"Don't be more of a fool than you must, Elaine," said Morgaine. "Do you think Cai would thank Lancelet for sparing him? If Cai went into these games, surely he is able to risk whatever hurt he could take! No one bade him compete."

It had been foreordained from the moment Lancelet took the field who would win the prize. There was some good-natured grumbling among the Companions when they saw it. "There is no use in any of us entering the lists at all, while Lancelet is here," Gawaine said, laughing, his arm around his cousin. "Couldn't you have stayed away another day or so, Lance?"

Lancelet was laughing too, a high color in his face. He took the golden cup and tossed it in the air. "Your mother, too, besought me to stay in her court for Beltane. I came not here to defraud you of the prize-I have no need of prizes. Gwenhwyfar, my lady," he cried, "take this, and give me instead the ribbon you wear about your neck. The cup may go to the altar or to the Queen's high table!"

Embarrassed, Gwenhwyfar's hand flew to her throat and the ribbon on which she had tied Morgaine's charm. "This I may not give you, my friend-" But she fumbled at the sleeve which she had embroidered with small pearls. "Take this for a kindness to my champion. As for the prize- well, I will give prizes to all of you-" She gestured to Gawaine and Gareth, who had come in after Lancelet in the riding.

"Graciously done," Arthur said, rising in his place, while Lancelet took the embroidered silk and kissed it, then fastened it around his helm. "But my most valiant fighter must still be honored. You will sit with us at the high table, Lancelet, and tell us all that has befallen you since you left my court."

Gwenhwyfar excused herself with her ladies, the better to prepare for the feast. Elaine and Meleas were chattering about Lancelet's valor, his riding, his generosity in giving up all claim to the prize. Gwenhwyfar could think only of the look he had given her when he begged her for the ribbon about her throat. She looked up and met Morgaine's dark, enigmatic smile. I cannot even pray for peace of mind. I have forfeited the right to pray.

For the first hour of the feast she was moving about, making sure that all of the guests were properly seated and served. By the time she took her seat at the high table they were drunk, most of them, and it was very dark outside. The servants brought lamps and torches, fastening them into the wall, and Arthur said jovially, "See, my lady, we are lighting our own Beltane fire within walls."

Morgaine had come to sit close to Lancelet. Gwenhwyfar's face throbbed with heat and with the wine she had drunk; she turned away so that she might not see them. Lancelet said, with a great yawn, "Why, it is Beltane indeed-I had forgotten."

"And Gwenhwyfar had it that we must have a feast so that none of our folk would be tempted to slip away into the old rites," Arthur said. "There are more ways to skin a wolf than chasing him out of his fur-if I forbade the fires, then would I be a tyrant-"

"And," Morgaine said, in her low voice, "faithless to Avalon, my brother."

"But if my lady makes it more pleasant for my people here to sit at our feast instead of going out into the fields to dance by the fires, then is our purpose achieved more simply!"

Morgaine shrugged. To Gwenhwyfar it seemed that she was secretly amused. She had drunk but little-perhaps she was the only wholly sober person at the King's table. "You have been travelling in Lothian, Lancelet -do they keep the Beltane rites there?"

"So says the Queen," Lancelet said, "but for all I know, she may have been jesting with me-I saw nothing to suggest that Queen Morgause is not the most Christian of ladies." But it seemed to Gwenhwyfar that he glanced uneasily at Gawaine as he spoke. "Mark what I say, Gawaine, I said nothing against the lady of Lothian, I have no quarrel with you or yours ... ."

But only a soft snore answered him, and Morgaine's laughter was brittle. "Look, yonder lies Gawaine asleep with his head on the table! I too would ask news of Lothian, Lancelet... I do not think anyone reared there could so quickly forget the Beltane fires. The sun tides run in the blood of anyone reared on Avalon, like me, like Queen Morgause-is it not so, Lancelet? Arthur, do you remember the kingmaking on Dragon Island? How many years ago-nine, ten-"

Arthur looked displeased, though he spoke gently enough. "That is many years past and gone, as you say, sister, and the world changes with every season. I think the time for such things is past, save, perhaps, for those who live with fields and crops and must call on the Goddess for their blessing

-Taliesin would say so, and I will not gainsay it. But I think those old rites have little to do with such as we who dwell in castles and cities and have heard the word of Christ." He raised his wine cup, emptied it, and spoke with drunken emphasis. "God will give us all we desire-all that is right for us to have-without need to call upon the old Gods, is it not so, Lance?"

Gwenhwyfar felt Lancelet's eyes on her for a moment before he said, "Which of us has all things he may desire, my king? No king, and no God, can grant that."

"But I want my-my subjects to have all they need," repeated Arthur thickly. "And so does my queen, giving us our own Bel-Beltane fires here-"

"Arthur," said Morgaine gently, "you are drunk."

"Well, and why not?" he asked her belligerently. "At my own feast and my own-own fire, and what else did I fight the Saxons for, all those years? Sit here at my own Round Table and enjoy the-the peace-good ale and wine, and good music-where is Kevin the Harper? Am I to have no music at my feast?"

Lancelet said, laughing, "I have no doubt he has gone to worship the Goddess at her fires, and to play his harp there, on Dragon Island."

"Why, this is treason," said Arthur thickly. "And another reason to forbid the Beltane fires, so I may have music-"

Morgaine laughed and said lightheartedly, "You cannot command the conscience of another, my brother. Kevin is a Druid and has the right to offer his music to his own Gods if he will." She leaned her chin on her hands, and Gwenhwyfar thought she looked like a cat licking cream from her whiskers. "But I think he has already kept Beltane in his own way-no doubt he has gone to his bed, for all the company here is too drunken to tell the difference between his harping and mine and Gawaine's howling pipes! Even as he sleeps he plays the music of Lothian," she added, as a particularly raucous snore from the sleeping Gawaine cut the silence, and she gestured to one of the chamberlains, who went and persuaded Gawaine to his feet. He bowed groggily to Arthur and staggered from the hall.

Lancelet raised the cup in his hand and drained it. "I too have had enough of music and feasting, I think-I have ridden since before daylight, since I would come to your games this day, and soon, I think, I will beg leave to be away to my bed, Arthur." Gwenhwyfar gauged his drunkenness by that offhanded Arthur; in public he was always very careful to speak formally to Arthur as "my lord," or "my king," and only when they were alone did he say "cousin" or "Arthur."

But indeed, so late in the feast, there were few sober enough to notice-they might as well have been alone together. Arthur did not even answer Lancelet; he had slipped down a little in his high seat, and his eyes were half closed. Well, Gwenhwyfar thought, he had said it himself-it was his own feast and his own fireside, and if a man could not be drunken in his own house, why had he fought so many years to make their feasts safe and secure?

And if Arthur should be too drunk tonight to welcome her to his bed, after all... she could feel the ribbon about her neck, where the charm hung, and its weight heavy and hot between her breasts. 'Tis Beltane; could he not keep sober for that? Had he been bidden to one of those old pagan feasts, he would have remembered, she thought, and her cheeks burned with the immodesty of the thought. I must be drunk too! She looked angrily at Morgaine, cool and sober, toying with the ribbons of her harp. Why should Morgaine smile like that?