{"product_id":"the-mists-of-avalon-isbn-9780345350497","title":"The Mists of Avalon","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe magical saga of the women behind King Arthur's throne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement.”—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Marion Zimmer Bradley's masterpiece, we see the tumult and adventures of Camelot's court through the eyes of the women who bolstered the king's rise and schemed for his fall. From their childhoods through the ultimate fulfillment of their destinies, we follow these women and the diverse cast of characters that surrounds them as the great Arthurian epic unfolds stunningly before us. As Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar struggle for control over the fate of Arthur's kingdom, as the Knights of the Round Table take on their infamous quest, as Merlin and Viviane wield their magics for the future of Old Britain, the Isle of Avalon slips further into the impenetrable mists of memory, until the fissure between old and new worlds' and old and new religions' claims its most famous victim.\"[A] monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . Reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Marion Zimmer Bradley has brilliantly and innovatively turned the myth inside out. . . . add[ing] a whole new dimension to our mythic history.\"\u003cbr\u003e--San Francisco Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gripping . . . Superbly realized . . . A worthy addition to almost a thousand years of Arthurian tradition.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The Cleveland Plain DealerMarion Zimmer Bradley began her distinguished book publishing career in 1961 with her first novel, The Door Through Space. The following year she wrote the first book in her hugely popular Darkover series, Sword of Aldones, which soon became a Hugo Award nominee. Bradley's novel The Forbidden Tower was also nominated for a Hugo, and The Heritage of Hastur was nominated for an esteemed Nebula Award.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Mists of Avalon was the single most successful novel of Bradley's career. It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and has been among the top five trade paperback books on Locus's bestseller list for years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMs. Bradley died in 1999.Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady\u003cbr\u003eof Duke Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the headland. As\u003cbr\u003eshe stared into the fogs and mists, she wondered how she would\u003cbr\u003eever know when the night and day were of equal length, so that\u003cbr\u003eshe could keep the Feast of the New Year. This year the spring\u003cbr\u003estorms had been unusually violent; night and day the crash of \u003cbr\u003ethe sea had resounded over the castle until no man or woman \u003cbr\u003ewithin could sleep, and even the hounds whimpered mournfully.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTintagel . . . there were still those who believed the castle had been\u003cbr\u003eraised, on the crags at the far end of the long causeway into the sea,\u003cbr\u003eby the magic of the ancient folk of Ys. Duke Gorlois laughed at this and\u003cbr\u003esaid that if he had any of their magic, he would have used it to keep\u003cbr\u003ethe sea from encroaching, year by year, upon the shoreline. In the four\u003cbr\u003eyears since she had come here as Gorlois's bride, Igraine had seen land,\u003cbr\u003egood land, crumble into the Cornish sea. Long arms of black rock, sharp\u003cbr\u003eand craggy, extended into the ocean from the coast. When the sun shone,\u003cbr\u003eit could be fair and brilliant, the sky and water as brilliant as the\u003cbr\u003ejewels Gorlois had heaped on her on the day when she told him she bore\u003cbr\u003ehis first child. But Igraine had never liked wearing them. The jewel\u003cbr\u003ewhich hung now at her throat had been given her in Avalon: a moonstone\u003cbr\u003ewhich sometimes reflected the blue brilliance of sky and sea; but in the\u003cbr\u003efog, today, even the jewel looked shadowed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the fog, sounds carried a long way. It seemed to Igraine, as she\u003cbr\u003estood looking from the causeway back toward the mainland, that she could\u003cbr\u003ehear footfalls of horses and mules, and the sound of voices-human\u003cbr\u003evoices, here in isolated Tintagel, where nothing lived but goats and\u003cbr\u003esheep, and the herdsmen and their dogs, and the ladies of the castle\u003cbr\u003ewith a few serving women and a few old men to guard them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSlowly, Igraine turned and went back toward the castle. As always,\u003cbr\u003estanding in its shadow, she felt dwarfed by the loom of these ancient\u003cbr\u003estones at the end of the long causeway which stretched into the sea. The\u003cbr\u003eherdsmen believed that the castle had been built by the Ancient Ones\u003cbr\u003efrom the lost lands of Lyonnesse and Ys; on a clear day, so the\u003cbr\u003efishermen said, their old castles could be seen far out under the water.