“Damsel, if I may.”
She put the Spear into his hands. He went to his knees by King Pelles. Blanchefleur did not hear their low words, but she saw tears spring up in the eyes of the grandfather of Galahad. Then the Grail Knight eased back the King’s robe and unbound the wound he had suffered so long ago by the hand of Sir Balyn in this very place. It was partly healed, but festered below the surface. When Galahad poised the Spear above the wound, Blanchefleur quickly transferred her gaze to the window. Only King Pelles’s groaning breath was audible as the Grail Knight sliced through the oozing flesh. Then the breath slowed and the smell receded. There was a soft murmur of surprise from Branwen, and Blanchefleur turned to see the King of Carbonek, tears streaking his face, rise to his feet supported by Galahad at one elbow and Heilyn at the other.
King Pelles put them aside, took the remaining three steps to the table alone, and knelt. The company in that little room was still watching him in silent wonder when Naciens reached out and lifted the samite cover from the Holy Grail.
A burst of light blinded all of them. Blanchefleur flinched and flung up a hand to cover her eyes, but before she had lifted it as far as her mouth her eyes hardened to the blaze and she stood poised in sudden joy. They were standing in the spire of Sarras with the whole world unfolded around them.
Perceval said, “Mirabilis!” Nerys lifted both her hands to her mouth; all the colour drained from her cheeks. Branwen, with wide unblinking eyes, moved over to Heilyn and slipped her hand into his. But Naciens said to Galahad: “Holy knight of God, take this long burden from my keeping, and release me from the vow I made to Joseph of Arimathea at the uttermost dawn of my life.”
Galahad took the Cup from the hermit’s hands, carefully, for it was brimming full of wine. He turned to the company. “Now the Quest of the Grail is achieved,” he declared.
And he said: “Knights, and servants, and true children, you have come out of deadly life into spiritual life. I give you no new teaching. Only an old one, lest it be forgotten: adnuntite mortem Domini donec veniat, for this is the only true foundation of the City. Now take and receive the high meat which you have so much desired, for this night the Grail shall depart from the realm of Logres.”
All of them received the Eucharist there at his hands.
When this was done, Galahad said: “Come down with me into the City.”
“Gladly,” said Perceval, and the nine of them followed the Grail Knight in silence down the stair to the grassy cathedral floor.
Blanchefleur stopped under the steeple and knelt to feel the ground for a tell-tale hollow. There it was, but the broken saint had been repaired, and stood again upon the spire of the cathedral.
The sound of feet and awed whispers moved away. Near her there was only silence until a voice spoke.
“What are you looking for?” Perceval asked.
She let the joy flood her face and ebb a little before she rose and turned around. “Proof I was not dreaming, when I was here last. …It is good to see you again.”
There was a little wry twist in his smile. “As I promised. Little knowing by what inexplicable favour I should be permitted to come at all.”
His shamefast words struck her with mute surprise. He had indeed changed, and much for the better. She should keep silent, she thought. Or he might discover how far beneath him she truly was.
He held out his hand to lead her to the terrace and she took it with a wistful smile.
By now, surely, she should be accustomed to the grandeur of Sarras, but once again the view snatched her out of herself, so that she seemed unbodied and all but unpersoned before the sheer living presence of the City. And yet now new marvels appeared. Now, throughout the streets and halls, throughout the gardens and orchards, glimpsed through stone lattices or clustered by the riverside, walked and wrought a great company of people, like the stars of heaven for number.
When Blanchefleur became once again aware of nearby things, she saw Galahad at the foot of the steps leading from the terrace to the street beneath them. He was speaking with a man that loomed head and shoulders over him like a giant cast in brass.
“What is happening?” Blanchefleur whispered to Perceval with a sudden premonition.
The Grail Knight fell back a step. He and the man of brass bowed to one another with courtly grace. Then Galahad returned to where they all stood on the terrace. His look was solemn, but Blanchefleur sensed a wild gladness struggling beneath.
