I know these roads, I thought: the vine-choked interstices of rock ledge and dense, small, spiny trees where trails twisted and doubled and redoubled. This was worse than the woods I’d crossed with Morgan’s supposed sister. Supposed because Morgana had never really answered the question.
“Was she your sister?” I’d asked, while we walked underground.
“Did you love her?” she returned.
“I murdered her. Thanks to your inane plotting.”
“You wrong me in this. “
“Was she?”
“Ah. Was she. And is Arthur my brother and Modred my son?”
“The fat one and the cripple said they had an arrangement with you.”
“You saw what sort of arrangement that must have been.”
“Did I?”
“To wipe my hind with goose down?” She’d chuckled and changed the subject. Well, truth is not on the map. It’s never on the map. I’d definitely been in these woods before. As a boy. Seventeen years old. Of course. Lost and wandering, on the advice of a bald wizard and a strange fisherman I’d seen in a skiff on a lake that had to be nearby, if I was right.
We climbed gradually across the grain of the screened undergrowth, walls, and gullies. Hundreds of foot soldiers and a company of about thirty-five knights. Enough to make an impression in most circles.
If I recalled correctly, we’d soon come to a wide, deep rutted road at the crest of this tangled, rounded, surprisingly large hill.
The men labored on through the mild, thinly bright afternoon, horses rolling, slow, subdued, the priest scowling at the cross in his fist.
Yes, there I was, actually back on the march to the mysterious castle. I tried not to think about it. The wide road was full of small trees. We swooshed slowly through them while the sun rolled over the top and down the sheer slope of heaven’s dome. We climbed. By the time we reached the top of the hill and looked down the backslope over dense waves of blue-green pines at the big castle, long shadows were cutting up the landscape.
I’d managed to go in a circle again. Life had me chained to a mill.
Modred seemed nervous. “The place looks forsaken,” he said.
If any of us had known what was waiting, we would have quietly fled, I think. Morgana had just deployed the troops for the march to the gate. Trust her to keep things ordered and moving along. “It is,” she said, “and isn’t. I doubt we’ve beaten our fellow-seekers here. Not all of them.”
“What godless mission is this?” the stunted Reverend Father wanted clarified. His small eyes watched her with unwavering malice.
“Number seven,” I said. “What’s that?” he asked me. I was watching the treetops below pushed by slow winds. Morgana didn’t look at the priest. “You’re here to bless our deeds,” she told him. “Therefore be still until we do them.”
“Do they need blessing?” Modred asked.
“This is the holiest quest in Christendom,” she said.
“Ha,” said the priest. “That’s fine coming from a heathen witch.”
She laughed and gestured the men to advance. No one objected.
“All the more need for you, Father,” she told him. Then to her son or nephew or whatever he was: “Modred, my sweet boy, within those walls lies treasure and a weapon to make you master of this island.”
It was wonderful how men liked to believe such things. In the face of all facts.
LOHENGRIN
A night’s rest and warm food in a peasant’s hut by the riverswamp turned us around for the better.
Lanky Veers (I trusted him a thumb-length) and beefy young Beef complained that since they’d met my family, they’d lost their boat and nearly their lives.
“You got off softly enough,” I told them the next morning. Under mild skies, we munched bread and cooked eggs and negotiated for horses, mules, and meat with the crookback pig farmer and his potato-faced wife. “Most who meet us have a sore time of it.” I grinned, looking at Chael. She’d bathed in a hot tub and seemed softened and teased another kind of appetite.
“Did we lie easy?” Veers asked. He spat.
“Come along and I’ll see you repaid for your troubles.” I felt generous. If we found a great treasure, then I could afford it. If not, these low born churls would see some interesting sights and possibly prove useful.
“And if we choose it not, young Lord somebody?”
I liked him. I liked some men. Why, if you’re sour enough, it will pass, at times, for wit. “And if I make you choose it?”
“Hah. Make is it?” He spat. “Like the Jack what mistook marsh weeds for peat grass and went in over his head.”
