The Serpent and the Grail (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

by Attanasio, A. A.

  "Who are you?"

  "I am the wilderness lost in man."

  The scribe did not understand but nodded as if he did. "Where am I?"

  "In the realm of the Fisher King!"

  The scribe ate the fish and asked no further questions. He knew his ship had wrecked upon the isle of Britannia, the most northern frontier of Christendom. He also knew something of the rightful ruler, Arthor Rex, a boy-king beleaguered by pagan invaders. The presence of this Christian fisher, albeit a madman, bolstered the scribe's hope that Providence had at least delivered him to a friendly shore on this remote island battlefield.

  The Fisher King watched him with dazzling interest. "The scribe's foxy tongue keeps to its hole." A laugh slipped through his black beard. "Springtime in Britain and you've no more questions for the Fisher King? Then, I ask you, why does God laugh? Why does time run? Why does day break and not night? The answers, all the answers, are in the sea's speeches. Listen, man! Listen!"

  The scribe heard the crash of surf and the cries of gulls and behind this scrim of noise, barely audible, the nickering of horses. He put down the remainder of the fish and staggered upright.

  "Ah, you hear the voweled wind!" The Fisher King took the scribe's elbow and steadied him as the Roman reached for his salt-stained cassock. "Come. Review my sea-blown kingdom with me."

  After pulling on his damp clerical robe, the scribe stepped out the door and winced before the sun-glinting sea. A driftwood fire crackled nearby, and combers rolled smoking into a crescent cove flanked by high, sandy bluffs. No sign of the shipwreck anywhere on the kelp-strewn beach—at least, not by his weak eyes.

  The neighing of horses came and went on the brisk wind. He slogged through the sand toward the high dunes, following the muted cries.

  "Stay, scribe!" the Fisher King called anxiously after him. "Stay here in my kingdom! Beyond lie pagan lands!"

  The scribe ignored the madman and painfully, arduously, climbed slopes of salt grass and terraces of sea grape toward a summit plumed with gorse. Behind him, the Fisher King followed, muttering direly, "Best you stay where God has placed you, man. The mortal circle cannot be squared in the wide world beyond. Stay—stay—stay ... "

  Sandy footholds among the gorse mounted to a rocky shelf that gazed far inland. For as far as his bleared eyes could see, the land ranged blackly. Badlands of burned heath rolled toward cinder horizons. Here and there, he spotted gray nests where perhaps thorps or farms had once flourished among fields reduced to tracts of ash and slurry. "A wasteland," the scribe muttered.

  The Fisher King stared at him with wild eyes. "This caul of death lies heavily upon every realm in the land. Every realm."

  Several horses milled on the strand below, survivors of the wreck. Vaguely, the scribe discerned the broken hulk of the ship impaled upon the giant sea boulders offshore. People scurried about the beach, gathering crates and barrels flung onto land by the mighty waves. Hard as he squinted, he could not make out who they were.

  "Pagans," the Fisher King hissed in his ear. '"Tis the land of the Durotriges. They worship the ancient one, the elk-headed god."

  "This island is under rule of a Christian king—Arthor Rex," the scribe stated firmly. "News of his ascendance to the throne is well received by the papal see. Hence the Holy Father himself dispatched the good bishop of Troyes to this frontier. By heavens, I have no heart to believe holy Victricius died in vain. These people, pagan or no, serve a Christian king. I will go among them."

  "No! You cannot beard the devil!" the Fisher King wailed. "Stay in my realm. Come. I have plenty of fish—oysters, sea bass, and delicate clams. Come."

  The scribe took the Fisher King's rough hands in his soft grip and smiled gratefully. "I owe you my life, good man. Fear not for me. Where I go, my bishop would have gone in my stead. If God grants me success, you shall be rewarded. This, I promise by our Savior's blood."

  "What color is glory?" The Fisher King backed away, horrified. "Cry Eloi among the heathen!"

  The scribe turned from him and, with aching muscles, made his way gradually down the sandy slope. He heard the shouts of those below who espied him and did not understand their language. When he looked back to the crest of the bluff, the Fisher King had departed.

