The Grail War

by Richard Monaco

  So far I’ve met all too many signs to guide me. If I meet yet another, it will be my end.

  He pictured home as it was the day he’d left, almost a year ago: just after rain, the air clean and scented, sun-sketched clouds towering over the hills; the harvest laid by in the fields beside the curving road; rich, full trees; a country dance tune being played on distant pipes …

  He slogged through the reeds and soupy muck through a mounting din of frogs and screaming insects that fell silent in a little circle around him and filled in again as he passed.

  “Valit,” he called louder. Nothing. Just the momentarily hushed throbbings. He wobbled on, wondering if he’d actually fall asleep moving upright. And he was hungry, desperately. “Valit!”

  Devil take you, he thought. Well, mayhap he has … A little tune kept bouncing through his brain: dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-da-da-dum …

  Suddenly the earth was stony and firm and he was mounting the hill he’d seen from out in the swamp. A few scrubby trees were scattered around the coarse, grassy soil.

  Topping the rise there was a gleam of winking, reddish light. For an instant his mind imaged a single, evil snake eye blinking … He narrowed his focus and saw it was a lantern inside a hut. The open door swung back and forth on a loose latch, blocking, then showing, the smoky light.

  He went closer. Silence. Just the steady dinning down in the marsh and the creaking of leather hinges …

  He went inside, wrinkled his nostrils at a special stink, even smeared with reeking mud as he was (he’d wiped only his face and hands somewhat with reeds), so that he imagined he looked like one of God’s false starts where He cast the clay aside … The air was rank, as if foul old meats had been charred and left to rot … There were embers on the hearth and the place was fairly snug, the wattles tight. In the dim glow he made out a gourd of water and a crusted cheese set on a sway-backed table. He crumbled a handful and ate with wincing, ravenous bites, drank deeply, and had barely wiped his mouth with the back of his hand when he (or his legs) decided to sit on the lumpy, unclean pallet (where his own mud would add little or nothing) and rest a moment. He vaguely wondered about who lived here. His eyes were numb. He had a faint urge to get back outside into purer air … His sight now doubled all he saw: along the dim back wall hung what seemed skinned bodies … must be meats … not even a crack of window in here … Were his eyes still open …? He waited a little too long to be sure and his last impression was that two red-gleaming eyes were looking in the door, and he thought: but there's only one flame … and then darkness swallowed Broaditch in one soft, sinking, gentle blot …

  Night. Alienor and the children were huddling around a fire with a dozen or so other refugees, as it turned out. The night was drizzly, chilly. They were partly sheltered by pines overhanging the road, in the distance orange flame light made an ominous mock sunrise.

  It was really happening. She had accepted it by now. From what she’d heard on the road, bands of armed men and knights had sprung up all over the country and no one was safe. Nobody knew “which was supposed to be fighting why,” as one wag put it.

  The people huddled miserably. No one said much. A friar sat opposite Alienor. He was middle-aged, with a soft look on his face. He kept licking his lips nervously and shaking his head at the flames.

  “What these eyes have seen this day,” he said without really looking at anything, “ah, what these eyes have had to see …” He shook his head. “I confess … I confess that Christ became but a word to me today … but a word … I could not even pray … my tongue cleaved to my mouth’s roof …” He shook his baffled head. “I could not pray …”

  “Well a-day, priest,” said a dour, spare, long-faced fellow with sour, washed-out eyes and a long, beaked-nose profile to Alienor, who was holding her dozing son and daughter.

  The befuddled friar sighed. His beard was but a white-sewn fringe on his chin. He didn’t look at the quietly furious peasant beside him with streaks of blood and mud on his crease-graven cheeks.

  “Aye,” the fellow suddenly went on, “all you priests living so soft in your dreams. What do you know, old kneeler? What learned you today? Eh?!”

  Alienor realized his rage was not actually directed at the older man. It was much worse than that: it was passion without hope, a fury that expected nothing back but its own eternal echo. “Old kneeler, why don’t you just dream you’re back in the damned church, all warm and safe, with Jesus blessing your fine wine? Eh!?” His long, uneven teeth flashed.

