Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  The two monks bowed to the floor. “Borel is dead,” said one. He had a soft voice, almost too soft to hear, full of the hiss of breath.

  “And why is Borel dead? What killed him?”

  “Blood of the Grail,” said the hissing voice. There was no emotion in it at all.

  “Did you know? Did you shrink from telling me?”

  “Lord,” said the monk. “Lord and master. He went to be certain, before he sought you out. It was hidden so well, warded so strongly—it could have been nothing. A memory; a dream.”

  “Dreams do not destroy your kind,” Ganelon said. “Great power destroys them. Power great enough to stand against us. Power of the Grail.” He knelt beside his prostrate servants. His voice dropped to a hiss, colder and far more deeply disturbing than theirs. “If it knows—if it has discovered what we are doing—”

  “We are warded, master,” said the monk. “And we know now that it is here. We can—”

  “We can do nothing,” Ganelon said, “until we know its face.”

  “Master,” said the second monk, even more softly than the first, “the sword that the Saracen gave—is it a mortal sword?”

  Ganelon’s back stiffened. “You know it is not.”

  “The one who presented it—did you see her?”

  “I saw a woman of the Saracens,” said Ganelon.

  “Her name,” said the monk, “is Sarissa.”

  Ganelon sat on his heels as if he had been struck a blow. He stayed so for a long moment. Then he said, “Ah, so. It has been too long—too long in the dark, too long in forgetfulness. I’ve forgotten all I knew. To have failed to perceive that one of that kind was here, and that one of them all—to take her for no more than she seemed to be—indeed I have grown blind.”

  “She may not know of us,” the second monk said. “The Frankish king is a great beacon in the night of this world, a great center of prophecy. Might not the Grail have come seeking him, too, master? As we did?”

  “It would be astonishing if it had not,” said Ganelon.

  His servants rose, bowed deeply, slipped away.

  “Will they kill the woman?” Pepin asked.

  Ganelon was silent for so long that Pepin reckoned himself ignored once more. Then he said, “What purpose would that serve?”

  “She’s an enemy. She killed Borel.”

  “If she killed Borel,” said Ganelon, “then she will pay. There are worse punishments than death.”

  Pepin wanted to ask what they were, but another question struck him with more urgency. “What is blood of the Grail?”

  “Much too high a thing for your understanding,” Ganelon answered.

  “Teach me, then,” said Pepin.

  “No,” Ganelon said.

  Ganelon would say no more, not for pleading, not for threats. He went back to his endless ink and parchment. Pepin went off to sulk.

  Too high for him, was it? Too lofty for him to understand? He could see well enough that Ganelon was angry, and maybe even a little afraid. Whatever this Grail was, it must be very powerful and very terrible to incite Ganelon’s enmity. It had killed Borel, which could not be an easy thing to accomplish. Pepin knew already that Ganelon’s monks were something other than men.

  Pepin went hunting the Grail’s servant. On his way he paused where some of the young men were at practice with swords. That practice had a purpose to it now, to prepare for war in Spain; they were even more exuberant than usual, leaping and whirling and making a great deal of noise.

  Roland was with them. He had the sword. The beautiful sword that made Pepin’s heart ache when he looked at it.

  She had brought it to Francia. That, he understood. Had this Grail made it, then? Or laid a magic on it? It shimmered as Roland wielded it, and sang a high sweet song.

  Roland was as beautiful as the sword, dancing in the sun, bareheaded and dressed in a leather tunic, with his black hair flying as he spun. His back was straight, his steps light. As Pepin paused, Roland paused also, blade hovering, poised to fall and cleave a lesser blade in two. His face was rapt.

  It was not the straight back or the breathless grace or even the sword that woke Pepin to a pure and perfect hate. It was that face as it stared through him, the yellow eyes clear and focused and yet utterly remote, the mouth smiling ever so faintly. The world belonged to Roland, and well he knew it. Whatever he touched turned to gold.

  Pepin, whose father was a king, struggled for every gift that was given him. Roland stretched out his hand and took whatever he pleased. Roland the Breton, the witch’s child. Before he came to court, Pepin told himself, people had noticed Pepin; had cared what he thought of them. Then Roland came, and everyone ran after him, fell in love with him, hung on his every word.

