Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

A thousand days.

  She smiled nervously at him. “Strange, isn’t it? The middle rhyme is different, as though it was added later to some older song. I don’t know what it means. But I think it implies that Macsen’s treasure is buried.”

  Galahad sat up quickly. “Where did you hear this? You don’t know any hillmen.”

  “Oh, don’t I? There are hillmen all over Wales. Haven’t you ever seen them? They’re small and dark; they slip in and out of shadows. They call themselves the Ancient People, the Forgotten Ones. They were here before the Romans, even before us Celts. They’ve come into this cave from time to time, for food if they are starving, for help if they are hurt. The cave was theirs before it was mine. Goll, one of their leaders, gave it to me with his blessing. I’ve spoken with them, you see, pretty often. Their tongue is not unlike ours, only simpler. ”

  “Who is Llud?”

  Dane grinned. “Don’t you know anything? Are there no Ancient Ones in Less Britain anymore? Llud’s the god of the Otherworld.” She spread an arm out to encompass the cave and the hill behind it. “This could be one of Llud’s gates for all I know.”

  Galahad shuddered. “Old wives’ tales, nothing more.”

  “Oh, very well, then, if you know everything.” Dane tossed her head in annoyance and her hair flew free from its braiding. Galahad couldn’t help smiling. Angrily she pushed it back from her face. “So what do you want to dig up the emperor’s treasure for, anyway?”

  He hesitated. “Macsen’s treasure has the power to heal Britain.”

  “And my mother can cure warts. Who told you this nonsense?”

  “Arthur.” He was pleased to see her completely taken aback.

  “King Arthur? Himself?”

  “He called them things of power and asked me to find them for him. He told me that when he held all three together—the Sword, the Spear, the Grail—Britain would be safe forever. Unconquered and unconquerable. And even though he is dead, they still hold power. They are Britain’s best hope for preservation.”

  She frowned. “But you can’t get Arthur’s Sword. It’s buried with him.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s at the bottom of the Lake of Avalon. Where my father threw it.”

  She stared openly at him. “Lancelot threw the High King’s Sword away?”

  “At Arthur’s command. He was dying and commanded it be done.”

  Dane nodded. Everyone knew the dying wishes of kings were sacred. She gazed back at the vivid blue eyes watching her. “Let me understand this. You are seeking the Grail and Spear, and when you find them you’ll retrieve the Sword, and then Britain will be whole forever, no matter who is sitting in Camelot?”

  Galahad nodded slowly. “I think so.”

  “Does Constantine know this?”

  “No. No one does but you and Percival. And he doesn’t know quite so much. He doesn’t ask so many questions.”

  Dane grinned. “I like to learn. How will you know these things when you see them?”

  “I have seen them in a dream. Twice.”

  “So that’s the dream. Percival told me you had an enchanted dream in Avalon.” She eyed him askance. “I suppose that’s the one that kept you sleeping throughout the Battle of Camlann. I can understand that you’d want to make amends. Do you know where to find these treasures?”

  “No. But I know who holds the key. A man who is called the Fisher King. Have you ever heard of such a person?”

  “No, but it could be a local name. It might not be known outside the village where he lives.”

  “He lives on an island.”

  “Then search along a river. There are islands in the Eden River, they say. And that’s where Excalibur was found, which was Macsen’s sword.”

  Galahad considered this. “That might be a good idea.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea. It’s also a good idea to take Percival to Lanascol so he can train with Lancelot.”

  Galahad glared at her and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going home. I told you that.”

  “Not even to visit? Why not?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Percival worships Lancelot. He’d love nothing better.”

  “Percival’s been in Lanascol. We spent two weeks in Benoic on the way home from Autun.”

  “That’s different. Lancelot was wounded then and confined to bed. Take Val there now and let your father teach him to be a king.”

  Galahad shook his head. “There’s no point. My father has given up.”

  “On Britain, perhaps, but surely not on Lanascol. Perhaps he’s just war weary. Perhaps you could convince him to return.”

  “No. Not even if I could.”

