Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  Movement. An eye nearby the army stopped, hovered. Others converged on it. Down in a valley, moving along beside a dry streambed, were figures in green and brown. If they had stood still, he would not have seen them at all.

  The part of him that was flesh, the rider on the brown gelding, snapped out orders. A company of the Frankish foot separated from the rest, advancing toward the valley and the enemy. That it was the enemy, Pepin was sure. Nothing lived or moved here but what the Grail permitted.

  The skirmish engaged out of sight and sound of the march. Pepin watched it with as much of himself as he could spare. The green men fought fiercely against the onslaught of Pepin’s Franks, but they fell back, overwhelmed by greater numbers.

  Pepin smiled at the sight. But after a moment, his smile died. His men were deep in the valley, the green men knotted tight, fighting for their lives. And from the hillsides and from the valley’s beginning and ending, as if from the ground underfoot, surged an army of men in bright mail. They swept over Pepin’s force that had seemed so large only a moment ago. They crushed it utterly.

  Then out of the earth rose a Thing. It was like nothing so much as a great blind worm. Its hide was the white of corpses’ flesh. Its vast and eyeless head turned, seeking. And opened—clear to its middle, lined with dripping fangs.

  The men of the Grail fled in surprisingly good order. But the worm was swifter than they. It swept through them as a scythe sweeps through ripe grain.

  Pepin whirled headlong into his cold and shivering body. He was sick—oh, unto death; gagging and retching over the high pommel of his saddle. His men marched on, oblivious to their fellows’ destruction.

  There was no strength left in Pepin. His spies were all gone, melted into air. He was no more than mortal now.

  The magic would come back. That was the great joy and comfort of it. He need only rest in the protection of his men, and cling to the saddle, and wait for the day’s march to end. And pray that no further ambush descended on them.

  The land had roused; it was alive that had been empty and silent. It was thrumming with warring powers.

  The army marched under Ganelon’s protection. Though the earth heaved like the sea, the road under their feet held steady. Winds roared, storms gathered, but the sun shone on the army.

  Pepin drew strength from Ganelon’s strength, if slowly. He fell back to Ganelon’s side again. Ganelon did not speak to him, which suited him perfectly. The sorcerer was deep in myriad workings. Lightnings crackled about him. Vast voices spoke just below the threshold of hearing. The winds called out to him. He answered in tongues that Pepin had not yet learned, ancient and terrible.

  This was war as he had never imagined it, unless the priests spoke of war in heaven. The army that marched on the earth, he began to understand, was little more than diversion. The true war, the deep war, raged beneath the earth and among the powers of air.

  There were still men to fight. Men held the Grail. And only a man of royal blood, his soul intact, could take that great instrument of power.

  When it came down to it, none of it mattered, except to get Pepin into the castle, and to get his hands on the Grail. He wondered if the enemy knew that. They were not fools, he supposed, and they had fought Ganelon before.

  Abruptly he asked, “Who was it? Last time, who was your catspaw?”

  He was a little surprised when Ganelon answered. “His name was Medraut. He too was a king’s son. He too was an ill-made thing.”

  “What, a humpback?” Pepin sneered the word.

  “His back was straight,” Ganelon said. Clearly he did not care what offense he gave. “His spirit was twisted.”

  “And mine’s the reverse?”

  “Hardly.” The cold voice was already distant, the ancient mind turned again to the great web of power that he had woven through the years.

  Pepin was recovered enough to sense the shadow of it. He set aside the pricking of temper, the sharp awareness of insult, for later, when he could exact a price. Carefully, for he was still not particularly strong, he traced the greater strands of the web. Someday he would weave such a thing for himself, to bind the world.

  Today he was but a student, and a young one at that. He kept quiet and he studied, and he rode beside the sorcerer to the castle of the Grail.

  CHAPTER 54

  The enemy advanced behind a wall of darkness: shadows and shadowy things, and sleepers waking beneath the earth. One such slew a company of men from Poictesme, who had laid an ambush and been themselves taken by surprise.

