Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles)

by Donald, Angus

Alone with Robin, I took this opportunity to ask him when we might depart the castle. We had the Grail and I was afire to fetch it home to Goody. But my lord seemed distracted, perhaps by his grief for Tuck, and the best I could extract from him was a promise that we would begin our homeward journey soon.

  Alas, Robin and I did not see a further miracle that night – Tuck was not raised from the dead by the magic of the Grail. Although, in honest truth, I had not expected it. I did not doubt that the Grail had enormous power but I reasoned that after God had called a soul into Heaven, that happy being would not willingly return to Earth at the command of mortal men. And no one had claimed that the Grail could bring men back to life as Jesus did with Lazarus.

  I knelt by the altar on which Tuck slept, and said a prayer for his soul, with Robin looking on from the shadows of the cave.

  ‘We should leave him here when we return to England,’ said my lord after a little time had passed. ‘We cannot take him with us and this would make a more than fitting tomb for our friend, bigger than the death vault of a duke. There’s something about this place, something special, that I think would befit Tuck. What do you say, Alan? Shall we let him rest here until the end of time?’

  ‘Until Judgment Day,’ I said, correcting Robin’s unchristian phrase without thinking. But I knew my lord was right. I had sensed it from the first and it had unsettled me even then – this cavern was no mountain womb, as Nur had called it, it was a natural tomb.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I was eager to leave Montségur as soon as we were able to do so. The next morning was, by my rough calculations, the seventh or eighth day of May, and I felt the pressing need to bring the Grail back to Goody as soon as possible. In my head, I figured that I had to begin the return journey by the ides of May, the middle of that month, to have a reasonable chance of getting home before the curse was fulfilled. Yet a sea voyage back to England was a chancy thing – who knew how long it might take in adverse weather. Or when a ship might be available to take us back home. And the alternative – to ride up through the territory of France could take just as long or longer and would mean travelling through the war-torn areas where Prince Arthur and King John were contesting for mastery.

  So I wanted to depart immediately, and tried my best to persuade Robin of this course. But my lord went through the calculations of the journey with me and persuaded me that we could spare a few more days at Montségur, perhaps three or four more, to allow the wounded to rest a little longer before they were forced to endure the pain and disruption of a horseback journey.

  While the Grail, I was quite certain, had saved many of their lives, holding back Death as we had been promised it would, the deep sword cuts suffered by our men did not magically close, and neither did broken limbs suddenly mend. And the wound on my calf was still bloody, although it did indeed feel much better. But I was still bone tired – we had been riding and fighting hard for weeks now with little rest or sleep – and I allowed Robin to persuade me that we could afford to spare a little time in recuperation before we began the arduous return. It was, he said, more than the fighting men’s due. I could not but agree with him.

  I took a blissful day of rest, and Thomas and I spent the time chatting and sitting in a patch of sunshine, cleaning and oiling our war equipment. My squire was in high spirits – he had fought well, killed several men and emerged more or less unscathed. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that he was a young man who was becoming extremely accomplished in the arts of war. Like everyone else in the castle, he had drunk from the Grail and he was now filled with a youthful energy and zest that made me feel – a man not yet twenty-six – like a broken-down old cripple.

  The next morning, I spent some hours in the chapel, kneeling before the Grail, and praying earnestly that God would shield Goody from the malevolence of the curse for long enough for me to return home and minister to her with the Grail water. I prayed long and hard, and when I emerged from the chapel, blinking in the sunlight, I felt confident that merciful God would keep Goody safe for another day or so.

  As I gazed around the courtyard of the castle in a mood of placid contentment, I saw that the veteran mercenary, a man called Philip, who had been given the task of guarding the Master in his store-room prison, was waving to attract my attention and calling my name. I walked over to him and was surprised to hear him say that the Master had been asking to speak to me for some hours.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I would have come to find you earlier but I didn’t dare. The Earl’s man, that big fellow they call Little John, told me that if I left this spot for an instant, even to relieve myself, he’d castrate me with a bowstring and feed me my own collops.’