  Dane’s eyes narrowed until they were slits of green. “In heaven’s name, why not? What is there between you?”

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” Galahad stammered, coloring furiously. “Leave it alone, can’t you? As long as he’s there I’m not ever going home.”

  For the first time since he had met her Dane was at a loss for words.

  “We’ve never done well together, he and I,” he continued swiftly, propelled by the need to fill the silence, “and more than once I’ve sworn to kill him. I won’t—probably—but he does better when I’m not around and so do I—” He stopped, appalled at all he had revealed.

  Dane reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Galahad. I shouldn’t have asked. You are right: it doesn’t concern me. I just assumed— But it must be hard to be Sir Lancelot’s son. I never realized—I beg your pardon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled shyly. “He’s such a great man, so renowned for his daring and his skill; it must be difficult to have people expect as much of you.”

  Galahad stiffened and withdrew his hand. “I’m not jealous of him, if that’s what you mean. Good God, you’ve got it backward! I’m ashamed of him.”

  Dane’s jaw dropped. “What on earth for?”

  “How can you not know? The whole world knows!”

  “You believe the rumors about Lancelot and the Queen? His own son?”

  He couldn’t answer. The words stuck in his throat.

  Dane was shaking her head. “You shouldn’t. The rumors are lies. My mother was a great friend of Queen Guinevere’s. It’s all malicious slander. A man can love a woman without betrayal. I believe that’s possible, don’t you?”

  “Not if the woman is another man’s wife!”

  “Nonsense! Of course he can. He can love her at a distance without dishonor to anyone.”

  Galahad laughed bitterly, his face burning as he recalled all the times he had inadvertently caught Lancelot and Guinevere together: sometimes hand in hand, sometimes in a long, ravenous kiss, once in a torrid embrace which he had been certain would lead to his father’s death. They had always had the same look of helpless, hopeless longing on their faces. “There was never any distance.”

  “Well,” Dane returned, “there was enough. He didn’t betray Arthur’s bed. He didn’t even steal Guinevere’s affection from the King.”

  “What romantic hogwash!” Galahad snorted. “You don’t know the first thing about it. He coveted another man’s wife. That’s a sin. And he’s never been sorry about it. That’s another. He’s better off in Lanascol, where he can’t easily get at her. Let him make peace with my mother’s memory. He treated her abominably. He left her there to wither and die in Lanascol, all because he couldn’t stay away from Guinevere.”

  Stung, Dane retaliated. “You expect him to make peace with her memory when she’s the one who betrayed Guinevere? It was Elaine’s plan for King Melwas to abduct the Queen and ravish her—her own cousin, for pity’s sake! And it was Elaine who tried to take her place in the King’s bed while she was gone. Why else did Arthur banish her from Britain?”

  Galahad stared speechless at her.

  “You didn’t know? It’s known in Wales. My aunt Elaine was jealous of her cousin all her life—if you lived with her, you
ought to know that.”

  Galahad’s lips moved stiffly. “You ignorant girl—she never betrayed anyone. She was herself betrayed.”

  Dane shook her head vigorously. “You’ve got it wrong, Galahad. She betrayed Guinevere to Melwas and tried to take her place in Camelot. But Arthur threw her out—you didn’t know that either? He banished her forever from his presence. That’s why when Lancelot married her he took her to Lanascol. He had orders never to let her come back.”

  Galahad leaped to his feet. “You lie! You ignorant, interfering gossip! What can you know about it? It’s a barefaced lie!”

  Dane jumped up to face him. Her unruly hair tumbled free about her shoulders, lending her face a wild ferocity. “Who are you to call me ignorant and interfering? You apparently know nothing! My whole family knows King Arthur banished Elaine—that’s why they had to go to Lanascol to see her!”

  Pale, sweating, Galahad backed along the wall of the cave.

  “Leave my mother alone!” he gasped. “She was a better woman than you’ll ever be! And Lancelot betrayed her with Guinevere.”

  Dane hooted. “You poor blockhead! Marrying Lancelot was the only honorable thing she ever did. And he deserved a better wife than Elaine of Gwynedd!”