  Part of Pepin knew perfectly well that he was being unreasonable. But there was no denying that Roland had been a favorite from the moment he walked into the king’s presence, with his quick wits and his wild beauty. No one ever loved Pepin at first glance. Pity was more likely, or ill-suppressed revulsion.

  Pepin was hunting another quarry now. But he would have Roland, too. When he had mastered magic, he would teach that young upstart the meaning of pain. He would twist that so-straight back and mar that handsome face. He would take away all its arts of war and the dance, and the sword, too. He would have them all. And Roland would be left with nothing.

  Pepin went on in dark satisfaction, though somewhat weakened by the knowledge that he had, as yet, scarcely even seen magic, let alone wrought it.

  She had been among the women, but had left, one of the queen’s maids said, on some errand of her own. Pepin paid the maid with a silver ring—a high price, but she would not speak to him for less—and when he tried to snatch a kiss, she slipped lithely away. “For that you pay gold,” she said.

  Pepin would not give her the pleasure of seeing him angry. He smiled, which made her stare, and sauntered off with every appearance of ease. She too, he thought. When he was a great mage, she would pay, too. They would all pay, every human creature who had ever mocked or slighted or pitied him. “Better honest scorn,” he said to the air, “than pity.”

  He went hunting where the maid directed him, into the wood that stretched upward along the mountain’s slopes. He regretted somewhat that he had not paused to commandeer a horse, but the woman had been on foot, he had been assured. Surely he could catch a lone unmounted woman, even if she were something that had Ganelon alarmed. Ganelon was old, and he was slow. Pepin was young and strong and quick enough on his feet, however crooked his back might be.

  He found the marks of her feet soon enough, slender and light, moving without haste but without tarrying, either. She had an assignation, he thought. They would not be the first lovers to tryst in those woods. It was safe enough: no bandits dared raid so close to the king’s tent-city, and the more dangerous beasts had been hunted out long since. There had even been an aurochs, whose kind some had thought vanished from the world. Roland had slain it, of course. Who else would have dared?

  Gnawing on the seeds of his bitterness, almost reveling in them, Pepin wound among the tree-boles. The way was steep for a while, but then it leveled. Birds were singing. Once something small darted through the undergrowth. A fox perhaps. Pepin paused at a stream to slake his thirst, and to regret that he had not brought somewhat with him to eat. The day was warm and growing warmer. The trail went on and on. Sometimes he thought he glimpsed her, but she flitted out of sight again.

  He knew he had been tricked when he realized that he had seen the same cluster of five beeches before, their slender boles like the splayed fingers of a hand. The trail led on, the light tread of narrow delicate feet in the leaves of years, but he stopped.

  The sun was distinctly lower than it had been the last time he looked. He had no weapon but the knife at his belt, no food, nothing at all useful for either finding his way home again or camping for the night in the forest. If he had thought to bring a bow, or a loaf of bread . . .

  The cl
ouds came with evening. The rain began at nightfall. Pepin found shelter in a thicket of trees, dug like a rabbit in the leafmold and nursed his misery until morning.

  He was not cold. Oh, not at all. His anger warmed him wonderfully.

  The worst of it, the very worst, was that it was Roland who found him. He emerged blinking and shivering in a grey morning. The rain had stopped but the clouds hung low. His tracks were all washed away. He could only go downward off the mountain, and follow the rain-swollen streams as they leaped and tumbled toward the lowland.

  Roland and Olivier came on him when the clouds had begun to break. They carried hunting-bows, and Olivier had a brace of hounds on lead. Roland had his great horn slung on a baldric, flaunting it as he always did, splendid prize and rich royal gift that it was. They strode together with the ease of long companionship, and Olivier was chattering of somewhat or other—a woman, probably; that was all Olivier ever thought of.

  Pepin wavered between two base impulses: to fling himself at their feet, weeping with relief, or to hide from them till they were past. The hounds settled it for him. They sprang baying toward him. One slipped its lead and bolted, bowling Pepin over. The other dragged Olivier through the thicket till he stumbled over Pepin’s body.

