Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  Roland would do no such thing. His youth favored him there: he could seem oblivious. He let them eat in peace, but when they had all had their fill, he said, “I’ve not come to supplant your king. I’m his voice only, and his strong arm. You will continue as he bade you, and conduct this war in his name.”

  “Indeed,” said one of the ladies of the Grail, a tall woman with glossy black hair plaited behind her, and eyes as blue as the heart of a flame. There was a look about her of one more at ease in armor than in the white robe of office. “And shall I continue to command his armies for him?”

  Roland paused to draw a breath. “My lady,” he said, “there’s burden enough for both of us, if you can bear to share it with me.”

  She looked him up and down. It might have been reckoned insolent, but he did not think she meant to be. She wanted to know him. She measured the strength of him, and his fitness for this thing that the king had laid on him.

  She nodded abruptly. “You’ll do,” she said. “Shall I summon the commanders, or have you done it already?”

  “Neither,” Roland said. “I’ll go down to them. And you with me, if you will.”

  Her brow went up. “They’ll think you’re lowering yourself.”

  “A good number of them knew me when I was a village idiot,” Roland said. “This will either amuse or appall them.”

  “Probably the former,” Sarissa said dryly. “Morgan, let be. He’s a Frank—they do things this way.”

  “Half a Frank,” Morgan said. “The other half—”

  “The other half gives him the right to command in Montsalvat.”

  Sarissa’s tone was fiercer than the words might have warranted. Roland’s eyes sharpened.

  Morgan laughed like a clash of blades. “Yes, the hawk of the gods and the Grail’s own child. If he were a stallion, we’d put him to all our mares.”

  “If I were a mare, I’d kick you silly,” Sarissa muttered.

  Roland intervened before matters could grow worse—if that were possible. “Madam!” He did not care which of them he meant. In any event they both turned on him like mares indeed, ears flat, tails switching.

  “Fight over me later. We’ve a sorcerer to destroy.”

  Neither was chastened, but he had silenced them, at least. Tarik was rolling in his lap, shaking with laughter. He rose, spilling the puca to the floor. “Look for me in the camp,” he said to them all, “if you have need of me.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Roland fled with as much dignity as a man so young could manage under the circumstances. Sarissa glared at Morgan. “That was hardly fair,” she said.

  Morgan grinned like a she-wolf. “And isn’t he lovely when he’s mortally embarrassed?”

  “Why, do you want him?”

  “Do you?”

  Sarissa bared her teeth. “With my whole heart and soul.”

  “So,” said Morgan, “go and get him.”

  Sarissa hardly needed encouragement. Roland was still in the castle, making his way through the maze of halls and courts, with Tarik at his heels.

  Tarik had hardly forgiven Sarissa, any more than Roland had, but he was not helping Roland to find his way out of the castle, either. The castle itself had roused in the dim but purposeful way of enchanted stone, and caught him in the hall of mazes. Every arch of the colonnade might be a way out, or it might not. Or an exit might prove only to lead back into the hall itself.

  She found Roland in the middle with the cat purring at his feet. He had not given in to panic. He turned at her coming, as if he had expected her. His cheeks were still faintly flushed.

  Wordlessly she handed him what she had paused to fetch. He took the worn scabbard in which Durandal had lived since he won her, and slid her softly home. “Thank you,” he said.

  She bowed slightly.

  “So,” he said after a moment. “Was there a duel? Am I the prize or the punishment?”

  “Which would you rather be?”

  “Neither!”

  She thought he might turn and run, but he had too many of his wits about him for that. “Morgan has an antic humor,” Sarissa said. “And she does love a handsome face.”

  His face flamed. Sarissa did not even try to stop herself: she cooled his burning cheeks with her palms. He made no effort to pull away. His eyes were wild.

  She kissed him softly. He stood like a stone. She kissed his cheeks and his brow and the flutter of his eyelids. She was not thinking at all.

