"Keep that grief in your heart," she responds and puts a finger to his brow to relax his frown. "Show me only your happiness." She kisses his lips. "Remember, I told you that you are my strength, because you are wrong? You said I am not a Jew. That I am the baroness. That gave me the courage to go on. Now, that destiny is fulfilled. The Grail that Ailena gave me has been drained. I am not the baroness anymore. I am a Jew again—and it is time for me to quest my own Grail." She lets his hand go and steps back. "I will return to the Holy Land, Thomas."
"I will come too!" he groans.
"No. Please. Your Grail is here, Parsifal. Have you forgotten? The ruler and the land are one. When I leave, you must be the castle's baron. The earl of Epynt."
"No!" He seizes her hand. "I will come!"
She clasps her free hand over his. "Have you heard nothing of what I've said?"
"I love you!"
"Then, you must let me go. My place is with my people."
"Together—" His eyes wince with the effort of speech. "We will go together."
"Thomas, listen to me." Her grip tightens in his clasp. "If you leave, you will abandon these people who need you. Your solitude belongs here. In your people and your land. If you forsake that, you forsake your truth."
"We make truth."
"Do we?" Her head tilts skeptically. "I think not, Thomas. Have I chosen to be a woman? A Jew? An orphan? Have you chosen? We can accept or forsake our destinies. But we cannot make them."
"For you, I will forsake mine."
She frowns. "Thomas, will you abandon these people who have fought and died for the vision of the Grail? If you leave, who will rule? Clare? Hugues backed by his grieved father William? Or will some other lord of the March fill your absence with his tyranny? No, Thomas. Too many lives need you. Don't you see? You are blessed. Your Grail is here—and that Cup will not pass from you."
Thomas hangs his head. What she says, he hears with his heart and knows. "Stay." He speaks without looking up.
"This is not my place. I belong..." She trails off, not really knowing in her heart where she belongs.
He grimaces, looks up and says through his teeth, "The Jews think you are wrong—here." He taps his brow. "Mad."
"Love proceeds from wrong to wrong," she answers with a soft smile. "I will earn a place for myself as Rachel Tibbon."
You have every answer, he thinks, looking sadly at her, imprinting each small detail of her face in memory. You have won those answers through hardship—and that has made them unbreakable.
He knows he must bend before their truth. He collects himself and kisses her fingers in his grasp. "When?"
"Now," she answers. "After we leave the garden. My maids have already packed for me."
Panic shakes him like a puppet. "So soon!"
"Please, don't be afraid," she comforts. "The longer we are together, the greater our suffering when we part." She removes the baroness' signet ring and presses it into his hand. "Ailena wants you to have this."
He feels Rachel's body heat in the ring. Holds it tightly, asks, "How will you go?"
"I have arranged with Erec and his men for an escort to Newport. The jewels your grandmother bequeathed me will pay for my passage and my place in the Levant." She takes his hand and adds, "I will leave now, Thomas. And you will stay. And rule. If you remember my suffering—you cannot fail. We must reach out of our solitude in communion. Or we are doomed."
She squeezes his hand and looks deeper into his eyes. "Reach out to Denis. He will be your warmaster. Harold will steward the domain's monies. And William will lend you his wrath to fend off the greed of other men, if only for the sake of the one son left him. With Erec as your ally, the peace will outlive you and your grandchildren."
She smooths the crease between his eyes with her thumb and smiles softly at him. "Do not fear for me, Thomas. I have grown wise on cruelties. And I have learned to trust in the mercies of love."
-/
The news that the Lady of the Grail departs once again for the Holy Land spreads through the village by midmorning. At noon, a crowd from the castle and the village line the toll bridge road. All mourning for the dead ceases, amid tossed flowers and jubilant cheers.
Clare weeps uncontrollably, and Gerald, Ummu, and her maids struggle to restrain her from mounting the caravan and accompanying her mother. Ta-Toh scurries onto her shoulder and, to appease her, offers a fat beetle he has caught.
The knights weep, too—quietly.
Harold kneels to kiss the hem of her bliaut. Gianni blesses her with his last sanctified act as a priest. And Denis insists on standing as she passes, though his wound hammers like a spike through his chest.
"We will keep our faith in Yeshua ben Miriam," he promises. "Baruch ata adonai!"
Thomas, heir and appointed ruler, rides beside her. Through gawking crowds, her palfrey exits the castle and trots past kneeling villeins. One of the villeins leaps up and hands her a crucifix so expertly woven from Welsh osier the figure of Christ wears a bristly crown.
When she holds it aloft, the people shout, "Valaise! Chalandon!"
At the forest’s edge, Erec and a dozen of his warriors greet Rachel and Thomas.
Rachel removes a velvet roll from her saddlebag and opens it on her lap, revealing two things: the Seljuk dagger of ivory hilt—and the golden torque from Falan Askersund, inscribed in Arabic.
"You two must rule Epynt together," she says to the Welshman and the Norman. "And these offer tokens of your union."
She hands the curved dagger to Erec. "I give you this dagger, forged by a far-off hand, by which to cut away foreign influence and remain pure.
