The Black Chalice

by Marie Jakober

  Karelian took the cup, and thanked her, raising it in a gallant salute, and then he drank. Reinhard, with a small shrug of resignation, followed his lead. If his lord would hang, well then, he would hang beside him. And so one by one the company was lost to magic.

  The dwarf Marius showed us to the chambers which had been set aside for us, where we might leave our belongings. Then he took us to the baths, which were tiled and had heated water. Though it was common in the east, this was a luxury which I think no lord in Europe enjoyed except the emperor, in his splendid palace at Aachen. All the men marvelled at it, but to me it seemed only further proof of the castle’s fearful magic.

  We were given fresh clothing to wear, all of it finely made. For Karelian there was a tunic embroidered with the emblem of the winter tree— beautifully embroidered on white linen and trimmed with cloth of gold. This gift pleased him very much, and he said again how gracious the lady was, and how he must find some gift for her in return. In the end he gave her everything he had.

  Marius took us back to the great hall. There would be a feast tonight, he said, and revelry and songs; he urged us to enjoy all which might be offered us. Only remember, he added, remember always that his lady was a queen.

  The hall was round and domed, and I have often wondered if the castle was a castle at all, or a cavern hollowed into the earth. Perhaps the towers and lights we had seen were only phantoms, and we walked now within the belly of the earth. Plants grew full of flowers, as though it were summer. Again and again as we moved among the gathering we saw wild creatures— foxes, snakes, strange birds who thought nothing of landing on a man’s shoulder and chirping in his ear. But if they were truly creatures, tamed by the lady’s magic, or if they were humans changed into beasts, I did not know, and scarcely dared to wonder.

  We had been back only a short time when the ceremony began, and the clamor of voices fell still. From an open doorway on the far side of the hall, opposite from where we had entered, came the sound of music: the slow beat of a drum, the sad, sweet cry of a reed pipe, the steady shiver of a drone. It was beautiful music, beautiful and strange, and utterly hypnotic. A procession was moving out of the inner chamber, slowly, with great solemnity. First came the musicians, dressed in red and silver, and then a body of warriors, with painted helmets and shields. I will not call them knights, for some were women, and none of them were Christian, but they were splendidly dressed and armed. Behind these came dancers, all young people wearing light tunics, their hair unbound and their feet bare.

  And then…. Even now my mind falters. I am fifty years old now, a learned man and a monk, and yet I look at the memories which coil in my mind and ask if they are not, perhaps, the leavings of an incubus. For how could those things which I saw in Car-Iduna have been possible, even in such a place, even with God’s permission?

  Nine women came from the sanctuary beyond the great hall, carrying a bier, and on the bier was a Chalice. Or so I call it for its shape, but how can such a sacred word be used to describe so dark a thing? It was neither gold nor silver, nor even bronze or fine pottery. It looked as if it were made of mud, and yet it shimmered like a jewel. When it passed close to me I saw that it was scabbed with moss and hung with threads of vine.

  The women who bore it were dressed in long silver robes. They were all old women, and as they carried the bier towards us they also turned it, forming its path into a spiral. Each person in the lady’s company bowed as it passed. We stood rigid, frozen in doubt and peril; then Karelian, always the diplomat, bowed his head as well. Out of sheer terror I did the same.

  I have no excuse for doing so, as I have no excuse for my many silences. I knew the thing held within it a terrible power, and I was not mistaken. For the lady led us then to share in her feast, and to our great amazement the servants needed only to hold our wine cups before the Chalice, and they would fill with amber wine, or to lay our plates before it, and they would be laden with the finest foods, with anything we wished. Our men all marvelled at this, too, and not one of them thought to ask: By what power is this done? Who does this lady and her Chalice serve?

  We sat at one of several long tables in the hall, Karelian at the lady’s right hand, the seneschal at her left. Our knights and various members of her court filled the length of it. She was, of course, the undisputed center of attention— especially Karelian’s attention. She was witty, and spoke freely on any subject she pleased, much as the women of Constantinople had done, who dared to express opinions even on the conduct of war. But she had a breadth of knowledge greater than they, a knowledge which no woman could possess except by witchcraft.