  It was the second battle of the war, and the first defeat. Word of it came as the castle’s defenders broke camp and marched within the walls.

  Roland had felt the blindworm’s rising. It was too far, too late to warn the company in the valley. Even the Grail could do no more than conceal the few who won free, and close the valley against the creature’s escape. But the blindworm had done what it was meant to do. The power that ruled it let it go. It sank back into the earth.

  There was nothing Roland could do in this that the ladies of the Grail could not do better than he. It was a hard truth to face. His duty was to command the army; matters of high magic were not within his authority. And yet in the face of Ganelon’s power, he itched to do battle with another weapon than earthly steel.

  “Patience, lad,” Marric said. They were standing over the gate of Carbonek, watching the troops march beneath. Roland had not spoken his thoughts, but the bogle seldom concerned himself with such niceties. “You’ll get your chance to hurl lightnings.”

  Roland glowered at him. He grinned and sat on the parapet, as precarious a perch as Roland could imagine, but he seemed at ease there.

  He was still grinning as Turpin climbed up the stair to the gate-tower. The archbishop grinned back, a fine display of broad white teeth. “And a fair morning to you, sir bogle,” he said.

  “My lord archbishop,” said Marric with a mingling of respect and insouciance that Roland admired in spite of himself.

  Turpin leaned on the parapet just past the bogle. “Nearly all in,” he said. “Our Franks are still refusing to believe that this castle can hold so many.”

  “It’s much larger within than without,” said Roland. “Tell them it’s magic.”

  “I already did. They keep on insisting that these walls won’t stretch as far as they’ll have to. They’re all logicians since they were taken out of the world.”

  “They’ll see,” Roland said. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He had slept—days ago? He did not remember. Sarissa had had the night watch over the Grail, which mercifully prevented her from vexing him with commands to rest. Others he could ignore.

  Even Turpin, who was fixing him with a look he knew too well. He met it blandly.

  Turpin did not speak as Roland had expected. He lifted a brow. The bogle nodded. They struck before Roland could defend himself, caught him and tripped him and flung him over Turpin’s shoulder, and carried him off into the depths of Carbonek.

  Turpin dropped him onto a bed in a room he had not seen before. It was a large room, for a castle, and handsome, with its carpets and hangings and its wide curtained bed. There was no one else in it. It was a lordly place, fit for a prince.

  The bed was too large and too soft. Roland was drowning in it. He scrambled up out of it. “I’m not staying here.”

  “Until you sleep, you are,” Turpin said. “We’ll get the men settled. You need to be up and in fighting form when the trap closes.”

  “On us or on the enemy?” A vast yawn overwhelmed Roland. “At least find me a bed that won’t suffocate me before I wake.”

  “You’re clever. You’ll learn to swim in it.” Marric was hard-hearted, and Turpin was no better.

  “We’ll chain you to it if we have to,” Turpin said.

  He was enjoying this much too much. Roland snarled at him. He laughed and abandoned Roland to the mercies of the featherbed.

  Roland fully intended to fight his way free and escape to the duti
es that never relented. But his eyelids were heavy. His body was heavier. Just a moment—just a few breaths’ time, to rest, to soothe the burning in his eyes.

  He woke in darkness. Warmth pressed against his leg, purring as cats will, or a puca wearing the shape of a cat. The Grail’s singing filled him.

  He had been dreaming, but the dream had fled, except for a memory of sunlight. He sat up amid the coverlets of a wide and lordly bed. He could see a little: dim shapes of hangings, clothing-chest, a figure that drew him half to his feet, heart pounding, until he realized that it was his mail-coat on its stand.

  Someone had come in while he slept, moved in his belongings and taken off his clothes. It was cold in the room, a keen mountain chill.

  Wrapped in the coverlet, he rose. He was wide awake. He was a little hungry, but bread and cheese in a basket on the clothing-chest did not tempt him.

