The Black Chalice

by Marie Jakober

  Music filled the room when Karelian came in— a rich but melancholy music. Konrad half sat, half sprawled in his chair. He motioned Karelian to sit, but otherwise remained lost in the singing; his wine waited untouched by his elbow. Nearby, a young man sat playing a flute. Another bent over a lyre, almost at the king’s feet, and sang very softly: Nu gruonet aver diu heide, mit gruneme lobe stat der walt…. It was a long and lovely song, full of mourning for lost land and lost friends, yet filled with hope and reclamation. The exile, like the spring, would yet return….

  Finishing, the singer bowed his head over the instrument, and waited.

  “God, but you have a gift, Wolfgang,” the king said. He laid his head back. “Go now. I must speak with Karelian.”

  “My lord.” The singer rose, and then bowed very low, taking Konrad’s hand and touching it to his lips. “May God shield you, my lord, and keep you safe.”

  He backed away, not out of deference — Konrad never expected such exaggerated behavior — but as one backs away who cannot bear to give up the sight of what he is looking at. Even at the door he turned, and looked again.

  “Good night, my good lord.”

  The door closed very softly.

  “Have some wine,” Konrad said, waving vaguely towards the tankard. He picked up his own cup, drank briefly, and looked hard at Karelian.

  “Now I suppose you will be added to the list of people who wonder if that young man is my lover.”

  “If knowing would ever help me to serve you, my lord, or to shield you from some danger, then I would wish to know. Otherwise, I can scarcely think of a question which concerns me less.”

  “You have a wonderfully uncluttered mind, Karel.” The king stared into his wine. “I suppose you still want to go through with this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have to wait under armed guard— did you know? Not with my knights, but under guard, like a felon waiting judgment. If you fail… if you fail I will be put to death.”

  “I don’t intend to fail.”

  “I trust your intentions well enough,” Konrad said wearily. “It’s your alliances I worry about. You were not in Stavoren last night.”

  He noted Karelian’s surprise, and smiled faintly. “I have no special arts for learning things. I’m only a king; I use spies. You were not seen leaving, but you were missed. You returned at dawn, very quietly and well disguised. Where did you go, Karelian?”

  Karelian made a small, dismissive gesture. “To see a woman.”

  “The witch of Helmardin?”

  “It’s a duel to the death, my lord. I wanted some time with my mistress. Surely you don’t begrudge me that.”

  “I begrudge you nothing, God damn it! But if your… mistress… has anything to do with this fight— if she so much as sets foot on the heath of Stavoren tomorrow, it will be the end of all of us! Don’t you understand?”

  I understand even better than you do, my lord. There isn’t a shape she could assume which Gottfried wouldn’t recognize, not even a rock. She won’t be there. But she won’t be far away.

  “I will fight alone, my lord; you have my word. But I won’t fight unaided. That was the whole point in my serving as your champion. We’ve already agreed on it.”

  “Did we?”

  “Yes.”

  From somewhere in the castle came the sudden sounds of tramping feet, a clattering door, a shout. The king looked up sharply, tensely, and listened until the last of the steps had echoed away.

  “I grew up in the coils of a civil war,” he said. “From about age eight I recall waking up every morning and wondering if I would still be a prince when the sun went down. Or even if I’d be still alive. I thought my world couldn’t get more insecure, or men more unpredictable. Amazing, isn’t it, to have been so naive?”

  “You have some faults, my lord, but naiveté isn’t one of them. I doubt it ever was.”

  Konrad laughed, but there was no joy in it. When he spoke again he did not look at Karelian.

  “Will you tell me something— just between ourselves?”

  “If I can, my lord.”

  “Whom do you really serve? I mean, beyond the world?”

  Karelian hesitated, but only for a moment. The Church made men into liars the way famine made them into thieves. And yet tonight, at this hour, with this man, he would not lie.

  “I serve Tyr, the god of justice. Among others.” He paused, and added softly: “Does that appall you, my good lord?”

  “It would have once. Now I’m mostly appalled by the thought of dying. I’m innocent, Karel. Will God value my innocence above your unbelief?”

  “If he doesn’t, then is he worthy of belief?”

  Konrad smiled, and this time the smile was warm. He raised his cup. “Well said, my friend, as usual. I’ll say one thing more, and then I’ll let you go. I have faith in you, Karelian of Lys. I would prefer to put my life in no man’s hands, but since I must, then I’m glad the hands are yours.”

  He stood up, and wrapped his arms around his champion.

  “May my God and yours both keep you safe.”

  FOURTY-FOUR

  Trial by Battle

  Victory runes, if victory you desire,

  You must etch on the hilt of your sword,

  Runes on the sheath, runes on the blade,

  And twice invoke Tyr.

  Poetic Edda

  * * *

  They were not young, the men who fought that day; they were both ten years or more past the usual prime of knighthood. Yet none of us thought it strange they should meet— that it was these two, finally, and no others, who would ride into the cold November morning and fight for the future of the world. We knew it would be more than a match of strength. Their years, their courage, even their skill as we normally understood it were less important than who they were, and what they fought for, and who would fight beside them.

