For that Morgaine found no answer except to say, "Come this way."

"I remember the way," he said, and walked quietly at her side instead of following behind with proper respect. "I too used to run to her and wait upon her will and tremble at her frown, until I found she was not just my mother, but thought herself greater than any queen."

"And so she is," Morgaine said sharply.

"No doubt, but I have lived in a world where men do not come and go at a woman's beckoning." She saw that his jaw was set and that the mischief was gone from his eyes. "I would rather have a loving mother than a stern Goddess whose every breath bids men live and die at her will."

To that Morgaine found nothing whatever to say. She set a swift pace that meant he must scurry at her heels to keep up.

Raven, still silent-for she had bound herself by vows of perpetual silence, save when she spoke tranced as a prophetess-let them into the dwelling with an inclination of the head. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Morgaine saw that Viviane, seated by the fire, had chosen to greet her son not in the ordinary dark dress and deerskin tunic of a priestess, but had put on a dress of crimson and done her hair high on her forehead with gems glittering there. Even Morgaine, who knew the tricks of glamour for herself, gasped at the magnificence of Viviane. She was like the Goddess welcoming a petitioner to her underworld shrine.

Morgaine could see that Galahad's chin was set and that the cords in his knuckles stood out, white, against his dark fists. She could hear him breathing, and guessed at the effort with which he steadied his voice, as he rose from his bow.

"My lady and mother, I give you greeting."

"Galahad," she said. "Come, sit here beside me."

He took a seat across from her instead. Morgaine hovered near the door and Viviane beckoned her to come and seat herself too.

"I waited to breakfast with you both. Here, join me."

There was fresh-cooked fish from the Lake, scented with herbs and dripping butter; there was hot, fresh barley bread, and fresh fruit, such food as Morgaine seldom tasted in the austere dwelling of the priestesses. She, and Viviane too, ate sparingly, but Galahad helped himself to everything with the healthy hunger of a youth still growing. "Why, you have set a meal fit for a king, Mother."

"How does your father, and how does Brittany?"

"Well enough, though I have not spent much time there in the last year. He sent me on a far journey, to learn for his court about the new cavalry of the Scythian peoples. I do not think even the soldiers of Rome, such as they are, have any such horsemen now. We have herds of Iberian horses-but you are not interested in the doings of the stud farms. Now I have come to bring word to the Pendragon's court of a new massing of Saxon armies; I doubt not they will strike in full force before Midsummer. Would that I had time and enough gold to train a legion of these horsemen!

"You love horses," Viviane said in surprise.

"Does that surprise you, madam? With beasts you always know precisely what they think, for they cannot lie, nor pretend to be other than they are," he said.

"The ways of nature will all be open to you," Viviane said, "when you return to Avalon in the life of a Druid."

He said, "Still the same old song, Lady? I thought I gave you my answer when last I saw you."

"Galahad," she said, "you were twelve years old. That is too young to know the better part of life."

He moved his hand impatiently. "No one calls me Galahad now, save you alone, and the Druid who gave me that name. In Brittany and in the field I am Lancelet."

She smiled and said, "Do you think I care for what the soldiers say?"

"So you would bid me sit still in Avalon and play the harp while outside in the real world the struggle goes on for life and death, my lady?"

Viviane looked angry. "Are you trying to say this world is not real, my son?"

"It is real," said Lancelet, with an impatient movement of his hand, "but real in a different way, cut off from the struggle outside. Fairyland, eternal peace-oh, yes, it is home to me, you saw to that, Lady. But it seems that even the sun shines differently here. And this is not where the real struggles of life are taking place. Even the Merlin has the wit to know that."

"The Merlin came to be as he is through years when he learned to know the real from the unreal," said Viviane, "and so must you. There are warriors enough in the world, my son. Yours is the task to see farther than any, and perhaps to bid the warriors come and go."

He shook his head. "No! Lady, say no more, that path is not mine."

"You are still not grown to know what you want," Viviane said flatly. "Will you give us seven years, as you gave your father, to know whether this is your road in life?"

"In seven years," said Lancelet, smiling, "I hope to see the Saxons driven from our shores, and I hope to have a hand in their driving. I have no time for the magics and mysteries of the Druids, Lady, and would not if I could. No, my mother, I beg you to give me your blessing and send me forth from Avalon, for to tell the truth, Lady, I will go with your blessing or without it. I have lived in a world where men do not wait for a woman's bidding to go and come."

Morgaine shrank away as she saw the white of rage sweep over Viviane's face. The priestess rose from her seat, a small woman but given height and majesty by her fury.

"You defy the Lady of Avalon, Galahad of the Lake?"

He did not shrink before her. Morgaine, seeing him pale under the dark tanning of his skin, knew that inside the softness and grace was steel to match the Lady's own. He said quietly, "Had you bidden me this when I still starved for your love and approval, madam, no doubt I would have done even as you commanded. But I am not a child, my lady and mother, and the sooner we acknowledge that, then the sooner we shall be in harmony and cease from quarrelling. The life of a Druid is not for me."

"Have you become a Christian?" she asked, hissing with anger.

He sighed and shook his head. "Not really. Even that comfort is denied me, though in Ban's court I could pass as one when I wished. I think I have no faith in any God but this." He laid his hand on his sword.

The Lady sank down on her bench and sighed. She drew a long breath and then smiled.

"So," she said, "you are a man and there is no compelling you. Although I wish you would speak of this to the Merlin."

Morgaine, watching unregarded, saw the tension relax in the young man's hands. She thought, He thinks she has given way; he does not know her well enough to know that she is angrier than ever. Lancelet was young enough to let the relief show in his voice. "I'm grateful to you for understanding, madam. And I will willingly seek counsel of the Merlin, if it pleases you. But even the Christian priests know that a vocation to the service of God is God's gift and not anything that comes because one wants it or does not. God, or the Gods if you will, has not called me, or even given me any proof that He-or They-exist."

Morgaine thought of Viviane's words to her, many years ago: it is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting. But for the first time she wondered, What would Viviane really have done if at any time during these years I had come to her and told her that I wished to depart? The Lady is all too sure that she knows the will of the Goddess. Such heretical thoughts disturbed her, and quickly she thrust them from her mind, resting her eyes again on Lancelet. At first she had only been dazzled by his dark handsomeness, the grace of his body. Now she saw specific things: the first down of beard along his chin-he had not time, or had not chosen, to shave his face in the Roman fashion; his slender hands, exquisitely shaped, fashioned for harp strings or weapons, but callused just a little across palm and the insides of the fingers, more on the right hand than the left. There was a small scar on one forearm, a whitish seam that looked as if it had been there for many years, and another, crescent-shaped, on the left cheek. His lashes were as long as a girl's. But he did not have the androgynous, boy-girl look of many boys before their beards have grown; he was like a young stag. Morgaine thought she had never seen so masculine a creature before. Because her mind had been trained to such thoughts, she thought, There is nothing of the softness of a woman's training in him, to make him pliable to any woman. He has denied the touch of the Goddess in himself; one day he will have trouble with her ... . And again her mind leaped, thinking that one day she would play the role of the Goddess at one of the great festivals, and she thought, feeling a pleasant heat in her body, Would that he might be the God ... . Lost in her daydream, she did not hear what Lancelet and the Lady were saying until she was recalled by hearing Viviane speak her name, and she came back to herself as if she had been wandering somewhere out of the world.