by Unknown
Arthur and Claire looked at each other in incomprehension. “No!” Arthur exclaimed. “I don’t!”
“The key is Euric. In the land of Euric. Euric was King of the Visigoths, the fellows who ruled a good bit of Gaul and Hispania in the early Middle Ages—that’s France and Spain, Claire, in case you only took mathematics and physics in school.”
She forced a smile.
“Euric died somewhere in the 480s—I’d have to check my references to be more precise—and here we again have a degree of triangulation on dates. What’s really intriguing is that he and an Arthurlike foe were at loggerheads for much of his reign. It’s said that he defeated a push into Gaul in 470 by a Briton king, sometimes referred to as Riothamus—who some scholars, Andrew Holmes included, thought might be Arthur. It’s also believed that he may have been the invader in Briton defeated by an Arthurlike foe at the battle of Mount Badon. So this is all tantalizing stuff.”
Arthur now was on his feet, his hands thrust in his pockets, looking for somewhere to pace in the tight space. “I’m sure the dating is important, Tony. But it’s the message!”
“Indeed. In the land of Euric on a sacred place on high. Hispania was the land of Euric. Put that together with the twelfth-century letter which Holmes found in a certain mountaintop monastery library and what does that tell us about the location of the Grail?”
Arthur immediately thought of the twelfth-century letter Holmes had found. “Montserrat.”
#
Jeremy Harp usually bid by telephone, but as he was in London on other business he decided to attend a Sotheby’s auction of Dutch Masters in person.
The auction was thoroughly engaging and the hours flew by with a cascade of bidding. He was on the edge of his seat the entire session, clutching his paddle, his knuckles tensed even for items for which he possessed no interest. The one painting he coveted so much he would have killed for it—yes, he thought, literally killed for it—was the star of the show, a large portrait of an animated and tipsy merchant by Hans Hals. He participated at the early stages but dropped out in a fury when the bidding reached 45 million pounds and looked venomous when the hammer dropped at 58 million to a telephone bidder. He wanted it, yes, he could afford it, yes, but he wasn’t stupid. In the end he had to console himself with a small purchase, 2.8 million for a nice little Bartholomeus van der Helst.
Midafternoon he called for his driver and was met at the curb. Griggs was in the backseat of the Rolls, his hands resting on his knees.
Harp was in a foul mood and skipped any civilities. “Well?” he rasped, as the car pulled away.
Griggs delivered his report in the same clipped monotone a policeman might use for his superior. “Malory and the girl spent all night at Stoneleigh. Hengst and I observed him operating a metal detector on an island located within the River Avon. At approximately three A.M. he seemed to find something and he proceeded to dig until five-thirty A.M. when he ceased digging and filled in his hole.”
“Then what?”
“Malory and the girl returned to their hotel. At half past eight they drove to London where they parked their vehicle and entered the building where Professor Ferro has his office at the University College London. They emerged approximately one hour later and returned to the hotel in Wokingham.”
“And?”
“I came directly here to see you. Hengst is watching them and is instructed to call me if they go on the move again.”
Harp grunted.
“Do you want me to take over for him in Wokingham?” Griggs asked.
“Only when you’ve finished with Professor Ferro.”
“And then?”
“And then …” Harp looked out the tinted window at the pedestrians on New Bond Street, none of them saddled with the burden of destiny he carried so heavily on his own shoulders. “And then you’ll keep following Malory and we’ll squeeze every bit of juice out of him. He’s got the bit in his mouth now. When we have what we want I’ll let you off your leash. I know you’re keen on that.”
“Can’t happen soon enough.”
Harp bristled. “Just follow my orders to the letter and all of us will get what we want.”
#
Arthur and Claire checked into the Cantley House Hotel for one more night. There was no other place he could think to go.
“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” he told her.
“Don’t you want me to come?”
“Of course I do. But it could be dangerous. And I don’t want you to lose your job.”