  For they would not be alone on the heath. We knew that too as we gathered, as we waited and watched the grey skies lighten without a trace of sun, and our knowledge left us pale. This was the match all of Germany might once have journeyed out to see; the one they waited for ever since the great tourney two summers past; the one they wagered on in the drinking halls and field camps, and quarreled over, and fought a thousand times in fantasy. If only Gottfried had taken part! they always said. If only he had met Karelian— then we would have seen a fight like no fight that ever was!

  But there was no wagering now, no idle talk, no women blowing kisses at their favorites. And the boasting, what little there was of it, was raw-edged with fear.

  They had chosen the great jousting field below the duke’s castle as the place of trial, and there the armies gathered: the soldiers of God and the soldiers of rebellion— for such I call them, whatever men may call them now.

  Reinhard, although a knight himself, served as Karelian’s squire; indeed I am told he begged for the honor. I have never understood the man, so piously Christian, so mindlessly loyal, so unutterably stupid. He must have been tripping over Karelian’s sins, so blatant they had become, and yet all he could say was yes my lord, of course my lord, whatever you wish my lord…!

  Everything was done with unbearable formality: the marking out of the field, the placing of armored men in a solid wall of shields around it, the fanfare of trumpets, the slow advance of the imperial officers into the center of the field, accompanied by their herald. Gottfried rode to meet them from the east, Konrad and his champion from the west.

  They stopped perhaps ten feet apart. Gottfried, they said after, seemed kingly and serene, Konrad arrogant. And the eyes of Karelian Brandeis burned hard and bitter, and no man wished to look in them.

  “Lords of the empire, citizens of Christendom.” So the herald began. “Today, under God’s holy judgment, the guilt and innocence of these men will be resolved in trial by combat. Konrad, crown prince of Germany, stands accused of the murder of his father and his king, our great and beloved emperor Ehrenfried. Lord Gottfr
ied von Heyden, duke of the Reinmark, stands accused of sorcery, of falsifying sacred relics, and of treason.

  “Since no evidence can be found to establish guilt, save only circumstance and the accusations themselves, and since both men claim the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, we are resolved to put this matter into the hands of God. Lord Gottfried will fight against Karelian Brandeis, count of Lys, who will act as champion for the prince. May God now watch over us, and may his justice be done!”

  The herald was singularly careful, I noticed, to name no man as king; to give each of them only the titles which they held at the hour of Ehrenfried’s death. I did not blame him for his caution, but I noticed.

  “This combat,” he went on, “will be to the death, and none shall interfere. Any man who attempts to do so will be instantly slain.

  “The loser shall be judged guilty, and shall suffer full and immediate punishment for his guilt: loss of rank, honor, and property— and, if he still lives, the penalty of death. All judgments passed by him against his enemies in the present war shall be void. All ranks, titles and honors given by him shall be void, and his followers shall disperse their armies and peacefully await the election of a new emperor.

  “Is it so agreed, my lords?”

  “It is so agreed.”

  Their eyes met then, Gottfried and the prince, and it was the prince who looked away, uncertain, frightened like the rebel boy he was. They say he looked at Karelian, and Karelian smiled, and saluted him with drawn sword.

  “I will not fail you, majesty,” he said.

  Konrad was then escorted from the field, to await the outcome under guard.

  “My lords, will you now take the oath?”

  One of the officers carried a bier; upon it lay a crucifix and many sacred relics.

  In turn, Karelian and Gottfried placed their right hand upon the holy things, and swore to respect the laws of judicial duel:

  That I shall use no charms or incantations, no ointments or magical devices, nor practice any act of sorcery to forestall the will of God. That I conceal no secret weapons. That I will use no act of treachery or deceit to gain an unjust victory. So I swear in the sight of God; may my life and soul be forfeit if I lie!

  And what use was it, I wondered, to demand such an oath from a man like Karelian, who neither believed in God, nor feared his own damnation? Just the night before, one of Gottfried’s young knights of Saint David had raised the same question.

  “He will carry a devil’s bag of tricks onto the field,” the young man said bitterly. “All of his belongings should be searched, and he should be compelled to dress himself in front of witnesses.”

  Whereupon the speaker received so many insults and icy looks — and this from men of his own side — that he fled from the chamber. To the half-barbarian knights of those days, the thought of subjecting a highborn lord to such indignities was appalling. It was, perhaps, more appalling than sorcery itself.

  So they took Karelian’s oath, and he took what evils he wished onto the field.

  * * *

  Christ! Will they never get on with it?

  All the excitement and bravado which had swept the council meeting was gone now. Men shifted in their places, tense beyond bearing, and afraid, all the thousands of them gathered to watch. Far too much now suddenly depended on far too little. Except for God, I do not think any of them could have faced it.

  Karelian was eager to fight. Even his horse was stamping and restless, catching his master’s mood. He had wanted no part in this war — or so he always said — but in this war as in all the others, once he began he hungered for the kill.

  “Look at him,” Gottfried’s men growled to each other. “He would sink his teeth into the emperor’s throat if he could!”

  Or so I am told they said, for I was not with them. I was alone in the place I had chosen, waiting for the trumpets to blow again, signaling the beginning or the end of the world.

