"Ah-" She saw the shudder run right through him. He struck the crimson leaf from her hand with a savage gesture, letting it fall silent to the forest floor, and said, with a gasp, "It seemed that I rode high above the world and saw such things as come never to mortal man ... " and then he reached for her, with blind urgency tearing at her dress and pulling her down to the ground. She let him do as he would and lay stunned on the damp ground as he thrust blindly into her, driven by a force he hardly understood. It seemed to her, as she lay silent beneath that driving strength, that his face was shadowed again with antlers or with crimson leaves; she had no part in this, she was only the passive earth beneath rain and wind, thunder and lightning bolt, and it was as if the lightning struck through her into the earth beneath ...
Then the darkness receded and the strange stars shining forth by day were all gone, and Accolon's hands, tender and apologetic, were helping her to rise, to arrange her disordered dress; he bent to kiss her, to stammer some half-explanation, some word of excuse, but she smiled and laid her hand across his lips. "No, no-it is enough-" The grove was silent again, and around them were only the normal sounds of the quiet day.
She said calmly, "We must go back, my love. We will be missed, and everyone will be shouting and crying out about the eclipse, as if it were some strange marvel of nature ... " and smiled faintly; she had seen something far stranger than an eclipse this day. Accolon's hand was cold and solid in hers.
He whispered, as they walked, "I knew never that you ... you look like her, Morgaine ... ."
But I am she. However, Morgaine did not speak the words aloud. He was an initiate; he should have been better prepared, perhaps, for this testing. Yet he had faced it as he must, and he had been accepted by something beyond her own small powers.
Then cold struck at her heart and she turned to look at his smiling, beloved face. He had been accepted. But that did not mean he would triumph; it meant only that he might attempt the final testing for which this was only the beginning.
I felt not like this when as Spring Maiden I sent Arthur-whom I knew not to be Arthur-forth for his testing. Ah, Goddess, how young I was then, how young we both were ... mercifully young, for we knew not what we did. And now I am old enough to know what it is that I do, how shall I have courage to send him forth to face death?
4
On the eve of Pentecost, Arthur and his queen had bidden those guests with family ties to the throne to dine with them privately. Tomorrow would be the usual great banquet for all of Arthur's subject kings and his Companions, but Gwenhwyfar, dressing herself carefully, felt that this would be the greater ordeal. She had long accepted the inevitable. Her husband and lord would by his act tomorrow make public and irrevocable what had long been known. Tomorrow, Galahad would be made knight and Companion of the Round Table. Oh, she had known it for years, yes, but then Galahad had been only a fair-haired little boy growing up somewhere in King Pellinore's lands. When she had thought of it, she had even been pleased; Lancelet's son, by her own cousin Elaine-now dead in childbed -was a reasonable heir for the King. But now she felt him a living reproach to an aging queen whose life had been without fruit.
"You are distressed," said Arthur, watching her face as she set the coronet about her hair. "I am sorry, Gwenhwyfar-I thought it would be the way to get to know the lad, as I must if he is to have my throne. Shall I tell them that you are ill? You need not appear-you can meet him at some other time."
Gwenhwyfar tightened her mouth. "As well now as later."
He took her hand. "I do not see Lancelet very often anymore-it will be good to speak with him again."
Her mouth moved in something she knew was not the smile she had intended. "I wonder you will have it so-do you not hate him?"
Arthur smiled uneasily. "We were all so much younger then. It seems as if it all was in another world, and Lance no more than my dearest and oldest friend, almost my brother, as much as Cai."
"Cai is your brother too," said Gwenhwyfar, "and his son Arthur is one of your most loyal knights. It seems to me that he would make a better heir than Galahad ... ."
"Young Arthur is a good man and a trusty Companion. But Cai's blood is not royal. God knows, in all these years I have wished often enough that Ectorius had in truth been my own father... but he was not, and there's an end of it, Gwen." After a moment, hesitant-he had never spoken of this, not since that other dreadful Pentecost-he said, "I have heard that-the other lad, Morgaine's son-is in Avalon."
Gwenhwyfar put out a hand as if to avoid a blow. "No-!"
"I will arrange it so that you need never meet him," he said, not looking at her, "but royal blood is royal blood and something must be done for him. He cannot have my throne, the priests would not have it-"
"Oh," said Gwenhwyfar, "and if the priests would have it, I suppose you would proclaim Morgaine's son your heir-"
"There will be those who wonder that he is not," said Arthur. "Would you have me try to explain it to them?"
"Then you should keep him far from the court," said Gwenhwyfar, thinking, I did not know my voice was so harsh when I was angry. "What place at this court has one who has been reared in Avalon as a Druid?"
He said dryly, "The Merlin of Britain is one of my councillors and has always been so, Gwen. Those who look to Avalon are always my subjects too. It is written: Other sheep have I which are not of this fold. ..."
"A blasphemous jest," Gwenhwyfar observed, making her voice gentler, "and hardly suitable for the eve of Pentecost-"
Arthur said, "Before Pentecost there was always Midsummer, my love. At least, now there are no Midsummer fires lighted, not even on Dragon Island, or, so far as I know, anywhere within three days' ride of Camelot -except on Avalon itself."
"The priests have set wards on Glastonbury Island, I am sure," said Gwenhwyfar, "so that there shall be no coming and going from that land ... ."
"It would be a sad day if it should be lost forever," Arthur said. "As it is sad for the peasant folk to lose their own festivals... town folk, perhaps, have no need of the old rites. Oh yes, I know, there is only one name under Heaven by which we may be saved, but perhaps those who live in such close kinship with the earth need something more than salvation ... ."
Gwenhwyfar started to speak, then held her peace. Kevin was no more than a misshapen old cripple, and a Druid, and the day of the Druids now seemed to her as far away as the time of the Romans. And even Kevin was less known at court as the Merlin of Britain than as a superb harper. The priests did not hold him in reverence as a good and kindly man, as once with Taliesin; Kevin's tongue was quick and ungentle in debate. Yet Kevin's knowledge of all the old ways and the common law was greater even than Arthur's, and Arthur had come into the way of turning to him when it was a question of old law and custom which could not be set aside.
"If this were not so strictly a family party, I would command that the Merlin perform for us tonight."
Arthur smiled and said, "I can send to ask of him, if you will, but such music as his is not to be commanded, even by a king. I can bid him dine at our table, and beg him to honor us with a song."
She smiled back and said, "So the King begs of a subject, rather than the other way around?"
"There must be a balance in all things," he said. "It is one of the things I have learned in my rule-in some matters, a king cannot command but must sue. Perhaps that was why the Caesars fell, because they fell into what my tutor used to call hubris, thinking they could command outside the legitimate sphere of a king.....ell, my lady, our guests are waiting. Are you sufficiently beautiful?"