The Quest for Carbonek, page 11
part #2 of Pendragon's Heir Series
Hunger had kept his eyes open the night before. Now, with his appetite blunted and the warm sun pouring upon him, he yawned.
At this the Disinherited Damsel started up and insisted that he rest. She took him into the pavilion and fussed over him like a dove, worrying that the little couch might be too hard or too small for his lanky frame. Perceval, drowsy and contented, submitted quietly to her ministrations. The pavilion was even warmer within than the sunny glade, and the light, filtered through red and yellow silk, made the place glow like the inside of a jewel. He tried to remember what it put him in mind of, but the lady talked on, saying that she would help him disarm, and that if there was anything, anything she could do for him, he had only to ask “—for,” she said, helping him draw off his mail shirt, “I know that you have helped many poor unfortunate ladies like myself, and if I can show my thanks in any way, I must.”
“Thank you,” Perceval said, for he was a mannerly man.
She dug into a chest and drew out a furred, embroidered robe to wrap him in. She gathered up his armour and weapons into her arms, and told him she would clean them while he slept. Perceval lifted a hand to object as the pavilion’s silken door whispered shut behind her, but then he dropped it and laughed a little. Danger was banished to the hard hills, and in this exquisite light and warmth was no lurking terror.
Perceval sank onto the couch. How long had it been since his body tasted such comfort? For months, every night, he had slept on the cold ground in his mail. Now, lapped in samite and furs, he could almost believe himself far away, in Camelot…It was hours before he woke.
He started up, not recalling his surroundings, all his senses jangling. The heat was oppressive, the red walls felt suffocating, and he leaped to his feet and tore the robe from his body before he remembered the damsel, and the fear bled out of him. He sank to the couch again and sat bathed in rosy light, savouring the rest that still clung to his aching bones.
He pulled on his shirt and leather jerkin, and went outside. The first thing he saw was a table of food the Disinherited Lady had prepared. The second thing was the sun, low down in the West near the world’s rim. It shone gloriously, red and gold; the pavilion’s shadow ran black against the yellow-lit grass and splashed up against the forest’s edge. By the table, the Damsel said, “I have cleaned your armour of mud and rust; it lies over there,” and she pointed to where his arms were heaped by a tree. “Now come and eat.”
“Lady,” Perceval said, “it is not for you to serve me thus.”
“Ah,” she said, throwing up her hands, “I am nameless and landless here; who shall say what is for me anymore? But you have travelled and travailed, and in any place you would make a name for yourself as honourable as the name you have in Logres. It is a small thing I ask, to render you some of the service you have rendered to others.”
“Then if it pleases you, I yield,” said Perceval, and went to sit at the table with her. There was wine, meat, bread, and fruit of all kinds, and the lady to sit by him and talk. She drew his story from him—the tale of hardship in the wilds, the villainy of Saunce-Pité, the black horse that would have borne him to perdition, and the thing he sought, which remained so far beyond his reach. Pity swam in her eyes.
“I have spoken enough,” Perceval said at last. “Tell me your own tale.”
“Let us sit in the pavilion,” she said, and beckoned him to follow her. She seated him cross-legged on cushions inside the door, with the curtains looped back so that they could see out—could see the sunset and the blazing sea, and hear the waves murmuring against the cliff below. The damsel poured out heady muscat wine for both of them and sank onto the rug beside him.
“There is so little to tell,” she said with a bittersweet smile. “I was the richest lady in the world; I wore fine scarlet, not sombre black; in the East was my city and all the kings of the earth brought me their trade and begged for my love.”
Perceval leaned closer. It was hard to hear her and her head was cast down. “What happened?”
“One lord I refused,” she whispered. The scent of her hair was making him dizzy. “So he took his revenge on my lands and my wealth, but I escaped. He could not take his revenge upon me.”
