When they reached Morgana's room, they found her sitting up with a bundle in the crook of each arm. She smiled radiantly at Lancelot as he came in.
"Twins-a boy and a girl," she said.
Lancelot was on his knees beside her in an instant. "How are you?"
"Tired. But that's all," said Morgana. "Oh, look at them, Lancelot! They know you're their papa-look, see how the girl is looking at you."
"What are their names to be?" asked Arthur from the doorway.
"I don't know," said Morgana. "I would love to call the boy Gorlois," she said, stroking the golden hair of the boy. She thought it ought to bother her that her son's hair was so exactly Uther's and Arthur's; but she found she could not. He was perfect; entirely and wholly beautiful.
"And the girl?" asked Gwen.
Everyone sat in silence trying to think of a good name.
It was Freya who started up. "I have the perfect name!"
"What is that?" asked Lancelot.
"Sunne," said Freya. "Look at the baby's eyes. They're exactly like the sky; and that paler ring around the center looks like the sun through thin clouds."
Morgana tasted the word on her tongue. Sunne. Gorlois.
And she knew that that was what they were. They could be nothing else to her; Sunne and Gorlois they were, and Sunne and Gorlois they would always be.
E * P * I * L * O * G * U * E
It was four years since the birth of Sunne and Gorlois. The children were all older now; Ania was now nine and was looking more and more like her mother every day. Ygraine, eight, was still just as naughty as she had been at the age of four. Balinor, six, and Anne, who was nearly five, had wise eyes very like their father; but had the same impish spirit that graced Ygraine.
There were four more children in the group now; although two of them were much too young to join in the play of their older siblings. Merlin and Freya had one more daughter, Mariel, who was three, and a year-old son named Gaheris. Morgana and Lancelot had a two-year-old boy named Kveth, and the newborn daughter of Arthur and Gwen had been named Laurel.
Life was, as Merlin loved to say, very simple. Work and play and sickness and health continued as they did for all; and, as Merlin also loved to say to Freya when they and their five children were at a riotous supper-"
"You know, Freya, there was actually a time when I fancied that the life of a Court Sorcerer would be interesting."
And then they both would laugh. For they had both learned long ago that an interesting life was nothing; it was a loved life which was worth living.