Count Oduin spoke blessings upon the baby Helizabel, though in the hushed tone of a knowing father, so as not to awaken her, and when he had introduced Balin and Lorna Maeve as his guests, he laid the chest of gold among the other gifts, bowed low, and they departed for the banquet hall.
“He’s so old to have a young child,” Lorna Maeve observed.
“The Fisher King and his family and the Templeise and priests here celebrate Holy Mass with and take communion from the Grail itself,” said Count Oduin. “It grants them all miraculous strength and vigor well beyond their years.”
They were seated at one of the four long tables that bordered the concourse. The tables all bore cloths that could have adorned the altar at St. Stephen’s, and the plates and utensils were not of iron, but gold and silver.
Count Oduin took his place beside a portly noble with an immense red mustache and deep set eyes who called for more wine at regular intervals and whose equally large wife sounded as if she were being eviscerated whenever she laughed.
The thin young woman on Balin’s left was deeply infatuated with her table partner, a mop haired nobleman with a long nose and sleepy eyes, as transfixed apparently by her presence as she was by his. They spoke in passionate tones so low Balin was amazed they could hear each other.
Balin cast his eyes about the hall, taking in the opulence of generations, such as he had never known in Northumberland or Camelot. Everything was so clean and fine, he hated to touch any of it.
Lorna Maeve sipped wine, and Count Oduin engaged the fat noble beside him, asking the names of the various seated dignitaries, cleverly trying to discern which was Sir Garlon, if he was here.
Balin looked down at his own reflection in the golden plate and beside him, Lorna Maeve remarked, “These could be melted down and the gold used to feed a family for a year outside these walls. Why do your Christian kings festoon themselves with such gaudery?”
He had thought Prince Clarivaunce extravagant, but he was a pauper compared to Pellam.
“I don’t know if that is confined to Christian kings, or if it is the province of kings altogether. When my brother and I came to Sewingshields as boys, to be trained as knights, that was the first time I realized I had been poor. It was a thing I learned from other men, men who never let me forget the lesson.”
“I had thought you came from Camelot. Aren’t all the knights there wealthy?”
“Not at all, my lady. Dagonet was a common man, a lowly minstrel, knighted by Arthur at Cameliard. Sir Marrok came to Arthur without even a stitch of clothing on his back,” he smiled at this, for he was perhaps being a bit misleading, though it was true that Marrok had lost his lands long ago.
“Wasn’t your father a knight?”
“That doesn’t always mean wealth, my lady. Fortunes come and go. As I said, we were poor, but with our mother’s cottage, and the clearing, and the apple tree on the hill, we thought ourselves well enough. We lived, and breathed, and we ate and drank. We wanted for nothing.”
“You say your mother’s cottage. She built it?”
“She would not raise us in the castle of King Detors. She wanted us to dwell among green things.”
Lorna Maeve smiled and rested her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Don’t your priests warn you knights about godless women like your mother and I?”
He reddened and chuckled.
“I’m being quite serious!” She laughed. “How did your father, a Christian, cope with his pagan wife?”
Balin thought for a moment. “I couldn’t say, but he did die when we were very young.”
She looked at him for a moment, and then he smiled and she playfully slapped his elbow and laughed.
Then Count Oduin leaned across. “There, at the door!” He hissed. “Sir Garlon!”
They looked to the entrance, their merriment forgotten, and sure enough, the herald called out Garlon’s name. It was the very same ill-mannered knight they had encountered at the gate.
He was in a foul mood and looked over the whole hall, at each of the guests, scowling. Then his eyes fell on Balin, and he found a grin to match the leers of the Leprous Lady’s knights and made his way toward where they sat.
A servant happened to cross his path. Garlon reached out and took him by the front of the tabard, pulling him in close, and upsetting his tray of golden goblets noisily.
“Where is the Lady Heleyne?” he demanded, ignoring the mess he’d caused and the heads swiveling to observe him.
“I do not know, Sir Garlon!” the serving boy stuttered.
