Igraine

Igraine refuses Uther plainly and immediately, warns her husband, and leaves court — she is given no ambiguity at all. She is then deceived by magic into receiving a man she believes is her husband, on a night when her husband is already dead.

Malory does something quietly devastating with the aftermath. Long after, when Arthur is king and the truth is finally established at court, Igraine is brought in and questioned about the child, and she answers that she was delivered of him and does not know where he went — because Uther had ordered the baby handed to Merlin at a postern gate, and she was never told what became of her son. The reunion, when it comes, is the only scene in the book where anybody thinks to ask her anything.

She is also the mother of Morgause and Morgan, by her first husband, which means that every catastrophe in the book — Mordred, Morgan's enmity, the Orkney feud — descends from her line.

The tradition mostly declines to be interested in her, and the exception is worth noting. In Malory, when Arthur has been king for some time and the question of his parentage is finally settled in public, Igraine is fetched to court and asked. Ulfius accuses her of treason for having kept silence about the child. She answers that she was delivered of a son, that Merlin took him away at Uther's command, and that she has never known his name or where he went. Arthur embraces her and they weep. It is the only moment in the book where anyone asks the woman at the centre of the founding what she experienced, and the answer is that she was told nothing.