Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  “Is he their king?” asked a wiry girl-child with fierce eyes.

  “Not so high,” Marric said. “They’re calling him a count.”

  Breaths hissed. “Is that higher than a lord?” the girl wanted to know.

  “Oh, yes,” said a redheaded boy in tones of ancient wisdom. “But not as high as a prince.”

  “If he’s what I hear he is,” one of the others said, “he’s higher than anybody.”

  “Then what was he doing with us?” the girl said. “Wasn’t he a drooling idiot in Greenwood?”

  Sarissa bit her lip till it bled. The children babbled on, unmindful of her.

  “He was mad,” the redheaded boy said. “He was all taken out of himself. So for a while he had no wits to speak of. But he got them back. You know that.”

  “I don’t think he wanted people to know who he is,” the girl said.

  “He slew the dragon,” said the boy. “Every mage and enchanter in Montsalvat knows who he is by now.”

  “He can’t help himself,” the girl said. She chewed the end of her fair brown braid, frowning at the great crowd of men below. “He just is, you know? It’s like breathing, for him. He slays dragons. He commands armies. He teaches village children how to fight.”

  They loved him, Sarissa thought. They were not in awe of him, though they knew what he was. He was theirs. They looked on him with a proprietary air, worried for him, but proud, too, and sure that once he had disposed of all these clamoring strangers, he would come back to them again.

  They took no notice of her. But Marric left his pony to graze on the hillside and sat beside her as bogles liked to sit, knees drawn up to chest, sharp chin on them. He was very large for a bogle, as large as a smallish man, and sturdy as bogles went, like a brown tree-root.

  “You’ve prospered,” she said to him.

  He shrugged. “I get by. And you—you’re all worn down with worry. For him?”

  “For everything,” she said.

  “But a great deal for him.” Marric sighed faintly. “He can be a terribly worrisome creature.”

  “Is it true, then?” she asked. “He was mad when he came to you?”

  “Completely out of his head,” the bogle said. “Lost in the hawk’s spirit, and no man left in him at all. You see that woman down there, holding his horse, making sure he doesn’t see how she’s looking at him? She took him in. She fed him, clothed him. She taught him to be a man again.”

  Sarissa had not seen the woman until Marric pointed to her, out of so many. This was not so much a child; she was a woman grown, and ripe with it, with a great deal of fiery hair and a broad, unbeautiful but very comely face. Her eyes on Roland were raw with hunger, and with something like grief.

  “Maybe it wasn’t wise to tell me this,” Sarissa said to the bogle.

  “Maybe,” Marric said. He did not seem dismayed. “Will you kill her for doing what you were too haughty to do?”

  “That was presumptuous,” she said.

  “Bogles are,” he said. “Look at her. She knows he’s not for her. She cast him off as soon as she was sure of it. She wounded him, but he’ll recover. He’s strong again. You know how a broken bone heals—maybe it’s thicker, sturdier than before. Maybe his spirit is like that.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Sarissa said. “For running away. For staying away so long. For—”

  “For coming to know this kingdom as few lords would trouble to know it? For taking its land and people to himself? For coming back when he could have run far away and never come near this place—or you—again?”

  She thrust aside the pain of that, though it was like a knife cutting her heart. “Why did he come back? Did you force him? Or Tarik?”

  “Truth to tell,” Marric said, “Lord Huon’s man saw the pair of shoulders he has and counted him in the muster, though he was still as witless as a newborn baby. But when he had his mind back, he stayed with us.”

  “Huon knows?”

  Marric tilted his head. “Look at the shield.”

  It was hanging on the gelding’s saddle, uncovered, gleaming in the last of the light. Blue field, silver swan. Her brows rose as high as they would go. “And where did Huon of the Horn get a shield with that device, of all that he must have in his armories?”

  “Ah, well, you know,” said Marric. “These lords from the old days, they keep any number of things. And maybe some prince of Carbonek left it behind, a long time ago.”

  “Does he know?”

