The Grail War

by Richard Monaco

  Bonjio was studying the form of the sparring squires.

  “No,” he said. “I prefer to let a man follow his heart and inclinations.” For an instant Parsival thought the phrase had a special meaning for him. “But what are your plans?”

  Parsival cleared his throat. Nearly every remark seemed a reproach or hinting. What a horrible way to have to live, he thought.

  “Plans?” Parsival stayed neutral in response. He watched and waited.

  “Where are you bound? What will you do …? Ah! Good, good, there!” He called out where one squire had struck another with the hardwood blade, dented the helmet, and dropped the fellow to his knees, as if to pray, stunned. “Well struck.” he added as an aside. “So, then?”

  “Agreed … though he hesitated a little.”

  “I didn’t notice. But I meant: What are your plans?”

  “Yes …” Parsival stared at the grassy turf, as if to read an answer there. A flash of color caught his attention: a butterfly, trembling, lying flat in a hollow of hard, dark earth. It was nearly dead. Looking closer, he made out, with a slight shock, a swarm of black, glossy-gleaming ants intricately enmeshing and picking the fan-like spray of yellow and orange to pieces so that it seemed to dissolve, as though fallen from some pure, sparkling height into a glittering, dark, acid stream …”I really don’t know,” he said, knowing that he lied. He tried to remember if he’d told a lie before. He was certain he must have, but this one burned his tongue.

  “You went into a monastery?” Bonjio asked.

  “For a time … yes …

  “Unlea mentioned it,” Bonjio said, watching the combat. “I wasn’t really surprised, from what I knew of you. How long since I’d seen you? Eight years?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “When did you take your vows?”

  Does he seek to know if I’m still bound to chastity?

  “Five years ago … I think … I lost track of time.” Parsival concluded.

  “Well,” Bonjio considered, “I last saw you near Jerusalem. You told me you were looking for your brother. I didn’t know there was such a one.”

  “Yes. A half-brother. Part Moor. So my mother told me.”

  He remembered: a collection of huts and tents in the blinding-white desert heat, sitting atop his horse, roasting in his armor among the sleepy mules and swaying camels and close-wrapped easterners, squinting at a garishly embroidered portrait on a silken sheet that the burnoused infidel was holding up. It was supposed to be his brother Afis, the prince who would never be sultan. He waved his sunburned hands at the flies that arced and darted into his open visor and buzzed maddeningly inside the metal pot and zipped viciously around his head. The other Christian knights with him were resting in palm shade across the road. The face meant nothing: lean and long with black hair, tilted eyes, and a thin moustache. It could have been anyone from the burning country … He’d promised his mother to embrace his brother once before he died and tell him certain things about his father … He’d glanced away from the embroidery and stared at the white road. The surface danced and swam in the midday brilliance, but he thought he saw a small animal there … looked closer … started: it was a hand that seemed to be reaching up from under the earth, clawed, distorted. “What’s that?” he asked the man in broken Arabic, and the fellow shrugged, said something incomprehensible, and redisplayed the fluttering square of cloth. Parsival ignored him and rode closer. The hand was stiff and still, though for a moment it had seemed to move in the heat mirages. It was a wrist and fingers. “Do they bury men here in the roadway,” he mused aloud and poked it with his sword tip. It fell over. A severed hand, but for a moment it had seemed a terror and a portent …

  “What a vile place that was,” Bonjio was saying. “We were fools and dupes to ever be led there like sheep by mad priests. We roasted and bled in the desert while our women played us false at home. You were lucky, indeed, if kin or stranger stole not your lands, as well as your wife’s cunt.” He smiled with half his mouth. Parsival re-crossed his legs and shifted in his seat, not looking at anything. “Most returned home crippled and in begging rags … Well, why did you go east, Parsival?” He grinned. “To hunt the Grail apace?”

  Parsival frowned.

  “Trouble me not with the Grail, Earl Bonjio,” he said. “I’ve had sufficient questions and jokes for a thousand years were I to live them.”

  “But why did you go?”

  “Well,” he said, “to say truth: because it was far off.”