  Galahad’s throat went dry. He stared at her vivid face, half-hidden by her hair. “You’re nothing but a stupid, meddling girl. I don’t have to listen to your half-wit lies.” He backed away, feeling blindly along the wall.

  Dane followed. “You call me stupid and meddling? What would you call a woman who devised a plan to have her cousin raped? What would you call a woman who tried to trick the High King into her bed? She was false, Galahad. It was Lancelot who saved Guinevere from Melwas—you can’t blame her for loving him. . . .”

  Galahad bolted from the cave mouth and fled to his horse. “Witch! I won’t listen!”

  “Witch, am I? Then I’ll curse you!” She pointed a finger at him. “May your arrogance consume you; may your road meander! May you follow in your father’s footsteps and love a woman you cannot in honor have!”

  He stumbled, grabbed the reins, and threw himself upon his stallion’s back. They galloped down the track, the horse slipping and sliding in the mud and fog. Galahad clung blindly to the whipping mane, wondering if it was possible to get across the border into Northgallis before dark.

  Dane stood before the fire in the cave mouth and watched him go. She was already ashamed of calling him names, but she could scarcely bring herself to believe that he knew so little about his parents. Who had closed his eyes? What kind of a childhood could he possibly have had to know so little and be wrong about so much? How could he hate a man as upright and revered as his own father, a man all Britain held in such high esteem?

  She shook her head and shivered, drenched in fog. There could not be a boy more ignorant, more backward, more stubbornly contrary than her cousin Galahad. What on God’s sweet earth could have made him so?

  PART II

  The Hawk of Lanascol

  In the seventeenth year of the reign of Arthur Pendragon

  7

  AIDAN

  Galahad shivered in his big bed. He hated the dark. It wasn’t the loneliness of it; he had never minded being alone. It was the unseen menace in the corners that terrified him. Warmth and comfort were nearby, next door in the nursery where Maida slept with his little brothers. Sometimes he ached to sneak in and cuddle with her as he used to do, sucking dreamily at her milky breasts until sleep gently closed his eyes. But those days were past—he was nearly five years old and he was Prince of Lanascol. He was entitled to his own chamber. Dark corners and all, it must be endured. Wet nurses were for babies.

  He sat up suddenly when he heard footsteps in the corridor. It wasn’t the watch changing, the tread was too light. He slipped out of bed and pattered to the door. Cold struck upward from the stone floor, numbing his bare feet, setting him shaking. Pulling with all his might at the heavy handle, he slipped the latch and opened the door a crack.

  Cressets burned smokily in the hall sconces, but even in the dim light he recognized his mother, her blue gown, her golden hair, the proud lift of her head. He dared not move. At her side, stern and silent, soft-footed in fine, doeskin boots, walked the king himself. Biting his lip, Galahad watched them go by. He had only a glimpse of her face, cold and shuttered, but it filled him with rage. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

  He opened the door a little further and stuck his head out. They stopped outside the queen’s chamber and his hopes rose. Perhaps the king would not go in. He heard their voices: his low-pitched and commanding, hers shrill and heavy with contempt. He waited a moment, hopeful that the argument would end in the king’s leaving. It had been so often enough before. But the king took her arm, opened the door, spoke briefly to the sentry, and followed the queen in. The door shut behind them with a loud thud.

  He hesitated, but it was freezing and his feet were already numb. He hurried back to bed and pulled the soft wool blankets tight around him. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the picture of the king’s strong hand on his mother’s arm. He tried to think of things that pleased him, as Maida had taught him to do when he was angry. He thought of his mother’s hair with the sun on it, dark gold and glowing. And his uncle Galyn’s sword, which had silver chasing on the scabbard and a golden cross upon the hilt. And the new chestnut stallion with the white blaze which Galyn had promised he could sit this coming spring.

