The Grail War

by Richard Monaco

  “There’s no depth that matters,” Broaditch assured him.

  “Be it so or nay, I trust you so far to say that many think me a fool because I would not work at bending iron like my father.”

  “Well,” Broaditch pointed out, as they reached the square-stone wall, “there's no better trade and few as solid. For …”

  “I know all the words to that song I oft have heard,” Valit cut in impatiently as they climbed to the wide top, which commanded an impressive view of the deserted barren highlands. Broaditch suddenly realized the storm had blown them a remarkable distance north. “But,” Valit continued, sitting himself on the edge, “I care not for it. I trust you this far: I have watched the Jews.”

  “The Jews?”

  “Aye. I made a sort of friend, Cay-am of Camelot. I have seen swords beaten from gold, aye, and found them much keener than steel.”

  “But,” Broaditch said, frowning, not catching the meaning immediately, surprised by the fact and manner of these revelations, “Gold is soft and will be a poor … aye, I see. I see.” He was more impressed with Valit now. “So you mean to become a Jew?”

  “In a way. If I can. I trust you this far, but I’ll say no more.”

  Broaditch was certain he wouldn’t. He cocked his head at the serious concentrated young fellow and half-smiled and half-frowned at him.

  “Well, well a-day,” he said to himself. He thought it funny, but for some reason he wasn’t really amused. He made the remark, anyway: “And how many will your sword of gold slay, I wonder, lad?”

  The watchful eyes took him in as they began walking the paved road that ran along the wall across the wild, mist-strung hills.

  “I trust you this far,” Valit reaffirmed, “but no man more.”

  “Not even your friend, Cay-am?"

  “Him less.”

  It was pleasant to be sheltered from the edged north sea wind. Broaditch tapped his staff on the smooth paving. He whistled a little tune and watched some crows circling high.

  “Whatever you wanted,” Broaditch suddenly told him, “lay it aside for the time. Trust me and there’ll be more than riches.”

  Valit just looked at him without a word. Broaditch was surprised by what had just come out of his own mouth. He felt wry and very serious. How was he going to explain this?

  “Suppose I told you,” Broaditch offered, “that wizards and angels direct me?”

  “Ah,” the young man responded.

  Broaditch tapped his stick a few times on the paving blocks and went on whistling tunelessly. He revolved a number of approaches in his mind.

  “They seem to be leading you on an uncommon, hard route, master Broaditch,” Valit suggested deadpan.

  “Never mind wizards and angels,” Broaditch said, suppressing a chuckle.

  “I rarely do,” his companion remarked. Broaditch shut his eyes and shook his head.

  “Strike not the fallen,” he said, sighing, “though they make the most tempting targets … apart from wizards and angels.” Broaditch cocked his eyes sidewise to hold the other’s tongue in check, “Which were but, in a sense, a way of speaking — ”

  “Why trouble yourself?” Valit cut in. “I might as well trail behind you than wander by myself. I care little for the nonce, whether it be demons or mooncalfs you follow. But I pray you,” and for the first time since they’d met Broaditch saw the crinkle of a friendly smile, “find guides who favor these stone roads, and friendly folk.”

  Broaditch laughed.

  “So,” he said, “but I swore to Balli we’d return to swim in his swamps and meet all his kin.”

  Valit’s expression went dour except for his eyes.

  “Even if every sprite in heaven and earth,” he assured him, “pointed to that bloated dung bag’s dwelling with fingers of fire I’d let the invitation age a lifetime before I took it up.”

  Broaditch appreciated this rush of eloquence; then he became serious. Smoky streamers of fog flowed over the wall as they marched steadily on.

  “Still, lad,” he finally came out with, “this is grave business, I think. And, uncertain as I am of how I was led on, for I may even be bent and battered in my senses and straying with the moonbeams, nevertheless, I am fixed in my purpose, though unsure of it …” He looked at his companion. “Well, I’m not mad, lad. But I cannot make this plainer until it’s made plainer to me.” He gestured with his staff along the sweeping walled road. “For now we walk south.”

  “To end where?” Valit asked, neutrally, “or know you not.”

  “I almost know,” Broaditch said, shook his head and smiled, “I’ll discover when I get there.”

  “And then? The angels and them will lay it plain out?”

