Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are One ...

"Come up to the cloister with me, sister," said the nun, smiling and laying a hand on her arm. "You must be hungry and weary."

Morgaine went with her to the gates of their cloister, but would not go in. "I am not hungry," she said, "but if I might have a drink of water-"

"Of course." The woman in black beckoned, and a young girl came and brought a pitcher of water, which she poured into a cup. And she said, as Morgaine lifted it to her lips, "We drink only the water of the chalice well-it is a holy place, you know."

It was like Viviane's voice in her ears: The priestesses drink only the water of the Sacred Well.

The nun and the young girl, robed in black, turned and bent their heads before a woman who came from the cloister, and the nun who had guided her said, "This is our abbess."

Morgaine thought, Somewhere I have seen her. But even as the thought crossed her mind, the woman said, "Morgaine, you do not know me? We thought you long dead ... "

Morgaine smiled at her, troubled. "I am sorry-I do not-"

"No, you would not remember me," said the abbess, "though I saw you, now and again, at Camelot; I was so much younger. My name is Lionors. I was married to Gareth, and when all my children were grown, I came here-here to end my days. Did you come to Lancelet's funeral, then?" She smiled and said, "I should indeed have said Father Galahad, but it is hard to remember, and now he is in Heaven it will not matter." She smiled again. "I know not now even who is King, or whether Camelot still stands-there is war in the land again, it is not as it was in Arthur's time. That all seems so very long ago," she added with detachment.

"I came here to visit Viviane's grave. She is buried here-do you remember?"

"I have seen the tomb," said the abbess, "but it was before ever I came to Camelot."

"I have a favor to beg of you," Morgaine said, and touched the basket on her arm. "This is the Holy Thorn that grows on the hills of Avalon, where it is said that the foster-father of Christ struck his staff into the ground and it blossomed there. I would plant a cutting of this thorn tree on her grave."

"Plant it if you will," said Lionors. "I cannot see how anyone could object to that. It seems right to me that it should be here in the world, and not hidden away in Avalon."

She looked at Morgaine, dismayed.

"Avalon! Have you come here from that unholy land?"

Morgaine thought, Once I would have been angry with her. "Unholy it is not, whatever the priests say, Lionors," she said gently. "Think-would the foster-father of Christ have struck his staff there if the land had seemed to him evil? Is not the Holy Spirit everywhere?"

The woman bowed her head. "You are right. I will send novices to help you with the planting."

Morgaine would sooner have been alone, but she knew it was a kindly thought. The novices seemed no more than children to Morgaine, girls of nineteen or twenty, so young that she wondered-forgetting that she herself had been made priestess when she was eighteen-how they could possibly know enough of spiritual things to choose lives like this. She had thought nuns in Christian convents would be sad and doleful, ever conscious of what the priests said about the sinfulness of being born women, but these were innocent and merry as robins, talking gaily to Morgaine of their new chapel and bidding her rest her knees while they dug the hole for the cutting.

"And it is your kinswoman who is buried here?" asked one of the girls. "Can you read what it says? I never thought I would learn to read, for my mother said it was not suitable, but when I came here, they told me I must be able to read in the mass book, and so now I can read in Latin! Look," she said proudly, and read: " 'King Arthur made this tomb for his kinswoman and benefactress, the Lady of the Lake, slain by treachery at his court in Camelot'-I cannot read the date, but it was a long time ago."

"She must have been a very holy woman," said another of the girls, "for Arthur, they say, was the best and the most Christian of all kings. He would never have had any woman buried here unless she was a saint!"

Morgaine smiled; they reminded her of the girls in the House of Maidens. "I would not call her a saint, though I loved her. In her day, there were those who called her a wicked sorceress."

"King Arthur would never have a wicked sorceress buried here among holy people," said the girl. "And as for sorcery-well, there are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are! Are you going to stay and take the veil here, Mother?" she asked, and Morgaine, for a moment startled at the word, realized that they were speaking to her with the same deference and respect as any of her own maidens in the House of Maidens, as if she were an elder among them.

"I am vowed elsewhere, my daughter."

"Is your convent as nice as this one? Mother Lionors is a kind woman," the girl said, "and we are all very happy here-once we had a woman among our sisters who had been a queen. And I know we will go to Heaven, all of us," said the girl with a smile, "but if you have taken vows elsewhere, I am sure that is a good place, too. Only I thought you might perhaps want to stay here, so that you could pray for the soul of your kinswoman who lies buried here." The girl rose and dusted off her dark dress. "Now you may plant your cutting, Mother ... or would you like me to set it in the earth?"

"No, I will do it," said Morgaine, and knelt to press the soft soil around the roots of the plant. As she rose, the girl said, "If you wish, Mother, I will promise to come here and say a prayer every Sunday for your kinswoman."

For some absurd reason, Morgaine felt that tears were coming to her eyes. "Prayer is always a good thing. I am grateful to you, daughter."

"And you, in your convent, wherever it may be, you must pray for us too," said the girl simply, taking Morgaine's hand as she rose. "Here, Mother, let me brush the dirt from your gown. Now you must come and see our chapel."

For a moment Morgaine was inclined to protest. She had sworn when last she left Arthur's court that she would never again enter any Christian church; but this girl was so much like one of her own young priestesses that she would not profane the name by which the girl knew her God. She let the girl lead her inside the church.

In that other world, she thought, that church where the ancient Christians worship must stand on this very spot; some holiness from Avalon must surely come through the worlds, through the mists ... she did not kneel or cross herself, but she bent her head before the high altar of the church; and then the girl tugged gently at her hand.

"Come," she said. "The high altar is of God and I am a little afraid here always ... but you have not seen our chapel-the sisters' chapel ... come, Mother."

Morgaine followed the young girl into the small side chapel. There were flowers here, armfuls of apple blossom, before a statue of a veiled woman crowned with a halo of light; and in her arms she bore a child. Morgaine drew a shaking breath and bowed her head before the Goddess.

The girl said, "Here we have the Mother of Christ, Mary the Sinless. God is so great and terrible I am always afraid before his altar, but here in the chapel of Mary, we who are her avowed virgins may come to her as our Mother, too. And look, here we have little statues of our saints, Mary who loved Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and Martha who cooked dinner for him and scolded her sister when she would not cook with her -I like to think of Jesus when he was a real man who would do something for his mother, when he changed the water into wine at that wedding, so she wouldn't be unhappy because there wasn't enough wine for everyone. And here is a very old statue that our bishop gave us, from his native country ... one of their saints, her name is Brigid ... "