“To make sure that he really does want me?” she asked, just to be contrary.
“No, no, no, Blanche!” Sir Ector sighed. “When Nerys went to Carbonek to fetch you, Naciens the Hermit told her something which upset all our plans. He says they need you at Carbonek.”
Carbonek. Ugly, funereal, holy Carbonek. “What?”
“Do you know what the Grail Maiden is?”
“I don’t.”
“The maiden guardian of the Holy Grail. She watches, and prays, and contends. Since the fall of Elaine, eighteen years ago, there has been no Grail Maiden. Naciens says that you have been chosen for the next.”
9
And when he came to the Tearne Wadling,
The baron there co’ld he finde,
With a great weapon on his backe,
Standing stiffe and stronge.
The Marriage of Sir Gawain
“I SAW THE LADY OF THE Lake last night, riding north,” said the King.
They were camping on the hills of Powys, roasting venison and their faces over a campfire built high and blazing to fend off the nip of frost at their backs. For once the clouds had withdrawn, unveiling the bitter stars and ice-haloed moon.
Perceval had been remembering his first journey to Carbonek, and how hushed and lonely it was by contrast to this good fellowship. Then the King’s words fell into a momentary silence, and they all stirred and took interest.
“A dream?” Sir Ywain asked.
“No, it was herself. She said she would meet me in Camelot by All Saints’.”
“To what purpose?” There was a combative gleam in Sir Kay’s eye.
The King sighed, as if picking up the thread of an argument long standing. “She has always shown us friendship, Kay.”
“She is a fay,” Kay reasoned. “She may not mean us harm, but she will do it sooner or later.”
Sir Gawain, whetting his sword, looked up. “We know the Lady Nimue can be trusted.”
“Why are you defending her? You know better than any of us what harm comes when Elves meddle with men, however good their intentions.”
Silence fell, as breathless as the space between lightning and thunder. Perceval saw the others slowly straightening to look at his father.
No thunder came. Instead Gawain said quietly, “Yes. I know it.”
A pause. Ywain said, “Harm, Gawain? I should never have expected to hear you say so.”
“Everything comes with a price.”
“Then the price of an immortal love is too high for me,” laughed Kay. “How long did you wander around Camelot looking like Saint Sebastian’s ghost?”
At that they all laughed. But Gawain reached out to grasp Perceval’s shoulder. “I meant something else. I did not even know I had a son until yesterday. I had both paid and profited more than I knew.”
“What does that have to do with the fay?” Perceval asked, curious.
Gawain stared. “Did you not know? Your mother was one of Nimue’s people.”
Perceval searched his father’s face, unsure whether he was joking. “A fay? Mother?” He glanced around the fire. Not even Sir Kay was laughing up his sleeve. “She never told me…”
“Never?”
Perceval shook his head. “I wonder why.”
“Perhaps she was afraid you’d follow her.” Gawain put his hand over his mouth; there were tears in his eyes. “She could have taken you, you know. To the west, to Avalon. You could have become one of them. Ageless. …Instead, she sent you to me.”
Perceval grinned. “What, me go to Avalon? No fear of that. I wanted to be up and doing, sir father.”
Gawain blinked, and smiled back at him. “Yes. You would think so. But it was no small sacrifice for your mother.”
Perceval tried to imagine what it might be like to turn his back on the splendid war of the world and retreat to Avalon, the peaceable isle. He laughed at the thought and said, “But this explains why everyone feared her and called her a fay. Why did she leave you, if she loved you?”
“The price of marriage to a mortal. The laws of her people took her from me after seven years. Did you really never hear the story?”
“Never.”
A faint smile crossed his face. “She left that for me, too. Well, she was one of the people of the Lake, and my aunt, the sorceress, loved her brother.”
Perceval glanced at the King and Sir Ywain. “Morgan le Fay? Is she an Elf, too, then?”
Sir Ywain stirred. “My mother,” he said slowly, for he was always reluctant to speak of her, “is no fay, although she calls herself that. She was the daughter of the Queen Igerne and her first husband, the Duke of Tintagel. Full sister to Morgawse, the Queen of Orkney, your grandmother. Half sister to the King. There is not a drop of real fay’s blood in her veins. Go on, cousin.”
