Kingdom of the Grail

by Judith Tarr

  They were all talking of the Grail-king, the new, the splendid, the shining lord of light. The enemy’s slaves, now freed, were more enraptured than not. Roland with his plain clothes and his quiet manner, they noticed only as they would have noticed any other healer. They never guessed that he was the king they spoke of.

  That was exactly as he would have it. He labored untroubled by awe or by the exigencies of princes. He could see clearly how many of the wounded there were, and reckon the count of the dead. There were far too many of both. Full half the Franks of Charles’ rearguard were dead or nearly so. Of the villagers, two in three would not come home again. The enemy for their part had suffered losses as great, and too many of those to their own demonic allies after Ganelon was slain.

  It was very late when he came to the camp that his villagers had made, in much the same place that it had been before they retreated into the castle.

  One of the youngest recruits caught him as he came into the camp. The child’s face was badly bruised. There were tears on it. “Tuan,” Roland said. “What is it?”

  The boy caught his hand and pulled him inward.

  There was a campfire in front of the tent Gemma shared with her sons. The tent’s flap was rolled up, so that the firelight could illumine the space within.

  Gemma knelt beside one of the cots. Kyllan was there, and Cieran and Peredur, and Long Meg and the smith.

  Cait lay on the cot. She was not a large person, but she had always stood straight and faced the world boldly. She was all shrunken now.

  Kyllan held her in his lap as if she had been a child, her head cradled on his breast. His eyes were dry. They burned on Roland.

  They had tried to mend her. Roland scented magic on her. One of the ladies of the Grail had tended her, Nieve who was strongest but for Sarissa. That great power barely sufficed to keep her breathing.

  “It was a demon,” Gemma said. “She killed it, but it had its claws in her before it died. They were poisoned, the white lady said.”

  “Yes.” Roland ran hands over the small huddled body. Darkness ran in its veins. Fever burned it. It was all but ashes.

  He could free her body from pain. He could give her peace. Life there was none, not even for the Grail to restore. She had gone too far beyond the river of light.

  Before he came to Montsalvat he had been a warrior, not a healer; a slayer, not a mender of men. Through this night he had grown accustomed to the glory of healing, to seeing even the dying rise up before the power that was his to wield. It was like strong wine—dizzying, exalting.

  It would not come to him here. There was no malice in the refusal. It simply was. He wept as much in frustration as in grief, but his tears did nothing to restore her. She was dead. It only remained for him to set her free.

  That was the taste of victory: honey-sweet, but bitter in the dregs. Kyllan and the rest regarded him with wide hopeful eyes, but he had no hope to give them.

  “Make her live,” Kyllan said.

  “I can’t,” Roland said.

  “You mean you won’t.” Kyllan was past reason, past mercy. “You don’t want to. She doesn’t matter. She’s not a prince or a queen. She’s not—”

  Gemma slapped him hard. “Stop that! Can’t you see he means it? He can’t.”

  “He can do anything he wants to do,” Kyllan shot back, though his lips and cheek must have stung abominably.

  “I wish I could.” Roland spoke with all the weariness in the world. He took Cait gently from Kyllan’s slack grip and laid her on the cot. Softly he closed her eyes that had fixed upon the light. He kissed her brow. “Rest you well, brave warrior,” he said.

  Kyllan cursed abominably and burst into tears. “What good is being a king, if you can’t do this? What good is anything at all?”

  “I do wonder,” said Roland.

  “I won’t forgive you,” Kyllan said.

  “Of course you will,” said his mother, sharp as a slap. “Enough of that now. Get yourself together and see to the burying.”

  Roland moved to go with them. Her hand stopped him. “Not you. Let them do it themselves. It will be good for them.”

  “And not for me?”

  “You have ample else to do. Go and do it.”

  “Not unless you come, too. As mayor of the palace.”

  He had never seen Gemma astonished before. “As what?”

