Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  His glance caught Charles, standing as still as they all stood, transfixed by that wondrous thing. Not even a king could resist the lure of it.

  Not even a king, not even this king, would keep Roland from vying for the sword. Nor was he alone in that desire. All the Companions, the lords and fighting men, knew that same surety.

  A stab of alarm brought him up short. Was this a plot against them all? Was it meant to divide them, to set man against man and man against king, and so leave them ripe for treachery?

  The sword’s gleam offered no answer. Roland’s eyes, questing among the gathered faces, searched that of the emir. There was guile there in plenty, but of betrayal he saw nothing. He looked past that lean dark face, scanning the faces of the emir’s retinue. Nothing.

  Ganelon, he thought. As if the thought had conjured him, he was there among the flock of priests, with his dour monks at his back, and close by him—disturbingly so—the king’s eldest son, the hunchback. They were all watching the sword, but not as if they had anything to do with it. Pepin was rapt. His face, so like his father’s atop the twisted body, was as full of naked yearning as any other.

  This was not Ganelon’s doing. Roland did not know if he was glad. Nor, he admitted, did he know that the sword was an ill thing. It did not feel so. It felt clean and rather cold, not a thing of heaven maybe, but not of hell, either. It was made of the elements of the middle realm, of earth and water, air and fire.

  Roland would have to stop soon and consider what it meant that Pepin stood so close to the old enemy. Roland had been so preoccupied with guarding the king that he had not been paying proper attention to the king’s children. Pepin was not the heir: his mother had not married the king in the eyes of the Church. But he was the king’s eldest son. If Ganelon had got at him rather than at the stronger, wiser, far less vulnerable and far more strictly guarded Charles—

  Later he would ponder the uses of diversion and distraction. For this moment, all that mattered was the sword.

  The assembly hardly waited to be dismissed. They did not, just then, care exactly what they had decided to do about the war. They were all in a fever to prepare for the contest, which would begin after the sun passed noon; then when that was done, the emir would summon them to his feast.

  The Companions prepared together as they would for battle, gathered in the tent Roland shared with Olivier, which was the largest. Their servants ran back and forth, fetching clothing, weapons, armor. Only the twins Gerin and Gerer were not there: they stood guard over the king.

  “He’ll fight for it, too,” said Olivier as his servant shaved him—putting that poor man in great danger of cutting his master’s throat, but he was used to it. Olivier was seldom silent even when he slept.

  “So do we let him win it?” Milun was the youngest of the Companions, younger than Roland, and inclined to fret over matters of precedence. It was his mother’s fault, his cousin Thibaut was wont to say. That lady had made a high art of fretting, and she had taught it to her son.

  But Milun was a good fighting man and fair teller of tales by the fire of an evening. The rest of them forbore to knock him down and teach him sense. Turpin said, kindly enough, “Of course we don’t let him win it. He’d have our necks if we tried. This will be a fair fight. If the king wins, he’ll win by his strong right arm, and nothing else.”

  “But he’s the king,” said Milun.

  Thibaut cuffed him not quite hard enough to fell him. “Stop it, puppy. You’ll fight as we’ll all fight, for the honor of your name. Maybe you’ll win. Stranger things have happened in this world.”

  Milun growled but subsided. In any case he would not have been able to say much more: two of the servants had brought him his mail-coat. They climbed up on stools on either side of him and hefted the heavy thing above his head. He lifted his arms. They lowered the mail-coat, grunting a little with the weight, working his arms into it and settling it on his shoulders.

  Roland, whose own coat was already on, set about helping Olivier with his. Olivier’s fair cheeks were scarlet with the razor’s burn and the fever of excitement. “Did you see that sword?” he kept asking. “Did you see it? Where do you think it came from? Spain? Araby? India?”

  “Fire and water,” Roland said without thinking.

  No one took much notice. Roland was always saying things that no one else could make sense of; sometimes, as now, not even himself.

  “It is a marvel of a blade,” Turpin said. “I wonder what its name is.”

