The monk had moved to the archway standing just outside as if speaking to the shadowed void before him.
“You opened a door, sir,” he said, pleasantly, “that can never be shut. You’re needed. When the wolf comes to the fold what shepherd turns his back on the sheep?”
Parsival’s answer was lost in its own rattling reverberations far down the hall but the monk seemed to understand well enough. He looked faintly wry.
VII
The red and black knight was standing with the least old of the men, the lithest women and the strongest boys. He lined them up with homemade spears, poles, clubs and a few rude axes. The afternoon was hot and cloudless. The heat pulsed on the dry ground.
Whoever I am, he was thinking, I seem to know about fighting. I clearly had a bitter trade. He could remember fragments of battles, armored warriors clashing with blind fury, himself ripping into them, a flash of burning cold power and satisfaction as his blade hit home again and again, sheared metal, sprayed bright blood … I suppose the woman’s telling me the truth.
He’d confided somewhat in her this morning, explaining that his memory was in pieces, that he didn’t know who he was or what he stood or didn’t stand for, and asked her opinion of his possible history. She’d sat in the dust beside him, worn, hard, work-twisted fingers steadily enmeshed in complexes of yarn, pulling, knotting, stringing the shapeless tangle (as if by a kind of magic) into what gradually was becoming a child’s garment.
“It’s clear you been a knight,” she’d told him. “None would dispute that, me lord.”
“Well then,” he’d replied, fingers drumming on his sword hilt, “but what do I do now? Where do I go? Or do I?”
“If you stay here, me lord knight,” she’d said, carefully, not looking at anything, the threads flowing through her unceasing hands, “you’ll be soon set upon, as we all will be, for the few grains of food we have. We’ll all be put to the sword, sooner or later.”
“How know you this?”
“A week since, old Halpp was found in the back hills, chopped fine by an ax.”
“Did he tell you aught?”
“His wounds did. And the single pair of feet marks in the ploughed earth. We was seen and where there was one they’ll come more.”
“But what must I do?” He’d gone back to that. “Wander and hope to recover my yesterdays? For all I can tell, those who knew me are dead and gone …” He’d shaken his head.
“Aye?”
He’d shrugged. Poked his fingers in the dust.
“It’s difficult to say these things … but what should I do? Where do I look?”
She’d never ceased twisting the material into form, fraction by inescapable fraction.
“Why not plough the earth God gives you?” She’d knit her eyebrows, watching him now.
“What?”
“You’re bound by a code.” Not looking now.
“Code?”
“Aye. Chivalry, me lord. You need go nowhere to do your duty.”
“How do you know this?”
“Knights are all bound thus.”
“To what end, woman?” He’d let the yellow dust run through his fingers. The sun was beating almost straight down.
“Ah,” she’d said, “to help them as has great need a help and deep distress.”
She’d explained it well enough, he was thinking now.
Out of this chivalry may come something I need to know …
“The first thing,” he was telling them now, “is to get them to fight where we wish.” He smiled. Obvious. Necessary.
The long-boned woman, his advisor, was watching, sitting just in the shade of the barn on a backless stool. Her hands still worked on a garment. He couldn’t tell if it was the same one.
“If there aren’t too many,” he told them next, “I’ll keep them away from here.” Squinted at the woman, whose head was tilted forward as if absorbed totally in her working. He touched his raw scar again. “I need a headpiece,” he said. “Have you one here?”
An old man looked uneasy.
“We’re but villagers, great lord,” he said, “how could we —”
“Go on, Palit,” the woman said from the shadow, not looking up, “bring him all the gear.”
“But … Maryls … we —”
“Be still, old fool. Get him the gear.”
The man nervously labored away, signaling one of the boys to follow. She explained:
“There was a battle in the valley. We gathered what we could. Who could blame us?”
He shrugged.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said, “but you all must fight and not flee as you did from me on the bridge.” Went over to one boy. “Hold the spear like this …” He began instructing them and continued as the sun tilted down into the burning west and the landscape began receding into dim spaces and shadow.