  There was blood on the parchment. It was fitting, Paul thought. His own blood, finally, after all the others’. It would kill him to finish the chronicle. No other end was possible.

  His whole life, since that day on the heath of Stavoren, had been built around forgetting. Slowly, year by year, he had woven his forgetting until it was almost whole, almost opaque. Only whispers of memory would come through, like shafts of light through a torn arras. Then she came, and the forgetting began to unravel, word by bloody word, and his life unravelled with it, crumbling as unearthed mummies crumbled in the light.

  “Karelian….”

  Here was their final victory, the evil ones. Not his death, just a few more bitter words away. Not the blood on the paper from the quill which tore his hands. The memory itself was their victory; the face, the voice, the laughter, the earth-borne body of Karelian Brandeis, shimmering with silver and steel, racing across the sand and the heath and the history of the world,the only history which still lived, the one he could not refuse to remember. His own.

  * * *

  What can I tell you of their fight? It was indeed a fight like no other we’d ever seen. Artists have painted pictures of it, sculptors have made statues, songs have traveled as far west as Wales, as far east as Jerusalem. Yet men do not agree on what they saw, or what they heard, or what any of it meant.

  Were the ribbons Karelian wore on his lance black, for the witch of Car-Iduna and the devils whom he served? Or blue, for the Holy Virgin? That, you would say, is surely a simple thing to answer? Then go about the roads and villages of the Reinmark and ask. You will hear both answers, and seven more. Men still argue about every detail of the trial, except these: the names of the men who fought, and how it ended.

  I watched alone from my chosen place. I knew how it would end, and my certainty should have been my strength, but instead it weakened me, filled me with an unforeseen and totally overwhelming regret. I could not take my eyes off Karelian, and to my shame I found them filled with tears.

  He rode at Gottfried like a demon, black pennants flying (yes, by God! they were black!). They met with a shattering fury; both lances broke; Karelian’s mount all but lost its footing. I imagined my comrades smiling.

  It’s just beginning, fools, I warned them silently. The duellists met again; this time Karelian parried the blow, and broke his own lance into the bargain. A great roar went up from Konrad’s ranks. And I smiled.

  Yes. I admit it. What is the use to lie now? It was still there, like a blackness in my blood, a rot in the very foundations of my being, upon which nothing whole could ever stand, not even Gottfried. It did not matter what my conscience commanded, or what my mind knew to be the truth. I admired him. I felt the power of his beauty as I had felt it the first day in Acre, a power as compelling as a sorcerer’s, all the more potent for being damned. I could not make my eyes look elsewhere. I could not stop my breath from catching in my throat when the third set of lances splintered into the sky and they drew their swords.

  “Now,” Gottfried’s men would say, “this witchspawn will be cut to shreds.”

  For the king was famous above all for his skill in mounted combat with the sword. He had the shoulders of a bear, an astonishing reach, and he towered over men of average size. He was a full head taller than Karelian. And he had, like Karelian, almost bottomless reserves of experience and will.

  I have no idea how long it went on. We saw them strike, parry, and strike again; heard them shout; saw them wheel their mounts and circle and charge again with cries of rage; heard the clash of steel and the bursts of cheering which swept across the ranks, cheering which turned sometimes into soft waves of awe, and finally into silence.

  It was a long time before I saw it, so trapped I was in my own confusion, my terrible blinding weakness. I may well have been the last man there to see it. It was the silence which made me understand, finally— the stillness of an entire world, where nothing moved except those two men, and God,and darkness.

  Gottfried was going to lose.

  Oh, it was not over
, not nearly over, but a pattern had been set. Again and again the king would attack, smoothly, brilliantly. He used feints which bewildered us with their swiftness and cunning, and yet Karelian’s shield was always there— or nothing was there at all. Again and again their swords met and held, and I would expect Gottfried’s great strength to force Karelian off balance, and give the king an opening; yet somehow the count always eluded him, and always recovered.

  And then, finally, he didn’t.

  Others, pushing and shoving at the edges of the field, did not agree on what occurred. But I had an unbroken view. I saw Gottfried strike. I saw Karelian parry the blow. They stood frozen, blade against blade, for what seemed an eternity. Then with a great burst of strength Gottfried broke the deadlock, and pulled his sword back and thrust again, under Karelian’s shield. The count merely buckled a little, like a man who had been punched in the ribs, and spun away.

  That was when the silence began. Men caught their breaths. Some looked to their neighbors and some looked to heaven, but each one judged the matter as it suited him— luck, or sorcery, or divine protection.

  It was all happening just as Gottfried said it would.

  — Karelian will be shielded by his demons. And if he is shielded well enough, he will need nothing else.

  Nothing else at all. He could take all manner of risks, knowing he was safe. Or he could bide his time until he had worn the king down, until he had exhausted Gottfried’s body and bewildered his mind, until in one carefully chosen moment he could slaughter even a god.

  My confusion drained away, and bitter anger took its place. I damned Karelian a thousand times more fiercely than I would have damned any devil out of hell, even Lucifer himself.

  And I steadied my will, and my hand, and my eye, and I waited.

  — He will not shield his back, Pauli. He will think there is no need….