Round and round went the spindle; the reel sank toward the floor and she twisted the thread smoothly. When had she learned to do this work?

She could not even remember a time when she could not spin a smooth thread ... one of her earliest memories was of sitting on the castle wall at Tintagel, beside Morgause, spinning; and even then, her thread had been more even than her aunt's, who was ten years her senior.

She said so to Morgause, and the older woman laughed. "You spun finer thread than I when you were seven years old!"

Round and round went the spindle, sinking slowly toward the stone floor; then she wound the thread up on her distaff and meanwhile twisted a fresh handful of wool. ... As she spun out the thread, so she spun the lives of men-was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning ... from the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud. Without us, the lives of men would be naked indeed ... .

... It seemed to her that, as in the kingdom of Fairy, she had looked through a great opening and seen Arthur asleep at the side of a maiden with her own face, so now a great space opened out, as if it were before her; and as the reel sank to the floor and the thread twisted, it seemed to spin out Arthur's face as he wandered, sword in hand ... and now he whirled, to see Accolon, bearing Excalibur ... ah, they were fighting, she could not see their faces now, nor hear the words they flung at one another ... .

How fiercely they fought, and it seemed strange to Morgaine, watching dizzied as the spindle sank, twirled, rose, that she could not hear the clashing of the great swords ... Arthur brought down a great blow that would surely have killed Accolon had it struck him fair, but Accolon caught the blow on his shield and only took a wound in the leg-and the wound sliced without blood, while Arthur, taking a glancing blow on the shoulder, began suddenly to bleed, crimson streaks flowing down his arm, and he looked startled, afraid, one hand going in a swift gesture of reassurance to his side where the scabbard hung ... but it was the sham scabbard, wavering even now in Morgaine's sight. Now the two were mortally locked together, struggling, their swords locked at the hilt as they grappled with their free hands for the advantage ... Accolon twisted fiercely, and the sword in Arthur's hand, the false Excalibur made by fairy enchantments in a single night, broke off close below the hilt-she saw Arthur twist round in desperate avoidance of the killing blow and kick out violently. Accolon crumpled up in agony, and Arthur snatched the real Excalibur from his hand and flung it as far away as he could, then leaped on the fallen man and wrenched at the scabbard. As soon as he had it in his hand, the flow of blood from the great wound in his arm ceased to bleed, and in turn blood gushed forth from the wound in Accolon's thigh ... .

Excruciating pain stabbed through Morgaine's whole body; she doubled up with the weight of it. ...

"Morgaine!" said Morgause sharply, with a catch of breath; then called out, "Queen Morgaine is ill-come tend to her!"

"Morgaine!" Gwenhwyfar cried out. "What is it?"

The vision was gone. However she tried, she could not see the two men, nor which had prevailed, whether one of them lay dead-it was as if a great dark curtain had closed over them, with the ringing of church bells -in the last instant of the vision she had seen two litters carrying the wounded men into the abbey at Glastonbury, where she could not follow ... . She clung to the edges of her chair as Gwenhwyfar came, with one of her ladies, who knelt to raise Morgaine's head.

"Ah, look, your gown is soaked with blood-this is not any ordinary bleeding."

Morgaine, her mouth dry with the sickness, whispered, "No-I was with child and I am miscarrying-Uriens will be angry with me-"

One of the women, a plump jolly one about her own age, said, "Tsk! Tsk! For shame! So His Lordship of Wales will be angry, will he? Well, well, well, and who chose him for God? You should have kept the old billy goat out of your bed, lady, it is dangerous for a woman to miscarry at your age! Shame on the old lecher to put you so at risk! So he will be angry, will he?"

Gwenhwyfar, her hostility forgotten, walked beside Morgaine as they carried her, rubbing her hands, all sympathy.

"Oh, poor Morgaine, what a sad thing, when you had hoped all over again. I know all too well how terrible it must be for you, my poor sister ..." she repeated, holding Morgaine's cold hands, cradling her shaking head when she vomited in the ghastly sickness that overcame her. "I have sent for Broca, she is the most skilled of the court midwives, she will look after you, poor dear ... ."

It seemed that Gwenhwyfar's sympathy would choke her. Racked by repeated, agonizing pains, she felt as if a sword had thrust through her vitals, but even so, even so, it was not so bad as Gwydion's birth had been, and she had lived through that ... shaking, retching, she tried to cling to consciousness, to be aware of what was going on around her. Maybe she had been ready to miscarry anyhow-it was surely too quick for the drug to have worked. Broca came, examined her, smelled at the vomited stuff, and raised her eyebrows knowingly. She said in an undertone to Morgaine, "Lady, you should have taken more care-those drugs can poison you. I have a brew which would have done what you wanted more quickly and with less sickness. Don't worry, I won't speak to Uriens-if he has no more sense than to let a woman of your years try to bear him a child, then what he does not know will do him no harm."

Morgaine let the sickness take her. She knew, after a time, that she was more gravely ill than they had thought ... Gwenhwyfar was asking if at last she wanted to see a priest; she shook her head and closed her eyes, lying silent and rebellious, not caring now whether she lived or died. Since Accolon or Arthur must die, she too would go into that shadow ... why could she not see them, where they lay within Glastonbury, which of them would come forth? Surely the priests would tend Arthur, their own Christian king, but would they leave Accolon to die?

If Accolon must go into the shades, let him go with the spirit of his son to attend him, she thought, and lay with tears sliding down her face, hearing in some distant place the voice of the old midwife Broca. "Yes, it's over. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but you know as well as I that she is too old to bear children. Yes, my lord, come and see-" The voice was harsh with asperity. "Men never think of what they do, and all the bloody mess women have for men's pleasure! No, it was all too soon to tell whether it would have been a boy or not, but she had had one fine son, I doubt not she would have borne you another, had she been strong enough and young enough to carry it!"

"Morgaine-dearest, look at me," Uriens pleaded. "I am so sorry, so sorry you are ill, but don't grieve, my darling, I still have two sons, I don't blame you-"

"Oh, you don't, do you?" said the old midwife, still truculent. "You had better not speak one word of blame to her, Your Majesty, she is still very weak and sick. We will have another bed put in here so that she may sleep in peace till she is quite well again. Here-" and Morgaine felt a comforting woman's arm under her head; something warm and comforting held to her lips. "Come, dear, drink this now, it has honey in it, and medicines to keep you from bleeding anymore-I know you are sick, but try to drink it anyhow, there's a good girl-"

Morgaine swallowed the bittersweet drink, tears blurring her vision. For a moment it seemed that she was a child, that Igraine held her and comforted her in some childish sickness. "Mother-" she said, and even as she spoke knew it was delirium, that Igraine had been dead for half a lifetime, that she was no child or maiden, but old, old, too old to lie here in this ugly way and so near death ... .