Ripples in the Chalice: A Tale of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 2)

by Adam Copeland

  He turned in a flourish of his cape and flew from the room like an angry bird.

  High above, Chansonne sat watching from the balcony. Her mouth twitched in her impassive face for some time after the cardinal had left.

  Then she, too, flew like a darting sparrow.

  #

  Despite the drama of Mass, it hadn't dampened the spirits of the freshly minted knights and the parade of men who accompanied them to Aesclinn for their first drinks as “real men.”

  None, that is, save Patrick’s. He hadn't wanted to go. He did not feel very festive after the revelation that Chansonne could grasp the cup and all its implications; but it would be in poor taste to miss for the boys’ celebration, as he was their sponsor.

  “Well, if it isn't Moody McGee,” the innkeeper greeted him. “It's been forever and more since I've seen you at my bar.”

  “Hello Frederique,” Patrick greeted the slight man with a smile, “I'm just here to support the lads. It's not every day we have an adoubement at the keep.”

  “Fresh knights, eh?” Frederique glanced in the direction Patrick had jerked his head. The boys already had tall mugs filled for them down the bar, surrounded by an army of well-wishing Avangarde. “God bless them, and may they drink as much as you, because Lord knows my business has fallen since you stopped visiting. If it weren't for all these board people abouts, I might be a poor man.”

  “Nonsense,” Patrick scoffed with a friendly scowl as Frederique poured him a mug of ale, “you'll never go out of business. How are your brother and little Freddie?”

  “They are well,” Frederique replied, “and little Freddie is not so little anymore. Growing like a weed he is, and always asking after you. Wants to know when you will be coming by for a visit.”

  “Perhaps after all this nonsense with the board has passed,” Patrick said, waving his mug about the room full of non-islanders. “I'll be happy to make a visit. And I've been told I need to spend more time with children.” He gave Frederique an unhappy smile, but didn’t explain.

  Dragonetti and several other off-duty Cardinal Guard shuffled through the door.

  “If any other knight said so, I wouldn't have believed it, but you are a man of your word,” Frederique said, touching his cup to Patrick's.

  Soon the crowd turned to Patrick with the three former squires leading the bunch in demanding, “Speech! Speech!”

  Patrick smiled and raised his mug, which quieted the crowd.

  “To knighthood's newest and finest members!” he proclaimed. “Much of what I am about to say was said in the knighting ceremony, but it can never be said too much; may you serve your lords nobly, rescue many damsels, slay many dragons, never run from a challenge...”

  Dragonetti and his companions rudely called for drinks, disrupting Patrick’s address.

  “Oy, do you mind?” the new Sir Jakob scowled.

  Dragonetti raised his eyebrows. “Apologies, my young lord, I did not see you among all these grownups.”

  Jakob looked as if he wanted to rebuke the man, but the congenial Sir Charles put a hand on his companion's shoulder and turned to Patrick. “Carry on, Sir Patrick. Those are fine words.”

  Dragonetti and his men quieted, but they continued to harass the women servants for food and ale.

  “And know when to choose your battles,” Patrick continued, “for a good knight fights with more than his sword and lance; he fights with his mind, wit, and heart. As for your heart, follow it when all your other senses fail you, especially when your eyes deceive...” Patrick paused momentarily, turning introspective at his own words “And remember above all else, you are a servant of God. The strength and abilities you have are blessings from Him. Use them wisely. Champion the weak. Fight the strong. Do what is right. Serve the Lord in all these ways and your rewards will be great.” Patrick raised his mug higher into the air and finished with, “Fight strong!”

  “Live stronger!” came back the roaring response and a dozen mugs hoisted into the air.

  After all had taken a drink, Patrick added with a broad smile, “Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I will go out back to the privy and fight a turd out of my arse.”

  A roar of laughter followed him out the back door.

  When the laughter had subsided in the room, plaintive protests replaced it. The women servers were still at the mercy of hungry and thirsty Cardinal Guardsmen. One of the prettier servers struggled to escape Dragonetti's grasp, who laughed as he tried to pull her into his lap by her wrist. She escaped long enough to break a mug across the brute’s head.

