Perceval spoke. “They say the new Bishop of Trinovant nearly burned down the cathedral by mistake during the winter.”
“My goodness,” said Blanche. “How extraordinary. Keats, will you close the curtains over there? I feel the dark coming in. The cold,” she corrected herself, and afterwards fell silent.
After dinner, in the drawing room, Perceval wandered to the corner and inspected the bookshelves. Blanche sat down at the piano and tinkled a few bars of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Surprised, the knight whipped around to see what had caused the strange noise. Then he relaxed and came off guard like a dog coming off point, grinning as though he hadn’t convinced her for a terrifying moment that some enemy had silently entered the room behind her.
Blanche banged the lid shut over the keys.
Perceval held up a book. “Tell me what this is.”
“It’s a book.” She took it off him and flipped it open. “See inside? Writing.”
He peered at it. “The little words. I never learned the trick of them.”
“You never learned to read?”
He shook his head. “We had no books in the cave. And no parchments.”
“The cave!” Blanche pressed her hand to her forehead.
He laughed and gestured to the piano. “It had no lamps or singing machines, but it was warm if you kept the fire going.”
She had to let go of her dismay and laugh. “No, no, I’m sure it was lovely. Only I just remembered that the dinner party is tomorrow night. And you were brought up in a cave.”
“Yes.”
She said: “Well, at least Emmeline and I can speak Welsh. And at least the Welsh have a reputation for being half-savage, because I think we’re going to need it.”
BLANCHE SWISHED ACROSS THE HALLWAY AND tapped on the door of the room that had once been Sir Ector’s. Silence. She tapped again. “It’s me.”
“I think,” said Perceval from within, “you had better help me with this gorget.”
She opened the door and found him struggling with his collar. “Do try to remember what I told you,” she said, brushing away his hands and pinning the collar on. “Say how-do-you-do to the guests, watch which forks and spoons I use, and avoid all subjects of religion and politics. There’s the bell. They’re here.”
Kitty Walker and Emmeline Felton were in the hall removing wraps and hats when Blanche and Perceval came downstairs to meet them.
“Blanche, you look delicious,” said Kitty, kissing the air by Blanche’s cheeks. She glanced at Perceval. “Why, you coy thing, you never told me you were expecting anyone else!”
“I wasn’t,” Blanche said repressively. “This is a cousin from Merthyr Tydfil, Perceval de Gales. He only speaks Welsh.”
Kitty looked at Perceval and giggled and said, “Noswaith dda.”
“Good evening,” said Perceval in the same language.
Blanche hissed in English, “I thought you didn’t speak Welsh?”
“Welsh nanny,” said Kitty. She switched back to Welsh, sidling up to Perceval. “I haven’t spoken the language for years. Do tell me if I say anything very funny.”
Blanche sighed. “Hello, Emmeline dear.”
The Vicar’s daughter squeezed her affectionately and said, “I am so sorry you are going away, Blanche. We’ll miss you.”
“Oh, Emmeline, and I never thought—I’ll miss your wedding. If I’m still here when Mr Pevensie comes back from London next week, you must bring him to visit.”
Keats ushered in Mr Corbin in immaculate evening dress. The sight of him threw Blanche into confusion. She had meant to ask his advice. Kitty had probably let him know that she urgently wanted to speak to him. But now that she stood face to face with him, she had another twinge of conscience. She’d already told him about Logres, about her parents, about everything. She did not have the time to reason it through; only sudden doubt hit her that it had been wise to reveal so much.
“Don’t fib!” Kitty’s delighted voice sliced through the hall, startled back into English. Blanche turned to see her dissolving in helpless laughter. “Blanche, darling, he says there are dragons in Wales.”
Perceval laughed along with Kitty, as if enjoying her mirth. Blanche stood wordless.
“They are more difficult to find than they used to be,” he said to Kitty in Welsh. “The giants, on the other hand, grow more numerous.” She went off into fresh peals of laughter.
“Miss Pendragon, good evening,” said Mr Corbin’s soft amused voice at her side. “Where did you find such an original?”