  “I don’t think so,” Marric said. “The common folk aren’t likely to know or care, and he doesn’t trouble himself with the lords.”

  “But surely—” Sarissa shook her head. “No, who notices a captain of foot? Or pays attention to what he carries on his shield? It could be livery, after all.”

  “Lords would do well sometimes,” Marric observed, “to lower their noses a bit and see what’s passing underfoot.”

  “Champions and dragons,” she said. She had lost sight of Roland. The Franks had taken him away to their camp.

  The redheaded woman handed his gelding to one of the villagers who still lingered, though most had gone with Roland and the Franks. She climbed up the hill, wearily, and flung herself on the grass beside Marric. She did not seem to see Sarissa, or if she did, to reckon her worth taking notice of.

  “They’re going to fight over him,” Marric said, “if somebody doesn’t do something.”

  “Not tonight,” said the woman. “I made them swear to keep their heads low and their eyes on him. And make sure he sleeps where he belongs.”

  “With the Franks?”

  She shot him a glare. “With his own people.”

  “But those are—” Sarissa began, startled out of silence.

  “We are his people,” the woman said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Sarissa carefully refrained from speaking her thoughts, which were too confused in any case to make much sense of. Of all the ways she might have expected Roland to come back, this was one of the last.

  And yet it was very like Roland. She sighed and let herself sink back into the grass. The stars were blossoming overhead. The earth was quiet beneath her, secure in the living presence of the Grail.

  As was he. As, at last, was he.

  CHAPTER 50

  Roland did not sleep that night. The Franks needed to know that he was there, that he was alive and safe. Then his recruits insisted on their share of him. It was close to dawn before he saw them all bedded down and quiet—they had been full of themselves tonight, of dragonslaying and coming to the castle, and of discovering that he was somewhat more than they had taken him for.

  Those brash young things were mercifully unperturbed by it. Once they knew his rank and where he came from, they seemed rather more content than not. They were inclined to strut in front of Lord Huon’s veterans, and let it be known that while Huon was only a lord, Roland was a count.

  His tent was pitched where it usually was in their camp. There was another for him with the Franks, where Turpin slept now, snoring to wake the dead. If Turpin had been awake he would have gone there, simply to be with that best of friends again. But he elected to settle in neither.

  He walked for a long time through the camp. This was not an army yet. It was a gathering of discrete forces, veterans and recruits, lords and commons. It had no one commander, no king or general to stand before it and make of it one single potent weapon against the enemy.

  Who would lead it, then? The Grail-king was dying. There must be a captain among them all, someone to speak for him, stand forth for him, rule in his name.

  Roland passed the last line of the camp, which happened to be that of the Franks, and crossed the empty space between camp and castle. The bridge was down over the deep chasm, the portcullis raised. There was no need to close off the stronghold while so many warriors stood between it and attack.

  The earth was quiet. Dragons did not sleep there, not so close to the Grail. He paused on the edge of the bridge. The
chasm breathed beneath, deep beyond knowledge. The castle loomed above him, gleaming softly against the stars. The Grail was singing.

  Its song filled him. Without will, without fear, he crossed the bridge and entered the castle.

  He ascended through dim-lit ways. No living creature met him. As he passed doors and passages, he heard or smelled or sensed the people within. They were all asleep or deep in prayer. None came out to see who passed them in the dark before dawn.

  Somewhere between the first court and the stair winding up to the tower, he gained a companion. Tarik in cat-shape stalked softly in his wake. That seemed fitting, somehow, and oddly comforting.

  He was not ascending to the Grail. The Grail was elsewhere, but close—so close that its singing nigh deafened him to mortal sounds. This was a high tower, its stair steep, spiraling up into the gloom. Gloom, not darkness: there were slits of windows along the ascent, and the light of dawn shone dimly through them.

  It brightened slowly as he ascended. The way was long. He was in no way moved to turn back. He must come to the top of the tower. What was there, or why, he cared little. The call was too strong for conscious thought.

