It was only the first of many things he intended to claim, including Camelot itself and, in time, the kingdom beyond its walls.
He knelt at the foot of the chair, as though in worship, and pressed his hands flat against the cold stone floor. He could feel the power of the earth flowing through the stones, the sheer thrill of it coursing through his veins. His expression as his head came up had passed beyond supplication into the realms of adoration. The weight of the book and the Chalice, wrapped carefully and stowed in his pack, pulled on his back; the chair was the heart of the chamber, which in turn was the heart of the castle, which in turn was the heart of Albion, making the Siege Perilous the centre of all things — and there was magic in the symmetry of that.
Alymere breathed it in, and then rose to his feet.
He reached out for the chair, though whether to steady himself or claim it for his own it was impossible to say — but before he could lay a hand upon it, a voice rang out across the chamber. "You think to claim the seat even before you take the Oath?" The quiet question reverberated in the stone hall. "Did your time with Lowick teach you nothing then?" Arthur's voice was resigned, almost wistful.
Alymere wheeled on his king, snatching his hand back, and for the second it took for him to master his face, his eyes burned.
"No my liege," he said, forcing himself to sound meek. "I was overcome, sire. It is an extraordinary thing, is it not?"
"It is."
"It is not often in my life that I have come face-to-face with something worthy of legend. My apologies."
For a moment he was sure the king would not be so easily mollified, but he need not have worried.
"I heard about your uncle," Arthur said.
"Anyone would think I was cursed," Alymere said.
"Not words to say lightly, b-" he had been about to say boy, but caught himself. "So, tell me, what have you learned about yourself?"
Alymere's smile was genuine. "It is safe to say I am not the man I was."
"That is good to hear. So, tell me then? There is much I would hear."
And so, for the best part of an hour, the king and the Devil sat side-by-side in the great hall of Camelot, while the Devil spun a tale as full of lies as any that had ever been spoken.
It began in the snows of the borderland and the reivers' pillaging as they sought their prize, the Black Chalice, the Devil's Grail.
The Devil remembered lying in the snow with the maiden, making promises to save the world, and could not help but smile at his naivety. The very best lies had their roots in the truth. He tapped the intense love that had fired Alymere's soul, his fear for Arthur and Camelot, and his desire to be a true man, and used it as the foundation for his lies. What fiercer passion could there be to fire the memory of Medcaut's inferno and the slaughter of the monks at the hands of the reivers? He touched his ruined cheek once during the entire telling but otherwise barely mentioned his injuries, highlighting the knightly qualities a true champion of the unfortunate ought to have. The lies he told may have mirrored the path Alymere had walked, but where each step had in truth led him deeper into darkness, he retold it now as something heroic.
It was the classic quest against insurmountable odds, where, still, somehow, the hero returned with the spoils, the day saved. More than that, it was what the king wanted to hear. Arthur sat silently, attentive.
The king wanted to believe that his judgment had been right — that, in sending Alymere off to learn from Lowick he had made a man of him — so Alymere gave him what he wanted, a tale filled with damsels in distress and selfless heroism, burning buildings, battles to the death, honour, and, at the end, the triumph of good. He transformed Lowick into a valiant knight, and twisted the story of the book and the Chalice until it was a tale worthy of Lancelot himself. And, at the tale's height, he withdrew the book from his pack, opening it and spreading flat its pages, knowing that the king couldn't read a word that it said.
Arthur studied it for a moment, running his fingers over the unintelligible text, mouthing the shapes of words that didn't exist in his mother tongue, and then looked up at Alymere. "I don't understand. How could this lead you to the cup?"
"It is a treasure map, my lord."
"But how could you decipher it? Do you read this script? Is it a language known to you?"
"Aye, sire. It is a tongue common to the Saracens. Baptiste schooled me in it. I must admit I am unfamiliar with its subtleties, but I can muddle my way through most of it, given time."
"Incredible. And these heathens knew the secrets of the dark grail?"
It was an easy lie to tell; how the Devil's cup had been smuggled out of the Holy Land and delivered to a Saracen prince, only to be lost during the wars with the Crusaders and taken to Byzantium as spoils. They knew it as the Cup of the Threskeians — the Deceivers.
"And what properties did the Saracens believe the grail to hold?"
"It is the Devil's Grail, my king, the very antithesis of the cup of Our Lord. And the Devil is the Father of Lies."
"To drink from it brings death?" the king asked sharply.
"Not so literally, sire. The Devil was always a creature of subtlety. It is more insidious, creeping root and branch into every aspect of the drinker's life and twisting it, corrupting and withering it to the point that it bore no resemblance to the life it had been." His words were so close to the truth, but like all great lies, it left one telling 'truth' out — that the drinker must sup of human blood if he was to be spared death.
"And the book told you this?"
Alymere nodded. "It is all in there, my king. All you need is a willingness to believe."
"Where the Holy Father is the key to creation, and his blessing grants life, the Devil's gift is subversion, deceit, and all that is wrong with the world."
The king nodded solemnly.