  I reassured Philip that it was fine and that there was no urgency – but I will admit that my curiosity was piqued. Why would the Master wish to speak to me? We had nothing of great import to say to each other, or nothing that I was aware of.

  I pushed open the door of the store room, and waited while the mercenary barred it behind me. On the other side of the space, a yard or two away, a pathetic figure sat on the bare ground with his back to the wall of the store house. The place was badly, or more probably, hastily constructed of planks of wood nailed to a box frame and enough light leaked through the gaps between them to allow me to observe the prisoner with moderate ease. The Master had been stripped of his robe and wore only a tattered grey-white chemise, that made him look even thinner than usual. His hands were still tied, and he held them low against his flat belly. His pock-marked face was gaunt and I saw that the shaved patch of his tonsure was covered in a light grey fuzz in striking contrast to the brown ring of hair that surrounded it. How different he seemed, I reflected, to the tall commanding figure on the battlements who had parleyed with Robin three days ago. He looked old and weak, small and deflated, like a punctured bladder.

  ‘I was told that you wished to speak to me,’ I said brusquely. ‘What do you want?’ I rested my hand on my hilt. I remembered that this punctured bladder had destroyed my father; his henchman had killed my good friend Hanno while he was bound to a chair and helpless; he had sent his men to burn my home and threaten my family. A small flame of anger ignited in my belly, a rage that began to grow and burn more fiercely the longer I looked at him.

  ‘I was born not far from here, Sir Alan – did you know that?’ The Master spoke in a low voice, trembling with strong emotion.

  I shrugged. Every word he uttered seemed to add fuel to the rage-fire in my guts.

  ‘A little town called Mirepoix – a beautiful place with a fine stone church. That is where I first learned to love God. That is when I first became aware of His glory. My mother took me twice a day to pray there and it was so quiet and beautiful and holy, so … pure that I knew that I wanted to devote my life to the Church.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ I murmured and glanced at the locked door behind me. For a moment, I seriously thought about killing him. Taking his head, there and then. The sentry would not protest. But I knew that Robin would be angry if I summarily put him to death. He had given his word of honour…

  ‘It was at Mirepoix, sitting on the knee of my grandfather, who was a man of the southern mountains, that I first heard the tales about…’ the Master was staring intently at me, he had paused significantly before saying, ‘… the Grail.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I do not care to hear your family reminiscences. Shall I tell you about my father? The innocent man whose life you ruined, whose ignominious death you arranged?’

  The Master ignored my question. ‘It was at Mirepoix, as a child, that I first heard the tales of the Grail – wonderful tales,’ he said, his voice had become louder, more insistent. ‘It was there too that I first heard about the Holy Lance…’

  ‘Have you anything of the slightest importance to say? Because, if not, I will take my leave before I lose my temper.’

  ‘But it was only when I took possession of both of these objects – the Lance and the Grail – that I real
ized that, of the two, the Lance has the greater power.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ah, so now I have your attention.’ The Master smiled at me unpleasantly. ‘I said that the Holy Lance has more power than the Grail. Can a simpleton such as you grasp that? I spent many years possessing these items, as you know, and many years studying them, chasing down obscure documents in dusty libraries, sending out men to the four corners of the world to find the least scrap of information about the Lance and the Grail. Would you like to know what I found?’

  I admit he did have my attention, but I could not bring myself to ask what he had discovered. I shrugged, but my eyes were fixed on his face now, my belly anger dampened by curiosity. For the Master this, evidently, was answer enough, and he continued. ‘For hundreds of years these two holy objects had been on this Earth,’ he said. ‘I believe they were gifts from Heaven, talismans for those who would use them in the service of God. They represent the male and female elements of the universe, the dual nature of all life – day and night, good and evil, Heaven and Earth. The Grail is feminine, of course, it represents the life-giving womb, and its power is creative and restorative – as I think you have already discovered. Yes?’

  I said nothing. I just stood there fingering my sword hilt.

