“Sarras!” Arthur put up a hand to smooth his beard over his chin. “And his meaning?”
“The maiden guardian of the Holy Grail,” said Nimue. “They want Blanchefleur at Carbonek.”
“Have you been there, lady? To Carbonek?”
“No.” There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice. “The damsel Nerys has been.”
“She and Sir Ector are right, then. I must speak to them. But who will guard Blanchefleur while they travel?”
Nimue said, “Send a knight you trust. Sir Perceval here has already fought Sir Odiar of Gore on her behalf.”
“What?” Perceval, jerked so suddenly into the discussion, spoke without thinking. “Not me, I beg you.”
“Why not?” asked Sir Gawain with knitted brows.
Perceval turned to the King. “Sire, I will do whatever you command, but I have offended the lady Blanchefleur. I did not know she was your daughter when I did it.”
The King frowned. “When you did what?”
“I misunderstood my mother’s directions, sire. I…”
“Well?”
Perceval looked around at the solemn knights, at his father, at the immortal queen of Avalon, and at Blanchefleur’s august parents. “I kissed her,” he mumbled, going red.
Sir Gawain’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. A look of almost malicious pleasure crossed Sir Kay’s face and he said, “Speak up, lad. I didn’t hear you!”
The King looked at Nimue, who made some signal which Perceval just missed. Then Arthur turned to the Queen and said, “Lady wife, do you remember what the penalty is for kissing a king’s daughter? Something lingering, with molten lead in it, I think.”
“I thought it was burning alive,” said the Queen.
“No, no, that’s for adultery.”—“It was certainly lingering.”
“I have promised to serve her a year and a day to repay her,” Perceval said, stoic on the surface, although inside he was hot with shame. “But I think she might prefer it if you sent someone else, sire.”
The King looked at him for so long that Perceval felt himself reddening once more. At length he stroked his beard again and said with a smile which Perceval did not understand, “If you have promised to serve her, then you had best keep your word. What do you say, Gawain?”
“I will ensure you can trust him, sire.”
“Oh, I have no doubts about that. I meant whether you approve of his serving the lady Blanchefleur.”
“Oh, that!” said Gawain. “No, sire. I wholeheartedly approve.” And he too smiled, all white teeth, like the wolfhound under the King’s chair.
“Guard her well, then,” said the King to Perceval. “Remember that the fate of Logres may rest on your faithfulness in this.”
“Sire,” said Perceval, “if mortal man can guard your daughter, I will.”
With this the council broke up, but as he went out of the solar Perceval felt a hand on his arm and turned to see the Lady Nimue.
“There are things you should know about the place you are going,” she said. “Where can we speak?”
But when Perceval had led her to his chamber, which as usual in Camelot did double duty as a sitting-room, she did not immediately begin to tell him of the other world where he would find the Lady Blanchefleur.
Instead she turned to him and said, “There is a thing it would be wise for you to know, son of Gawain.”
Perceval bore up under the weight of her attention and said, “Say on.”
“You are a newcomer to Camelot; indeed, to Logres,” said Nimue. “Therefore you have not heard the stories about the birth of the damsel Blanchefleur.”
“Stories?”
“For a time,” the Lady said, looking at the ring on her finger, “it was whispered that the lady Queen loved Sir Lancelot.”
The ring should have flattened to silver leaf between those adamant eyes and that stone-white hand. “No whisper ever reached my ears,” he said.
“Spoken like the son of Gawain,” and there was a mocking twist at the corner of her mouth. “But you have only come to Camelot today, true?”
Perceval said, “What is the point? You say this has something to do with the birth of the damsel Blanchefleur. Is she not the King’s daughter? Is that what you mean?”
“Hush!” said Nimue, and her look hit him like a slap. “I mean to say nothing of the kind. Only that such was said once, before Sir Ector took her to the other world. Therefore, whatever lies in the damsel Blanchefleur’s future at Camelot, I am sure that these stories will come to her ears. In that day, as in this, she may need a protector.”
“But the King doesn’t doubt she is his daughter. Does he?”
Nimue’s eyes opened innocently, more like a mortal’s, now, in their blank candour. “The King believes the Queen.”
Perceval was suddenly angry with her. “You make him sound like a fool.”
“Do I? I do not mean to. Whatever Arthur Pendragon is, he is no fool.” She tilted her head. “Nor is the Queen. But even a very great man may have his blindnesses.”
“Not him.”
“Yes, even him. If there is a thing I have learned in all my endless years, it is that every man is blind in some direction.”
“And you think the Queen is his?”
“I think he would be slow to think ill of her, and slower to think ill of Lancelot, and slowest of all to charge the most beloved knight of Logres with treason. Even if he cared nothing for the Queen, even if the brotherhood of the Table were not founded in his heart’s blood, not even the Pendragon can afford to make an enemy of a man like Lancelot.”
Perceval’s mouth went dry. He went and picked up the Queen’s silver-and-glass cup from the chest by his bed. “But Lancelot does love her, doesn’t he? The day this was stolen, he claimed the quest as if by right.”
“Yes,” said Nimue.
Perceval turned the fragile vessel over and over. “And the Queen? What would happen to her?”