The sky was like dark blood, the sun under the smooth-topped hills that were purplish black, depthless as the twilight seeped among the trees and huts in a glimmering, grayish tide.
He sat in front of the barn, the woman behind him. He heard nothing beyond the steady droning murmur of the July night. He knew she would still be working, that her hands were moving unceasingly. He’d watched her peel potatoes for his supper, clean greens, fill the pot, cut, slice, shred so neatly as to seem almost magical to him, and he’d recalled a woman seeming dreamlike in flowing golden silks, a bright-blue tent behind her, a long, fine-boned, smooth face tilting down, long hair piled high and bright and she moved as if balancing it, holding something he knew was a sweet out to him, smiling in her violet, shadowed eyes … and then lost it and thought:
Was that something holy? Or something I remember?
And then he was standing up, intent, alert, before he even caught up with his body’s responses, as if lifted to his feet by unseen hands, and he realized he’d felt rather than seen the blot of movement on the far hillside that rolled down to the river, and he was already running, the mail links shaking and ringing softly, holding the sheathed sword still at his hip, pushing the boy who’d fallen asleep by the low brick wall that partly encircled the village with a wobbling and crumbling arc.
“Are you so full-fed and safe, boy?” he demanded. “Go softly and tell everyone to prepare.” Watched as the fourteen-year-old scurried away, became a blur lost in the deepening dusk. The huts and trees were now indistinguishable dark blotches. The stream was a faint, silvery trace creasing the twilight-blended shapes.
He felt a strange, cold anticipation as he trotted easily, then moved into a quiet walk down the slope to the bridge. They wouldn’t see any reason to get wet. They’d send a scout or two at best to cross over the hard way. Well, the peasants would have to deal with that.
Chivalry, he thought, recalling his conversation with the woman. He stopped under a willow, screened by the dense, sweeping wands that whispered and shifted in the veerings of air. The sunset was a lost violet hint above the single darkness of hills, woods, fields … the water splashed faintly past … the bridge seemed to arch into nothingness … Chivalry … ah, would but these pieces in my head unite themselves! I might then give a name and reason to my life! Well, these folks here are afraid for their potatoes and so I’ll do this chivalry … my God, but this is passing strange … I know names and the world and yet my own is absent, my traces faint … I must wait and watch and learn what I may … wait and watch … ah …
Heard a clinkering of metal … then a loud whispering voice. They were just across the water now.
If I try to parley they’ll think me weak and attack anyway … He knew these things without particular memories to tie them to: the way you swing a sword without having to recall any or every particular time in the past.
I’m a somewhat cynical fellow, as I begin to see. But that comes from watching life … no … watching people. Life is indifferent to anything …
He smiled. He was learning. He expected everything would come back to him in time.
H
e saw them across the short, narrow arc of bridge that darkly spanned the faintly luminescent water, saw a vague metal gleaming and then shadows separating from the deeper background, the wood reverberating slightly as they crossed, an unintelligible voice half-whispering over the cricket’s summer hysteria in the warm, seamless night full of immense ripeness and perfume.
He stared into the deep blanknesses, seeing only the blurred edge of their movements. He felt his throat tense, mouth dry, heart quicken, and suddenly this all seemed absurd. What was he actually doing here? He didn’t know these men or their purposes … why not just live and eat and sleep and enjoy all the richness of this world? Absurd … this had nothing to do with him, his inner blanks left him free and innocent, and he struggled as if to break invisible bonds as feet drummed softly on the wood and a voice, hushed, fragmentary, said:
“… some … if God wills or … Devil … sleep for a fortnight, I …”
I have naught to do with any of this. Whatever I once had to do with is lost in bottomless shadow and let me leave it there …
He watched the vague sheen of a river and felt a deep urge to follow it up and around the shadowed, mysterious bends … on and on … remember nothing … start all time from now …
And then he found himself already walking, the draped willows whispering over his armor, turning his back on the raiders, almost strolling along the soft riverbank, faceplate open to the tender breezes.