  “Oh, let him be, why don’t you?” Alienor put in.

  “Let him be?” the man returned. “Let him first but call down Jesus Christ to make the damned stones bread! Or restore me son and wife and me brother … aye, like He did his part Lazer. Let him be! Why, he let me be all these days to this one!” He showed his teeth again, but only fancy, she thought, would take that grimace for a smile. She turned to the burning horizon that gleamed on the low-lying clouds.

  “Oh,” she said, let him have what dreams he’s got, fellow. They don't bring you harm,” God knows we all need them … or at least can’t help them …

  “Let him wake up,” the man said. “Let him greet all a man knew burned to black and forever gone! Aye, let him wake up, the full-fed old bastard!"

  “Curse not a holy man,” a wince-faced farmer interjected.

  “I could not pray,” the friar said wonderingly, eyes stunned. As if she thought, Ave Maria or Pater Noster would restore the world again … no … because, she understood, if he could have prayed, he would have been safe from it. And there was surely God enough to prevent that. Bah, I roll my mind like my poor husband, as though my thoughts mattered beyond finding more potatoes and shelter tomorrow … I’ll not lose my precious ones — I’ll not see that, not while I draw breath in this miserable world …

  The long-toothed man spat into the flames.

  “Respect what’s holy,” wince face repeated, wrapping his rags closer around himself, “can’t you?”

  “I were dumbstruck,” the friar said, clenching his hands convulsively before him, as if about to cry, shout a prayer, mouth trembling wordlessly, a dark gape in his smooth, weary face: nothing came out.

  Alienor was planning her route. There was no safety in a group. There were troops everywhere, and who knew (or cared) which side was which? And the heathen, merciless, quick, she’d been told … She’d have to risk finding a bag of food and then keep to the forest until she came near London … If he wasn’t to be found … no … she wasn’t going to think about that just now … A bag of food — that was first. And they’d survive. Her mind was fierce: they’d survive, by Christ, with or without prayers!

  Wista had gone to his own chamber with Frell. She was watching him from the bed, where he’d told her to rest and recover. He sat on a stool at the foot of the low four-poster.

  The windows faced the inner courtyard. The guardsmen’s fires lit the massive walls. Clouds blotted at the stars.

  “Are you somewhat improved?” he asked her.

  “Marry, I think so,” she said. “I am a very nervous person, as is my mother. Why, my father often sports with us on this score, which likes me ill. I …”

  “Do you want a cup of wine or brewed herbs?”

  “No. But I thank you, sir. I find myself content for now. Ah, but what do you think wilt be our lot, seeing what fearful things …”

  “Think not of that,” he insisted. He was watching the courtyard. A normal enough evening. If they were to be attacked, there was no sign.

  “When will you keep vigil and be tested?” she wondered.

  He rubbed his nose. It was stuffy and his eyes felt funny. He wondered if he were getting a cold. It would always go to his chest … His sister used to rub it with aloe and oil and … Roxine … he suddenly realized she resembled this girl slightly …

  “Hmm?” he absently responded.

  “I asked when you might be made a knight. A fellow I knew, Sir John of Laberdee, received his armor when
he had but sixteen years, and handsome, as well. He were a true Sir Trist, and …”

  “Why have never I heard of his fame?” Wista was faintly bothered.

  “Mayhap and because he died, I ween,” was the answer.

  “With great glory?”

  “Alas, and he were slain by a goat.”

  “What? A goat? By the horns of a goat?”

  “Nay. By the flesh, which he ate of at the lists, heedless that the August sun had been full upon it for the day. He …”

  “Peace,” Wista said, straining to see something below: it appeared to be Lohengrin. He’d been gone seven hours and was just emerging from an archway across the yard. Wista briefly wondered why he half-expected to see him there …

  “He’s alone,” he murmured.

  “Who?”

