The Serpent and the Grail (The Perilous Order of Camelot)
Page 37
Chapter 25:
The Finding of the Dead
At midsummer, King Arthur and Bedevere returned to The Blanket of Stars one final time, alerted by a report from Bors Bona of brigands in the region. The villa, they learned, had been torched, reduced to blackened ruins.
The sight of the charred rubble faintly steaming in the rain shocked the king all the more after riding across his green kingdom and finding so many of the old Roman estates thriving.
Arthur sat numbly on a big chestnut roan, the hood of his mantle thrown back and his squeezed-shut face lifted to the cold points of rain. He listened to a muddied officer report the finding of the dead. Julia and her Eril, Leoba, Georgie and their father—all of them—had been beaten, hacked with swords, and burned.
Not Wolf Warriors murdered this family but Britons. Bona's men had caught the pillagers as they had ridden from the blaze howling with blood frenzy. The king reviewed their bodies where they had been hanged from the boughs of the highway trees. The five brigands he had expelled from The Blanket of Stars a year ago fed ravens.
Arthur moved slowly down the highway, away from the place of horror. After riding in silence for over a league, he waved Bedevere to his side, and said grimly, "It was vengeful murder. They came back because we didn't kill them."
"Do not blame yourself, sire." Bedevere glanced behind, glad to see that the king's archers followed on this gloomy road. "If not for you, that gang would have slain them all when first they came to the inn. You gave Julia the time to find her husband and know again a measure of true happiness."
"So that he could be brutally slain as well."
Bedevere kept his silence before this fateful fact, then after a respectful moment spoke, "Perhaps, my lord, the prosperity you have won for us will allow the Warriors of the Round Table to ride throughout the kingdom. We will hunt down every woodland gang and highway brigand. Worthy mourning for Julia and her family."
Arthur made no reply. Neither did he offer an inward prayer. The black images of the dead fire—a tarry rib cage and wandlike bones in the ashes—lay still and final in his mind. God would not change them nor lift them from his memory.
He continued on silently, carrying a great emptiness. The pyre had destroyed a horrible error inside himself, that the good would take him in—and his kingdom as well—and protect them all.
Evil endures.
He turned his attention outward, to veils of rain upon the pines and incense cedars of the far hills. In his life as orphan, thrall, warrior, wanderer of worlds, and king, he had seen too much cruelty and death. And he had learned that God let it all happen, again and again. Every death established simply an end and gave no story—unless the living told it themselves. Perhaps, he thought, that is why God had made the living, to tell the stories of the dead.
He wiped the rain from his face, and the story he told himself as he rode beneath the dripping trees and a sky gray as nothing was this: Evil endures—but good will prevail.
-)(-
For the soul trapped in its cage of hours, there is nothing but hope.
And that is why, Good is a lengthy and complex story. But the telling of it is a beautiful thing.
Chapter 26:
An Angel Crosses Europe in A.D. 492
In the rose garden at Tintagel, Ygrane sat on a stone bench graven with dryads. Her white habit and ivory robes glowed almost blue in the early-morning light. Since returning to the castle in winter, she came every dawn after lauds, past the lily pond and through a colonnade of poplars, to these trellises of white roses enclosed by beech and sycamore. And she prayed. She prayed for the Daoine Sid.
The black unicorn watched her from behind a sycamore. Every morning she found it there, a remnant of night. Why do you not return to the dark fields above the moon?
Her magic had vanished with the pale people, and she had no bond with the unicorn. Still, it lingered, watching her pray for the Sid.
The elf prince and his spectral hosts served no part of the dreamsong now, exiled from Earth and flying into eternal night where they had intended to send her. For good or ill, what they had wanted from her, they had achieved: Hot springs across the land percolated more vigorously as the Dragon stirred, roused by the massive infusion of power from the devoured Sid.
She prayed to be forgiven for all the grief from her deeds as witch-queen.
Her grandsons, Gawain and Gareth, had ridden off last autumn to find their mother's illusion, the false chalice, the Grail, and they had never returned. Rumors arrived at Tintagel of the boys' heroic deeds, true champions of Christ, slaying dragons, routing brigands, and working among the most impoverished. She did not know if these stories were true. The few faeries that remained did not bring her news.
She thought sometimes of using the unicorn to find her grandsons. Perhaps that was why the sleek shadow animal came each morning, to remind her that God had provided for her another way to touch the world than as a nun.
She had promised Duke Marcus she was done with witchery. The duke feared her, afraid for his soul, and allowed her return to the abbey of Tintagel only that he might retain the favor of her son.