  “It’s exactly like running an inn, only bigger. And more hands to do your bidding.”

  “I can’t do that. And what of the one who is mayor already? Won’t he—”

  “He is dead,” Roland said. “He died in the shadow-battle.”

  “I can’t,” said Gemma. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You already have. You order me about with no qualms at all. Let that be the first act of your new office: to dispatch me to my duties.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She blinked hard. He watched it dawn on her, what she had got herself into, and how she had done it. She was a little appalled—and a little, just a little, intrigued.

  “I have no noble blood at all,” she said. “I’m as common as the earth under your feet.”

  “Earth of Montsalvat,” Roland said. “That’s a royalty of its own.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t let me go, will you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Even if I beg? Even if I tell you I’d rather die?”

  “Would you do that?”

  “No,” she said after a moment. “No, I wouldn’t. Damn you. Have you told the queen yet? That you were rather more to me than a stable-lad?”

  Roland bit his lip.

  “I’ll wager she knows,” Gemma said. She sighed. “Very well, since you insist. I’ll do it. But I’ll do it my way. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Roland said.

  “I do hope so.” She squared her shoulders, drew a breath. “To the castle, then. And gods help the lot of us.”

  Roland had not meant to return to Carbonek so soon. But Gemma’s will bore him with it, taking him back through the battered gate. The dead were gone from the courts and the halls. Servants were cleansing the blood from the stones.

  Gemma took it all in with a swift and raking glance. She nodded to herself. She thrust up her sleeves, tied back her hair more securely, and set to work.

  Roland went up to the tower of the Grail. The chamber was quiet, the roof secure, the shrine open. It received the cup with almost a sigh of relief.

  He let it go without reluctance. The physical thing, the wooden cup, might rest here, but the heart and the power of it were woven into his own flesh and bone.

  He sank to his knees, then to his face. Part was reverence. Much was simple weariness. He was still living flesh, though the Grail lived in him.

  He knew when Sarissa came and knelt beside him. Like the Grail, she was part of him now.

  She had been laboring as relentlessly as he, after fighting battles no less terrible than the one he had fought. Yet her presence was warm, her strength seemingly unwearied.

  He rose stiffly. Her smile bathed him in light. He half-fell into her embrace.

  “My poor love,” she said. “You’re worn to a thread.”

  “And you are not?”

  His flash of temper only made her smile widen. He was young, that smile said, and male, and not particularly sensible. And he had done a very great thing. She kissed him, deep and sweet.

  “Do you know,” she said, “we had a wedding, but no wedding night.”

  “We had a battle,” he said. “Now it’s morning. I should—there is still much to—”

  “That has all been seen to,” Sarissa said.

  “But I have to—”

  “You’ve done everything that was required of you,” she said. “All the rest, your servants are doing, and gladly. They slept and ate while you drove yourself without mercy. Now you will eat with me, and maybe sleep.”

  “With you?”

  Her eyes glinted. �
�Certainly not with any other woman while I have a say in it.”

  His cheeks flamed. It was sudden and mortifying, but he could not help it. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t—”

  “Not any longer,” she said.

  She rose, drawing him with her. His feet were steadier than he had expected. His face was cooling slowly.

  The chamber to which she led him was not the one he had slept in since he was brought into Carbonek, which he had taken for the king’s. Now that he saw the king’s chamber indeed, he could not have mistaken it for any other.

  It was clean and swept, fresh with scents of herbs, but he caught a faint glimmer of mustiness, as if this and the suite to which it belonged had been untenanted for some lengthy while. The appointments were very fine but surprisingly plain; there was little ornament, and much that was useful. He had seen such rooms in Rome, in old villas. Few furnishings, a good rug or two, well-wrought but faded frescoes on the walls. There was even a courtyard with a pool that reflected the sky, an atrium as such were called in Rome.

  The bedchamber was Roman, too, not large, and gracefully uncluttered. And the bed, to his enormous relief, was a broad couch, more hard than soft, covered with good linen and well-woven wool. No feathers, no silk.