“If you’re a hard case,” I said, “all the better for my purpose.” I grinned at Beef and thought about touching the girl in her secret places again. “There’ll be profit for all and rare great times.” I turned my back, still talking, looking around the muddy pig yard, drew and cut in one motion (I never was to meet anyone quicker at that feat) and arched the blade behind me so that it stopped an inch or two short of clipping Veers’s neck. I was pleased, except that he’d managed to jerk out his dagger in that splintered second and almost blocked my blow. I was impressed. “You fought in the wars?” I asked, sheathing.
“Wars,” he said and spat again.
“Why don’t we kill him, Dad?” Beef inquired.
I liked that. There was life in the lump. “Yes,” I agreed, “and carry off my vast riches. Ambitious
bit of beef, your Beef,” I laughed. “Follow me, hard edges,” I told them, mounting the serrated horse the hunchback held for me. His cocked, avid face twisted up to me. His distrust burned like a flame. With good reason. The others all climbed into their saddles. Chael sat a pale mule and Beef a gray, while long Veers dangled his bones over a pony. I gazed back over the mudflats and estuary, then aimed in land without regret, nodding to my temporary lady.
“On to fortune,” I said, casually kicking the crookback pig farmer away from the bit where he’d locked one lumpish hand. He let go and dipped back, slipping in the muck. His two lean sons had come out of the barn and were watching us carefully, leaning on thick staves.
“Our pay,” croaked the crippleback.
Veers watched me. He didn’t want to ride away on a fellow lowlife’s property. I had the answer for that.
“As I promised,” I declared solemnly. Had I been alone, I’d have ridden the insolent scum down. “You can have your little fee now or a purse of gold later if you invest these mounts with me. We ride to gather great wealth.”
“Aye, to be sure, me lord, to be sure,” the dark faced, squinty rogue agreed, dipping and sidling to keep between me and the open gate. “But we need no great fortune, me lord.” They were all tense as nuns in a bath. “Just pay for our good mounts.”
“Mounts?” I said. “You mean these rotting bags of meat? Dogs would bury these bones sooner than gnaw them, I think.” I grinned.
“You know best, me lord. May happen you’d do fairer afoot, eh?” He half grinned without teeth to brighten the grimace. Everyone waited, tense. Chael shifted in her seat, miserable, not heeding much else.
“Rather than slay you for insolence,” I said, gesturing with the spear in my left hand, “I’ll keep my bargain. Behold!”
I drew off a ruby ring from my pinky. It caught the light and every eye. It was quite worthless. But glitter is all, whether in pig yard or on great estates. “Here is ten times the price. Take it and be damned!”
I flicked the bauble with my thumb and it arched, glittering like a pearl of blood into the dark muck of the sty behind them all. The flash lit greedy dreams, and they had to chase and crash together, slip and scramble for it. I was grinning as I led my peculiar troop out of the foul, stinking place.
I kept looking back and saw, as they scrambled, scattering the ragged chickens and geese, the hunchback staring after me with concentrated fury and defeat in his stare, because I had him and he’d lost his support and he’d been taken.
I
waved. Veers was beside me now.
“I always pay what I truly owe,” I told him.
Chael knew the way. I have to admit I was surprised. After a long two days we reached a moonlit road that writhed through a dense, sweet-smelling pine forest. Beef complained. His father snarled at him. My unhappy and uncomfortable guide sighed in the saddle, pouting with her whole body. The moon was round and bright above the treetops as we slanted and cut back this way and that.
“How do you know we aren’t lost?” I asked her.
“I remember things,” she said. “Numbers and places.” She shifted and pouted. “I’m so tired … Can we rest?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
“But I’m so tired.”
“Yes. Later.”
“She used me for this.”
“What? For rest? Like a pillow?”
“No. To remember. How much … where.” She shrugged. A ghost of herself in the subtle, deceiving light. “I’m so thirsty.”
“Go back then,” snarled Veers at Beef. I cocked an ear. I love dispute. Mother always said I liked to stir things up. It makes the time lively.
