The Black Chalice koa-1

by Steven Savile

  "We made our peace a long time ago, Bors. There are no secrets between us."

  "Then perhaps he just wanted to see you one last time."

  "I don't understand how this could happen," Alymere said. "I thought he came to Camelot to urge Arthur to dispatch knights north to help secure the border? Was he poisoned there?"

  "No lad. We rode out weeks ago. It's been a bitter spring, make no bones about it. Those faithless northerners are hard: they paint themselves up and fight like demons, they'd sacrifice their own grandmothers if they thought it'd give them the upper hand, and no matter how hard you beat them, they just don't know when they should lie down. Bitter weather and treacherous conditions only added to the hell of it. I've lost too many friends these last weeks, but in many ways this is the worst of it. It's one thing for a man to die with his sword in his hand, fighting for what he believes in, it's another for him to toast supposed peace with his killers and drink in their bloody poison."

  Alymere began to put together a vague picture of events. The how: poison; the where: at a parlay brokering peace between the northmen and the knights; the who: well, the victim was laid out of the bed before him, and the killer, as far as he knew, was still out there fighting; the when: more than a few days ago, less than a week, meaning right around the time he was pronouncing his ill-fated judgement on Craven's suit; but the why of it, that he could not divine from either his uncle's body or Sir Bors' brief description of what had transpired.

  He was not even sure it mattered.

  "Come here, boy," Sir Lowick's voice was empty of strength, like wood charcoaled in a spent fire. It was so quiet it barely registered as a sound at all. Alymere could scarcely believe it had come from his uncle's mouth.

  Lowick had raised a hand. His eyes were open, but his stare was glassy.

  "Go to him," Bors said, steering Alymere gently toward the bedside and backing away. Alymere knelt and took his uncle's hand. It felt like the fragile body of a bird nestled between his fingers; so thin, and the skin so slack around it, that Alymere feared simply squeezing too tightly would shatter his uncle's hand.

  He brought it to his lips and kissed it, then lowered his head, pressing the delicate bones against the scarred tissue of his forehead. He didn't move until he felt the warm wet track of tears on his cheek. Alymere breathed in deeply, willing himself to be strong.

  "I will leave you alone," Bors said softly, and closed the heavy door behind him.

  "I can't see you, boy."

  "I am here, uncle," Alymere said, soothing him. "You should rest. I will be here when you wake."

  "No, I'll rest soon enough." Lowick's eyes roved wildly, unable to focus on anything. The veins at his throat fluttered weakly. "First, I need to make my peace with my maker. There are things I need to unburden from my soul before I meet Him. And then, God willing, I need to make my peace with you. I owe you that much. After that, I can go." His grip tightened feebly, and a hacking cough wracked his body, leaving blood flecks on his lips. He lacked the strength to wipe them away, so Alymere tended to him, cleaning away the blood with the cuff of his shirt. "I need you to do something for me, boy," the knight said at last. "I need you to bring the priest here. Will you do that for me? Can I count on you?"

  "Of course, uncle," Alymere said at once, immediately hating himself for the sense of relief the request sent flooding through his system. It wasn't until he reached the door, his hand on the iron handle, that he felt anything other than relief that he would be spared the bedside vigil for however many hours more.

  "Twice in these last months I have watched over you, thinking you not long for this world, and here it's me that leaves it first. That, at least, is how it should be."

  He turned to look back at his uncle, and in that moment was overcome by almost childish resentment that this man he had come to love was leaving him, and rather than spend the last few hours he had in this life with his nephew, Lowick had sent him away.

  Why should he want to make his peace with some unknowable God before he made peace with his own flesh and blood?

  He wanted desperately not to think ill of the dying man, but it hurt.

  Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest.

  "You were always a good boy, Alymere. I am proud of you," Sir Lowick said, but Alymere had already closed the door.

  Bors leaned against the balustrade, face grave. He looked as though he needed to hit something. Alymere could identify with the feeling. "What did he say?"

  "Nothing," Alymere said, biting down the bitterness in his voice. He couldn't help himself. "Save that he wanted me to fetch him a priest so that he might confess his sins, I suppose. So much for hanging on to see me one last time; he was only worried about his soul."

  "Do not be too harsh on him, lad. Dying is never easy, no matter how laboured its step as it creeps towards us. It is understandable that he would seek to put his house in order."

  "Then why leave me to last?"

  "Whatever needs be said, I have absolute faith will be said. Lowick is one man who will not go to his rest until he is good and ready, and on his own terms, that much I know," but it wasn't what Alymere wanted or needed to hear.

  Alymere pushed away from the big man and half-walked, half-ran back to his room, his bare feet slapping too loudly in the silence. Bors let him go.

  Gwen had gone. He was glad of that. He didn't think he could have taken her sympathy, no matter how well intended it was.

  He wasn't dressed for a long ride. He couldn't think straight. He cast about the room, looking at the sum of his life, pitiful as it was, before gathering his travelling cloak, boots, and a woollen over-shirt, and dressing properly. Then, at the last moment, Alymere stopped beside the bed and stooped, reaching under the wooden frame until he found the familiar skin binding of the Devil's Bible beneath his fingers.

