Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

  “A private jest,” Galahad said quickly. “Beyond the reach of your magic.”

  Brastias smiled. “Then you admit an admiration for my powers?”

  Galahad laughed outright. “Frogs? Snakes? Mist? You’re no enchanter. You have a book of charms, that’s all.”

  “And a wall that moves,” Kynor muttered defensively.

  But Brastias chuckled. “If by ‘enchanter’ you mean someone like Merlin, who could move megaliths with a song, travel as the wind, and see the future in the fire, no. Of course not. What I have is sight, not vision. Cleverness, not power. And don’t let Kynor fool you. I use an engine, powered by water and levers, to move the wall. I use music to charm the frogs and snakes. And every student of the Old Arts can call a mist out of the air on a cool summer night. I have a crystal, it is true, where, with luck and concentration, I can see things that have not yet come to pass. But merely seeing them means nothing—interpretation is the key, and that takes a great deal of wisdom. I have learned to turn away from most of what I see, and rely on good sense and caution. Now and then a message comes clear as a ringing bell from the future, urgent and compelling, but this is rare. I will show you my study in the morning, if you like. And my scrolls, and the mathematical shapes I have cast in bronze. It would delight me to give you a tour about my home. But not tonight. I will send for a meal and have you shown to your bedplaces.”

  He rose. The wine held them all motionless and he seemed to look down on them from a great height. “Please forgive me for not staying to keep you company, but I am promised elsewhere. Until morning, then.” Brastias bowed, turned in a swirl of robe, and vanished back up the twisted stair.

  “Promised elsewhere?” Galahad repeated stupidly, through the pounding of a headache. “What does that mean?”

  Kynor shrugged and then winked. “Don’t tell him I told you, but he’s newly married. And God help him, for the girl is young.”

  In the middle of the night Galahad rose from his pallet and searched in the dark for the wastepot. The candle had long gone out. His head felt heavy and stuffed with wool. He relieved himself and was feeling along the wall with one hand to guide himself back to bed when he pushed against the door accidentally and it swung open into the corridor. The torches were still lit. As he looked out he saw a girl come up the stair, carrying a pitcher. She was small-boned and slender, wrapped in a robe of white wool, with fine tresses of spun gold cascading over her slim shoulders and down her back. She looked up suddenly and met his gaze directly before she flashed him a quick smile and ducked into the doorway on the opposite side of the hall.

  Honey-colored eyes. Hair of spun gold. Galahad stood rooted, his mind spinning dazedly. Where the certainty came from he did not know, but he would have wagered his horse and his sword that he had just seen Lady Elinor, Princess of Rheged, taking a pitcher of mead to the master of Castle Noir.

  20

  THE CUP OF MAXIMUS

  When Galahad awoke the next morning he found himself in a large bed hung with crimson hangings and covered with a blanket of stitched ermine pelts. He ran his hand over the furs in disbelief. He did not remember seeing these luxurious trappings when the servant had led him upstairs last night. He did not remember anything beyond the grateful dark and the delicious plummet into senselessness. He looked around him now like a stranger awakening in a foreign land.

  Rich tapestries hung from the walls, and mats of intricately woven reeds dyed green, gold, and blue adorned the tiled floor. Four large clothes chests, all beautifully carved and polished, stood against the walls. Four chests! He slid cautiously out of bed and counted them again. He had never heard of anyone owning four clothes chests. Not even Queen Guinevere in Camelot had had so many. Two double-flamed lamps flanked the bed, and a tall mirror of polished bronze rested on its tilted stand near three narrow windows.

  Galahad moved tentatively toward the windows and jumped as his reflection flashed back at him from the bronze. Then he stared, lured by the fascination of the image he had never seen.

  He saw a tall, naked youth, well made and lean, with long arms and shoulders beginning to broaden into a man’s strength. The face was slender, with fine-boned, regular features set off by a fall of shining, coal-black hair. But the beauty of the face was marred by the fierce gaze of startlingly intense blue eyes. He frowned, and immediately stepped back. The youth in the bronze glared at him, the brilliant eyes ferociously afire. In spite of himself, Galahad’s heart pounded in his chest. He turned away quickly and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. With such a face as that, how had he ever befriended Percival? How had he ever befriended anyone at all?

