Grail Prince
Page 70
“I think it was.”
“—then the Grail is real as well. Yet I have not found it.” He gazed down at her. “I am not looking for it any longer. I have no need.”
“Then you have found it,” she said softly. “You have found what you seek. To you it is not the forsaken treasure of an ancient king, nor a symbol to use in a bid for power. Your Grail, my dear, is the crown of life. The secret of holiness. The key to joy.”
“You mean love,” he said simply, holding hard to her hands.
A small sound from the back of the cave turned their heads. Out of the dark shadows stepped little Elen, her wide blue eyes alight with excitement.
“Mother, Father, I have found a palace! And a king at his table! Come quickly!”
Dane gasped. A thrill ran up Galahad’s spine.
“What king?” Dane went to the child and knelt down to face her. “What have you seen?” But the child only gazed at her with blazing, starstruck eyes. “Oh, Galahad, has something wicked been done to her?”
Galahad rose. “No,” he said softly. “This is not a wicked place.”
“Then why does she speak so strangely? What does it mean?”
He held her close, taking Elen by the hand. “Don’t you remember the rest of the song? ‘Water weathers, Stones alight, Macsen’s treasures, Burning white.’ ” Her eyes widened. It was his turn to smile. “There is something in the cave.”
Elen nodded. “Burning white.”
“Dear God!” Dane clutched at his arm. “It is here?”
His smile broadened and he led her forward. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Won’t we need a light?” Dane glanced anxiously behind at the fire.
“No,” Elen asserted. “There’s light everywhere.”
Trembling, Dane followed her daughter and Galahad into utter blackness.
At first they thought the back of the cave was solid rock. But Elen, pulling at Galahad’s hand, found the fissure and slipped through. Galahad and Dane went more carefully, pressed hard against the rock face with barely room enough to breathe. They struggled out onto a flat ledge of rock and stared in wonder at the sight before them. Light flooded a gigantic cavern roofed and pillared in shimmering crystalline rock. On a great stone slab rising from the gently sloping floor, like a table set for a king, a triple candlestand gleamed and burned. Light spilled over the still pool that floored the cave, ran up delicate crystalline pillars of pink, gold, bronze, and white that stretched from the vaulted roof to the glistening floor. Light fled up the shining walls, reflecting back into the pool, shimmered up the gleaming columns until the whole cave seemed to beat and pulse with the trembling candle flames.
No one dared breathe. The only sound was the soft, distant drip of water. Galahad pointed to the stone table. Beside the candlestand lay a long shaft of polished wood fitted with a spear tip honed deadly bright. He walked toward it through the shallow, icy water without knowing he moved. The center of the slab was hollowed out into a concave well of colored crystals—white, gold, purple—sharp and brilliant, stinging the eyes with light. With shaking hands he reached down and lifted a silver krater from the well. Wide-lipped and chased with gold, studded with winking amethysts, the shallow bowl seemed to float between his hands. Around the edge of the lip ran the writing he remembered. Whoso thirsts, drink ye and be restored. Whoso wanders, hold me and find rest. The Restorer. He glanced down at the spear. Whoso trembles, take this and fear not. Whoso is lost, by my strength shall be preserved. The Preserver. He wondered how anyone, seeing these beautiful treasures, could think of them merely as tools to power.
Dane’s whisper echoed off the walls. “Macsen’s treasure!” She lifted Elen and carried her through the pool to Galahad’s side.
“Where is the king?” Elen asked. “There was a king here. He smiled at me. He was standing here beside the table.”
Galahad replaced the krater in its jeweled well. “Brilliants,” he said. “That’s what she meant. It lies in brilliants.” He turned to Elen. “What was he wearing, this king?”
“He had a gold crown. And his armor was shiny. And an eagle stood behind him on a pole. It was gold, too.”
Dane let her breath out slowly. “Maximus. A Roman commander. Magnus Maximus. She saw Macsen himself, Galahad.”
Galahad nodded slowly. “I suppose she must have. And this . . . Guinevere told me Niniane knew where it was. And the Ancients knew, all along. At the gate of the Otherworld, protected by the god of the hollow hills.” He gazed around the pillared hall and the shimmering blaze that leaped up the walls and turned the pool, now alive with the ripples of their passing, into a dance of flashing light. “I should like to die here,” he said softly, “when my time comes.”
Dane shivered. “It’s not a graveyard, even if it is haunted by spirits.”
“But just feel the peace of this place. There’s nothing to fear. It’s the gate of Heaven. And the spirit which guards the treasure is the King’s.”
Elen asked, “Can we take that spear with us? And the bowl, too?”
“Certainly not,” Dane replied. “They do not belong to us.”
“They belong here,” Galahad agreed. “I think this has been honored as a sacred place since men first found it. Someone tends it and lights the candles. We’ll leave these treasures here in God’s keeping. But someday we’ll come back again.”
Dane drew Elen closer. “Galahad, see how cold she is! The gooseflesh all along her arms—let me take her back to the fire and warmth.”
