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By Root 1444 0

her mind against the tenderness in the old man’s voice. She had always known, without being told, that Taliesin, Merlin of Britain, had shared with her mother the spark of life which had made her, but a daughter of the Holy Isle did not speak of such things. A daughter of the Lady belonged only to the Goddess, and to that man into whose hands the Lady chose to give its care—most often her brother, only very rarely the man who had begotten it. There was a reason for this: no pious man should claim fatherhood to a child of the Goddess, and all children born to the Lady were considered so. That Taliesin should use this argument now shocked her deeply, but it touched her, too.

Yet she said stubbornly, refusing to look at him, “Gorlois might have been chosen Pendragon. Surely this Uther cannot be so much beyond all sons of mankind as that. If you must have such a one, could you not have used your spells so that Gorlois would be acclaimed war duke of Britain, and Great Dragon? Then, when our son was born, you would have had your High King—”

The Merlin shook his head, but again it was Viviane who spoke, and this silent collusion further angered Igraine. Why should they act in concert this way against her?

Viviane said softly, “You will bear no son to Gorlois, Igraine.”

“Are you the Goddess, then, that you dispense childbearing to women in her name?” Igraine demanded rudely, knowing the words childish. “Gorlois has fathered sons by other women; why should I not give him one born in wedlock, as he desires?”

Viviane did not answer. She only looked directly at Igraine and said, her voice very soft, “Do you love Gorlois, Igraine?”

Igraine stared at the floor. “That has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of honor. He was kind to me—” She broke off, but her thoughts ran on unchecked: Kind to me when I had nowhere to turn, when I was alone and deserted, and even you had abandoned me to my fate. What is love to that?

“It is a matter of honor,” she repeated. “I owe him this. He let me keep Morgaine, when she was all I had in my loneliness. He has been kind and patient, and for a man of his years it cannot be easy. He wants a son, he believes it all-important to his life and honor, and I will not deny him this. If I bear a son, it will be the son of Duke Gorlois, and of no other man living. And this I swear, by fire and—”

“Silence!” Viviane’s voice, like the loud clang of a great bell, shocked Igraine’s words silent. “I command you, Igraine, swear no oath lest you be forever forsworn!”

“And why should you think I would not keep my oath?” Igraine raged. “I was reared to truth! I too am a child of the Holy Isle, Viviane! You may be my elder sister and my priestess and the Lady of Avalon, but you shall not treat me as if I were a babbling child like Morgaine there, who cannot understand a word of what is said to her, nor knows the meaning of an oath—”

Morgaine, hearing her name spoken, sat bolt upright in the Lady’s lap. The Lady of the Lake smiled and smoothed the dark hair. “Do not think that this little one cannot understand. Babes know more than we imagine; they cannot speak their minds, and so we believe they do not think. As for your babe—well, that is for the future, and I will not speak of it before her; but who knows, one day she too will be a great priestess—”

“Never! Not if I must become a Christian to prevent it,” Igraine raged. “Do you think I will let you plot against my child’s life as you have plotted against mine?”

“Peace, Igraine,” said the Merlin. “You are free, as every child of the Gods is free. We came to entreat you, not to command. No, Viviane—” he said, holding up his hand when the Lady would have interrupted him. “Igraine is no helpless plaything of fate. Yet I think when she knows all, she will choose rightly.”

Morgaine had begun to fret in the Lady’s lap. Viviane crooned softly to her, stroking her hair, and she quieted, but Igraine rose and took her child, angry and jealous at Viviane’s almost magical power to quiet the girl. In her arms Morgaine felt strange, alien, as if the time she had spent in