Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

  “Don’t you recognize it?”

  She shook her head. “How could I? I’ve never been out of my own valley.”

  “Mama, there’s a cup. May I have a drink of water?” Elen pointed to a niche carved in the rock above the pool. Half-hidden by a hanging bough was a horn cup of ancient make with a rune carved deep into its side.

  Dane’s voice sank to a whisper. “Galahad, look. This place is a shrine. A shrine to Myrddin, the god of the hollow hills. This is his mark.” She looked up at him, puzzled. “Have you been here before?”

  “No. Nevertheless, I know what place this is. And so should you. You are the one who told me about it.” He smiled. “ ‘Ravens sing, Blackthorn ring . . .’ ”

  She stared at him, then narrowed her eyes. “You have been different, Galahad, ever since we came down out of the hills this morning. As if you went to sleep last night in the Welsh mountains and woke up in another world.”

  “Say, rather, that our journey south has been in a different time, a different world.”

  “Yes, I’ve felt that, too.”

  “And this is the end of it.”

  She swallowed visibly but lifted her chin. “We are not going to Caerleon?”

  “We are. Tomorrow we’ll ride out on the Roman road and reenter the world of men. But tonight we’ll rest in this protected place.” He reached for Elen’s hand. “Pagan shrine or not, this is a holy place. We will be safe here.”

  They knelt and said a prayer, poured an offering of the icy liquid onto the ground it sprang from, and drank thirstily from the spring pool. Then they entered the cave.

  Dark and cold, it smelled sour with age and disuse, but it was not empty. On a ledge inside the mouth they found flint and tinder, and by the light of a makeshift torch they discovered an old brazier, a pile of bracken so dry it flaked almost to nothingness at a touch, and an old empty chest bound with leather straps now cracked into pieces.

  “Someone lived here,” Dane whispered, drawing her cloak closer about her shoulders. “The caretaker of the shrine, perhaps?”

  “Not recently. Yet dusty as it is, it’s been tended. The floor’s been swept; someone put hay in the lean-to.”

  Dane’s eyes, huge in the torchlight, looked up into his. “Then someone is expected? Galahad, whoever could it be? Everyone from Maridunum is already hiding in the hills—why, then, is no one here? Either they don’t know about it, which seems unlikely, or it’s . . . it’s too sacred to set foot in.”

  Galahad drew her into his arms and kissed her softly. “Set your mind at rest. Whoever tends the shrine keeps the shed in readiness. We commit no sin by staying. Can’t you feel the peace of the place? We were meant to find it. We are the ones who are expected.”

  Dane shivered and looked up at the vaulted ceiling. “ ‘Ravens sing, Blackthorn ring, Under stone, Myrddin’s home.’ ”

  Galahad brought up their bedrolls and saddlebags while Dane and Elen gathered firewood from the woods below. They warmed wine over a small fire and ate a meager meal of honey cakes and raisins.

  “Mama, may I look around?” Elen asked.

  Dane considered. “If this cave is tended regularly, no animals live here. And the bats won’t be back till daybreak. I suppose it is safe enough if you stay within reach of the light.” She looked uncertainly at Galahad, who nodded.

  Dane watched her disappear into the deep shadow of the cave and glanced quickly up at Galahad. He gazed unfocused into the inner darkness as though he watched a dream unfolding. This man who had scowled and glowered at everyone in his youth, whose ideals were set so high he found fault with everything, now sat, accepting and serene, in a pagan shrine. Hesitantly, Dane reached out and took his hand.

  “Galahad,” she said slowly, “we have had so little time to talk, needing to be silent. Tell me what has happened to you since . . . since you left Gwynedd four years ago.”

  He reached out and drew her onto his lap, encircling her in his long arms. “Four years. It seems a lifetime. There is too much to tell.”

  “We have the night before us.”

  His lips brushed her cheek and he breathed into her ear. “I’ve no wish to fill the night with words.”

  She snuggled contentedly against him and lay her head on his shoulder. “At least tell me about the quest. Percival told me all about the tokens you found together, of course. But when he left you, you were looking for a sign that three tests lay ahead. What were they?”

