She nodded; she had not breath enough to speak. After a time they came within a little wood, and there he pulled to a stop and lifted her gently from the horse's back. He led the horse to water, then spread his cloak on the ground for her to sit. He stared at the sword by his side. "I still have Gawaine's sword. When I was a boy - I heard tales of the fighting madness, but I knew not that it was within our blood - " and sighed heavily. "There is blood on the sword. Whom did I kill, Gwen?"

She could not bear to see his sorrow and guilt. "There was more than one - "

"I know I struck Gwydion - Mordred, damn him. I know I wounded him, I could still act with my own will then. I don't suppose" - his voice hardened - "that I had the luck to kill him?"

Silently she shook her head.

"Then who?" She did not speak; he leaned over and took her shoulders so roughly that for a moment she was afraid of the warrior as she had never been of the lover. "Gwen, tell me! In God's name-did I kill my cousin Gawaine?"

This she could answer without hesitation, glad it was Gawaine he had named. "No. I swear it, not Gawaine."

"It could have been anyone," he said, staring at the sword and suddenly shuddering. "I swear it to you, Gwen, I knew not even that I had a sword in my hand. I struck Gwydion as if he had been a dog, and then I remember no more until we were riding-" and he knelt before her, trembling. He whispered, "I am mad again, I think, as once I was mad-"

She reached out, caught him against her in a passion of wild tenderness. "No, no," she whispered, "ah, no, my love-I have brought all this on you, disgrace and exile-"

"You say that," he whispered, "when I have brought them on you, taken you away from everything that meant anything to you-"

Reckless, she pressed herself to him and said, "Would to God that you had done it before!"

"Ah, it is not too late-I am young again, with you beside me, and you-you have never been more beautiful, my own dear love-" He pushed her back on the cloak, suddenly laughing in abandon. "Ah, now there's none to come between us, none to interrupt us, my own-ah, Gwen, Gwen-"

As she came into his arms, she remembered the rising sun and a room in Meleagrant's castle. It was like that now; and she clung to him, as if there were nothing else in the world, nothing more for either of them, not ever.

They slept a little, curled together in the cloak, and wakened still in each other's arms, the sun searching for them through the green branches overhead. He smiled, touching her face.

"Do you know-never before have I wakened in your arms without fear. Yet now I am happy, in spite of all.. ." and he laughed at her, a note of wildness coming into the laughter. There were leaves in his white hair, and leaves caught in his beard, and his tunic was rumpled; she put up her hands and felt grass and leaves in her own hair, which was coming down. She had no way to comb it, but she caught it in handfuls and parted it to braid, then bound the end of the single braid with a scrap ripped from the edge of her torn skirt. She said, her voice catching with laughter, "What a pair of wild ragamuffins we are! Who would know the High Queen and the brave Lancelet?"

"Does it matter to you?"

"No, my love. Not in the least."

He brushed leaves and grass out of his hair and beard. "I must get up and catch the horse," he said, "and perhaps there will be a farm nearby where we can find you some bread or a drink of ale-I have not a single coin with me, nor anything worth money, save my sword, and this-" He touched a little gold pin on his tunic. "For the moment, at least, we are beggars, though if we could reach Pellinore's castle, I still have a house there, where I lived with Elaine, and servants-and gold, too, to pay our passage overseas. Will you come with me to Less Britain, Gwenhwyfar?"

"Anywhere," she whispered, her voice breaking, and at that moment she meant it absolutely-to Less Britain, or to Rome, or to the country beyond the world's end, only that she might be with him forever. She pulled him down to her again and forgot everything in his arms.

But when, hours later, he lifted her on the horse and they went on at a soberer pace, she fell silent, troubled. Yes, no doubt they could make their way overseas. Yet when this night's work was talked from one end of the world to the other, shame and scorn would come down on Arthur, so that for his own honor he must seek them out wherever they fled. And soon or late, Lancelet must know that he had slain the friend who was dearest to him in all the world save only Arthur's self. He had done it in madness, but she knew how grief and guilt would consume him and in time he would remember, when he looked on her, not that she was his love, but that he had killed his friend, unknowing, for her sake; and that he had betrayed Arthur for her sake. If he must make war on Arthur for her sake, he would hate her ... .

No. He would love her still, but he would never forget by whose blood he had come to possess her. Never would one or the other-love or hate-take power over him, but he would live with them both, tearing doubly at his heart, and one day they would tear his mind to bits and he would go mad again. She clung close to the warmth of his body, leaning her head against his back, and wept. She knew, for the first time, that she was stronger than he, and it cut at her heart with a deathly sword.

And so when they paused again, she was dry-eyed, though she knew that the weeping had moved inward to her heart and never would she cease to mourn. "I will not go overseas with you, Lancelet, nor will I bring strife among all the old Companions of the Round Table. When-when Mor-dred has his way, they will all be at odds," she said, "and a day will come when Arthur will need all his friends. I will not be like that lady of old time-was her name Helen, that fair one in the saga you used to tell to me? - who had all the kings and knights of her day at strife over her in Troy."

"But what will you do?" She tried not to hear that even through the bewilderment and grief in his voice, there was a thread of relief.

"You will take me to the Isle of Glastonbury," she said. "There is a nunnery there where I was schooled. There I will go, and I will tell them only that evil tongues made a quarrel between you and Arthur for my sake. When some time has passed, I will send word to Arthur so that he knows where I am, and knows that I am not with you. And then he can with honor make his peace with you."

He protested, "No! No, I cannot let you go-" but she knew, with a sinking at her heart, that she would have no difficulty persuading him. Perhaps, against all odds, she had hoped that he would fight for her, that he would carry her off to Less Britain with the sheer force of his will and passion. But that was not Lancelet's way. He was as he was, and whatever he was, so and no other way he had been when first she loved him, and so he was now, and so she would love him for the rest of her life. And at last he strove no more with her, but set the horse's head on the road toward Glastonbury.

THE LONG SHADOW of the church lay across the waters when they set foot at last on the boat that would bring them to the island, and the church bells were ringing out the Angelus. Gwenhwyfar bent her head and whispered a word of prayer.

Mary, God's Holy Mother, have pity on me, a sinful woman ... and then for a moment it seemed to her that she stood beneath a great light, as she had stood on that day when the Grail passed through the hall. Lancelet sat in the prow of the ferry, his head lowered. He had not touched her from the moment she had told him what she had decided, and she was glad; a single touch of his hand would have worn away her resolve. Mist lay on the Lake, and for an instant it seemed to her that she saw a shadow, like the shadow of their own boat, a barge draped in black, with a dark figure at the prow-but no. It was only a shadow, a shadow ... .