“Have you the Sight?”
“Only a little, I think, Lady,” she said, and Viviane sighed and said, “Well, we shall see, child; come with me,” and she led the way out of her isolated house, upwards along the hidden path to the Sacred Well. The girl was taller than she herself, slender and fair-haired, with violet eyes—she was not unlike Igraine at that age, Viviane thought, though Igraine’s hair had been nearer red than golden. Suddenly it seemed that she could see this Niniane crowned and robed as the Lady, and she shook her head impatiently, to clear it of unwanted vision. Surely this was only wandering daydream. . . .
She brought Niniane to the pool, then stopped for a moment to look at the sky. She handed her the sickle knife which had been given to Morgaine when she had been made priestess, and said to her quietly, “Look into the mirror, my child, and see where she who held this dwells now.”
Niniane looked at her hesitantly and said, “Lady, I told you—I have little of the Sight—”
Viviane suddenly understood—the girl was frightened of failure. “It does not matter. You will see with the Sight that once was mine. Be not afraid, child, but look for me into the mirror.”
Silence, while Viviane watched the girl’s bent head. In the surface of the pool it seemed only that wind came and ruffled the surface, as always. Then Niniane said in a quiet, wandering voice, “Ah, see . . . she sleeps in the arms of the grey king . . .” and was still.
What can she mean? Viviane could make nothing of the words. She wanted to cry out to Niniane, to force the Sight upon her undesired, yet she compelled herself, by the greatest effort of her life, to keep still, knowing that even her restless thoughts could blur the Sight for the maiden. She said, hardly above a whisper, “Tell me, Niniane, do you see that day when Morgaine shall return to Avalon?”
Again the empty silence. A little breeze—the dawn wind—had sprung up, and again the riffle of wind came and went across the glassy surface of the water. At last Niniane said softly, “She stands in the boat . . . her hair is all grey now . . .” and again she was still, sighing as if with pain.
“Do you see more, Niniane? Speak, tell me—”
Pain and terror crossed the girl’s face and she whispered, “Ah, the cross . . . the light burns me, the cauldron between her hands—Raven! Raven, will you leave us now?” She gave a sharp indrawn breath of shock and dismay, and crumpled fainting to the ground.
Viviane stood motionless, her hands clenched, and then, with a long sigh, she bent to raise the girl. She dipped her hand in the pool, sprinkled water on Niniane’s slack face. After a moment the girl opened her eyes, stared at Viviane in fright, and began to cry.
“I am sorry, Lady—I could see nothing,” she whimpered.
So. She spoke, but she remembers nothing of what she saw. I might well have spared her this, for all the good it has done. It was pointless to be angry with her—she had done no more than she was commanded. Viviane stroked the fair hair back from Niniane’s forehead and said gently, “Don’t cry; I am not angry with you. Does your head ache? So—go and rest, my child.”
The Goddess bestows her gifts as she will. But why, Mother of all, do you send me to do your will with imperfect instruments? You have taken from me the power to do your will; why, then, have you taken from me the one who should serve you when I am no longer here? Niniane, her hands pressed to her forehead, went slowly down the path toward the House of Maidens, and after a time, Viviane followed.
Had Niniane’s words been nothing but raving? She did not think so—she was sure the girl had seen something. But Viviane could make nothing of what Niniane had seen, and the girl’s few attempts to put it into words meant nothing to Viviane. And now Niniane had forgotten it all, so that she could not be questioned further.
She sleeps in the arms of the grey king. Did that mean Morgaine was lying in the arms of death?
Would Morgaine return to them? Niniane had said only, She stands in the boat . . . so Morgaine would return to Avalon. Her hair is all grey now. So the return would not come soon, if at all. That, at least, was unequivocal.
The cross. The light burns me. Raven, Raven, the cauldron between her hands. That was certainly no more than delirium, an attempt to put some tenuous vision into words. Raven would bear the cauldron, the magical weapon of water and of the Goddess . . . yes, Raven was empowered to handle the Great Regalia. Viviane sat staring at the wall of her chamber, wondering if this meant that now Morgaine was gone from them, Raven should bear the power of the Lady of the Lake. It seemed to her that there was no other way to interpret the girl’s words. And even so, they might mean nothing.
Whatever I do now, I am in the dark—I might better have gone to Raven, who would have answered me only with silence!
But if Morgaine had indeed gone into the arms of death, or was lost to Avalon forever, there was no other priestess fit to carry the weight. Raven had given her voice to the Goddess in prophecy . . . was the place of the Goddess to go unserved because Raven had chosen her silent path?
Viviane sat alone in her dwelling, staring at the wall, pondering Niniane’s cryptic words again and again in her heart. Once she rose and went alone up the silent path to stare again into the unmoving waters, but they were grey, grey as the unyielding sky. Once indeed it seemed to her that something moved there, and Viviane whispered, “Morgaine?” and looked deep into the silence of the pool.
But the face that looked out at her was not Morgaine’s face—it was still, dispassionate as the Goddess herself, crowned with bare wicker-withes. . . .
. . . Is it my own reflection I see, or the Death-crone? . . .
At last, weary, she turned away.
