"I think," said Niniane, "that you love him too well for a man you are sworn to destroy."
"Love him?" Kevin's smile was mirthless. "I am Merlin of Britain, messenger of the Great Raven, and I sit at his side in council. Arthur is an easy man to love. But I am sworn to the Goddess." Again the short laugh. "I think my sanity depends on this-that I know that what benefits Avalon must in the long years benefit Britain. You see Arthur as the enemy, Niniane. I see him still as the King Stag, protecting his herd and his lands."
Niniane said in a trembling whisper, "And what of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?"
Kevin leaned his head on his hands. He looked old and ill and weary. "That day is not yet, Niniane. Do not seek to push Gwydion so swiftly he will be destroyed, merely because he is your lover." And he rose and limped out of the room without looking back, leaving Niniane sullen and angry.
How did that wretched man know that?
And she told herself, I am under no vows like the Christian nuns! If I choose to take a man to my bed, that is for me to say ... even if that man should be my pupil, and only a boy when he came here!
In the first years, he had twined himself around her heart, a lonely boy, lost and bereft, with none to love him or care for him or wonder how he did ... . Morgause was the only mother he had known, and now he was parted from her too. How could Morgaine have found it in her heart to give up a fine son like this, clever and beautiful and wise, and never send to inquire how he did, or come to set eyes on him? Niniane had never borne a child, though she had thought, sometimes, that if she had come from Beltane with her womb filled she would have liked to bear a daughter to the Goddess. But it had never gone thus with her, and she had not rebelled against her lot.
But in those first years she had let Gwydion find his way into her heart. And then he had gone from them, as men must do, grown too old for the teachings of the priestesses, to be taught among the Druids and schooled in the arts of war. And he had returned, one year at Beltane, and she thought it was by craft that he had come near to her in the fire rites and she had gone apart with him ... .
But they had not parted when that season was over; and whenever, after that, in his comings and goings, anything had brought him to Avalon, she made it clear that she wanted him, and he had not said her no. I am closest to his heart, she thought, I know him best-what does Kevin know of him?
And now the time has come when he shall return, to Avalon, and shall have his trial as King Stag ... .
And she turned her thoughts to that: where should she find a maiden for him? There are so few women in the House of Maidens who are even halfway fit for this great office, she thought, and there was sudden pain and dread in her thoughts.
Kevin was right. Avalon is drifting, dying; few come here for the ancient teachings, and there are none to keep the rites ... and one day there will be no one at all... and again she felt that almost painful prickling in her body which came to her, now and again, in lieu of the Sight.
GWYDION CAME HOME to Avalon a few days before Beltane. Niniane greeted him formally at the boat, and he bowed to her in reverence before the maidens and the assembled folk of the Island, but when they were alone he caught her in his arms and kissed her, laughing, until they were both breathless.
His shoulders had broadened, and there was a red seam on his face. He had been fighting, she could tell; he no longer had the untroubled look of a priest and scholar.
My lover and my child. Is this why the Great Goddess has no husband, after the Roman fashion, but only sons, as we are all her children? And I who sit in her place must feel my lover as my son too ... for all those who love the Goddess are her children ... .
"And the lands are astir with it," he said, "here in Avalon and among the Old People of the hills, that on Dragon Island the Old People will be choosing their king again.... It was for this that you summoned me there, was it not?"
Sometimes, she thought, he could be as infuriating as an arrogant child. "I do not know, Gwydion. The time may not be ripe, and the tides may not be ready. Nor can I find anywhere within this house anyone to play for you the part of the Spring Maiden."
"Yet it will be this spring," he said quietly, "and this Beltane, for I have seen it."
Her mouth curved a little as she said, "And have you then seen the priestess who will admit you to the rite when you have won the antlers, supposing that the Sight does not mislead you to your death?"
She thought as he faced her that he had but grown more beautiful, his face cold and set, dark with hidden passion. "I have, Niniane. Do you not know that it was you?"
She said, suddenly chilled to the bone, "I am no maiden. Why do you mock me, Gwydion?"
"Yet I have seen you," he said, "and you know it as well as I. In her the Maiden and the Mother and the Crone meet and blend. She will be old and young as it shall please her, Virgin and Beast and Mother and the face of Death in the lightning, flowing and filling and returning again to her virginity ... ."
Niniane bent her head and said, "Gwydion, no, it cannot be-"
"I am her consort," he said implacably, "and shall win it there ... it is not the time for a virgin-the priests make much of that nonsense. I call upon her as the Mother to give me my due and my life ... ."
Niniane felt as if she were trying to stand against some relentless tide that would sweep her away. She said, hesitating, "So it has always been, that in the running of the deer, though the Mother sends him forth, he returns again to the Maiden ... ."
Yet there was reason in what he said. Surely it was better to have a priestess for the rites who knew what she was doing, rather than some half-trained child new come to the temple, whose only qualification was that she was not yet old enough to feel the call to the Beltane fire.....wydion spoke truth: the Mother ever renews herself, Mother and Crone and again the Maiden, even as the moon who hides herself in the dark sky.
She bent her head and said, "Let it be so. You shall make the Great Marriage with the land and with me in her name."
But when she was alone again she was frightened. How had she come to agree to this? What, in the name of the Goddess, was this power in Gwydion, that he could make all men do his will?
Is this, then, his heritage from Arthur, and the blood of the Pendragon? And ice flooded her again.
What of the King Stag ... Morgaine was dreaming ...
Beltane, and the deer running on the hills... and the life of the forest running through her body, as if every part of the forest was a part of the life within her ... he was down among the deer, the running stag, the naked man with the antlers tied on his brow, and the horns thrust down and down, his dark hair matted with blood... but he was on his feet, charging, a knife flashing in the sunlight through the trees, and the King Stag came crashing down and the sound of his bellowing filled the forest with cries of despair.
And then she was in the dark cave, and the signs painted there were painted on her body, she was one with the cave, and all around her the Beltane fires flared, sparks crashing skyward-there was the taste of fresh blood on her mouth, and now the cave mouth was shadowed with the antlers ... it should not befall moon, she should not see so clearly that her naked body was not the slender body of a virgin, but that her breasts were soft and full and pink as they had been when her child was born, almost as if they were dripping with milk, and surely she had been tested that she came virgin to this rite ... what would they say to her, that she came not as the Spring Maiden to the King Stag?