“Well find her,” he said simply, and pushed him out of the way roughly, before continuing his advance on their table.
Balin pushed himself back from the table. Another serving boy was just finishing laying out their wine when Garlon arrived and without a word, plucked Balin’s goblet up and guzzled it down.
When he had finished, he set it back on the table and grinned past Balin at Lorna Maeve.
“Hello, pretty,” he said, leering awfully, and then to Balin, “Much too pretty for the likes of you, muckrake.”
“Garlon!” Balin snarled and to his surprise, Garlon planted a strong, gauntleted hand over his mouth.
“I’ll see you after supper, boy. Enjoy the free meal. It will be your last.” He released Balin and crossed the open area to his own seat at the king’s table.
Balin was beside himself at the insult. He stood so abruptly his chair tipped over.
“Challenge him!” Count Oduin hissed. “Challenge him!”
“No!” Lorna Maeve said. “No, something’s not right. Don’t!”
“Sir Garlon!” Balin shouted.
The knight didn’t even turn around but called over his shoulder airily. “After supper. Then you can do what you’ve come to do.”
He sat down as if nothing at all had happened, though every conversation in the hall had ceased, and every servant stood frozen. Every eye passed between Balin and Garlon expectantly.
“Wine,” Garlon said to a dumbstruck waiter, his voice echoing in the silent hall.
Balin’s teeth clenched together so hard he thought he would crack them. His blood rushed and pounded in his ears. Lorna Maeve grabbed his hand and he shook her off.
In doing that, he turned and saw, on the wall behind him, an old sword set on hooks.
He grabbed the handle and tore it from the wall, the hooks pinging as they bounced along the floor. He stalked across the open concourse toward Garlon’s table. The people rose in their seats, their voices rising in an unintelligible crescendo, warning, exclaiming, pleading.
Garlon had a goblet tipped back, so Balin was halfway to him when his eyes spotted him over the rim of the cup and widened in surprise.
He jumped up and grabbing the edges of the hood of his green cloak, threw it up over his head. He vanished completely, eliciting a new volley of screams from the onlookers.
Balin lunged across the table, swinging down. The blade struck something that sucked at it like a ripe squash, and its cutting edge disappeared for a fraction of a second, before Garlon’s head reappeared about it. The green hood of the cloak parted and slipped from his head.
Garlon stared at Balin, mouth open, blood dribbling down his nose from the cleft in his skull.
Balin viciously drew the sword out with a whisk of blood and brain, and Garlon fell back into his chair.
Balin thrust the point into Garlon’s neck and ripped it free again, sending gouts of blood shooting across the table. It spattered Balin’s chest and the side of his face.
The feel of the blood doused his rage. He looked back across the screaming, scurrying guests, and saw Lorna Maeve standing and Count Oduin beside her, both of them agape.
He held out his blood drenched hand.
Lorna Maeve recovered admirably fast and came around the table to him. She reached behind her head and pulled the tip of Herlews’ lance point free of her hair, sending it springing out again, wild and unfettered.
She was beautiful as she s
trode, heedless of the pandemonium erupting around her, like a terrible goddess herself, uncaring of the blood running down the table, pooling on the floor, covering him, until she knelt and held the small lance tip cup to the blood, patiently letting it run and fill it, dipping the point in, as she had sworn to Sir Herlews.
She looked up at him. She was terrifying. A witch, yes, in the midst of some blood drenched spell.
But she did not shrink from him. He loved her. Completely.
She smiled and took his hand. He lifted her gently to her feet. Hand in hand, they walked back to where Oduin stood wringing his hands.
Blood enough. Enough to heal Oduin’s son. Enough to quench the angry fire in her heart, perhaps? Enough for Balin.
But not the end of blood.
For at that moment King Pellam and his retinue of Templeise burst into the hall. They had no doubt responded to the noise of the shrieking guests, and Pellam opened his mouth to demand explanation, but then spied his brother face down in his place, the place beside Pellam’s own.