  “Now this is to my taste,” he said.

  “I thought it might be.” Sarissa sounded pleased with herself. She set about freeing him from his clothing, taking her time about it, savoring the small things: the curve of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulder.

  If he closed his eyes he would fall headlong into sleep. He kept them open, not particularly easily, though the sight of her made it less difficult than it might have been.

  She met them steadily. She had not done that before, he realized with a small shock. Glances, yes; but never this clear, level stare. She had always avoided it. Because he had hawk’s eyes, Merlin’s eyes—eyes of, she thought, an enemy.

  “Do you trust me now?” he asked.

  “With my heart and soul,” she said. It could not have been easy for her. She drew his head down and kissed his eyelids. “I’ll never be such a fool again.”

  He teased her hair out of its plait. It sprang free with joyous abandon, tumbling over her shoulders, springing about her face. He tangled his fingers in it. “And do you love me?”

  “As much as you love me.”

  “Ah, wicked,” he said. He slipped the robe from her shoulders. She was naked under it, breasts high and taut with the room’s chill. He warmed them with his breath. She shivered with pleasure.

  He had dreamed of this, of limning her body in kisses. They had had so little of it since those days in Musa’s house, and so much of that tainted with mistrust or with the threat of war. And after that he had been so angry, so little able to forgive.

  Anger was long gone. The war was over—still the aftermath to face, still grief, still pain, still long labor, but the cause of it, the great enemy, was vanished from the earth. The deep realms of hell held him now. Not even the gods could bring him back.

  Her fingers worked into his hair, freeing it as he had freed hers. It was not exuberant as hers was. It was thick and determinedly straight, so that plaiting barely crimped it. It slid over his shoulders. Saints, when had it grown so long?

  “Don’t cut it,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

  “You are wonderful,” he said. “Beautiful. Glorious. Beloved.”

  “Beloved,” she said, opening to him, taking him into herself.

  But he drew back slightly. “Is it right? Should I love a wife so much?”

  “You should do no other,” she said.

  She was older than he by far, and famously wise. And he had always trusted her. She tightened her arms and closed her lips on his. He let her drown him in blessed delight.

  CHAPTER 65

  Pepin the prince lay in such comfort as he would accept, in a chamber of the king’s tower. The guards on the door were mages. Wards sealed both door and window, though he would have needed wings to escape through the latter.

  It was three days before Roland came to look on him. The sheer enormity of the war’s aftermath had absorbed him completely. There would be a crowning before the people, and a great feast of victory at the moon’s full. He had much to do to prepare, duties that preoccupied him from before dawn till long after sunset; and when he could escape from those, Sarissa was waiting, to consummate again the great marriage that had bound him to the Grail and the kingdom.

  Pepin had tried twice to escape. His magery was not inconsiderable, and he had studied it well. But the mages of the Grail were stronger. After the second attempt, he lay on the bed in his chamber and would not move or eat or drink.

  Roland entered the room alone. Half the royal guard would have come with him if he had allowed it, and the nine ladies of the Grail, and Marric and Tarik and Turpin, too. But he had held them all at bay, except Turpin, who insisted on waiting without.

  Pepin lay on his side, drawn into a knot, back to the door. Roland sat in the chair beside the bed.

  It was restful. Quiet. He could hear voices below, and the ringing of laughter: some of the king’s own were playing at ball in the courtyard.

  That pleased him beyond measure. They mourned their dead, none more than Kyllan, but their spirits were strong. They could laugh amid grief, and dance in the sun after their battle with darkness.

  “Sooner or later,” Roland said after a while, “you will have to get up and eat. I don’t think you’re mad enough to will yourself to death.”

  Pepin’s back was obdurate. Had his breathing quickened?