  Dragonetti rose angrily, hands balling into fists as ale ran down his face.

  Sir Josef turned to his companions Sir Jakob and Sir Charles. “Fight the strong, yes?”

  His companions raised their eyebrows and smiled.

  #

  Even before Patrick reached the back door, returning from the privy, he could hear the muffled sounds of a commotion coming from inside. Then a chair busted through the shutters of a window, and the noise turned into the unmistakable roar of a full-fledged brawl.

  “Was I gone that long?” he wondered aloud, and rushed in.

  To his dismay he found the room in complete disarray with the Avangarde and the Cardinal Guard locked in combat. So far, the only weapons were fists and ale mugs.

  He ducked one such item and hurried to Frederique, who cowered behind the bar. “Sir Patrick!” he pleaded. “Do something!”

  “Listen up!” Patrick shouted. “Stand down now! Do you hear me?”

  His only response came as a whole cooked chicken thrown at his head.

  “Ah, bloody hell,” Patrick cursed, and changed tactics.

  He approached Josef and a Cardinal Guardsman entwined in battle. The guard had pulled Josef's cape over the young knight's head and held the garment firmly in place to avoid Josef's furiously windmilling arms.

  “You there,” Patrick shouted at the guard, giving him a shove. “I said stand down!”

  The man punched Patrick in the face, which allowed Josef to escape. Suddenly thrown into a rage of his own, the next thing Patrick realized, he had both men in a headlock.

  How long this went on, he didn’t know, but it seemed quite awhile before a new voice entered the fray.

  “What the bloody hell is all this?” a voice accustomed to commands boomed.

  A piercing whistle followed the question.

  Both brought the fracas in the inn to a standstill. Avangarde, Cardinal Guard, and the occasional Aeschlinner held each other in pairs like bloodied dancers. All looked towards the entrance where Sir Wolfgang von Fiescher stood with a deep scowl. Next to him stood Sir Lucan just now removing fingers from his mouth after having delivered the ear-piercing whistle.

  “Patrick!” Wolfgang shouted after his eyes came to rest on the Irishman. “What is the meaning of all this? I should have known you would be involved.”

  “No, sir,” Patrick protested, still clutching Josef and the guard about the necks, “I wasn't even here when it started. I tried to stop it.”

  “It's true,” Sir Charles added. “Certain members of the Cardinal Guard were harassing the women. Myself, Jakob, and Josef stepped in to stop them.”

  “It's true,” said a swollen-lipped Jakob. “We started it. Sir Patrick wasn't here.”

  From Patrick's armpit Josef gave a muffled agreement while waving an arm.

  “None of this really matters for now,” Wolfgang growled, “for we have a more important matter to address; the girl candidati, Chansonne, is missing and feared a runaway. We must form search parties to find her, so to your horses!”

  The Avangarde moved towards the door. The Cardinal Guard lingered, slow to gather themselves.

  Lucan addressed his men angrily. “Find the girl, you fools. The sooner you do, the sooner we can go home.”

  “Not if we find her first,” Patrick admonished. “The matter hasn’t been settled by the council.”

  Though not threatening, Lucan’s response still su
ggested trouble. “Do you really think that now someone under the cardinal’s patronage can hold the cup, he’s going to continue debating the matter?”

  Both the Avangarde and Cardinal Guard paused in their movement, looking to one another, pondering the implication. Hands drifted subconsciously to sword hilts.

  “Do you hear that, gentlemen?” Wolfgang interjected, turning an ear towards the open door. In the distance, they could hear Greensprings’s church bells sounding an alarm. “No one will get what they want if the monster gets her first.”

  The men recommenced their exodus of the inn, picking up the pace. Patrick and Lucan tarried a moment longer, letting the hurrying men pass between them.

  “Sir Lucan, you strike me as an honorable sort,” Patrick said, “so surely you can see your master does not have the child’s best interest in mind.”

  Lucan shrugged, replying with what might have been a hint of sadness. “What would you have me do? I am bound by duty, as are you. Or did none of those words you said matter tonight?”