He rushed to the table, grand, purple robes rustling, the Templeise clattering to keep up.
King Pellam touched his brother’s open wound, ignoring the blood that soaked his ermine-trimmed robes or the matter that tumbled wetly down his trembling hands when he lifted his brother’s head and looked into his dead and gaping face.
He pressed his own face to his brother’s and mourned.
All around, the guests pointed to Balin.
“Balin!” Oduin whispered when they reached him. “My God, hurry. You must state your case…you must…”
But then there was an unexpected roar, a wail frightful and vital, and it came from the black mouth in the bloodstained beard of the frail looking Fisher King, who glared across the hall at Balin still holding the bloody sword.
The command was unintelligible but unmistakable. A half dozen Templeise rushed at them.
Pellam went to the opposite wall of the chamber and wrenched an axe from its hangings.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nimue and Merlin strode side by side from the stables. She had told him everything. She had had to. It had gotten too far out of her control. Too much was at stake.
“We must be quick,” Merlin said. “Garlon and Balin will be like two bears brawling in a potter’s shop. Everything hangs in the balance now.”
“I know!” Nimue said. How could she have allowed them both to come so close to the Sangreal? She knew well its power, the hold it had on this country. Christian or no, many lives were endangered, maybe all of Albion.
“Well done, Merlin,” came an imperious voice from the courtyard, “I see you have caught our wayward little magpie at last.”
They both stopped.
It was Viviane, the Lady of The Lake, in her scintillating samite gown of office, her platinum hair plaited and bound by a circlet of silver. What was she doing here?
“Viviane!” Merlin exclaimed.
“Now, Nimue,” said Viviane, advancing. “We will take you back to Avalon, to face the consequences of your crimes.”
“You followed me?” Merlin asked, evidently perplexed. “No, you could not have. Else you would have intervened in Carteloise. What are you doing here?”
“The Sight showed me you both. Do you think you’re the only vaticinator in Albion?”
“Of course, of course,” Merlin said, furrowing his brow, as if trying desperately to understand something. “But why did you send me to Carteloise prematurely to begin with?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped impatiently. “Come, we must to Avalon.”
He pulled his beard, thinking, then shook his head vigorously and waved his hand. The matter at hand was more pressing than whatever it was that was troubling him. “There will be time to decide Nimue’s penance later. We must first intervene here.”
“I will have nothing to do with anything in this Christian fortress,” Viviane announced.
“Viviane, you must know where you are,” Merlin spluttered, exasperated. “This is the stronghold of the Sangreal. The very heart of Christendom in Albion. Two men are about to fight.”
“Yes I know,” said Viviane, with a light smile.
“You know, of course,” Merlin said, “but there is a very great chance they could disturb the Sangreal within.”
“Oh, more than a chance, Merlin,” said Viviane. “It is practically an absolute. The only thing that could possibly keep it from happening is you.”
She extended her index finger toward Merlin, and the cobbles beneath his feet suddenly exploded outward. Thick black roots burst into the light, shedding crumbling earth, and spiraled like tentacles up his legs, twisted around him, and pinned his arms to his sides.
Merlin glanced at Nimue, expecting it was her doing. She saw in his eyes the confusion that came when he espied the shock in hers.
Above their heads, the sky darkened as clouds rolled in like an avalanche of black snow over the sun.
“What are you doing?” Nimue exclaimed.
Thunder rumbled, and a chill wind picked up the loose straw and dust, stinging Nimue’s eyes.
“For four hundred years, more, the seeds of the Way of the crucified god which Joseph of Arimathea planted in this land have been allowed to sprout and take root,” said Viviane. “Today they will be weeded out.”
“Viviane, this isn’t the way,” Merlin said, struggling against the thick roots constricting him. “The roots are too deep. We must…”
She twisted her extended hand a bit, and the roots lashed themselves across Merlin’s mouth. Then they began to draw him down.
“Yes, Merlin, you dirty fingered old gardener,” said Viviane. “I know well what you and the Lady Lile proposed: that the Way of Avalon and the Way of Christ be allowed to grow beside each other in harmony. You are operating on the assumption that I am a servant of either.”