This I have known since first I trod the path—a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine. . . .
There is no one there, there was never anyone there, and all the Sight is but dreams and delusions. . . .
As she trudged wearily down the hill, she saw that the new moon stood in the sky. But now it meant nothing to her save that this ritual silence and seclusion were done for the time.
What have I to do with this mockery of a Goddess? The fate of Avalon lies in my hands, and Morgaine is gone, and I am alone with old women and children and half-trained girls . . . alone, all alone! And I am old and weary and my death awaits me. . . .
Within her dwelling the women had lighted a fire, and a cup of warmed wine sat steaming beside her usual chair so that she might break the moon-dark fast. She sank down wearily, and one of her attendant priestesses came silently to draw off her shoes and put a warm shawl about her shoulders.
There is no one but I. But I have still my daughters, I am not wholly alone. “Thank you, my children,” she said, with unaccustomed warmth, and one of the attendants bowed her head shyly without speaking. Viviane did not know the girl’s name—why am I thus neglectful?—but she thought she must be under a vow of silence for the time. The second said softly, “It is our privilege to serve you, Mother. Will you go to rest?”
“Not yet awhile,” Viviane said, and then on an impulse said, “Go and ask the priestess Raven to attend me.”
It seemed a long time before, with silent step, Raven came into the room. Viviane greeted her with a bending of the head, and Raven came and bowed, then, following Viviane’s gesture, went to the seat across from Viviane’s own. Viviane handed her the cup, still half filled with the hot wine, and Raven sipped, smiling thanks, and put it from her.
At last Viviane said in entreaty, “My daughter, you broke your silence once before Morgaine left us. Now I seek for her and she cannot be found. She is not in Caerleon, nor in Tintagel, nor with Lot and Morgause in Lothian . . . and I grow old. There is none to serve. . . . I ask of you as I would inquire of the oracle of the Goddess: will Morgaine return?”
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Raven was silent. At last she shook her head and Viviane demanded, “Do you mean that Morgaine will not return? Or do you mean that you do not know?” But the younger priestess made an odd gesture of helplessness and questioning.
“Raven,” said Viviane, “you know that I must lay down my place, and there is no other to bear it, none who has the old training of a priestess, none who has gone so far—only you. If Morgaine does not return to us, you must be Lady of the Lake. Your oath was given to silence, and you have borne it faithfully. Now it is time to lay it aside, and take from my hands the guardianship of this place—there is no other way.”
Raven shook her head. She was a tall woman, slightly built, and, Viviane thought, no longer young; she was certainly ten years older than Morgaine—she must be nearing her fortieth year. And she came here as a little maiden with her breasts not yet budded. Her hair was long and dark, and her face dark and sallow, her eyes large beneath dark, thick brows. She looked worn and austere.
Viviane covered her face with her hands and said in a hoarse voice, through tears she could not shed, “I—cannot, Raven.”
After a moment, her face covered, she felt a gentle touch on her cheek. Raven had risen and was bending over her. She did not speak, only took Viviane into a close embrace and held her for a moment, and Viviane, feeling the warmth of the younger woman pressed against her, began to sob, and felt that she would weep and weep with no will ever to cease. And at last, when in sheer exhaustion Viviane was silent, Raven kissed her on the cheek and went silently away.
10
Once Igraine had said to Gwenhwyfar that Cornwall was at the world’s end. So it seemed to Gwenhwyfar—there might never have been such things as marauding Saxons or a High King. Or a High Queen. Here in this distant Cornish convent, even though on a clear day she could look out toward the sea and see the stark line of Tintagel castle, she and Igraine were no more than two Christian ladies. Gwenhwyfar thought, surprising herself, I am glad I came.
Yet when Arthur had asked her to go, she had been afraid to leave the enclosing walls of Caerleon. The journey had seemed a long nightmare to her, even the swift and comfortable ride along the Roman road south; when they left the Roman road and began to travel across the high, exposed moors, Gwenhwyfar had huddled in panic within her litter, hardly able to tell which was more of a terror to her, the high open sky or the long, long vistas of grass, treeless, where the rocks thrust up stark and cold like the very bones of the earth. Then for a time no living creature could be seen except the ravens that circled high, waiting for something to die, or, far away, one of the wild moorland ponies, stopping to throw up a shaggy head before bolting away.
Yet here in this distant Cornish convent, all was still and peaceful; a soft-toned bell rang the hours, and roses grew in the enclosed cloister garden and twined into crannies of the crumbling brick wall. Once it had been a Roman villa. The sisters had taken up the floor of one big room, they said, because it had portrayed some scandalous pagan scene—Gwenhwyfar was curious as to what it was, but no one told her and she was ashamed to ask. All around the edges of the room were lovely little tiled dolphins and curious fish, and at the center, common bricks had been laid. She sat there with the sisters sometimes in the afternoons and stitched at her sewing, while Igraine was resting.
Igraine was dying. Two months since, the message had come to Caerleon. Arthur had had to travel north to Eboracum to see to the fortification of the Roman wall there and could not go, nor was Morgaine there. And since Arthur could not go, and it could not be looked for that Viviane, at her age, could make the long journey, Arthur had begged Gwenhwyfar to go and stay with his mother; and after much persuasion she had agreed.