“Tell me his name,” Perceval said. “He will be a mighty man indeed to overcome—”
With a quick soft intake of breath, she laid a finger against his lips. “Have a care, Perceval, and speak honestly, or not at all. I have wandered long, but now at last I come to Logres. Perhaps, among the brethren of the Table, I might indeed find a knight to win back my kingdom.”
He caught her hand and pulled it down gently from his lips, although after a moment he could not remember why. Her fingers laced into his, and she lifted drowning eyes to him.
His voice rasped across the silence. “You will surely find one to help you.”
She raised her other hand to his cheek and then gently, hesitantly, she kissed him. Only the lightest touch. Sir Perceval went still as stone; his head was heavy and drowsy and now his heart seemed to have stopped. She kissed him again, more deeply, and his blood began beating again. Her hair tangled between his fingers.
“Lady,” he whispered, “you are passing fair.”
“Sir Perceval…There is no other knight in the world I would rather have to serve me.”
“I…”
“Say you will,” she murmured in his ear. “I know you can help me, Perceval. And if you do, if you’ll swear to serve me, I and mine will be yours forever, as long as the world lasts.”
There was nothing in the world left but her hair twisted into his hand and the red lips that pleaded for his help. “I will,” he said in a dry mouth. She lifted the cup in her hand, with the wild sweet muscat inside. “Drink in my name,” she whispered.
Perceval said, “I pledge—” and then the words faded on his lips.
For through the pavilion door the last rays of the sun as it sank shone upon his armour, lying beneath the tree, and upon his sword, leaning against the trunk. And it caught the sun’s light and reflected it like a blazing cross, lancing his eyes with pain. Then in an instant Sir Perceval remembered the Holy Grail, and the Lady Blanchefleur, and the Lord he served, and was stuck with a thousand different thoughts at once. For how could he drink of any other cup, in any other name, when he had vowed he would not, but seek the Grail? And how could he love any other lady than the one to whom he had sworn service, Blanchefleur? The damsel beside him turned and flung her arms around his neck as he shrank away from her, but then with a keening wail a cold wind rose out of the sea and blasted the last cobwebs from his mind. He wrenched away from the damsel and stumbled outside, onto his knees, and crossed himself. The lady screamed. Suddenly, Perceval was cold and sweating.
“Fair sweet father Jesu, let me not be ashamed!”
The Disinherited Damsel screamed again, her face twisting into a mask of hate. “Traitor!” she howled, and came at him with clawed hands. But the winds veered and clashed overhead. The trees threw up their hands and bent their heads; and then the wind turned and blew the pavilion, the damsel, and all out over the sea, the lady screaming and cursing him and the pavilion twisting like a wreath of smoke. And the water of the sea burned after her.
At that moment the sun sank below the world’s rim and suddenly the evening was grey and cold. Perceval lifted his hands to his head. What had he done? What had he done? What had he been about to do?
All those days he had toiled in the wilderness, prayed, hoped, swallowed every bitter twinge of impatience and disappointment, fought himself into trusting patience. And now he had thrown it all away. What could cleanse his guilt? He thought of his horror when he had thought evil of Sir Lancelot and the Queen, and his stomach turned in self-disgust. “I am not fit for my calling,” he thought, and ran to his swordbelt, and drew his poniard with some wild idea of paying in blood.
But the gleam of its point sobered him. It was another’s wounds that must clean him. And he was not his own, but was bought by another. Even now, was it his treachery to lady and Lord that he deplored, or the injury to his own honour? He slammed the blade back into its sheath while shame, like a serpent, twisted in his gut.
Where would he go now? What would he do? “Oh, miserere,” he breathed, and lost all other words.
Night fell and dragged, and Perceval sat slumped on the grass, staring at the sea. At last, when he thought the sun had perished, a gleam of light shot into the air. Perceval armed himself with stiff fingers and stood on the cliff, watching colour steal into the grey sea. Then the sun rushed up, rose and gold, and in that clear light he saw the white sail of a ship in the south. It skimmed over the waves on a breath of warm wind that smelled of spring flowers. Perceval watched it dully, then stiffened as the sail furled and the ship came to rest, like a white bird, on the water below him. He spied a man moving on the boards of the ship. There was an arm lifted in greeting, and a shout from below, and with numb and at first uncomprehending surprise, Perceval recognised the shield of Sir Bors.