  He had learned the ways of the castle, because a general always knew his ground, either friendly or hostile. This room would be one of those in the king’s tower. The Grail was at the top of that, closed in its shrine.

  Maybe one did not simply go to it. Maybe one should be taken to it, or summoned. And maybe he was summoned, as he had been to find Durandal.

  There was no moon tonight, no stars. Things gibbered against the walls of air, the high magic that protected the castle and the kingdom. He ascended the stair without haste. Somewhere, echoing in the passages, now near and clear, now faint and far away, monks were singing the night office. He recognized Turpin’s voice, deep but surprisingly clear.

  Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men, preserve me from violent men.

  Save me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked: from the horns of the wild bulls, my wretched life.

  Roland was rather startled. He had not perceived this as a Christian place, though it held the greatest of Christian relics.

  Well; and there were monks among the Franks, and priests, and an archbishop who sang Mass every day wherever he was. It was fitting that they should raise that chant here, with the Grail’s descant running beneath it.

  The king slept in the antechamber. Inanna, the dark lady, sat the long vigil beside him. Roland bowed to her, then more deeply to him, though he was not awake to know it. She did not speak or try to turn him back.

  The door opened to his touch. He walked into a singing darkness and a faint shimmer of light.

  Three of the Grail’s guardians knelt about the shrine, each at a corner of the earth. Sarissa had the east, Nieve the south. Pale Freya held the west.

  It seemed they had been waiting for him. Without a word, without asking leave, Roland took the station of the north. The floor was stone, cold and hard under his knees. It dawned on him that he was naked but for a blanket.

  It did not matter to the Grail. The ladies were deep in trance, raising a tower of light above castle and kingdom. He lifted up a pillar, to bolster them, to spare their strength.

  There was great rightness in it, and something better than sleep. The Grail, he thought distantly. It nourished him. It seemed only fair that he stand guard over it and defend its people.

  The enemy was close. Tomorrow he would come to the castle. His army was vast, his strength immeasurable. Even the edge of it was strong enough to wring a gasp from Roland, safe though he was in the armor of the Grail.

  He would not give way to despair. He would hold, as the others held; as the Grail itself stood fast. It had defied this ancient enemy before. It would do so again.

  Morning took him by surprise. Light flooded the high round room. The shrine caught fire with it. Sarissa rose from her knees at the gate of the east and approached the shrine. Nieve and Freya stood also, then Roland, stiff as they had not seemed to be, clutching his blanket about him.

  Sarissa opened the shrine and uncovered the Grail. A great part of Roland wanted to fall on his face. But he stood as the others did, rapt in awe before that simple wooden cup.

  She brought it to him last. He would not have been surprised if she had passed him by, but her eyes on him were calm, her expression serene. She raised the cup to his lips.

  Sweeter than wine, stronger than blood, fiercer than fire. He gasped. His knees buckled. But he kept his feet. She smiled faintly and moved on, returning the cup to its shrine.

  He was full of—he was aflame with—

  Coolness bathed him. It felt almost like water pouring over him, but it was light, of sun and Grail both, and a whisper of breeze passing through the room. He did sink down then, down to his face. The floor was blessedly cold against his skin.

  It was very, very strange. He was not exhausted or reft of strength. He was as strong as he could ever remember. But his knees would not hold him up.

  The guard was changing. He could keep watch with these three, too, he supposed. But it was morning. The castle was full of soldiers—his soldiers. And the enemy was coming.

  Somehow he got to his feet. He found that he could walk. Liu and Maya and Thais regarded him without surprise, but in some bemusement. He found what he hoped was a smile for them. He walked out of the room, his strides steadier with each step he took.

  Sarissa was waiting for him beyond the antechamber. He braced for a blast of rebuke, but she only said, “Don’t tell me they took all your clothes away.”

  He blushed.

  She laughed at him and kissed him, which heated him all over again.