  “Do Saracens name their swords?” Olivier asked.

  That stopped them all. After a moment Ascelin said, “No. No, I don’t think they do.”

  Ascelin was a Gascon. They were not always friends to the Franks, and as often as not they were allies of the Saracens. When it came to infidels, Ascelin knew more than most.

  “Well,” Olivier said, “then how do they acknowledge the power that’s in a blade?”

  Thibaut snorted. “That should matter? They can fight. The rest is ceremony.”

  “They’d fight better if they knew who their weapons were,” said Olivier.

  “Then it’s well for us they don’t,” Turpin said. “Here, are we ready? Shall we go?”

  Everyone was ready, even Milun, whose servant handed him his helmet.

  “Let us go, then,” said Turpin, “and may God bless us all. And if He doesn’t choose to grant that I should win the sword—then may it go to another of us.”

  “Or the king,” Milun said, “in the Lord Jesus’ name.”

  They crossed themselves and bowed their heads. Turpin blessed them all, marking a cross on each forehead and sealing it with a kiss.

  Roland was last, as it happened. Turpin held him for a moment, smiling a remarkably sweet smile. Roland returned it. His heart was suddenly as light as air.

  “Fight well, brother falcon,” his friend said.

  “And you, brother bear,” said Roland.

  They laughed and embraced, and followed the others into the bright daylight.

  While the Franks prepared, the emir’s men together with a great company of the king’s servants had readied the field of the assembly for a trial by combat. Its boundaries were marked, and places set for those who would watch. There was a canopy for the queens and their ladies, and another for the Saracens of rank and their attendants.

  They would all fight as they were accustomed to do, in mock battle, ranked as they would be in war: lord by lord and company by company. The Companions took places at the king’s back.

  The emir Al-Arabi rode down the lines on his fiery little mare, with a following of men in Saracen armor. He bowed as he passed the king, and there paused. “My lords,” he said, “and men of the Franks, here is the challenge I set you: to draw lots, and so divide, left hand and right. One side, my lord king, of your grace you will command. For the other, let one be chosen who is a strong commander in battle. He who drives his opponent’s forces back, even to the border of the field, shall be counted victor.”

  “And win the sword?” Charles asked.

  “Why, no, my lord,” said Al-Arabi. “For the victors we have prizes of gold and fine jewels, silks and treasures of my people—and the right to contest for sword when the melee is done, in single combat, man against man.”

  Charles laughed and applauded. “That is grand sport!” he declared. “Shall we begin?”

  Battle was battle, whether mock battle against friends and brothers, or battle to the death against the enemies of the Franks. First the waiting as the captains settled sides and drew lots for command against the king; then further waiting as they took ranks on either side of the broad windswept field. The sun was direct overhead. The sky was clear blue. The wind caught the pennons: gold for the king, green for the other, with Anselm, Count of the king’s palace, as lord and commander.

  Roland sat on grey Veillantif at the king’s right hand, breathing deep to steady himself. The world was preternaturally clear, as it always was before a battle. But his
skin quivered and rippled, itching to shift, to sprout wings and fly—and that had not been common before Ganelon came to the king’s camp. With an effort he held it in check. His skin quivered one last time, as if in protest, then stilled. His senses sharpened to falcon-keenness.

  The horn rang the signal. Roland’s lance lowered. On either side of him, lances came down in unison. With a roar of delight, they leaped to the charge.

  He set his eyes on a green pennon and a faceless helmet behind it. It did not matter who it was, or what he might be when he was not the enemy in battle. Roland had all the leisure in the world to straighten his lance, to aim at the broad mailed breast, to thrust its blunted end home. The man fell.

  There was another behind him, and another. Lances thrust. Swords flashed—not blunted, those, and as deadly as they ever were. There were axes, and here and there a club, whirling about a helmeted head and falling with crushing force.

  Roland’s lance broke on a shield. He swept out his sword, the familiar blade that had been his father’s. It was never as fine as the one that they all fought for, but it was a sturdy thing, and well fitted to his hand. He had grown to manhood with it, and won many a battle, real as well as feigned.