  Galahad frowned. “You don’t want to put too much faith in blacksmiths’ tales. Those men are hemmed about with legends and speak, sometimes, as if every event in life were magically preordained. I’m sure the old man was handing down an ancient rhyme, but as to its truth . . .”

  “Then you don’t believe the tokens you found were part of a trial?”

  His arms tightened about her. “They may have been. But after I . . . I abandoned you, I came to realize I had failed the quest. I wasn’t worthy of my father’s badge. I certainly wasn’t worthy of the Grail. Not with such a stain on my soul.”

  “My dear love—”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Don’t make light of that sin. I will tell you where I’ve been and what I’ve done, and when you’ve heard it, you may think what you will.”

  It was not difficult, after all, to tell her. In the still silence of the night he held her in his arms and let the words spill out, all the tales of his adventures, of the people he had met and of the prayers which had gone unanswered. Dane listened, watching the fire, as aware of the steady beat of his heart beneath the fabric of his tunic as she was of his words.

  At one point she turned her head to look up at him. “Queen Guinevere! I did not know she was still alive. You speak of her with tenderness—I thought she was your enemy.”

  “I was young when I thought so, and believed she had injured me. I believe now that I did her a grave injustice.”

  Dane held her breath. “And . . . and your father?”

  Galahad pressed his lips against her hair. “You were right about me, Dane, from the very first. I will never be the man my father was. I am not fit to wipe his boots.”

  “Not so!” she said, clasping his hand tightly between her own. “But did you tell him so? Before he died, did he witness your change of heart?”

  “We spoke, God grant him peace, in Lanascol, and all the way back to Amesbury. We understood each other tolerably well at the end.”

  “What a blessing you must have been to him! I should like to see his grave and say a prayer over it.”

  “Barring bad weather and Saxons, we should be there in under a week. But we must stop the night in Caerleon and report to Sir Lukan on the sack of Maridunum and the attack upon Gwynedd. If he does not already know it. Dane, would you like to be married by the bishop there?”

  She smiled, and he caught his breath at her beauty. “I would rather be wed at Ynys Witrin.”

  “There will be little ceremony at Ynys Witrin. The monastery is a poor, bedraggled place.”

  “I care nothing for ceremony. But I would like to be married before that altar, if, as you have so carefully avoided saying, it marks the heart of Britain.”

  He drew her close and kissed her, filled with the ache of longing. “Have I been that obvious? But you always could see through me. I will marry you there, or anywhere you will. Oh, Dane, how dreadful life has been without you! You have driven me half-mad.”

  She smiled. “You deserved every second of such torment. And I have been half-mad as well, with no escape from Gwynedd but through a husband I believed I could never have. I thought I should die there. I thought I would never see you again.”

  He kissed her deeply, and they lay propped against the wall with their arms around each other until all fear of separation melted away in the heat of their embrace. After a long while Dane was able to say without trembling, “Tell me, Galahad, the answer to the question all Britain is asking: What treasure did you count more precious than a woman’s love? I have heard you call
ed the Grail Prince, the Knight of the Shield, the Virgin Knight, the Soldier of God, the Friend of the Poor—but I never knew what you were after. It couldn’t have been old Macsen’s feasting krater.”

  “That is a question not so easily answered,” he murmured. “But you have the right to ask it.”

  “I forgive you in advance,” she said, her lips against his throat. “The way I feel tonight, I am beyond hurt.”

  He half smiled and pressed her closer. “But I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know what the Grail is. I suspect it is no more than a mirror of the heart. People see in it what they wish to see. To Arthur, it was the remainder of Maximus’s treasure, and like the Sword, a gift from God to his ancestor and thus to him. But Arthur was clay down to his fingertips. He saw only what he had use for: a simple treasure to fill his coffers or to use as a symbol for kingship, or perhaps no more than a ploy to get me out of his way.” He shrugged lightly, and stroked her hair. “I heard later it was Mordred who dreamed up the quest and bade Arthur send me on it. It could be true. He was a clever man, and far-seeing.”