“I’m free,” he murmured, partly aloud. I don’t want to know anything more. “I’m free.”
Except something in him knew, expected and so was unsurprised when a crouching, lithe figure, dripping water, cursed and swept a two-handed ax stroke at him. The hushed, flowing moment receded and was lost and he was caught again by his own motions, smoothly stepping aside, hearing the blade hiss past his ear as he drew and cut in one fluid motion and the man (hit glancingly in the upper torso) was shocked shrill and fled yelping, hoarse, crashing through brush; could be heard falling and getting up.
He turned now into the inevitability of the men charging from the bridge, all surprise lost for everybody, and he wondered why he had no fear. Then, as the blots and gleams and voices rushed up out of the fallen night to meet him, he leaped ahead (waiting for the fear and then forgetting even that) as if in a fast current, curious and ferocious, amazed (from some inner distance) at what he was doing, at his ducking, blocking and near-miraculous slashing that seemed to blow the vague, raging forms away from himself with hardly a felt shock, seeming to float in almost peaceful suspension above the actual cries and crashes and shadowy tumult. Then he heard the yells of the peasants farther up the slope and wondered how many there were coming on … but it was all so easy, moving in the dark, in and out of the screen of willow, great hissing rents cut in the branches. He felt supple, twisting and moving like a dancer; thrilling in little shocks each time a blade or ax brushed past his face or skidded from his chain armor, each shock whirling him deeper and more intricately into the ferocious dance, sparks flying, the shadows falling and fleeing, and he felt towering and coldly sweet and beating with a strange joy …
This is what you are without even a name, a voice that was probably his own kept repeating, this is what you are …
VIII
Dawn was mixed gray and little chips of wet-looking greenish blue. Broaditch was peering down a long, gradual hill into the valley, where a stream and a footpath wound more or less together, the path straightening the steeper curves. He was sipping a bitter root tea from a wooden mug. The children were partway down the slope, Tikla watching her brother digging in the earth with a short stick. Alienor was setting the light copper kettle upside down on the grass. The man (whose name, it turned out, was Pleeka) was squatting near the fading fire, chewing a dried fragment of something Broaditch had noticed him extricate from the robed recesses of his person. He hadn’t troubled to wash his face and the ragged, lumped wound was black and ugly. Even crouched like that he seemed impatient, eyes withdrawn, pitlike.
“It could rain before the day’s done,” Broaditch commented.
“Mayhap it will break the heat,” Alienor said, picking up the pot.
“Mayhap I will break the wind,” he said, looking dourly into his cup, “if I have to drink more of this brew.”
“Don’t complain,” she told him.
“There’s not a bean in it yet it billows up my innards like a bellows.”
“It’s healthful,” she said. “You’re a gross man.”
“Not me, I swear, woman. It’s my bowels betray me.” Burped. She made a face.
“Your life will be altogether different,” Pleeka was suddenly saying, as if these weren’t his first words since waking. There was the same cold contempt on his face, contempt that was not particularized so that, Broaditch saw, a man could resent him without having to bother about it.
“I have found that to be my plague, fellow,” Broaditch said back, draining the tea and flicking away the dregs and belching again. “My life has ever been different without becoming particularly satisfactory.”
“Once you admit the living light into yourself,” Pleeka informed him, not looking at him, “all things are born anew.”
“So have I heard.” Broaditch stood up, wiping his hands on his hams. Downslope Torky had unearthed a fairly large rock which he was struggling to lift and lever free, but the stick kept breaking. Broaditch could hear his daughter’s voice, high and giggly.
“That’s cracked, Torky,” she was saying. “What will you do with it?”
He didn’t respond. He was on his knees, straining, feet slipping in the weedy dirt.
“There’s lots of other rocks,” she said. “Look …” Pointed, but he paid no attention.