  ‘The Lance is masculine – a symbol of the male member, and its power is destructive. It kills men, rather than healing them, but’ – here the Master paused for emphasis; he held up his bound hands, both the index fingers steepled, his eyes were bright, shining in the gloom. I could clearly see the twin thumbs on his left hand – ‘it has the power to translate a human soul directly to Heaven. To kill a man with the Lance is to send him to Heaven – no matter what sins he committed on Earth. It is the weapon that pierced Our Lord Jesus Christ’s side and his Father decreed that while that blade retains its power to kill, He would always show mercy to its victims.’

  ‘I have heard these tales before,’ I said. I could still feel my anger like hot weight inside my gut. I wanted him to stop talking, to be silent so that I could leave. ‘Is that all you have to tell me?’

  ‘Oh, there is much more than that, you fool. So much more.’ The Master’s features seemed to have come alive as he spoke about the Grail and the Lance. The years seemed to fall from him and it was as if he were filled with an energy or force.

  ‘What do you think would happen, fool, if the male and the female principles were to be brought together?’ The Master almost shouted his question. ‘What would happen? The Grail and the Lance united in a simulacrum of the act of love – there is a ceremony, known only to a very few men, a simple series of acts, the right place, somewhere high and remote, the right time, a prayer or two, and what do you think could happen? Can you even conceive of it, you bumbling English simpleton?’

  The Master was raving at me by this point. He did not move from his seated position, but he seemed to be humming with a strange force and, oddly, by some trick of the dim light, he appeared to be floating an inch above the floor.

  ‘Power,’ the Master bawled at me. ‘More power, simpleton, than you can possibly imagine. Bring together the Lance and the Grail in the right circumstances and the result would be un-believable: an avalanche of holy fire, cataracts of flame, a storm of molten starlight – the awesome power of God Almighty Himself! The man who united the Grail and the Lance would have the strength of thousands, he could uproot forests, crush mountains in his fists…

  The door of the store room crashed open and the guard stood there, somewhat embarrassed. ‘Is everything all right, sir? Only I heard a lot of shouting and I wondered…’

  ‘Everything is fine, Philip,’ I said. ‘Do not concern yourself – the prisoner was merely telling me about some foolish fancies of his. Close the door behind you, if you please.’

  The guard retreated pulling the door shut and I rubbed my eyes and looked again at the Master, and saw that he was just a skinny bound man in a threadbare chemise sitting on the floor of his prison. The only indications of his former passion were two pink spots on each cheek and a dying gleam in his eye.

  ‘You wanted us to come here,’ I said with a sudden blaze of inspiration. ‘You lured us all here from Toulouse.’

  The Master nodded. ‘I lured you, the bearer of the Lance, from England!’

  ‘And Gilles de Mauchamps was seeking the Lance when he came to Westbury and burned my home to the ground?’

  ‘It has always been about the Lance, you fool. De Mauchamps destroyed your inconsequential little farm on my orders. I knew that with your manor destroyed, you would give up the soft, dull, uxorious life you had chosen and come south to find me. And I knew that you would bring the Lance with you. To me.’

  ‘But how did you…’

  ‘I spread the word of my presence in Casteljaloux across Bordeaux. I knew that would bring you there. And when Amanieu d’Albret failed to take you, I had a man in Toulouse get word to you that I was in Foix…’

  ‘Is Tronc one of your creatures?’

  ‘Who? Viscount de Trencavel? He’s just a foolish brat who flirts with heresy, he’s of no importance.’

  The rage was boiling again in my belly. This ridiculous stick-thin figure, puffed up with his own importance, drunk on ridiculous dreams of God-like power, who had not only killed my father and burned my home, but who had also manipulated me across half of Europe – once again it crossed my mind simply to kill him there and then, and apologize to Robin afterwards. But, with an effort, I controlled myself.

  I let out a long, cleansing breath. ‘What did you want to speak to me about? Tell me quickly for I do not wish to be in your foul presence any longer than necessary.’