Merlin’s eyes bugged as he was pulled up to his knees into the ground.
“Don’t you recognize me yet, grandson?”
Merlin fought furiously against the roots dragging him low.
Nimue still didn’t understand. “Who are you?” Nimue asked. “You aren’t Viviane…”
“Oh, but I am. I have always been. And I am the Lady Heleyne.” She said, in the Lady Heleyne’s voice, with a wink at Nimue, exactly as she had that hazy night she had flown here to Lystenoyse, “Drink. You’re cold. It’ll warm you.”
Nimue blinked rapidly. The drink. The remarkably strong wine Heleyne had given her that night, potent enough to coax her into bed with her and Garlon, but more, to give him the Gwenn Mantle!
“And of course,” Viviane went on in her own voice, “I am also…”
The vines stopping up Merlin’s mouth suddenly burned away in a flash.
“She’s the Queen of Norgales!” He gasped. “Kill her, Nimue!”
Nimue raised her hands, describing a mystic pass. She had never killed with her magic before. She struggled to call to mind a curse or hex.
Viviane raised her hand aloft and pointed at Nimue with the other. A crack of brilliant lightning streaked earthward, streaming down her upraised arm. It traveled the length of her body in an instant and then lashed straight at Nimue from her guiding hand.
Nimue raised her palms and managed to deflect the bolt, but she was blown backward and crashed against the wall of the stable ten feet away, her palms scorched red.
The roots around Merlin burned to ash and fell away, and he corkscrewed up out of the ground to stand before her once more. He thrust his staff at Viviane, and a crackling bubble of white flame emerged from the end and roared toward her.
Viviane shielded her eyes as the sphere of furnace fire burst across her, blackening her gown and singeing her hair.
“You’ve known all along you can’t win like this, your Majesty,” Merlin said, as she flung the fire from her in all directions, setting the straw on the ground, a nearby blacksmith’s hut, and a hay cart aflame.
“I
don’t need to defeat you, Merlin,” said Viviane, with a fearsome, mad grin on her burned face. “I only need to delay you for a little while.”
With that, she rose into the air, not as a bird or a bat, but undisguised, in a vulgar display of power, the scraps of her tattered gown flapping about her. The lightning played about her white flesh and flashed blue-yellow in her terrible eyes.
Nimue got painfully to her feet, every bone in her body vibrating.
Merlin ascended in the sky to meet her. As he did, he looked back at her.
“Don’t just sit there!” he yelled.
But what could she do? She was an enchantress, yes, but this was a battle of gods.
***
In the dining hall of the Palace Adventurous, the chamber doors were flung open and more Templeise knights stormed in. Somewhere a bell was tolling, calling the castle to arms.
Oduin was seized and pulled away protesting his cause to ears that had been deafened by the blood of Sir Garlon and the donning of war helms.
A knight reached in to take hold of Lorna Maeve, and Balin kicked him in the chest and sent him flailing back into his fellows. He turned constantly, meeting armored foes on every side, and Lorna Maeve clung to his back, screeching warnings.
“I seek parley!” Balin roared. “Parley!”
Across the hall, bloodstained old King Pellam came bounding with the speed of a very young man, the heavy axe over his shoulder.
“Do not attack!” he yelled. “Leave him to me!”
Lorna Maeve leaned in close, her lips brushing his ear, her sweet, warm breath flooding it as she whispered, “He will not listen. You cannot fight and fret for me. Make your escape. I will be fine. Thank you, Sir Balin. Thank you.”
Did her lips touch his ear in a kiss?
He opened his mouth to protest, but she had already released him and stepped backward into the throng of knights, who snatched her up and carried her off.
He caught a glance of her wild hair as she was borne away, and in the midst of it, her sweet face, her glorious eyes, glistening and seeking one last sight of him. In the deepest core of that gaze, was there something else? Was it mere concern or longing?
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