  It was like a part of him, a long and deadly arm, smiting men who rose up before him, beating aside lances and swords. People were shouting—screaming. Someone was down; he glimpsed the bright scarlet of blood.

  They were falling back—the line was bending, weakening, breaking. Roland glanced aside. Charles’ blue glare met his. They needed no word to be in perfect agreement.

  Charles on his left hand, Olivier on his right, Turpin beyond the king, gathered and poised and drove in a bright wedge through the massed enemy. They caught him by surprise: off balance, shaped to drive forward, not to fall back. They thrust the ranks back and back, battering them with lance and sword. “Montjoie!” they cried together, the king’s war-cry. “Montjoie!”

  The retreat halted. It had found the strength to fight back. Roland mustered himself for yet another onslaught.

  There was no need. The green pennants had reached the field’s edge. Charles’ side had driven them back as far as they could go. The horns rang, halting them, proclaiming the king’s victory.

  There were gaps in the ranks, men down, stunned or bleeding. But they were laughing, those who were not groaning in pain. It had been a splendid fight, and bravely fought.

  In winning it, the king’s side had won the right to contest for the sword. Comrades in arms eyed one another warily now, each seeing his companion as his rival for the prize.

  “Don’t hate me,” Olivier said to Roland, “if I knock you about a bit. That sword . . . oh, saints, I want it.”

  “It’s mine,” said Thibaut. “Be wise, yield now. Spare yourself a broken head.”

  “I’ll break yours first,” said Olivier sweetly.

  As the last of the wounded hobbled or were carried from the field, the emir Al-Arabi rode among them again. This time he carried the sword crosswise in his arms, brilliant in its silken wrappings. “You will fight,” he said, “man to man. Two by two. As your opponent falls, you will turn and engage the man on your right hand. He who is still standing engages again. And thus until only one man stands. To that man, I give this blade.”

  They all sighed as they had when they first saw the sword, as no few of them did at the thought of a willing woman.

  “Oh, I’ll love her,” someone murmured indeed, not far from Roland—and maybe it was Olivier’s voice, and maybe it was not. “I’ll cherish the very heart of her.”

  Roland had not had a woman in—how long? Not since before Olivier won the toss, the day Ganelon came to Paderborn. Like a fool, his body remembered that now, with urgency that made him catch his breath.

  Not now, he told it. Not till this is over.

  His body was not minded to listen, but he was master of it still. The lines were drawing up, dismounting, horses being led away. Man faced man along the breadth of the field. Those who had lost the melee crowded beyond. They took it in good heart, as far as he could see.

  Roland braced his feet on the earth. It was trampled, treacherous. He was a little tired from the melee, but never enough to slow him. This was battle as he had been born and bred to fight it. Single combat, best and most deadly of all.

  In the shifting of sides, he found himself face-to-face with a man he knew slightly, a minor lord from the south of Francia. They were a fair match for size and weight, but Roland’s eye was quicker and his arm stronger. The man fell in a few swift strokes. And there was one waiting, and one after him, in a blur of clashing steel.

  Roland had danced wardances like this, from opponent to opponent to opponent. Sometimes there was a lull: a man down—sometimes laughing, sometimes snarling, occasionally unconscious—but the two on his right fought on. Then he would lean on his sword, or even sit on the ground, and simply breathe.

  He did not like to pause too long. If he did, he would become aware of the aches of bruises and the stabbing of wounds, small but sharp.

  The Companions were holding their own. So too the king; he did not tire as quickly as other men, and he had a remarkable store of patience. He could husband his strength while others squandered theirs, and be fresh to fight long after they were exhausted.

  Roland had learned that lesson from Merlin, but Charles had taught him to master it.

  It was no great surprise, then, that as the sun sank, casting long shadows across the field, two pairs remained to fight on it: Olivier and Turpin, and Charles turning from fallen Thibaut to face Roland. Roland smiled at the king. Charles’ eyes glinted.

