Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

  Suddenly he saw Aidan in the facets, robed and cowled, standing in a bower, waiting for a woman. The woman approached, blue-gowned and golden-haired, and Aidan took her in his arms and kissed her. His hands reached inside her gown, her body opened to him—Galahad cried out as he saw her face. Aidan whipped around, the golden eyes fixing on him, and drew a red curtain firmly across his vision—a red curtain of blood! Blood thick and oozing and dark, splashing everywhere, staining the marble floor, flowing up the walls, clogging his nostrils with its sweet stench!

  Sobbing, Galahad fell to the cold floor. “Aidan! Aidan!” Screaming filled his ears. It was not his voice! “Aidan!”

  Above his head candle flames bobbed and danced, drawing together in a circle, a halo of light, coalescing slowly into a globe, a brilliant sphere of solid flame. A voice, hollow and unreal, pierced the light. Attend me! The sphere of flame swelled and pulsed, resolving by infinitesimal degrees into the outline of a face. His breath caught in his throat. Cool, golden eyes burned down into his soul. A low hiss sounded in his ears. You are mine now. Mine forever. There is no going back. Galahad, I am your God. Submit to me. He pressed into the marble floor, shrinking from the horror, mouth open in a silent scream. His whole being shuddered, revolted, his spirit heaved in refusal. The flaming face came closer. Kill your father. Soldier of God, I command you. It is time to act. Submit to me. You are my sword. Lancelot is coming to take you away. He is corrupt and will take you into the heart of corruption. Fear him not. You are the Sword of God. Strike him with your dagger! You will get no peace until he’s dead. I promise you this.

  Galahad fought for breath, clutching at his memory. Someone, somewhere, sometime, had taught him the key to Watch-spells. Attend me. I am your God. He whimpered as the flames bore down and terror seized his soul.

  Suddenly, through the numbing fear, he remembered. And just as suddenly another presence came to his aid. A companion. Hold on to me. A warm voice spoke, calm and powerful, more felt than heard. Out, demon! Leave my son alone. Slowly, the flaming apparition began to change. The eyes faded from gold to silver to gray, the pulsing face withdrew and reformed into the outlines of a human face, a face he knew, a brooding face with straight black brows and a crooked nose.

  Father! His lips would not move but his spirit screamed the name. Father! Help me!

  Slowly the lights above his head began to spin, reduced now to whirling candles. Someone nearby whimpered in pain, “Aidan!” Galahad sobbed aloud, “Lancelot!” and the world went dark.

  Something touched his cheek. He struggled to breathe. A great stifling weight seemed to sit upon his chest, but even as he fought to awaken, he recognized it. It was fear. His eyes flew open. All he saw was white. He gasped once, twice, heart pounding, and screamed.

  He heard, away in the distance, a feeble cry that died to nothingness. “Galahad?” It was a human voice! Warm fingers clutched his arm. “Galahad, can you hear me?”

  He turned his head and saw Renna’s face bending down to him.

  “Praise be to God, the child’s awake at last!” She smiled, and pulled back the white cloth they had fixed above his bed to protect him from the morning sun. He gazed at his own chamber wall. He lay in his own bed.

  “Renna!” It came out a whisper. “Where’s my father?”

  Renna put a hand to his forehead. “Well, well, little Galahad, and it’s about time, too!” She stepped lightly to the door and spoke to someone outside.

  He struggled to sit up, and failed. “Where’s my father?”

  Renna returned. “In Britain, of course. Where else? Here, drink this.”

  Gradually his head cleared and he was able to sit up. He pushed the proffered cup away. “What happened, Renna? How did I come here?”

  She laughed sharply, shaking out his doeskin tunic. “You’re asking me? That’s the question all Benoic is asking. I don’t know. Come, put this on.”

  Galahad looked down in surprise at his naked body. “Where’s my tunic? My white one?”

  Renna shuddered and tried to conceal it. “They burned it, most like,” she muttered. “Stank like a slaughter pit.”

  “Blood!” Galahad gasped as memory flooded back. “There was blood! It was real! I know it was! I smelled it!”