  Bonjio nodded.

  “An honest reply,” he declared.

  “I was weary of … of things.”

  “I came back with ten of my hundred that left with me and found a cousin in my house and bed.” His eyes went distant and cold. “He escaped me, but she did not.”

  A pause. The squires were taking a break in the field.

  “Your wife?” Parsival finally had to ask. And when Bonjio nodded, he said, “Unlea?” His heart was frozen and pounding at the same time.

  “Who?” Bonjio smiled. “No, no, my friend. My first wife.” He suddenly seemed engrossed in Prang’s demonstrating shield-without-a-sword, taking the clanging blows of three opponents at once without seeming effort.

  “I see,” Parsival murmured. He was thinking that he really wasn’t guilty at all and that was why he felt uneasy. What was between himself and Unlea was between them. It existed like heat in a flame and had nothing to do with anything else, person or custom … It was good and sweet and …

  “I was sick with pain for a year afterward,” Bonjio said. “My heart was never in the blows I dealt her, God knows that …” He shut his dark eyes to remember. “I wept … I lay down on the cold stones beside her with my cheek in her blood and I wept …” His eyes opened. Parsival couldn’t tell if they were moist. “She was a woman … a woman … more than any since.

  “ … But I had to do what I did. How could I not?”

  Parsival shrugged. Custom struck the blows, he thought, not this man …

  “Yet all the while I killed her, Parsival, all the while, I tell you, I felt apart and watching myself …” — his eyes were closed again — “ … and, this is passing strange, and, all the while I felt so distant and yet so close to her and I kept thinking: ‘I don’t mean this, my sweet wife, I don’t mean this!’” He opened his eyes and just sat there for a time, lost within himself. “As if another struck,” he finally murmured.

  Yes, thought Parsival, distance. And another did strike …

  “At any moment I could have simply stopped,” Bonjio said. He sat and stared. Then he pulled himself out of it.

  Parsival was looking for the butterfly. His eyes scanned and found just ants trickling away. Not even a speck of yellow remained to stain the earth with memory …

  “Who’s this?” he heard Bonjio say in a different tone of voice.

  Everyone was watching a mounted knight in dark green armor enter the field from the distant woods. He came on at a walk, a very even pace.

  “Were you chaste, then?” Parsival wanted to know.

  “Eh?” Bonjio was shading his eyes, trying to make out the rider’s shield device. “You jest?”

  “No,” Parsival replied, frowning slightly, “I do not. Why should not your wife have slain you?'

  Bonjio was suddenly irritable.

  “She was a woman,” he snapped with a different meaning from a few moments ago. “Or are you still the original fool?” He smiled in mitigation of his comment.

  “That’s possible,” was the murmured reply. “But I’ve slept under all manner of skies since then.” He looked up at the rider, who was crossing the jousting field now. “Except, I heard a knight say once but that we wield a sword and they bear a sheath, men and women have more alike than otherwise.”

  “Except that we’re different, we’re really the same, eh?” mocked the Earl.

  “Who made man’s pride worth a murder?” Parsival was serious: he imagined Unlea being slain. For what? For need? Fo
r a dream? Custom … created by men ages ago stepping out into the world fresh and saying: I like this, so this is good. I hate that, so that is wicked. “In the name of Christ!"

  The Earl crossed himself.

  “I’m a good Christian," he said, irritated. “Enough of this!”

  The mounted knight had stopped now among the training squires. Parsival was frowning, thinking: It's not just up to men because there is a voice in all things … I've heard it … And that voice tells you if you listen how each shadow sorts itself, how each blade of grass finds its proper space …

  Bonjio stood up and stepped forward to confront the newcomer.

  Like something in the corner of the eye, he found himself always conscious of Unlea. Parsival knew that, like a miser with his coins, he could think of her with secret joy and vague insecurity. Even the edge of anxiety was welcome because it brought the image to life …

  The green knight didn't raise his visor. The grille was wide so his voice was fairly clear, and familiar to Parsival, who tried to place it.

  “Greetings, gentlemen," the knight was saying. His armor was glossy plate.

