"How does your father, Elaine?" She wondered that her voice was so steady.

"He is quiet now, and I think he will sleep."

Morgaine nodded. "Now you must go to the pavilion, and sometime this night Lancelet will come to you. Forget not the scent Gwenhwyfar wears ... ."

Elaine was very pale, her blue eyes burning. Morgaine reached out and caught her by the arm; she held out a flask with some of the drugged wine in it. She said, and her own voice was shaking, "Drink this first, child." Elaine raised it to her lips and drank. "It is sweet with herbs ... is it a love potion?"

Morgaine's smile only stretched her mouth. "You may think it so, if you will."

"Strange, it burns my mouth, and burns me within ... . Morgaine, it is not poison? You do not-you do not hate me, Morgaine, because I will be Lancelet's wife?"

Morgaine drew the girl close and embraced and kissed her; the warm body in her arms somehow roused her, whether to desire or tenderness she could not tell. "Hate you? No, no, cousin, I swear it to you, I would not have sir Lancelet for husband if he begged me on his knees ... here, finish the wine, sweeting ... scent your body here, and here ....emember what he wants of you. It is you who can make him forget the Queen. Now go, child, wait for him in the pavilion there. ..." And again she drew Elaine close to her and kissed her. "The Goddess blesses you."

So like to Gwenhwyfar. Lancelet is already half in love with her, I think, and I but complete the work ... .

She drew a long, shaking breath, composing herself to return to the hall and to Lancelot. He had not hesitated to pour himself more of the drugged wine, and raised fuddled eyes as she came in.

"Ah, Morgaine-kinswoman-" He drew her down beside him. "Drink with me ... "

"No, not now. Listen to me, Lancelet, I bear a message for you ... ."

"A message, Morgaine?"

"Yes," she said. "Queen Gwenhwyfar has come hither to visit her kinswoman, and she sleeps in the pavilion beyond the lawns." She took his wrist and drew him along to the door. "And she has sent you a message: she does not wish to disturb her women, so you must go to her very quietly where she is in bed. Will you do that?"

She could see the haze of drunkenness and passion in his dark eyes. "I saw no messenger-Morgaine, I did not know you wished me well ... ."

"You do not know how well I wish you, cousin."

I wish that you may marry well and cease this hopeless, wretched love for a woman who can only bring you to dishonor and despair ... .

"Go," she said gently, "your queen awaits you. If you doubt me, this token was sent you." She held out a kerchief; it was Elaine's, but one kerchief is like to another, and it had been all but drenched in the scent associated with Gwenhwyfar.

He pressed it to his lips. "Gwenhwyfar," he whispered. "Where, Morgaine, where?"

"In the pavilion. Finish the wine-"

"Will you drink to me?"

"Later," she said with a smile. His steps faltered a little; he caught at her for support, and his arms went round her. His touch roused her, light as it was. Lust, she told herself fiercely, animal rut, this is nothing blessed by the Goddess ... . She struggled for calm. He was drugged like an animal, he would not care, he would take her now mindlessly, as he would have taken Gwenhwyfar, Elaine ... . "Go, Lancelet, you must not keep your queen waiting."

She saw him disappear in the shadows near the pavilion. He would go in quietly. Elaine would be lying there, the lamp falling on her golden hair so like the Queen's, but so dim he could not distinguish her features, her body and bed smelling of Gwenhwyfar's scent. She tormented herself by imagining, as she turned to pace the long empty room, how his slender naked body would slide under the covers, how he would take Elaine in his arms and cover her with kisses. If the little fool has but the wit to keep her mouth shut and say nothing till he is done ... .

Goddess! Shut away the Sight from me, let me not see Elaine in his arms ... writhing, racked, Morgaine did not know whether it was her own imagination or the Sight that tortured her with the awareness of Lancelet's naked body, of the touch of his hands ... how clearly she felt them in memory ... . She went back into the hall where the servants were clearing the tables and said roughly, "Give me some wine."

Startled, the man poured her a cup. Now they will think me a sot as well as a witch. She did not care. She drank down the wine and asked for more. Somehow it cut away the Sight, freed her from her awareness of Elaine, frightened and ecstatic, pinned down under his rough, demanding body ... .

Restlessly, like a prowling cat, she paced the hall, flickers of the Sight coming and going. When she judged the time was ripe, she drew a long breath, steeling herself for what she knew she must do now. The body servant who slept across the king's door started awake as Morgaine bent to rouse him.

"Madam, you cannot disturb the king at this hour-" "It concerns his daughter's honor." Morgaine took a torch from the wall bracket and held it aloft; she could sense how she looked to him, tall and terrible, feeling herself merge into the commanding form of the Goddess. He drew aside in terror, and she moved smoothly past.

Pellinore lay in his high bed, tossing restlessly in pain from his bandaged wound. He, too, started awake, looking up at Morgaine's pale face, the torch held high.

"You must come quickly, my lord," she said, her voice smooth and taut with her own controlled passion. "This is betrayal of hospitality ... I felt it right that you must know. Elaine-" "Elaine? What-"

"She is not asleep in our bed," Morgaine said. "Come quickly, my lord." She had been wise not to let him drink; she could not have roused him had he slept heavily with wine. Pellinore, startled, incredulous, threw on a garment, shouting for his daughter's women. It seemed to Morgaine that they followed her down the stairs and out the doors as smoothly as the writhing of a dragon, a procession with herself and Pellinore at the serpent's head, and she thrust back the silken flap of the pavilion, holding the torch high and watching with cruel triumph as Pellinore's outraged face was lighted by the torch. Elaine lay with her arms wound around Lancelet's neck, smiling and blissful; Lancelet, coming awake in the torchlight, stared around in shock and awareness, and his face was agonized with betrayal. But he did not say a word.

Pellinore shouted, "Now you will make amends, you lecherous wretch, you who have betrayed my daughter-"

Lancelet buried his face in his hands. He said through them, strangled, "I will-make amends-my lord Pellinore." Then he raised his face and looked straight into Morgaine's eyes. She met them, unflinching; but it was like a sword through her body. Before this, at least, he had loved her as a kinswoman.

Well, better that he should hate her. She would try to hate him, too. But before Elaine's face, shamed and yet smiling, she wanted to cry instead, and beg for them to pardon her.

MORGAINE SPEAKS ...

Lancelet was married to Elaine on Transfiguration; I remember little of the ceremony save Elaine's face, joyous and smiling. By the time Pellinore had arranged the wedding, she knew already that she bore Lancelet's son in her belly, and although he looked wretched, thin and pallid with despair, he was tender with Elaine, and proud of her swelling body. I remember Gwenhwyfar too, her face drawn with long weeping, and the look of ineradicable hatred that she turned on me.

"Can you swear that this was not your doing, Morgaine?"

I looked her straight in the eye.

"Do you begrudge your kinswoman a husband of her own, as you have one?"