"So could I," said Morgaine, "but I beg you, defer the lesson another day, for if I am to weave in here I do not want noise and confusion."
"Well then, I will tell the nurse to keep all the children out in the gallery," said Maline, and Morgaine dismissed her from her mind, beginning to run the shuttle slowly through the cloth and making sure of the pattern. It was a pattern of green and brown checkered cloth, not very demanding for a good weaver; so long as she counted the threads automatically, she need not keep her mind on it very long ... spinning would have been better. But she had made her distaste for spinning so well known that if she volunteered to spin this day it would be remembered.
The shuttle slid through the cloth: green, brown, green, brown, picking up the other shuttle every tenth row, changing the color. She had taught Maline to dye this green color, which she had learned in Avalon ... green of the new leaves coming into the spring, brown of the earth and of the fallen leaves where the boar rooted in the forest for acorns... shuttle sliding through the cloth, the comb to tighten each row of threads, her hands moving automatically, in and out and across, slide down the bar, pick up the shuttle from the other side ... would that Avalloch's horse would slip and fall and he would break his neck and save me from what I must do ... . She felt cold and shivered, and willed herself to ignore it, concentrating on the shuttle sliding in and out of the threads, in and out, letting images rise and go at will, seeing Accolon in Uriens' chamber playing with his father at draughts, Uwaine asleep, tossing and turning with the pain in his cheek wound even through his slumber, but now it would heal cleanly ... would that a wild boar would fight back and Avalloch's huntsman be too slow to come to his aid ... .
I said to Niniane that I would not kill. Never name that well from which you will not drink... an image rose in her mind of the Holy Well of Avalon, the water rising from the spring, flooding into the fountain. The shuttle flickered in and out, green and brown, green and brown, like the sunlight falling through the green leaves onto the brown earth, where the spring tides rising within the forest ran with life, sap running in the brown wood ... the shuttle flashing now, faster and faster, the world beginning to blur before her eyes ... Goddess! Where you run in the forest with the running life of the deer ... all men are in your hands, and all the beasts ... .
Years ago she had been the Virgin Huntress, blessing the Horned One and sending him forth to run with the deer and to conquer or die as the Goddess might decree. He had come back to her ....ow she was no longer that Virgin, holding all the power of the Huntress. As the Mother, with all the power of fertility, she had woven spells to bring Lancelet to Elaine's bed. But motherhood for her had ended in the blood of Gwydion's birth. Now she sat here with her shuttle in her hand and wove death, like the shadow of the Old Death-crone. All men are in your hands to live or die, Mother ... .
The shuttle flickered, flashed in and out of her sight, green, brown, green like leaves and forest intertwined, where they ran, the beasts ... the wild boar snuffling and grunting and rooting with his long tusks, the sow with the piglets bounding behind her, in and out of a copse ... the shuttle raced in her hands and she saw nothing, only the snorting snuffle of the swine in the forest.
Ceridwen, Goddess, Mother, Death-crone, Great Raven ... Lady of death and life ... Great Sow, eater of your young ... I call you, I summon you ... if this is truly what you have decreed, it is for you to accomplish it ... time slid and shifted around her, she lay in the glade with the sun burning her back while she ran with the King Stag, she moved through the forest, softly, snuffling ... she sensed the life, the hunters trampling and shouting ... . Mother! Great Sow ...
Morgaine knew in a random corner of her mind that her hands continued to move, steadily, green and brown, brown and green, but beneath her lowered eyelids she saw nothing of the room or the threads, but only the new green springing beneath the trees, the mud and dead leaves brown from the winter, trampling, it was as if she rooted on all fours in the fragrant mud ... life of the Mother there beneath the trees ... behind her the little gruntings and squealings of the piglets, tusks tearing up the ground for hidden roots and acorns ... brown and green, green and brown ...
Like a shock to her nerves, as if it ripped through her body, she felt the sound of the trampling in the forest, the distant cries ... her body sat motionless before the loom, weaving brown threads and changing for green, shuttle after shuttle, only her fingers alive, but with the starting thrill of terror and rush of rage, she charged, letting the life of the swine rush through her ...
Goddess! Let not the innocent suffer ... the huntsmen are nothing to you. ... She could do nothing, she watched in dread, trembling, shuddering with the smell of blood, the smell of her mate's blood ... blood spilled from the great boar, but this was nothing to her, like the King Stag he must die ... when his time was come, then must his blood be shed on the earth ... behind her she heard the squeals of frenzied piglings and suddenly the life of the Great Goddess rushed through her, not knowing whether she was Morgaine or the Great Sow, heard her own high frenzied grunting-as when, in Avalon, she had raised her hands and brought down on her the mists of the Goddess, so she flung her head back, shivering, grunting, hearing the terror of her piglings, making short little rushes, flinging up her head, rushing in circles ... green and brown under her eyes, an irrelevant shuttle in automatic fingers, unnoticed ... then, maddened by the alien smells, blood, iron, strangeness, the enemy rising on two legs, steel and blood and death, she felt herself charge, heard cries, felt the hot stab of metal and red blurring her eyes through the brown and green of the forest, felt her tusks tearing, felt hot blood burst forth and gush as the life went out of her in searing pain and she fell and knew no more ... and the shuttle went on, leaden, weaving brown and green and brown over the agony in her belly and the red bursting through her eyes and her pounding heart, the screams still in her ears in the silent room where there was no sound but the whisper of shuttle and warp and spindle and distaff... she swung silent, in her trance, exhausted ... slumped forward at the loom and lay there, motionless. After a time she heard Maline speak, but she neither moved nor answered.
"Ah! Gwyneth, Morag-Mother, are you ill? Ah, heavens, she will weave, and always it brings these fits upon her-Uwaine! Accolon! Come, Mother has fallen at her loom-"
She felt the woman restlessly chafing her hands, calling her name, heard Accolon's voice, felt him lift and carry her. She did not, could not, move or speak-she let them lay her on her bed, bring wine to revive her, felt it trickle down her neck, and wanted to say, I am all right, let be, but she heard herself make a frightened little grunting sound and was still, agony ripping her, knowing that in death the Great Sow would release her, but first she must suffer the death throes ... and even as she lay there, blind, tranced, agonized, she heard the hunting horn sound and knew that they were bringing Avalloch home, dead on his horse, slain by the sow which had attacked him within moments after he had killed the boar ... and he in turn had slain the sow ... death and blood and rebirth and the flow of life in and out of the forest, like the winding in and out of the shuttle ... .
IT WAS hours later. She still could not move a muscle without griping, terrifying pain; almost she welcomed it. I should not go wholly free of this death, but Accolon's hands are clean ... . She looked up into his eyes. He was bending over her with concern and dread, and they were alone for a moment.