  Abruptly he pulled back. “Is this a wager? Will she try it, too?”

  “Probably,” Sarissa said. Her hands slipped behind his neck and rested there. “You could be more presentable,” she said, “for your people.”

  “So that you can seduce me in the bath?”

  “Would that be a terrible thing?”

  He did not answer.

  She took his hand. It did not return the pressure of her grip, but neither did it elude her. Her heart was beating hard. Her breath came quick. She had not intended any of this until it happened—and time was short. The war was coming with inexorable speed.

  The chamber gave them the passage she wanted, and the door into the bath with its shimmer of blue tiles. He started a little as he entered it, with a spark of—recognition?

  “I dreamed,” he said. “I dreamed—”

  “So it was you,” she said, “watching me. I felt you. I thought it was a dream of my own.”

  He shook his head.

  She smiled. The water in the warm pool swirled, steaming gently. There were clothes laid out for him, fresh linen, plain tunic and hose in a fashion close enough to the Frankish for his comfort.

  She let him undress himself—to his surprise and perhaps annoyance. She sprinkled herbs in the water to sweeten its scent. When she turned, he was naked. There were more scars than there had been before Roncesvalles, but she knew every one of them. She had stood over him while the Grail burned through her, bringing him back from the dark country, healing his body and binding it again to his soul.

  He still wore the coin on its chain that had escaped her in Paderborn. It had been a simple enough thing when she had it: remembrance of her own country, and relic of an older time. The blessing of the Grail was on it.

  In coming to him, it had grown and changed. It had woven itself into the magic that filled him full of light. It had become both amulet and talisman.

  Tarik leaped into the pool. He shifted and blurred in midair, till a silver fish danced in the water. Roland laughed as if he could not help it, and slid in after him.

  Sarissa forbore to seduce him—and not only because Tarik was there. She handed him sponge and soap. She scrubbed his hair for him. She shaved him before he cut his own throat. But she was as circumspect as any good servant, except that she was not entirely able to keep her eyes to herself.

  She had baffled him. His frown darkened the longer she went on. When he was clean, he stepped out of the cold pool into her hands. She dried him briskly, as if it were nothing to her that it was a man’s body she touched so.

  Just as she was about to turn away, he caught her hands. “Are you trying to make me strangle you?”

  “I’m trying to make you fit to stand in front of your captains,” she said.

  “I was filthy in front of higher lords than they.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We did appreciate the gesture.”

  “It was not—”

  “Don’t lie to yourself,” she said. “I don’t ask you to forgive me. Only do what we need of you, for the people, for the Grail—it doesn’t matter. Just do it.”

  “But what is it I’m to do?” he demanded. “All of it. All, lady. Not fragments doled out one by one.”

  Her back tightened. If she lied to him again, or concealed anything from him, he would know—if not now, then soon. And she would lose him. And if she lost him—

  “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t tell you. That’s for the king, when the time comes.”

  He lifted his chin. “Ah,” he sai
d. “No answer. But truth—that much you give me. Was it so difficult?”

  “More than you know,” she said.

  “Why, do I have to die? Is that what you’re keeping from me? You need my blood, and you’re afraid I’ll run screaming before you can take it?”

  “We don’t need your death,” she said.

  He breathed out, perhaps in spite of himself. “What, then? My soul? My bodily strength?”

  “No,” she said.

  She had surprised him: he seemed nonplussed. “So what is it? Do I have to fight a battle? Marry a woman?”

  She stiffened at that.

  He saw. “That’s it? That’s what it is? The champion takes a bride, for the strength of the kingdom and the increase of his power against the enemy?”

  Ah, gods, he saw clearly. The Grail gave him sight—even if he had not had understanding enough of his own.

  “And that bride,” he said, “is—” He laughed suddenly, a sound half of astonishment and half of—mirth? He did not sound angry at all. “Is it one of you? Am I to choose, and be judged by my choice? Or do you draw lots? Will you duel, two and two, as we did for Durandal?”