  She would say astonishing, reckless things, and then laugh, waiting for Karelian’s response, pleased if he answered her well, and then baiting him again. It was a game of seduction, I understood that, but it was a great deal more. She was studying him, learning the ways of his mind and finding his weaknesses. And he was trying to do the same. For all the toasts and flattery, for all the occasions he took to comment on her beauty or her cleverness, there was an edge sometimes to his words, barely concealing the unspoken question: Who are you, and what do you want from me?

  It was an unequal contest, as such contests always are between women and their prey. My lord was a gifted man. Gottfried ranked him among the best of his vassals, not merely for his skill with arms, but also for his wisdom, his ability to speak well and to manoeuvre through the traps of other men’s words. But here his wisdom failed him. From the start he was only half thinking of his danger, and by the night’s end all he wanted was to please her, and win her to his bed.

  And I could do nothing except watch it happen. In most any other hall I would have had my squire’s duties, to carve my lord’s meat and pour his wine, and fetch whatever he might want for his comfort. But here even the humblest of our company was placed at the tables like an honored guest. The lady’s own people replenished our plates, and kept the table’s great flagons filled with wine, and poured them, and carried away the bones. So I could do nothing but linger nearby, almost sick with hunger at the sight of so much splendid food.

  Reinhard, who had warned us not to eat, sat opposite Karelian, stuffing himself from a plate laden with different meats, roasted or stewed or baked with stuffing, and thick bread heavy with rich grains, and pastries filled with fruits. The wine flowed like water. I saw one man after another take his first sip of it and then, startled with pleasure, raise his cup eagerly for more. I was tempted to join them. What harm could there be in it? Surely food and drink were only food and drink. Surely these worldly and experienced men would not share in this feast if it were truly dangerous.

  But I knew better, in my heart. I knew men were weak. I knew that experience in the world and understanding of the spirit were not the same things at all. So I held my ground, desolate and sad, while the feast passed before my eyes and disappeared.

  No one bothered me about it. Once Karelian looked at me with concern, and wrapped a slab of meat in a piece of bread, and offered it to me. “Here, lad, you’ll feel better if you eat a little.”

  I found the strength to smile. “Are you doing squire’s service for me now, my lord?”

  “Yes, if I must. I don’t want you falling off your horse tomorrow.”

  “The first law of soldiering, Pauli,” Reinhard said. “Never miss a chance for a good meal; God knows when you’ll get another one.”

  And you were the one who warned us against all this, you weak-willed backwoods hireling…!

  “I am troubled in my stomach, my lord,” I said. “If I eat I fear I will disgrace you. And myself.”

  Karelian shrugged, and popped the food into his own mouth, and thereafter I was left in peace. He was a generous master, but he was not very interested in me just now. He ate, and sparred with the lady, and paused now and then to offer dainties to a slinky grey cat which had climbed onto the bench beside him. He was fond of small animals; and this one clearly was the lady’s favorite.

  “Bastet likes
you,” she said. “And she hardly likes anyone. She thinks she owns Car-Iduna, and everyone else is here by her leave.”

  “Even you?”

  “Even me.”

  “Perhaps we should take her to Aachen, and let her try being empress.”

  “She wouldn’t want to be bothered,” the lady said, laughing.

  Her laugh was soft and throaty. I wondered how old she was. This close, I could see the odd strand of grey in her black hair, and tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. Karelian’s age, I thought, give or take five years.

  My mother’s age as well.

  Nothing could have been more shattering than to think of my mother here, my mother with her high-necked gown girdled with cords and hung with heavy keys, her hair in a veil, her voice steady and her step even, moving through the manor house of Ardiun with absolute serenity. I had never seen her dressed like a wanton, or ever imagined the possibility of it. Nor could I imagine such laughter from her mouth, or such a look in her eyes as was now in the lady’s, raising her cup to answer Karelian’s salute. The gentle touching of their goblets was a ritual kiss. Deliberately she turned the cup to drink from the spot which had touched his.