  He reached the end of the stair at last, and paused, waiting for his breathing to slow, his heartbeat to quiet. His legs ached with the effort of ascending so many steps—hundreds; he had lost count long ago. Tarik, wise thing, had climbed to his shoulder and so traveled in comfort.

  As Roland leaned against the wall at the top of the stair, Tarik slithered down the length of Roland’s body and butted his head against the iron-bound door. It opened silently.

  Within was a high round chamber full of pale blue light. A table stood in its center. On the table lay a globe of crystal. And in the globe, as if grown out of it, was his sword.

  He did not remember crossing the room. His hand was on the hilt. He knew a shiver of irony, a memory too old almost to catch: Merlin’s face in a shimmer of leaves, and his voice telling a tale of a sword and a stone, and a boy who never knew what he was until he had drawn the sword.

  Roland knew what he was. He was the Count of the Breton Marches, and Merlin’s pupil, and a captain of soldiers. He belonged to Durandal, or Durandal to him. He had won the sword in fair fight, and with it the name of champion.

  Champion of Montsalvat. Which was here—this kingdom, this castle.

  If he drew the sword, there was no turning back. He had fled once, all the way into nothingness, no name, no mind, no memory, not even a human form in which to house his spirit. He could not do that again.

  The sword and the Grail had called him. They had brought him here. He knew well what they wanted; what they insisted on. Nor did they care if he might object, or find himself unworthy. They were not human, nor vexed with mortal fears.

  He was not altogether human, either. He was a dead man—twice, if one reckoned the death of self beside the death of the body. “I did die at Roncesvalles, didn’t I?” he said. “The Grail brought me back. It’s determined that I do this thing. Fight this war. Oppose this enemy.”

  “You were born for that.”

  He did not turn. He would know that voice in any place, living or dead or wandering the lands between.

  Sarissa went on, low and steady. “Consider who you are, whose blood is in your veins. Blood of old gods, blood of the Grail. Parsifal is your kin, no more distant than Merlin. You were set on this earth to stand against that one, the enemy of the Grail.”

  “And I swore,” said Roland, “to set Merlin free.”

  She came to stand somewhat apart from him. She was dressed as he had seen her on the hill the day before: coat of mail, sturdy hose, boots laced to the knee. Her hair was plaited behind her. There was a sword at her side.

  She looked paler than he remembered, and thinner. Her face was fine-drawn with strain.

  He looked for anger. He found it in plenty, but it would not come to his hand. She had done an ill thing. She had not meant it ill. She had done it out of unwisdom, not out of malice.

  Olivier was dead, but not because of her. He faced that, though the pain was almost more than he could bear. Ganelon’s treachery had brought about that death. Ganelon had laid the ambush against Roland. Ganelon’s servants had destroyed the Companions.

  If it was anyone’s fault, it was Roland’s own. He had killed two of Ganelon’s servants. He was Merlin’s child. He was Ganelon’s enemy from the moment he drew breath.

  He was not about to forgive Sarissa. That was not so easy or so quick. But he could lay his anger aside. He could draw the sword out of the stone. He could raise it in salute, then lower it to rest point down against the floor. He had not known that there was an emptiness in him till the sword filled it. But now he knew, he would not willingly let it go again.

  Sarissa had gone still. She spoke out of that stillness. “The king would speak with you,” she said.

  He inclined his head. He too had heard the call. It was a clearer, stronger voice than he would have expected, though strangely distant: a voice of the spirit, all but sundered from flesh.

  The Grail-king lay in his bed in the antechamber of the Grail. A single attendant sat with him, a plump woman with grey braids and an air of unassuming modesty. But beneath the skin was a white fire of power.

  Roland bowed to them both, king and lady of the Grail. The lady smiled, frankly admiring him. He blushed and looked down, which made her laugh.

  The king had no strength of the body for a smile, but his welcome was warm. Roland knelt beside the narrow bed. He still had the sword in his hand; he laid it by the king’s side.

  Parsifal’s hand shifted slightly to rest over the blade. His living voice was faint, scarcely to be heard. “So. You accept the charge.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Roland asked, but not bitterly. He was past bitterness.

