Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

  Galahad glanced from the soldier to the girl and back again. “And if I refuse the challenge?”

  “Then,” Sir Brastias replied evenly, “I must face you, sword to sword, in the courtyard. One of us must die.”

  “And in either case,” Galahad said slowly, “I will never see the cup.” He bowed low. “I accept the challenge, Sir Brastias.”

  Relief flooded the girl’s face. “Thank you, Sir Galahad!”

  Brastias led the way to the stone wall beside the blue curtain. For the first time Galahad noticed a tiny crack in the mortar, the telltale outline of a door. Sir Brastias pulled back a block of stone and set his hand to a lever hidden behind it. The stone door pulled outward.

  The dark space behind smelled musty with long disuse. Elinor brought a candle and Sir Brastias stepped in front of Galahad. “Follow me.”

  They stood in a small, cold vault with a wide stone ledge along one wall where fifteen ancient drinking cups were clustered in various stages of deterioration.

  “Some of these I found in the rubble of the villa,” Sir Brastias said in a hushed voice. “Some belonged to my father, Caw of Strathclyde. One or two I found in mountain caves while sheltering from storms on some hunt or other. For all I know they may be grave gifts. Two I took from a burned-out Saxon camp after battle. Take the candle. I will give you an hour to make your choice.”

  He took Elinor’s hand and walked out into the lighted room behind him.

  Galahad gazed in dismay at the assortment of drinking cups. He had hoped beyond hope that he might find the Grail, but none of these cups resembled what he had seen in his dreams. Some were copper, some were pewter, some were horn, some were glazed, baked clay; some were carved of wood, three were silver, one was glass, one was gold. Most bore etchings of some sort, a few were banded in metal, two were pitted with rusted settings where gems had once lain. All of them were speckled with age and fragile. He had no idea how to tell their ages or their styles. A man like Brastias would know what culture had made them, whether they came from the north or the south, from rich kingdoms or hill tribes or invaders. But Galahad had never seen a drinking cup that did not belong to the royal house or to one of Arthur’s subjects, and none of these cups looked like any he had ever seen.

  He whispered a quick prayer and started by lifting them up to the candle, one by one, to study the etchings on them. The gold cup and one of the silver vessels bore Latin inscriptions in praise of the Emperor Theodosius. Certainly they were old enough to have belonged to Maximus. But they had a formal, ceremonial look and were hardly dented. He doubted they had traveled in any baggage wagon all the way from Wales. He set them aside.

  The glass cup had a curved lip, ill formed, and a much-mended handle shaped like a snake. Surely the emperor’s workmen could do better work than that. He set it aside with a shiver. The snake made him think of Druids.

  The second silver chalice was etched with strange-looking symbols. It was black with age or tarnish or fire, and had held gems once around its base. Galahad shrugged. He did not recognize any of the symbols and there was no way of knowing if they were Welsh, Druid, or Saxon. He discarded the third silver cup and a copper one because they were too small. Made for children, he guessed, or for hillmen.

  But the other copper cup, the horn ones, the wooden ones, the clay and pewter—he did not know what to make of them. His palms began to sweat and he placed the candle on the ledge. With great concentration he studied the pictures carved, painted, or etched upon them. Some were done with great skill, some with little; some showed pictures of hunting scenes, of battles, of processions, of crownings, of joyous celebrations. None of them had a maker’s mark that meant anything to him.

  “It is nearly time,” Sir Brastias called.

  Galahad jumped. Surely not! He had just begun his examination!

  “One moment more!”

  Sir Brastias laughed. “Very well. I’m a merciful man.”

  Galahad’s hand shook. He put down the clay vessel so he would not drop it and lifted for the third time a stout, wooden cup, primitively carved. Its wide, deep bowl was banded in rotten silver. It could not possibly be the one he sought—it had a procession of women carved upon the bowl!—but he liked the heft of it in his hand. It gave him something solid to hold on to while he studied the rest.

  “Come, my lord Galahad,” came Brastias’s voice again. “It is time to make your choice.”