  -)(-

  Urien, Celtic chieftain of the Durotriges, accompanied a band of his warriors to the strand where the previous day's storm had wrecked a Roman-style lateener. Tall, with salt white hair worn loose over bare shoulders, Urien appeared indifferent to the chill wind sliding off the sea. He dismounted from his sturdy roan and ambled casually past dunes where the fisherfolk of the nearest hamlet had spread the ship's salvage for their chief's inspection.

  After a cursory glance at the debris, he signed for the folk to distribute among themselves the rigging and stacked timbers and the four intact casks of wine. The villagers had laid out the personal effects of the drowned in neat piles atop a bed of seaweed. The green-robed Druid who followed at Urien's heels blessed the leather pouches, bracelets, rings, swords, daggers, and boots, lifting the shadow of death from them before indicating which of these items belonged to the chieftain. The rest went to the hamlet.

  As for the horses, such masterless steeds belonged to the goddess Epona and would be distributed by lot as the divinity decreed.

  Huddled in a horse blanket at the lee of a dune sat a lanky fellow with dense curly hair, long nose, large brown eyes wide with apprehension, and a vague, trembling chin of graying whiskers. The hamlet elders whispered of him as the sole survivor of the wreck, a Roman who did not speak their language. He had been found earlier in the day wandering among the dunes, and with proper Celtic hospitality had been warmed by the fire and fed barley gruel and black bread.

  The scribe watched apprehensively as blurred shapes approached him. Then a stern face of ice-pale eyes and imposing Celtic mustache loomed close, studying him. This ash blond warrior seemed far less hospitable than the village folk who had earlier received him—until he began to speak in archaic Latin, "Chief Urien welcometh thee, stranger, to the realm of the Durotriges."

  The scribe blurted with obvious relief the nature of his mission. Upon hearing about the death of the papal legate Victricius, Urien immediately ordered messages sent by carrier pigeon both to the king at Camelot and to the bishop of Trier. The scribe watched on, impressed. "You share not our faith, yet you serve a Christian king and offer timely condolence to our nearest bishop?"

  "A pagan by thy measure am I, scribe," Urien replied, his wry smile hidden by his thick white mustache, "but no barbarian. My title is chieftain of the Celts, a people who once ruled all Europe and did battle with the Persians when Rome was still a village on the Tiber. We be as ancient and proud as thy Savior's desert tribe."

  The scribe did not question his gracious host's venerable claim and instead deflected the conversation by recounting his debt to the Fisher King in the cove beyond the sand bluffs. Immediately, the chieftain ordered two of his mounted warriors to bring the madman to him.

  They dashed off and returned during the horse lottery to report that they could find no trace of the so-called Fisher King. Among the sea wrack, a few driftwood timbers might once have served as walls of a crude hut, but the surging, storm-swollen tide had obscured whatever signs there might have been of any recent habitation in the cove.

  Urien dismissed the scribe's tale as the saltwater dream of a nearly drowned man. And the scribe did not insist otherwise, for he himself began to doubt his blurry-eyed memory. And besides, he did not wish to appear uncivil in light of the chieftain's hospitality. Urien had already provided for him a new, considerably warmer hooded cassock and other amenities for the wagon ride to the nearest city, the harbor town of Durnovaria—a wattle-and-daub settlement with archaic Roman battlements charred by numerous Saxon raids.

  Eagerly the scribe looked forward to relinquishing his duties to the next envoy arriving from the papal authority so that he could quit this stormy and primitive outpost. Once safely back
in Ravenna, and after properly mourning the death of Victricius, he would think carefully before accepting another overseas post for the papal see.

  Late in the afternoon the following day, after he had barely settled in beside a blackstone hearth at the local mead hall, a carrier bird returned from the bishop in Trier with an unexpected and wholly unwelcome charge.

  "Thou hast been promoted, scribe," Urien announced, holding the message strip close to his guest's myopic and startled eyes. "Thus saith the reverence of Trier by authority of the pope, electing thee to replace thy beloved Victricius. Thou art the new papal legate to Britain. Kudos! I will escort thee at once to our king."