\u003cbr\u003eBut to Igraine they looked like towers of rock, ancient mountains and\u003cbr\u003ehills drowned by the ever encroaching sea that nibbled away, even now,\u003cbr\u003eat the very crags below the castle. Here at the end of the world, where\u003cbr\u003ethe sea ate endlessly at the land, it was easy to believe in drowned\u003cbr\u003elands to the west; there were tales of a great fire mountain which had\u003cbr\u003eexploded, far to the south, and engulfed a great land there. Igraine\u003cbr\u003enever knew whether she believed those tales or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes; surely she could hear voices in the fog. It could not be savage\u003cbr\u003eraiders from over the sea, or from the wild shores of Erin. The time was\u003cbr\u003elong past when she needed to startle at a strange sound or a shadow. It\u003cbr\u003ewas not her husband, the Duke; he was far away to the North, fighting\u003cbr\u003eSaxons at the side of Ambrosius Aurelianus, High King of Britain; he\u003cbr\u003ewould have sent word if he intended to return.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd she need not fear. If the riders were hostile, the guards and\u003cbr\u003esoldiers in the fort at the landward end of the causeway, stationed\u003cbr\u003ethere by Duke Gorlois to guard his wife and child, would have stopped\u003cbr\u003ethem. It would take an army to cut through them. And who would send an\u003cbr\u003earmy against Tintagel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a time-Igraine remembered without bitterness, moving slowly\u003cbr\u003einto the castle yard-when she would have known who rode toward her\u003cbr\u003ecastle. The thought held little sadness, now. Since Morgaine's birth she\u003cbr\u003eno longer even wept for her home. And Gorlois was kind to her. He had\u003cbr\u003esoothed her through her early fear and hatred, had given her jewels and\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful things, trophies of war, had surrounded her with ladies to\u003cbr\u003ewait upon her, and treated her always as his equal, except in councils\u003cbr\u003eof war. She could have asked no more, unless she had married a man of\u003cbr\u003ethe Tribes. And in this she had been given no choice. A daughter of the\u003cbr\u003eHoly Isle must do as was best for her people, whether it meant going to\u003cbr\u003edeath in sacrifice, or laying down her maidenhood in the Sacred\u003cbr\u003eMarriage, or marrying where it was thought meet to cement alliances;\u003cbr\u003ethis Igraine had done, marrying a Romanized Duke of Cornwall, a citizen\u003cbr\u003ewho lived, even though Rome was gone from all of Britain, in Roman\u003cbr\u003efashion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe shrugged the cloak from her shoulders; inside the court it was\u003cbr\u003ewarmer, out of the biting wind. And there, as the fog swirled and\u003cbr\u003ecleared, for a moment a figure stood before her, materialized out of the\u003cbr\u003efog and mist: her half-sister, Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, the Lady\u003cbr\u003eof the Holy Isle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Sister!\" The words wavered, and Igraine knew she had not cried them\u003cbr\u003ealoud, but only whispered, her hands flying to her breast. \"Do I truly\u003cbr\u003esee you here?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe face was reproachful, and the words seemed to blow away in the sound\u003cbr\u003eof the wind beyond the walls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHave you given up the Sight, Igraine? Of your free will?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStung by the injustice of that, Igraine retorted, \"It was you who\u003cbr\u003edecreed that I must marry Gorlois . . .