"Oh, aye," grunted the other old woman, "priests and Druids are all alike. The Druid says that, and the priest says if we do our duty in this life we'll go to Heaven and live with Jesus and feast with him there and never come back to this wicked world at all! It all winds up the same, whatever the lot of them say-some are born in misery and die in misery, and others have it all their own way!"

"But she's none so happy, I've heard," said another of the group of old women wedged in together. "For all her queening it, she's never borne a single babe, and I have a good son to work the farm for me, and one daughter married to the man at the next farm, and another who's servant to the nuns on Glastonbury. And Queen Gwenhwyfar has had to adopt sir Galahad there, who's the son of Lancelet and of her own cousin Elaine, for Arthur's heir!"

"Oh, aye, that's what they tell you," said a fourth old woman, "but you know and I know, when Queen Gwenhwyfar was absent from court in the sixth or seventh year of his reign-something like that-don't you think they were all counting on their fingers? My stepbrother's wife was a kitchen woman here at court, and he said it was common talk all round here that the Queen spent her nights in another bed than her husband's-"

"Keep quiet, old gossip," said the first speaker. "Just let one of the chamberlains hear you say that aloud, and you'll be ducked in the pond for a scold! I say Galahad's a good knight and he'll make a good king, long live King Arthur! And who cares who his mother is? I think meself he's one of Arthur's by-blows-he's fair like him. And look yonder at sir Mordred-everybody knows he's the King's bastard son by some harlot or other."

"I heard worse than that," said one of the women. "I heard Mordred's the son of one of the fairy witches and Arthur took him to court in pawn for his soul, to live a hundred years-you'll see, he'll not age, sir Mordred there. Just look at Arthur, he must be past fifty and he could be a man in his thirties!"

Another old woman spoke a barnyard obscenity. "What's it to me, all of that? If the Devil were about business like that, he could have made yonder Mordred in Arthur's own image so anyone could accept him as Arthur's son! Arthur's mother was of the old blood of Avalon-did you never see the lady Morgaine? She was dark too, and Lancelet, who's his kin, was like that. ... I'd rather believe what they said before, that Mordred is Lancelet's bastard son by the lady Morgaine! You've only got to look at them-and the lady Morgaine pretty enough in her way, little and dark as she was."

"She's not among the ladies," one of the women remarked, and the woman who had known a kitchen woman at court said authoritatively, "Why, she quarreled with Arthur and went away to the land of Fairy, but everybody knows that on All Hallows Night she flies round the castle on a hazel twig and anyone who catches sight of her will be struck blind."

Morgaine buried her face in her ragged cloak to smother a giggle. Raven, hearing, turned an indignant face to Morgaine, but Morgaine shook her head; they must keep still and not be noticed.

The knights were seating themselves in their accustomed places. Lancelet, as he took his seat, raised his head, looking sharply round the hall, and for a moment it seemed to Morgaine that he sought her out where she stood, that his eyes met hers-shivering, she ducked her head. Chamberlains were moving at both ends of the hall, pouring wine for the Companions and their ladies, pouring good brown beer from great leather jacks down among the peasants crowded in at the lower end. Morgaine held out her cup and Raven's, and when Raven refused, she said in a harsh whisper, "Drink it! You look like death, and you must be strong enough for whatever is coming." Raven put the wooden cup to her lips and sipped, but she could hardly swallow. The woman who had said that the lady Morgaine was pretty enough in her way asked, "Is she sick, your sister?"

Morgaine said, "She is frightened, she has never seen the court before."

"Fine, aren't they, the lords and ladies? What a spectacle! And we'll get a good dinner soon," said the woman to Raven. "Hey, doesn't she hear?"

"She is not deaf, but dumb," Morgaine said again. "I think maybe she understands a little of what I say to her, but no one else."

"Now you come to speak of it, she does look simpleminded, at that," said the other woman, and patted Raven on the head like a dog. "Has she always been like that? What a pity, and you have to look after her. You're a good woman. Sometimes when children are like that, their folks tie them to a tree like a stray dog, and here you take her to court and all. Look at the priest in his gold robes! That's the bishop Patricius, they say he drove all the snakes out of his own country ... think of that! Do you think he fought them with sticks?"

"It's a way of saying he drove out all the Druids-they are called serpents of wisdom," Morgaine said.

"How'd the likes of you know a thing like that?" Morgaine's interrogator scoffed. "I heard for sure that it was snakes, and anyhow all those wise folk, Druids and priests, they hang together, they wouldn't quarrel!"

"Very likely," said Morgaine, not wanting to draw further attention to herself, her eyes going to Bishop Patricius. Behind him there was someone in the robes of a monk-a hunched figure, bent over and moving with difficulty-now what was the Merlin doing in the bishop's train? She said, her need to know overcoming the risk of attracting attention, "What's going to happen? I thought surely they would have heard their mass in the chapel this morning, all the lords and ladies-"

"I heard," said one of the women, "that since the chapel would hold so few, there would be a special mass here today for all the folk before meat -see, the bishop's men carrying in that altar with the white cloth and all. Sssshh-listen!"

Morgaine felt that she would go mad with rage and despair. Were they going to profane the Holy Regalia beyond any possibility of cleansing, by using it to serve a Christian mass?

"Draw near, all ye people," the bishop was atoning, "for today the old order giveth way to the new. Christ has triumphed over all the old and pretended Gods who shall now be subservient to his name. For the True Christ said unto mankind, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. Also he said, No man may come to the Father except he come in my name, for there is no other name under Heaven in which you may be saved. And by that token, then, all those things which once were devoted to false Gods before mankind had knowledge of the truth, now shall be devoted to Christ and newly dedicated in service to the True God ... ."

But Morgaine heard no more; suddenly she knew what they were planning to do-No! I am sworn to the Goddess. I must not allow this blasphemy! She turned and touched Raven's arm; even here, in the midst of this crowded hall, they were open one to the other. They would use the Holy Regalia of the Goddess to summon the Presence ... which is One ... but they would do it in the narrow name of that Christ who calls all Gods demons, unless they invoke in his name!

The cup the Christians use in their mass is the invocation of water, even as the plate whereon they lay their holy bread is the sacred dish of the element of earth. Now, using the ancient things of the Goddess, they would invoke their own narrow God; yet instead of the pure water of the holy earth, coming from the clear crystal spring of the Goddess, they have defiled her chalice with wine!

In the cup of the Goddess, O Mother, is the cauldron of Ceridwen, wherein all men are nourished and from which all men have all the good things of this world. You have called upon the Goddess, O ye willful priests, but will you dare her presence if she should come? Morgaine clasped her hands in the most fervent invocation of her life. I am thy priestess, O Mother! Use me, I pray, as you will!