  The Master eyed me slyly.

  ‘Do you have it near at hand?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you have the Lance nearby?’

  I ducked my head forward and down and tapped the T-shaped handle that was just visible between my shoulder blades.

  ‘Ah!’ The Master released a sigh of deep satisfaction. ‘I knew that I could feel its presence. I knew it. Tell me, Sir Alan, what is your heart’s desire? What do you wish for more than anything?’

  His question took me aback and, in my surprise, I answered him absolutely truthfully: ‘I want to go home to my wife.’

  ‘No, no, no – how can you be so small-minded? You could have the world at your feet. You could have riches and titles – a dukedom, a kingdom no less, a harem of willing women, money and power beyond imagining. You and I – with the Lance and the Grail united – we could rule the whole of Christendom together.’

  I thought about great wealth, and harems of women and ruling over the whole of Christendom … for no longer than about two fast heartbeats. Then I said, ‘No, I tell you truly, I would rather go home to my wife.’

  It was the truth. As God is my witness, I did not want the world at my feet. I wanted Westbury and Goody and some sons and daughters to follow me. I wanted a well-stocked wood pile that would last the whole winter through, a few pigs running in my woods, a cow or two in the pasture. I wanted good fresh bread to eat, and yellow butter and Goody’s bramble preserves and a cup of decent wine from time to time. I truly did not want to be the emperor of the world. I wanted to go home.

  So I turned for the door.

  ‘Wait!’ the Master called, too loudly. His bravado had melted like frost on a sunny spring morning. ‘Wait, Sir Alan, I beg you.’

  I turned back. ‘What is it?’

  ‘May I see it? May I see it one last time?’

  I shrugged, and reached over my shoulder to pull my lance-dagger out from its sheath. Its iron blade looked dull and ordinary in the dim light. But the Master fixed his eyes upon it hungrily.

  ‘Let me hold it! Let me hold it one last time.’

  ‘You call me simpleton. Do you truly think I am that much of a fool?’ I said, irritated now rather than enraged. ‘Do you think I would just hand you a deadly weapon to use against me?’

  ‘I swear to
you, Alan, I swear on my soul, I swear on Our Lady and the Grail and by all that I hold dear, that I will not try to harm you – but I would hold the Lance in my hand one last time. The Count of Foix will execute me, for certain, perhaps in a slow and horrible way. Grant a condemned man one last harmless request. Let me hold the Holy Lance one more time before I die.’

  And you may call me a fool, or a simpleton, but I did. He sounded pathetic, desperate, weak – and despite everything he had done, I felt a stir of pity for him. Perhaps the Master was using the last dregs of his odd power to command my mind – and perhaps I am feeble-willed. But then, perhaps, in my heart of hearts, I wanted what was to happen next to happen. In any case, I gave the lance-dagger over to the pleading wretch on the store-room floor.

  I drew Fidelity, and with my sword cocked in the air above his head, as cautiously as I was able, I passed the Master the blade with my left hand. He took it in his two bound hands, lifted the old pitted iron to his lips and kissed it once. He stared deeply at the blade as if communing with its ancient legend. Then, before I could stop him, he tossed the knife over in the air, flipping it until the blade pointed towards him, and with one powerful surge of his bound hands he drove the point deep into his own chest, into his beating heart.

  The Master laughed weakly as his soul slipped away, blood spilling down his chest and over his hands which were still clasped tightly on the handle of the lance-dagger, a ribbon of blood flowing between the tiny thumbs on his left hand. He managed a few whispered words to me before he died: ‘You are a kindly fool, but a fool nonetheless. May God grant that I meet you in Heaven…’

  What I did next was deeply unpleasant, and might seem a trifle odd, but I have never regretted it. The task took me less than a quarter of an hour, and by the time I pushed past the startled sentry outside the store room, and strode across the courtyard towards the keep, I was feeling decidedly light-headed. I found Nur stirring a bread poultice at the big table in the centre of the room on the second floor of the keep.