He nodded. “Give me a moment to offer a prayer here, and I’ll be right with you.”
As Elen and Dane crossed the cold water and slipped through the fissure, Galahad crossed himself gravely and knelt before the stone ledge. This time his spirit seemed to soar through the pulsing light; his words flew upward of their own accord to the ear of Heaven. He asked for nothing, but blessed by name every man and woman he knew. When he finished he crossed himself again and knelt, head bowed, to let the joy of this moment swell and fill his being.
Then a voice spoke. “Rise, Galahad, my brother.”
He trembled even before he looked up. He knew that voice! He rose slowly, clutching the edge of the stone ledge to prove to himself that he was not dreaming. For there on the other side of the Grail stood Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons. In the flesh. He wore, not a golden breastplate, but a brown robe trimmed with marten and a plain, braided belt. Around his dark head shone the red-gold crown of Briton’s kings. The very crown Constantine now wore.
Galahad gulped. “My lord Arthur?” The words seemed to reverberate in the radiant air. He was not sure if he had spoken them aloud or merely thought them.
Arthur’s smile seemed to light him from within. “Welcome, Galahad. You have succeeded. I knew you would.”
“Sir?” Galahad fought for breath. “Is this . . . have you . . . returned? Is this what Niniane meant?”
Arthur laughed a deep, joyful, human laugh. “If not, it will have to do.” He extended his hand across the stone table, across the hollow lined with crystals, across the Grail. “I have much to thank you for, Galahad. For Guinevere. For Lancelot. For Britain’s future.”
“Sir, I have done nothing. I’ve made a mess of everything I tried to do.”
Arthur gripped his forearm in the soldier’s embrace. The King’s flesh was warm and firm, his grip strong. Galahad glanced furtively at the side of his head, but above his left ear his head was whole, the hair not bloodied and matted but hanging straight to his shoulders as if newly brushed. The warm brown eyes watched him in amusement. Galahad swallowed in a dry throat, and Arthur smiled.
“You have done more than you know. You have found what you were seeking, and you have learned what it was you sought. And look, you have found me the treasures of Maximus.”
“N-not the Sword, my lord.”
“Yes,” Arthur said softly, raising his hand in the air. “The sword, too.” The great sword Excalibur appeared in his grip, the
very sword Galahad had seen on the High King’s hip a thousand times.
“But where . . . how . . . ?” Galahad asked in a strangled voice, staring at the weapon as if his eyes would burst.
“The Lady of the Lake, into whose keeping your father gave it when he threw it in the Lake of Avalon. Now all three treasures have returned to the earth from which they were made, the source of their power and protection. But for you, I could not have found them. I could not achieve this on my own. That was not my task while I was in the world; it was yours. You brought them to me. Thanks to you, Galahad, it has been accomplished. Britain will be forever undefeated.”
“You can keep Britain safe, even though you are . . .” Galahad’s mind reeled. He could not grasp what was before him. But Arthur’s kind eyes understood. And forgave.
“Yes. Even though I do not walk the earth you walk. Britain will never yield her sovereignty again. I came to thank you for that.”
The King let go of his arm and Galahad staggered against the stone slab. His arm was numb, his knees jelly.
“Never? What about the Saxons? The Picts? The Anglii?”
“Forget them. You cannot defeat them and now there is no need. For in time, in a very short time, they shall become as much a part of Britain as we are ourselves. They shall not rule over us; we shall be one great people and rule ourselves. That is our destiny. But it would not have happened without you.”
Galahad stared dumbly as Arthur’s face grew less distinct, as the cave wall, gleaming with moisture, began to appear behind his fading form.
“Don’t go, my lord!”
“Farewell, Galahad. Go home to Lanascol and leave Britain to her future. It is a glorious one. And know this: Your name shall be remembered for as long as Britain stands.”
He was gone, and the cold cave rang with the echoes of his voice.
Like a man in sleep, Galahad turned away from the Grail and Spear, waded through the icy water, and found the fissure in the rock. He paused for a moment, trying in vain to command his racing thoughts. On the other side of that rock lay the warm darkness of the outer cave, the loving embrace of his wife and child, the kingdom that awaited him, and the responsibilities that went with it. While behind him—he swallowed hard—behind him lay the glory of Britain, which he might never see again. Maximus. Arthur. The Grail, the Spear, the Sword. He smiled slowly, joy rising in him like an unruly fountain, wild and unstoppable. He laughed suddenly and without looking behind him, slipped back into the warmth of the world.
THE DESCENT OF PENDRAGON
THE HOUSE OF GWYNEDD
THE HOUSE OF LANASCOL
1 “Inasmuch as we have had a long experience of cavalry, and consequently claim familiarity with the art of horsemanship, we wish to explain to our younger friends what we believe to be the correct method of dealing with horses.” Xenophon, On the Art of Horsemanship, Scripta Minora, trans. E.C. Marchant. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Also by Nancy McKenzie
Published by Ballantine Books
QUEEN OF CAMELOT
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Affleck McKenzie
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