“Be still,” he said, straining. He puffed breath a little.
“I will not,” she said.
“I like this one.” Braced his arms and took a new angle.
“Hear me,” Pleeka was saying, eye depths aimed at Broaditch, “the man I serve will move mountains in the name of God.” He stood up as though he would leap into the air, though he did not.
“So you’re his prophet?” Broaditch asked, straight-faced.
Alienor took in the conversation sidelong, swinging the foodsack over her back as her husband took up the other pack and set the ropes over his shoulders before hefting his spear.
“It’s just cracked, Torky,” Tikla insisted, as the stick broke off short again and he fell over on his side.
“Devil curse it!” he said.
“Mind your words, smart lad,” his mother called down to him. “Get yourselves ready to travel. If you’ve any business to do, take it to the bushes before we start. Trifle not with Satan’s name.”
“Life can be simple and good,” Pleeka was saying, “when each day’s course is known and fitting.”
“I had that as slave and serf,” Broaditch answered. “Well, Pleeka, were you a priest once?”
They were heading downslope now. The day was grayly brightening. Tikla was going out ahead while her brother still struggled with the half-buried stone.
“No,” Pleeka said, “I were worse even than that. A scholar.”
Broaditch grinned, liking the reply, for once.
“Then you were a hard fellow,” he suggested.
They were passing Torky and his father raised an eyebrow.
“What are you doing, boy? Do you want me to free that for you?” He smiled. “Do you mean to bear it away? I’ll give you a burden if you feel such a need.”
“No,” his son said, “I’ll do it.” Was digging savagely all around the sides with the stub of stick, flinging earth everywhere in frantic, raging, inefficient industry.
“Why,” Broaditch asked over his shoulder, part pausing, “do you want it? I misdoubt it has much value, son.”
“I care not,” was the answer. He was kicking at it and rocking the heart-shaped chunk.
His father nodded and went on.
“Finish quickly then,”
he said, “and follow after.” To Alienor and Pleeka (if he pleased to listen) he said: “With all my years and snowy hairs I think I have done no better than that boy.” Rested the spear over his shoulder and aimed a word at the angular man: “Well, more-than-a-priest, what —” Broke off, squinting into the valley. Gestured for them all to wait. It was far enough away to blur in the early mists but he could just make out vague figures and wet gleamings of steel and (to clinch it) a bulky mounted man. “So they’ve come out ahead of us,” he muttered, leaning on the spearbutt. “Well, let them go on in peace.”
They seem to have swelled in numbers, he thought. And the countryside seems to be shrinking …
He glanced back at Torky, who was putting his back into it now, squatting, hands clawed around the chunk of rock.
“He touched me,” Pleeka was saying, looking across the valley, expressionless, or rather with one expression that could have meant anything or nothing.
“What?” wondered Broaditch.
“This is what I must share. His touching.”
Broaditch glanced at Pleeka, then back at Torky, unconsciously tensing, straining with him as he heaved, staggered halfupright, cradling the stone against his legs, holding it free for an instant, braced, awkward and fierce as if against the hillslope, the massing clouds’ vast shifting overhead, the vast tilt of the earth itself … then buckling, dropping and flinging it back into the hole. Stood there wiping his hands against his baggy leather shorts.
His father smiled.
“There was light,” Pleeka said, harsh with that abstract contempt, “do you understand?” the tic shook his cheek and he half turned towards Alienor, who said not a word. “Do you understand?” he repeated. “There was suddenly light …”
IX
Howtlande was sitting on the mule in the darkness at the far end of the narrow bridge when the fighting started. He instantly understood and was shouting:
“Skalwere! Mind the flanks, Skalwere! I’ll see to the rear!”
From the sparking, clash and fury across the water, he believed half-a-dozen at least opposed them. The rest of his men (save for one guarding the women) went racing past him, boards rattling and booming underfoot …
The Final Quest (The Parsival Saga Book 3) Page 4