  Bread still warm from the ovens, fruit, water, and wine waited on a tray at the foot of his bed. His tunic had been shaken out, his boots cleaned and oiled, and his sword and dagger, burnished to gleaming point, lay in easy reach of the bed. Galahad ran a slow hand through his hair. He did not remember undressing. He did not remember any servants but the one who had led him to his door. Except . . . had he not seen a girl come up the stairs? Or had he dreamed it?

  He dressed quickly, strapped on his swordbelt, took up his dagger, and went out into the corridor. He stopped before the only other door, ornately carved with winged lions and unicorns, and knocked firmly.

  “Enter!”

  He pushed open the door. Sir Brastias sat at an immense table littered with scrolls and odd-shaped objects, his head bent over a clay tablet. At his feet a spotted hound regarded Galahad with the calm assurance of one who knows he is master of the meeting. Opposite the door a pair of windows gave a fine view of the valley. Even as he watched, clouds piled high over the western mountains and swung slowly eastward toward the young sun, throwing the shining lake in shadow.

  “Sir Brastias.”

  Sir Brastias raised his head from his work and watched him gravely. “Come in, my lord; come all the way in. I have been expecting you.”

  Among the odd objects on the desk was a milk-white sphere half-covered by an ornately embroidered doeskin bag.

  Sir Brastias followed his gaze and smiled. “Not by divination, Galahad. By logic. You have come to question me about the girl you saw in the corridor last night.”

  Galahad nodded. “Indeed, my lord, I have. If she was real and not a dream.”

  Sir Brastias smiled lightly. “Oh, she was certainly real. But let that wait for a moment. I neglect my duties as a host. How did you sleep last night?”

  “My lord, like a felled tree. I confess when I awoke this morning I hardly knew where I was—such a richly appointed room! Do you treat all your guests to such splendor?”

  Brastias laughed. “Would that I could afford to! No, that is my room you slept in. I fear you will find that your companions fared less well in the old soldiers’ barracks.”

  “Your room!”

  Sir Brastias bowed. “You are my honored guest. I take no responsibility for the furnishings, however. Blame my wife for that. Women adore such trappings.”

  “Your wife?” Galahad said in evident relief. “Oh, I see. Then that girl could not be—”

  “I meant Kynor’s mother.” The silver eyes flickered. “My late wife. The lady Aileth.” Silence hung in the air between them. “A disappointed woman,” Brastias continued evenly. “She was thoroughly aghast when I laid down my arms and retreated to these hills. She wanted a public life, an opportunity to display her status as the wife of a prince of Strathclyde.” He paused. “We were not well suited. I gave her a free hand with the furnishing of Castle Noir, except for this room, which is mine. You can see well enough what she has done with it.”

  “It is very fine.” Galahad paused.

  “Far finer than it needs to be.” Brastias beckoned him closer to the desk. “Come, Galahad, let me show you what I’ve been working on. You will find it interesting, I think.”

  Galahad gazed down at tablets and parchments covered with numbers and lines, indecipherable pictures and symbols, all drawn in a firm, knowing hand. Brastias wa
s telling him how he had diverted the stream that fed the lake to run through the castle grounds in order to make fetching water easier, but now he wished to devise a means of getting the water uphill from the streambed into the house without the physical labor of carrying buckets.

  Galahad’s head spun. For a heartbeat he was back in Dane’s cave, confronted by an intelligence that dwarfed his own.

  “Because there are so few of us here,” Sir Brastias was saying, “and there is so much to do. I am always trying to think up new devices to save us time.”

  Galahad stared down at the maze of scrawl. “What does it mean?”

  “Nothing at all,” Sir Brastias reassured him, “unless you have studied mathematics. I am a student of Pythagoras the Greek.” He gestured at the collection of bronze weights that held the open scrolls in place. “I had these made—the sphere on its stand, the cube, the pyramid—because he is said to have had these in his own study. A little vain of me, no doubt. But they are pure shapes, defined by formulae and pleasing to the eye.”