“I’ll call my boss. I’ll tell him I need more time to take care of some personal things. I’m in good standing so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
He was on his laptop. “We could go tonight but we’d need a hotel. It’s just as fast to fly out early tomorrow.”
“What about the sword?”
“We can’t take it with us. We’ll do what Thomas Malory would have done. We’ll bury it in the garden tonight. I’ll come back for it later. It can spend another few days in the wild before the British Museum gets it.”
“We can visit it there. Maybe together …”
He sighed. “Look, I’m concerned about you.”
“And I’m concerned about you. You were the one who was attacked.”
“I’m prepared to take the risk myself but I’m not prepared to put you in danger.”
She sat beside him on the bed and took his hand.
“I know what it’s like to be on a quest, Arthur. It’s what I do every day as a physicist. It’s thrilling. It’s wonderful. I haven’t found new subatomic particles yet so I’m already a little impatient and frustrated by my quest. Your quest, well, it’s tangible. In a short time you’ve made so much progress.”
“We’ve made progress.”
“Yes, you, we. This is too fantastic. I’ve never had this kind of adventure and I don’t want to turn my back on it and then wonder about it for the rest of my life. And there’s something else, of course.”
“And that would be … ?”
She put her hands around the back of his neck and kissed him. That was her answer.
#
Tony spent the rest of his day juggling various obligations—a faculty lunch, a two-hour lecture, papers to mark, a tutorial with one of his graduate students—all the while returning again and again to the silver sword. It wasn’t until after 6 P.M. that he had the solitude necessary to home in on that sweet topic.
He’d taken some pictures of the hilt with his mobile phone and as the sun went down he studied them on the screen of his laptop. Euric. He zoomed in on the engraved name until it almost filled the screen.
He went to his bookshelves, drew down some volumes and before long he’d refreshed his memory. Euric of the Balti Dynasty, King of the Visigoths, son of King Theodoric, father of King Alaric. Powerful foe of the Britons. King Arthur would have woken at night, cursing this Euric, damning him to hell. By the time of the Visigoth’s death he had consolidated his dominion over most of Spain and a third of modern France; but Britannia was not to be his, thanks, perhaps, to Arthur.
The land of Euric.
If this was Arthur’s sword, then what greater tribute to an adversary could there be than to call Hispania the land of Euric?
Tony wanted some hard copies of the photos so he sent them to the shared departmental printer then pushed himself from his chair to retrieve them. The hall was deserted, the other offices dark. Tony had unlaced his shoes for comfort as he often did late in the day. Rather than relace them he walked in a shuffle, his laces trailing behind, and marched down the hall like a large penguin.
In the copier room he snatched the pages from the printer and turned at the noise of a footstep.
Griggs was filling the doorframe, his silver and black Bersa in his gloved hand, a silencer, longer than the gun, threaded onto the barrel.
Tony’s first reaction was indignation. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Let’s quietly go back to your
office, Professor Ferro.”
“How do you know my name? What do you want?”
“I just want to talk.”
“About what?”
Griggs looked at the printouts in Tony’s hand. “Let me have those.”
Tony looked perplexed. “These? You want these?”
Griggs nodded, stepped forward and held out his free hand. Tony passed them over.
“Any more on the printer?”
“No.”
Griggs stepped away to clear the doorway. “Okay, back to your office. After you.”
“May I tie my shoes?”
“No.”
In the office Griggs shut the door, which had a large panel of frosted glass. With Tony reseated behind his desk Griggs switched on a desk lamp and flicked off the brighter fluorescents.
“Arthur Malory visited you today.” Griggs waved the printouts. “Was this what he found last night?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m nobody. But I work for somebody interested in the Grail.”
Tony’s indignation returned. “Then perhaps we’ll have him join our discussion group. Barging in with a weapon like a thug is unlikely to get your Mr. Somebody what he desires.”
“Did you take any other photos of this? Did you take any notes on what Malory talked about when he was here?”
