But Morgaine hardly heard him. This man, this husband she had never wanted, he was all that was left of the wreck of her plans! She should have left him to die in the fairy country, but now he was doddering around in the fullness of his useless old life and Accolon was dead, Accolon who sought to bring back all that his father had pledged and forsworn, all that Arthur had vowed to Avalon and forsaken ... and nothing was left but this ancient dotard ... .
She snatched the sickle knife of Avalon from her girdle and thrust away Uwaine's restraining arms. Rushing forward, she raised the dagger high; she hardly knew what it was she meant to do as it flashed down.
An iron grip caught her wrist, wrenching at the dagger. Uwaine's hand came near to breaking her wrist as she struggled. "No, let it go ... Mother!" he pleaded. "Mother, is the Devil in you? Mother, look, it is only Father ... ah, God, can you not show some pity for his grief? He does not mean to accuse you, he is so miserable he does not know what he is saying, in his right mind he will know that what he says is wild nonsense ... I do not accuse you either ... Mother, Mother, listen to me, give me the dagger, dear Mother ... ."
The repeated cries of "Mother!" and the love and anguish in Uwaine's voice finally reached down through the mist that blurred Morgaine's eyes and mind. She let Uwaine wrench away the little knife, noticing, as if from a thousand leagues away, that there was blood on her fingers where the razor edge of the sickle had cut her as they struggled. His hand was cut too, and he put his finger in his mouth and sucked at it as if he had been ten years old.
"Father dear, forgive her," Uwaine begged, bending over Uriens, who lay white as death. "She is distraught, she loved my brother too-and remember how ill she has been, she should not have left her bed today at all! Mother, let me send for your women to take you back to bed-here, you will want this," he said, pressing the sickle back into her hand. "I know you had it from your own foster-mother, the Lady of Avalon, you told me that when I was just a little boy. Ah, poor little mother," he said, encircling her shoulders with his arms. She could remember when she had been taller than he, when he was a thin little boy with bones as small and green as a bird's, and now he towered over her, holding her gently against him. "Mother dearest, my poor little mother, come now, come, don't cry, I know you loved Accolon just as you loved me-poor Mother-"
Morgaine wished that she could cry indeed, that she could let all this terrible grief and despair rush out of her with tears, as she felt Uwaine's hot tears falling on her own forehead. Uriens too stood weeping, but she stood tearless and cold. The world seemed all grey, crumbling at the edges, and everything she looked on seemed to take on some giant menacing shape and yet to be very small and far away, as if she could pick it up like a toy ... she dared not move lest it should fall to bits at her touch, she hardly knew it when her women came. They took her stiff and unresisting body and lifted her and carried her to bed, they took off the queenly crown and the gown she had put on for her triumph, and distantly she knew that her shift and underlinen were soaked again with blood, but it seemed not to matter. A long time after, she came to herself and knew that she was washed clean and dressed in a clean shift and lying in bed beside Uriens, with one of her women drowsing on a stool at her side. She raised herself a little and looked down at the sleeping man, his face sunken and reddened with weeping, and it was as if she looked on a stranger.
Yes, he had been good to her in his own way. But now that is all past and my work in his land is done. I will never see his face again while I live, nor know where he lies in death.
Accolon was dead and her plans in ruins. Arthur still bore the sword Excalibur and the enchanted scabbard which gave him a charmed life, and since the one to whom she had entrusted that task had failed her, escaping into death where she could not follow, then she herself must be the hand of Avalon to strike him down.
Moving so silently that she would not have wakened a sleeping bird, she put on her clothes and tied the dagger of Avalon at her waist. She left all the fine gowns and jewels that Uriens had given her, wrapping herself in her plainest dark robe, not unlike the dress of a priestess. She found her little bag of herbs and medicines, and in the dark, by touch, she painted her brow with the dark moon. Then she took the plainest cloak she could find -not her own, embroidered with gold thread and precious stones, but a servant's rough hooded wrap-and stole noiselessly down the stairs.
From the chapel she heard sounds of chanting; somehow Uwaine had arranged this over Accolon's body. Well, it did not matter. Accolon was free, what did it matter what mummery the priests made with the tenantless clay? Nothing mattered now but reclaiming the sword of Avalon. She turned her back on the chapel. One day she would have leisure to mourn him; now she must carry on where he had failed.
She went silently into the stable and found her horse, managing to bind on the saddle with clumsy hands. She led the animal to the small side gate.
She was almost too dizzy to climb into the saddle, and for a moment she sat swaying, wondering if she would fall. Should she wait, or try to summon Kevin to attend her? The Merlin of Britain was vowed to follow the will of the Lady. But she could not trust Kevin either, he had betrayed Viviane into the hands of those priests who now chanted their hymns over Accolon's helpless body. She whispered to the horse, felt him break into a trot beneath her, and from the foot of the hill turned back to look her last on Camelot.
I shall come here but once again in this life, and then there will no longer be a Camelot to which I might return. And even as she whispered the words, she wondered what they meant.
AS OFTEN AS MORGAINE had travelled to Avalon, she had only once set foot upon the Isle of the Priests; Glastonbury Abbey, where Viviane lay buried and Igraine, too, had spent her last years, was a stranger journey to her than the crossing of the mists into the hidden lands. There was a ferry there, and she gave the ferryman a small coin to row her across the Lake, wondering what the man would do if she suddenly rose as she would do with the Avalon barge and cast the spell that would lead it into the mists and bring it forth in Avalon ... but she did not. Is it only that I cannot? she asked herself.
The air was cool and fresh in the hour just before sunrise. Overhead, the sound of church bells was soft and clear, and Morgaine could see a long line of grey-robed forms pacing slowly toward the church. The brothers rose early to pray and chant their soft hymns, and for a moment Morgaine stood quiet, listening. Her mother, and Arthur's, lay buried there. Viviane, too, had been laid to rest within the sound of those hymns. The musician in Morgaine, always quickly moved, listened to the soft song, borne on the early-morning breeze, and for a moment she stood motionless, tears burning her eyes; was she planning outrage on this holy soil? Let it go, let there be peace among you, children ... it seemed that it was Igraine's forgotten voice murmuring to her.
Now all the grey forms were within the church. She had heard much of the abbey here ... she knew there was a brotherhood of monks, and at some distance from them, a house of nuns where women dwelt, vowed to be virgins of the Christ till they died. Morgaine wrinkled her face in distaste; a God who chose to keep men and women with their thoughts on Heaven rather than on this world, which had been given to them for learning and growing in spirit, seemed alien to her, and now that she actually saw men and women mingling this way in worship with no thought of any other touch or communication, she felt sickened. Oh yes, there were holy virgins in Avalon-she herself had been secluded that way till the proper time, and Raven had given not only her body but her very voice to the Goddess for her use. There was her own foster-daughter, Lancelet's daughter Nimue, who had been selected by Raven to dwell unseen in solitude ... but the Goddess recognized that this was a rare choice, not one to be imposed on every woman who sought to serve her.