  He thought of his mother’s small white hands as she sat stitching by candlelight, her dancing hands moving with swift, sure grace over some bright fabric. Sometimes she would take him on her lap and caress him with those pretty hands. How sweet she always smelled! She was so different from anyone else in Lanascol, with her fair complexion and accented speech. He knew she had been born in a far-off land at the very edge of Britain, and that the king had taken her away from her people when he wed her and brought her to Lanascol. Whenever she spoke of her homeland her eyes would mist with tears.

  She was always sad in winters when the king was home. But in spring, summer, and autumn, when the king was gone across the sea to Britain, she would smile and sing; she would dance with Galahad in the garden; she would hold court in her own name and everyone did her bidding. From equinox to equinox she ruled Lanascol. Everyone scurried to obey her, and when she was not pleased grown men trembled before her anger.

  The scrape of metal on stone interrupted his reverie. He slid out of bed and ran to the door. The sentry was gone from the queen’s chamber; he could hear his footfalls on the stair and those of his replacement. Galahad slipped quickly out into the hallway. Everything was cold, still, and silent. Surely the king had gone. They had little enough to say to each other at the best of times. He ran down the corridor, his bare feet making no sound at all on the icy stone.

  The door was heavy but unlocked, and he got it open. The queen’s serving women lay on pallets in the antechamber, fast asleep. Old Grannic, grown almost deaf, snored in her bedroll near the door to the bedchamber. It was easy to slip past them. Without a backward glance he put a hand to the latch and opened the inner door.

  The first thing he saw was the sword. It lay balanced on a stool against the wall close by his hand. Light from a candle on the little table gleamed on the oiled leather scabbard and picked out the dull glow of rubies set in a cross upon the hilt. He knew—everyone knew—the sword was the gift of the High King Arthur and a weapon of sacred power. He had never seen it so near. He reached out a furtive hand to touch it, then froze as it dawned on him what the sword’s presence meant. In the same instant he heard sounds in the darkness beyond the candle: the bed’s rhythmic creak, low-pitched grunts, and a woman’s hiss.

  “Animal! Swine!”

  Galahad stood motionless, fist in mouth, and began to shake. The king himself was here!

  “Vermin! Viper! I spit on you! There!”

  He recognized his mother’s voice and, stepping closer, shaded his eyes against the candle an
d peered into the darkness.

  She lay naked with her hair flung untidily across the pillows, pale and helpless, pinned beneath the man’s brown body. He held her wrists to the bed and moved against her, pushing her, crushing her flesh, his dark head bent near her face. She gasped each time he moved, struggling against his weight and cursing him in furious whispers. One heavy breast flopped sideways, ghostly in the dimness, jiggling, its dark nipple staring at him like some baleful eye. Even as he watched, the man gasped, groaned, fell still, and bowed his head, releasing her arms. Weeping, she clawed his back with her nails.

  “Oh, God, what have I done to deserve this?” she cried. “Get off me, you heavy oaf! You are a beast, no better! Get off!”

  “Mama!” Galahad wailed, but his lips were too stiff to move and no sound came out.

  The king raised his dark head from the woman’s breast. “For God’s sake, Elaine,” he said wearily, “you are my wife. Be still.”

  “I will not! You will not take your pleasure without cost! You are an animal! Let me go!” She pummeled his shoulders with her fists, trying futilely to push him away. “You rutting beast! I loathe you! Go back to Britain—take your filthy lusts to Britain’s great whore—”

  His hand took her throat; his long fingers encircled her neck. She lay instantly still, whimpering.

  “If her name passes your lips,” he said slowly and very clearly, “I will have your life.” They stared at each other in silence. The boy did not dare to breathe.

  “I hope you roast in Hell.”

  His fingers tightened and she began to scream. Too quick for thought, Galahad grabbed the great sword with both hands, pulled it free of the scabbard, heaved it over his head, sobbing with the effort it cost him, and lurched toward the bed.

  “Leave her alone! Leave her alone!” The words burst forth at last, unstoppable and shrill. “Leave her alone!” Straining with all his might, he swung the heavy weapon and brought it down. The king’s startled face turned toward him; his strong hand whipped out, caught the boy’s wrist, and the sword pulled free.