The Black Chalice

by Marie Jakober

  So, like many other times, I was silent. And this time I really do not think it mattered. There was already an abundance of evidence against Karelian. Those who wanted to believe it, did. Those who didn’t want to, didn’t. The arguments went on, but no one was really listening. They were only pounding on their own certainties. The face of Mainz was almost ashen with dismay, like a man watching his house go up in flames.

  It was to him Gottfried made a final appeal.

  “My lord, as a Christian prelate you must speak. You must oppose this! No man can be allowed to serve as champion who is so defiant of God, and so given over to sorcery! It would be a mockery of justice.”

  “I oppose all of this,” Mainz said. “It is all a mockery of justice. I hear nothing in this chamber except the ranting of ambition, and the lash of malice. But you are both accused of sorcery, Lord Gottfried— yourself and the count of Lys. If one of you is to be banned from the trial, so should be the other.”

  “Aye!” shouted fifty voices as one.

  I stared at the archbishop in blank disbelief. It was a perfect Pharisee’s judgment— legally flawless, logically sound, morally empty.

  “Well said, my lord!” Franconia cried. “Are we agreed then? If Gottfried himself can take part in this trial, then there is no reason whatever why the count of Lys cannot?”

  They were agreed. A hundred aye’s drowned out the few, scattered no’s. Gottfried made a brief gesture of angry surrender, and flung himself back into his chair.

  So did they put stones in his path, and with lies they wove snares for his feet….

  Mainz tried one more time to sway them. “Do you really mean to do this, my lords?” His tone was heavy, and his body sagged as though his robe was made of chains. “To choose your king on the jousting field, the way you would wager for a coin? It’s wicked and sinful, and it’s lunacy besides! The more I see of these men, the more I think they’re both unworthy of the crown. You can’t mean to settle the fate of our holy empire with a travesty like this—?”

  “You misunderstand us, my lord,” Thuringia said. “We’re not the ones who are going to settle it. It’s obvious we can’t settle it— and few men are more to blame for our dilemma than you. So we’ll put it in God’s hands, and let him judge. Perhaps, being a holy man, you can tell me what’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s terrible presumption! It’s utterly barbaric—!”

  “Barbaric? Let me remind your lordship of our last twenty years. One year peace, the next year war. One day our emperor is excommunicated— and all his loyal vassals along with him, of course. The next day he’s forgiven and restored. And then, by God, before half of us can be shriven or marry or bury our dead, damned if he isn’t excommunicated again! One day we’re God’s people, and the next day we’re the children of hell. And we haven’t done anything different. The pope has merely changed his mind about our leaders, and how he wants to arrange things in the world. That is barbaric!

  “We’ve seen the Roman way of settling our disputes. So now we’ll use our own way, and then it will be settled. For one thing I assure you, my lord of Mainz, when God has passed his judgment on these men, he won’t come back tomorrow and change his mind!”

  FOURTY-THREE

  The King’s Champion

  It is one thing for magicians to perform miracles,

  another for good Christians, and another for evil Christians.

  Saint Augustine

  * * *

  They had only a week to prepare for the trial, and Konrad began at once. Before sunset his men were going over his armor and weapons with desperate care. There was no time to order anything new; the old would have to do. It was battered somewhat by the war, but it had been made for a prince, and it was sturdy. Other men occupied themselves among his horses, trying to choose which would be the strongest and healthiest and best-trained mount.

  The prince himself was in the practice yard by late afternoon, and it took all of the combined eloquence of his two loyal allies, Thuringia and Franconia, plus that of Karelian himself, to drag him away to talk.

  There was, he said, nothing more to talk about. He would fight Gottfried von Heyden, and if there was a just God in heaven — and he believed there was — he would defeat him, and clear his name, and claim his crown. And would they now be so kind as to move out of his way?

  “And will you, my good lord, stop being the haughty young king for just a moment, and listen to reason?”

  “You presume too much, Karelian!”

  “If I do, it’s only because I love you. My lord, your best captains stand before you, and beg for your attention. Will you not listen to them?”

  “I know what they’re going to say.”

  “Listen anyway, my lord,” Thuringia said. “Karelian has earned that much from you, even if I haven’t.”

  Konrad looked at the half-blind warrior and frowned. He wiped the sweat from his face, and swung down from his horse.

  “I’ll listen,” he said. “For what I owe to the lot of you, I’ll listen. But no more.”

  They went again to Gottfried’s pavilion, but they had no wine, and only the wounded Thuringia troubled himself to find a chair.

  “Well,” Konrad said, “spit it out. You don’t want me to fight.”

  “You must not fight, my lord,” Karelian said. “You can’t possibly win.”

  “I’ve been three times champion of Germany,” the king said coldly. “If I can’t win, perhaps you’ll tell me who can.”

  “The man who defeated the champion of Germany,” Thuringia said. “Right here on this same field, a year ago.”

  “A single joust proves nothing. I’m fifteen years younger than Karelian, and I’ll wager you a hundred marks he’d never beat me again!”

  “I’ll take your wager,” Thuringia said.