She turned to him, forcing a smile. “M-my—” and then she caught herself. This man had nothing to do with Logres, and her guardian and Nerys had gone to great lengths to keep the servants and others in Gloucestershire from knowing where they had come from. Her conscience nudged again, and she heard herself continuing smoothly:
“A friend of my guardian’s, come down to keep me company. Percy de Gales. Of the Merthyr Tydfil de Gales.”
“Will you introduce us?” said Mr Corbin.
“Oh, I’d love to, although he doesn’t speak English.”
“That need not hinder us,” said Mr Corbin in perfect Welsh.
Blanche stared. “I suppose you had a Welsh nanny too, then,” she said feebly.
“No,” he said, smiling. “My nanny was a woman from Carlisle. But I learned the language years ago conducting a study on conditions in a Welsh ordnance factory. And now I’d very much like to meet your friend.”
There was nothing to do but lead him over and make the introduction. “Percy, this is Mr Simon Corbin. He—what do you call the profession, Mr Corbin?—he writes letters to The Times about education reform.”
Blanche, watching the two of them exchange politenesses, wondered if it could be possible to find two more dissimilar men. Even the tentative air she detected in Perceval, as he tried to conceal his ignorance of Gloucestershire manners, could not veil his open face or chill his laughing eyes like the mocking and secretive melancholy of Mr Corbin.
Then Keats appeared to announce dinner, and Blanche asked Mr Corbin to escort Emmeline. Kitty took Perceval’s arm. He solemnly offered the spare to Blanche, and she took it, the better to surpervise his conduct on the way into the dining-room.
Entrée and soup. Kitty, making desultory conversation with Perceval, wanted to know if he had been up to Llanstephan at all, and didn’t he adore the little town? Perceval said No, but fame of its beauty had spread throughout Merthyr Tydfil and the countries around. Emmeline was talking to Mr Corbin about the war, in Welsh for courtesy’s sake.
Main course, lamb cutlets. “I don’t think it’s right at all,” Emmeline was saying. “Poisoning the wells, burning the houses, and shutting up the women and children in camps? This is not a just war.”
Mr Corbin smiled. “How else do you propose we shall win, Miss Felton? We are fighting a mobile and well-supplied guerrilla force. The Boers buzz about our ears like gnats, and while the generals make futile attempts to swat them, hundreds of men are dying of typhoid.”
Emmeline looked beseechingly at Blanche. But Mr Corbin went on: “You think me heartless, Miss Felton, but I assure you I am not. The families in the camps are being cared for; outside, they would only starve. Meanwhile, it behoves us to take every advantage in this struggle. Is it not better to win at once and end the suffering, than to continue locked in stalemate?”
Emmeline bowed her head, but said, “If the Boers thought so, they would already have surrendered.”
“If the Boers thought so, there would not have been a war,” said Mr Corbin with a laugh. “In a perfect world these sad decisions would be unnecessary.”
Perceval had been following the conversation, and now he spoke. “Yet in fighting, as in anything else, Christian warriors must act in accordance with their prayers. Adveniat regnum tuum sicut in caelo et in terra.”
“Christians? Mr Corbin is a nonbeliever, Percy,” said Kitty with a laugh.
Mr Corbin raised a conciliatory hand. �
�Yet I understand you, I think, sir. You mean that the citizens of heaven must act as though they were in heaven. But this is my point. God knows—if He exists—where heaven is, but it certainly is not on the earth.”
“Augustine says—” Blanche began to object, but Mr Corbin had not finished.
“This is the real world, sir. Save your ideals for heaven.”
“I say that a battle which cannot be won without treachery and dishonour is a battle not worth winning.”
“It is a pretty idea, certainly,” said Mr Corbin with a smile which even Blanche thought was rather provoking. “But I think that if you were a fighting man, de Gales, you would find the model difficult to put into practice.”
“It can be done,” said Perceval, sitting back in his chair with arrogant ease and folding his arms.