  Galahad swallowed hard. There was nothing for it but to admit defeat or choose blindly. But in the act of putting down the wooden cup to reach for the painted clay, he froze. The shifting candlelight lit the wood from a different angle and suddenly he saw what the women in the procession carried in their hands. The first carried a great sword with a gem in the hilt, the second a spear held balanced in her hand, and the third—he blinked in disbelief—the third woman carried a shallow feasting krater!

  His heart pounded like thunder in his ears. Rooted to where he stood and deaf to Sir Brastias’s repeated calls, he stared at the cup until he heard the man come up behind him.

  “Come, lad. I confess I set you an impossible task, but you agreed to the wager.”

  Galahad turned, clutching the wooden cup to his breast. “This is the Cup of Maximus,” he whispered.

  Sir Brastias paled. Awe swept his features and he made the sign against enchantment. “It is indeed. But how did you ever know?”

  “Brastias!” the girl cried, hurrying to his side and clutching at his sleeve. “He can’t have found it?”

  “But he did, my dear. That is the cup.”

  Her wide, golden eyes turned full upon Galahad. “But how? You told me it was impossible.”

  “That’s something I’d like to know myself. How did you choose it, Galahad? Was it luck?”

  Galahad shook his head. The world swam before his eyes and he struggled to bring the pale blurs of their faces into focus. “No. Not luck. I’ve seen these . . . these treasures the women carry. I’ve seen them in a dream.”

  There was a moment of absolute silence. “In a dream?” Sir Brastias murmured. Slowly he slid to one knee and pulled the girl down beside him. “Who are you?”

  Galahad shrugged, clutching the cup. “If I knew that,” he said softly, “if I only knew that . . .”

  Golden-haired Elinor glanced from one to the other. “Does this mean I have to go back to Rydor?”

  “Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it does.”

  “He will never let me leave Glannaventa again!”

  Galahad shook himself awake. “He is not in Glannaventa. He’s gone north to Dunpeldyr to a meeting of all the northern lords. We’ll go north and meet him there.”

  “We?” Brastias asked quickly. “You will go with us?”

  Galahad nodded. “I told you I would. It seems to me that somehow things are falling into place. This is not the Grail I seek, but it might be a token—a sign that the road is straightening itself before me.” He extended the cup to Sir Brastias, who rose slowly, and the girl with him. “Tell me, Sir Brastias, do you know if Magnus Maximus was ever in Dunpeldyr?”

  “I’ve no idea. But”—he gestured toward the cup—“you keep that. It isn’t mine any longer. You seem to know more about it than I ever could discern with all my arts. How you come by such knowledge I do not know. If it is truly from dreams, then it is from God, and I will not stand in your way.”

  21

  DUNPELDYR

  On a bitter day in late November a small party of horsemen straggled down from the windswept moors to a narrow river and a cold ridge of dark rock bordering the sea. In the east the sky leaned leaden on gray hills, and a cruel, fitful wind hurled biting snow hard against their cheeks. They plodded on, numbed with weariness and cold, until they splashed across a paved ford and topped a rise that gave them, at last, a view of their goal.

  Galahad raised his hand and signaled the halt. They huddled close together, the horses haunch against haunch for warmth, in a thin, bare wood of alder and beech. Ahead of th
em great, forbidding crags rose straight from the valley floor, their summits crowned with blowing mist. On the far horizon the steely waters of the firth frothed white under the wind. Nearer, at the feet of the closest crag, mean wattle huts crouched in abject submission against sheer walls of naked rock. As they watched, strands of mist tore free from the summit and there, a blemish on a blighted landscape, rose the dark fortress of Dunpeldyr.

  “A devil’s land,” Garfalon muttered. “And the devil’s own house, so help me God.” A squall whipped across the water and up the valley, tearing past the fortress and flinging sleet into their faces. They drew their cloaks tighter.

  “Do you think the meeting is still going on?” Percival asked anxiously. “Or did we miss them all when we got lost in the Caledonian forest?”

  Galahad shrugged. “It depends on whether they were able to settle their disputes in six weeks’ time. Rydor can’t have been here much longer than that. In any case, we must go on. We’re out of food and water.”

  “You don’t know the northern lords if you think they could settle anything between them in less than half a year,” Brastias replied dryly. “They’ll all be there.”