  Galahad gazed about the room. It was a plain room and simply furnished, with only the desk and chair and one old, much-mended Roman couch. A harp, a lyre, and a lute leaned together in one corner near an old blue curtain. The wall facing the windows held shelves spilling over with scrolls.

  “So many books, Sir Brastias!” Galahad cried, wondering what Dane would think of her own prized collection if she could see this. “Surely you are wealthier than even the King in Camelot!”

  Sir Brastias smiled. “Better read, perhaps. It would amaze you how little a book costs, precious as it is, when compared to the cost of keeping a barracks full of knights for one’s defense.”

  “And this is enough to keep you busy?”

  Sir Brastias’s smile widened. “A young warrior might find it hard to credit, but there is more, much more, to living than killing men in battle. Life is more precious if you have time to study it.”

  Galahad’s brow furrowed. “That’s all you do, then? Study and think?”

  “Not quite all.” The silver eyes narrowed in amusement.

  Color washed Galahad’s face. “Of course. Last night Kynor told me you were newly married.”

  Sir Brastias’s lips thinned and his face shuttered closed. “He ought not to have told you that.” He turned away and walked to the window. “It was the wine’s doing, and I must blame myself for that. I served it.”

  “The girl I saw last night, who came in here. She is your new wife?”

  Sir Brastias turned back. His eyes were as dark as the storm clouds behind him. “She is,” he said firmly, with a lift of the chin.

  “She is the King of Rheged’s sister, is she not?”

  The storm-flecked eyes went flat and still. “And what, Prince of Lanascol, gives you the right to ask me that?”

  “You must know her brother is looking for her. You must take her back to him.”

  “Nonsense,” Brastias snapped. “Who are you to tell me what I must do?”

  “You yourself called me the Knight of the Shield. It is not an appellation I asked for.”

  After a long pause, Brastias nodded. “You are the Knight of the Shield. How can you doubt it when your sword carries the same emblem? Very well, truth dealer. If you want truth, you shall have it. But I must have her permission first.”

  He strode across the room to the blue curtain and pulled it aside, revealing an alcove with a plump pallet strewn with furs and blankets. In the middle of the furs sat the golden-haired girl, wrapped in a bleached robe, her bright hair falling arrow-straight over her shoulders. Sir Brastias reached down a hand to her; she took it and nimbly rose. Standing beside him, the top of her golden head no higher than his breast, her youth a vibrant aura that made his craggy warrior’s face look suddenly tired and old, she could have been his daughter, or even his granddaughter, but certainly not his wife.

  “Elinor, this is Galahad of Lanascol, Sir Lancelot’s son. Galahad, my wife, Elinor.”

  “Of Rheged,” she added defiantly, making a small reverence.

  Galahad bowed. “Lady Elinor. I am glad to find you safe.”

  The honey-colored eyes fastened on him. She tossed back her hair with an arrogant shake of her head. “I would never have been safe if I had not made it here.”

  “I think,” Brastias said gently, “we had better tell him the whole story, don’t you, my dear?”

  She shrugged, the delicate gesture enhancing her look of fragility. “As you will.”

  “You must know your life is forfeit, my lord,” Galahad blurted. “All Rheged is in turmoil. King Rydor has sworn openly to kill the man who took his sister from him.”

  The mirror eyes glittered. “Rydor is a fool. He himself drove her away.”

  “He would have married me to a pox-ridden goat!” the girl cried. “Or thrown away my future to a house of holy hags—death, either way! That is the choice my loving brother gave me.”

  “Be it so—he has men looking for her everywhere. Rydor gives out she was abducted, but some believe she ran off to join a lover.” He swallowed in a dry throat. “And if that is true, Sir Brastias, you are a dead man. He has publicly offered three talents of gold to the man who brings her back.”

  “My God!” The girl gasped.

  Sir Brastias’s features hardened. “And you wish to be that man.”

  “If you think I want the gold,” Galahad said stiffly, “you do not know me. Take her to him yourself.”

  Sir Brastias returned to his desk and began rolling up his scrolls. A fitful breeze sprang up, ruffling the gray lake waters and whispering among the harp strings.