  “Hush now. Don’t excite yourself. You’ll fall down in a faint again.”

  “Whose blood was it, Renna? Who bled on my tunic? It’s not me—see, I’m whole. I’m not hurt. Renna, whose was it? ”

  Something like fear touched Renna’s face, and was instantly hidden. Soft steps sounded in the corridor. Renna spoke quickly. “Your aunt Adele is coming to see you. She will answer all your questions. Ahhh”—with a sigh of relief—“here she is.”

  Adele sat gracefully beside Galahad on the bed. She took both his hands and he clung to her. Her lips were the color of the queen’s rose-buds, dark pink and unblemished. Her eyes, liquid brown and deeply set, were not the eyes of the royal family of Lanascol—“Benoic eyes” people called them—long-lashed and gray. But then, she was a stranger here. As he was now.

  “Galahad.” Even her voice was beautiful, gentle, and very kind. “Your mother is taken ill.”

  He nodded. He had known it from the moment she entered the room.

  “Strange things went on last night,” Adele said slowly. “It would help us, it would help the physicians and your mother, if we could learn what they were.”

  “Was the blood hers?” he blurted. “Was it?”

  Adele frowned lightly. “What are you talking about?”

  “There was blood—in the chapel. All over everywhere.”

  “Galahad, can you tell us what went on in that chapel? Why were you there?”

  “First tell me! Was it her blood?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s the matter with her? Does she bleed now?”

  Adele paused. “She is . . . she is very ill, and in pain. The physician fears she may lose the child she carries.”

  Galahad’s eyes widened. “Send for Father Aidan! He can cure her!”

  Adele’s hand trembled as it smoothed the hair back from his face. “Galyn has been out since dawn looking for him. At the lake, through the forest, all over Benoic. Aidan has disappeared.” Galahad stared at her but Adele continued calmly. “Galyn came to check on you when the feast was over, and found you gone. The alarm was raised. Then it was discovered the queen was not in her chambers. Grannic finally confessed how she had dressed her in her white ceremonial robe but she did not know where the queen was going, or why. When Galyn came to the chapel in the dead of night, he found a hundred guttered candles, you in a faint upon the floor, and the queen lying . . . on a bench. Aidan was not there.”

  “What about the silver cup? And the golden Cross of Visions?”

  Adele’s eyes widened. “He certainly found no such treasures as you describe. Who in Lanascol has such a cross? Did you see really such a thing, Galahad?”

  “Oh, yes. I . . . I . . . and a golden cup, too. It was heavy. I drank from it.”

  “What?” Adele said quickly. “What did you drink?”

  “Only wine. Blue wine.”

  “Did your mother drink anything?”

  “Not the wine. It was for me. For the ceremony.”

  Adele frowned. “What kind of ceremony?”

  Galahad shuddered. “I can’t tell you.”

  “But you must tell. It could be important.”

  “But I swore not to.”

  Adele sighed and kissed his forehead. “All right, then. If you swore an oath.”

  “There was a cup that Mama drank. But it was only poppies. Father Aidan gave it to her. She had a stomachache.”

  “Are you sure she was in pain before she drank it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps she took something earlier in the day,” Adele said thoughtfully, and rose. “Well, we will talk about this again later, when things have calmed down a bit. I must get back to your mother now. Renna will bring you something
to eat. But take it slowly, Galahad. You’ve been drugged, and we don’t know what it may have done to you.” At the door she paused and turned back. “Try to remember what you can of the ceremony. The physician thinks your mother drank something, a potion of some sort, with poison in it. Think if you can remember anything she might have taken.”

  The door closed silently behind her. Galahad stared wildly at the space where she had been.

  As soon as Renna left to get him food, he slipped out of his window and raced barefoot down the winding path to the chapel. A guard called out, but Galahad ignored him. He stopped when he came to the ancient well. The midday sun blazed on the hot stones. Nothing moved in the bright stillness. The chapel glittered, making his eyes ache.