  “Percival told me you used to dream about it. And that they were true dreams.”

  “Ah, yes, those dreams. Sent me by Niniane, the pagan enchantress. I pity Percival, with such a sorceress for kin. What Niniane saw in the Grail was a tool to power or perhaps a path to glory, reflecting only what she most desired.”

  Dane twisted her fingers around his. “And you, Galahad? What did you wish to see? Somehow I can’t imagine you deserting me on that hillside for a piece of old metal, however powerful.”

  “Sweet,” he croaked, holding her tightly, “don’t.”

  She raised her head and met his eyes. “Now that you are back, I don’t mind remembering. What we shared that night was something rare and glorious. You were full of love, so full you glowed with it; you shone. Your radiance engulfed me. And I have been alight ever since.”

  She leaned into him and kissed his lips. The warmth of her body made his head swim, and he thanked God for the thousandth time for the courage to return.

  “It was more than a piece of metal to me. From the day Arthur told me of it, I conceived it to be a sacred thing, hidden away by God, protected from the sight of mortal men, to be achieved only by a man of virtue, a stainless soul. For that is what I took my destiny to be.” He shut his eyes and winced. “My mother’s misreading of Niniane’s prophecy, Aidan’s fanatic hatred of my father and desire for revenge—they shaped my vision of my destiny. I was to be a perfect knight. Not sinning, but sinned against. It pains me to recall it. What a pompous mule I was!”

  Dane breathed gently against his skin. “I remember that, too.”

  “I undertook to be the best warrior the world had seen. Perhaps I wanted to outshine my father—my mother had raised me to it, God rest her tortured soul. But I think—” He stopped, breathing hard, and Dane squeezed his hand. “I wanted to be important to Lancelot, so important he would give up his life in Britain and stay home with me. I wanted him to be glad I was his son.” He cleared his throat gruffly. “I suppose I thought he might admire me if I could do all the things he did and some that he could not. I undertook to live without women in perfect abstinence. I was certain God would reward such virtue, so certain I was ready to believe any tale, any snatch of rhyme that seemed to point to my destiny. I led poor Percival around Britain and back for three whole years seeking shields, cups, scabbards, and elusive signs. All it gained me was the bitter knowledge that Arthur’s Britain was crumbling fast. The night before I parted from Percival, I considered giving up all hope of the quest. But that night we met a dwarf, and he sent each of us a dream.”

  “A dwarf?” Dane looked up. “Was his name Naceyn?”

  Galahad started. “Do you know him?”

  “He’s Niniane’s servant. When she comes to Gwynedd to visit Blodwyn she always brings him.”

  “So that was it. It was Niniane who sent the dream, after all. Then Guinevere was right. She was trying to send me south, to Pelleas’s stronghold. No doubt Naceyn would have led me to her if Constantine’s troops had not intervened. But at the time I was content to go to Constantine, thinking that perhaps the sign I waited for lay in Camelot. He tried hard to buy my loyalty. He must have heard something about my travels, for he told me straight out he wanted me to find Maximus’s treasure for him, and he staged some ridiculous trickery to impress me into compliance.” He sighed wearily. “I also thought that our only hope of preserving Arthur’s Britain was to unify against the Saxons. But Constantine is no Arthur. Three years spent in service to that greedy man shriveled my spirit. He was less worthy of kingship than the grooms who served him. My soul went numb. My dreams ran dry. That was when I followed Percival to Gwynedd.” He paused. “I met you and my life changed. Poor, thickheaded ass, I took it for a curse and not a blessing. I then did to you something my father would not have done to any soul he knew. I betrayed you.”

  “Galahad—”

  “Let me finish. It was an act so low it robbed me of honor. An act so far beneath my father, it made me unworthy to be his son. And it was I who had always held him in contempt for his love for Guinevere. It was I who had always censured him. Your curse upon me held: I followed in Lancelot’s footsteps. But when he awoke to find himself in a maiden’s bed, he married her. I ran.”