  “You’re not angry,” he said.

  “Should I be?”

  “Everyone is,” he said, “when I do something other than sleep.”

  “That is better than sleep,” she said. She slipped her arm about his middle. “Here, I’ll help you dress. And eat—you should eat. And—”

  “And?”

  Were her cheeks ever so faintly tinged with rose?

  Oh, no. She never blushed. Not she.

  And in any case, there was no time. He could dress, make himself presentable, choke down a little bread, but then he must be among his people.

  “Surely,” she said when he told her that. They had come quickly to the chamber—which, he thought, might even be the king’s own, since he was set in the king’s place. He did not like it. He would have it changed. He would—

  She backed him against the tapestried wall. The blanket was lost, he hoped not irretrievably.

  There was time, after all. All the time in the world. She was bare under the white robe, and fierce with eagerness. Almost too fierce—as if she feared there would be no time later; this was all they had.

  He did not believe that. But he would take it, and her, in a kind of wild joy. Maybe Mother Church would be appalled to see them sinning so lustily in the very house of the Grail, but the Grail sang with them. It blessed them. It gave them this gift.

  “The great marriage,” he said, or she said, or they both did. It hardly mattered.

  She clutched him fiercely to her, kissing him until he was dizzy. “It is made,” she said, “and made again, from the moment we consented to it. But for the people—”

  “For the people,” he said, “we need a festival. Though if the enemy is here—”

  “What matter if he is? Nieve can say the words, and Father Turpin, for Goddess and God, who are one. Three days, beloved. On the day of the new moon.”

  That gave him pause. “But isn’t that—”

  “The Prince of Darkness corrupts all that he touches. Long before he laid his hand on the moon’s dark, it was sacred, beloved of the Goddess. We’ll remember, my love. We’ll make the night clean again.”

  “He’ll be at his strongest. Whereas we—”

  “We, too,” she said. “And we held the night before him.”

  He looked into her face. He was supposed to be angry; to refuse to forgive her. But that was such a small thing, and this between them so great, in so great a war.

  He brushed his thumb across her lips, then kissed them softly. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  “If we die,” he said, “we’ll die in the light.”
/>   “We won’t die,” she said.

  She believed that. He wanted to, but he had been a soldier too long. He set his lips together and was silent.

  CHAPTER 55

  A black tide of despair ran ahead of the enemy. At first it seemed to be no more than a cloud across the sun, or a passing of fear as word spread of the enemy’s coming. The air dimmed. Moods darkened though the morning drew toward noon. Quarrels flared. People squabbled over small things: a loaf of bread, a rent in a cloak.

  The Franks seemed inclined to believe, at last, that Carbonek was much larger than it had looked. They had the west tower and the workings beneath it, wide and surprisingly airy chambers lit through deep shafts in the mountain. There was room there and to spare for ten thousand men, their animals, their baggage, and even their complement of camp-followers.

  Maybe because most of them were underground, they caught the contagion late; or maybe, being Franks, they were simply inured to fear. Roland’s villagers, bivouacked with them, took heart from their lightness of spirit, though not a few muttered about the thickness of the Frankish skull.

  “I didn’t hear that,” Turpin said as he happened past a scowling knot of villagers. He recognized red-headed Kyllan, though he did not see the girl Cait—usually the two were inseparable.

  Kyllan’s scowl was not as dark as the others’. He seemed relieved by the distraction. Turpin had barely paused; as he went on, Kyllan followed, a bit like a pup in search of a master.

  “I was trying to tell them,” he said. “It’s not us. It’s coming from outside of us.”

  Turpin raised a brow. “You think so?”

  “I know so,” the boy said. “Some of the others are out trying to convince people, too. But people don’t want to be convinced.”

  “That may be part of the spell,” Turpin pointed out.

  “Franks must be immune to it,” Kyllan said. “And a few of us. Maybe because our skulls are denser than most?”