  “I did not marry her for the reasons old men marry children, to recapture my youth, to bask in a young girl’s admiration, to indulge an unseemly appetite for youthful love. We were not lovers before I took her to wife. I married her because she fled to me, alone and afraid, and begged my protection. How could I keep such a royal lady under my roof, all alone in this valley, without ruining her name? There was only one way. I gave her mine.”

  “Do you think it was easy crossing the mountains alone?” the girl demanded. “Do you think I enjoyed it? I nearly died of starvation, having no way to hunt, and too afraid to show myself to ask for food. The Ancients helped me, may the Mother of men bless their spirits forever! They fed me and showed me the path to take. As it was, I was skin and bones when I got here.”

  “But why here? Surely there were closer places to seek shelter—”

  “All in Rheged! All under my brother’s thumb!”

  “Castle Noir is in Rheged.”

  “But not a part of Rheged Rydor rules. Sir Brastias is my brother’s subject in name only. When Sir Brastias came to Glannaventa last year with his pox-ridden nephew, Kastor, I saw he was a man well respected by all, a man even Rydor bowed to. I thought even then he was a safe harbor I might run to, come the storm.”

  The steel went out of the old soldier as he gazed at her elfin face. His voice gentled. “You see, Galahad? More a father than a husband. Even so, I am not able to give her up.”

  “I should say not!” She ran to his side to nestle in the strong crook of his arm. “I am better here than with the holy women who deny themselves innocent comforts for the sake of their male God. Rydor wanted alliance with Strathclyde—and I am wed to a Strathclyde prince. I have not done anything worse to him than he was doing to me!”

  Galahad regarded them solemnly. “Then give him this news face-to-face.”

  Sir Brastias stiffened. “He is a young fool. He will destroy us. He will destroy this place.”

  Galahad lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will vouch for you, if you like. But you cannot keep her hidden. You must tell him, because you owe him that. You married her without his leave. It was his right to bestow her where he would.”

  “Oh!” cried Elinor. “You are so cruel! I pray no woman ever loves you!”

  “And if we do not tell him?” Sir Brastias demanded.

  “Then
I must.”

  “Serpent! Swine!” the girl said in a hiss.

  Galahad flushed, but stood adamant. Sir Brastias twirled his stylus thoughtfully in his fingers. Then he turned to the window and lifted a hand. The dark thunderheads rolled down the valley like cotton boulders. “Do you see that storm, Galahad? I can bring it down upon us in a lightning flash, or I can send it away to spend its fury on the foothills. I can call up the rain, or the mist, and pen you within my doors for as long as I like. Do not take me lightly.”

  Galahad met his eyes. He knew from his experience before the mirror what his face looked like. “Then call up the water from the streambed into the house, and be done with all your mathematics.”

  Sir Brastias glowered, and then suddenly laughed. “You have courage, lad, I’ll give you that. You are Lancelot all over again. He would stick at nothing to defend a principle. And like him, you are prickly to live with.” He sat down on the edge of his desk and narrowed his eyes. “I will set you a puzzle. If you solve it, I promise to take Elinor back to Rydor and ask formally for his blessing. If you fail, you promise to leave this valley and never tell anyone where you have been or what you know. What do you say? Are you a man for a wager?”

  “That depends. What is the puzzle?”

  Sir Brastias drew a long breath. “In the days of the Emperor Maximus, when Vausanius lived in this valley and the roads were far more passable than they are now, Maximus and his train stopped here on their way across the mountains. Vausanius entertained them for a week. It’s true—we found his steward’s records in an old clay jar in the wine cellars. They must have had a rollicking good time, for when Maximus departed, he left behind his drinking cup. It might have been a gift, it might have been by accident, but Vausanius kept it. It happened to survive the destruction of his villa, and I have it now.”

  “The Cup of Maximus!” Galahad said softly.

  “Did Sir Ulfin mention it to you? I keep it with the other drinking cups that survived from that Roman household. The puzzle is this: Pick out Maximus’s cup from the others. I give you one try. Are you game?”