  “It was settled long ago,” she said with a faint sigh, surrendering to his clarity of vision. “The Grail chose.”

  “It was you,” he said. “You went out. You brought the sword. You thought you were going to a king. And you found a Breton witch, Merlin’s get. No wonder you wouldn’t tell me! It must have been a terrible blow to your pride.”

  “No!” He had never heard her raise her voice. It startled him into silence. “What did you think I was doing in Musa’s house? Dallying? Lying as men lie to women, to gain myself a few days’ pleasure? Do you think I feigned that I loved you?”

  “Love is not marriage,” he said, far too dispassionate for one as young and hot-blooded as he was. “Pleasure in a fair face is not the bond that unites equals. If I had been Charles of the Franks, you would have been glad to tell me everything—and you would have trusted me to accept what was laid on me.

  “But I am Roland of Brittany, and Merlin is my forefather. You’ll never forget that. You won’t forgive it.”

  “Forget, no,” she said. “Forgive—long ago. You were chosen. You, not Charles—who though he is a great man and a great king, is not the Grail’s champion. He is not my champion, whom I love. I never said I was wise. I never pretended to be perfect in my understanding. But when I knew that it was not the one I had thought, after I got over the shock I was glad. Even mistrusting you, even fearing what you might be, I couldn’t make myself regret that you and not Charles were the chosen of the Grail.”

  “You should have told me,” he said. That was the young man speaking. It was the other, the clear-eyed seer, who shook his head and sighed. “That’s done. It won’t be undone. So when was I to be told? Or was I? Would you have pulled me from my bed some early morning, dragged me to the chapel, and bound me before I was awake enough to argue with it?”

  “We might have done that,” she said, “if we had found it necessary. Will it be?”

  He thought about it. He took some little time. He searched her face. He touched his own, rubbing the scars of the demon’s claws. At last he said, “Tell me the truth. Are you appalled that you will be bound to me?”

  “Are you?”

  His eyes narrowed: yellow hawk-eyes under the level black brows. “A man has to marry to get sons. You seem strong. Your rank is sufficient. Your family, I have no doubt, is illustrious. You have no father to negotiate the contract, but then neither do I. And as a dead man, I have no lands to offer you, and no wealth but a sword and a coat of mail, a shield and a helmet, and a horse that was Lord Huon’s gift.”

  “And the castle of Carbonek in the king’s name,” said Sarissa, “and an army sixty thousand strong, and the wherewithal to keep and command it.”

  “That is not—”

  “It is yours,” she said, “for all useful purposes. You are the champion of Montsalvat. Your rank and wealth suffice. For dowry I bring you nothing but my body. And,” she said, “the Grail.”

  “They are enough.”

  He sounded breathless. Maybe because he was naked and still somewhat damp, and he was chilled. She wrapped her arms about him, the warmth of her white robe and of her body beneath it. He fit precisely in her embrace, the shape, the heft of him, the clean new-washed scent, the smoothness of his skin.

  “You can refuse,” she said.

  A gust of laughter escaped him. “You can stand like this and say that?”

  “Not easily,” she said. She meant to move back, but found herself pressed close against him, his arms about her. She ran her hands up the long straight line of his spine and across the breadth of his shoulders. She had not done that in—oh, too long. “I missed you. Dear Goddess, I missed you!”

  “I suppose it’s a sin,” he said, “to lust after one’s bride.”

  “Not here,” she said. And then: “You will do it?”

  “Tell me one thing.” He withdrew somewhat, so that he could look into her face. “What is it that we have to do? Is it a great marriage?”

  “You know of that?”

  “Merlin told me.”

  She nodded, though she could not help bridling at the name. “It binds you to our circle, and gives you our strength.”

  “That is a great thing,” he said.

  “Worth even marriage to me?”