"And to you, Thomas, I give the torque, to hold you in thrall to this foreign land. I trust you to serve with honor and love."
She takes each of their hands. "You both know who I am in truth. So, I can speak to you in truth. I am a Jew. Rachel Tibbon. I know what it is to live in foreign lands—and what it is to struggle against foreigners. You are both Christians. If you forget what love is won by your messiah’s suffering, who will remember?"
During the ride through the woods, both Erec and Thomas try to convince Rachel to stay. The determination in her heart deepens the more they talk. No further explanation is possible.
She does not know what will become of her in the Holy Land. She knows only, she must go there. Stillness alone holds dread for her now. It is as though the land itself has finished with her in this place. Hazy mountains above the forest peer through shawls of rain, watching her pass.
She knows she must find the landscape where she belongs. From those granite-browed mountains, the rains wander into the desert, rare and true as faith.
At the river Usk, a ferry receives her and the Welshmen, and she parts from Thomas. Tears glisten the raw length of his scar.
Every river is the river of time, he recalls her saying as the barge drifts into the current and she shrinks to a mote on the watery horizon.
For a long time afterward, he stands on the shore listening to the fruity burble of the river. Tenacious animal patience feeds on the nostalgia of impossible love. A long life attends.
-/
On the ferry, Rachel leans at the stern, apart from her escort, alone with herself at last, no longer a baroness, merely a woman listening inward and hearing nothing but her own silence.
I came here haunted, she thinks, staring at the dazzle of trees on the shore and deer watching from tussocky grass. I leave whole. Now, it is the world in its fragments that is haunted. That is as it always was. A world broken into being.
Beneath her, the river moves like a slow, strong heart. Reassured by the distances it promises to carry her, she tries to think through what she has endured in this strange land.
Her grandfather’s sacrifices, his labors had saved her life but could not heal her. All his prayers in the temples, all the rabbis’ prayers, all the blood of the sacrificed doves did not move the dark, mysterious heart of God enough to lift His madness from her brain.
>
Until now, she had never understood why such sincerity had failed.
As the river bears her away from the place of her transformation, she only comprehends this much: God is not only good. God is All. God is good and evil.
So, the rage and the predatory deceit of the baroness have worked a miracle, after all. Ailena's implacable fury and cunning exploited very effectively her people's faith in God—a faith simple and strong enough to believe that miracles happen, that mere bread could be a Savior's flesh—
That humble faith had joined with the ferocious rapacity of the baroness' wicked heart, and that merger of good and evil had created a role for her to play that has, by sweat of her bone, actually healed her!
An ironic laugh swells from her silence. Instantly, irreverence vanishes into the absence of her grandfather and her family—good people, whose ancestors had sacrificed countless unmarked birds to their wrathful God, begging for peace.
But the blood of doves is not what God has wanted from me. All along, it has been the bread of hawks.
* * *
Author’s Comments
The Grail has a long association in literature with King Arthur, and readers have sometimes thought that my Arthurian series, The Perilous Order of Camelot, included this novel, originally titled Kingdom of the Grail. To resolve that confusion, I changed the title of this edition.
The central theme of this novel asserts that personal identity is a mystery, much as creation itself. To further this theme, I chose to use present tense. My thinking is that past tense intimates a standpoint outside the events of the story; whereas, present tense suggests a continually unfolding truth.
Truth, of course, is the dark heart of humanity. Truth has warranted much of history’s most pitiless evil. That is so, because truth fractures into wholes – such as justice – God – and self. This novel seeks to penetrate and survey the illusory fortress of truth. To the extent that it fails, it is true.
A. A. Attanasio
[email protected]
http://aaattanasio.com/
eBooks Available from A. A. Attanasio
(newly revised by the author)
Killing with the Edge of the Moon
Mama’s boy Chester Hubert drums up the courage to ask a witch’s granddaughter to the school dance – and finds himself hurtling through a modern, demonic fairy tale.
Quiet, elfin Flannery is not like other kids. She has caught the attention of the faerie, beautiful evil creatures from a mysterious Otherworld. They seduce their victims at midnight raves, then feed them to a dragon. For sport, they hunt souls with a black dog of prodigious evil. And they have taken Flannery for one of their own.
Thrust together in the Otherworld’s dark enchantment, Flannery and Chester discover they know each other better than they know their own hearts ... but can they sort things out before the black dog finds them?
And what was that about a dragon?
http://goo.gl/p4mEzc
The audiobook edition of Killing with the Edge of the Moon narrated by Destiny Landon and Lee James available at Audible.com.
http://goo.gl/VWhHKz
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Wyvern
A bold escapade with a young soul-catcher from Borneo kidnapped by pirates in 1609.