\" but the form of her sister had\u003cbr\u003ewavered into shadows, was not there, had never been there. Igraine\u003cbr\u003eblinked; the brief apparition was gone. She pulled the cloak around her\u003cbr\u003ebody, for she was cold, ice cold; she knew the vision had drawn its\u003cbr\u003eforce from the warmth and life of her own body. She thought, I didn't\u003cbr\u003eknow I could still see in that way, I was sure I could not . . . and\u003cbr\u003ethen she shivered, knowing that Father Columba would consider this the\u003cbr\u003ework of the Devil, and she should confess it to him. True, here at the\u003cbr\u003eend of the world the priests were lax, but an unconfessed vision would\u003cbr\u003esurely be treated as a thing unholy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe frowned; why should she treat a visit from her own sister as the\u003cbr\u003ework of the Devil? Father Columba could say what he wished; perhaps his\u003cbr\u003eGod was wiser than he was. Which, Igraine thought, suppressing a giggle,\u003cbr\u003ewould not be very difficult. Perhaps Father Columba had become a priest\u003cbr\u003eof Christ because no college of Druids would have had a man so stupid\u003cbr\u003eamong their ranks. The Christ God seemed not to care whether a priest\u003cbr\u003ewas stupid or not, so long as he could mumble their mass, and read and\u003cbr\u003ewrite a little. She, Igraine herself, had more clerkly skills than\u003cbr\u003eFather Columba, and spoke better Latin when she wished. Igraine did not\u003cbr\u003ethink of herself as well educated; she had not had the hardihood to\u003cbr\u003estudy the deeper wisdom of the Old Religion, or to go into the Mysteries\u003cbr\u003eany further than was absolutely necessary for a daughter of the Holy\u003cbr\u003eIsle. Nevertheless, although she was ignorant in any Temple of the\u003cbr\u003eMysteries, she could pass among the Romanized barbarians as a\u003cbr\u003ewell-educated lady.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the small room off the court where there was sun on fine days, her\u003cbr\u003eyounger sister, Morgause, thirteen years old and budding, wearing a\u003cbr\u003eloose house robe of undyed wool and her old frowsy cloak about her\u003cbr\u003eshoulders, was spinning listlessly with a drop spindle, taking up her\u003cbr\u003euneven yarn on a wobbly reel. On the floor by the fire, Morgaine was\u003cbr\u003erolling an old spindle around for a ball, watching the erratic patterns\u003cbr\u003ethe uneven cylinder made, knocking it this way and that with chubby\u003cbr\u003efingers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Haven't I done enough spinning?\" Morgause complained. \"My fingers ache!\u003cbr\u003eWhy must I spin, spin, spin all the time, as if I were a waiting-woman?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Every lady must learn to spin,\" rebuked Igraine as she knew she ought\u003cbr\u003eto do, \"and your thread is a disgrace, now thick, now thin. . . . Your\u003cbr\u003efingers will lose their weariness as you accustom them to the work.\u003cbr\u003eAching fingers are a sign that you have been lazy, since they are not\u003cbr\u003ehardened to their task.\" She took the reel and spindle from Morgause and\u003cbr\u003etwirled it with careless ease; the uneven yarn, under her experienced\u003cbr\u003efingers, smoothed out into a thread of perfectly even thickness. \"Look,\u003cbr\u003eone could weave this yarn without snagging the shuttle . . .\" and\u003cbr\u003esuddenly she tired of behaving as she ought. \"But you may put the\u003cbr\u003espindle away now; guests will be here before midafternoon.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorgause stared at her. \"I heard nothing,\" she said, \"nor any rider with\u003cbr\u003ea message!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That does not surprise me,\" Igraine said, \"for there was no rider. It\u003cbr\u003ewas a Sending. Viviane is upon her way here, and the Merlin is with\u003cbr\u003eher.\" She had not known that last until she said it. \"So you may take\u003cbr\u003eMorgaine to her nurse, and go and put on your holiday robe, the one dyed\u003cbr\u003ewith saffron.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorgause put away the spindle with alacrity, but paused to stare at\u003cbr\u003eIgraine. \"My saffron gown? For my sister?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIgraine corrected her, sharply. \"Not for our sister, Morgause, but for\u003cbr\u003ethe Lady of the Holy Isle, and for the Messenger of the Gods.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorgause looked down at the patterned floor. She was a tall, sturdy\u003cbr\u003egirl, just beginning to lengthen and ripen into womanhood; her thick\u003cbr\u003ehair was reddish like Igraine's own, and there were splotches of\u003cbr\u003efreckles on her skin, no matter how carefully she soaked it in\u003cbr\u003ebuttermilk and begged the herbwife for washes and simples for it.\u003cbr\u003eAlready at thirteen she was as tall as Igraine, and someday would be\u003cbr\u003etaller. She picked up Morgaine with an ill grace and carried her away.\u003cbr\u003eIgraine called after her, \"Tell Nurse to put a holiday gown on the\u003cbr\u003echild, and then you may bring her down; Viviane has not seen her.