  Inside it was cool and quiet. He moved slowly toward the altar. There were no guttered candles. Taking a deep breath, he stole a glance at the floor beside the altar. The pale marble was perfectly white and unstained. His knees began to shake and he sat heavily on the bench. The place had been cleaned, and cleaned well. Even the long, congealed fingers of cold wax had been scraped from the altar sides. But they could never have scoured so much blood away in so short a time. It must have been a dream, a nightmare vision in the gemstone, like all the rest.

  With a sigh of relief he bowed his head to pray, and froze. There under the bench, where two slabs of marble met, was a thin, dark line. He scanned the floor—only here, only beneath the bench were the blocks of marble outlined by whatever dark substance filled the cracks between them. Shaking, Galahad knelt on the floor and ran his fingernail along the tiny space between the marble stones. The stuff flaked off as he touched it. It was dark red.

  Clutching his stomach, Galahad ran to the side door and fell to his knees near the bushes. His hands pressed into the cool, damp earth. Damp! He looked around wildly. The dirt path bore the marks of soldiers’ boots, still clear along the muddied edges. Mud! With a trembling hand he reached for a fistful of the moist dirt: it was reddish brown, slightly sticky, and smelled of death.

  Galahad threw himself headlong to the ground and wept.

  14

  THE KING OF LANASCOL

  For five days Galahad huddled in the nursery with his brothers, where Maida and Renna went about with lowered eyes and voices, Galahodyn wept openly and Gallinore played, uncomprehending, with his blocks. Galahad sat stone-faced in the corner, refusing food, saying nothing. He was never left unguarded. A pallet had been made for him in the nursery, but he slept little. The same dream pursued him night after night: He paddled madly across Black Lake in his coracle, the stoppered vial tucked against his breast, knowing death was close on his heels. When he ran aground on the shingle, he reached for the mare’s reins, and instantly plunged into a black pit, screaming as he fell, a long, high-pitched, never-ending wail—for there was no bottom and he fell forever. He awoke in a sweat and sat for the rest of the dark hours hugging his knees and listening to the sonorous rhythm of the women’s snores.

  The days were not much better. He tried to pray, but when he closed his eyes he saw only the candlelit altar and his mother’s waxen pallor, so he kept his eyes open. About the ceremony he did not think at all. Renna, Maida, his brothers were always around him, but their movement and their noise swirled formlessly by him, making no impression against the rock-hard stillness of his grief.

  No one told him anything. Everyone tiptoed about and spoke in whispers, sent for physicians and then for the priest, but no one thought to warn him death was near. First Hodyn, and then even little Gallinore looked to him for solace, but he was powerless to help them, he who could not even help himself.

  Finally, on a gray day warm with summer rain, Galyn walked into the nursery with Adele. The lines in his face, the deep sorrow in his eyes told Galahad before he spoke what they had come to say. Adele drew the younger boys onto her lap, and told them with great tenderness that God had taken their mother into Heaven, with the daughter she had borne too soon. They must be strong princes, all, and say prayers for their mother and their sister. They must wear their best tunics and do what Renna told them, and say nothing at all until they were bidden.

  The house rang with the women’s keening until Galahad covered his ears against the noise. He saw her body once, swathed in rich cloths and spices, but it was the face of a stranger, gray and old. Gone forever was the golden presence of his boyhood, the bright-armored beauty he had always known.

  The sun shone the day they buried her in the birch grove. He was afraid to look into the yawning pit, and they did not make him. Renna took him back as soon as Father Patrik had pronounced the blessing, so he did not have to watch them shovel earth into her grave.

  Galyn came to him later, and drew him aside from his brothers. “I have sent for your father,” he said gruffly. “In a week or so, when Arthur is back in Camelot, he should be here.”

  Galahad nodded. Of course it was what they would do.

  “Eat something,” Galyn said suddenly. “Even if it’s only broth. You are nothing but skin and bones.”

