"Come, come," she chided the boy, laughing. "Do you really think I could dress in green with my hair flying, and dance all round the plowed fields that way? And I am no maiden!"
"No," said Uwaine, surveying her with a long look, "but you looked like the Goddess. Father Eian says that the Goddess was really a demon who came to keep the folk from serving the good Christ, but do you know what I think? I think that the Goddess was here for people to worship before they were taught how to worship the holy mother of Christ."
Accolon was walking beside them. He said, "Before the Christ, the Goddess was, and it will not hurt if you think of her as Mary, Uwaine. You should always do service to the Lady, under whatever name. But I would not advise you to speak much about this to Father Eian."
"Oh no," said the boy, his eyes wide. "He does not approve of women, even when they are Goddesses."
"I wonder what he thinks of queens?" Morgaine murmured. Then they had arrived back at the castle and Morgaine had to see to King Uriens' travelling things, and in the confusion of the day, she let the new insights slide into the back of her mind, knowing that later she would have to consider all this most seriously.
Uriens rode away after midday, with his men-at-arms and a body servant or two, taking leave of Morgaine tenderly with a kiss, counselling his son Avalloch to listen to Accolon's counsel and that of the queen in all things. Uwaine was sulking; he wanted to go with his father, whom he adored, but Uriens would not be troubled with a child in the party. Morgaine had to comfort him, promise some special treat for him while his father was away. But at last all was quiet, and Morgaine could sit alone before the fire in the great hall-Maline had taken her children off to bed -and think of all that had befallen her that day.
It was twilight outside, the long evening of Midsummer. Morgaine had taken her spindle and distaff in her hand, but she was only pretending to spin, twirling it once in a while and drawing out a little thread; she disliked spinning as much as ever, and one of the few things she had asked of Uriens was that she might employ two extra spinning women so that she would be free of that detested task; she did twice her share of the household weaving in its stead. She dared not spin; it would throw her into that strange state between sleep and waking, and she feared what she might see. So now she only twirled the spindle now and again, that none of the servants would see her sitting with her hands idle ... not that anyone would have the right to reproach her, she was busy early and late ... .
The room was darkening, a few slashes of crimson light from the setting sun still brilliant, darkening the corners by contrast. Morgaine narrowed her eyes, thinking of the red sun setting over the ring stones on the Tor, of the priestesses walking in train behind the red torchlight, spilling it into the shadows... for a moment Raven's face flickered before her, silent, enigmatic, and it seemed that Raven opened her silent lips and spoke her name ... faces floated before her in the twilight: Elaine, her hair all unbound as the torchlight caught her in Lancelet's bed; Gwenhwyfar, angry and triumphant at Morgaine's wedding; the calm, still face of the strange woman with braided fair hair, the woman she had seen only in dreams, Lady of Avalon ... Raven again, frightened, entreating ... Arthur, bearing a candle of penitence as he walked among his subjects ... oh, but the priests would never dare force the King to public penance, would they? And then she saw the barge of Avalon, draped all in black for a funeral, and her own face like a reflection on the mists, mirrored there, with three other women draped all in black like the barge, and a wounded man lying white and still in her lap-
Torchlight flared crimson across the dark room, and a voice said, "Are you trying to spin in the dark, Mother?"
Confused by the light, Morgaine looked up and said peevishly, "I have told you not to call me that!"
Accolon put the torch into a bracket, and came to sit at her feet. "The Goddess is Mother to us all, lady, and I acknowledge you as such ... ."
"Are you mocking me?" Morgaine demanded, agitated.
"I do not mock." As Accolon knelt close to her, his lips trembled. "I saw your face today. Would I mock that-wearing these?" He thrust out his arms, and by a trick of the light, the blue serpents dyed on his wrists seemed to writhe and thrust up their painted heads. "Lady, Mother, Goddess-" His painted arms went out around her waist, and he buried his head in her lap. He muttered, "Yours is the face of the Goddess to me ... ."
As if she moved in a dream, Morgaine put out her hands to him, bending to kiss the back of his neck where the soft hair curled. Part of her was wondering, frightened, What am I doing? Is it only that he has called on me in the name of the Goddess, priest to priestess? Or is it only that when he touches me, speaks to me, I feel myself woman and alive again after all this time when I have felt myself old, barren, half dead in this marriage to a dead man and a dead life? Accolon raised his face to her, kissed her full on the lips. Morgaine, yielding to the kiss, felt herself melting, opened, a shudder, half pain half pleasure, running through her as his tongue against hers shot waking memories through her whole body ... so long, so long, this long year when her body had been deadened, never letting itself wake lest it be aware of what Uriens was doing. ... She thought, defiant, I am a priestess, my body is mine to be given in homage to her! What I did with Uriens was the sin, the submission to lust! This is true and holy ... .
His faands trembled on her body; but when he spoke, his voice was quiet and practical.
"I think all the castle folk are abed. I knew you would be here waiting for me ... ."
For a moment Morgaine resented his certainty; then she bowed her head. They were in the hands of the Goddess and she would not refuse the flow that carried her on, like a river; long, long, she had only whirled about in a backwater, and now she was washed clean into the current of life again. "Where is Avalloch?"
He laughed shortly. "He is gone down to the village to lie with the Spring Maiden ... it is one of our customs that the village priest does not know. Ever, since our father was old and we were grown men, it has been so, and Avalloch does not think it incompatible with his duty as a Christian man, to be the father of his people, or as many of them as possible, like Uriens himself in his youth. Avalloch offered to cast lots with me for the privilege, and I had started to do so, then I remembered your hands blessing her, and knew where my true homage lay ... ."
She murmured half in protest, "Avalon is so far away ... "
He said, with his face against her breast, "But she is everywhere."
Morgaine whispered, "So be it," and rose. She pulled him upright with her and made a half turn toward the stairs, then stopped. No, not here; there was not a bed in this castle that they could honorably share. And the Druid maxim returned to her, Can that which was never made nor created by Man, be worshipped under a roof made by human hands?
Out, then, into the night. As they stepped into the empty courtyard, a falling star rushed downward across the sky, so swiftly that for an instant it seemed to Morgaine that the heavens reeled and the earth moved backward under her feet ... then it was gone, leaving their eyes dazzled. A portent. The Goddess welcomes me back to herself ... .
"Come," she whispered, her hand in Accolon's, and led him upward to the orchard, where the white ghosts of blossom drifted in the darkness and fell around them. She spread her cloak on the grass, like a magic circle under the sky; held out her arms and whispered, "Come."
The dark shadow of his body over her blotted out the sky and the stars.
MORGAINE SPEAKS ...
Even as we lay together under the stars that Midsummer, I knew that what we had done was not so much lovemaking as a magical act of passionate power; that his hands, the touch of his body, were reconsecrating me priestess, and that it was her will. Blind as I was to all at that moment, I heard around us in the summer night the sound of whispers and I knew that we were not alone.