Tony instinctively glanced at his desk, so obliquely another man might not have noticed but Griggs was observant. Pointing the gun he used his free hand to gather up all the papers on Tony’s desk.
“Any others?” he asked.
“No,” Tony said quietly.
“What did you use to take the photos?”
“My cellular phone.”
“Give it here.” Griggs saw the photo of the sword hilt on the laptop. “The computer too.”
“What does your Mr. Somebody want with the Grail?”
Griggs ignored the question. “Where did Malory say he was going next?”
“I think he was off to the pub. I would’ve joined him if I didn’t have a busy day.”
“All right, fine,” Griggs said. “It doesn’t matter what he did or didn’t tell you. We’ve got it covered.”
Tony looked at the gun and sighed loudly. “Andrew Holmes,” he said.
“What about him?”
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
Poof. Poof.
Griggs put two rounds through Tony’s heart, removed a plastic carrier bag from his coat pocket and put the computer, phone and papers inside. Then he turned off the desk lamp and quietly left.
21
Britannia, A.D. 499
A lesser man, a man with lower resolve, who was not a knight of the court of a beloved king such as Arthwyr, might not have finished his journey; but Sir Jowan was cut from a finer cloth than most men. He endured isolation and deprivation, instances of kindness from strangers, and treachery. The seasons changed and the last months of his passage were done in the winter. His wounds drained then healed then drained again and his finely muscled body slowly melted away.
When finally Jowan appeared at Arthwyr’s court at Gwynedd he was not recognized until he stumbled into the arms of his own cousin, a knight named Morgant, and carried off to bed to be fed and have his putrid wounds cleaned.
Word was sent to Arthwyr’s bedchamber where he had been bedridden for a month with fever and a swelling in his jaw. The painful affliction had rendered him weak as a girl, and though he demanded to be taken to Jowan’s sick chamber immediately, the king was persuaded by the queen and his caregivers to remain in his own bed.
“He was alone?” Arthwyr asked.
Yes, he was told.
“Did he have it? Did he have the Gral?”
No, he was told. He had nothing but the tattered clothes on his back.
On hearing of Jowan’s return, Myrddin rushed to the room where he had been taken and barged in while the women were washing his wounds. Though the stench in the room was sickening and the women had wrapped their faces with their scarves, Myrddin hardly flinched. He pushed the ladies aside and fell to his knees so his ear would be close to the knight’s mouth.
“Did you find the Gral?”
Jowan nodded.
The Egyptian’s eyes blazed. “Tell me where it is?”
Jowan tried to speak but his lips were too cracked. Myrddin ordered the closest maiden to give the man some water.
Jowan finally was able to rasp, “It is … where Sir Wallia … said it would be.”
“Then why do you not possess it?” Myrddin almost screamed.
When the knight began to tell the tale of what had transpired on that faraway mountaintop Myrddin ordered the women out so none but he might hear the knight’s words. Though crushed with fatigue and wasting away from malnutrition and gangrene, Jowan imparted every detail from the moment they scaled the mountain to the instant he fled for his life.
Alaric’s men were lying in wait. How they knew the Britons were coming Jowan did not know. Moments before the attack began, Gwalchavad had found the Gral! He had actually held it in his hands before reluctantly putting it down to draw his sword.
Though the Britons were outnumbered five to one they fought valiantly and smote many enemies. Porthawyr died from a blow to his neck and Mailoc took a thrust to his belly through and through. Gwalchavad fought on and he alone killed seven men before he was pierced through the chest. Jowan received a heavy slice to his upper arm and a lighter one to his brow, and when he saw he was the last Briton alive he fled down the steep mountain path to rally the men who had waited in the clearing—but to his horror found all of them dead. He whistled for his horse and using his good arm, managed to mount it and begin the long and mournful return to Britannia.