  Still grinning, Broaditch clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Valit, lad,” he declared, “you’ll have to bide impatience.”

  “Oh,” was the reply. “To see this I am more patient than the sea has waves.” He considered. “Or Balli rings of fat.”

  “Or sins in London town,” Broaditch added, “regrets in hell, fools in the church, devils in the government … pray, don’t make the list as long as the wait.”

  Valit’s face had closed down again, his eyes and expression withdrawn into his inner haunts. They went on without speaking for a time, up and down and around the steeply writhing roadway.

  “There’s often truth in strange prophecy,” Valit suddenly came out with

  “And,” Broaditch said, “no doubt there are lies in common hindsight for all of that.”

  “But what think you?” Valit persisted.

  “Aye, there’s often truth.”

  “Even in things unmeant?”

  Broaditch shrugged with the stick.

  “Commonly,” he replied, impatiently, “so it is said.” He was staring across the moors: he thought something had moved. Perhaps a buck deer, he thought, who knows? …

  “So,” Valit said, with the triumph of a true abstract reasoner, “I may yet come to solid profit by way of your insubstantial vaporings!”

  Broaditch was delighted again.

  “Valit,” he cried, “I’m grateful for you! I swear it! I think the world’s about to be chawed, swallowed, and shat out and there you are prepared to grope and finger for pearls in the steaming dung!”

  Broaditch saw Valit was just watching him so he waited. And the young man said at length:

  “So you don’t deny it?”

  “Deny what?”

  “That I may find solid profit?”

  “What?” Broaditch was laughing hard. “No, no, lad, I swear, I think you’ll find all you seek … and more … much more …” laughing at the same time feeling a warmth and sense of responsibility. He thought of his children … repeated their names to himself. Would he sec them? He had already accepted the alternative possibility if it had to be. Well, time would explain itself if he kept breathing and walking. “Solid profit,” he said, grinning.

  Parsival waited; the pack mule rocked uneasily; Unlea’s palfrey mare was agitated as two mounted, heavily armed knights in dark armor inwrought with silver loops and blazes wearing flat, blank, silver masks, cantered out of the line of trees and halted. He could see the steam rising from the dark chargers.

  Just two of those again? he wondered, recognizing the armor from twenty years ago. So Gawain was right … flesh and blood at last.

  “Who are they?” Unlea asked nervously. Her lover shrugged.

  “If they be who they seem, they stand undernumbered to trouble us.” He took a deep breath. Felt ready. For the first time in years he looked forward to the release of combat. Sensed it had to do with the pressures of recent days …

  “Are you of the unholy mutes?” he called over, easing his horse toward them. “But then, if yes, you cannot say so.”

  They were silent and still almost as carvings; only the horseheads slightly moved.

  Now a third warrior emerged from the foggy, dripping trees. A stocky man in polished silver steel and a white a
nd black horse. He looked familiar. He came steadily, one hand on the over-sized hilt of his broadsword, the other holding a lance upright.

  “And you?” Parsival demanded. “Name yourself!”

  The man made violent snortings inside his helmet. He clearly had a headcold. Voice doubly muffled and obscure when he spoke.

  “I know you,” he said, sniffing and swallowing. “Well,” he went on thickly, “you’re not my proper business anymore. You don’t recall me, then, Parsi-bird-head?” he laughed and sniffled. “But let’s just have one passing play?” he let fall his lance, drew his blade, then came in quickly, the sword casually poised, and Parsival felt the fellow’s skill like a pressing, tangible force, and he unfocused his eyes to widen his awareness and let his body relax to the steady rhythm of his breath, sword still undrawn. Parsival didn’t even bother to slam his visor shut. He knew if a man like this struck home, he might as well be bare-headed. This was a fellow master and death was one or two cuts away. He heard the knight’s raspy mouth-breathing, he seemed too close but forced his mind to wait and watch and let the body fight: which it did, exploding, leaning into the short, irresistible cut, drawing, twisting in one shimmer of motion, tested to the limit, beyond, and not in the perfect shape for it he’d have been in even a month ago. Both cuts became parries and as the horses passed close he felt a flick across his throat and turned at the same time to see part of the other’s gauntlet sheared away and felt a trickle of warm blood under his neckpiece. To Unlea it had seemed a flash, a whirr, a heartbeat’s terror …

  The stocky knight unhinged his visor, sneezed violently. It was Lancelot, with a beet-red nose. They just sat and looked at one another.