  “My sweet—”

  “Shhhh.” He touched his finger to her lips. “It is truth, although it hurts to hear it. Knowing myself unworthy of the Grail, unworthy of my family, of honorable service to anyone, unworthy even of human friendship—”

  “My dear!”

  “—I sought solace for my soul. I wandered from shrine to shrine, all over Britain. I visited every threadbare chapel, every hermit’s cell, every holy place in every kingdom, many of them not even Christian. I could not find God anywhere.” He shivered. “Once my goals had been so high—now they were reduced to achieving a simple prayer. But I could not pray. Everywhere I went people took me for an honorable man, even for a holy man. I could hardly bear it—the admiration of those good, plain people was like turning a knife in my wound. More than once, Dane, I wished for death.”

  She lifted his fingers to her lips and kissed them.

  “I could not find God because I looked in all the wrong places. In carved images, in buildings, groves, and mountaintops. I ought to have looked to the people of Britain. God was too near, too low, too ever-present for this poor, prophecy-bound blind man to see. And yet, I knew Arthur. I had Arthur’s example before me and did not heed it. Keep mercy in your heart, he told me. Love the lowly; all men are the same inside. Some lessons, my sweet Dane, come very hard.”

  She pressed her face against his cloak to hide her tears.

  “Finally, I came upon a woman who endured such distress and displayed such courage throughout her long ordeal, that when she told me to go to Amesbury, I asked no questions but obeyed. God spoke to me through Lynet. He sent me to Guinevere.” He paused. “There was a woman who understood love. Even her enemies she honored and forgave. She gave me back all I had forsaken—my mother, my father, my faith, my life. The courage to come to you.”

  Dane raised her head. “I bless her from my heart.”

  “I see now what was dark to me before. What matters is how we honor one another. Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot showed me that by the way they lived their lives. Father even tried to tell me once, but I would not listen. If I cannot love my fellow men, however dirty their hands, how can I love the God who made them?”

  “ ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,’ ” Dane whispered.

  Galahad nodded. “But something that is always before your eyes is sometimes difficult to see.”

  Dane pressed his hands between her own. “You have restored your honor. Now you are truly Lancelot’s son.”

  They looked at each other a long moment. A sudden rush of tenderness lifted Galahad’s heart, growing and expanding until
it engulfed him, and her, and the cave, the child, the hillside, Wales, Britain, and all the world beyond. How unutterably precious it had all become, of a sudden! He opened his mouth to tell her, but could not begin to find the words.

  “You may have given up your quest,” Dane said quietly, “but it has not given you up. You may have wandered aimlessly, but the road you traveled was straight, after all.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That you dismiss the blacksmith’s tale too soon. You passed the three tests, all unknowing. You set free what ignorance had imprisoned when you led Sir Fortas’s daughters out of that tower. You polished what fire had tarnished when you rescued the smith’s daughter from her attackers and from her despair at her father’s death. What kind of life had she, so isolated from folk at that forest forge? You brought her into the company of her kinsmen and gave her a future. And as for kneeling of your own accord before the virtue of a woman, I imagine you must have knelt before the Good Sister more than once.”

  Galahad stared at her. “Of course, but . . . that was no test.”

  “Not to you, perhaps. But the blacksmith said you had to pass the tests without recognizing them for what they were.”

  “But if that old rhyme is true, I should have received a sign. A sign I could not miss—those were his very words. Yet I received no such sign, unless you count the vision in the pool, one of Niniane’s tricks.”

  Her smile was full of mischief. “You fell in love with me, didn’t you? If you hadn’t, would you have cared much what happened to Fortas’s daughters? Would you have offered to marry Bella? Would you have felt for Lynet’s suffering and admired her fortitude? You did not think much of poor Marrah, as I remember. Would you have gone to Amesbury at Lynet’s direction? Would you have even spoken to Guinevere?” She grinned at the look on his face and pressed his hands tighter. “I was your sign, Galahad. You had to learn what it was to love another person more than yourself before you could save anyone from anything.”

  “Perhaps so,” he said, dazed with the wonder of it. “But if the old smith’s tale was a true tale—”