  “I suppose you’re hungry and in need of sleep,” Bonjio said with formal disinterest.

  “This covers all cases of mortals,” was the wry and brisk reply, and Parsival stood up. Could it be? Still living?

  “But your particular case stands before me,” Bonjio returned. He obviously didn’t like the custom of having to feed any stray warrior who happened by. Custom is what you happen to prefer, Parsival reflected.

  “Is this an inn, then?” the newcomer wanted to know.

  Prang had come up to him.

  “What manner of insult is that?” he asked.

  “One well chosen,” the knight declared, “unless my wit has soured.” He seemed perfectly at ease. Parsival was almost certain now he knew him.

  “I turn no man from my gate whether he be,” said Bonjio coldly, “gentle or a thankless and insolent son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I’ve too many years nailed to my back,” was the reply as the fellow shifted slightly within his armor, as if, Parsival thought, to scratch some patch of skin. He always itched, Parsival thought. “Too many years to be that.”

  “Are you under a vow,” Prang asked, “or will you show your face? Your device I know not.” He referred to the single eye on a green triangular field painted on the round shield. It was odd, to say the least.

  “It should tell you that I seek to see,” the knight told him. “My helmet stays closed for now.” He turned directly to Parsival. “How are you?” he asked.

  “Well enough, Gawain,” Parsival answered.

  The knight nodded.

  “Gawain?” Bonjio seemed reasonably impressed. “I suppose this is an honor, though it is said you died in Brittany.”

  “Sir, I am always dying somewhere.”

  Was Gawain still a little mad? Parsival wondered. He seemed his old self. But it had been so many years …

  “Parse,” Gawain said, “I see much gray in the gold.” He walked his massive steed closer. The horse seemed as relaxed as the man. Smooth. Steady. Gawain rubbed himself inside the plate again. “Yet are you still God’s child?”

  “As much as any else, I think,” Parsival replied.

  “I look forward,” Gawain said, chuckling, “to renewing our friendship.”

  “Is that what it was?” Parsival asked neutrally.

  “Come, come, I ever was fond of you.” Gawain seemed a little hurt. “We had slight differences.” He gestured vaguely, depreciatory. “Are you training these lads here?”

  “Did you follow me again?” Parsival asked.

  Gawain cocked his steel head.

  “After all this time?” he said. “For what?” He nudged his stolid horse on past. “We’ll talk anon, Parse. I’ll hear the news … no … the history. It’s gone past news by now.”

  Broaditch and Valit, as night fell, were struggling across deserted, boggy stretches of flatland. The wind was chilly. The strange, erratic weather was in full sway, Broaditch thought. Late summer intercut with fall and winter … endless rains … then spring … He’d learned, with his years, that these portents had real significance. The stars and weather and men’s fates mixed all together. Something was coming, something vast and perhaps terrible … He believed the old man in the boat had meaning, too, but the reality was fading: the problem was to march to shelter, not meditate metaphysically, and to start for home once he discovered the direction.

  God, but how he ached … sheer misery. Shock had silenced his young and bitter companion for the time being … on and on and on … sucking bog everywhere, mists, stink … Valit’s gasping breaths, his own rasping …

  Suddenly Valit gave a cry that ended in a burble: he’d sunk to his face in the clinging mud. His hands sloshed feebly at the surface.

  “Help,” he bubbled, spitting and shaking his head.

  Broaditch stood perfectly still. The fast, cold clouds were streaked with whitish-gray. Last light gleamed vaguely on the bog and spiny, dark clumps of marsh weed. He squatted and reached his hand out carefully, bracing his feet as best he could. The young man strained for it. Fingertips brushed. Broaditch tried to shift closer. He couldn’t tell where the firmer footing ended. He knew it would be abrupt.

  “In the name of the saints,” Valit sputtered and begged, “I’m lost … I’m lost …”

  “Are you still sinking?”

  “I cannot tell … I’m lost … oh, mother … mother …”

  Broaditch felt his nearer foot slide and splash over the slick, sudden edge. He jerked it back.

  “Be quiet,” he snarled. “Is that the only tune you know?”