“Can it? Let us try it ourselves, now. Cast me as the villain in a melodrama, de Gales. Having crippled you with a cowardly blow, I turn to condemn one of these adorable ladies—” he turned with half a bow to Kitty, who giggled—“Miss Walker, for instance, to death, or a fate worse. I twirl my moustache. Miss Walker faints. And you, sir, recollect that you have a weapon concealed on your person.”
Perceval shifted in his seat. Blanche read his face like a book. Oh dear. He did have a weapon concealed on his person.
“Do not deny, Mr de Gales, that to preserve her you would take your last chance. You would bury your knife in my back without a second thought, without a warning, no matter how unchivalrous that might be.”
Perceval, less arrogant now, stared mutely at the table. At last he stirred and said, “It would depend—”
“Sophistry, sir!” Mr Corbin thundered. He went on: “Ah, but even now you fail to understand me. What if it were not the villain doing these dastardly deeds, but your colleague, or your commander?”
Perceval looked up with quick displeasure. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, “that by your own showing, the greatest threat to heaven comes from within the ranks of the angels themselves. Before you can prove to me that heroes can defeat villains with nothing but the purest chivalric ideals, you must convince me that heroes do exist, and that villains are not a fanciful tale for children. You must tell me, sir, if you dare, that you are incorruptible, and that your colleagues and commanders are as pure as you. Your health.”
And Mr Corbin took a sip of wine. Perceval, with a furious scowl, stared at his plate. Blanche herself was suddenly angry with the schoolmaster. It hadn’t been a fair fight; Mr Corbin was so much older and so much more worldly than Perceval. But she could not take up the argument on his behalf. For one thing, she had been lax in her duties as a hostess in not diverting the conversation sooner. And for another, if she was honest, she was inclined to agree with Mr Corbin.
She searched in vain for some lighthearted joke to dispel the blunt force of his words. But nothing came, and she rather awkwardly said, “Tell us what you have planned for your birthday, Kitty.”
LATER, IN THE DRAWING-ROOM, BLANCHE SAT alone with her cup of tea. Emmeline was at the piano, playing country airs, and Perceval stood with his head inside the instrument, asking questions and keeping Kitty in giggles. Under the music, the hum of voices, and the laughter, Mr Corbin came over to sit on the stool by Blanche’s feet.
“Let me have your reproaches,” he said to her in English. “You will not find me unrepentant.”
Blanche tried to determine whether he was joking or not, but failed, as usual, to read his expression. “It was very wrong of you.”
“Poor lad,” he said, smiling. There was a moment’s silence, and he went on, “He is not from the Wales we know, is he?”
Even if she had wanted to lie, Blanche’s face would have given her away. “No.”
“Perhaps I am jealous of them,” said Mr Corbin, under the piano’s melody, so low that she had to lean forward to hear. “Those half-savage warlords and unwashed illiterates who would take you away from us.”
“I—” Blanche’s protest died away.
“Your guardian told us you had gone on holiday,” Mr Corbin probed. “I didn’t believe it. You went there.”
She gave him a look of mute appeal.
“Remember,” he said, “they can’t force you to live there. It’s your choice.”
He was going to try to prevent her going to Logres if he could. She supposed she should be grateful for his help. But a sudden unease gripped her, a feeling like a bad conscience.
“I used to dream,” she said, and swallowed. “I dreamed I was there, in a meadow with the sun shining on banners and armour. And it wasn’t like what you say. It was beautiful.” She remembered the night in the slough in Gore, when in cutting wind she had determined to die uncomplaining, with her face to the free hills, and tried to put the splendour of that moment into words. “Now that I know such a place exists, I can’t help wondering…what if it is true?”
“Blanche, no.”
“What if they need me?”
“Need you? Blanche, who has been worrying you?”
“No-one,” she said, bewildered.
“Don’t make the best of a bad bargain, my dear.”
He was still fighting for her. She felt a quick rush of gratitude, and dropped her voice. “I can’t think of any way to avoid it. Besides—”
And she caught herself.
“Besides?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You said, ‘What if they need me’. They can’t need you to destroy yourself by flinging yourself into their brutal world.”