  He stuffed it inside his shirt, keeping it close to his chest, and left the room.

  Sir Bors de Ganis stood at the head of the stairs like a giant guarding the threshold. "Take Marchante, lad. There isn't a faster horse in your uncle's stable, and no matter my confidence he will live long enough, why make it harder on him?"

  "Thank you," Alymere said, clasping his hand. "Truly. Your kindness… You have always been so kind and I always sound like a spoilt child. Who would have thought this day even possible when we first met, eh? I was so filled with childish anger and blamed him for everything, for my father's death, my mother's, our exile, and it was only ever fed by Baptiste. It took two years and the wisdom of a king who didn't know me from Adam to show me he was a good man, and now, now that I know it… he's being taken from me. It just… brings back memories and I'm feeling sorry for myself…"

  "Understandable, lad. Don't ever apologise for your feelings. They are what will make you a great knight one day. You are so very like your father in that regard. Now go, ride like the flaming wind. I will watch over Lowick 'til you return."

  Thirty-Five

  Alymere gave Marchante his head. The sheer power of the great warhorse was incredible; he felt every corded muscle bunch, tense and release beneath him. There was both grace and majesty in the beast's body. Hooves drummed on hard ground so quickly they seemed to become a single incessant sound. The wind whipped at his face and tugged through his hair. For the first time in weeks he felt alive. It was elemental, raw.

  He spurred Marchante on. The animal's mane streamed back like the snakes of a gorgon's hair, and still Alymere dug his heels in.

  There was a chapel within the grounds of the manor house, but it had been years since a priest resided there; Sir Lowick had served as spiritual leader for his tenants in the priest's absence. The nearest church lay a little over thirty miles due south as the crow flies, where a single holy man tended to the souls of many of the smaller settlements within walking distance. There was nothing to say that Alymere would find him at the church — he was known to walk hundreds of miles a month to share the word of God with farmers and labourers, and others w
ho otherwise would have lived beyond the reach of the Lord. The church stood as a fulcrum of faith in the area; there were four monasteries, one each to the north, south, east and west of it, but each was more than a day's ride. Although, with Medcaut burned, there were only three now, Alymere realised.

  The terrain was far from flat, though, so despite the road being good, the journey to the church and back would take well over six hours, even if he ran the horse into the ground — and assuming he could find the holy man in the first place, never mind make his case vehemently enough to convince him to drop everything and ride out with him there and then.

  It would be well after sundown before he returned. He could only pray his uncle would last that long.

  Alymere gripped the reins tight in his hands and rode with his head down low, close to the horse's neck, urging him on faster and faster, as he raced towards the road.

  A dart of black and white in the sky above him caught his eye, and he looked up to see the crow with its streak of white feathers. It flew straight and true, skimming low across the treetops. The fact that the last time he had ridden this stretch of the Stanegate Road, the Maiden Way, another animal had changed his life forever, did not escape him. The bird's flight appeared to mirror the road below, so for miles into the forest, Alymere let himself be led on by the crow.

  And the deeper the road took him into the forest, the more aware he became of the Devil's Bible pressing up against his stomach.

  The White Crow and the Devil's Tree…

  The Black Chalice…

  You are my champion.

  Do this one thing for me…

  Do not fail me, or all of this will be lost.

  Promise me now, make this the one promise you keep.

  The damned book pulsed against his skin, breathing. Alive. All of these words, snatches of phrases and portents pounded through his mind, matching the relentless drumming of Marchante's hooves on the road and the pulsing of the Devil's book against his chest.

  Or the Devil take your soul…

  Up ahead of him, the Stanegate Road divided around a lightning-struck tree the locals called Hangman's Oak, because of the way one of the branches had been split away from the trunk by the lightning strike to form a gallows arm. Some called it the Devil's Tree.

  Alymere slowed Marchante, pulling up on the warhorse's reins until he slowed to a canter.

  The crow perched on the furthermost tip of the gallows arm, the white feathers clearly visible as it stared at him intently, but it was not the bird that caused him to stop, but rather the crook-backed figure of an old woman resting in its shadow.

  She raised her head and a long gnarled finger, which she levelled at him. He saw something then, in her eyes, that frightened him bone deep. She moved forward two shuffling steps. The shadows cast by Hangman's Oak on her pallid skin came alive beneath that slight movement, stretching and writhing as they were pulled out of shape. He didn't care about the shadows; they could not hurt him.

  "What do you want from me, witch?" he called, hating the way his new voice sounded in his own ears still. It was as though a stranger spoke through his mouth. But why should it be any different when a stranger wore his face?

  "Alymere, Destroyer of Kingdoms. Alymere, Killer of Kings. Alymere, Champion of the Wretched. Alymere, Saviour of the Sick. Alymere, son of Albion? Which is it? Which do you choose, now and forever; who shall you be?" He had heard these names once before, when Blodyweth, the Crow Maiden, first greeted him. To hear them again now, so close to where he had stumbled upon the Summervale, caused him to doubt more than just his ears. The woman before him was no maiden. It was impossible to imagine her as ever having been young, and harder still to imagine her having been beautiful. But then beauty was a transient thing. He touched his own ruined cheek. Who was he to judge now?