  Urien sat on a faldstool beside the blackstone hearth. The scribe crouched close to the flames, holding the message strip before him so that it almost touched his nose. "God hath infatuated the bishop's opinion of me!" he cried out. "I am but a scribe, a humble mouthpiece of my betters. Doubt not but that I am unworthy to serve as legate ... "

  "Scribe—what be thy name?" Urien placed his square hands on the knees of his buckskin trousers and leaned forward, firelight gleaming on his naked shoulders. "I canst call thee scribe no more now that thou art the pope's representative."

  The new legate looked dismayed. "I cannot replace the holy Victricius! I am not wont to act upon so great a resolution ... "

  "Thy name, legate. My king will want to know."

  The startled man read the strip of parchment yet again, then blinked at the blurred shape of the half-naked Celtic warlord before him. "I am Fra Athanasius."

  "Athanasius—that be a mouthful." Urien tugged at his large white mustache. '"Tis not a Latin name I understand."

  "Greek," Fra Athanasius said distractedly. "A-thanatos ... the alpha negative affixed to thanatos, Greek for death—hence, 'no-death'—immortal ... "

  "Then I shall call thee No-Death." Urien stood. "Come, No-Death. We've a long journey to Camelot, and as thou wilt see, this be a land of much death. This sorely afflicted land shall benefit from your blessing."

  "I am merely a scribe—amanuensis to the princes of the Church. In my fifty years upon this fallen world, I have never held authority."

  Urien clapped him on the back with a laugh. "We never hold authority, Fra No-Death. It holds us!"

  "Lord Urien, the mission of the legate suits me ill. I am trained to record decisions—a looker-on, always from without. It has never been my charge to set seal to the fate of others—let alone a kingdom entire!"

  "What be there to decide, No-Death?" Urien appeared bemused at Athanasius' consternation. "Thou hast seen the devastation war hath wrought upon our land. Our king appealeth to his spiritual commander to provide aid. We seek grain and livestock to replenish our lost stores. We require artisans and their materials for rebuilding all that hast fallen to ruin. And we must obtain sizable financial assistance so that we may pay laborers to revive our mines, our fisheries, our textile and loomworks. What be there to decide, man? Without this help from the papacy, we will never restore ourselves under the assault of the foreign invaders—and our kingdom will surely fall."

  Athanasius pinched the bridge of his long nose, feeling for the throbbing root of pain behind his eyes. "Perhaps that is best."

  The chieftain pulled his head away with surprise. "What dost thou say? How can it be best for thy Holy Father to have Britain fall into the hostile hands of wild tribes?"

  "If this is the Devil's kingdom, 'tis best that it be purged by fire and sword and the wrath of the pagan hordes. The holy bishop Victricius had been specifically charged by our Holy Father with the vital task of determining if Arthor Rex is a true Christian king—or a minion of Satan."

  Urien leaped to his feet, and said in his teeth, "The authority of my king is questioned?"

  "Certainly not!" Athanasius lifted trembling hands before his lowered face, and said, more softly, "Yet, the nature—that is to say, the source of his authority—well, you see—how may I put this? Word has reached Ravenna that your king is in collusion with the forces of darkness."

  "Who?" Urien spoke through a clenched jaw. "Who maketh such a charge against Arthor?"

  "A venerable family, my lord." The legate kept his gaze fixed upon the sooty hearthstones. "The Syrax family of the Levant and Egypt ... "

  "Syrax!" Urien hissed the name. "Severus Syrax plotted against Arthor from the first. He was the magister militum of Londinium who allied with the invaders to bring Britain under the rule of the Saxons. He inspired insurrection against the king—for money. Money be everything to the Syrax family. They have holdings in every country of the known world. Trade and commerce, that be all they worship. They covet Britain's wealth—her mineral ores, her fishing grounds, her rich land—and her people as slaves."

  "As you say," Athanasius timidly agreed. "Ancient and well established from the Levant to Iberia is the house of Syrax. Ill it is should the Holy Father fain ignore them. They say Arthor Rex hanged Severus from a tree limb by the roadside. An ignoble death for a magister militum, even a rebellious one."

  "Bors hanged Severus. I'd have done the same had I but laid hands on him first." The chieftain paced angrily before the hearth. "The magister militum scorched the lands, put the torch to villages, and idly watched his Saxon troops slaughter Britons and Celts, women and children included."