She looked across the garden at the sycamore and lifted her hand to shoo the unicorn away. It was not there. Instead, before the gray-barked tree stood a youth in a white tunic. He had a blond yet Mediterranean face, kind and handsome, and golden curls spilled over his shoulders.
"Good morning, Ygrane." Sunshine blew like draperies between them, and he stood instantly beside her. "May I sit with you?"
"Who are you?"
"I am an angel."
"I have met angels."
"I am a fallen angel." He held up several fingers, melted, smoking candles, and the reek jolted Ygrane upright. "I have spent most of the past year loitering outside Camelot singing a Jericho chant. By now, Wesc should be sitting on the British throne, not tilling beets and cabbages on a Baltic farm. You thwarted me, Ygrane. That lotus magic—it is powerful. I cannot break it, hard as I've tried."
"Get away, Satan."
"Please, no formalities. Call me Lucifer."
Ygrane leaned away disdainfully. "Why are you here, mocker, scoffer, slanderer of God?"
"You thwarted me, witch-queen." His smile widened to his ears, revealing rows of needle-pin teeth. "And now you think you can put on a habit, kneel down, and I won't see you? I have noticed you, Ygrane."
"That is nothing to me."
"There are darksome places in this world." He stood a sandaled foot on the edge of the bench and bent forward, smirking. "I am a creature of light and can find my way through the dark. But you, dear woman—" An eel-length of tongue licked the folds of her habit. "You are but some brevity of being. Will you spend what time is left you in misery, taunted by demons? Or will you kneel before me here and now and be exalted?"
"No. And no." Ygrane placed thumbnail and middle finger to her teeth and whistled.
For that one instant, as Lucifer realized he had positioned himself for the unspeakable, his arrogance slipped into fear, and she glimpsed a sacred memory in his beautiful face, a recollection of submission.
The black unicorn slashed through the trellises, roses bursting, petals driving like snow. Lucifer twisted a startled look over his shoulder as the spiral tusk struck him from behind.
The demon flew into the sky, into a blue abyss of pain. Flung by the full force of the unicorn, he arced high into the atmosphere, far above the Belgic Strait, through cliffs of cloud. He peaked over the war camps of Clovis and the battlefields of the fierce Alamanni in Gaul.
Assiduous pain followed him during his long plummet past the snow peaks of the Alps and the crumbled arches of Rome. Somewhere across the Mediterranean, among the shattered rocks of prophets' tombs and dunes crouching like lions, he crashed to earth and bounced like an antelope in love.
When he came to rest, he sat stunned in the rocks and dust. For many years afterward, for as long as King Arthur reigned, he simply sat there, staring at his shadow as
it crawled around him in the dirt.
-)(-
Like a gown discarded by the naked sea, Avalon lies rumpled on the horizon. The isle's green folds of hills and valleys disclose creeks and brooks gleaming their snakepaths through groves of apple. Menhirs—monumental posts of unhewn stone—stand in spirals and rays on the hillcrests.
Your watchful mind moves closer, and the morning knolls and dells become mountain cups of apple trees. On high, verdant promontories, waterfalls cascade in quicksilver threads that never reach the ground, blowing away from craggy cliffs in wild vapors and broken rainbows, disappearing in the air like a story that brims into nothingness on the book's last page.
* * *
Study and Discussion Questions
by Alvaro Nimiez
Yuma Fantasy Book Club
reprinted with permission
The story of King Arthur has been around for a thousand years and in many variations. Do you think the author is justified in creating yet another adaptation of this renowned legend?
The fourth volume of The Perilous Order of Camelot reveals that the narrator of this series is Rna, a clan woman 90,000-years-old and eldest of the Nine Queens of Avalon. Does her supernatural perspective make the narrator more reliable or less?
The narrator tells us midway through the novel, “You are this: the serpent and the grail—blue bunched bowels coiled hungrily in an upright pelvis, the overflowing cup of the sacrum, sacred vessel of bone that is our humanity.”
In what way is The Serpent and the Grail about our physical humanity? In what ways do the themes of carnal hunger and standing upright come together in this story?
In chapter 12, the Norse god Odin tells us what he thinks about the meaning of life when he is asked:
"Why must any of us live at all?"