“Fair friends,” he said, holding out his hands to them. As he stopped and fumbled for words, Blanchefleur understood, and it was like swallowing a lump of stone.
“You aren’t leaving us?”
He looked back to her with all the earnest warmth that had lain between them since the beginning of the world. “I am given my wish.”
In the silence that followed, only the hermit, Bors, and Perceval stood unconfounded. Among the others a blank distress hung in the air, until Blanchefleur spoke again with tears in her eyes. “Why? What about Logres? What about the rest of the Table? We were waiting for you to change everything.”
Perceval, beside her, said: “We were wrong, Blanchefleur.”
“I have done everything I came to do,” said Galahad gently. “My work is over. Yours is beginning.”
“Ours? Are we going to restore Logres?”
Galahad’s silence flung the question back to her.
“Well, of course we are supposed to, but I thought you were going to help us.”
“I have helped you,” said Galahad. “Bors and Perceval remain.”
Perceval said, “I know what troubles you. We all of us expected the Grail Knight to come and restore Logres. We waited too long. We believed that he would do our work for us. And when he did come to remind us of what we had forgotten, that the work is every man’s, none of us were ready for him. None of us were ready for the Quest.” Memory clouded his eyes. “Gareth was the only one of us who suspected…”
“The truth is, all of you are called,” said Galahad. “All of you must drink of the same Cup.”
“But it is leaving us,” said Heilyn, speaking for the first time, and turning red when he had spoken.
Galahad smiled at him. “Fair friends, it was given to all of you. Continue to eat, continue to drink, continue to build on that foundation.”
He moved restlessly and cast a glance behind to the one who waited like a statue below. Nerys, who had stood among them all this while without speaking, looked to the man of brass as well. There was a white-lipped desperation in her voice. “May I—may not anyone else go with you?”
The Grail Knight looked at her with pity. “Damsel, but one other. Naciens.”
The hermit glanced up as if doubting whether to believe his ears. But Galahad beckoned to him, and he moved forward almost timidly. “Five hundred years I watched and kept the Grail. I rejoice that my task is done. Yet, damsel, I will watch a little longer, here on these steps, until your coming.”
But Nerys kept her eyes fixed on the man of brass, and pleaded as if to him. “Sir, I remember well the day I first opened my eyes on the young cosmos. I am old now, older even than the Hermit of Carbonek. And I have not forgotten. For centuries beyond count I have waited in silence to know if, beyond this world, there is hope for me. At least show some sign that I may hope.”
Not a muscle moved in that strange and splendid face. Then the head sank by an inch, as if to give acknowledgement or assent, but no word or look came to give comfort. Nerys let out the ghost of a sigh and turned away as if unable to bear his gaze.
Naciens came and gripped Blanchefleur’s shoulder with one hand and Heilyn’s shoulder with the other. “Fair children,” he began, rasping, and then cleared his throat and spoke more briskly. “When you finish with Ptolemy, Heilyn, I meant to have you read Isidore of Malitus. And, Blanchefleur, read as you like, only never forget to snuff the candles. Christ keep you both.”
Galahad embraced Bors and Perceval. To Bors, passing the sword of Baly
n into his kinsman’s hands, he said: “Fair lord, remember me to my father, Sir Lancelot, and bid him beware the inconstant world. I have nothing to give him, except this.”
To Blanchefleur he said, “Sweet sister, as your labour is longer than mine, so your honour is the greater.”
She flung her arms around him. “Not so,” she said, her breath catching on a sob, “but as your honour is greater than mine, so your labour is the shorter.”
“Let time prove that, Lady of Logres,” he said, and then, gently loosing her arms, “The Messenger is waiting.”
He and Naciens went down the steps into the City. Then, lightly and smoothly, those who were left stirred and breathed and looked at each other in the Grail Chapel of Carbonek, in the last grey light of day.