“I would have climbed back up the mountain to fight and die with my brothers,” Jowan avowed, tears streaming, “but I believed I had a higher duty to return to my king’s court and let him know that the Gral exists. I pray that other knights might succeed where I have failed.”
“I say this,” Myrddin demanded, “tell no one else what you have told me. I will inform the king myself.”
The knight nodded weakly. “Sir Wallia must be freed,” he implored. “Though we failed in our quest, everything he said was true. I have thought about him and his plight during many a lonely night.”
Myrddin responded with a grim smile. He had personally had Wallia killed three seasons earlier. A cell door deliberately left unlocked, a desperate knight who craved his freedom, it had been a facile claim that Wallia had been slain while escaping. One Gral tongue had been silenced and here now another. But before he could take the pillow from under Jowan’s head and press it against his face, the royal surgeon entered with his apprentice.
Thwarted, Myrddin proceeded to the king’s chamber, hatching a plot. The great leader was moaning under his pile of bed furs. On seeing his seer Arthwyr propped himself on an elbow and spoke, his mouth distorted by the grotesque swelling of his mandible.
“You spoke with him?”
“I did, sire.”
“Tell me everything he said.”
Myrddin complied. He had no choice but to be forthcoming. For all he knew, Arthwyr might rise from his bed and visit the stricken knight at any time and learn the truth himself. The seer could not risk being caught in a lie or half truths. He asked, though, that all of Arthwyr’s attendants leave the chamber first; the fewer who knew, the better.
Arthwyr listened intently, thrilled by the revelation that the Gral had been found but saddened to the quick that it had been lost again and that his fine knights Gwalchavad and Porthawyr had perished.
“We must mount a new expedition,” Myrddin said.
“Yes,” Arthwyr agreed. “Not a small band of men, as we have done, but an army. We will take the Gral by force, King Alaric be damned. I defeated his father and I will defeat the son.”
“It will be done,” Myrddin said.
Arthwyr began to rise from his bed. “I would command this
army myself …”
“Here, I do not agree,” Myrddin objected. “You are afflicted, weakened. It is winter and the crossing of the sea will be perilous. With respect, you would slow down the advance of your army. I will go in your stead and bring you back the holy object.”
Arthwyr rubbed his throbbing jaw. “No, I need your counsel here. I will send my son to lead the army. Sir Morgant will be at his side. Send for Sir Gwydre so I might speak with him.”
Myrddin knew that once the king had set his mind, nothing would change it. Gwydre was summoned to Arthwyr’s chambers and the king bade Myrddin to repeat Sir Jowan’s account of Gwalchavad’s noble and tragic quest. Then it was Arthwyr’s turn to speak. When it was apparent that he would have his eldest son lead an army to recover the Gral, the young knight fell on his knees, his yellow hair spilling over his brow. He took his father’s hand and kissed it in gratitude.
“Make your preparations in haste,” Arthwyr told him. “Though snow does fall and the wind howls, you cannot wait until springtime. We know where the Gral was the day Gwalchavad died. Perhaps it has already been moved. Perhaps it will be moved soon. We cannot bide our time. Go to the land of Euric, defeat Alaric if you must, return to the holy mountain and find the Gral. You are my son. Bring it to me before I die.”
Myrddin grasped the young man’s sleeve. “But tell no man what you know of how to find the Gral. There is too much room for treachery—even among those as noble as your father’s knights.”
Arthwyr dismissed everyone and summoned his queen.
“You honored your son and by so doing you honored me,” Gwenhwyfar said.
With her help Arthwyr downed a portion of mead but some of it ran out his swollen mouth onto his shirt. “He is not Gwalchavad but he will be king, and now is his time to prove himself.”
“It will be dangerous.”
“I know. Keep Cyngen safe, my Queen. Make sure your ladies give him the freshest food. Have them take care he does not climb to the parapets. If Gwydre should come to harm, then young Cyngen will be king.”
She kissed his forehead and with a cloth tenderly wiped his face clean.