"So Balin too is a courteous and good knight?" Viviane said.

"Oh, yes, Mother, you must not judge my brother by tonight," Balan said eagerly. "When he rode against Lancelet, truly I knew not which of them to cheer on. Lancelet offered him the prize, saying he had won it fairly, since he should not have lost control of his horse-so he said! But Balin would not take it, and they stood disputing with one another in courtesy like two heroes from the ancient sagas Taliesin used to tell us when we were lads!"

"So you can be proud of both your brothers," Viviane said, and the talk passed to other things, and after a little time she said she should go and help with the laying-out. But when she went into the chamber, she saw that the women were all in awe of her, and a priest had come, too, from the village. He welcomed her courteously indeed, but Viviane could tell by his words that he thought her one of the sisters from the nunnery nearby- indeed, her dark travel dress made her look so, and she had no wish to confront him this night. So, when they entreated her to go to the best guest bed, she went, and at last she slept. But all that she had spoken of with Balan seemed to come and go in her head, through her dreams, and at one moment it seemed that she saw Morgaine through grey and thinning mists, running away into a wood of strange trees and crowned with flowers such as never grew in Avalon, and she said in her dreams, and again to herself when she woke, I must delay no longer, I must seek for her with the Sight, or what remains to me of the Sight.

The next morning she stood by while Priscilla was laid in earth. Balin had returned and stood weeping by the graveside, and after the burial was done and the other folk had gone into the house to drink ale, she approached him and said gently, "Will you not embrace me and exchange forgiveness with me, foster-son? Believe me, I share your grief. We have been friends all our lives, Dame Priscilla and I, or would I have given her my own son to nurse? And I am your foster-brother's mother." She held out her arms, but Balin's face drew hard and cold, and he turned his back on her and walked away.

Gawan besought her to stay for a day or two and rest there, but Viviane asked for her donkey to be brought; she must return to Avalon, she said, and she saw that Gawan, though his hospitality had been sincere, was relieved-if someone had told the priest who she was, there might have been awkwardness he had no mind to, during his wife's funeral feast. Balan, too, asked, "Will you have me to ride with you to Avalon, madam? There are sometimes brigands and evil folk on the road."

"No," she said, giving him her hand and smiling. "I look not as if I had gold about me, and the men who ride with me are of the Tribesmen -we could hide in the hills, should we be attacked. Nor am I any temptation to any man who might seek to take a woman." She laughed and said, "And with Lancelet questing to kill all the brigands in this country, it will soon be as it was said once it was, that a virgin of fifteen bearing a purse of gold might ride from one end of the land to the other with no man to offer her insult! Stay here, my son, and mourn your mother, and make peace with your foster-brother. You must not quarrel with him for my sake, Balan." And then she shuddered suddenly as if with cold, for a picture had come into her mind, and it seemed to her as if there was the clash of swords and her son bleeding from a great wound ... .

"What is it, Lady?" he asked her softly.

"Nothing, my son-only promise to me that you will not break the peace with your brother Balin."

He bent his head. "I will not, Mother. And I will tell him that you have said this, so he will not think you bear him any grudge, either."

"By the Lady, I do not," said Viviane, but still she felt icy cold, though the winter sun was warm on her back. "May she bless you, my son, and your brother too, though I doubt he wishes for the blessing of any God but his own. Will you take the Lady's blessing, Balan?"

"I will," he said, bending to kiss Viviane's hand, and he stood looking after her as she rode away.

She told herself, as she rode toward Avalon that surely what she had seen had come of her own weariness and fear; and in any case Balan was one of Arthur's Companions, and it could not be looked for, in this war with the Saxons, that he should escape a wound. But the picture persisted in her mind, that Balan and his foster-brother should somehow quarrel in her name, until at last she made a stern banishing gesture and willed to see her son's face no more in her mind till she should look on it again in the flesh!

She was troubled too about Lancelet. He was long past the age when a man should marry. Yet there were men enough who had no mind to women, seeking only for the companionship of their brothers and comrades under arms, and she had wondered often enough if Ban's son were one of them. Well, Lancelet should take his own road; she had consented to that when he left Avalon. If he professed great devotion to the Queen, no doubt, it was only that his comrades should not mock at him as a lover of boys.

But she dismissed her sons from her mind. Neither of them was as near to her heart as Morgaine, and Morgaine ... where was Morgaine? She had been disquieted before this, but now, hearing Balan's news, she feared for Morgaine's very life. Before this day was ended, she should send out messengers from Avalon to Tintagel, where Igraine dwelt, and northward to Lot's court where Morgaine might have gone to be with her child ... . She had seen the young Gwydion, once or twice, in her mirror, but had paid him little heed, as long as he grew and thrived. Morgause was kindly to all little children, having a brood of her own, and there would be time enough to look to Gwydion when he came of an age for fostering. Then should he come to Avalon ... .

With the iron discipline of years, she managed to put even Morgaine from her mind and to ride home to Avalon in a mood befitting a priestess who had just taken the part of the Death-crone for her oldest friend- sobered indeed, but without great grief, for death was only the beginning of new life.

Priscilla was a Christian. She believed she would now be with her God in Heaven. Yet she too will be born again on this imperfect world, to seek the perfection of the Gods, again and yet again ... . Balan and I parted as strangers, and so it must be. I am no more the Mother, and I should feel no more grief than when I ceased to be the Maiden for her ... yet her heart was filled with rebellion.

Truly, the time had come for her to give up her rulership of Avalon, that a younger woman might be Lady of the Lake and she herself no more than one of the wise-women, offering counsel and advice, but carrying no more that fearsome power. She had long known that the Sight was leaving her. Yet she would not lay down her power until she could place it in the hands of that one she had prepared to take it from her. She had felt that she could wait until Morgaine had outgrown her bitterness and returned to Avalon.

Yet if anything has befallen Morgaine ... and even if it has not, have I the right to continue as Lady when the Sight has left me?

For a moment, when she came to the Lake, she was so cold and wet that when the boat's crew turned to her to call down the mists, she could not force herself to remember the spell. Indeed it is time and more than time that I should lay down my powers ... . Then the words of power came back into her mind and she spoke them, but much of that night she lay wakeful, in dread.

When the morning had come, she studied the sky; the moon was darkening, and it would do no good to consult the mirror at this time. Will it ever profit me anything to look into that mirror again, now the Sight has departed from me? With iron discipline, she forced herself to say nothing of any of this to her attendant priestesses. But later that day she met with the other wise-women and asked them, "Is there anyone in the House of Maidens who is still virgin and has never yet gone to the grove or to the fires?"