  “They let him live.” He was surprised at his mixed feelings: he was relieved and accepted that he respected the sarcastic, brazen, cold-blooded devil; but he also felt a peripheral gloom because he knew he was going to let himself be towed into the darkening he sensed ahead …

  Wista’s older brother was a well-versed priest. They had discussed religion and chivalry many times. He owed most of his education to the man. And so Wista understood that Lohengrin had taken him on not so much to train him for knighthood, as his family assumed, but to influence him for his own reasons, to pull down his beliefs and aspirations. So, as he was a tougher and more stubborn young man than he seemed (and perhaps for deeper reasons than he knew, which he would not have denied, either), he stayed and resisted and frustrated his putative master.

  “Where are you going, Wista?” she asked, sitting up as he headed for the doorway.

  “Shouldn’t you be with your sisters?” he asked in return.

  “I suppose …” She seemed depressed. “I wanted to speak with you, I …”

  He hesitated by the door. Why was he resisting her? He wasn’t sure. It seemed a small enough business and she was pretty and friendly … a small enough thing and perhaps a great relief and pleasure, as well … Was it manly to pass it by … ?

  “I’ll see you later,” he said, splitting the difference, and went out, hurrying, feeling strangely bold all of a sudden, anxious to confront Sir Lohengrin the Harsh.

  * * *

  The Harsh was in his private chamber by the time Wista arrived there. The old Duke’s clerk (a black-robed, bald-headed layman semi-priest) stood by the bare high desk holding a length of parchment, and, with a slight, automatic sense of superiority, observed for the thousandth time how their desks were always clean because their minds were empty of learning. Lohengrin slouched in the high-backed chair, but, Wista noted, for once his feet weren’t propped up on the desktop. The squire thought he looked very pale and his stare seemed strangely hollow. When he turned to him the eyes were slower, not so piercing.

  “Bring me all the lists and records,” Lohengrin was ordering, “and scrolls marked with falcon and fetter crests.”

  “But, my lord, the last Duke … ”

  “Bring them,” Lohengrin said, almost dreamily, and murmured something to the man too faint for Wista's ears. There was something new about his master: the sense (he thought) of waiting was gone. He seemed purposeful, confident, knowing. The clerk left quickly.

  “Well, Wista the Wistful,” Lohengrin said, smiling shark-like, “perhaps your prayers were heard."

  “Which ones, sir?” He wasn’t quite impertinent. He never was.

  “Those for my safety.” He smiled. “Otherwise, either there’s no God at all, or he loves me, though I do seem to be the devil’s pet.” He showed his teeth. “Did you pray for your poor lord, sirrah?”

  “I hoped they wouldn’t slay you …”

  “Just rack me for a bit, eh?”

  “I hoped they wouldn’t harm you. And I still hope that you might convert your heart …”

  “Wista, Wista.” Lohengrin shook his bushy-haired head. “You hold a lance well and swing a sword fair, and yesterday I meant to send you to the knights of the holy cross, for you are a priest at heart. ‘He may as well douse himself with cold vows,’ I said to myself, ‘and be done with it.’ You’ve a fanatic’s eye, Wista. That’s right.”

  Wista was surprised to discover his master had spent that much considerate thought on him. Was it a play or tease to confuse?

  “My lord,” he said carefully, “that were yesterday. What of today?”

  “Today?” The flat, black eyes seemed to mist distantly. Dreamy. He was the same, Wista felt, but concentrated in some fashion …”Today my mind is changed, lad, my mind is changed.”

  “Why?” Wista came closer to the desk. “Was it because of those men?”

  “Today,” Lohengrin said, eyes far away, where dark fires darkly burned, “today I stood where the world ends …”

  “My lord?" Wista cocked his head, troubled. What had actually happened?

  “I’m new today,” Lohengrin said, principally to himself, the shock still lingering in his inmost nerves. “It’s true … I feel like … like a dull sword that’s been ground keen …” He pointed his finger at Wista, in profile, left eye locked fiercely to his squire’s. “That’s why I won’t let you go now. Too late, too late, my scripture boy.” He stood up, like uncoiling steel. He clasped the boy’s arm, his fingers digging deep. “I want you as he wants me.”

  Lohengrin seemed to be looking through him. The hearth flames were reflected on the surface of his black eyes.