Gawain said: “When Ragnell and her brother refused to sell Morgan the secrets of their people, she enchanted them both. The brother, Sir Gromer Somer Joure, she bound to her evil will in the fortress of Tarn Watheline. But Ragnell, Ragnell she changed into the loathliest creature you could imagine if your eyes had drunk their fill of Hell itself.”
Perceval’s scalp prickled. “Morgan was able to do all this? Christ guard us all.”
“He does. But Ragnell and her brother were unbaptised then. For the Elves say they are beyond salvation.” He turned to the King. “The next part is your story, sire.”
Arthur smiled. “An inglorious one, I have always thought, compared to yours.”
“I have known the King of Logres since we were boys together, and he has done nothing inglorious in all that time,” said Gawain, inclining his head.
“No? But if I have done anything worthy of praise, it is only that I have gathered praiseworthy men around me.”
“Only a mean man seeks the company of mean men, sire.”
“You honour me, fair nephew. But today I claim no more than my right, which is to win the honour of honouring one who merits it. I will tell the tale.”
That was a game they played between them, these warriors of the Table—if it could be called a game, when done with such sincere gravity. The name of it was courtesy. Perceval listened, but he did not yet dare to play it with them.
The King went on. “At Christmas that year I held court at Carlisle. When a maiden came and sought justice for the tyrant of Tarn Watheline, I determined to undertake the quest myself.
“Not until I rode onto the bridge of Tarn Watheline to challenge Sir Gromer Somer Joure did I discover that the damsel had betrayed me to my death. For she was one of my sister’s maidens. When my horse’s hooves struck the bridge, all my power left me, so that I could hardly sit upright in the saddle. Then I looked up, and saw the lord of Tarn Watheline standing there, and he was a tall man, so that mounted as I was, our eyes were on a level.”
“And I have always said that he grows taller each time you tell the tale, sire,” said Sir Kay.
“That is why I keep you with me, good Kay,” said the King without anger. “Nevertheless, as I sat upon the bridge of Tarn Watheline, I could not lift a finger, and I knew that I would be but a dead dog if I could not rescue myself. ‘Think on your sins, O King,’ he said.
“ ‘Think on your own,’ I said. ‘For your last days have come, and although I am at your mercy now, my justice shall certainly find you after my death. A hundred of the best knights of Logres sit feasting in Carlisle, and they know where I have gone and on what errand. If I do not return, they know my will.’
“That puzzled him. Then he said, ‘A bargain.’
“ ‘Say on,’ I said, for I was not so sure of myself as I seemed.
“ ‘I will give you a year and a day,’ said the knight of Tarn Watheline. ‘Answer this question: what is it that women desire above all things? If you can answer me this in a year and a day, you shall go free. But if you cannot answer, I will have your head, and the knights of Logres shall leave me in peace.’
“ ‘It is a bargain,’ I said. And then the weakness le
ft me, and I rode back to Carlisle alone, for my sister’s damsel had stayed only long enough to jeer at me.”
The King turned to Sir Gawain. “Now you shall tell the rest of it, Gawain, for it is your story.”
Gawain nodded. “When the King told me of the bargain he had made to save his life, the task did not seem difficult. But at the end of a year and a day, when he and I had ridden the length and breadth of Britain, we had a thousand different answers from a thousand different women. Some wanted wealth, some wanted idleness, some wanted richer homes or nobler husbands. And we both knew that the true answer must be something else entirely. We were within a league of Tarn Watheline when we met her.”
“She was foul beyond description,” interjected Sir Kay. “One eye beneath her snout, and the other in the midst of her forehead. All clothed in scarlet, with yellow tusks gleaming in the last light of sunset. I saw her at the wedding.”
Perceval shuddered. “This was Mother?”
“You should have seen mine, on the night of the new moon,” said Sir Ywain, eyes gleaming with unwonted laughter. “Go on, cousin.”