No one spoke in the fading memory of Sarras. With a pang Blanchefleur wondered whether she might ever see it again, or whether this day’s golden memory must last her until the end—and she snatched hastily at glittering sands of remembrance… But they ran through her fingers even as she scooped them up, and already the seconds, like advancing waves, were washing them away.
At last King Pelles cleared his throat and said in a stronger voice than she had yet heard him use: “One more thing remains to be done.”
He unbuckled the sword-belt at his waist and handed it, scabbard and all, to Perceval. “The last of the curse,” he explained. “Heal the sword, and the wandering castle will be fixed again in her own valley.”
Perceval let the sword slip out of its scabbard onto the empty table where the Signs had once lain. The blade was broken in two pieces. When he had prayed a while, he joined them together, and they gripped each other and became whole. Only the blade was marred by a scar where the two halves joined together.
“Ah,” said the King. “You might have asked the question and healed the sword the first time you came to Carbonek, and the Quest would have been the easier. You did not, and therefore there is a mark. But keep the sword. I have no heir, and I am too old to fight; I leave it to you.” He turned to Heilyn and Branwen. “Children, I am healed, but I think I will need your help down the stair.”
“Wait,” said Perceval. He unslung his own sword, and held it out to Heilyn. “Will you be my man, squire of Carbonek?”
Heilyn looked at the knight in awe. “Aye, sir. If my father favours it, sir.”
“Speak to him,” said Perceval with a smile that broke upon his solemn face like sun after rain. He turned to Blanchefleur. “It is cold and dark here, lady. Let us go.”
Blanchefleur glanced at Nerys. The fay had not spoken since her outburst in Sarras and now she stood silhouetted against one of the windows, her face in darkness. Blanchefleur wished she could do or say something to comfort her. But could any mortal understanding comprehend the sorrow of aeons?
“Will you come down?” she whispered.
“In a while.”
Blanchefleur touched her hand gently, and went to Perceval at the door. He offered his arm and turned to go.
“Coming, Bors?”
“Coming.”
The door to the lifeless chapel closed behind them. The Quest was done.
27
Lean on me, come away,
I will guide and steady:
Come, for I will not stay:
Come, for house and bed are ready.
Rossetti
BLANCHEFLEUR WOKE TO BOUNCING.
“Look outside! Look at the sun! Look at the trees! There are apples! And mountains!”
“Branwen,” she groaned, slitting one eye open to squint at her bedfellow, “must you?”
Branwen, haloed in yellow hair that tickled Blanchefleur’s face, went on bouncing. “Your knight returned the castle to its true locus! I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up and show us what it’s like! Come and see!”
Further sleep was clearly impossible. Blanchefleur allowed herself to be dragged out of bed and herded to the narrow window. Here, in the first golden flood of morning light, she looked east down a long and winding valley clustered over with hundreds of apple-trees. Pools of molten fire betrayed the presence of water. Low, mossy ruins could be glimpsed among the orchards—foundations of destroyed houses, skeletons of sheep-pens, all blurred and softened by tiny flowering creepers.
“Isn’t it lovely?”
Blanchefleur had almost decided to be cross. But the gorgeous landscape and the mild summer air urged her against it. “Yes. It’s beautiful.”
“I know what we should do,” Branwen said.
“Have breakfast.”
“Oh, yes, but then we should all go out and explore. We can take food, and not come back until dark.”
“Is that quite safe? Who knows what might be here after all these years?”
“Oh, bah! Nobody does villainy on a day like this. Race you downstairs.”
“No. I want to go up to the chapel, first.”
She ascended the winding stair, sunk in thought. Galahad gone. The work only beginning. What did it all mean? She thought of continuing for the rest of her life in a blind and desperate struggle like the one she had just endured with the Witch of Gore, and a tide of weariness swept over her.
She tapped on the door and went into the chapel. Nerys had not come down last night, even late, after Perceval had finished telling them his story, or even later, when Blanchefleur had lain awake waiting for her soft footstep and the unhurried swish of her skirts as she let herself into the room the fay shared with Branwen.
