"Well," said Morgaine lightly, "if the King wishes me to wed Lance-let, he need only name the day."

"You and Lancelet? Are you not too close kin for that?" Balan asked, then thought for a moment. "No, I suppose not-Igraine and Viviane were but half-sisters, and Gorlois and Ban of Ben wick are not in any way akin. Though some of the church folk say foster-kin should be treated as blood kin for marriage ... well, Morgaine, I will drink to your wedding with pleasure on that day Arthur gives you to my brother, and bids you love him and care for him as Viviane never did! And neither of you need leave court-you the Queen's favorite lady and Lancelet our King's dearest friend. I hope it comes to pass!" His eyes dwelt on her with kindly concern. "You too are well past the age when Arthur should give you to some man."

And why should it be for the King to give me, as if I were one of his horses or dogs? Morgaine wondered, but shrugged; she had lived long in Avalon, she forgot at times that the Romans had made this the common law, that women were the chattels of their menfolk. The world had changed and there was no point in rebelling against what could not be altered.

Soon after she began to skirt the edges of the great mead table which had been Gwenhwyfar's wedding gift to Arthur. The great hall here in Caerleon, large as it was, was not really large enough; at one point she had to clamber over the benches because the table pushed them so close to the wall, to get by the great curve of it. The pot boys and kitchen boys, too, had to sidle past with their smoking platters and cups.

"Is Kevin not here?" asked Arthur. "Then we must have Morgaine to sing for us-I am hungry too for harps and all the things of civilized men. I am not surprised the Saxons spend all their time in making war. I have heard the dismal howling of their singers, and they have no reason to stay home!"

Morgaine asked one of Cai's helpers around the castle to fetch her harp from her chamber. He had to climb around the curve of the bench, and lost his footing; only the quickness of Lancelet, reaching out to steady boy and harp, kept the instrument from falling.

Arthur frowned. "It was good of my father-in-law to send me this great round mead table," he said, "but there is no chamber in Caerleon large enough for it. When the Saxons are driven away for good, I think I must build a hall just to hold it!"

"Then will it never be built." Cai laughed. "To say 'when the Saxons are driven away for good' is like to saying 'when Jesus shall come again' or 'when Hell freezes' or 'when raspberries grow on the apple trees of Glastonbury.' "

"Or when King Pellinore catches his dragon," Meleas giggled.

Arthur smiled. "You must not make fun of Pellinore's dragon," he said, "for there is word it has been seen again, and he is off to find it and slay it this time-indeed, he asked the Merlin if he knew any dragon-catching spells!"

"Oh, aye, it has been seen-like a troll on the hills, turned to stone by daylight, or the ring stones dancing on the night of the full moon," Lancelet gibed. "There are always people who see whatever vision they will -some see saints and miracles, and some see dragons or the old fairy folk. But never did I know of living man or woman who had seen either dragon or fairy."

Morgaine remembered, against her will, the day in Avalon when she had gone searching for roots and herbs and strayed into the strange country where the fairy woman had spoken with her and had sought to foster her child ... what, indeed, had she seen? Or had it been only the sick fantasy of a breeding woman?

"You say that, when you were yourself fostered as Lancelet of the Lake?" she asked quietly, and Lancelet turned round to her. He said, "There are times when that seems unreal to me-is it not so for you, sister?"

She said, "It is true indeed, but at times I am homesick for Avalon ... ."

"Aye, and I too, kinswoman," he said. Never since that night of Arthur's marriage, by word or look had he implied that he had ever felt anything more for her than for a childhood companion and foster-sister. She had thought she had long accepted the pain of that, but it struck her anew as his dark, beautiful eyes met hers in such kindness.

Soon or late, it must seem even as Balan said: we are both unmarried, the King's sister and his best friend ... .

Arthur said, "Well, when the Saxons are driven away for good-and do not laugh as if that were a fabulous event! It can be done, now, and I think they know it-then I shall build myself a castle, and a great hall big enough for even this table. I have already chosen the site-it is a hill fort which was there long before Roman times, looking down on the Lake itself, and near to your father's island kingdom, Gwenhwyfar. You know the place, where the river flows into the Lake-"

"I know," she said. "When I was a small child I went there one day to pick strawberries. There was an old ruined well, and we found elf bolts there. The old folk who lived on the chalk had left their arrows." How strange, Gwenhwyfar thought, to remember that there had been a time when she had liked to go abroad under the wide, high sky, not even caring whether there was a wall or the safety of an enclosure; and now she grew sick and dizzy if she went out from the walls, where she could not see or touch them. Sometimes now she felt the lump of fear in her belly even when she walked across the courtyard, and had to hurry to touch the safety of the wall again.

"It is an easy place to fortify," Arthur said, "though I hope, when we are done with the Saxons, we may have leisure and peace in this island."

"An ignoble wish for a warrior, brother," said Cai. "What will you do in time of peace?"

"I will call Kevin the Bard to make songs, and I will break my own horses and ride them for pleasure," Arthur said. "My Companions and I will raise our sons without putting a sword in every little hand before it is full grown to manhood! And I need not fear they will be lamed or slain before they are full grown. Cai-would it not be better if you need not have been sent to war before you were old enough to guard yourself? Sometimes I feel it wrong that it was you, not I, who was lamed, because Ectorius wanted me kept safe for Uther!" He looked with concern and affection at his foster-brother, and Cai grinned back at him.

"And," said Lancelet, "we will keep the arts of war alive by holding games, as they did in the days of the ancients, and crown the winner of the games with laurel wreaths-what is laurel, Arthur, and does it grow in these islands? Or is it only in the land of Achilles and Alexander?"

"The Merlin could tell you that," Morgaine said, when Arthur looked perplexed'. "I know not either, but whether or no we have laurel, there are plants enough to make wreaths for the victors at your games."

"And we will give garlands to harpers too," Lancelet said. "Sing, Morgaine."

"I had better sing for you now," Morgaine said, "for I do not suppose, when you men hold your games, you will let women sing." She took up the harp and began to play. She was sitting nearly where she had been sitting this afternoon when she saw blood spilled forth on the King's hearth ... would it truly come to pass, or was it fantasy? Why, indeed, should she think she still possessed the Sight? It never came upon her now save in these unwelcome trances ... .

She began to sing an ancient lament which she had heard at Tintagel, a lament of a fisherwoman who had seen the boats swept out to sea. She knew that she held them all with her voice, and in the silence of the hall she fell to singing old songs of the islands, which she had heard at Lot's court: a legend of the seal woman who had come out of the sea to find a mortal lover, songs of the solitary women herders, songs for spinning and for carding flax. Even when her voice grew weary they called for more, but she held up her hand in protest.