And then, when I had been married to Uriens for a year, Accolon came home.

9

Summer on the hills; the orchard in the queen's garden covered with pink and white blossoms. Morgaine, walking beneath the trees, felt an aching homesickness all through her blood, remembering the Avalon spring and the trees covered with those white and rosy clouds. The year was swinging toward the summer solstice; Morgaine reckoned it up, realizing ruefully that at last the effects of half a lifetime in Avalon were wearing away-the tides no longer ran in her blood.

No, need I lie to myself? It is not that I have forgotten, or that the tides no longer run in my blood, it is that I no longer let myself feel them. Morgaine considered herself dispassionately-the somber costly gown, suitable for a queen ... Uriens had given her all the gowns and jewels which had belonged to his late wife, and she had her jewels from Igraine as well; Uriens liked to see her decked out in jewels befitting a queen.

Some kings kill their prisoners of state, or enslave them in their mines; if it pleases the King of North Wales to hang his with jewels and parade her forth at his side, and call her queen, why not?

Yet she felt full of the flow of the summer. Beneath her on the hillside she could hear a plowman encouraging his ox with soft cries. Tomorrow would be Midsummer.

Next Sunday a priest would carry torches into the field and circle it in procession with his acolytes, chanting psalms and blessings. The richer barons and knights, who were all Christian, had persuaded the people that this was more seemly in a Christian country than the old ways, where the people lighted fires in the fields, and called the Lady in the old worship. Morgaine wished-and not for the first time-that she had been only one of the priestesses, not one of the great royal line of Avalon.

I would still be there, she thought, one of them, doing the work of the Lady ... not here, like any shipwrecked sailor, lost in an alien land ... . Abruptly she turned and walked through the blossoming garden, her eyes downcast, refusing to look any further at the apple blossoms.

Spring comes again and again, and the summer follows, with its fruitfulness. But I am as alone and barren as one of those locked-up Christian virgins within convent walls. She set her will against the tears which seemed somehow always beneath the surface these days, and went inside. Behind her the setting sun spread crimson over the fields, but she would not look at it; all was grey and barren here. As grey and barren as I.

One of her women greeted her as she stepped inside the door.

"My lady, the king has returned and would see you in his chamber."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Morgaine, more to herself than to the woman. A tight band of headache settled around her forehead, and for a moment she could not breathe, could not force herself to walk inside the darkness of the castle which, all this cold winter, had closed round her like a trap. Then she told herself not to be fanciful, set her teeth, and went to Uriens' chamber, where she found him half-clad and lying on the flagstones, stretched out with his body servant rubbing his back.

"You have tired yourself again," she said, not adding, you are no longer young enough to go about your own lands like this. He had ridden to a nearby town to hear about some disputed lands. She knew that he would want her to sit beside him and listen to his tales of all that he had heard in the countryside. She sat down in her own chair nearby and listened with half an ear to what he told her.

"You can go, Berec," he told the man. "My lady will fetch my clothes for me." When the man had gone he asked, "Morgaine, will you rub my feet? Your hands are better than his."

"Certainly. But you will have to sit in the chair."

He stretched out his hands and she gave him a tug upward. She placed a footstool under his feet and knelt beside it, chafing his thin, callused old feet until the blood rose to the surface and they looked alive again; then she fetched a flask and began to rub one of her herbal oils into the king's gnarled toes.

"You should have your man make you some new boots," she said. "The crack in the old ones will make a sore there-see where it is blistered?"

"But the old ones fit me so well, and boots are so stiff when they are new," he protested.

Morgaine said, "You must do as you like, my lord."

"No, no, you are right, as always," he said. "I will tell the man tomorrow to come and measure my feet for a pair."

Morgaine, putting away her flask of herbal oil and fetching a pair of shapeless old soft shoes, thought: I wonder if he knows that this may be his last pair of boots, and that is why he is reluctant? She would not think about what the king's death would mean to her. She did not want to wish him dead -he had never been anything but kind to her. She slid the soft indoor slippers on his feet and stood up, wiping her hands on a towel. "Is that better, my lord?"

"Wonderful, my dear, thank you. No one can look after me the way you do," he said. Morgaine sighed. When he had the new boots he would have more trouble with his feet; they would, as he had rightly foreseen, be stiff, and that would make his feet just as sore as they were now. Perhaps he should stop riding and stay at home in his chair, but he would not do that.

She said, "You should have Avalloch ride out to hear these cases. He must learn to rule over his people." His oldest son was the same age as she. He had waited long enough to rule, and Uriens looked like living forever.

"True, true-but if I do not go, they will think their king does not care for them," Uriens said. "But perhaps when the roads are bad next winter I will do so ... ."

"You had better," she said. "If you have chilblains again, you could lose the use of your hands."

"The fact is, Morgaine," he said, smiling his good-natured smile at her, "I am an old man, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Do you think there is roast pork for supper?"

"Yes," she said, "and some early cherries. I made sure of that."

"You are a notable housekeeper, my dear," he said, and took her arm as they went out of the room. She thought, He thinks he is being kind to say so.

The household of Uriens was assembled already for the evening meal: Avalloch; Avalloch's wife, Maline, and their young children; Uwaine, lanky and dark, with his three young foster-brothers and the priest who was their tutor; and below them at the long table the men-at-arms and their ladies, and the upper servants. As Uriens and Morgaine took their seats and Morgaine signalled to the servants to bring food, Maline's younger child began to clamor and shout.

"Granny! I want to sit on Granny's knee! Want Granny to feed me!"

Maline-a slender, fair-haired, pale young woman, heavily pregnant -frowned and said, "No, Conn, sit down prettily and be quiet!"

But the child had already toddled to Morgaine's knee, and she laughed and lifted him up. I am an unlikely grandmother, she thought; Maline is almost as old as I. But Uriens' grandsons were fond of her, and she hugged the little boy close, taking pleasure in the feel of the small curly head digging into her waist, the grubby little fingers clutching at her. She sliced bits of pork with her knife and fed them to Conn from her own plate, then cut him a piece of bread in the shape of a pig.

"See, now you have more pork to eat..." she said, wiping her greasy fingers, and turned her attention to her own meal. She ate but little meat, even now; she soaked her bread in the meat juices, but no more. She was quickly finished, while the rest were still eating; she leaned back in her chair and began to sing softly to Conn, who curled up contentedly in her lap. After a time she grew aware that they were all listening to her, and she let her voice drop away.