Gwenhwyfar knew little about tending the sick. Whatever illness had seized on Igraine, at least it was painless—but she was short of breath and could not walk far without coughing and gasping. The sister who cared for her said it was congestion in the lungs, yet there was no coughing of blood and she had no fever and flushing. Her lips were pale and her nails blue, and her ankles were swollen to where she could hardly walk on them; she seemed almost too weary to speak and kept her bed most of the time. She seemed not so very ill to Gwenhwyfar, but the sister said she was dying indeed, and now it could not be more than a week at most.
It was the fairest part of the summer, and this morning Gwenhwyfar brought a white rose from the convent garden and laid it on Igraine’s pillow. Igraine had struggled to her feet last night to go to evensong, but this morning she had been so weary and without strength she could not rise. Yet she smiled up at Gwenhwyfar and said in her wheezing voice, “Thank you, dear daughter.” She put the flower to her face, sniffing delicately at the petals. “Always I wanted roses at Tintagel, but the soil there was so poor, little would grow. . . . I dwelt there five years and never did I cease from trying to make some sort of garden.”
“When you came to take me to be wedded, you saw the garden at my home,” Gwenhwyfar said, with a sudden twinge of homesickness for that faraway walled garden.
“I remember how beautiful it was—it put me in mind of Avalon. The flowers are so beautiful there, in the courts of the House of Maidens.” She was silent for a moment. “A message was sent to Morgaine at Avalon?”
“A message was sent, Mother. But Taliesin told us Morgaine had not been seen in Avalon,” said Gwenhwyfar. “No doubt she is with Queen Morgause in Lothian, and in these times it takes forever for a messenger to come and go.”
Igraine drew a heavy sigh and began to struggle with a cough again, and Gwenhwyfar helped her to sit upright. After a time Igraine murmured, “Yet the Sight should have bidden Morgaine to come to me—you would come if you knew your mother was dying, would you not? Yes, for you came, and I am not even your own mother. Why has Morgaine not come?”
It is nothing to her that I have come, Gwenhwyfar thought, it is not me she wants here. There is no one who cares whether I am here or elsewhere. And it seemed as if her very heart was bruised. But Igraine was looking at her expectantly, and she said, “Perhaps Morgaine has received no message. Perhaps she has gone into a convent somewhere and become a Christian and renounced the Sight.”
“It may be so. . . . I did so when I married Uther,” Igraine murmured. “Yet now and again it thrust itself on me undesired, and I think if Morgaine was ill or dying I would know it.” Her voice was fretful. “The Sight came upon me before you were married . . . tell me, Gwenhwyfar, do you love my son?”
Gwenhwyfar shrank from the sick woman’s clear grey eyes; could Igraine see into her very soul? “I love him well and I am his faithful queen, lady.”
“Aye, I believe you are . . . and you are happy together?” Igraine held Gwenhwyfar’s slender hands in her own for a moment and suddenly smiled. “Why, so you must be. And will be happier yet, since you are bearing his son at last.”
Gwenhwyfar’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Igraine. “I—I—I did not know.”
Igraine smiled again, a tender and radiant smile, so that Gwenhwyfar thought, Yes, I can believe it, that when she was young, she was beautiful enough for Uther to cast aside all caution and seek her with spells and charms.
Igraine said, “It is often so, though you are not really so young—I am surprised you have not already had a child.”
“It was not for lack of wanting, no, nor praying for it either, lady,” Gwenhwyfar said, so shaken that she hardly knew what she was saying. Was the old Queen falling into delirium? This was too cruel for jesting. “How—what makes you think I am—am with child?”
Igraine said, “I forgot, you have not the Sight—it has deserted me for long and long I renounced it, but as I say, it steals upon me unawares, and never has it played me false.” Gwenhwyfar began to weep, and Igraine, troubled, reached out her thin hand and laid it over the younger woman’s. “Why, how is this, that I give you good news and you weep, child?”
Now she will think I do not want a child, and I cannot bear to have her think ill of me. . . . Gwen
hwyfar said shakily, “Only twice in all the years I have been married have I had any cause to think myself pregnant, and then I carried the child only a month or two. Tell me, lady, do you—” Her throat closed and she dared not speak the words. Tell me, Igraine, shall I bear this child, have you seen me then with Arthur’s child at my breast? What would her priest think of this compromise with sorcery?
Igraine patted her hand. “I wish I might tell you more, but the Sight comes and goes as it will. God grant it come to a good end, my dear; it may be that I can see no more because by the time your child is born, I shall not be here to see—no, no, child, do not weep,” she begged. “I have been ready to leave this life ever since I saw Arthur wedded. I would like to see your son, I would like to hold a child of Morgaine’s in my arms, should that day ever come, but Uther is gone and it is well with my children. It may be that Uther waits for me beyond death, or the other children I lost at birth. And if they do not—” She shrugged. “I shall never know.”
Igraine’s eyes closed, and Gwenhwyfar thought, I have wearied her. She sat silent until the older woman slept, then rose and went quietly into the garden.