  They raised blades in salute. Charles inclined his head. Roland bowed as lord to king. They sprang together, as fierce as if they had been bitter enemies.

  Charles was taller, stronger, heavier. His reach was longer. And he was very, very cunning.

  But Roland was faster, and he had learned cunning from a devil’s son. As wise as Charles was, he still wanted to end this as quickly as he might, with but two opponents left between himself and the sword. Roland could not overwhelm him with the power of his arms, but he could outwait even that king of foxes. He fought only as hard as he must to defend himself, and to keep that heavy blade from beating him down.

  Charles tried to draw Roland out, to force him to fight more strongly: hammering and hammering. But Roland was air and water, slipping away from the blows, letting them fall harmless or catch the edge of his blade and dissipate without weakening him overmuch.

  Roland waited and watched, and eluded blows that came faster and faster. Everywhere about him was the blur of steel. It closed in ever tighter. It drove him back and back, till like the enemy in the melee, he had nowhere else to go.

  But there was no stricture here, and no requirement but that one of them fall. He ducked beneath a blow that was meant to finish him. It brushed him and rocked him, but he did not topple. Charles half-spun with the force of it. Roland saw his face clearly as he realized what he had done to himself: anger, frustration, rueful acceptance. The flat of Roland’s blade caught him neatly beneath the ear and sent him crashing down.

  There was no time for Roland to assure himself that he had done no lasting harm. Even as he bent to help the king to his feet, a strong grip on his shoulder spun him about.

  Olivier grinned at him. “Brother! I’m winning the sword.”

  Roland bared his teeth in reply. “Brother,” he said, “stand aside for me.”

  “Over my unconscious body,” said Olivier.

  “Gladly,” Roland said.

  They were both bloody, bruised, running with sweat, staggering, but giddy with the delight of the battle. To be fighting as brother to brother—it was lovely, inevitable. Roland still had his helmet, by a miracle. Olivier had lost his. His hair hung lank over his forehead. A great bruise split his cheekbone.

  Roland did not suppose he was any more lovely. Nor did he care. He firmed his grip on his sword, gathered himself, swept it up
.

  Olivier’s met it with force that staggered them both. Olivier grunted. Roland had bitten his tongue: his mouth tasted of blood.

  They knew each other too well. Each knew what his battle-brother would do next, each move as familiar as the steps of a dance. For every thrust a parry, for each step forward a step back.

  It could last past the sunset, which was not so far away now, and all night long, for the matter of that. But they were both well worn with a long day’s fighting, and they were hardly minded to let it go on as long as that.

  Roland could not wait Olivier out. Olivier was wise to it. Nor could he overwhelm Olivier with his strength: Olivier was his superior in that. He had only his determination, and something that he had not even known was a gift until he became a man and a warrior. In the strongest heat of battle, the world slowed. Each move, each breath, was a matter of great deliberation. Men drifted like fishes beneath the sea. When a sword lifted, there was all the time in the world to meet it and turn it aside. Blows endured for long ages. He could slip beneath them, elude them, return them before anyone had seen him move.

  It was not magic. It was something that a man could do, any man, if he was born to it. Olivier had it. He would not have been a great fighter without it. But Roland was quicker than he was.

  Even at that, Roland was hard pressed. Olivier fought with all the skill that was in him, till his very soul was battle. Leap, thrust, leap away; spin, whirl, strike. Stamp, shout, stab and stab again, then come round in a great sweeping blow that nigh split Roland in two. Roland barely escaped, twisting, staggering, half-falling. Olivier’s foot caught him in the side. Something cracked.

  He felt no pain. In this world undersea, adrift in light, he felt nothing at all. He feigned to double up, to crumple. Olivier drew back the merest fraction. For the glimmer of an instant he was unguarded.

  Roland darted into the opening, empty-handed, his sword lost, he did not remember where. Olivier was bending to finish Roland, who was no longer where Olivier had looked to find him. Roland’s knotted hands smote him at the base of the neck.