  “Your master is dead,” Roland said. “You knew that, I’m sure. Have you considered what it means for you? All his human slaves have repudiated him. All of them—every last one. Some few of them, who were in your father’s army, profess to be your men. They’re refusing to speak with us unless you’re freed.”

  “Good.”

  Pepin did not unknot or turn, but his voice was clear and bitter.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roland said. “They’ll be sent away soon, with no memory of us; for all any of them will know, they were delayed on the road home, and wandered for a long while in the Spanish marches.”

  “And what will you do with me?”

  “What would you like us to do?” Roland asked him.

  “Kill me.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Roland.

  Pepin turned at last. Roland stiffened before the hatred in his eyes. It was absolute. It fed the darkness that had bred his magic. It blinded him to reason. “You would do well to kill me,” Pepin said. “The master may be dead, but I live. I’ve sworn to destroy you.”

  “Why?” Roland asked him.

  Pepin’s mouth twisted. “What difference does it make? It’s the truth.”

  “I never knowingly did you harm,” Roland said.

  “Of course you didn’t,” said Pepin.

  Roland hunted in that face for something, anything, that he could understand. There was nothing.

  The slash of power caught him almost off guard. Almost. He had been prepared for it, but sooner than this. It struck him, but only slantwise. The second bolt, he flung back without conscious thought.

  Pepin reeled back against the wall. His face was white. His eyes were staring.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” Roland said.

  Pepin spat at him.

  “He’s dangerous,” Turpin said.

  Roland had got no more sense out of Pepin than those bolts of darkness and a gobbet of spittle in the face. He left at last, unwillingly, but he gained nothing by staying.

  Turpin was waiting, leaning against the wall, arms folded. The guard-mages had run in at the first blast of power; they stayed inside, standing over Pepin, weaving wards that he could not break.

  Roland walked down with his friend from the tower. The game had ended in the courtyard; it was deserted except for a grey cat.

  Tarik sprang into his favorite place on Roland’s shoulder. His pur
ring rasped in Roland’s ear.

  “Pepin is dangerous,” Turpin repeated as they started across the courtyard. “You can’t keep him here unless you intend to keep him under guard for the rest of his life. If you send him back to his father, you can be sure he’ll keep his promise to you.”

  “What would you do with him?” Roland asked.

  Turpin hunched his heavy shoulders. “I’d have him executed,” he said bluntly.

  Roland stopped short. “He is our king’s son!”

  “You are a king,” Turpin shot back. “Kings do what they must. It’s not always the pleasant thing—but for the good of the kingdom—”

  “I will not kill Charles’ son,” Roland said.

  “Then someone has to,” said Turpin. “The old sorcerer raised him to be a viper in his father’s nest. You can’t let him go back there. If you keep him here, you keep him prisoner. There’s no other choice.”

  “There may be,” Roland said slowly. “It’s even merciful. If—”

  “If?”

  “If it can be done.”

  “You don’t know—?”

  “I think I know,” Roland said. “Damn the sorcerer to an even deeper hell than that he lies in, for bringing that boy here!”

  Turpin crossed himself. “Amen,” he said.

  While Roland turned Pepin’s fate in his heart, speaking as yet to no one, even Sarissa, a delegation came to him from the Franks who had fought for him against Ganelon.

  He had been in the chamber of the Grail, seeking counsel and gaining only the warmth of its light. There was greater solace, just then, in the king’s garden, in the scent of earth and greenery. The apple trees were in bloom, intoxicating in their sweetness.

  He sat on the grass beneath the oldest of the trees, a seed of which, the gardener had told him, had come from the garden of the Hesperides. A few golden apples still lingered on the boughs amid the cloud of white blossoms.

  The Franks trod uneasily toward him, shying at shadows. They never had been at ease in the castle, though they did well enough in camp outside the walls.

  Roland rose to greet them. They bowed as they insisted on doing, as low as if he had been the King of the Franks. He welcomed each by name, and warmly. “Here, sit,” he said. “I’ll send for ale. Or would you prefer wine?”