  A shadow crossed his face, but he smiled in the wake of it. “If you promise solemnly never to lie to me again.”

  “By the Grail I swear it.”

  “Then yes,” he said. “Yes, I accept it.”

  CHAPTER 52

  The children slept well past dawn, after the night they had had, but Gemma was up as early as ever. She happened by Marric as he tended the fire, waiting for the first recruit to stagger out yawning and demand a loaf of his new-made bread.

  “We’ll need flour in a day or two,” he said, “and more ale.”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell the quartermaster.” Clearly she had somewhere else to be, but she paused, squatting beside him. He waited for her to say what was on her mind. “Have you seen Count Roland this morning?”

  “Not since last night,” Marric said.

  “He’s not in the Franks’ camp. He’s not in his tent here. His horse is in the lines. His clothes are in the tent, except what he had on.”

  Marric’s ears quivered, but he kept his expression bland. “You’ve been looking for him?”

  “He’s always about. He should be pacing by now, waiting for the children to be up and at arms practice. He’s nowhere at all.”

  “He could be in the castle,” Marric said.

  Her eyes flashed on him. “Why? Was he summoned?”

  “No,” said Marric. “But I saw him go in. He hasn’t come out. I presume he’s safe there.”

  She shivered, rubbing her arms. It was cool this high in the mountains, but he did not think that chill was of the body. “He was summoned,” she said, “if he went there. Every step he takes, he goes higher. He’ll go to the Grail, be sure of it.”

  “Are you afraid for him?”

  She shrugged irritably. “I can’t get out of the habit of fretting over him. Not that he needs me now, or has for a long time, but I keep remembering. He was such a sweet thing. Everything so new, everything so strange. Those eyes of his were always wide. And no malice in him at all.”

  “There isn’t now,” said Marric.

  “No, there isn’t, is there? But I worry. It’s having so many sons—I keep thinking he’s another.”

  “He wasn’t exactly a son to you.”

  “That’s over, too,” she said. Her voice was flat. “They say the enemy will be here in a handful of days. Maybe sooner.”

  “I heard that, too,” he said, taking the shift in stride.

  “Pray we’re ready.”

  She rose. He watched her go and sighed. Gemma was a wise woman, and strong. Surely she would not let Roland
become a weakness.

  Roland came out near noon. He was on foot, plainly dressed, but clean and fresh-shaven. The puca in cat-shape walked at his heel. Sarissa was behind them, as plainly dressed as he.

  He was wearing a sword, which he had not done before. And the great gate had opened for him, not the postern through which lesser folk could come and go. He crossed the bridge and walked down the narrow road into the valley.

  The army saw him coming. They were all awake, the recruits at practice, the veterans idling about. All but the Franks. They, though veterans all, had elected to follow the recruits’ example.

  They stopped in a long wave, all down the field, and stared at the two figures walking from the castle. As they drew nearer, Marric saw the hilt and pommel of the sword he bore: plain silver, white stone. The bogle’s teeth clicked together.

  “So that’s why he wouldn’t take a sword,” Kyllan said. “He left his behind.” He unstrung his bow and coiled the string, absently, while Roland drew closer.

  Cait made her way from the edge of the line. “I hear all the commanders have been called together. There’s someone new in charge. Some new general.”

  “That must be where he’s going.” Kyllan slipped his bow into its case and slung it behind him. “Are you coming?”

  She was already in motion. So were Cieran and Peredur, and Marric silent behind.

  The commanders had gathered in a green hollow somewhat apart from the camp. A ring of trees surrounded it. A broad stone table stood in its center. It had an air of old sanctity, which seemed fitting for the occasion.

  They were all there, lords and captains, men and women of rank both high and low. Marric saw Gemma near Lord Huon.

  She was watching Roland, who had come in among the last. She did not look as relieved as one might have expected.

  No one else took much notice of him. Their glances passed over him and went on. They were all waiting for some prince from the castle.