  The old woman pointed first to the right of the Devil's Tree, "The path of the righteous," she said. And then to the left, "Or the sinister path? Which is it to be? For the day of Alymere the Undecided is at an end. Life is not a single continuous thing," she said, mirroring his own thoughts of days before. Could she somehow tap into his mind? "It is made up of lots of smaller lives. Your old life is at an end, Champion. You are born again. So tell me, who are you?"

  The church lay to the left, the nearest settlement to the right. It was possible the priest was to be found at the end of either road, or nowhere at all.

  "Who am I?" he asked, as though the old hag might offer answers. He drew himself up in the saddle. "I am my father's son," he said simply. A smile split half of his face.

  The crone cackled at that. "That you are," she said. "That you are. I was there at your birth, young warrior, and I will be there at your death," she told him. "And that is the one truth you will utter in all those days in between."

  "What is that supposed to mean, woman?"

  "There are many lies around you, warrior. Even the face you present to the world is not your own. Some lies are yours, many are not, but that does not change the fact that they are woven around you like the cloak you wear. So, I ask again, who are you, warrior?"

  Beneath his clothes he felt the words of the book crawl across his skin, bleeding into him. In his mind he heard the echoes of the same phrases over and over again:

  The Black Chalice…

  You are my champion.

  Do this one thing for me…

  Or the Devil take your soul…

  "I am Alymere. No more and no less than that. You can speak your riddles, they mean nothing to me. I am not your plaything. Now move out of my way. I will ride you down if I must." He did not wait for her to scurry out of his path. He spurred Marchante forward. The warhorse reared onto its powerful hind legs and kicked at the air. When they came down the horse set off running.

  Alymere took the left hand path as the crone had always known he would.

  Thirty-Six

  He stood at the door of the church, but could not bring himself to cross the threshold. He hadn't noticed it before, but carved into the transom, in the block of wood above the doorway, there was a goblet — a chalice — and the constant abuse of the weather had turned it black.

  There was nothing untoward about a church bearing the mark of the grail.

  He and his uncle had sought the grail once, as had most of Arthur's court at one time or another; so much had happened since they had ridden out together across marsh and field in the rising fogs to find the Chapel of the Fallen Brother, where the first clue to the whereabouts of the grail was carved in stone. It had begun as a great adventure and ended in bitter frustration and disappointment. But that wasn't what Alymere was remembering. The recollection came to him with unerring clarity and for a moment it was as though memory were layered over reality, both doors before him. There had been a single carving etched into the keystone of the chapel's entrance, a chalice.

  Could this humble church be part of the grail quest?

  Was that what the carving meant?

  There was no mistaking the image — it was the cup that had caught the blood of Christ. What more holy symbol could there be?

  But for it to have turned black…

  He could not shake the feeling that it was an ill omen.

  His mind raced, making leaps of logic that churned his stomach: the Devil's book, the Black Chalice, both, surely were the antithesis of these most holy relics, God's Book and the Holy Grail? It made a sickening kind of sense, and explained why Blodyweth feared the book falling into the wrong hands. If the grail were the ultimate prize of good, then surely the black grail must stand as its counterpart on the scales of balance, the ultimate prize of evil?

  Instinctively, Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest, and then winced as the sudden movement caused the book tucked beneath his shirt to dig into his ribs.

  He hammered on the door with his clenched fist and waited.

  The words of the crone still haunted him all these hours later.

  What did she mean, his life was wrapped in
lies?

  What, if anything, did these lies have to do with the Devil's cup?

  Before he could answer the questions — not that he ever could — the door groaned open and a pinch-faced priest peered out through the gathered shadows. His complexion, sallow skin and tired eyes, set into waxy dark circles beneath his heavy brow, bespoke years of austerity and hardship. But for all of the exhaustion there, there was strength too: the strength of faith, the certainty that he was walking the path his God had lain before him, and that every step was a step taken towards Him. Alymere had no such faith. It had been a long time since he had. He could name the day, all those years ago when he became Alymere the Poor Knight instead of Alymere son of Roth. So, for that unwavering confidence, he envied the priest.

  In that moment, before he recognised Alymere, the old man's face betrayed his fear.

  Then recognition came and he was no longer facing a ghost.

  Reflexively, the priest made the sign of the cross, mimicking the gesture Alymere had made only moments before.

  "Do I look so bad?" Alymere said, barely masking the bitterness in his ruined voice. He touched his face self-consciously.

  The priest stepped back, the door opening another six inches. The moonlight carved a swathe from neck to waist through the man's vestments. "No, my lord. No. Forgive me. I did not mean offence. For just a moment I could have sworn it was your father standing in your place." He shook his head as though trying to rid himself of the last lingering trace of the ghost in his mind. "The similarity between you is striking to say the least."