Uriens shook his head. "A wing of one of those birds, perhaps. Since my son was slain, I have vowed never again to eat the flesh of swine."

"And your queen shares your vow?" said Arthur. "As always, Mor-gaine is all but fasting-no wonder you are so small and spare, my sister!"

"It is no hardship for me not to eat swine's flesh."

"Is your voice sweet as ever, my sister? Since Kevin could not join us, perhaps you would sing or play-"

"If you had told me you wished it, I would not have eaten so well. I cannot sing now. Later, perhaps."

"Then you, Lancelet," Arthur said.

Lancelet shrugged and gestured to a servant to bring the harp. "Kevin will sing this tomorrow-I am no match for him. I made the words from a Saxon poet. I said once I could live with the Saxons, but not with what they called music. Then, when I dwelt among them last year, I heard this song and wept when I heard it, and tried in my poor way to put it into our tongue." He left his seat to take the small harp. "It is for you, my king," he said, "for it speaks of what sorrow I knew when I dwelt far from court and from my lord-but the music is Saxon. I had thought, before this, that all their songs were of war and battle and fighting."

He began to play a soft, sorrowful melody; his fingers were not as skillful as those of Kevin, but the sad song had a power of its own, which gradually quieted them. He sang, in the husky voice of an untrained singer:

"What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone?

Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well,

And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave,

And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love.

The face of the king is like the sun to those who surround him,

But now my heart is empty

And I wander alone throughout the world.

The groves take on their blossoms,

The trees and meadows grow fair,

But the cuckoo, saddest of singers,

Cries forth the lonely sorrow of the exile,

And now my heart goes wandering,

In search of what I shall never see more;

All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king,

And all countries are alike to me

When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home.

So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wandering

For what is the fair meadow of home to me

When I cannot see the face of my king

And the weight on my arm is but a band of gold

When the heart is empty of the weight of love.

And so I shall go roaming

Over the fishes' road

And the road of the great whale

And beyond the country of the wave

With none to bear me company

But the memory of those I loved

And the songs I sang out of a full heart,

And the cuckoo's cry in memory.

GWENHWYFAR BENT HER HEAD to hide tears. Arthur's head was lowered, his eyes covered by his hand. Morgaine was staring straight ahead and Gwenhwyfar could see the stripes of tears making wet streaks down her face. Arthur rose and came around the table; he put his arms round Lancelet and said in a voice that was not steady, "But you are again with your king and your friend, Galahad."

The old bitterness stabbed at Gwenhwyfar's heart. He sang of his king, not of his queen and his love. His love for me was never more than a part of his love for Arthur. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see them embrace.

"That was beautiful," said Morgause softly. "Who would ever think that a Saxon brute could write music like that-it must have been Lancelet, after all-"

Lancelet shook his head. "The music is theirs. And the words only a poor echo of their own ... ."

A voice that was like an echo of Lancelet's said gently, "But there are poets and musicians among the Saxons, as well as warriors, my lady," and Gwenhwyfar turned toward the voice. A young man in dark clothing, slender, dark-haired, a blur beyond her sight; but the voice, accented softly with the tones of the North country, still sounded like Lancelet's, the very pitch and timbre of his.

Arthur beckoned him forward. "There sits one at my table I do not know-and at a family party, that is not right. Queen Morgause-?"

She stood up in her place. "I had meant to present him to you before we went to table, but you were busy talking with old friends, my king. This is Morgaine's son, who was fostered at my court-Gwydion."

The youth came forward and bowed. "King Arthur," he said, in the warm voice that was like an echo of Lancelet's. For a moment a dizzied joy struck through Gwenhwyfar; this was Lancelet's son, surely, not Arthur's -and then she recalled that Morgaine's aunt, Viviane, was Lancelet's mother too.

Arthur embraced the youth. He said, in a voice too shaken to be audible three yards distant, "The son of my dearly beloved sister shall be received as a son at my own court, Gwydion. Come and sit beside me, lad."

Gwenhwyfar looked at Morgaine. She had spots of crimson on her cheek, as bright as if they were painted, and she was worrying her lower lip between her small, sharp teeth. Had Morgause not prepared her, then, to see her son presented to his father-no, to the King, Gwenhwyfar reminded herself sharply; there was no reason to think the boy had any idea who his father was. Though if he had ever looked in a mirror, no doubt he would come to believe, whatever anyone might say, that he was Lancelet's son.

Not a boy, after all. He must be near enough to five-and-twenty; he was a man.

"Your cousin, Galahad," Arthur said, and Galahad impulsively put out his hand.

"You are closer kin to the King than I, cousin-you have a better right than I to be where I am now," he said, with boyish spontaneity. "I wonder you don't hate me!"

Gwydion smiled and said, "How do you know I do not, cousin?" and for a moment Gwenhwyfar was jolted, until she saw the smile. Yes, he was Morgaine's son, he had the cat-smile she could show sometimes! Galahad blinked, then decided the words were meant as a jest. Gwenhwyfar could follow Galahad's transparent thoughts-Is this my father's son, is Gwydion my bastard brother by Queen Morgaine? He looked hurt, too, like a puppy whose playful proffer of friendship has been rebuffed.

"No, cousin," Gwydion said, "what you are thinking is not true." Gwenhwyfar thought, her breath catching in her throat, that he even had Lancelet's sudden breathtaking smile that transformed a rather dark and somber face into an overwhelming brilliance, as if a ray of sun had come out and transformed it.

Galahad said defensively, "I was not-I did not-"

"No," said Gwydion, kindly, "you did not say anything, but it is all too obvious what you are thinking, and what everyone in this room must be thinking." He raised his voice, just a little, that voice so like Lancelet's, although overlaid with the soft North-country accent: "In Avalon, cousin, we take our lineage from the line of the mother. I am of the old royal line of Avalon, and that is quite enough for me. It would be arrogance for any man to claim to be father to the child of a High Priestess of Avalon. But of course, like most men, I would like to know who fathered me, and what you thought has been said before-that I am the son of Lancelot. That likeness has been remarked upon before this-especially among the Saxons where I spent three years learning to be a warrior," he added. "Your reputation among them, lord Lancelet, is still much remembered there! I could not count how many men said to me that it was no disgrace to be the bastard son of a man like you, sir!" His low chuckle was like an eerie echo of the man he faced, and Lancelet looked uneasy too. "But in the end I always had to tell them that what they thought was not true. Of all the men in this kingdom who could have fathered me, one I know is not my father. And so, I must inform them that it is only a family likeness, no more. I am your cousin, Galahad, not your brother." He leaned lazily back in his chair. "Will it embarrass you too much-that everyone who sees us will think so? After all, we cannot go around telling everyone the truth!"