“But what if they do?” He looked puzzled. She tried again. “If my sacrifice can preserve them—”
“Someone else will do it.”
“They said—” This time, although she caught herself, she permitted herself to go on. She glanced at Perceval and dropped her voice a little lower. “They said they need me.”
“Nonsense. They’ll make do with someone else. Besides, to them, you’re only a woman. How important can it be?”
“I’m to guard the Holy Grail.”
Mr Corbin’s lips pressed together and turned white. “So,” he said at last, “not content with spiriting you away to primitivism, they’re making you the high priestess of their bogus cult.”
“I—”
“Blanche, look at me and tell me that if there was a way to stay, you wouldn’t take it.”
“I—”
“I can find a way. Tell me you aren’t interested, and you need never see me again.”
“It would depend on the way,” she whispered at last.
“Then promise me you won’t go before you’ve seen me again,” he said.
12
It’s I will keep me a maiden still,
Let the elfin knight do what he will.
Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
THE DAYS STRETCHED OUT WITH NO sign of Sir Ector and Nerys. Kitty was busy on her party business, and Mr Corbin did not call again. There was little to do that week except to amuse Perceval, but he took a great deal of amusing. Hitherto Blanche had been glad to muddle through life doing a little reading, a little handiwork, and a little visiting, but Perceval could not read, visit, or tat, and quickly grew restless without work to do. For most of the day he occupied himself working with the horses. Sir Ector had ridden Malaventure to Logres, but Perceval spent hours riding in circles on Rufus and Florence, training them to respond to the lightest pressure of rein or heel and gaining balance and rhythm for himself. Then he rigged up a makeshift quintain for ring jousting, and pounded white-painted wooden pegs into the ground which, approaching at a gallop, he aimed to spear and carry away.
In the evenings, Blanche found him a knife and knots of wood to whittle while she read aloud, mostly in Latin, and they had far-ranging conversations as knotted bowls or dragon-handled spoons took shape under Perceval’s hands.
“How much longer do you think Sir Ector will be?” Blanche asked one evening in the drawing-room.
Perceval kept a
ll his attention on the wood in his hands, a block of dark walnut. “Time flows differently here than in Logres. But I know it will take them a week of that time to travel from Nimue’s gate to Camelot and return.”
“So if time moves more slowly here, which it seemed to do while I was at Carbonek, we may look for them in a little under a week from now.” Blanche stared into the fire and wondered if she would get the chance to speak to Mr Corbin again before she left.
She said, “Do you think Mr Corbin was right, about the necessities of war?”
“No,” Perceval said, frowning at the walnut. His knife scraped against the wood three times before he asked it, the question she’d been hoping to avoid. “What did you talk to him about, the other night?”
“He doesn’t want me to leave,” she said at last.
“Why should he have a say in it?”
Blanche laughed. “You really don’t like him, do you?” she baited.
Perceval didn’t take the hook. “He bested me in argument,” he admitted. “But he was wrong.”
“He made me promise to see him again before I leave.” Blanche was probing in earnest now, wondering what Perceval’s reaction to this would be. But once more he spoke calmly:
“He will be at the damsel Kitty’s dance three days from now, surely. There’s no reason you should not speak to him then, if the Lady tarries.”
Blanche wondered if Perceval really was not suspicious of Mr Corbin’s intentions. But she let it lie, and because Kitty’s party was to be a fancy-dress affair, she began mentally searching her wardrobe for a costume.
KITTY’S ROEDEAN FRIENDS CAME DOWN FROM London for the occasion, and Blanche, entering the ballroom on Perceval’s arm, felt Kitty had done due honour to the splendour of the occasion. The place was blazing with light reflected from silverware and crystal, decorated with tinsel and silk roses.
“It’s marvellous, isn’t it?” Kitty asked. She was dressed as a fairy princess, with gossamer wings and a glittering crown. “Mamma let me do what I liked. We had Madame de Lorraine come down to decorate. Ooh, Percy, what a wonderful costume! Where did you get it?” she added in Welsh.
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