  Galahad nodded and turned in the saddle to look behind him. Lady Elinor still clung to her mare’s saddle, although her face was ghostly with fatigue and her lips blue with cold. “Another hour should do it, if Lady Elinor can last.”

  Elinor lifted her chin proudly. Galahad touched his heels to his stallion’s flank and they began the long climb toward the spine of black rock ahead. In the month they had been traveling she had not addressed him once, had not even turned her glance his way except when his back was turned. But her obedience, her silence, her determination to carry the journey through as best she could, impressed him. He knew no woman like her. Once or twice he even imagined he understood what Sir Brastias saw in her.

  On the other hand, he was glad to be rid of Marrah. She had opted to stay at Castle Noir with Kynor and keep the place until Sir Brastias should return. He had no doubt she would manage to seduce the young warrior— she had already begun, it seemed to him, before they left—and Sir Brastias might well return to a new family, if not a wedding.

  That Sir Brastias would return, he did not doubt, either. Over the past month his respect for the man had grown into admiration. Brastias, in turn, had honored his every wish, had paid him deference he was not due, and had taken pains to give him information about the lords he would meet inside Dunpeldyr, for Brastias had known these men, or their fathers, all his life.

  As they rode shivering inside their cloaks in the lee of the crags, Galahad considered the northern lords. First, of course, was Rydor, a young hot-head, according to Brastias, who angered easily but cooled and forgave just as swiftly—if the insult did not touch his honor. He was capable of great affection and great bravery, but of great foolhardiness as well.

  Kastor of Strathclyde, Brastias’s nephew, was a weak man by his uncle’s own account, a man of appetites and vices with little stomach for the discipline of war. He had the makings of a cruel man, although he was only twenty. He delighted in women, horses, and dogs and was perfectly willing to send his men to die against the Saxons, so long as he did not need to go himself.

  Owaine of Gorre was a forty-year-old veteran of war against the Picts. A tough man, he used men hard and had few friends except among his battle captains. He could be counted on to fight, but only when he could see that fighting lay in Gorre’s best interest. He thought of no one outside himself. How Arthur had managed to keep him an ally for twenty years, no one knew.

  Talorc of Elmet, who had lost his elder brothers at Autun and his noble father, Drustan, at Camlann, was a clever, agreeable man who saw the sense in uniting against a common foe. Indeed, the Anglii had been at Elmet’s throat for nigh on three generations. Talorc was young, but had married well and given Elmet the promise of stability in the wake of his father’s death.

  Valvan of Lothian, their host at Dunpeldyr, was, in Brastias’s opinion, the only truly wicked man among them. Sir Brastias referred to him as “the crab” because he came sideways at everything. He even came sideways at the crown of Lothian, for he had been Lot’s distant cousin and inherited the kingship only after all four of Lot’s sons had died in Arthur’s service. He could be counted on to do and say whatever gained him immediate advantage. His word was so much chaff in the wind, his promises writing in water.

  “Why do you think the northern alliance is meeting in Dunpeldyr?” Brastias had grumbled. “Because Valvan won’t go to anyone else’s stronghold. He can’t be bothered. If they want his men, they must come to him. He says he’s too busy keeping the Picts from his door.”

  “Might that not be true?” Galahad had asked. “His kingdom lies the farthest north.”

  Brastias had laughed loud and long at that, and said he would learn soon enough to take the scales from his eyes.

  Galahad frowned to himself as he set his stallion up the twisting road to the fortress. They did not sound like the type of men to welcome the intrusion of such an uninvited party as his own. For the thousandth time he wondered if he had been right to force Sir Brastias and the girl to make this journey. Back there in the quiet safety of Castle Noir he had been so certain, but now he began to realize what his certainty might cost. The girl might die of the hardship and Sir Brastias would be his enemy forever, and Rheged’s as well, if she did. Britain, Arthur had always said, could not afford enemies among her own kings, or they might wake one day to find Saxon fangs in their throats. Death, the death of many, hung on his decision, and now, in the cold sea wind and fading light under the walls of the dismal fortress, the deadweight of uncertainty and self-doubt dragged at his heart.

  “Ho! You there! Declare yourself!”