  He noticed, of course, and so did I, but no one else did. They were all too busy eating and swilling wine, and marvelling at everything, and wanting to impress her with their tales of our conquests in the east.

  And I, fool that I was, encouraged the talk. For here, I thought, was something which could remind Karelian of his honor and his Christian faith. And I loved the stories, too, all those marvellous tales of a glory I had missed. I was too young to go— only twelve when they marched for Constantinople in the spring of ’96. Although some very young lads went as pages and servants, my father would not hear of it. “There will always be another war,” he said. It was true, but there would never be this particular war again, and I grieved bitterly to be left behind. When a second contingent left, four years later, I was with them, squire to a calm, aging knight who died of dysentery in his saddle, refusing to be carried, or to stop and rest until he had seen the walls of Jerusalem.

  By then, of course, everything was over but some skirmishes. Many knights were already on their way home when I arrived. Duke Gottfried stayed another two years, helping the young king of Jerusalem secure his new realm, and I took service with his kinsman Karelian. I had missed the war, but at least I had won a place with one of its greatest heroes. For however modest Karelian’s fortunes were when he left the Reinmark, he was spoken of now in the same breath as the leaders of the expedition: Raymond of Toulouse and Bohemond of Taranto and Duke Gottfried himself. Everyone told stories of his courage— how he saved Gottfried’s life in Antioch, how he fought off an ambush of Seljuk Turks with only a handful of men, how he always had a plan for a crisis or a word of comfort for a wounded comrade. There was no end of the stories, but Karelian himself would never tell them. He would talk about the journey, sometimes, and about Constantinople, a city which had awed him with its splendor. But of the conquest, and his part in it, he never spoke at all.

  Maybe now, I thought, maybe now, to impress this woman, he would do so… if the conversation ever got past the glitter of Byzantium.

  “Until you’ve seen a city like Constantinople,” he said, “you can’t imagine it. I don’t know how many people live there, but I am sure it’s more than in the whole of the Reinmark. The churches are like palaces, and the libraries…! I didn’t know there were so many books in the world.”

  “Do you read?” she asked.

  He made a small, self-deprecating gesture. “Only a little. When we settle in Lys, Paul has promised to teach me more. Though I fear he may be too gentle a teacher, and let me get away with too many mistakes.” He smiled at me, and I ached with gratitude and admiration.

  “I’m sure you will learn easily, my lord,” I said. “But I’ll throw a tantrum for you now and then, if you wish.”

  One of the lady’s followers, sitting next to Reinhard, had a predictable question of her own.

  “And the women of Byzantium? What are they like?”

  “They are beautiful,” Reinhard said. “But they meddle in everything.”

  “The emperor’s daughter reads and speaks five languages, and knows a great deal about the world,” Karelian said. “And she’s not even twenty.”

  “And what did she think of all of you?” the lady wondered.

  Karelian laughed. “What she thought I don’t know. But her father looked at us as though we had just come riding down from the steppes, dressed in skins and drinking out of skulls. I think he sat awake more than one night, wondering if the medicine the pope sent him wasn’t worse than the disease. All he’d asked for, after all, was a body of knights to help defend his eastern borders. He never asked for anyone to conquer Jerusalem. And here were fifty thousand armed men at his gates, and God alone knows how many unarmed common folk, and more than enough thugs. He was afraid his own territories might be at risk, and I must say he had cause, considering that the first thing Bohemond did when we crossed into Asia was carve out a piece of old Byzantium for himself.”

  “Bohemond!” Otto almost spat the Frenchman’s name. “All Bohemond ever wanted out of any of this was profit.”

  “He wasn’t alone there,” Karelian replied. “And God knows the emperor could see it well enough. He would only let us into the city in groups of six, like hounds on a leash.”