“You heard it yourself,” said the Lady of Lake. “She would be burned alive.”
11
If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,
The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,
A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?
Chesterton
“YOU REALLY ARE LEAVING, THEN?” SAID Kitty Walker.
“I might have to.” Blanche swished at the long lush grass with a stick, keeping her head bent. If she looked up, she would see the imperious autumn larches, sulphur fretted with black and grey, sitting in judgement on her sulky mood. “I’m sorry to hear that Mr Corbin has gone to London. I particularly wanted to see him.”
Kitty said, “I’ll be sure to give him your invitation when he comes back in the morning. Blanche! How shall I get on without you?”
“I expect you’ll get on very well.”
“Do you want to go? Oh, Blanche, and I was going to ask you to come to Paris with me next year.”
Blanche sighed and reached for another clump of grass. “Of course I don’t. But I haven’t much choice. You’ll come tomorrow night, won’t you, and say goodbye?”
“For the dinner party? Of course I shall. But I refuse to say goodbye. Remember, it’s my birthday party in a week. You must stay long enough for that, for everyone is coming down from London, and they will need someone brainy to talk to, or they will think us no better than Welshmen.”
Blanche chivvied millipedes absent-mindedly. “If I’m still here, Kitty, I’ll come to it. But I can’t promise.”
“Oh, bella,” said Kitty, and hugged her. “Sir Ector has a heart of stone. Now I must run home before those clouds decide to rain again.”
Blanche glanced through the larches at the sky. Red-and-gold needles sprang jubilantly into relief against the purple clouds. Blanche couldn’t help smiling. “I had better do the same.”
“
Although you won’t mind if it does rain.” Kitty reached out and touched the thick woollen cloak Blanche had brought back with her from Carbonek. “I must have one of these, Blanche! It would hold off a downpour!”
Blanche laughed and wrapped the luxurious garment more closely around her. “I don’t care to put it to the test. Goodbye!”
Kitty tripped back down the path to the village, and Blanche, walking with a long swinging step, passed on under the flaming larches. The afternoon darkened toward the slow twilight that comes on an overcast day, and the forest, which at first glowed in the gloom, lost its colour as the light faded.
Blanche came out from under the trees and began climbing the bald ridge behind the house. A wind sprang up and lashed at her hair with a scattering of idle raindrops. She put up her hood, toiled up the last few feet of slope, and stood on the ridge. Looking back, she saw a long streak of red-and-gold sky where the bank of cloud ended over the Welsh hills. East, down the slope at her feet, she saw the house nestled in its garden, marked at the front by a row of brown-leafed elms and behind by the dormant orchard.
Affection welled up in her at the sight of her home. It was a good place to come back to, in the dark, after tramping on the hills—or after sojourning in the high cold halls of Logres.
Over the thrumming wind, someone called her name.
Blanche wheeled. In the dim dusk, the grey-clad figure was hardly visible against the hillside. As he came closer, something about his loping stride warned her that he was not from her own time. But up here on the hill there was nowhere to run. Blanche stood her ground until he was close enough for her to see his face.
“You again!” she whispered, and put a hand to her heart, which began to hammer now that the threat was past.
Sir Perceval inclined his head. “The King sent me,” he said.
“How you frightened me!” said Blanche. Then, as she remembered her manners with a rush: “I am so sorry. I mean, good evening. But why have you come?”
“The King sent me,” repeated Perceval, raising an eyebrow.
“For what?” Blanche took a second look at him and felt a wild impulse to laugh. Mail and surcoat were laid aside, and he was now correctly garbed in coat, waistcoat, and trousers. But they fitted badly, and the fault was exaggerated by his brown face and rumpled hair, which the buttons and starch only made look wilder.
Perceval said, “The Lady of the Lake has taken Sir Ector and her damsel to speak to the King. I have come to guard you in their place. They have told your people that I am your cousin, which is partly true.”
It took Blanche a moment to realise that by her people Perceval meant the servants. To her, they were only the help. Blanche said: “Do you believe there is danger, then? Here?”
“We hope not,” he said with a smile.
“But Morgan le Fay knows where I live.”
He nodded. “The Lady says her rift has been repaired. But we do not know her full power, and Sir Ector has been called away.” He grinned. “Do not fear. I am here to serve you, as I promised.”
Despite the fit of schoolgirl giggles that had seized her in Carbonek when he first proposed to be her knight, his assurance annoyed her now. “You inspire me with almost perfect confidence,” she said, honey-sweet. “With a few more years and experience, you would make a capable guardian, I’m sure.”
“And you an amiable ward,” he said, bowing again.
He spoke so courteously that Blanche had walked on five steps before she realised that he had insulted her. “I’m sure you were the obvious choice,” she said, gesturing to the house below as it sat snug in its garden glowing with light, “given the magnitude of the present danger.”
“The present danger, which is that the Witch of Gore, as you say, knows where you live.”
Blanche shuddered and thought it a rather brutal reminder. They went on in silence, but now the house below seemed less comforting and more ephemeral, and the cold wind blowing against them reminded her of the void between the worlds, into which, as the horrible premonition struck her, it was the doom of all such pleasant and homely places to fall forever.