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorgause said something ill-tempered to the effect that she didn't see\u003cbr\u003ewhy a great priestess would want to see a brat, but she said it under\u003cbr\u003eher breath so that Igraine had an excuse to ignore it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUp the narrow stairs, her own chamber was cold; no fires were lighted\u003cbr\u003ethere except in the dead of winter. While Gorlois was away, she shared\u003cbr\u003ethe bed with her waiting-woman Gwennis, and his prolonged absence gave\u003cbr\u003eher an excuse to have Morgaine in her bed at night. Sometimes Morgause\u003cbr\u003eslept there too, sharing the fur coverlets against the bitter cold. The\u003cbr\u003ebig marriage bed, canopied, curtained against draughts, was more than\u003cbr\u003ebig enough for three women and a child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGwen, who was old, was drowsing in a corner, and Igraine forbore to wake\u003cbr\u003eher, stripping off her workaday dress of undyed wool and hurrying on her\u003cbr\u003efine gown, laced at the neck with a silk ribbon Gorlois had brought her\u003cbr\u003eas a fairing from Londinium. She put on her fingers some little silver\u003cbr\u003erings she had had since she was a little girl . . . they would go only\u003cbr\u003eon her two smallest fingers, now . . . and hung a necklace of amber\u003cbr\u003ewhich Gorlois had given her about her neck. The gown was dyed rust\u003cbr\u003ecolor, and had an overtunic of green. She found her carven horn comb,\u003cbr\u003eand began to pull it through her hair, sitting on a bench and working\u003cbr\u003eher comb patiently through the tangles. From another room she heard a\u003cbr\u003eloud yelling and decided that Morgaine was having her hair combed by her\u003cbr\u003enurse and didn't like it. The yelling stopped suddenly, and she supposed\u003cbr\u003ethat Morgaine had been slapped into silence; or perhaps, as sometimes\u003cbr\u003ehappened when Morgause was in a good temper, Morgause had taken over the\u003cbr\u003ecombing herself, with her clever, patient fingers. This was how Igraine\u003cbr\u003eknew that her young sister could spin well enough when she chose, her\u003cbr\u003ehands were so clever at everything else-at combing, at carding, at\u003cbr\u003emaking Yule pies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIgraine braided her hair, clasped it on top of her head with a gold\u003cbr\u003eclasp, and put her good gold brooch into the fold of her cloak. She\u003cbr\u003elooked at herself in the old bronze mirror her sister Viviane had given\u003cbr\u003eher at her wedding, brought, they said, all the way from Rome. She knew,\u003cbr\u003elacing her gown, that her breasts were once again as they had been\u003cbr\u003ebefore: Morgaine had been weaned a year now, and they were only a little\u003cbr\u003esofter and heavier. She knew she had her old slimness back, for she had\u003cbr\u003ebeen married in this gown, and now the laces were not strained even a\u003cbr\u003elittle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGorlois, when he returned, would expect to take her to his bed again.\u003cbr\u003eLast time he had seen her, Morgaine had still been at the breast, and he\u003cbr\u003ehad yielded to her plea that she might continue to suckle the child\u003cbr\u003ethrough the summer season when so many little children died. She knew he\u003cbr\u003ewas discontented because the baby had not been the son he craved-these\u003cbr\u003eRomans counted their lineage through the male line, rather than sensibly\u003cbr\u003ethrough the mother; it was silly, for how could any man ever know\u003cbr\u003eprecisely who had fathered any woman's child? Of course, these Romans\u003cbr\u003emade a great matter of worrying over who lay with their women, and\u003cbr\u003elocked them up and spied on them. Not that Igraine needed watching; one\u003cbr\u003eman was bad enough, who would want others who might be worse?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut even though he was eager for a son, Gorlois had been indulgent,\u003cbr\u003eletting her have Morgaine in her bed and continue to suckle her, even\u003cbr\u003ekeeping away from her and lying nights with her dressing-woman Ettarr so\u003cbr\u003ethat she would not get with child again and lose her milk. He too knew\u003cbr\u003ehow many children died if they were weaned before they could chew meat\u003cbr\u003eand hard bread. Children fed on gruel were sickly, and often there was\u003cbr\u003eno goat's milk in the summer, even if they would drink it. Children fed\u003cbr\u003eon cow's or mare's milk often got the vomit and died, or suffered with\u003cbr\u003ethe flux in their bowels and died. So he had left Morgaine at her\u003cbr\u003ebreast, thus postponing the son he wanted for at least another year and\u003cbr\u003ea half. For that at least she would always be grateful to him, and not\u003cbr\u003emurmur, however quickly he got her with child now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEttarr had gotten herself a