"Enough-no, truly, I can sing no more. I am hoarse as any raven."

Soon after, Arthur called the servants to extinguish the torches in the hall and light the guests to bed. It was one of Morgaine's tasks to see that the unmarried women who waited on the Queen were safely put to sleep in the long loft room behind the Queen's own chamber, at the opposite end of the building from the soldiers and armsmen. But she lingered a moment, her eyes on Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, who were bidding Lancelet good night.

"I have told the women to prepare the best spare bed for you, Lancelet," said Gwenhwyfar, but he laughed and shook his head.

"I am a soldier-it is my duty to see horses and men bedded safe for the night before I sleep."

Arthur chuckled, his arm around Gwenhwyfar's waist. "We must get you married, Lance, then you will not spend your nights so cold. I made you my captain of horse, but you need not spend your nights lying down among them!"

Gwenhwyfar felt a pain within her breast as she met Lancelet's eyes. It seemed to her that she could almost read his thoughts, that he would say aloud again, as he had said once, My heart is so full of my queen I have no room therefor any other lady.... She held her breath, but Lancelet only sighed and smiled at her, and she thought, No, lama wedded wife, a Christian woman, it is sin even to think such thoughts; I must do penance. And then, feeling her throat so tight she could not swallow, she felt the thought come unbidden. Penance enough that I must be apart from the one I love ... and she gasped aloud, so that Arthur turned startled eyes on her.

"What is it, love, have you hurt yourself?"

"A-a pin pricked me," she said, and turned her eyes away, pretending to hunt for the pin at the folds of her dress. She saw Morgaine watching her, and bit her lip. She is always watching me ... and she has the Sight; does she know all my sinful thoughts? Is that why she looks on me so scornfully?

Yet Morgaine had never shown her anything but a sister's kindness. And when she had been pregnant, in the first year of their marriage-when she had taken a fever and miscarried the child within five months-she could not bear to have any of her ladies about her, and Morgaine had cared for her almost like a mother. Why, now, was she so ungrateful?

Lancelet bade them good night again, and withdrew. Gwenhwyfar was almost painfully conscious of Arthur's arm around her waist, the frank eagerness in his eyes. Well, they had been apart a long time. But she felt a sudden, sharp resentment. Not once, since that time, have I been pregnant -can he not even give me a child?

Oh, but surely that was her own fault-one of the midwives had told her it was like a sickness in cattle when they cast their calves unborn, time after time, and sometimes women took that sickness too, so they could not carry a child more than a month or two, three at the most. Somehow, through carelessness, she must have taken that illness, gone perhaps into the dairy at the wrong time, or drunk of milk from a cow who had cast her calf, and so the life of her lord's son and heir had been forfeit, and it was all her doing. ... Torn with guilt, she followed Arthur into their chamber.

"It is more than a jest, Gwen," said Arthur, sitting to draw off his leather hose. "We must get Lancelet married. Have you seen how all the lads run to him, and how good he is with them? He should have sons of his own. I have it, Gwen! We will marry him to Morgaine!"

"No!" The word was torn from her before she thought, and Arthur looked at her, startled.

"What is the matter with you? Does it not seem perfect, the right choice? My dear sister and my best friend? And their children, mark you, would be next heirs to our throne in any case, if it should be that the Gods send us no children ... . No, no, don't cry, my love," he begged, and Gwenhwyfar knew, humiliated and shamed, that her face had twisted with weeping. "I meant not to reproach you, my dearest love, children come when the Goddess wills, but only she knows when we will have children, or if we will ever have them at all. And although Gawaine is dear to me, I have no will to put a son of Lot on the throne if I should die. Morgaine is my own mother's child, and Lancelet my cousin-"

"Surely it cannot matter to Lancelet whether or no he has sons," said Gwenhwyfar. "He is fifth-or is it sixth-son to King Ban, and bastard-born at that."

"I never thought to hear you, of all people, reproach my kinsman and dearest friend with his birth," Arthur said. "And he is no ordinary bastard, but son to the grove and the Great Marriage-"

"Pagan harlotries! If I were King Ban, I would clean all such sorcerous filth from my kingdom-and so should you!"

Arthur shifted uneasily, clambering under the bed cover. "Lancelet would have little cause to love me if I drove his mother from this kingdom. And I am sworn to honor Avalon, by the sword they gave me at my kingmaking."

Gwenhwyfar looked at the great sword Excalibur, where it hung over the edge of the bed in its magical scabbard covered with mystical symbols that seemed to shine with pale silver and mock at her. She put out the light and lay down beside Arthur, saying, "Our Lord Jesus would safeguard you better than any such wicked enchantments. You did not have to do with any of their vile Goddesses and sorcery before you were made King, did you? I know such things were done in Uther's day, but this is a Christian land!"

Arthur shifted uneasily and said, "There are many folk in this land, the Old People who dwelt here long before Rome came to us-we cannot take their Gods from them. And-what befell before my crowning-well, that touches you not, my Gwenhwyfar."

"Men cannot serve two masters," said Gwenhwyfar, surprised at her own daring. "I would have you altogether a Christian king, my lord."

"I owe allegiance to all my people," said Arthur, "not those alone who follow Christ-"

"It seems to me," said Gwenhwyfar, "that those are your enemies, not the Saxons. The true warfare for a Christian king is only against those who do not follow Christ."

Arthur laughed uneasily at that. "Now do you sound like the bishop Patricius. He would have us Christianize the Saxons rather than putting them to the sword, so that we may live at peace with them. For my part I am like to the priests who were here in the older days, who were asked to send missionaries to the Saxons-know you what they said, my wife?"

"No, I have never heard-"

"They said, they would send no missionaries to the Saxons, lest they be forced to meet them in peace, even before God's throne." Arthur laughed heartily, but Gwenhwyfar did not smile, and after a time he sighed.

"Well, think on it, my Gwenhwyfar. It seems to me the best possible marriage-my dearest friend and my sister. Then would he be my brother and his sons my heirs ... ."

In the darkness his arms went round her, and he added, "But now we must strive to make it come to pass that we will need no other heirs, you and I, my love, but those you can give to me."

"God grant it," whispered Gwenhwyfar, moving into his arms, and tried to close away everything out of her mind but Arthur, here in her arms.

MORGAINE, lingering after she had seen the women to bed, stood near the. window, restless. Elaine, who shared her bed, murmured to her, "Come and sleep, Morgaine; it is late, you must be weary."

She shook her head. "I think it is the moon that has gotten into my blood tonight-I am not sleepy." She was unwilling to lie down and close her eyes; even if she had not the Sight, it was her imagination which would torment her. All round her the newly returned men joined with their wives -she thought, with a wry smile in the darkness, it is like to Beltane in Avalon ... even the soldiers who were not wedded, she was sure, had somehow found women for this night. Everyone, from the King with his wife down to the stablemen, lay in someone's arms tonight, except for the Queen's maidens; Gwenhwyfar thought it her duty to guard their chastity, even as Balan had said. And I am guarded with the Queen's maidens.