THE PLEDGED WORD

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

It had been a long time since Morgaine had been to Avalon; she was not entirely sure that she could find her way back through the mists. But now it was time for her to make the attempt.

Her first step was to go to Pellinore’s castle, sent by Lancelet to bear his greetings to his wife and children. And then, when she was alone with Elaine, she came to her true purpose.

“Remember you made me a vow once – that if I helped you win Lancelet, you would give me what I asked of you. Nimuë is past five years old now, old enough for fostering. I ride tomorrow for Avalon. You must make her ready to accompany me.”

“No!” It was a long cry, almost a shriek. “No, Morgaine, you cannot mean it!”

Morgaine had feared this. She spoke sharply. “Elaine, you pledged your word.”

“She is a Christian child – how can I send her from her mother into – into a world of pagan sorceries . . . ?”

“I am, after all, her kinswoman,” Morgaine said gently. “How long have you known me, Elaine? Have you ever known me do anything so dishonourable or so wicked that you would hesitate to entrust a child to me? I do not, after all, want her for the dragon, and the days are long, long past when even criminals were burnt on altars of sacrifice.”

“What will befall her, then, in Avalon?” asked Elaine, so fearfully that Morgaine wondered if Elaine, after all, had harbored some such notions.

“She will be a priestess, trained in all the wisdom of Avalon,” said Morgaine. “One day she will read the stars and know all the wisdom of the world and the heavens.” She found herself smiling. “Her brother told me that she wished to learn to read and write and to play the harp – and in Avalon no one will forbid her this. Her life will be less harsh than if you had put her to school in some nunnery. We will surely ask less of her in the way of fasting and penance before she is grown.”

“But – but what shall I say to Lancelet?” wavered Elaine.

“What you will,” said Morgaine. “It would be best to tell him the truth, that you sent her to fosterage in Avalon, that she might fill the place left empty there. But I care not whether you perjure yourself to him – you may tell him that she was drowned in the lake or taken by the ghost of old Pellinore’s dragon, for all I care.”

“And what of the priest? When Father Griffin hears that I have sent my daughter to become a sorceress in the heathen lands—”

“I care even less what you tell him,” Morgaine said. “If you choose to tell him that you put your soul in pawn for my sorceries to win yourself a husband, and pledged your first daughter in return – no? I thought not.”

“You are hard, Morgaine,” said Elaine, tears falling from her eyes. “Cannot I have a few days to prepare her to go from me, to pack such things as she will need—”

“She needs not much,” said Morgaine. “A change of shift if you will, and warm things for riding, a thick cloak and stout shoes, no more than that. In Avalon they will give her the dress of a novice priestess. Believe me,” she added kindly, “she will be treated with love and reverence as the granddaughter of the greatest of priestesses. And they will – what is it your priests say? – they will temper the wind to the shorn lamb. She will not be forced to austerities until she is of an age to endure them. I think she will be happy there.”

“Happy? In that place of evil sorcery?”

Morgaine answered with conviction, “I vow to you – I was happy in Avalon, and every day since I left I have longed, early and late, to return thither. Have you ever heard me lie? Come – let me see the child.”

“I bade her stay in her room and spin in solitude till sunset. She was rude to the priest and is being punished,” said Elaine.

“But I remit the punishment,” said Morgaine. “I am now her guardian and foster-mother, and there is no longer any reason for her to show courtesy to that priest. Take me to her.”

They rode forth the next day at dawn. Nimuë had wept at parting with her mother, but even before they were gone an hour, she had begun to peer forth curiously at Morgaine from under the hood of her cloak. She was tall for her age, less like Lancelet’s mother, Viviane, than like Morgause or Igraine; fair-haired, but with enough copper in the golden strands that Morgaine thought her hair would be red when she was older. And her eyes were almost the color of the small wood violets which grew by the brooks.

They had had only a little wine and water before setting out, so Morgaine asked, “Are you hungry, Nimuë? We can stop and break our fast as soon as we find a clearing, if you wish.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“Very well.” And soon she dismounted and lifted the little girl from her pony.

“I have to—” The child cast down her eyes and squirmed.

“If you have to pass water, go behind that tree with the serving-woman,” said Morgaine, “and never be ashamed again to speak of what God has made.”

“Father Griffin says it is not modest—”

“And never speak to me again of anything Father Griffin said to you,” Morgaine said gently, but with a hint of iron behind the mild words. “That is past, Nimuë.”

When the child came back she said, with a wide-eyed look of wonder, “I saw someone very small peering out at me from behind a tree. My brother said you were called Morgaine of the Fairies – was it a fairy, Aunt?”

Morgaine shook her head and said, “No, it was one of the Old People of the hills – they are as real as you or I. It is better not to speak of them, Nimuë, or take any notice. They are very shy, and afraid of men who live in villages and farms.”

“Where do they live, then?”

“In the hills and forests,” Morgaine said. “They cannot bear to see the earth, who is their mother, raped by the plow and forced to bear, and they do not live in villages.”

“If they do not plow and reap, Aunt, what do they eat?”

“Only such things as the earth gives them of her free will,” said Morgaine. “Root, berry and herb, fruit and seeds – meat they taste only at the great festivals. As I told you, it is better not to speak of them, but you may leave them some bread at the edge of the clearing, there is plenty for us all.” She broke off a piece of a loaf and let Nimuë take it to the edge of the woods. Elaine had, indeed, given them enough food for ten days’ ride, instead of the brief journey to Avalon.