belly from that visit, and gone about\u003cbr\u003epreening herself; would she be the one to have a son by the Duke of\u003cbr\u003eCornwall? Igraine had ignored the girl; Gorlois had other bastard sons,\u003cbr\u003eone of whom was with him now, in the camp of the war duke, Uther. But\u003cbr\u003eEttarr had fallen sick and miscarried, and Igraine had enough intuition\u003cbr\u003enot to ask Gwen why she looked so pleased at the event. Old Gwen knew\u003cbr\u003etoo much of herbs for Igraine's perfect peace of mind. Some day, she\u003cbr\u003eresolved, I will make her tell me exactly what she put into Ettarr's\u003cbr\u003ebeer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe went down to the kitchen, her long skirts trailing on the stone\u003cbr\u003esteps. Morgause was there, in her finest gown, and she had put Morgaine\u003cbr\u003einto a holiday dress, dyed saffron, so that the child looked dark as a\u003cbr\u003ePict. Igraine picked her up, holding her with pleasure. Small, dark,\u003cbr\u003edelicately made, so small-boned it was like handling a little soft bird.\u003cbr\u003eHow had that child come by her looks? She herself and Morgause were tall\u003cbr\u003eand red-haired, earth-colored like all of the Tribeswomen, and Gorlois,\u003cbr\u003ethough dark, was Roman, tall and lean and aquiline; hardened from years\u003cbr\u003eof battle against the Saxons, too filled with his Roman dignity to show\u003cbr\u003emuch tenderness to a young wife, and with nothing but indifference for\u003cbr\u003ethe daughter who came in the place of the son she should have borne him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, Igraine reminded herself, these Roman men considered it their\u003cbr\u003edivine right to have power of life and death over their children. There\u003cbr\u003ewere many, Christians or no, who would have demanded that a daughter not\u003cbr\u003ebe reared, so that their wives might be free at once to give them a son.\u003cbr\u003eGorlois had been good to her, he had let her keep her daughter. Perhaps,\u003cbr\u003ethough she did not give him credit for much imagination, he knew how\u003cbr\u003eshe, a woman of the Tribes, felt about a daughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile she was giving orders for the entertainment of guests, for wine to\u003cbr\u003ebe brought up from the cellars and for the roasting of meat-not rabbit,\u003cbr\u003ebut good mutton from the last slaughtering-she heard the squawk and\u003cbr\u003eflutter of frightened hens in the court and knew that the riders had\u003cbr\u003ecome across the causeway. The servants looked frightened, but most of\u003cbr\u003ethem had become resigned to the knowledge that the mistress had the\u003cbr\u003eSight. She had pretended it, using clever guesses and a few tricks; it\u003cbr\u003ewas just as well that they should remain in awe of her. Now she thought,\u003cbr\u003eMaybe Viviane is right, maybe I still have it. Maybe I only believed it\u003cbr\u003ewas gone-because in those months before Morgaine was born, I felt so\u003cbr\u003eweak and powerless. Now I have come back to myself. My mother was a\u003cbr\u003egreat priestess till the day of her death, though she bore sev- eral\u003cbr\u003echildren.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, her mind answered her, her mother had borne those children in\u003cbr\u003efreedom, as a Tribeswoman should, to such fathers as she chose, not as a\u003cbr\u003eslave to some Roman whose customs gave him power over women and\u003cbr\u003echildren. Impatiently, she dismissed such thoughts; did it matter\u003cbr\u003ewhether she had the Sight or only seemed to have it, if it kept her\u003cbr\u003eservants properly in order?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe went slowly out to the courtyard, which Gorlois still liked to call\u003cbr\u003ethe atrium, though it was nothing like the villa where he had lived\u003cbr\u003euntil Ambrosius made him Duke of Cornwall. She found the riders\u003cbr\u003edismounting, and her eyes went at once to the only woman among them, a\u003cbr\u003ewoman smaller than herself and no longer young, wearing a man's tunic\u003cbr\u003eand woolen breeches, and muffled in cloaks and shawls. Across the\u003cbr\u003ecourtyard their eyes met in welcome, but Igraine went dutifully and bent\u003cbr\u003ebefore the tall, slender old man who was dismounting from a raw-boned\u003cbr\u003emule. He wore the blue robes of a bard, and a harp was slung across his\u003cbr\u003eshoulder.Ballantine Reader's Circle","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305013924069,"sku":"NP9780345350497","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345350497.jpg?v=1767740541","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-mists-of-avalon-isbn-9780345350497","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}