  Josef, Jakob, and Charles exited last, but first they paused before the two older knights as if conflicted, looking for guidance.

  Patrick chewed his lip, then nodded to the boys. “Go on lads, do your duty.”

  #

  “Sister Abigail, please,” Katherina pleaded, pulling on one limp arm of the old nun. “We need help putting the children to bed. They’re more difficult than usual.”

  “We can't do it without you,” Aimeé added, pulling on the woman's other arm. “They’re very upset with Chansonne’s absence, and the bells ringing nonstop.”

  After a few more attempts, Aimeé smelled the strong scent of a hot herbal tea still lingering in the room, and realized the old nun had medicated herself to sleep. Apparently, the harsh questioning from the cardinal and other officials had proved too much.

  Though limp as a bag of bones, Abigail momentarily stirred closer to consciousness.

  “Danger,” the woman mumbled, eyes vacant and head lolling from side to side. “So much danger. My fault. I shouldn’t have let any of it happen.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Aimeé insisted, “Chansonne is prone to hiding, and we didn’t see her slip away either.”

  “And we don’t believe for one instant you hid her on purpose, as that mean old cardinal accused you,” Katherina added. “If anything, one of those other board people is hiding her. The knights and guards will find her.”

  “I don’t know which I am more frightened of...” Sister Abigail said with some measure of lucidity and suddenly looking around as if realizing for the first time where she lay, “That they’ll find her, or not find her.”

  “Why would you say such a thing?” Aimeé said, sniffing at the empty tea cup. She wrinkled her nose.

  Sister Abigail’s eyes glazed again. “My fault. I let the cardinal use her. Now she is in danger. We’re all in danger. It’s best if they don’t find her.”

  “Don’t say that,” Katherina said, brow creasing.

  “The cardinal is her protector. He wouldn’t put her in danger, especially now she can hold the cup.” Aimeé wanted to reassure the nun, but her words seemed to do the opposite.

  “That is why.” Sister Abigail half rose, agitated. “She will become a target. Attacked by those who would possess the cup for themselves, or want to destroy it as a fraud. She will be under great stress. She will be forced to defend herself, like a cornered animal, and may heaven help us all when that happens. Oh God, forgive me! Chansonne, forgive me!”

  The nun broke down into sobbing.

  “Sister Abigail, you’re not making any sense,” Aimeé said. “It is this tea you drank making you say such things. She is just a child—harmless.”

  Katherina eased the nun back down.

  Sister Abigail had briefly closed her eyes and looked on the verge of calm as she allowed herself reclined, but her eyes suddenly snapped open and she grabbed Katherina’s wrist with such a desperate strength it caused Katherina to gasp.

  “She is a threat!” the nun hissed, her frenzied eyes speaking more than her whispered words. “She has a frightening power. Raw. Undisciplined. Unfocused. It comes out when she feels most threatened.”

  Aimeé and Katherina shared a concerned glance as the maidservant helped remove the nun’s grip from Katherina’s wrist.

  Once her grip eased, her eyes flickered shut.

  “Sister Abigail,” Katherina gently shook the nun, “what do you mean? How?”

  The nun’s eyes flickered open again and she looked around, momentarily confused, then focused on Katherina.

  “Her voice,” she explained. “It has power like an angel’s voice, capable of destroying like a heavenly battle trumpet. The sort that brought down the walls of Jericho. The sort used by the Archangel Michael that destroyed the Assyrian army as it marched on Jerusalem.”

  “Come now...” Katherina said incredulously.

  “It’s how she came to us at Saint Peter’s Orphanage,” Sister Abigail continued. “She was orphaned, everyone knows that, but they do not know how. Once she had a family.” She reached up and stroked Katherina’s cheek, then did the same to Aimeé. “Two older fair-haired sisters. They were all famous chanteuses in their village though Chansonne was just beginning to learn how to control her voice. That is when brigands broke into their home. Chansonne reacted in the only way she knew how: she screamed. Her voice caused blood to flow from their eyes. Killed them.”