She ate little herself, but she let the child have all she wanted, and spread honey herself on Nimuë’s bread; time enough to train her, and after all, she was still growing very fast.

“You are eating no meat, Aunt,” said Nimuë. “Is it a fast day?”

Morgaine suddenly remembered how she had questioned Viviane. “No, I do not often eat it.”

“Don’t you like it? I do.”

“Well, eat it then, if you wish. The priestesses do not have meat very often, but it is not forbidden, certainly not to a child your age.”

“Are they like the nuns? Do they fast all the time? Father Griffin says—” She stopped, remembering she had been told not to quote what he said, and Morgaine was pleased; the child learned quickly.

She said, “I meant you are not to take what he says as a guide for your own conduct. But you may tell me what he says, and one day you will learn to separate for yourself what is right in what he says, and what is folly or worse.”

“He says that men and women must fast for their sins. Is that why?”

Morgaine shook her head. “The people of Avalon fast, sometimes, to teach their bodies to do what they are told without making demands it is inconvenient to satisfy – there are times when one must do without food, or water, or sleep, and the body must be the servant of the mind, not the master. The mind cannot be set on holy things, or wisdom, or stilled for the long meditation which opens the mind to other realms, when the body cries out ‘Feed me!’ or ‘I thirst!’ So we teach ourselves to still its clamoring. Do you understand?”

“N-not really,” said the child doubtfully.

“You will understand when you are older, then. For now, eat your bread, and make ready to ride again.”

Nimuë finished her bread and honey and wiped her hands tidily on a clump of grass. “I never understood Father Griffin either, but he was angry when I did not. I was punished when I asked him why we must fast and pray for our sins when Christ had already forgiven them, and he said I had been taught heathendom and made Mother send me to my room. What is heathendom, Aunt?”

“It is anything a priest does not like,” said Morgaine. “Father Griffin is a fool. Even the best of the Christian priests do not trouble little ones like you, who can do no sin, with much talk about it. Time enough to talk about sin, Nimuë, when you are capable of doing it, of making choices between good and evil.”

Nimuë got on her pony obediently, but after a time she said, “Aunt Morgaine – I am not such a good girl, though. I sin all the time. I am always doing wicked things. I am not at all surprised that Mother wanted to send me away. That is why she is sending me to a wicked place, because I am a wicked girl.”

Morgaine felt her throat close with something like agony. She had been about to mount her own horse, but she hurried to Nimuë’s pony and caught the girl in a great hug, holding her tight and kissing her again and again. She said, breathlessly, “Never say that again, Nimuë! Never! It is not true, I vow to you it is not! Your mother did not want to send you away at all, and if she had thought Avalon a wicked place she would not have sent you, no matter what I threatened!”

Nimuë said in a small voice, “Why am I being sent away, then?”

Morgaine still held her tight with all the strength of her arms. “Because you were pledged to Avalon before you were born, my child. Because your grandmother was a priestess, and because I have no daughter for the Goddess, and you are being sent to Avalon that you may learn wisdom and serve the Goddess.” She noted that her tears were falling, unheeded, on Nimuë’s fair hair. “Who let you believe it was punishment?”

“One of the women – while she packed my shift—” Nimuë faltered. “I heard her say Mother should not have sent me to that wicked place – and Father Griffin has told me often that I am a wicked girl—”

Morgaine sank to the ground, holding Nimuë in her lap, rocking her back and forth. “No, no,” she said gently, “no, darling, no. You are a good girl. If you are naughty or lazy or disobedient, that is not sin, it is only that you are not old enough to know any better, and when you are taught to do what is right, then you will do so.”

And then, because she thought this conversation had gone far for a child so young, she said, “Look at that butterfly! I have not seen one that color before! Come, Nimuë, let me lift you on your pony now,” she said, and listened attentively as the little girl chattered on about butterflies.

Alone she could have ridden to Avalon in a single day, but the short legs of Nimuë’s little pony could not make that distance, so they slept that night in a clearing. Nimuë had never slept out of doors before, and the darkness frightened her when they put out the fire, so Morgaine let the child creep into the circle of her arms and lay pointing out one star after another to her.

The little girl was tired with riding and soon slept, but Morgaine lay awake, Nimuë’s head heavy on her arm, feeling fear stealing upon her. She had been so long away from Avalon. Step by slow step, she had retraced all her training, or what she could remember; but would she forget some vital thing? Would they even want her back?

I bring them Viviane’s granddaughter, she thought. But if they let me return only for her sake it will be more bitter than death. Has the Goddess cast me out forever?

*    *    *

No, for when she summoned the barge to take them to Avalon, it came at her call. Nimuë was wide-eyed and confused during the brief journey to the island and her presentation to the priestesses.

“Well, Nimuë,” the priestess Niniane asked, “have you come to be a priestess here?”

Nimuë looked around at the sunset landscape. “That is what my aunt Morgaine told me. I would like to learn to read and write and play the harp, and know about the stars and all kinds of things as she does. Are you really evil sorceresses here? I thought a sorceress would be old and ugly, and you are very pretty.” She bit her lip. “I am being rude again.”

Niniane laughed. “Always speak out the truth, child. Yes, I am a sorceress. I do not think I am ugly, but you must decide for yourself whether I am good or evil. I try to do the will of the Goddess, and that is all anyone can do.”

“I will try to do that,” Nimuë said, “if you will tell me how.”