  “Magnificent,” Lancelot said, “I’d kill you in time, but — ” he rasped up some more phlegm. “This a witch’s curse laid upon me! Dame Morg or some shit-sucking sister …”

  “Have you forgotten you’ve murdered my wife and child?” Parsival asked, waiting, watchful, thinking that fate was going to force him into further pointless combat. Custom again, he thought, the custom of pride and pain … Unlea by the gray river’s edge, blurred by the drizzling rain, seemed a wisp of lost hope receding like a smoky shape of fog …

  “What?” Lancelot wanted to know.

  “At Castle Tratinee. Where you found me first.”

  Lancelot sneezed again. Wiped at his moustache with his steel glove improving matters very little. The hairs remained caked and shiny.

  “Why, I had naught to do with any of that,” he declared.

  Parsival knew Lancelot was not terribly clever, and was aware he never had been known to lie. “What he has for brains makes the flowers grow,” Gawain had said, years ago.

  “Ah,” Parsival said, “you and your men were but there to watch.”

  “No,” Lancelot pronounced gravely, smearing a finger under his nose again. “Not to watch. To slay you. As I then openly declared.”

  The other thought it through.

  “Very well,” he said. “Who slew my family then?”

  “I know not,” Lancelot shrugged.

  “And you are no longer bound to kill me?”

  “This is true. But I would joust with you betimes for the sport.”

  “Who sent you to slay me? I knew not your sword was lightly for hire.”

  “For hire? Who dares say for hire!” The famous knight’s face instantly swelled, blue eyes snapping.

  “For honor?” Parsival was almost incredulous.

  “Aye!” stormed the legendary warrior. “A debt I owed. To Duke LaLong who did great service for me and the dead King Arthur.” Lancelot spat phlegm, turned his horse and prepared to depart, still frowning and obviously debating whether to reattack here and now. “The only King who was a man,” he added. “Say no more to me Parsival, you bird.”

  “But how came the Duke to lift the obligation of my death?”

  “By means of his own,” Lancelot said impatiently.

  “And whom does honor bid you serve now?” Parsival wanted to know, indicating the silent pair of black knights.

  Lancelot’s frown was grim and cold. His red nose sniffed.

  “What’s this you’re saying?” he demanded, hand on his hilt. “Ask them, then!” he raged and spurred his mount away back into the trees.

  “Because they’re mute?” Parsival called after. “Are they?” he shouted as the blocky knight was gone, muffled hoofbeats fading. The other two followed after.

  Well, what is it to me? he thought, looking back at Unlea, who was staring at the water, sad and lost-looking among the faint wisps of fog and the general grayness … What matters black or orange knights to me? All that's behind … I'll find a place for us … I will …

  He stared at her, imagining her happy, walking in a garden of lustrous flowers, a golden-haired boy-child playing nearby, a flash of brilliant blue eyes looking tenderly up at her, in radiant streams of sunlight, as if wading in the shimmering colors … and as if to seal his vision with an omen, the sun broke through the grim cloud cover and flashed, sparkling on the water, and touched her face, and his mind knew something was wrong, although he was too caught up looking at her to bother with it … She was staring at the sun then away across the flattening fields ahead, frowning.

  He rode close to her, smiling with new confidence. He nodded to himself.

  “You are so lovely, Unlea,” he told her and was surprised she was shaking her head and not looking at him. “Unlea?”

  “No,” she said. “Please … let me go.” He opened his mouth and then sighed through it. “Please, Parsival, before I come to loathe our sweet hours and hate the sight of you …” She was terribly urgent. “It cannot be, Parsival. Cannot you see that?”

  “But …”

  “Oh, you …” She shut her eyes. “You child, who are yet a man, too …” She opened them with tears this time that caught the already fading sunlight as the rainwater drizzled over the wide-brimmed hat. “This is the world, Sir Parsival,” she continued, weeping and trembling and yet strong; he saw, for the first time, how strong she could be, a woman could be.