Headhunters, sorcerers, pirates and Indian princes thrive in this adventurous, poetic tale of a young outcast in Borneo. Born in 1609, son of a native woman and a Dutch sea captain he never knew, Jaki Gefjon grows up in the jungle as a sorcerer's apprentice. Later kidnapped by pirates, he befriends his captor, Trevor Pym, notorious for his dreaded man-of-war, Wyvern. The scientific marvels on the European privateer become the young soul-catcher’s passion—until he falls for Lucinda, the headstrong daughter of Pym's sworn enemy. Propelled by intrigue, pirates' battles, curses and visions, this seafaring saga takes Lucinda and Jaki from the South Seas to India—and to a bold, unforeseen destiny in the New World.
http://goo.gl/QZBxHo
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Hunting the Ghost Dancer
50,000 years ago, three young friends band together for a perilous journey to find a new home after plague devastates their coastal tribe. Accompanied by a blind horse and armed with meager weapons and their own elusive courage, Hamr, Timov and Duru defy savage odds to survive in the strange and brutal realm of Ice Age Europe. This incredible quest takes them through primeval forests stalked by cave lions and across vast glacial moraines of thundering woolly rhinoceros—to the Thundertree clan. These forest people accept Duru, the girl, for her magical powers. But the two young men must prove themselves worthy by hunting down a giant Neanderthal—the last of his line—who has been terrorizing the tribe.
World Fantasy nominee.
http://goo.gl/nNwOIy
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Servant of Birds
Set in the 1190s during the rule of England's Richard the Lion Heart, this historical romance explores the raw experience of love: romantic, sexual and spiritual. The dramatic action moves from Wales to a tumultuous Europe unsettled by the Crusades to intensely colorful Palestine and back. Arrogant Guy Lanfranc assumes control of the family castle by sending his hated mother, the old baroness Ailena Valaise, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Wily Ailena vows revenge and finds the means in the person of Rachel Tibbon, a Jewish girl who survived the butchery of her family and other Jews after Crusader losses. Ailena's plot to regain the castle built by her father propels Rachel into a perilous adventure of vengeance, faith – and true love set against impossible odds.
http://goo.gl/6Wpr2h
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The Conjure Book
Life is lonely for 13-year-old Jane Riggs in the historical New England village that is her new home — until she discovers a four-hundred-year-old book of spells that really works. Guided by the ghost of the witch who wrote the conjure book, Jane embarks on a terrifying but glorious quest for magical power. Her ambition is to contact her mother, dead these ten years and remembered only in photographs. For such a great prize, Jane is willing to risk much among the weird creatures she conjures out of the spirit world. But she will need more than courage when her magic follows her to school. After an evil spirit-fox steals her classmate's soul, life suddenly gets very complicated. Coming of age among dark, elemental powers while not missing a day of seventh grade is not easy. And the answers Jane needs for growing up don't seem to be in the conjure book.
http://goo.gl/IDjQKW
The audiobook edition of The Conjure Book narrated by Laura Rubin available at Audible.com
http://goo.gl/P9kga1
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Brave Tails:
The Moon’s Prophecy
Summoned by a vengeful sorcerer snake, an army of malevolent boars has invaded the peaceful haven of Riversplash Mountain. Only a few humble friends from the swamp dare to believe they can prevent the invaders from ravaging their fertile mountain. Farmer mouse Thrym, wise hedgehog Muspul, a father-and-son team of shrews, and the beautiful mouse maiden Olweena dangerously assume the masked identities of the Brave Tails. Those legendary, sword-wielding heroes of yore originally rid their land of predators. But these small defenders will need more than masks and swords to stop this brutal onslaught – and the magic they seek is even more dangerous than the boars!
http://goo.gl/N04DE3
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The Radix Tetrad
The volumes of this series can each be read independently of the others. The feature that unifies them is their individual adaptation of science fiction’s sub-genre: “space opera,” which the editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer define as "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes."
Radix
A saga of a young man's odyssey of self-d
iscovery on an eerily alien Earth thirteen centuries in the future.
Rich in detail and filled with beings brought to life with intense energy, this strange and beautiful world reveals its secrets as Sumner Kagan changes from an adolescent outcast to a warrior with god-like powers. In the process, we accompany Sumner on an epic and transcendent journey.
Nebula Award Nominee
The audiobook edition of Radix narrated by Sergei Burbank available at Audible.com
http://goo.gl/ojf3qX
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In Other Worlds
One star-chained evening in a Manhattan bathroom, Carl Schirmer, a sweet, slightly defeated bar manager, spontaneously transforms into energy and finds himself transported to the farthest extreme of the universe, 130 billion years in the future. Turned loose in time's last world, the strangest of all – the Werld – Carl discovers a domain of indescribably beautiful islands floating in a sky contoured by gravity lanes. These skyles are inhabited by the Foke, nomadic humans, who struggle for survival against the zōtl, a spidery intelligence that eats the pain of sentient beings. Among the Foke, Carl meets and wins the lovely Evoë, and their life together offers a blissful future in this kingdom that knows no aging or disease – until Evoë is captured by the zōtl. In order to save her life, Carl must return to Earth – 130 billion years earlier – where he is shocked to discover that the world he has come back to is not the one he left...
The audiobook edition of In Other Worlds narrated by David Gilmore available at Audible.com
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