“The loathly lady asked us our business, and although we felt that nothing could save Logres now, not even one more answer, we spoke her fair.
“ ‘I know this baron,’ said the lady. ‘And I know this riddle, and will tell you—for a price.’
“ ‘If it is one that may be paid with honour,’ said our good King.
“ ‘That is for you to determine,’ said the loathly lady. ‘I wish to wed one of your knights, lord King.’ Do you remember, sire?”
“I remember it well,” said the King, poking the fire.
“So do I,” Gawain said. “I remember a time of silence, and then I remember how slowly you turned your head and looked at me with a manner that seemed to say, ‘Why, here’s Gawain, a bachelor.’ ”
“And then I told you that if you loved me, you would not burden my conscience with such a sacrifice.”
“I did not do it for you, sire.” Gawain was deadly serious now. “Death comes to us and all mortals. I shall still lose you one day. But Logres! The only perfection under heaven would fall if I could not save you.”
“Not perfection, Gawain. Not Logres. Not yet.”
Perceval’s father smiled. “Well. The loathly lady told us the answer to the riddle. When we came to Tarn Watheline, Sir Gromer Somer Joure was waiting for us. And we read all the answers we had gathered.
“ ‘All so much warm air,’ said the knight. And he heaved up his mace.
“And the King said, ‘Wait! As we came, we met a loathly lady all clad in scarlet, and she told us that the thing women desire above all other things is their own will.’ ”
(“It is true,” said Sir Kay. “And not only for women,” said the King.)
“The knight of Tarn Watheline fell into a rage. ‘It was my sister Ragnell who revealed this to you,’ he said, but although he gnashed his teeth and called down curses upon her head, there was nothing he could do.
“So the King repaid his vow and was free, and I gained a wife. We married in the view of all at Carlisle, and there was no dancing and little piping at our wedding. Not even the children in the street had the heart for it. But when the sun went down and we were alone, she returned to her true form. And her beauty after the horror was like all the fires of heaven.”
He spoke slowly, here, as if by drawing out the telling of it he could draw out the memory. “I thought I was dreaming. Or mad.
“But she said to me, ‘You have broken half the curse. But I shall be fair only half the time. Choose whether I shall be fair by day, or fair by night.’
“I said, ‘By day I must travail and fight, from one end of Britain to the other. Be fair by night, when I am there to see you.’
“ ‘But think!’ she said. ‘By day I must sit in bower, and brave the pity and horror of everyone who sees me. At least, at night, the darkness will cover me.’
“Then I yielded my desire to her choice. But she replied: ‘There will be no choice. For those words have broken the spell entirely.’
“And we had seven years.”
CLEAR NIGHT GAVE WAY TO CLEAR morning. The water in their bottles had frozen, and not until the sun rose high enough to touch it did the frost vanish from the grass. Sir Perceval, following his four companions in single file down the slope of a hill, closed his eyes, leaned back, and basked in warm sun. Then Rufus stopped and he opened his eyes to see that the others had reined in and were speaking.
“I have passed this way before, sire,” Sir Ywain was saying, pointing to the towers of a castle rising through trees in the valley below. “This is the castle of Sir Breunis.”
“I have heard of him,” Sir Gawain said. “A robber of women and old men. It is his custom to stop travellers and demand ransom.”
“Let us turn aside here, then,” said the King.
The castle of Sir Breunis was a small keep in a green valley amidst unkempt farmland. Some scores of paces from the gate his shield hung from an oak-tree. Sir Gawain spotted it at once.
“Watch this,” he said to Perceval. He trotted up to the shield, and dealt it a ringing blow with the butt-end of his spear.
“Gawain!” Sir Ywain protested over the echoes. “This man rifled my father’s steward three months ago. I had sworn to myself the right of retribution.”
“Wait, gentlemen,” said the King. “We have an untried knight with us. Of your courtesy, let him fight.”
Perceval looked his gratitude. But his spirit cooled when he glanced up at the sound of hooves and saw a gigantic knight emerging from the castle bearing the same sable shield that hung on the oak-tree. His voice boomed inside the helm.