“We should have killed them all,” Beef said. I liked that. “You’re a fool, Veers my father.”
“Ah, still yourself.”
“I won’t indeed. Mother speaks true. Your father, she says, is dead a dreamer.” He jerked his head. “He’ll dream us into beggary.”
I leaned back to miss nothing of this exchange.
“That’s what she says, is it?” Veers wanted to be sure.
“I’m really hungry,” Chael nagged. I shushed her softly. The woods were a black wall on either side. “She says you follow the moongleaming on the water.”
“So that’s what I do?” Veers was too calm, I noted with glee.
“And you’ll come to the reefs from it,” Beef added. “We shoulda’ killed them all and gone about our proper work.”
“Don’t hush me,” she whined.
“Hush,” I recommended. I itched to smack her bottom. Well, I would have liked to play breakhead with the lot of them. “Beef,” I called back, “I’ll have you in a stew or salted if you seal not the shithole you use for speaking.” I thought that was aptly put. I love dispute and a test of winning. It wakes life from the general dullness.
“Aaaah,” Beef reacted. “He’ll trick you, old man Veers.”
Veers ignored my remarks, which wasn’t foolish. “He’ll trick you like he did them shit muckers back there with the bit of bauble. There’s no great treasure waiting on us,” Beef went on.
“Now, lad,” Veers told him, “save your words.” His voice was dangerously controlled. “Not another one, so please God.”
“Arrr,” said Beef, and I wondered if that counted as a word.
“I’ll follow what moonspinning I wist, you young bastard. Who can say what its light can lead you to? Your mother …” he snorted. “Hah. She’s got no …” He groped. “… no … She thinks there’s no more than hard bread and watersup in life. Aye, so. Aye, so.”
“I want to eat soon,” Chael went on.
“You’ll eat. I promise,” I promised.
“I’m so tired, and I feel sick. I think I have a fever coming over me.”
“Fever,” I said. “Then starve it.”
“Who can say,” Veers asked again, “what its light can lead to?”
I could have told him. I didn’t.
“Arrr,” repeated Beef, and I laughed this time.
“I’ll feed you Beef,” I said.
She said something more, which I only half heard. Women have taught me to half-listen. Women and priests …
LAYLA
I think it was morning. I think the daylight was gray and chilly … I think … because the door to the tower room was open and I think my daughters were gone. Yes, they were. I remembered and I went into the hallway. Chilly color at the window slits. I didn’t bother to look out, because I couldn’t have seen much and what I saw was best seen through one eye only … My head didn’t hurt, but everything slowly spun and I knew I’d be sick soon, sick on the stairs that suddenly rushed up beneath my feet so fast I skidded onto my little backside and bounced. It hurt, but only from far away so it didn’t matter any more than the blurry gray light … All far away and the blurry walls and roof … I laughed, because I understood how silly it all was, everything on earth . . . everything on earth … yes …
My feet were walking again a little too fast. I didn’t really feel them hitting the steps … fast … I said a few things. I was thinking about my husband again, and then I was very sad, in the blurry gray chilliness, and lonely … lonely … It was too late to go back to the nice room where the wine was … That was the saddest …
I called my children’s names, I think. My voice was lost in the emptiness. Nobody cares. That’s the fact you always trip over. I hate facts.
“Nobody cares!” I’m sure I yelled.
And then a long, low room I didn’t know … I didn’t even remember that I was in my own home. The gray fuzzed everything. I wasn’t on the stairs; I was leaning on the wall.
