see the child.”
She had seen Uther’s son only once, briefly; he had been about three years old, and looked like any other fair-haired, blue-eyed toddler. Now he had stretched out to unusual tallness for his age—thin, but well-muscled arms and legs, much scratched by briars and brambles like any active boy’s. She put aside the covers and saw the great livid bruises on his body.
“Did he cough any blood at all?”
“Not even a little. The blood on his mouth was where a tooth was knocked out, but it was loose anyway.”
And indeed Viviane could see the contused lip and the extra gap in his mouth. More serious was the bruise on the temple, and Viviane knew a moment of real fear. Had all their planning come to this?
She ran her small fingers across his head. She could see him flinch when she touched the bruise, and that was the best sign she could possibly have had. If he had been bleeding inside the skull, he would by this time have been so deep in coma that no possible pain could reach him. She reached down and pinched his thigh, very hard, and he whimpered in his sleep.
Igraine protested. “You are hurting him!”
“No,” Viviane said, “I am trying to find out if he will live or die. Believe me, he will live.” She slapped his cheek gently and he opened his eyes for a moment.
“Bring me the candle,” Viviane said, and moved it slowly across his field of vision. He followed it for a moment before his eyes fell shut again, with a whimper of pain.
Viviane rose from his side. “Make sure he’s kept quiet, and nothing but water or soup, nothing solid to eat for a day or two. And don’t sop his bread in wine; only in soup or milk. He’ll be running all over the place in three days.”
“How do you know?” demanded the priest.
“Because I am trained in healing, how do you think?”
“Are you not a sorceress from the Island of Witches?”
Viviane laughed softly. “By no means, Father. I am a woman who, like yourself, has spent her life in the study of holy things, and God has seen fit to give me skill at healing.” She could, she reflected, turn their own jargon against them; she knew, if he did not, that the God they both worshipped was greater and less bigoted than any priesthood.
“Igraine, I must talk to you. Come away—”
“I must be here when he wakes again, he will want me—”
“Nonsense; send his nurse to him. This is a matter of importance!”
Igraine glared at her. “Bring Isotta to sit beside him,” she said to one of the women, with an angry look, and followed Viviane into the hall.
“Igraine, how did this happen?”
“I am not sure—some tale about riding his father’s stallion—I am confused. I only know that they carried him in like one dead—”
“And it was only your good fortune that he was not dead,” Viviane said bluntly. “Is it thus that Uther safeguards the life of his only son?”
“Viviane, don’t reproach me—I have tried to give him others,” Igraine said, and her voice shook. “But I think I am being punished for my adultery, that I can give Uther no other son—”
“Are you mad, Igraine?” Viviane burst out, then stopped herself. It was not fair to upbraid her sister when she was distracted from watching at the bedside of her sick child. “I came because I foresaw some danger to you or the child. But we can talk of that later. Call your women, put on fresh clothing—and when did you last eat anything?” she asked shrewdly.
“I can’t remember—I think I had a little bread and wine last night—”
“Then call your women, and break your fast,” Viviane said impatiently. “I am still dusty from riding. Let me go and wash off the dirt of travel, and clothe myself as is seemly for a lady inside the walls, and then we will talk.”
“Are you angry with me, Viviane?”
Viviane patted her on the shoulder. “I am angry, if it is anger, only at the way fate seems to fall, and that is foolish of me. Go and dress, Igraine, and eat something. The child’s come to no harm this time.”
Inside her room a fire had been built, and on a small stool before it, she saw an undersized female, dressed in a robe so dark and plain that for a moment Viviane thought it was one of the serving wenches. Then, she saw that the simple gown was of the finest stuff, the headcloth embroidered linen, and she recognized Igraine’s daughter.
“Morgaine,” she said, and kissed her. The girl was almost as tall now as Viviane herself. “Why, I think of you as a chil
d, but you are almost a woman. . . .”
“I heard you had come, Aunt, and came to welcome you, but they told me you had gone at once to my brother’s bedside. How does he, Lady?”
“He’s badly bruised and banged about, but he’ll be well again with no treatment but rest,” Viviane said. “When he wakes, I must somehow convince Igraine and Uther to keep the physicians and their stupid potions away from him; if they make him vomit, he’ll be worse. I got nothing from your mother but weeping and wailing. Can you tell me how this came to happen? Is there no one here who can guard a child properly?”
Morgaine twisted her small fingers together. “I am not sure how it happened. My brother’s a brave child and always wants to ride horses which are too fast and too strong for him, but Uther has given orders that he’s only to ride with a groom. His pony was lame that day, and he asked for another horse, but how he came to take out Uther’s stallion, no one knows; all the grooms know that he’s never allowed to go near Thunder, and everyone denied seeing him. Uther swore he’d hang the groom who allowed it, but that groom has put the river between Uther and himself by now, I should imagine. Still, they say Gwydion stuck on Thunder’s back like a sheep in a thorn thicket until someone loosed a breeding mare in the stallion’s path, and we cannot find out who loosed the mare, either. So of course the stallion was off after the mare, and my brother was off the stallion, in the blink of an eyelash!” Her face, small and dark and plain, quivered. “He’s really going to live?”
“He’s really going to live.”
“Has anyone yet sent word to Uther? Mother and the priest said he could do no good in the sickroom—”
“No doubt Igraine will attend to that.”
“No doubt,” Morgaine said, and Viviane surprised a cynical smile on her face. Morgaine, evidently, bore no love to Uther, and thought no more of her mother for her love to her husband. Yet she had been conscientious enough to remember that Uther should be sent word about his son’s life. This was no ordinary young girl.
“How old are you now, Morgaine? The years go by so fast, I no longer remember, as I grow old.”
“I shall be eleven at Midsummer.”