“Well, well—I see the lion of Ywain, the pentacle of Gawain, and the dragon of Uther’s son. Has Camelot emptied to fight me?”
“No,” Perceval shouted back. “They have come to watch.”
He felt rather than saw the four others move to the wayside, off the path, which seemed even lonelier without them at his back. But it was too late to complain. The enemy was already moving. He laid his spear in the fewter, breathed, “Jesu, defend me!” and clapped his spurs to Rufus’s sides. The great horse gathered himself and leaped forward like a thunderbolt. Perceval’s eyes narrowed on his target. He measured out fractions of seconds with crystal clarity and was conscious, despite the speed at which his enemy surged closer, that his own form was perfect and he could not fail to strike true.
With a bone-wrenching shock they met. The spear in Perceval’s hand melted away into wooden shards. Rufus reeled and staggered. The landscape spun wildly and then the road reared up and slammed against him.
The double shock and the taste of dust were familiar enough from his training at the old earl’s castle: he had been unhorsed. Perceval gritted his teeth, rolled, and staggered to his feet, drawing his sword. Through the slit of his helm he saw his four companions standing under the oak tree. Then Rufus, moving off the road in a daze. Perceval whirled, searching for his enemy. As he did so, something blocked the sunlight and he threw up his shield just in time to catch Sir Breunis’s sword. Not until he had evaded the blow and retreated a step or two did he have the time to realise that the other knight, too, must have been unhorsed. Also he was wounded, with the blood already running down his sword-arm.
The sight flooded through Perceval’s veins like new life, and sluiced away the shock, not to mention the embarrassment, of his fall. The combat had hardly begun, but victory was already within his grasp. He yelled, and rushed Sir Breunis with a storm of blows. The enemy guarded himself, but his wound made him sluggish, and he staggered back under Perceval’s assault. Then he rallied, and Perceval felt some of that gigantic strength.
He danced back a few steps, hoping to weary the enemy knight by forcing him to follow. But Sir Breunis knew better than to waste his strength, and took the opportunity to breathe. Perceval rushed in again, lunging for the right shoulder, left unprotected by a drooping shield arm. What came
next happened so fast that his eyes could barely follow: Sir Breunis parried his lunge with such a powerful stroke that Perceval spun under the impact, turning his unshielded right flank towards the enemy. At the same moment, Sir Breunis snatched a poniard with his left hand and aimed it for the underarm joint of Perceval’s armour.
All this Perceval saw and understood in a fraction of time. The only question was whether he was too overextended to take the quick step back that would save him…no. He recovered and disengaged. The glittering blade no more than kissed his mail. All the enemy’s attention was on the poniard, leaving his sluggish sword-arm still out of play through that flailing parry; he left himself, for a moment too long, unguarded. …Perceval laughed and lunged, every ounce of bone and muscle flung behind his sword’s point, and thrust with tremendous force clean through his foe.
They stood face to face, panting through the bars of their helms. Sir Breunis lifted the poniard in his left hand and drove it at Perceval’s extended arm. It was a futile gesture: the mail at that point, unlike the clumsy ring-stitched leather the brigand wore, was too fine-woven for the blade to find entrance. Perceval recovered his lunge. Sir Breunis staggered back off the blade and fell to the ground, clutching his wound.
Perceval stood, rasping in great breaths of air. Dimly he was aware of his father and the King coming toward him. Then he remembered what came next, drew his own poniard, and cut the laces of Sir Breunis’s helm.
The bandit’s face twisted with agony underneath his big black beard. Perceval held the poniard to his throat with trembling hands.
“Do you yield?” he asked.
Protests reached Perceval’s humming ears, it seemed, from far away. “No! Kill him!” Sir Kay was saying.
“I yield, I yield,” gasped Sir Breunis.
“If you let him live, more innocent travellers will suffer,” said Sir Ywain.
Perceval looked down at the man’s vice-ravaged face and shuddered. Sir Gawain was saying, “Better put an end to him, boy. Let justice be done.”
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