  Katherina and Aimeé drew breaths.

  “But she was too late to save her family?” Aimeé asked.

  Tears welled up in Sister Abigail’s eyes. “No, the poor child accidentally killed them, along with the soldiers.” Again the younger women gasped. “She has not spoken since. That is, until recently.” Again the nun touched their cheeks. “You two have managed to bring her back, but I’m afraid it may play into Teodorico’s evil plans.”

  “How is that?” Katherina asked.

  “The cardinal insisted I place Chansonne with Katherina so she may learn to control her voice, focus it. I agreed because I felt discipline and structure would be good for her. Now I see Teodorico only hoped to amplify her gift to better her chances of grasping the cup. I’m afraid he will also use her as a sort of weapon. Can you imagine? Power like that at your disposal, and the Holy Grail for the kingdoms to rally around?”

  “Why would you help the cardinal use Chansonne at all?” Aimeé asked, her brow creased in confusion and disbelief.

  “Because I believed the cardinal when he said he wanted to unite Christianity, to bring peace to the warring kingdoms. He does, but now I realize it is for his own ambitions, not for God. He will destroy anyone who stands in his way, and the girl and the cup will be his means of making that happen.” Sister Abigail tried to sit up, staring heavenward and cried, “God forgive me! Chansonne forgive me!”

  They struggled to comfort her until she eventually relaxed, closing her eyes for good.

  “We must find Chansonne,” Katherina whispered.

  Aimeé nodded in agreement. “But then what?”

  “The cardinal can’t have her,” Katherina explained. “Even if we hadn’t heard what we just did, you saw how he treated her when she held the cup.”

  Aimeé nodded again. “We’ll find and hide her, but who else can we trust?”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Katherina replied. “She is alone and scared, and if it’s true what Sister Abigail says, she could be very dangerous. It must be us who find her, but I’m not sure how.”

  They both paused long in thought.

  “Candace,” Aimeé exclaimed quietly, “She ‘knows’ things. She will know where Chansonne has gone.”

  Katherina’s eyes flared in shared enthusiasm. And just like that, they had a plan.

  #

  Some time after they had left, as Sister Abigail mumbled in her sleep, a mist flowed from underneath her door and carpeted the flagstone floor.

  As it crept towards the nun’s bed,
it coalesced into a solid form with four tiny padding feet. The form’s misty translucence darkened into sleek black cat fur.

  The feline paused at the edge of the bed, crouched, and leaped onto the covers, making its way to the chest of the old woman.

  There, it settled peacefully before her snoozing face and inhaled.

  Wispy tendrils floated from Sister Abigail’s nose and mouth and floated into the cat’s nostrils. With each subsequent breath from the nun the tendrils solidified, turning from pale mist to a white ribbon.

  Sister Abigail’s eyes opened suddenly, and she gagged as she tried to sit up. The cat’s forepaws flared open, digging claws into the nun’s habit. She could not rise, pinned down as if the weight on her chest was not a cat but a giant beast. She struggled to call for help, but no sound other than a weak cough came from her, disrupting the ribbon flow into a nebulous puff of smoke. The ribbon quickly re-established itself when the cat drew in a new breath. Some of the free-floating vapor gently fell like ashes about the corners of her mouth and nose, frosting into little florets of baby’s breath.

  Sister Abigail’s feeble flailing eventually subsided.

  Chapter Twelve

  Katherina and Aimeé crept to Candace’s bed and sat on either side of her. Moonlight bathed the sleeping girl in a pastel glow. Apparently, once the church bells had stopped their incessant monster alarm, Mother Superior had managed to calm the children long enough for them to surrender for the night.

  “Candace,” Katherina whispered.

  Candace rolled over and looked at the concerned pair. She hadn’t been sleeping, after all.

  Aimeé said, “You know things. Where did Chansonne go?”

  “That’s easy.” Even in the moonlight they could see her eyes glazing over with that far-away look. “She went to her happy place.”

  “What, the auditorium?” Katherina frowned. “We already looked there. That was one of the first places we looked.”