  “A plague on you both!” Karelian cried bitterly. “This is not about jousting— in the name of all that’s sacred, don’t you understand? We’re dealing with a sorcerer! You could be champion twenty times over and it wouldn’t matter! You can’t fight Gottfried on equal terms!”

  “And you can? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes! That’s what I’m saying!”

  The two captains looked at each other, and Konrad looked at something beyond Karelian’s left shoulder.

  “And if it’s so,” the king said finally, darkly, “what good will it do any of us? If the trial is decided by sorcery, it is no trial. Any trick, any treachery, even the wearing of a charm will condemn you, and I will be hanged by your side. Thank you, Karelian, but such championing I don’t need.”

  “You’re wrong, my lord,” Thuringia said softly. “As I would judge it, the trial is going to be decided by sorcery. With Gottfried there, what else is possible? Surely none of you imagine he’ll be restrained by the usual oath to use no magic?”

  “Then he’ll be condemned,” Konrad said.

  “Only if he uses magic which can be seen,” Karelian replied. “A shield against wounds can’t be seen. The power of a thought to ward off a blow can’t be seen. Fear can’t be seen. All those things he’ll use, and likely others.”

  “And do you have such… weapons… at your disposal, Karel?”

  I am too far gone in this to turn back now…. Karelian drew a long breath, and said simply:

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks be to God,” Thuringia murmured, and crossed himself. Then, in response to Franconia’s look of dismay, he added:

  “If they have cavalry, damn it, we want cavalry. If they have Greek fire, we want Greek fire. Well, if they have a sorcerer, then we’d better have one, too. I see no problem with it. I thought perhaps his majesty had arranged it so.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Konrad snapped. “I accepted Karelian’s service in good faith.”

  “I’ve not betrayed your faith, my lord,” Karelian said calmly.

  “No. No, you haven’t. But God help us, you heard what Mainz said. My worthiness to rule is compromised merely by m
y alliance with you. If I name you as my champion, what will they say then? Will it even matter if you win?”

  “It will matter,” Karelian said. “Gottfried will be dead.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about what the archbishop says,” Franconia added. “His kind see devils in the bread basket. The knights and princes of Germany don’t care a fig about most of the accusations against you. They care about whether you murdered your father. If that accusation is proven false, the rest is smoke in the wind. You’re a good soldier, you’re sound in mind and body. Those things — and good government — are what matter in a king. Nothing else.”

  “If I vindicate myself, yes,” Konrad replied. “But if Karelian does it for me, what will they say, then? Won’t they point to the courtyard of Lys, and to Ravensbruck — to every accusation made against you, Karel — and then say: Konrad was saved by a sorcerer; he is no king!”

  “There are some things you must remember here, my lord,” Karelian said. “One: you are the legitimate heir. Your vindication will have a rightness in itself. It will represent a return to order, and to the honored ways of doing things.”

  “Aye,” growled Thuringia.

  “And two: everyone wants peace. As long as the trial is concluded without treachery, without any open violation of the laws, most of Germany will be eager to accept it. And one thing more, my lord. In spite of all the fuss they make, not every man thinks it’s wicked to have dealings with a sorcerer. As for those who do think so, let me ask you this: what’s the difference between an act of magic and a miracle?”

  “One is God’s doing, and one is… someone else’s.”

  “But how we know which is which? How do we know if God did a thing, or if someone else did?”

  “Before I met you, Karel, I would have said it was obvious.”

  “And what made it so obvious?”

  “Well, if Jesus did it, or a saint, it was a miracle. Or if it came out of nowhere and helped us.”

  “So it wasn’t the deed itself? It was the agent or the outcome?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  From the corner of his eye, Karelian could see the duke of Thuringia smiling. He went on:

  “Have dead saints not appeared on battlefields, leading Christian armies to victory?”

  Konrad made a small gesture of assent. Yes. Or at least there are legends about it….

  “It’s said that dead men came to Ravensbruck, my lord, and it may be that they did. But I was fighting for the lawful king, defending his life and crown against a traitor, and those who came to help me were martyred warriors of the empire. Was it sorcery then, my lord, or was it the hand of God? The duke’s followers will say one thing, no doubt, but yours will say the other, and nothing will be proved.

  “If you are a just king, and govern well, and keep the law, nothing I have done or am accused of doing will unseat you. You will have enemies; no ruler is without them. And yes, they’ll speak of Lys and Ravensbruck. And for every ten who speak of it, ten others will say it wasn’t so, and twenty more won’t care.

  “They want a king, my lord. They want an end to the war, an end to being leaderless and torn apart. If you are vindicated in this battle, no one will take your crown because of me. If you want to lose it, you’ll have to throw it away.”

  He stepped close to the young king, and dropped to one knee.

  “My liege, I beg you: for your life’s sake, and for Germany, let me fight!”

  For a long time Konrad let him kneel. Then, slowly, he lifted him to his feet, and held him by the shoulders.

  “Damn you, Karel, how do you think I’ll be able to bear it? To stand aside like a worthless boy and watch?”

  “You’ll be able to bear it because it’s necessary. And because you are a king.”

  There was another long silence. Neither of the captains intervened; everything they could say had already been said.

