He bowed and said, "Come this way, Lady."

Following him, Viviane realized that she had not even had time to remove her cloak or the men's breeches she wore for riding; and she had meant to present herself in all the dignity of Avalon. Well, this was more important.

Outside the door, the chamberlain paused. "It would be as much as my head's worth to disturb the Queen. She won't even let her ladies bring her food or drink-"

Viviane pushed the heavy door and went into the room. Dead silence; it was uncannily like a death chamber. Igraine, pale and wan, her headcloth rumpled, knelt like a stone figure beside the bed. A black-robed priest stood motionless, muttering prayers under his breath. Softly as she moved, Igraine heard her.

"How dare you-" she began in a furious whisper, and broke off. "Viviane! God must have sent you to me!"

"I had a warning that you might need me," said Viviane. This was no time to speak of magical visions. "No, Igraine, you can do no good by weeping," she added. "Let me look at him and see how serious this is."

"The King's physician-"

"Is probably an old fool who knows nothing but potions of goat's dung," said Viviane calmly. "I was healing wounds of this kind before you were out of swaddlings, Igraine. Let me see the child."

She had seen Uther's son only once, briefly; he had been about three years old, and looked like any other fair-haired, blue-eyed toddler. Now he had stretched out to unusual tallness for his age-thin, but well-muscled arms and legs, much scratched by briars and brambles like any active boy's. She put aside the covers and saw the great livid bruises on his body. "Did he cough any blood at all?"

"Not even a little. The blood on his mouth was where a tooth was knocked out, but it was loose anyway."

And indeed Viviane could see the contused lip and the extra gap in his mouth. More serious was the bruise on the temple, and Viviane knew a moment of real fear. Had all their planning come to this?

She ran her small fingers across his head. She could see him flinch when she touched the bruise, and that was the best sign she could possibly have had. If he had been bleeding inside the skull, he would by this time have been so deep in coma that no possible pain could reach him. She reached down and pinched his thigh, very hard, and he whimpered in his sleep.

Igraine protested. "You are hurting him!"

"No," Viviane said, "I am trying to find out if he will live or die. Believe me, he will live." She slapped his cheek gently and he opened his eyes for a moment.

"Bring me the candle," Viviane said, and moved it slowly across his field of vision. He followed it for a moment before his eyes fell shut again, with a whimper of pain.

Viviane rose from his side. "Make sure he's kept quiet, and nothing but water or soup, nothing solid to eat for a day or two. And don't sop his bread in wine; only in soup or milk. He'll be running all over the place in three days."

"How do you know?" demanded the priest.

"Because I am trained in healing, how do you think?"

"Are you not a sorceress from the Island of Witches?"

Viviane laughed softly. "By no means, Father. I am a woman who, like yourself, has spent her life in the study of holy things, and God has seen fit to give me skill at healing." She could, she reflected, turn their own jargon against them; she knew, if he did not, that the God they both worshipped was greater and less bigoted than any priesthood.

"Igraine, I must talk to you. Come away-"

"I must be here when he wakes again, he will want me-"

"Nonsense; send his nurse to him. This is a matter of importance!"

Igraine glared at her. "Bring Isotta to sit beside him," she said to one of the women, with an angry look, and followed Viviane into the hall.

"Igraine, how did this happen?"

"I am not sure-some tale about riding his father's stallion-I am confused. I only know that they carried him in like one dead-"

"And it was only your good fortune that he was not dead," Viviane said bluntly. "Is it thus that Uther safeguards the life of his only son?"

"Viviane, don't reproach me-I have tried to give him others," Igraine said, and her voice shook. "But I think I am being punished for my adultery, that I can give Uther no other son-"

"Are you mad, Igraine?" Viviane burst out, then stopped herself. It was not fair to upbraid her sister when she was distracted from watching at the bedside of her sick child. "I came because I foresaw some danger to you or the child. But we can talk of that later. Call your women, put on fresh clothing-and when did you last eat anything?" she asked shrewdly.

"I can't remember-I think I had a little bread and wine last night-"

"Then call your women, and break your fast," Viviane said impatiently. "I am still dusty from riding. Let me go and wash off the dirt of travel, and clothe myself as is seemly for a lady inside the walls, and then we will talk."

"Are you angry with me, Viviane?"

Viviane patted her on the shoulder. "I am angry, if it is anger, only at the way fate seems to fall, and that is foolish of me. Go and dress, Igraine, and eat something. The child's come to no harm this time."

Inside her room a fire had been built, and on a small stool before it, she saw an undersized female, dressed in a robe so dark and plain that for a moment Viviane thought it was one of the serving wenches. Then, she saw that the simple gown was of the finest stuff, the headcloth embroidered linen, and she recognized Igraine's daughter.

"Morgaine," she said, and kissed her. The girl was almost as tall now as Viviane herself. "Why, I think of you as a child, but you are almost a woman ... ."

"I heard you had come, Aunt, and came to welcome you, but they told me you had gone at once to my brother's bedside. How does he, Lady?"

"He's badly bruised and banged about, but he'll be well again with no treatment but rest," Viviane said. "When he wakes, I must somehow convince Igraine and Uther to keep the physicians and their stupid potions away from him; if they make him vomit, he'll be worse. I got nothing from your mother but weeping and wailing. Can you tell me how this came to happen? Is there no one here who can guard a child properly?"

Morgaine twisted her small fingers together. "I am not sure how it happened. My brother's a brave child and always wants to ride horses which are too fast and too strong for him, but Uther has given orders that he's only to ride with a groom. His pony was lame that day, and he asked for another horse, but how he came to take out Uther's stallion, no one knows; all the grooms know that he's never allowed to go near Thunder, and everyone denied seeing him. Uther swore he'd hang the groom who allowed it, but that groom has put the river between Uther and himself by now, I should imagine. Still, they say Gwydion stuck on Thunder's back like a sheep in a thorn thicket until someone loosed a breeding mare in the stallion's path, and we cannot find out who loosed the mare, either. So of course the stallion was off after the mare, and my brother was off the stallion, in the blink of an eyelash!" Her face, small and dark and plain, quivered. "He's really going to live?"

"He's really going to live."

"Has anyone yet sent word to Uther? Mother and the priest said he could do no good in the sickroom-"

"No doubt Igraine will attend to that."

"No doubt," Morgaine said, and Viviane surprised a cynical smile on her face. Morgaine, evidently, bore no love to Uther, and thought no more of her mother for her love to her husband. Yet she had been conscientious enough to remember that Uther should be sent word about his son's life. This was no ordinary young girl.

"How old are you now, Morgaine? The years go by so fast, I no longer remember, as I grow old."

"I shall be eleven at Midsummer."