Would Night swallow them all in the end?
“But you are willing to risk your life for me?” she said at last, more earnestly.
Perceval repeated the words he had spoken in the King’s solar.
“If mortal strength can save you, I will.”
They reached the gate to the orchard. Blanche watched Perceval open it, the hair on the back of her neck prickling to remind her what had happened last time she and Nerys had crossed that portal. When they had passed safely into the orchard, and the gate was closed, Blanche said, “Why?”
“Why…?”
“Why will you…” she grimaced at the theatrical words “…save me?”
“The King—”
“The King sent you. I know.”
They walked on between the shadows of the apple-trees. Blanche tried again.
“Aren’t you afraid of what is coming?”
He laughed. “Pshaw!”
“What, do you like the—the pain, and the idea of dying?”
Perceval said: “No. But it is better than the idea of a life without any kind of danger, without any kind of victory.”
Blanche shuddered. “Everyone fears death. What makes you so eager to face it?”
“I had rather keep my word sworn to you in Carbonek, and obey my King, than prove myself faithless.” He thought a moment. “So I find that I am afraid, but of something worse than death.”
That made her laugh. “Worse than death! Thanks! You are very comforting!”
They came through the gate at this side of the orchard and into the garden. Perceval said, “Does it trouble you, having me here?”
“No,” Blanche admitted. Then, after a moment, she said, “Shall I tell you what I think?”
He bent his head in assent.
“Each time I have gone to Logres, or needed help, you were there. It reminds me of what Vicar says, about Providence. I always thought it was a nice way of saying that everything is for the best. But after the last few months, how can I think that?”
“You know what destiny looks like,” said Perceval at last.
“I do now.”
“A mysterious plan, too strange to be happenstance. I too see it unfolding around us.”
Blanche said: “But that is what frightens me. What seems best to Providence horrifies me. What if it takes me far away from home? What if it drives me into deeper danger? What if it…” she swallowed, “what if it wants to hurt me?”
They came out onto the lawn below the house, where light streamed out onto the grass, and Perceval looked at her. “Why, damsel,” he said, with surprise and ineffable disappointment in his voice, “are you afraid?”
“Yes, terribly”—she bit back the words and glanced back the way they had come. The last light had faded out of the west and even the trees hardly seemed blacker than the sky. “I am sorry,” she said at last. “The darkness made me afraid. In the light I will be brave enough.”
Perceval looked out at the night and his answer, when it came, shook her. “I know what you mean by fearing the dark,” he said. “The tales I heard of Logres spoke of it as a beacon of light. But I found it sieged by shadows.” He glanced back at Blanche. “I, too, fear the future. I fear that Logres is doomed to flicker and die, leaving only the dark, and that nothing I can do will stop it.”
Blanche stared at him. “Do you mean that Logres is in danger?”
“It has always been in danger,” he replied, with a smile.
“From Morgan le Fay?”
Perceval shook his head. “She is only the foremost of our enemies. Britain is full of sorcerers, barbarians, brigands, raiders, and rebels. It is the work of the Round Table to resist and subdue them, to shield the little people against them. Had you not heard this?”
“I—” Blanche began, and then fell silent. She could not truthfully say she had been ignorant of it, and sudden
ly, sickeningly, she was ashamed of herself. “I had heard it,” she said, in a voice she hardly recognised. She laid her hand on Perceval’s arm. “But what are you going to do about it?”
He smiled encouragingly. “The task at hand. The King said that the fate of Logres rests on your safety.”
“That’s what the prophecy said. But how?”
“You are his heir,” said Perceval. “The one who will inherit Logres when he is gone. The one who will fend off the night. But you knew this too.”
“I did,” she said in horror. “But I never thought of it this way before. I never knew what was at stake.” For a moment, the evening dark pressed in like the enemies of Logres; ahead, the windows of her own house gave off a comforting glow.
Blanche looked Perceval in the eye. “I am mortified,” she said. “Here I have been telling you my own selfish woes, while you are trying to save a civilisation.”
Perceval opened his mouth to speak, but there was the sound of a gong from within the house.
“It is dinner,” said Blanche with a shaky laugh. “Let us go in.”
IN THE LIGHT, AS SHE HAD predicted, she felt stronger. It was good modern gaslight streaming from lamps mounted on the wall, and with the addition of a good solid butler like Keats to fill glasses and pass plates, Blanche felt even better. But the vision which had filled her imagination a moment ago on the lawn, of a kingdom besieged by primeval chaos, still weighed on her mind.
She fought it with forced mirth.
“So the railway has your box, Cousin Percy,” she said in Welsh as Keats swam in with the soup. “You had better hope they disgorge it soon, or you will be wearing Sir Ector’s clothes all the way back to Merthyr Tydfil. Our gentlemen’s outfitter in the village is not the thing at all.”
“No, not the thing,” said Perceval, playing along valiantly, although he evidently did not understand one word in three.
“When we have a moment, you must tell me all the news. Thank you, Keats.” Blanche took a feverish spoon of soup and was grateful that Perceval had apparently learned some table manners in the last few months.
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