Alymere continued, warming to his tale. "To sup from the Black Chalice once is to taste the lie. When those around you are hiding the truth, you can see to the heart of the matter. To sup twice from the cup is to live the lie, allowing the drinker the gift of tongues, the Devil's language, allowing him to spin the most plausible lies that speak to the heart of their listeners."
"A dangerous gift," Arthur acknowledged.
"But worse, by far, should the drinker drain the cup of every last drop. The Chalice will grant the drinker the power to conjure the ultimate lies, to bring to life the heart's desire. Imagine: whatever it is the listener needs, the drinker can fashion out of nothing. That is the true power of the Black Chalice; deception. Planting seeds in the needy mind so that they believe what they see and hear is real."
"Sorcery!"
"Of the most heinous kind, my king."
"Then this treasure must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. You have done well, Alymere. Very well."
The greatest king Albion had ever known believed every word of it. He could see it in his eyes. It was like telling a story for a child.
He had planted the seed.
One sip was all it would take. Arthur would not be able to resist. He was surrounded by people who told him what he wanted to hear, which was not necessarily the truth. His was a court of equals, but who could he really trust? What man wouldn't want to know when he was being played for a fool by the people he thought of as allies and friends? More to the point, what king wouldn't want to sit at the Round Table and listen to the arguments of his knights and know who among them was dissembling, who harboured selfish motives, and who was driven by lust and other impurities. Who, in other words, might have their sights set on the throne?
It was the perfect trap for a king, no matter how great he was.
Alymere's smile spread.
"And now," he concluded, lowering his head diffidently, "I have returned with both the book and the Chalice, prepared to take the Oath, if you would still have me as a knight, my liege?"
"It would be both a pleasure and an honour to see you take your seat at the Table." The king rose slowly from his chair and
held out his hand to shake.
Alymere grasped his forearm, sealing the bond, and then started to kneel, but the king stopped him, hauling him back up to his feet with one strong arm.
"No. Not like this. A feat like yours deserves more. Tonight, after the feast when everyone's bellies are bloated and they've shed a tear at the crowning of the May Queen, let us make a proper celebration out of it." He looked over Alymere's shoulder. No words passed between them, but the younger man knew the king was looking at the white stag and recalling a lost friend.
It was only fitting that it should end here tonight amid the revels, Alymere thought.
Let them drink and dance and sing in celebration of his triumph. Let them fete him and shout his name as the bonfires crackled and pretty maids danced around the Maypole. Let them toast his rise to the Table with the poisoned Chalice, let them call him the hero of the feast. Let them cheer his knighthood and mourn for the dead Arthur both at once. "I owe that to your father at the very least."
"Then so it shall be, my king," Alymere said, his voice thick with anticipation.
Fifty
A new moon lit the sky.
Men gathered around the bonfires, waiting for the signal to light them. Flaming brands, held aloft by smiling page-boys, bathed people of every station — from the poorest to the most noble — just the same, making them equals for one night. Standing side by side, the knights and farriers, smiths and serving girls, dukes and priests, were all swept up in the spirit of the evening. As far as they were concerned, the only person counted higher than any other that night waited to be crowned Queen of May.
The sickly-sweet smell of roasting chestnuts drifted over to Alymere. He smiled at the gap-toothed girl standing beside him as she fumbled in her skirts for a coin to pay for the treat. He looked her up and down, seeing the ground-in grime and the threadbare cloth. "Allow me," he said, inclining his head slightly in the direction of the roasting tray. He flipped a coin over the smoking chestnuts. The roaster snatched it out of the air and shovelled a small handful of the nuts into a wooden bowl. He handed it Alymere, who in turn handed it to the gap-toothed girl with a smile. "Please, enjoy, my treat."
She curtseyed clumsily. "Thank you, Sir Knight."
"Just plain 'Alymere' for a few minutes yet, my lady."
He left her to chew on the hot nuts, mingling with the throng of revellers. All around him people were laughing and joking with each other. He saw maidens flirting outrageously with all manner of men, lifting their skirts and tossing back their heads; the moonlight made them all beautiful. No doubt, nine months down the line, more than a few houses would wake up to the shrieking and wailing of new life. After all, that was part of the whole ceremony, wasn't it, the wine, ale and song given in offering to the fertility of the land? He smiled at a young girl with bluebell eyes and skirts that trailed in the mud as she skipped by, followed by three boys who were obviously her brothers, and nodded to a broad-shouldered man about to try his hand against one of the knights in a roped-out wrestling ring. Quite a crowd had gathered to watch the bout. Alymere skirted around the edge of it, going to collect an ale to quench his thirst.
He was very much an outsider here. He did not belong. It wasn't so much the the years the dancers and revellers had grown up together, or that his face was ruined, or that his voice marked him as coming from the north, or even that he had been raised the son of a noble. It was something far deeper than that. Each one of these people was, in their own way, innocent. It had been a long time since Alymere had known that. He could smell it every bit as thickly in the air as the sweat and lust and chestnuts.