  “There is a purpose.” He seemed still almost disbelieving; immensely excited and relieved. “There is a world fit for gods and giants possible … I was born for this! To be shown this!” He sucked down a deep breath and smiled distantly. “It will be terrible … more terrible than you can grasp or dream, Wista,” he said, almost tenderly, holding the uneasy boy in that unyielding hand. “And out of that forge and flame and pounding will come a beauty …” — he shook his head; words failed — “ … a beauty … He showed me that …”

  “Who showed you, my lord?” He could see his words were barely noted. The grip was starting to numb his arm. And then several armored men entered the chamber and Lohengrin put him aside.

  The men seemed huge and ominous to Wista. They seemed to press on him with their very presences. He felt stifled in the shadowy room. They were grim: some bearded, with the reddish fire-glow wavering on their steel and hinting at their faces.

  Lohengrin appeared delighted.

  “Welcome, my lords,” he said, “welcome all.” He was now smiling that disturbing, unconscious smile. He was happy, Wista realized, beginning to understand what might be his own role in all this: not just to drag his feet and twist in the traces, but to come directly to grips with it, with him, because he sensed something you couldn’t passively oppose: if ye are not against me, ye are with me.

  For an instant he almost saw an image, the fleeting shadow of a shadow rising with red fangs, with screams and madness and smoking blood … a landscape with red lakes and charred hills and stunted figures fleeing or warring … bitter ashes where winds swirled … a world choked and smoldering … He shook his head to shake the flashes away and watched his master bending over the desk as the vassal lords gathered close around him: one short man in dull mail, limping heavily (Lord Gobble); another tall and fat (Lord Howtlande) in swollen plate armor flashing golden stars and burning rubies in the general, flickering shadows, a thin beak of a nose belying the soft-fleshed face; others, massed around the Duke like an iron wall.

  “I don't want to be a knight," he whispered to himself, backing, then walking out of the chamber, recalling Frell’s question. “But stay here I shall, even if I know not why yet. I will not flee from this," he vowed, “I won’t flee …”

  “He knows," Unlea said. “His manservant told my maid. He spoke of it to his chamberlain. He heard it." She passed Parsival a hunk of roasted boar on a wooden plate. He was munching a handful of salad greens at the moment. The long table was covered by green linen with silver and gold service
. The day was clear and not too chilly for sitting under a tree at lunch. The Earl was present. Apart from servants and a tired-looking matron, there was only a red-faced, ill-favored page with squinty eyes halfway up the long board who (Parsival thought, but couldn’t be sure) seemed to peer at them covertly. His actual eyeballs were, however, invisible in the folds of his skin. “He knows," she repeated at length.

  “So, indeed,” Parsival muttered, nodding. He found he simply accepted it. It had to happen, and part of him wanted everyone to know, in any case, mad as he knew the impulse was.

  “Is that all you wish to say?” she wondered, widening her eyes.

  He pushed his plate aside and blinked at the mild, pale day.

  “I have no taste for meat,” he said. “Too many years among monks.” Or was it his mother’s blood in him?

  “Well,” she said, voice pitched low but displeased, “it might have been better for me had you lost other tastes, as well.” She didn’t smile and that wasn’t like her, he felt.

  “Do you wish me to leave here?” he asked. For a moment he actually considered it. He wondered if he possessed the resolve.

  She shook her head, idly fingering the extended, plucked wing of a broiled squab.

  “Parse,” she asked him, “what’s to become of us?”

  He laid his palms flat on the tablecloth and studied the leathery, wrinkled knuckle skin, where his age and life clearly showed.

  “I know not,” he said.

  “You cannot stay.” She looked at him, up and down, over and over, with an ache and sigh in her eyes.

  “Nor can you,” he told her.

  “Peace,” she whispered, looking up.

  Prang was coming. He crossed the grayish-green field, the castle behind him. When he reached the table, he greeted the matron and then Unlea. Parsival was aware of his vague coolness to him.

  “Well, Prang?” he wanted to know, watchfully.

  “He said to ask you,” Prang explained ambiguously.