“BORS!” PERCEVAL WINDMILLED, FELL, SLID, AND staggered up again at the foot of the cliff while stones rained around him. “Bors! Bors!” Sand sucked at his feet, and then he was in the water. A wave slapped his chest, forcing grit into his eyes, but through tears and seawater he saw the white planks of the ship and Sir Bors leaning over the rail, reaching out a hand. He thrashed through the waves, caught his brother-knight’s hand at last, and rose over the side, dripping and weeping, to land on the deck.
Bors seized him in a bear-hug, slapping his back and shouting. When he let go, Perceval collapsed to his knees. Worry checked Bors’s welcome. “Perceval! What is it? What’s amiss?”
“Nothing!” He hoped the water running off his head would disguise how recklessly he was weeping and laughing. “Not a thing! Oh, God, fair Father! Nothing’s amiss!”
Then wind whipped into his face and Perceval, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes, saw for the first time that the ship’s sails and anchor had run up while he greeted Bors, and now the rudder moved without human hands, steering them out to sea.
“The ship,” he said, and let the words hang while he gulped down his tears. It was a morning of marvels. There was no need to ask questions. Nor to rise from his knees. They wanted to be on the deck right now; there they were happily humbled.
Sir Bors’s teeth flashed in his brown beard with a deep and contagious joy. “Sir, I perceive this ship is as great a mystery to you as it is to me. But when I first came on board, I found the hermit Naciens here. And by his counsel, we await but one other.”
Perceval dragged in one cautious breath, and then another, before venturing to ask. “The Grail Knight?”
“The Grail Knight.”
11
But yet, I say,
If imputation and strong circumstances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,
Will give you satisfaction, you may have’t.
Shakespeare
BLANCHEFLEUR FEARED THE NIGHTS. SOMETIMES SHE fended off drowsiness and knelt, hour by slow hour, in the chapel. But even here in Carbonek her body had not gone beyond the need of sleep. It came sooner or later, and she wandered through the land of dreams besieged by the spectres of her own imagination.
Morgan plunging a knife into her breast. The searing pain, the sudden hot gush and shudder of a heart losing pressure. Dizziness as life drained away. Jangling nerves telling her to panic, to fight or run even as her knees folded beneath her. That day she had wakened gasping in the infirmary, her physical body uninjured by Morgan’s shadowy steel but with a heart that still believed it was dying. Dame Glynis was there, and forced bitter potions between her teeth to slow the staggering heart. But in the dreams there were no potions, blood sobbed from the gash in her chest, and terror woke her to a cold sweat.
Yet the worst dreams came when Morgan did not stab her. Instead, by one stratagem or another, she broke into the tower of the Grail and snatched that wonderful cup, and Logres became a desert of corpses.
Sometimes she dreamed of Perceval, and sometimes these dreams were like the memory of fire in wintertime. They were children running through a summer countryside, climbing trees and eating apples. Sometimes, though, fear threaded through these dreams as well. She was back in that cold vision of the stake, and looked up from the saddlebow to see her rescuer’s face: it was Perceval’s, grey in the dawn and freckled with blood. Or she saw him as he wandered endlessly in a naked land, stalked by lions and serpents. He was buried under a cairn above a valley of bones by a dragon’s lair, his homeless spirit wandering among the stones. Or he found a new love, a lady willing to return his ardour: in a jewel-coloured pavilion by the sea he sank into her embraces, and forgot Logres, the Grail, Blanchefleur.
She woke after this last dream and gave a groan of disgust. Here was the Grail, in danger from a cunning and deadly foe from whom she had escaped only by heavenly grace and the quick wisdom of Dame Glynis—nor had the danger passed; it was six months now since the last attack, with the muted spring struggling to bloom in the Waste, but she knew in her bones that Morgan would try again, and soon, before the Quest was achieved—and yet, as if all this was not enough, her thoughts must go wandering after Perceval.