  When the tangle had sorted itself out, Pepin was on his feet and Olivier was fussing over him like a great ungainly girl. Roland had caught and leashed the hound. He stood back with his air of lordly arrogance, letting Olivier play the fool.

  At long last Olivier’s tongue stopped rattling on for a breath’s span. In the interval, Roland said, “You look as if you were out all night. Were you lost?”

  No doubt he meant to sound properly concerned. To Pepin he only sounded disdainful.

  Pepin lifted his chin as a prince might, and said haughtily, “Take me back to Paderborn.”

  Roland bowed. Insolent, thought Pepin.

  It was a bare hour’s walk back to Paderborn, down off the mountain and along a stream that led to the river. Pepin dismissed his escort in sight of the tent-city. “Go back to your hunt,” he said. He did not thank them. Gratitude would have been a lie. They began laughing, he was sure, as soon as he was out of earshot. Pepin the child, Pepin the fool, lost in the woods almost in sight of his father’s city.

  He would not tell Ganelon of this. Ganelon had the Grail and the Grail’s blood, and the woman who had brought the sword. Roland was Pepin’s enemy. He belonged to Pepin. When the time came to destroy him, Pepin would do it. And no one else.

  He slunk home in humiliation, but it appeared that no one had even noticed he was gone. That for once he was glad of. And when he came to Ganelon, presenting himself as he did each day, for the first time there was something in the tent that had not been there before.

  It was a silver basin, very plain. There was nothing in it but clean pure water. When Pepin slipped through the tentflap, Ganelon said without greeting, “Sit here.”

  Pepin sat as he was told. The basin lay on the table between them. The light of lamps gleamed on its polished sides.

  Ganelon breathed on the water. It quivered and went still. “Tell me what you see,” he said.

  Pepin bent over the basin. “I see water,” he said. “I see silver. I see—” His breath caught.

  “Tell me,” Ganelon said.

  Pepin’s heart was hammering. He could see. God help him, he could see. “I see a woman. I see her.”

  “What is she doing? Tell me. Tell me everything.”

  Pepin did not dare take his eyes from the water that had turned as it were to a glass, reflecting things that were never in this tent at all. But he could ask, “You can’t see?”

  “The Grail and its works are hidden from me. But you they do not know. You can see what I am forbidden.”

  “Yes,” Pepin said. “Oh, yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  It was splendid to have such power, and now of all times, too, when his heart most needed it. He thought for a moment of concealing some of what he saw, but there was no profit in that. Later, when he knew more, understood more, he could keep a portion for himself.

  Today he told the master everything. “I see her standing on a pavement of stone. There is a tower above her. The walls fall far and far away below. A grey cat sits at her feet. There is a man beside her. He sits in an ivory chair. He is wrapped in a mantle, round and round about. He seems cold. He looks . . . old. Not in the face. Not really. His beard is still black. His cheeks are smooth, like a young man’s. But his eyes have seen everything there is to see. I think he may be dying.”

  “Yes,” breathed Ganelon. “Yes.”

  Pepin smiled to himself. His eyes were riveted on the water. “She has a cup in her hands. The cup is full of blood. She holds it to the man’s lips, but he turns his face away. She seems sad, and angry. But he refuses to drink. She walks away from him, very fast. So fast, she spins the world away. And when it stops, she stands . . . here. In this place. With a sword in her hands.”

  “We knew that,” Ganelon said. “Look again. Keep in your mind the man’s image, and the tower beside him.”

  Pepin tried, but all he saw was the woman and the sword. She was holding it out. If he stretched out his hand, he would have it. He would have won the sword.

  At his touch the image shattered. The water was colder than ice, colder even than Ganelon’s heart. He recoiled. It was only water again, quivering in a silver basin.

  “No matter,” Ganelon said with remarkable equanimity. “I only wished to be certain. Now I know.”

  “Was that it?” Pepin asked. “Was that what it is? Blood of the Grail?”

  Ganelon did not answer. But Pepin did not need to hear the word to know it was true. The cup of blood, the dying man, the woman—he had seen them. He, and not Ganelon. He knew them now. In time he would come to understand them.