Old enough, Viviane thought, to be trained as a priestess. She looked down and realized she was still wearing her travel-stained clothing. “Morgaine, will you have the serving-women bring me some water for washing, and send someone to help me robe myself properly to appear before the King and Queen?”
“Water I have sent for; it is there, in the cauldron by the fire,” Morgaine said, and then hesitated and added shyly, “I would be honored to attend on you myself, Lady.”
“If you wish.” Viviane let Morgaine help her remove her outer garments and wash off the dust of travel. Her saddlebags had been sent up too, and she put on a green gown; Morgaine touched the cloth with admiring fingers.
“This is a fine green dye. Our women can make no green as fine as this. Tell me, what do you use to make it?”
“Woad, no more.”
“I thought that made only blue dyes.”
“No. This is prepared differently, boiled and fixed—I will talk of dyes with you later, if you are interested in herb lore,” Viviane said. “Now we have other matters on our mind. Tell me, is your brother given to escapades like this?”
“Not really. He is strong and hardy, but he’s usually biddable enough,” Morgaine said. “Once someone taunted him about riding so small a pony, and he said that he was to be a warrior and a soldier’s first duty is to obey orders, and that his father had forbidden him to ride a horse beyond his strength. So I can’t imagine how he came to ride Thunder. But still, he wouldn’t have been hurt unless . . .”
Viviane nodded. “I would like to know who loosed that mare, and why.”
Morgaine’s eyes widened as she took in the implications of this. Watching her, Viviane said, “Think. Has he had any other narrow escapes from death, Morgaine?”
Morgaine said, hesitating, “He had the summer fever—but then, all the children had that last year. Uther said he should not have been allowed to play with the shepherd’s boys. He caught the fever from them, I think—four of them died. But there was the time when he was poisoned—”
“Poisoned?”
“Isotta—and I would trust her with my life, Lady—swears that she put only wholesome herbs into his soup. Yet he was as sick as if a deathcup mushroom had found its way into his porridge. And yet how could that be? She knows wholesome ones from the poisonous, and she is not yet old and her eyesight is good.” Again Morgaine’s eyes widened. “Lady Viviane, do you think there are people plotting against my brother’s life?”
Viviane drew the girl down to her side. “I came here because I had a warning of this. I have not yet inquired whence the danger comes, I had no time. Do you have the Sight still, Morgaine? When last I spoke with you, you said—”
The girl colored and looked down at her shoes. “You bade me not speak of it. And Igraine says I should turn my thoughts to real things and not daydreams, and so I have tried. . . .”
“Igraine is right thus far: that you should not speak idly of these things to the once-born,” Viviane said. “But to me, you may always speak freely, I promise you. My Sight can show me only such things as are relevant to the safety of the Holy Isle and the continuance of Avalon, but Uther’s son is your own mother’s son, and by that tie, your Sight will find him and be able to tell who is trying to compass his death. Uther has enemies enough, all the Gods know.”
“But I do not know how to use the Sight.”
“I will show you, if you wish it,” said Viviane.
The girl looked up at her, her face taut with fear. “Uther has forbidden sorceries in his court.”
“Uther is not my master,” Viviane said slowly, “and no one can rule over another’s conscience. Yet—do you think it an offense to God, to try to discover whether someone is plotting against your brother’s life, or whether it is only bad luck?”
Morgaine said unsteadily, “No, I don’t think it wicked.” She stopped and swallowed and finally said, “And I do not think you would lead me into anything that was wrong, Aunt.”
A sudden pain clutched at Viviane’s heart. What had she done to earn this trust? With all her heart she wished that this small solemn girl was her own daughter, the daughter she owed the Holy Isle and had never been able to bear. Even though she had risked a belated childbearing, of which she had nearly died, she had borne only sons. And here, it seemed, was the successor the Goddess had sent her, a kinswoman with the Sight, and the girl was looking up at her with complete trust. For a moment she could not speak.
Am I prepared to be ruthless with this girl too? Can I train her, never sparing, or will my love make me less harsh than I must be to train a High Priestess?
Can I use her love for me, which I have in no way deserved, to bring her to the feet of the Goddess?
But with the discipline of years, she waited until her voice was clear and perfectly steady. “Be it so, then. Bring me a silver or bronze basin, perfectly clean and scoured with sand, and fill it with fresh rainwater, not water drawn from the well. Be sure that you speak to no man or woman after you have filled the basin.”
She waited, composed, seated by her fire, until at last Morgaine returned.
“I had to scrub it myself,” she said, but the basin she held out was shining and brilliant, filled to the brim with clear water.
“Now, unbind your hair, Morgaine.”
The girl looked at her curiously, but Viviane said, low and stern, “No questions.”
Morgaine pulled out the bone hairpin, and her long locks, dark and coarse and perfectly straight, came tumbling down around her shoulders.
“Now, if you are wearing any jewelry, take it off, and set it over there, so that it will not be near the basin.”
Morgaine tugged off two little gilt rings she had on her finger, and unpinned the brooch from her overdress. Without the pin holding it, the overdress fell around her shoulders, a
nd without comment, Viviane helped her pull it off, so that she stood in her undergown alone. Then Viviane opened a little bag she wore about her neck and took out a small quantity of crushed herbs, which wafted a sweetish-musty scent through the chamber. She sifted only a few grains into the basin of water before saying in a low, neutral voice, “Look into the water, Morgaine. Make your mind perfectly still, and tell me what you see.”
Morgaine came and knelt before the basin of water, looking intently into its clear surface. The room was very silent, so still that Viviane could hear the small chirping of some insect outside. Then Morgaine said, in a wandering, unfocused voice, “I see a boat. It is draped with black and there are four women in it . . . four queens, for they wear crowns . . . and one of them is you . . . or is it me?”