  On a dark night touched with the first hint of coming cold, Galahad heard the thud and jingle of cavalry galloping up the hill. He slid out of bed, drew on his tunic, and slithered out the window. The grass under his bare feet was cold and wet, and he began to shiver. He slipped wraithlike through the dark, neatly avoiding the sentries, and hid in the shadows of the courtyard. Galyn stood on the steps under the torches, the king’s seneschal and a handful of servants behind him. Six horses came up the hill at a neat hand-gallop ahead of the rest of the escort. The black stallion in the lead slid to a stop at the foot of the steps. In one fluid motion Lancelot leaped down, threw the reins to a groom, and embraced his brother.

  “Galyn!”

  “Oh, God forgive me, Lancelot! I am so sorry.”

  “Please God, it was not your doing. I blame myself I was not here. Tell me, was it swift?”

  “Alas, no. She suffered dreadfully.”

  “Where does she lie?”

  “In the birch grove. Near Father.”

  “And the child?”

  “In her arms. Stillborn an hour before she died.”

  Lancelot bowed his head. “May God forgive me, to reap such a harvest for my sin.”

  “My dearest brother . . .”

  Lancelot turned suddenly, sensing eyes on his back, saw the thin child standing in the shadows, took four long strides, and scooped him up in his arms. “God give me peace! My son!”

  Strong arms pulled Galahad hard against a dusty shoulder, rough lips kissed his cheek. The warrior’s body, trained to endure every kind of hardship, began to tremble. It lasted only a moment. The king straightened and drew away. Looking up, Galahad saw his eyes were wet.

  “Galahad!” Galyn cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Lancelot waved him silent as they started up the steps. “It’s all right. Let him stay with me.” The king’s arm tightened around his body as he carried the boy through the corridors into a lamplit room.

  “Light the fire,” Lancelot ordered. The chamberlain unclipped his brooch and pulled off his cloak. “Get me a blanket, Jules.” He wrapped Galahad in the great black cloak and sat by the hearth in his carved chair, holding the boy on his lap. “Galyn, see the men are fed. We’ve stopped for nothing since the ship landed.”

  “At once, my lord. And what about you, yourself?”

  “Broth and bread will do. And wine.”

  “Right away, my lord.”

  Servants scurried to light the tinder, to draw off the king’s boots and bring his doeskin slippers, to fetch food and set wine to warm over the flame. Throughout the bustle, Lancelot sat as still as stone with Galahad on his lap. Nestled in the thick cloak, Galahad felt for the brooch, loosed it, and held it in his hand. It was heavy and round, made of black enamel with a silver emblem on the face, the emblem of Lanascol, the screaming hawk with outstretched wings. Galyn had one just like it, and he would, too, he knew, when he was old enough. But Lancelot’s hawk alon
e had a ruby eye. As he held it in the lamplight it winked at him, glowing red, taunting him with memories of another stone. He thrust it into his father’s hand.

  “Not for you tonight, is it?” Lancelot took the brooch, glanced at it once, and tucked it away. “A fierce badge. Not for me, either. Not in the face of such tragedy. Two such needless deaths.”

  Galahad shivered and drew the cloak closer. Beneath him Lancelot’s legs were as hard as iron. And the gray eyes, glowering at the hissing flames, were hard eyes, cold and deadly as a drawn blade.

  Galyn returned to his chair across the hearth, followed by servants with bowls of steaming broth. Lancelot lifted his eyes to Galahad and offered him a bowl. The boy shook his head; the king let him be.

  “Tell me,” he said to Galyn. As he ate, Lancelot listened to the story of Elaine’s illness, agony, and death. Galahad, too, heard for the first time what had been happening during those long, empty days in the nursery. Each word from Galyn’s lips struck his heart like a hammer blow, yet he felt the tremors from those blows shake the king’s body with his own.

  He stole a curious glance at his father’s face. The gray eyes, the black hair, the crooked patrician nose, the long, lean jaw, now dark with stubble, the lips pressed hard together and stiff with pain—this was a mask, this face, like the ancient thespian’s mask in the nursery chest, carved of elmwood, blank and unyielding, with dark eyeholes whose fathomless depth had always frightened him.

  Galyn came to the end of his tale as Lancelot finished his meal and reached for the winecup. Waiting servants whisked the bowl away and replenished the wineskin. Jules appeared at his side with a fine wool blanket.