  CHAPTER 11

  In the handful of days that followed the death of Ganelon’s servant, it almost seemed as if Roland was prevented from approaching the king. He could swear that it was chance, that the preparations for war were engrossing them all, and that the king had little enough time for idle chatter. But whatever the cause of it, Charles continued to see Ganelon as they all saw him, all but Roland: a holy priest, a loyal servant of God and of the king, and tutor to the king’s eldest son.

  The day after Roland and Olivier found Pepin wandering lost in the forest an hour outside of Paderborn, Roland caught the king at last. Charles was just out of bed, washing before he dressed. As Roland had hoped, Charles was all but alone. There was a soft and scented presence behind the curtain that concealed the king’s bed, but Roland sensed no danger there. The servants were of long standing and famously discreet.

  Charles grinned at Roland as he stepped through the tentflap, and said, “Good! I was missing some company this morning.”

  Roland helped the servants dress the king. There was not overmuch to do but hold this garment or that till he was ready to put it on, and be companionable. As Roland helped him into his silk-bordered tunic, Charles said, “Tell me. Are you pleased with your new sword?”

  Roland flushed and looked down. “I know, sire, it was meant for you. If—”

  “Stop that,” said Charles. “You won it fairly. God meant it for you. You’ll do great things with it in Spain, in God’s name.”

  “I do intend to,” Roland said, “but if it belongs to you—”

  “It is yours. Shall I belt it on you, as a king may? Will that convince you?”

  “Your word is enough,” Roland said faintly.

  “Good,” Charles said. “Good, indeed. The assembly will disperse tomorrow, and all the lords and the fighting men go home to prepare for the war in Spain. We’ll travel across Francia ourselves, and secure the kingdom. Then early in the new year, we’ll stand at the gates of the Pyrenees.”

  “Yes,” Roland said. His mind’s eye could see it. The great army; the bright banners. The mountains like a wall rising to the sky.

  Charles smil
ed as if he understood. “Will you forgive me if I don’t release you to return to Brittany? I’ll send good men to administer your domain there. I’ve a mind to keep you near me: you and your sword.”

  Roland’s heart swelled. Of course it was the sword, but it was a great honor. And more than that, it was what he had been praying for. He did not want to leave Charles alone, unprotected, within Ganelon’s reach. Even to fly free in the wood for a little while. Even—even to see Merlin.

  Aloud he said, “I’m honored, sire. I’ll gladly stay and serve you.”

  “What, you don’t mind? I know how you love your country. And . . . your kin there.”

  Charles’ eyes met Roland’s. He knew, but like the Companions, he never spoke of it. “My kin will understand, sire,” Roland said. “Now more than ever.”

  Charles looked hard at him, caught perhaps by a change in his tone, or by a nuance of expression that he had not even been aware of. “Why, sir, you’re afraid for me. Why?”

  There, thought Roland. Now. He drew a breath. “Sire, I hear your son has a new tutor.”

  Charles’ brows rose. “You fear him? The man is elderly. He asked leave to rest from his travels. He is old, he said; he grows weary.”

  “Then he will stay behind, safe in a monastery, when we travel through Francia?”

  “Of course not,” said Charles. “He’ll travel in comfort with the priests and instruct my son. He’s a wise man, and holy.”

  Roland bit his tongue on what he might have said to that. Ganelon left behind could work great evil in Charles’ absence. Ganelon in the court . . .

  Ganelon in the court was under Roland’s eye. The king himself had made sure of that. “Sire,” Roland said. “Do you truly trust him? Do you know who he is, or where he was born?”

  “He was born in Apulia,” said Charles, “of an old family there. He was ordained by Pope Gregory and sent into Francia in the train of the papal legate. He’s been here since; he loves this country, he tells me, as if he had been born in it.”

  It was a very plausible story. More plausible than Roland’s own, if he paused to consider. And yet he had to try to warn the king. “My lord,” he said, “I know that he lies. He was never born in Apulia. Where he was born, I think even he may not remember. He’s old, sire, as old as mountains. The Devil is his master. He’s been corrupting kings since before the Flood.”