The air had grown thick with the milling people's musk; beneath that heavy scent he caught the stink of a woman's menses, of beeswax and of a festering wound that would soon turn gangrenous, of a splash of urine and — he sniffed, trying to isolate the smell — of wet fur. One of the animals had been playing in the river. There were so many other scents. They were unique, overwhelming. And yet he seemed to be the only one aware of them.
By the ale tent a troubadour had taken up residence, planting himself on an upturned log and resting his lute across his knee. Alymere listened to his jaunty little song for a moment. All he could think was that, in a few short minutes, everything would change. The singing would become screaming, the dancing would become panicked flight. They wouldn't know where to turn or who to trust, and then they would see him, Alymere, Killer of Kings, the Black Chalice in his hands, and they would know the true glory of what they had just witnessed, the coming of their new king.
He felt immensely powerful. Mighty. He closed his fist and knew that he had the strength within it to crush Arthur's face — his mouth, his nose, his windpipe — to beat the life out of him, if he chose.
A ragged cheer went up.
Alymere turned to see the girl who would become the May Queen emerge through the gates of Camelot. She was accompanied by three young girls, who barely came up to the belt of flowers she wore around her waist. She wore a garland of daisies twined through the curls of her long black hair, and a simple white fine linen dress that hugged the curves of her body. All four of them carried sprigs of hawthorn. She wasn't a girl, he realised, aware that he was staring; she was without doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. There was something uncannily familiar about her, although he knew he couldn't have seen her before.
His breath quickened, and his head swum with voices of his past, voices of people who had meant something to him: his mother, Lowick, Roth, Baptiste. He heard Bors' booming voice, and the blind monk from Medcaut begging for his life. He heard other voices, less familiar, voices that in many cases he had forgotten he had ever heard. Alymere's soul glimmered briefly, and the Devil stamped it down, hard, asserting himself once more upon the borrowed flesh.
He watched the soon-to-be Queen walk toward the Maypole. Her smile lit up the night.
Had her voice been one of the clamour? How could that be possible? He looked at her again, and as he did so he idly touched the favour tied around his left bicep. His eyes drifted down to the hem of the woman's white dress.
It was torn, a strip of cloth missing.
She walked toward the king, curtseying as she reached him. The revellers formed a circle as they gathered around the Maypole, hushed, expectation bright in their eyes.
Alymere pushed his way toward the front of the circle, his thirst momentarily forgotten. He felt his skin crawl as he brushed up against a fishwife, every fibre raw enough that the slightest touch made him want to cry out. He gritted his teeth against the pain and pushed between a tallow girl — the wax still thick on her skirts — and a butcher's boy who had been making eyes at her. A horde seemed to stand between him and the coronation.
He was minutes away from the kingship. He had thought it through meticulously, utilising Alymere's skills of reasoning; thinking through each possibility and outcome as though preparing a strategy for an upcoming battle. The Devil savoured the irony that, in effect, Arthur had forced this flesh, this mind, to learn the skills that would prove to be the king's ultimate undoing. It was delicious. Had he not meddled — had he simply granted Alymere his wish, freeing him from his ties to Lowick and his northern estates and instead offered him a place in Camelot — none of this could have happened. In trying to prove how fair and just a ruler he was, Arthur had condemned himself. He was a living, breathing dead man, and like all of the damned his breath was about to run out.
Alymere had contemplated poisoning the well — the idea had come to him when Katherine had refused to look at him. He had watched the pail rise slowly, sloshing water over its brim, and realised that by emptying a single cupful of water from the Black Chalice into the drinking water he could have killed every man, woman and child in Camelot. For the devil told Alymere that water from the cup was lethal to those who had not drained it of his hellish blood. The only thing that stayed his hand was how indiscriminate it was. Arthur himself might live while all those around him died, if he wasn't thi
rsty. And even should Arthur have been the first to fall, the water would have been fouled for years, the poison seeping down into the underground lake that fed the well and killing all who drunk from it, so who then would have remained for him to rule over? A king needed his subjects, his knights and his servants, otherwise he was just a fool living in an empty castle.
No, it needed to be much more exact than that — and public. That was paramount. He wanted the world to see Arthur fall, and him rise to take his place. They would toast his rise to the Round Table, each taking a sip from the tainted cup. By drinking his own blood from the cup he had let the Devil in. It was a part of him now. He was immune. Arthur was not. One sip from the Chalice was all it would take.
He could see it now, the mighty Excalibur touching his shoulder, Arthur shouting "Arise, Sir Alymere!" Taking a swig from the Chalice together, before everyone, to toast his triumph. It was glorious in its simplicity, like all the best lies.
He breathed in deeply, savouring all of the stinks that he inhaled.
This was it. His time was now.
Alymere walked into the back of a callow-faced boy, who was gazing straight ahead. The lad grunted and Alymere leaned in close. "Do me a service, lad, and you'll earn a good coin or two. Understand?" The boy nodded. Alymere pushed back his cloak and untied the small cloth pouch holding the Chalice from his belt.
He felt his heartbeat race and his mouth dry. He clenched his fist.
He struggled to keep his breathing steady. Parting with it, even for a few moments, and even with his triumph so close at hand, was difficult. More difficult than he had anticipated. But needs must as the Devil drives…
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