  “All right,” Konrad said heavily. He turned away. “Perhaps you’re right; God knows you usually are.”

  * * *

  Karelian’s first preparations for the trial were not made in the practice field. He summoned a lawyer and a scribe, and with Konrad himself as a witness, along with Reinhard and several other men of rank, he acknowledged the boy-child Wolfram as his heir, arranged for his fostering and care, and appointed the priest Father Thomas as his tutor.

  It is not enough, the scribe wrote under dictation, for the boy to learn to fight and to govern; he must learn when to fight, and for what; he must learn how to govern justly. For that, let him learn to read; let him learn to think; let him be as much of a scholar as it is in him to be.

  The count provided also for Adelaide. She was to have the use of his property, and be allowed to live in comfort from its revenues, with the honor appropriate to her rank, for as long as she lived, whether she married again or not.

  When it was done, he sat for a time alone, remembering his departure from Ravensbruck. He wondered if Rudi Selven would believe him now.

  They had confronted each other among the ruins, one last time, in a world of fire and phantoms. If Karelian had believed in hell he might well have thought it lay about him. Selven rode up to him, stopping barely an arm’s reach away. His clothing was drenched in blood. His eyes were filled with bitter, unsatisfied dreams.

  “So, my lord of Lys.”

  Karelian nodded faintly. “Selven.”

  “It seems you are the last of my enemies left alive.”

  “I doubt you can kill me, Selven. Before you try, there’s something you should know. Adelaide bore a child a year ago. A boy-child, with coal-black hair. The whole world thinks you fathered him, and they’re probably right.”

  Selven stared at him, wiped his arm across his face, and stared again.

  “He will be count of Lys one day,” Karelian added, “if I live to hold it for him.”

  “Why would you do that?” Selven whispered.

  Why indeed? It was a question he had never answered to his own satisfaction, much less to anyone else’s.

  “Why should I not? He’s Adelaide’s, and she loves him. He’s healthy and beautiful. He never did me any wrong. Why should I throw him to the wolves?”

  Strange, that in such a place, at such a time, there could be silence. No conflagration now, no war. Nothing seemed to exist but the two of them, motionless at the borders of the world.

  “I would like to believe you, sorcerer, but I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry for it.”

  “Is she happy?”

  “She may never be truly happy, Selven. But she has a place in the world; she has a measure of security; she has the child. That is something.”

  “Will you speak to her about me?”

  Karelian considered for a moment, and shook his head. “No.”

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Selven said bitterly. “Then say your accursed charms and set me free.”

  “You are free, Rudolf of Selven. Go, and be at peace.”

  He faded like a shadow into a greater and gathering darkness. At the last moment, before he was gone, he raised his hand in a brief, perhaps ironic, perhaps sincere salute. And went to whatever place they went, the dead who were truly dead and did not return.

  Where I will go, perhaps, in a few more days….

  And if he lived? If he defeated Gottfried, and lived… what then?

  He mostly believed his brave words to Konrad in the pavilion— though he would have spoken them whether he believed them or not. But in the quiet of his own reflections he knew them for what they were: just brave words. He had grown arrogant in an environment of war, surrounded by the powers of Car-Iduna and the loyalty of fighting men who cared little what their warleader did, or said, or thought, as long as he was winning and keeping them alive.

  The council brought him sharply back to reality.

  Oh, there was truth enough in his words: to the average citizen of the empire, highborn or low, the use of sorcery was not necessarily an evil, and if it wa
s, they simply called it something else. A cross or a holy relic worn around one’s neck was never called a charm, but it was a charm nonetheless. Priests made divinations by blindly opening sacred books, yet few men ever called the sortes sanctorum witchcraft. If he had only the Reinmark to live with, only the German empire, all his words to Konrad would have been true.

  But there was the Church, and that was another matter altogether. The Church also judged sorcery by the agent and the outcome; unfortunately, Konrad’s vindication and his lawful right to rule — the outcomes which concerned Germany — did not especially interest the Church. And the agent would interest them entirely too much.

  The archbishop of Mainz was not an evil man. Indeed, by ordinary standards of judgment, he was a good man. And yet, Karelian knew, if Mainz had the power to do so, he would try the lords of Brandeis and von Heyden on the same charges, and burn them on the same stake, with no concern at all for the real issues of their quarrel. To a faithful servant of the Christian hierarchy, the real issues were what a man believed, and how he served or failed to serve the dominion of the Church. By that standard, Karelian and his enemy were equally condemned.

  They sent an army halfway across the world to slaughter unbelievers. Why should I imagine they’ll ignore the Reinmark and its duke? I think it’s just beginning, this passion for mastery, this drive to have the whole world submit, and every man in it, and every woman, in every thought and every dream and every whisper of our flesh. Gottfried himself was born of it, and so was the great crusade.

  It’s just beginning. Dear gods, what will become of us when it’s truly unleashed?

  * * *

  The night before the trial Karelian was summoned to Konrad’s private chambers— the rooms which had previously been occupied by the duchess Radegund. The king had taken Gottfried’s quarters first, as was fitting; they were the finest in the castle. He left them again within the hour. “I don’t find them pleasing,” was the only explanation the proud and worldly young man would give.