No. She did not want to die, and there was no hope she could bear this child and live. Somehow she must come by the herbs ....ut how? She had no confidante at court; none of Gwenhwyfar's women could she trust enough to get her these things, and if it somehow became court gossip that old Queen Morgaine was pregnant by her still-older husband, how they would laugh!
There was Kevin, the Merlin-but she herself had turned him away, flung his love and loyalty back in his face . .. well, there must be midwives at court, and perhaps she could bribe one of them well enough to stop her mouth. She would tell some pitiful tale of how hard Gwydion's birth had been, how she feared at her age to bear another. They were women, they would understand that well enough. And in her own bag of herbs she had one or two things-mixed with a third, harmless in itself, they would have the effect she wanted. She would not be the first woman, even at court, to rid herself of an unwanted child. But she must do it secretly, or Uriens would never forgive her ... in the name of the Goddess, what did it matter? By the time it could come to light, she would be Queen here at Arthur's -no, at Accolon's-side and Uriens would be in Wales, or dead, or in hell-She left Uriens sleeping and tiptoed from the room; she found one of the Queen's midwives, asked her for the third, and harmless, herb, and returning to her room, mixed the potion over her fire. She knew it would make her deathly ill, but there was no help for it. The herb mixture was bitter as gall; she drank it down, grimacing, washed the cup, and put it away. If only she could know what was happening in the fairy country! If only she could know how her lover fared with Excalibur ... . She felt nauseated, but she was too restless to lie down on her bed beside Uriens; she could not bear to be alone with the sleeping man nor could she bear to close her eyes for fear of the pictures of death and blood that would torment her.
After a time she took her distaff and spindle and went down into the Queen's hall, where she knew the women-Queen Gwenhwyfar and her ladies, even Morgause of Lothian-would be at their eternal spinning and weaving. She had never lost her distaste for spinning, but she would keep her wits about her, and it was better than being alone. And if it opened her to the Sight, well, at least she would be free of the torment of not knowing what befell the two she loved on the borders of the fairy country. ...
Gwenhwyfar welcomed her with a chilly embrace and invited her to a seat near the fire and Gwenhwyfar's own chair.
"What are you working at?" Morgaine asked, examining Gwenhwyfar's fine tapestry work.
The Queen proudly spread it out before her. "It is a hanging for the altar of the church-see, here is the Virgin Mary, with the angel come to tell her she will bear the son of God ... and there stands Joseph all in amazement-see, I have made him old, old with a long beard-"
"If I were old as Joseph, and my promised wife told me, after being closeted with such a handsome young man as yonder angel, that she were with child, I would ask myself some questions about the angel," Morgause said irreverently. For the first time Morgaine wondered how miraculous had that virgin birth been after all? Who knew but the mother of Jesus had been ready to conceal her pregnancy with a clever tale of angels ... but after all, in all religions but that one, for a maiden to be pregnant by a God was nothing so strange ... .
I myself, she thought, at the edge of hysteria, taking a handful of carded wool and beginning to twirl the spindle, I myself gave up my maidenhood to the Homed One and bore a son to the King Stag ... will Gwydion set me on a throne in Heaven as Mother of God?
"You are so irreverent, Morgause," Gwenhwyfar complained, and Morgaine quickly complimented Gwenhwyfar on the fineness of her stitches and asked who had drawn the pattern for the picture.
"I drew it myself," said Gwenhwyfar, surprising Morgaine; she had never believed Gwenhwyfar had talents of this sort. "Father Patricius has promised, too, that he will teach me to copy letters in gold and crimson," the Queen said. "He says I have a good hand at it for a woman. ... I never thought I could do so, Morgaine, and yet you made that fine scabbard Arthur wears-he told me that you broidered it for him with your own hands. It is very beautiful." Gwenhwyfar chattered on, as artlessly as a girl half her age. "I have offered to make him one, many times-I was offended that a Christian king should bear the symbols of heathendom, but he said it was made for him by his own dear, beloved sister and he would never lay it aside. And indeed it is beautiful work ... did you have gold threads made for it in Avalon?"
"Our smiths do beautiful work," said Morgaine, "and their work in silver and gold cannot be bettered." The spindle's twirling made her sick. How long would it be before the wrenching sickness of the drug would seize on her? The room was close and seemed to smell of the stuffy, airless lives these women led, spinning and weaving and sewing, endless work so that men might be clothed ... one of Gwenhwyfar's ladies was heavily pregnant and sat sewing on infant's swaddling cloths ... another stitched an embroidered border to a heavy cloak for father or brother or husband or son ... and there was Gwenhwyfar's fine stitchery for the altar, the diversion of a queen who could have other women to sew and spin and weave for her.
Round and round went the spindle; the reel sank toward the floor and she twisted the thread smoothly. When had she learned to do this work?
She could not even remember a time when she could not spin a smooth thread ... one of her earliest memories was of sitting on the castle wall at Tintagel, beside Morgause, spinning; and even then, her thread had been more even than her aunt's, who was ten years her senior.
She said so to Morgause, and the older woman laughed. "You spun finer thread than I when you were seven years old!"
Round and round went the spindle, sinking slowly toward the stone floor; then she wound the thread up on her distaff and meanwhile twisted a fresh handful of wool. ... As she spun out the thread, so she spun the lives of men-was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning ... from the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud. Without us, the lives of men would be naked indeed ... .
... It seemed to her that, as in the kingdom of Fairy, she had looked through a great opening and seen Arthur asleep at the side of a maiden with her own face, so now a great space opened out, as if it were before her; and as the reel sank to the floor and the thread twisted, it seemed to spin out Arthur's face as he wandered, sword in hand ... and now he whirled, to see Accolon, bearing Excalibur ... ah, they were fighting, she could not see their faces now, nor hear the words they flung at one another ... .
How fiercely they fought, and it seemed strange to Morgaine, watching dizzied as the spindle sank, twirled, rose, that she could not hear the clashing of the great swords ... Arthur brought down a great blow that would surely have killed Accolon had it struck him fair, but Accolon caught the blow on his shield and only took a wound in the leg-and the wound sliced without blood, while Arthur, taking a glancing blow on the shoulder, began suddenly to bleed, crimson streaks flowing down his arm, and he looked startled, afraid, one hand going in a swift gesture of reassurance to his side where the scabbard hung ... but it was the sham scabbard, wavering even now in Morgaine's sight. Now the two were mortally locked together, struggling, their swords locked at the hilt as they grappled with their free hands for the advantage ... Accolon twisted fiercely, and the sword in Arthur's hand, the false Excalibur made by fairy enchantments in a single night, broke off close below the hilt-she saw Arthur twist round in desperate avoidance of the killing blow and kick out violently. Accolon crumpled up in agony, and Arthur snatched the real Excalibur from his hand and flung it as far away as he could, then leaped on the fallen man and wrenched at the scabbard. As soon as he had it in his hand, the flow of blood from the great wound in his arm ceased to bleed, and in turn blood gushed forth from the wound in Accolon's thigh ... .