And next I was in the low room, and I heard her sobbing so I said: “Don’t be sad, darling … No, no, no …”
I knew it was Leena. That broke my heart. I pushed through the grayness and saw her lying on the bed, too much skin showing, and the lump shape that stood up naked and reddish blotched … a naked reddish blotch … reddishblotch man and my child Leena on the bed sobbing, you see. Sobbing. That was very bad. And then next I knew who it was, the manshape, the lump. Him. Him, the lump, and my throat filled and hurt with howling, yelling (I suppose) words that pushed at him, that hit him so hard he went over (him: Sir Chinkey the Chinkshit) over on his side or off the bed into the blurs because the floor tipped me over and hit my head, which didn’t hurt much, and it went clear just then in the grayness the bed white and gold-red hangings and the naked man falling or maybe standing up again and her … her, my child, crushed down by the terrible weight (I couldn’t see it but I felt the weight) the cruelness had crushed her down into the snowy sheets and the blood, bright, a shock so crimson on the smooth, smoothness of her crushed down belly and legs and her sobbing … sobbing … in the pain of torn dreams … and my throat bursting full of my voice, the sounds hitting him and pushing him away and out the door.
HOWTLANDE
The place was empty, so far as I could determine. Bearing in mind the castle was so huge that a tournament could have been held in the back and you’d not know it in the front. A vast place, full of dooms and secrets.
We entered the front gate. It was wide open. Gobble sent lots of men around the sides and left others to lurk in front. The biting dwarves charged everywhere and found no one at home. I didn’t mind. Gobble limped and twisted and seemed lost in some inner focus, most of the time.
“We’ve beaten them all here,” he confided, staggerstepping with a sprightly and smug expression. “Stone by stone,” he commanded, “we’ll root through this hole until the evil thing is found. The poisonous Grail, the bane of our Lordmaster.” He grinned, to one side. “And we’ll take the others when they come for better purpose than you know.”
PARSIVAL
The gate stood open. I didn’t favor that. Modred and Morgana were pleased. I was still trying to figure out if I’d actually made love to her back in that castle chamber, back and lost in yesterday’s half-sleep …
I supposed it was the same castle. I’d never had a good look at it. I’d been unconscious going in and was too busy to notice much going out.
We dismounted in the yard, the pale priest glaring around, Modred nervously keeping in the midst of everyone else, Morgana just ahead of me, marching supple and rapid through the big door that wasn’t barred.
The main hall was vast enough, cobwebbed and dying into night.
“Torches,” she said.
“Did we make love?” I wanted to know.
“What?”
“The other nigh
t. I’m sick of melted facts. Tell me the truth.”
“If you’re so sick,” she advised, “then pay more attention to what happens to you.” Fair advice. At the far side we entered a vaulted hall, narrow and high. Modred was hesitant.
“Where do you lead me?” he asked.
The holy man had a glimmer.
“To the peril of your immortal soul,” he announced. “She would lead you to the bottomless pit, my lord.” Morgana snorted. Modred looked even more uneasy.
“It wouldn’t be a pit then,” I reasoned, to irritate. “Just a tunnel. “
“What’s that?” Modred wanted to know. His soft-fleshed face peered around at me. The torch flames didn’t improve his looks. The runty priest had no expression below his intolerant eyes. He reminded me of many men I’d disliked.
“You, Parsival,” Modred said.
“Yes?”
“I’ve heard much report of you.”
“All foul?”
“You are sworn to serve Arthur.”
“That’s sufficiently foul,” Morgana put in.
“I’m in retirement,” I said.
“I trust you not,” he concluded.
“It’s certain he trusts you, nephew,” said the lady.
“Heed her not,” said the priest. “She will —”
“Yes, yes,” Morgana cut him off, “we know. The pit.”
Modred’s paffy face came closer to me. It looked like dough in the shifting reddish light. His small eyes were surprisingly hard. I didn’t doubt his cruelty. “I mean to be king,” he said as if it meant something to say it. “I mean to rule.”
“Why?” I wondered, because I’d never really understood that ambition, not in my heart, at least.
He sniggered. Turned away.
“Why?” he echoed.
“He’s still the fool they called him,” he decided. The evidence was all in.
Morgana was intense. “Greatness is a call not all men hear, much less heed,” she said. “All history has a purpose and meaning. Though you cannot grasp these things altogether, know, all of you, that beings return to walk and live again in these fleshy suits. All of us.” She strode ahead, her back to us. “The soul returns to earth and must live in the world it has made in the past.”
Blood and Dreams: Lost Years II Page 17
