Balan came and took her hand and said, "I'm sorry he is receiving it in this way, my lady. He knows better, and when the shock is past he'll be grateful to you as I am-poor little mother, she suffered so, and now 'tis ended, and I bless you too." He lowered his head, trying not to sob aloud. "She was-was like mother to me too-"

"I know, my son, I know," Viviane murmured, patting his head as if he were the clumsy little boy he had been more than twenty years ago. "It's only right you should weep for your foster-mother, you would be heartless if you did not-" and he broke down and sobbed, kneeling at her side, his face buried in her lap.

Balin came and stood over them, his face drawn with fury. "You know she killed our mother, Balan, and yet you come to her for comfort?"

Balan raised his head, snuffling back sobs. "She did our mother's will. Are you such a fool you could not see-even with God's help our mother could not have lived another fortnight, do you grudge her that last pain she was spared?"

But Balin only cried desolately, "My mother, my mother is dead!"

"Be still, she was my foster-mother, my mother too," said Balan angrily, and then his face softened. "Ah, brother, brother, I grieve too, why should we quarrel? Come now, drink some wine, her suffering is ended and she is with God-better we should pray for her than be all at odds this way. Come, brother, come and eat and rest, you are weary too."

"No," cried Balin, "I will not rest under the roof that shelters the foul sorceress who slew my mother!"

Gawan came, pale and angry, and struck Balin across the mouth. He said, "Peace! The Lady of Avalon is our guest and our friend! You shall not sully the hospitality of this roof with such blasphemous words! Sit down, my son, and eat, or you will speak words we shall all regret!"

But Balin stared about him like a wild animal. "I will neither eat nor rest under this roof while it holds that-that woman."

Balan demanded, "Dare you offer insult to my mother?" And Balin cried, "You are all against me, then-I shall go forth from this roof which shelters my mother's slayer!" He turned his back and ran from the house. Viviane sank down in a chair, and Balan came to offer his arm and Gawan to pour her a cup of wine.

"Drink, Lady-and accept my apologies for my son," he said. "He is beside himself; he will come soon enough to sanity."

"Shall I go after him, Father, for fear he should do himself some hurt?" Balan asked, but Gawan shook his head.

"No-no, son, stay here with your mother. Words will do him little good now."

Trembling, Viviane sipped at her wine. She, too, was overcome with sorrow for Priscilla, and for the time when they had been young women together, each with her baby son in her arms.... Priscilla had been so pretty and merry, they had laughed together and played with their babies, and now Priscilla lay dead after a wasting illness, and Viviane's own hand had held the cup of her death. That she had done Priscilla's own will only eased her conscience, it did not blunt her sadness.

We were young together, and now she lies dead and I am old, old as the Death-crone's very self; and those pretty babies who played about our feet, one has grey in his own hair, and the other would kill me if he could, as afoul sorceress and murderer. ... It seemed to Viviane that her very bones rattled with an icy grief. She stood near to the fire, but still she shivered and could not get warm. She clutched her shawl about her, and Balan came and led her to the best seat, tucked a cushion behind her back, set a cup of heated wine in her hands.

"Ah, you loved her too," he said. "Don't trouble yourself about Balin, Lady, he will regain his reason in time. When he can think clear again, he'll know that what you did was great mercy to our mother-" He broke off, slow red creeping up his heavy jowls. "Are you angry with me, Lady, that still I think of my mother as she who died but now?"

"It is no more than reason," said Viviane, sipping at the hot wine, and caressing her son's hardened hand. Once, she thought, it had been so little and tender that she could enfold it within her own, like a curled rosebud, and now her own hand was quite lost within his. "The Goddess knows, she was more mother to you than ever I was."

"Aye, I should have known that you would understand that," said Balan. "Morgaine said as much to me when I saw her last at Arthur's court."

"Morgaine? Is she at Arthur's court now, my son? Was she there when you came away?"

Balan shook his head regretfully. "No, I saw her last-it was years gone, Lady. She left Arthur's court, let me think ... it was before Arthur had his great wound ... why, 'tis three years come Midsummer. I thought she was with you in Avalon."

Viviane shook her head and steadied herself against the arm of the high seat. "I have not seen Morgaine since Arthur's wedding." And then she thought, perhaps she is gone over the seas. She asked Balan, "What of your brother Lancelet? Is he at court or has he gone back to Less Britain?"

"He will not do that, I think, while Arthur lives," Balan said, "though he is not often at court now ..." and Viviane, with a fragment of the Sight, heard the unspoken words Balan bit back, unwilling to speak gossip or scandal: When Lancelet is at court, men mark how he never takes his eyes from Queen Gwenhwyfar, and twice he has refused Arthur when Arthur would have had him wedded. Balan went on hastily, "Lancelet has said he will set all things in order in Arthur's kingdom, and so he is always out and about the lands, he has killed more marauding brigands and raiding bands than any other of Arthur's Companions. They say of him that he is an entire legion in himself, Lady-" and Balan raised his head and looked ruefully at Viviane. "Your younger son, Mother, is a great knight, such a knight as that old Alexander of the legends. There are those who say, even, that he is a better knight than Arthur's self. I have brought no such glory on you, my lady."

"We all do such things as the Gods give us to do, my son," Viviane said gently. "I am only glad to see that you do not bear malice toward your brother for that he is a better knight than you."

Balan shook his head. "Why, that would be like bearing malice toward Arthur that I am not the King, Mother," he said. "And Lancelet is modest and good to all men, and pious as a maiden too-knew you not that he had become a Christian, Lady?"

Viviane shook her head. "It surprises me not," she said, with a trace of scorn she did not know would be in her voice until she had spoken. "Always your brother fears those things he cannot understand, and the faith of Christ is a fitting faith for slaves who think themselves sinners and humble-" Then she stopped herself and said, "I am sorry, my son. I meant not to belittle. I know it is your faith too."

Balan blinked and smiled. "Now has a miracle come to pass, madam, that you ask pardon of any for any word you ever spoke!"

Viviane bit her lip. "Is that truly how you see me, my son?"

He nodded. "Aye, ever you have seemed to me the proudest of women-and it seemed to me right that you should be exactly as you are," he said. And Viviane mocked herself that she had come to this, seeking a word of approval from her son! She cast about to find something new to speak of.

"You told me Lancelet has twice refused to marry? For what, do you think, is he waiting? Does he want more of a dowry than any maiden can bring him?"

Again it seemed that she heard Balan's unspoken thoughts: He cannot have the one he would have, for she is wedded to his king ... but her son said only, "He says he has no mind to marry any woman, and jests that he is fonder of his horse than he could be of any woman who could not ride with him into battle-he says in jest that one day he will take one of the Saxon shield maidens to wife. None can match him at arms, either, nor in the games Arthur holds at Caerleon. Sometimes he will take some handicap, ride without a shield, or change horses with another, so he will not have too much of the advantage. Balin challenged him once and won a course against him, but he refused a prize for it, because he found out it was because Lancelet's saddle girths broke."