"A part of Less Britain, too, has withdrawn into the mists, and the Great Shrine of Stones cannot now be found. The avenue leading to the shrine is empty stone, unless the Way to Karnak is known," Viviane said, "but King Ban has pledged to keep the worlds from drifting apart, and the gateways open to the Mysteries. And so he will make the Sacred Marriage with the land, in token that if there is need his very blood will be spilled to feed the crops. It is fitting that my last service to the Mother, before I take my place among the wise-women, shall be to bind his land to Avalon, and so I am to be the Goddess to him in this mystery."
She was silent, but for Igraine the room was filled with the echo of her voice. Viviane bent over and picked up the sleeping Morgaine in her arms, holding her with great tenderness.
"She is not yet a maiden, and I not yet a wise-woman," she said, "but we are the Three, Igraine. Together we make up the Goddess, and she is here present among us."
Igraine wondered why she had not named their sister Morgause, and they were so open to one another that Viviane heard the words as if Igraine had spoken them aloud.
She said in a whisper, and Igraine saw her shiver, "The Goddess has a fourth face, which is secret, and you should pray to her, as I do-as I do, Igraine-that Morgause will never wear that face."
3
It seemed to Igraine that she had been riding forever in the rain. The journey to Londinium was like a journey from the end of the world. She had travelled but little before, except, long ago, from Avalon to Tintagel. She contrasted the frightened, despairing child of that first journey with herself today. Now she rode at Gorlois's side, and he went to some trouble to tell her something of the lands they passed through, and she laughed and teased him, and at night in their tent she went willingly to his bed. Now and again she missed Morgaine, wondering how the child would be faring-would she cry at night for her mother, would she eat at Morgause's bidding? But it was pleasant to be free again, riding in this great company of men, conscious of their admiring looks and their deference- none of them would dare to approach Gorlois's lady, except with an admiring glance. She was a girl again, but not, now, frightened and shrinking from the strange man who was her husband and whom she must somehow manage to please. She was a girl again without the childish awkwardness of her real girlhood, and she was enjoying it. She did not even mind the ceaseless rain that obscured the distant hills so that they rode within a little circle of mist.
We could lose our way in this mist, wander off into the realms of Fairy, and never return at all to this world, where the dying Ambrosius and the ambitious Uther plan for the salvation of Britain from the wild savages. Britain could sink like Rome, under the barbarians, and we need never know nor care ... .
"Are you weary, Igraine?" Gorlois's voice was gentle and concerned. Really, he was not the ogre he had seemed during those first terrifying days four years ago! Now he was only an aging man, grey in his hair and beard (though he shaved himself carefully in Roman fashion), scarred from years of fighting, and touchingly eager to please her. Perhaps, if she had not been so frightened and rebellious in those days, she might have seen that he was eager to please her then, too. He had not been cruel to her, or if he was, it was only that he seemed to know little of women's bodies and how to use them. Now it seemed only clumsiness, not cruelty; and if she told him he hurt her, he would caress her more gently. The younger Igraine had thought it inevitable, the hurt and the terror. Now she knew better.
She smiled at him now, gaily, and said, "No, not at all; I feel I could go on riding forever! But with so much mist, how do you know that we will not lose our way and never come to Londinium at all!"
"You need not fear that," he said gravely. "My guides are very good, and they know every inch of the road. And before nightfall we will come to the old Roman road which leads into the very heart of the city. So we will sleep this night under a roof and in a proper bed."
"I shall be glad to sleep again in a proper bed," said Igraine demurely, and saw, as she had known she would see, the sudden heat rising in his face and eyes. But he turned his face away from her; it was almost as if he was afraid of her, and Igraine, having just discovered this power, delighted in it.
She rode on at his side, reflecting on the sudden kindness she felt for Gorlois, a kindness mixed with regret, as if he had become dear to her only now, when she knew she must lose him. One way or another, she knew her days at his side were numbered; and she remembered how she had first known that he would die.
She had had his messenger, warning her to prepare for his coming; he had sent one of his men, with suspicious eyes which peered everywhere, telling Igraine without words that if this man had had a young wife, he would have come home without warning, hoping to surprise some misconduct or extravagance. Igraine, knowing herself guiltless, her steward competent, her kitchen in order, had ignored the prying stares and bade the man welcome. Let him question her servants if he would, he would find that except for her sister and the Lord Merlin she had received no guests at Tintagel.
When the messenger had gone, Igraine, turning to cross the courtyard, had stopped, a shadow falling across her in full sunlight, stricken with causeless fear. And in that moment she saw Gorlois, wondering where was his horse, his entourage? He looked thinner and older, so that for a moment she hardly knew him, and his face was drawn and haggard. There was a sword cut on his cheek which she did not remember.
"My husband!" she cried. "Gorlois-" And then, stricken by the unspeakable grief in his face, she had forgotten her fear of him and the years of resentment, rushed toward him and spoken as she would have spoken to her child. "Oh, my dear, what has happened to you? What has brought you here like this, alone, unarmed-are you ill? Are you-" And then she stopped, her voice dying away among the echoes. For there was no one there, only the fitful light from clouds and sea and shadows, and the echo of her own voice.
She tried, all the rest of that day, to reassure herself that it was only a Sending, like the one that had warned her of Viviane's coming. But she knew better: Gorlois had not the Sight, would not have used it or believed in it if he had had it. What she had seen-and she knew it even though she had never seen anything like it before-was her husband's fetch, his double, the shadow and precursor of his death.
And when at last he arrived, whole and sound, she had tried to shrug away the memory, had told herself that it was only a trick of the light that made her see, behind him, the shadow she had seen, with the sword cut on his face and the unspeakable grief in his eyes. For Gorlois now was neither wounded nor disheartened; on the contrary, he was in high good humor, bringing gifts for her, and even a string of little coral beads for Morgaine. He had looked in the sacks of his Saxon plunder and given Morgause a red cloak.
"No doubt it belonged to some Saxon strumpet, some camp follower, or even one of the screaming swordswomen who fight alongside their men, half-naked on the field of war," he said, laughing and chucking the girl under the chin, "so it is just as well it should be worn by a decent British maiden. The color becomes you, little sister. When you have grown a bit, you will be as pretty as my wife." Morgause had simpered and giggled and tossed her head, posing in the new cloak, and later Gorlois had said sharply, as he and Igraine were making themselves ready for bed (Morgaine, howling, had been banished to Morgause's room), "We must have that girl married as soon as can be arranged, Igraine. She is a puppy bitch with eyes hot for anything in the shape of a man; did you see how she cast her eyes not only on me but on my younger soldiers? I will not have such a one disgracing my family, nor influencing my daughter!"