  "War is ever terrible," Athanasius concurred meekly. "The atrocities I have witnessed across Europe in my ten and forty would poison your liver. Such is past bearing. Even so, as legate I am obliged to bear such horror and gaze beyond pity for the truth. The Holy Father has heard the Syrax family's claim that Arthor Rex treats with devils and works black magic. If this is so, no kernel of grain, no head of livestock, no single nail or coin will come to this island. The Holy Father will forbid it."

  Urien sat down heavily. "No-Death, listen carefully to me. Thy God hath seen fit to place thee in judgment upon this land. What I knoweth of thy religion demandeth charity and mercy. How then canst thou countenance the thought that our beloved Britain be a land of devils worthy of famine and the violence of alien conquerors?"

  "Charity and mercy for the innocent, yes." Athanasius looked down awkwardly at his hands tightly clasped in his lap. "The Church fathers, the princes of Christ, they hold neither charity nor mercy toward those who nuzzle evil. And black magic and deviltry, those are active evil."

  "Not in this land!"

  "Forgive me, Lord Urien." Athanasius shrank smaller before the chieftain's loud voice. "You who have granted me warrant of safety and all good hospitality, do not upbraid me. Please—take no effrontery from this scribe who ne'er sought this greater title and charge nor its ponderous responsibility. And permit me, under surety of your honor and gentle regard of my sincerity, to probe you then with a searching question."

  "Ask me anything, legate."

  Athanasius meshed his knuckles tightly, drawing courage. "If Arthor Rex is so Christian a king as is worthy of papal clemency and succor, then why rallies he about himself warlords such as yourself who share not our faith? What bonds you to him that you, a pagan Celt, accept him as your monarch?"

  "Not deviltry!"

  "Surely not. But what then?"

  "I have fought at his side. He be a great warrior."

  "I am informed he is but a lad of seventeen summers."

  "A great warrior nonetheless. The greatest in my long experience. He took the point in every battle that I shared with him against raiders and usurpers and not once flinched in the face of death. He will never capitulate with the invaders. Not for his very life. And so he be worthy for me to call king."

  "Then why—if I may press your patience, my lord—why do you not share his faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ?"

  Urien's gaze sharpened. "A Celt was I born. My lineage be as ancient as any in the world. Why shouldst I accept a new and strange god when mine own faith hath sustained me and my people from the most fargone times?"

  "A new revelation comes upon us, Lord Urien-—a deeper revelation of God a
nd His word." Athanasius raised his brown eyes to meet the Celt's steely blue gaze. "Jesus Christ is the only way to that revelation and redemption. 'Tis not condign that you serve a Christian king and not his Savior—unless that king be Christian in name alone. Many heresies pollute our world in this chaotic time. Many call themselves Christian who are but foils for Satan, reapers of men's souls, agents of perdition."

  "Enough!" Urien rose and jabbed a thick finger at Athanasius. "Thy religion be absurd. Thy so-called Savior preacheth of an all-mighty God who loves—and yet that God sees fit to torture and crucify His only Son, his beloved Son. Ha! Leave all judgment to God and love thy enemies, so thy messiah instructs. And now, thou wilt judge us! And if we be found wanting by thy righteous standards, we shalt be condemned to starvation and the wrath of the invaders!" The chieftain's temples pulsed. "I've a mind to cast thee back into the sea, thou hypocrite!"

  Athanasius quailed, curling inward with fright. "Your king sent summons to the papal see for aid and a legate to minister that aid. I am here at his behest and God's election."

  "And what aid dost thou bring Britain? Only threats." Urien turned and stalked away, barking over his naked shoulder, "To Camelot then. We ride at once. Let the king deal with thee. I've no stomach for it."

  "Nor I," Athanasius admitted quietly, hands fisted over his belly, head reeling with fright. "Oh, good Victricius, that you were here in my stead and I in yours, my flesh divvied among the fishes and my soul vouchsafed to heaven—for I do forthrightly fear for my salvation in this remote land. Blessed Son of God, protect me from every dumbfounding strangeness and all the deadly virtues that await me on the road to Camelot."

  -)(-