  “Lord God,” the young man spluttered on, “I’m lost … mother, help me … help …”

  “Hold yourself without stirring and you may yet live!” Broaditch commanded. “Stop whining at every turn. I scarce believe you the son of a brave man. Don’t stir or speak.”

  While delivering himself of these sentiments, Broaditch was moving carefully, groping in the mud until he found a thick, twisted stick which he dragged from the sucking earth and duck-walked back to Valit’s head and wildly reaching, long, pale hands and arms. Each breath he drew sputtered and bubbled. He seemed, Broaditch later thought, a creature born of mire and seeking escape, except, he thought, men make their own mire and sink themselves … and have to be pulled free …

  The stick was clutched with white-knuckled desperation. The rescuer leaned all his weight into the effort and pulled steadily. He set his mind to pull and never relent. He realized what he was doing was virtually impossible. It would take a sound mule. So he set his teeth and gradually squatted himself upright as Valit gripped with both mucky hands and sobbed and wheezed.

  “I'm doomed!” he cried. “I’m not budging …”

  Broaditch pulled and concentrated. Eyes bulged, muscles cracked … bright spots burst in his eyes. A nightmare: endless straining, slipping, pain, and then, infinitely slow, the soggy, slim young man began to inch free …

  The last stain of twilight had long since drained away to pitch, moonless darkness before Broaditch could get a grip on those pale, long, groping hands and twist and haul him free …

  They both lay gasping on the chill bog for a long time. Broaditch could hear the young man’s teeth chatter …

  Need I be reminded so often, Broaditch thought at one point, of how death is at the end of every movement? Breathing in is living, he thought, as his lungs labored, breathing out is dying …

  Finally they staggered on. Valit was trying to stay directly behind Broaditch.

  “And if I go under,” Broaditch asked him, “will you raise me free?”

  He was using the stick to poke before him. They seemed to be on a ridge of relatively firm footing. A step or two off the line and the stick dipped deep. He kept probing to find the solid lane which suddenly twisted left and after that turned every so often, as if they walked, Broaditch didn’t say, on
the spine of a gigantic snake …

  The nightmare continued. The sea wind freshened and chilled. The bog seemed endless. In the hills before them a faint spot of firelight winked redly like a furious, demonic eye. Broaditch assumed a fisherman must live there.

  On and on along the serpentine track, glopping ankle-deep in cold mud, wobbling on, Valit even past complaining, holding on around the big man’s back like a babe … and on … the hills crept closer and then the crescent moon rose behind them. Broaditch could see solid, rocky ground less than fifty yards ahead … A few straining steps more and he slipped: the footing gave as if the spine moved, and he left the stick poking irretrievably in the mire. So he had to probe with feet only now, and, for the first time, he considered surrender, to lie down and wait for the inevitable turn of the tide that would lift the muck and drown them … But he went on, thinking just a little more and he’d quit … just a little more … Valit held his leather belt and slipped and stumbled in his footsteps …

  When they were about twenty yards from the solid shoreline, his leg went to the knee on all sides without bottoming. The submerged ridge was finished. There was no way to be certain how deep this final channel was. So they stood there as the moon swung higher … He knew he was being tested again. So soon …

  At the moment of certain doom, he’d let go and surrendered to the sea. There had been despair in it. Now he wondered if he had to have faith without even surrender. He lacked the energy to even cynically smile at himself.

  He shut his eyes. He’d never really prayed except in battle. But prayer wasn’t really needed here — not faith, because faith meant you hoped, believed, but didn’t really know … Magical help was worthless. He had to do this himself … He somehow knew something was aware, watching him, and would refuse magic … This was the moment he had to know, had to plunge into the slimy, dark, sucking ooze of the earth and know his path, vivid and real as blunted bone and battered flesh … Now he smiled. It didn’t simply seem mad: it was mad. He stood listening to Valit’s chattering teeth and sobs and then shook his head and stepped forward off the edge, sunk waist-deep, and sloshed forward with the young man hanging on. still too miserable to even complain as the stinking slime oozed up steadily …