Perceval, whom she had treated, she realised, with barely-disguised scorn. In the cold and the dark she was suddenly hot all over, remembering the words she had used more than a year ago on the terrace outside a lighted ballroom, when he had teased that she was his sweetheart:
“We are not on an intellectual level at all.”
She pressed her hands to her blazing cheeks, seeing it all unfold before her—the ignorance she had discovered in herself every day of her life in Carbonek, unfolding in kitchen-garden, infirmary, solar, even in Naciens’ study. Then she remembered the evenings she had spent with Perceval in Gloucestershire, companionable hours of reading aloud while he whittled knotwork and interrupted with questions and observations. She remembered his quick understanding, his heedful memory, and how often he had had to pause and explain his comments in simpler words when her mean store of Welsh or Latin left her struggling to grasp his meaning. Another wordless frustration seethed from her throat. “Not on the same level!” she muttered to the darkness. “Indeed!”
Careless jibes she had made at his expense and at the expense of Logres came back to haunt her now. They had felt like teasing fun at the time, but after more than a year in his world, they echoed ignorant and condescending in her memory. And yet he had met each one of her barbs with courtesy.
She could not blame him, she thought, if he found a lady to value him more highly. Even if he had as good as promised that he would earn and claim her regard. She closed her eyes, she saw him kissing that yellow-haired woman, and she realised what it was that had stamped that image as it were on the inside of her eyelids.
Jealousy.
She hissed air like a sluice of cold water through her teeth. How was it possible? That after all this time, he should still haunt her dreams? That within the space of the same breath, she should drown in such despairing self-contempt and then in such furious anger?
She was not good enough to stitch his surcoat or sand his mail. Inconstant wretch that he was.
And Lancelot. And Arthur. Was there no honest man in the world? Was every house founded on sand?
“I shall go mad in here,” she said, and dragged her cloak around her shoulders and went out, into the Grail-light.
Day came dark and cold, and that afternoon, as soon as she could flee solar and infirmary, Blanchefleur took the key Naciens had given her and went up to the hermit’s tower-study. Book-lined, crowded with all the paraphernalia of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, this was the lair she longed for today. She half-expected to see Naciens there, but the room was empty. Blanchefleur reached for the Republic, the book she was meant to be studying. But even Plato could not dull her worry for long.
Socrates said:
“To the rulers of the state, then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state.”
Blanchefleur thought of the High King. Did he hide the truth for the good of Logres? Had he lied to her, that day in the gardens of Sarras, exercising some divine prerogative? She slammed the book down. Perhaps, if she herself was not caught in such a tissue of lies, truths, and half-truths, she would be friendlier to the philosopher’s words. As it was—she reached blindly for words to embody her thoughts, and said, “Veritas liberabit vos…”
Hurrying footsteps from below broke into her train of thought. She went to the door and opened it as Heilyn, panting, reached the top of the stair. Something had stamped elation into every line of the squire’s face, but for once he had no breath to speak. He gasped at her a moment, then bent double and wheezed.
“Heilyn! What’s happened?”
“It’s—,” he gasped, and then went back to huffing.
“The Grail Knight,” she cried.
“No—”
Blanchefleur threw up irritable hands. “You asked Branwen, and she said yes.”
“What?” He gulped another breath and straightened, shocked back into his usual gravity. “No, no, not that. We have guests. Knights.”
“Their devices! A pentacle, gold on gules?”
Heilyn wrinkled a brow. “I believe I saw such a device, yes.”
“Perceval.” Blanchefleur forgot everything else and bolted for the stair.
Heilyn called, “Lady,” before she was two steps down. Blanchefleur wheeled. “The books,” he said apologetically. “You know he likes us to leave the study as we find it.”
“Oh, please, won’t you do it? This once?”
“I don’t know where—”