The Furor nodded, satisfied. "I will tell you. You are a Roman woman, and you will not understand me. I will tell you anyway. We live so the stars can caress us. We live so that when we do perish the earth can receive us into her sweet home. Yes, the earth that you call dirt is holy, and she is sweet. Certainly, the world is cold, and we are its warmth. Who kindled this fire in us? Know that and you will understand why the animals share their wisdom with us: They curry our spirits during the hunt so that we may wear their skins proudly and eat their flesh with joy. Joy! Do you hear me? Joy. That is the location of life. Whatever happens, the one, simple truth of life remains always unchanged. All our troubles and all our pain are always pathways back to joy."
Is this a satisfying answer to why we live? Is joy ‘the location of life?’
Aquila Regalis Thor—Arthor—accepts the variant spelling of his name, Arthur, put forward by his enemy, King Wesc. The Saxon king takes offense at the Aesir god Thor’s name identified with a foe of the Foederatus.
What does this tell us about the character of Arthur, that he willingly changes his name to avoid insulting his enemy? Is this act of renaming himself valorous—or a craven attempt to appease a fierce adversary?
Is the Christian faith respectfully presented in this series? What are your thoughts about the unorthodox representation of angels and demons as Fire Lords and Dark Dwellers in the House of Fog?
This series presents God as a female. How meaningful or gratutitous is that?
Do the scientific concepts in the series enhance the story or distract from the narrative?
The Serpent and the Grail concludes with a descriptive passage of Avalon that appeared earlier, in Chapter 6: “The Future from Small Things Grows:”
On high, verdant promontories, waterfalls fell in quicksilver threads that never reached the ground: These cascades blew away from craggy cliffs in wild vapors and broken rainbows, disappearing in the air like a story that brims into nothingness on a book's last page.
As the last line of this novel, the tense shifts into the present: Why?
In Chapter 21, the Norse god Loki comments on a biblical passage:
"’Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?' I will answer that Psalm's question for you Athanasius. So long as humans thrive."
Is Loki correct? Is evil an inherent part of human nature?
Attanasio and Athanasius are the same name at root. Is the author placing himself in this novel? If so, why? Is his presence as Athanasius meaningful or could this character have had a different name without affecting the story?
How does this fourth volume compare to the other three?
The Perilous Order of Camelot is set in Roman Britain, five hundred years before the usual depictions of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. In what ways does the historical accuracy of this fantasy series contribute to the legend?
Did any of these characters seem real? Or are they all mythic figures?
Would you like to see this series continued? Or do you consider these four volumes complete?
As this series concludes, the narrator on Avalon—Rna the Ice Age queen—asks: “Why did we create this spell, our retelling of King Arthur's long-ago story and our news from Avalon, except to summon you? … We need your help.”
What aid is the narrator requesting from you? Why does the author move the story off the page and into the reader’s life? Is this effective storytelling?
In an essay attached to The Eagle and the Sword, the second volume of this series, the author writes: “The Legend of Arthur is about violating boundaries. It is about sin and punishment: the lost Grail, mad Merlin, the wounded Fisher King, Arthur’s sister pregnant with his son, Guinevere and Lancelot’s adultery, and the flawed knights of the Perilous Order.”
How does hidden sickness and sin become sacred in this thousand-year-old legend?
The Yuma Fantasy Book Club traditionally concludes by asking featured authors, “Why do you write fantasy fiction?”
A. A. Attanasio replies, “Fantasy writing stakes its own territory in the mind and then goes beyond the mind without forsaking thought, so it forces our hearts to think.”
You can tell the author what your heart thinks of his Arthurian fantasy at his website: http://aaattanasio.com/ and by email: aaa@lava.net.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: An Angel Crosses Europe in A.D. 491
Chapter 2: Return to Magic
Chapter 3: The Blood Pact
Chapter 4: Crown of Snakes
Chapter 5: Cinderland
Chapter 6: The Future Grows from Small Things
Chapter 7: Dragon Psalm
Chapter 8: Weird Traveler
Chapter 9: Beautiful beyond Beauty
Chapter 10: The Seven Eyes of God
Chapter 11: A World of Dreams
Chapter 12: Love like Wrath
Chapter 13: The Valor of the Worm
Chapter 14: Crown of Fire
Chapter 15: Road of Solitudes
Chapter 16: Lo! The Dragon!
Chapter 17: Unwrinkle the Stars
Chapter 18: Powers of Angels
Chapter 19: Beauty Shines Invisible
Chapter 20: Lucifer by Moonlight
Chapter 21: Imaginary Numbers Are the Flight of God's Spirit
Chapter 22: Fate-Sayer
Chapter 23: Kingdom in a Chalice
Chapter 24: Return from the Dead
Chapter 25: The Finding of the Dead
Chapter 26: An Angel Crosses Europe in A.D. 492