  “You could walk away,” said Parsifal.

  Roland did not see the use in answering that.

  Parsifal’s lips twitched. “We would have been hellions together when I was young,” he said.

  He sighed. The grey-haired lady stirred, but Roland had seen what was needed. He lifted the king gently in the curve of his arm, and bolstered him so that he could sit up somewhat and breathe a little more easily. There was little more to him than bone and fragile skin.

  The king’s thanks were silent but clear enough. “Take it, then,” he said. “Take command. Nieve, Sarissa, bear witness. This man speaks with my voice. I give him all power that he requires, to conduct this war, to tend my people. Let no one contest him. Let none refuse him. He stands where I would stand. He commands as I would command.”

  Both women bowed. Neither seemed inclined to object. Roland had lost the power to do that when he crossed the bridge into the castle.

  “Sarissa, look after him,” the Grail-king said. “Teach him what he must know. But be swift! The enemy is nearly here.”

  Roland glanced, perhaps unwisely, at Sarissa. This was a rebuke if she chose to take it as such, and perhaps a punishment.

  She did not seem unduly cast down, nor did he sense any anger in her. Like him, maybe, she accepted the duty that was laid on her.

  The king sank back as she bowed assent. For an instant Roland’s heart stopped, but Parsifal breathed still, if faintly. He clung to life, but his strength was nearly spent.

  Roland bent to kiss the bone-thin hand, then after a pause, the smooth cool brow. “Rest,” he said. “Sleep. I’ll look after your people for you.”

  They left the king to his rest, and to such restoration as was left him. Sarissa led Roland down from the Grail’s tower. She did not speak, nor did he.

  The sun had risen while he spoke with the king. The castle was awake, its people stirring. Sarissa brought him to a high hall full of sunlight. It looked eastward through many tall windows, each paned with precious glass. Some of the panes were grey or clear, but many were jewel-bright, casting shards of blue and green, red and purple and gold, on the white stone of the floor. White pillars held up the ro
of. Tapestries hung on the walls, jeweled marvels, teeming with figures that seemed to stir and breathe.

  Roland might have wandered off to examine the hangings, but there were people waiting in the hall: seven ladies in white, and a gathering of men and women in the garb of nobles or warriors, priests or servants. He recognized the look and the manner of them. These were the rulers of Carbonek, the high court of its king.

  He stood in front of them. Durandal rested naked in the crook of his arm, for he had yet to find a sheath for her. God alone knew where her old one was. He was trying not to feel both young and inept; in this gathering, he was both.

  They were all staring at him, measuring him as everybody did in Montsalvat. He could not have been a prepossessing sight. He had left his mail in the Franks’ camp. His leather tunic was worn and stained. His hair had not seen a comb nor his chin a razor since well before he did battle with the dragon. His eyes were gritty with sleeplessness. His mouth was dry.

  “Well-watered wine,” he said. “Fetch it—enough for all of us. And something simple to eat. And chairs to sit in.”

  People obeyed him. He did not let them see surprise. A commander expected obedience.

  While they waited for food and drink and comfort, Roland set himself to learning names and offices. The ladies of the Grail he could hardly mistake. The captain of the king’s guard, the steward of his castle, the chancellor in his gold chain of office, those he could recognize. He guessed that the handful of men in armor were knights of the Grail. The rest had duties and offices which he must learn to remember, and titles, and rank of which some were very conscious.

  It was no worse than being captain of an army. The clothes were richer and the tempers quicker, that was all.

  The wine came, and baskets of bread, and platters of meats and cheese, fruit and cakes. Roland was glad to sit in the chair that was set for him, no higher or grander than the others. He laid Durandal across his knees. Tarik, appearing from air as was his way, curled purring in his lap.

  It had become an oddly convivial gathering. He could, while he ate and drank, reckon factions and mark lines of battle. Sacred kingdom this might be, but those who ruled it were men and women. They squabbled in human fashion, and made enemies of one another, and eyed the one set over them as if he must choose among them.