  “But I love you,” was all he could find to say. The tears burned in his own eyes now. “I love you, Unlea.” He suddenly felt that this had been his last chance and now it was lost. He’d failed again, he kept thinking, and no … no, there has to be something I can do, which he knew was his mind moving in the reflex of the already dead, like a just slain body that seemed to breathe and stretch its limbs … “But I — ”

  “Look,” she said, pointing at the fading sun. “are you so entailed by this that your senses are darkened?” She faintly smiled. “My child and tender man …” He saw her bite her lip. He found himself hanging on each slight sign, each hope of hope that somehow love would be magically enough …

  “Unlea?”

  “Look at the sun,” she insisted; just as it was lost again, it hit him. It was not east, but west. West … The river must have circled, he told himself.

  “This is the green plain,” she said. “My home is just beyond. The fog hid it from me until now. The land looked different from this direction.”

  “Then we must turn around.” He knew she was going to shake her head. Of course.

  “Please,” he heard his voice saying, “please.”

  “Free me, Parsival,” she virtually begged, “for love, if for nothing else …”

  “No,” he said, knowing it was yes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He shut his burning eyes.

  “There’s no hope,” she was telling him and herself. “This is the world of waking, my sweet, lost one …”

  He said nothing … waited.

  “Let me free,” she pleaded again, though (he noted) her voice was quite sure now … and he finally nodded. He wouldn’t look at her looking at him now. “Turn away,” she said, desperate, too, “turn away or I cannot go”

  “And,” he said at length, “will you be safe?”

  “He’ll not injure me … He never has.”

  He knew it was tr
ue, knew … it was a coldness in his stomach …

  “And this is all?” he murmured.

  She didn’t answer, didn’t need to. So he turned his horse and started away.

  “But don’t you want the mule, too?” was the last thing he heard her say, and silently seared with tears, he shook his head, as if that mattered, still clinging to every last contact and already, as the rain closed around him, feeling the memory begin … When he finally looked back there was nothing but rain and mist and the seamless gray earth and sky …

  He went on, drifting now, looking down at the wet ground as the well-paced horse slogged on. He’d left the river and was crossing a wide, rolling, muddy plain.

  He didn’t look up as the animal minced on the bank of another stream running flat, greenish-dark, straight. He didn’t look as the riders caught up with him. Every so often tears would overspill his eyes. He paid no attention to that, either. He barely noticed the voice shouting and the tinkle and clink and bang of steel and horse sounds … When he finally glanced bleakly through hopelessly reddened and blurred eyes, he blinked at dim, gleaming figures. He didn’t trouble to count them. He blinked on, but his eyes had been wept out of focus and, for all he knew or cared, forever.

  He really didn’t listen, either, just politely awaited until the voice stopped raging, blinking his fogged eyes. He had never been depressed to such depths. And distraction. Oh, he knew remotely that the voice ringing in the open helm was Bonjio’s, but that fact connected nowhere because he was replaying images of her softness in the first hay, the bed, the tent silks, under moon, stars, and sunlight … kept wanting her voice, kept wanting to turn and go after her, try again, not knowing what he’d say or do … The future was so vacant and terrifying now … Sometimes he worked together perfect speeches that would win her back with eloquence alone … How could any other have equaled their passion …? It was hard for him to care just now about the Earl and his men and all that, so, as he made up his mind to say something (because there was a silence), he peripherally perceived the shadow of the ax stroke arced for his open face mask, and he drew and slashed at the arm in one motion with that unearthly reflex speed, and ax, hand, and wrist sailed past his face, the streaming blood spattering his cheeks like red pox, the chopped arm still held out straight, as if in stunned salute, blood jetting, splashing over him, as if (his mind said in a blurry corner) that was the real attack: running, pooling; dripping too thick for the faint drizzle to rinse, and then, with a bellowing scream, the stump was snatched back, and desperately, futilely, a metal-bound hand tried to stanch the incredibly rapid flow as Parsival, in terror, understood what had happened, wanting to scream himself and pray to have the blow taken back, to have those few moments returned, that fragment of unyielding time (there flashed a memory from what seemed a thousand years ago: a buck deer jerking its polished antlers, speared through the chest, collapsing in a shimmering splendor of sunshine and himself wanting the cast back, feeling the pain, begging life for life there, the first time) … Oh, my God in heaven, he thought heavily, it's always a moment too late … always …