Again Morgaine bowed her head and said, "I am in your hands."

"You must return now," said Niniane, "but first there is one you must know. His time is not yet ... but there will be one more task for you." She raised her hand, and as if he had been waiting in an anteroom, a door opened and a tall young man came into the room.

And at the sight Morgaine caught her breath, with a pain so great that it seemed for a moment that she could not breathe. Here was Lancelet reborn -young and slender as a dark flame, his hair curling about his cheeks, his narrow dark face smiling ... Lancelet as he had been on that day when they lay together in the shadow of the ring stones, as if time had slipped and circled back as in the fairy country ... .

And then she knew who it must be. He came forward and bent to kiss her hand. His walk was Lancelet's too, the flowing movements that seemed almost a dance. But he wore the robes of a bard, and on his forehead was the small tattoo of an acorn crest, and about his wrists the serpents of Avalon writhed. Time reeled in her mind.

If Galahad is to be king in the land, is my son then the Merlin, tanist and dark twin and sacrifice? For a moment it seemed she moved among shadows, king and Druid, the bright shadow who sat beside Arthur's throne as queen, and herself who had borne Arthur's shadow son ... Dark Lady of power.

She knew anything she said would be foolish. "Gwydion. You are not like your father."

He shook his head. "No," he said, "I bear the blood of Avalon. I looked once on Arthur, when he made a pilgrimage to Glastonbury of the priests -I went there unseen in a priest's robe. He bows overmuch to the priests, this Arthur our king." His smile was fleeting, feral.

"You have no reason to love either of your parents, Gwydion," said Morgaine, and her hand tightened on his, but she surprised a fleeting look in his eyes, icy hatred ... then it was gone and he was the smiling young Druid again.

"My parents gave me their best gift," Gwydion said, "the royal blood of Avalon. And one more thing I ask of you, lady Morgaine." Irrationally she wished he had called her, just once, by the name of Mother.

"Ask, and if I can give, it is yours."

Gwydion said, "It is not a great gift. Surely not more than five years hence, Queen Morgaine, you will lead me to look on Arthur and let him know that I am his son. I am aware"-a quick, disturbing smile-"that he cannot acknowledge me as his heir. But I wish him to look on the face of his son. I ask no more than that."

She bent her head. "Surely I owe you that much, Gwydion."

Gwenhwyfar might think what she liked-Arthur had already done penance for this. No man could be other than proud of this grave and priestly young Druid. Nor should she ... after all these years, she knew it ... feel shame for what had been, as now she knew she had felt it all these years since she fled from Avalon. Now that she saw her son grown, she bowed before the inevitability of Viviane's Sight.

She said, "I vow to you that day will come, I swear it by the Sacred Well." Her eyes blurred, and angrily she blinked back the rebellious tears. This was not her son; Uwaine, perhaps, was her son, but not Gwydion. This dark, handsome young man so like the Lancelet she had loved as a girl, he was not her son looking for the first time on the mother who had abandoned him before he was weaned; he was priest and she priestess of the Great Goddess, and if they were no more to each other than that, at least they were no less.

She put her hands to his bent head and said, "Be thou blessed."

13

Queen Morgause had long ceased to repine that she had not the Sight. Yet twice, in the last days of falling leaves, when the red larch trees stood bare in the icy wind that blew over Lothian, she dreamed of her foster-son Gwydion; and she was not at all surprised when one of her servant folk told her that a rider was on the road.

Gwydion wore a strangely colored cloak, coarse and with a clasp of bone such as she had never seen, and when she would have wrapped him in her arms, he shrank away, wincing.

"No, Mother-" He put his free arm around her and explained, "I caught a sword cut there in Brittany-no, it is not serious," he reassured her. "It did not fester and perhaps I shall not even have a scar, but when it is touched it cries out to me!"

"You have been fighting in Brittany, then? I thought you safe in Avalon," she remonstrated, as she led him within and set him by the fire. "I have no southern wine for you-"

He laughed. "I am weary of it-barley beer is enough for me, or some of the firewater if you have it... with hot water and honey if there is any. I am stiff with riding." He let one of the women draw off his boots and hang his cloak to dry, leaning back at ease.

"So good it is to be here, Mother-" He set the steaming cup to his lips and drank with pleasure.

"And you came so far, riding in the cold with a wound? Was there some great tidings that needed to tell?"

He shook his head. "None-I was homesick, no more," he said. "It's all so green and lush and damp there, with fog and church bells ... I longed for the clean air of the fells, and the gulls' cry, and your face, Mother ... " He reached out for the cup he had set down, and she saw the serpents about his wrists. She was not greatly versed in the lore of Avalon, but she knew they were the sign of the highest rank of the priesthood. He saw her glance and nodded, but said nothing.

"Was it in Brittany you got you that ugly cloak, so coarse-woven and low, fit only for a serving-man?"

He chuckled. "It kept the rain from me. I took it from a great chief of the foreign lands, who fought under the legions of that man who called himself Emperor Lucius. Arthur's men made short work of that one, believe me, and there was plunder for all-I have a silver cup and a golden ring in my packs for you, Mother."

"You fought in the armies of Arthur?" Morgause asked. She had never thought he would do this; he saw the surprise in her face and laughed again.

"Yes, I fought under that great King who fathered me," he said, with a grin of contempt. "Oh, fear not, I had my orders from Avalon. I took care to fight among the warriors of Ceardig, the Saxon chief of the treaty men who loves me well, and to come not under Arthur's eyes. Gawaine knew me not, and I was careful not to let Gareth see me except when I was shrouded in a cloak like that-I lost my own cloak in battle, and feared if I was wearing a cloak of Lothian, Gareth would come to look on a wounded countryman, so I got this one ... ."

"Gareth would have known you anywhere," said Morgause, "and I hope you do not think your foster-brother would ever betray you."

Gwydion smiled, and Morgause thought that he looked very like the little boy who had once sat in her lap. He said, "I longed to make myself known to Gareth, and when I lay wounded and weak, I came near to doing so. But Gareth is Arthur's man, and he loves his king, I could see that, and I would not put that burden on my best of brothers," he said. "Gareth- Gareth is the only one-"

He did not finish the sentence, but Morgause knew what he would have said; stranger as he was everywhere, Gareth was his brother and his beloved friend. Abruptly he grinned, chasing away the remote smile that made him look so young. "All through the Saxon armies, Mother, I was asked again and again if I was Lancelet's son! I cannot see the resemblance so much myself, but then I am not really familiar with my own face ... I look into a mirror only when I shave myself!"

"Still," said Morgause, "anyone who had seen Lancelet, especially anyone who knew him in youth, could not look on you without knowing you his kinsman."

"Some such thing as that I said-I put on a Breton accent, sometimes, and said I too was kinsman to old King Ban," Gwydion said. "Yet I would think our Lancelet, with the face which makes him a magnet to all maids, would have fathered enough bastards that it would not be such a marvel to all men that one should go about wearing his face! Not so? I wondered," he said, "but all I heard of Lancelet was that it might be that he had fathered a son on the Queen and the child was spirited away somewhere to be fostered by that kinswoman of hers whom they married off to Lancelet ... . Tales of Lancelet and the Queen are many, each wilder than the next, but all agree that for every other woman the Gods made, he has nothing but courtesy and fair words. There were even women who flung themselves at me, saying that if they could not have Lancelet, they would have his son...." He grinned again. "It must have been hard for the gallant Lancelet. I have eye enough for a fair woman, but when they push themselves on me so, well ... " He shrugged, comically. Morgause laughed.