  Galahad jerked upright to face a ruddy-complexioned, ill-tempered outpost guard. “We come in peace.”

  Cold light eyes met his. “State your name and business or I’ll cut you down where you stand.”

  Sir Brastias rode forward to Galahad’s side. “I pray you, my lord,” he murmured, “say nothing to him about our true business here. If you do, Valvan will cut us down, as this man threatens, and claim the gold himself.”

  “What shall I tell him, then?”

  “Tell him . . . tell him you are the Knight of the Shield.”

  Something glittered behind Brastias’s eyes, but in the dimming light Galahad could not guess what. He turned back to the guard. “Go to your master Valvan of Lothian and tell him the Knight of the Shield begs entrance.”

  The guard gasped. “What! What sort of nonsense is that? You . . . you are no Faerie knight—”

  Galahad shifted the white shield into the guard’s view. His eyes blazed. “Go. Tell him. Or it shall fare the worse for all of you.”

  The guard’s jaw dropped. He made the sign against enchantment before his face, turned, and ran uphill to the gate as if pursued by demons.

  Percival whistled softly. “I don’t know if I’d have said that. That’s as good as a challenge.”

  “Yes,” Sir Brastias agreed in satisfaction. “Now the fur will fly.”

  Valvan of Lothian sat in the middle of the long table at the end of his drinking hall. His quick, dark eyes darted among the gathered lords, drunk, all of them, except for Talorc. His own men crouched around the log fire in the center of the smoky hall, muttering among themselves, while the foreign troops slept snoring with the hunting dogs in the rushes on the floor. He had seen to it his own men got heather beer, well watered, while the wine he served his visitors was neat.

  With a lift of his hand he signaled to have the food platters taken out and more charcoal added to the braziers around the table.

  He rose. “Gentlemen. The time has come to give me your answer to my proposal.”

  Rydor slammed his goblet on the table. “Wine!” he shouted. “More wine! My throat is dry! Where the devil is the steward?”

  Valvan signaled the wine bearer, who rushed to refill his cup. />
  Kastor sighed. “Talk, talk, talk. What good are words? What have you got tonight, Valvan, for our entertainment? Any more dancing girls?”

  Valvan smiled, showing small, even teeth. “After what you did to them last night, my lord, they can hardly walk, never mind dance. I’m afraid you will have to give them a day or two to recover.”

  Kastor laughed as he gulped down his wine. Some of it dribbled from the corner of his mouth in a thin, red stream and stained his beard. Valvan shuddered lightly and straightened the already straight folds of his robe with a delicate hand.

  Owaine looked up blearily, but when he spoke his voice was perfectly clear. “A pox on your proposal. It strengthens you at our expense. We’d be fools to agree to it.”

  “You would cut all ties with the southern kings,” Talorc pointed out, “which splits Britain in twain, a fate Arthur spent his life trying to avoid. We are stronger with those alliances than without them.”

  “What have the kings of Logris, or Cornwall, or Dumnonia, or Wales ever done for us?” Valvan countered softly. “They want our assistance. We don’t need theirs. We’ve kept the Picts, the Anglii, and the Saxons at bay for over a hundred years. Why should we send our troops south to fight against longboats in Cornwall? It only weakens us here. What need have we of such alliance? Let them build up their own defenses, as we have, if they wish to remain unconquered.”

  “Oh, aye,” Rydor added wearily, “and form a new alliance, with you as High King of the North. I’m better off now with no High King but Constantine, who’s either too busy or too far away to call on me too often. I’ve a mind that you’d be sending for my men two months out of three, just to have the commanding of them.”

  Valvan stiffened. “Don’t be a fool.”

  Rydor leaped to his feet, his dagger in his hand. “Who’s calling me a fool?”

  Valvan’s lips parted in a mirthless smile. “Sit down, my lord King of Rheged. Do you have a death wish?” He gestured to the drinking hall, where Valvan’s men had sprung to their feet at the threat, each with a weapon to hand. Rydor’s men, however, were asleep on the floor. Rydor sheathed his dagger and sat down, grumbling. Valvan rested his hands on the table and leaned forward, gathering all of them with his gaze.