This morning, the Grail Chapel seemed less forlorn. Yellow morning light on thousand-hued windows painted the tiny room with colour. The King’s couch was still there, although it had been pushed back against a wall with the rug folded tidily at its foot. Although the fay was nowhere to be seen, that rug bore mute and comforting witness to her hand.
“Nerys?” Blanchefleur called softly, then repeated herself, louder. No sound or motion answered from behind the hangings that masked her old sleeping-chamber. She pulled the tapestry back and peered inside. This, too, was empty, but the bed was neatly made—a thing for which Blanchefleur rarely, if ever, found the time—and the faint pleasant scent of Nerys hung in the air.
She climbed into the little closet, pulled on fresh clothing, wadded her old dress into a bundle and went back downstairs to the laundry. She found Nerys next door in the kitchen, grinding salt in the big mortar while Branwen ran back and forth between the hall and Dame Glynis with names and numbers for the exploration company.
Dame Glynis gave Blanchefleur three errands to do and then said, as an afterthought: “I shall have your things brought down from the Chapel. The Lady Elaine’s room can be yours.”
“Oh,” said Blanchefleur, surprised. It was one of the best chambers in the castle, the kind reserved for persons of high honour. Like the Heir of Logres.
“My thanks,” she said. “But I think I would rather sleep with Branwen and Nerys.”
Dame Glynis did not understand. “There are couches for attendants in the room. I’ll have them made up.”
She left for the infirmary with a bundle of dried herbs under one arm, and Blanchefleur sighed. If only she could postpone being treated like royalty until she was sure of herself, she thought, fetching bread and meat from the pantry for lunch.
After breakfast the party of explorers set out. Sir Bors, Sir Perceval, and a handful of other knights from Carbonek had already scouted the countryside for danger. Closer to the castle, those who before the Dolorous Stroke had been farmers had been out since sunrise inspecting the ruins of their old homes, and now clustered by this or that pile of stones and timbers, gesturing or pacing out new foundations. Many of the men were too old now to hammer stone and fell timber, but their tall sons, grown in exile, multiplied their former strength. The village would rise soon.
Mounted on ponies or rambling on foot, the adventurers followed the stream down the valley beneath summer leaves.
Blanchefleur rode for the first mile or two. Ahead she glimpsed Perceval, armed for
safety’s sake and newly mounted on one of three horses provided, as he had explained last night, when he, Galahad, and Bors had left the white ship. Branwen, also pony-mounted, bumped along beside him chattering like a magpie. He laughed and talked and never looked back, or reined in, to speak to Blanchefleur. She tried not to care.
Instead, at the first opportunity she left the pony to a walker with tiring feet, and dropped to the back to speak to Nerys.
“Isn’t it lovely down here?”
“Yes,” Nerys said.
“The fruit-trees!”
“Yes.”
“The wild roses!”
“Yes.”
Blanchefleur tried to think of something else to say. Instinct had always warned her not to tread too close to a subject of grief. Only a very close friend could presume to share one’s woes. But who was Nerys’s friend, if not herself?
So she murmured, “Are you going to be all right?”
Nerys smiled very sheepishly. “Yes.”
Heartened, Blanchefleur slipped her arm through her old companion’s, and they walked on in amicable silence for a little way.
“I thought about it,” Nerys said. “And then I was very ashamed of myself, because I stood there in Sarras, and asked for a sign. How many of the living have seen that City? To have stood in those streets is itself a sign.”
Blanchefleur smiled. But after a moment she said, “I wish I found the events of yesterday as easy to understand as you do. The Grail Knight is dead. All our hopes. And only us left.”
Nerys looked at her. Was there a glint of laughter at the back of those grey eyes? But of course, Nerys had seen uncertain victories before. And she had seen the hope that followed far more tragic defeat.
Blanchefleur blushed a little and said, “You’re right.”
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