  “It was good in a way, though,” Reinhard added, “for he was in such a hurry to get rid of us, he loaded us with provisions, and we were across the Bosporus and on our way faster than we ever thought was possible.”

  “Farewell, Constantinople,” the lady murmured.

  “Yes,” Karelian said. “I wish I had seen more of it.”

  “And more, no doubt, of those beautiful, clever, meddlesome women.”

  “Well, perhaps. But there are women in the Reinmark just as lovely, and just as clever. And, I suspect, even more meddlesome.”

  She smiled. “What did they wear?”

  “Wear?”

  “The Byzantine women. I’m told they are very elegant.”

  “Oh, they are, but I can’t remember. They wore clothes… Paul, you notice things like that. What did they wear?”

  The woman was laughing, and saved me from having to reply.

  “I fear, my lord count, your only interest in a woman’s clothing lies in the pleasure of taking it off.”

  He considered that for a moment, taking a sip of his wine.

  “The more lovely a woman is in fine raiment, my lady, the more lovely still she is without it. It would be a foolish man who would look at the leaves rather than the flower.”

  She saluted him again with her cup, and with her eyes, and I looked away.

  “So the duke of Lorraine is now the king of Jerusalem,” she mused. “What a curious idea.”

  “He is king in fact only,” Otto said, “not in name. He says he will never wear a crown of gold where our Saviour wore a crown of thorns.”

  “And how long will that last?” she asked dryly. “For as long as the heirs of Saint Peter made their living catching fish?”

  Many of the knights smiled at her jest, for though it was irreverent, they were Germans, and they had no great love for the Franks, and even less for the Roman pope.

  “It won’t last,” Karelian said. “And neither will the kingdom of Jerusalem itself. We might as well have gone to the beaches of Osten, and built ourselves an empire out of sand.”

  Reinhard stared at him appalled, drank ferociously, and wiped his hand across his mouth.

  “That’s— that’s unthinkable, my lord! God himself gave us back Jerusalem—”

  “No, Reini,” the count said flatly. “Saracen squabbling gave us Jerusalem— along with some blind luck, and the advantage of surprise. They never took us seriously until it was too late. But they will from now on; you may be sure of it. We hold a string of cities along the coast; they hold an empire of hinterland. They will
drive us out, and when they do, then the Christians who live there will have cause to weep. They didn’t, before we came. Our last gift to the east will be the ruin of the people we claim we went to save.”

  I could not believe what I had heard. None of us could.

  “If this is so, my lords,” the lady murmured, “then why ever was it done?”

  “It was done for God,” Reinhard said. “And I beg to differ with you, my lord Karelian. What has been built these years in the Holy Land will last until the end of the world.”

  He paused, turning eagerly towards the woman.

  “My lady, I don’t know if you’re a Christian—”

  “I am not. But go on.”

  “We marched for three years, my lady. We starved. We burned with thirst, and choked with dust, and slogged through mud, and shivered with ague and cold. We left dead behind us with every league we travelled. Only one thing kept us going—”

  “As many things kept us going as there were men among us,” Karelian said. “Speak for yourself, my good friend.”

  Reinhard flushed faintly, and plunged on: “I wanted to see the Holy City, to walk upon its stones. To kneel by the sepulchre where Our Lord was laid, and doing so, to know I was at peace with God. The day we took the city, when the fighting was over, we went — I don’t know how many of us there were, lady, it was a sea of shields and crosses! — we went to the Holy Sepulchre and prayed there. Before we looked for food or drink or rest, we went to pray. I have never seen so many men weep, my lady, and I have never in my life known such joy.”

  “They say every man who goes to Jerusalem makes a sacred vow there,” she said.

  “It is true, lady,” Reinhard said. “I vowed I would go faithfully to Mass, and pay my tithes, and live by the commandments. And I never cared much about such things before. Our lives are different now. The whole world is different now.”

  Karelian drained his wine.

  “Did you make a vow in Jerusalem, my lord count?” the woman asked him softly.