by Lavie Tidhar
‘You really are a fresh one, ain’tcha. Well, from all sorts. There’s plenty models and such like down Love Alley round the corner.’ He turns from him to some new buyers, northern by their looks.
‘Step this way, gentlemen, we have the finest fuck scenes in all Camelot! You, sir, buy this fine memento to take to the tribe back home! Look at the jugs on this one, drawn from the very leading lady at the Gilded Cage, she has the finest boobs between here and Rome! Or if you like men we have this authentic Greek-themed orgy—’
But Galahad moves on. He’s drawn again, the way all these strays and waifs, these boys and girls are drawn, like metal shavings to a lodestone. He passes through Rose Street where men and women piss and shit into troughs dug in the earth, and flowers bloom to try and hide the stench, and at last he comes to Love Alley.
Here the air is heavily perfumed, and the architecture is a bewildering array of false Greek columns and Egyptian temples, Roman domes and arches, and lights burn red in torches. Here the avenue is wide, the men’s faces covered in a sheen of sweat, street sellers offer beer and Minos shields, those thin sheaths of goat’s bladder. The doors to the various establishments are guarded by burly men, near naked but for their swords, their muscles oiled for display.
Oh, how he likes it here, does Galahad the Pure! The Pure they called him, for he always puts a sheath upon his sword. He stares transfixed at all around him. And he looks up, for the buildings here have stories, and he had never seen tall houses before. A window high above opens and an old woman empties a bucket onto the street. Galahad jumps back nimbly as a shower of shit comes down, just missing him. The old woman laughs.
‘Oh, you’re a quick one, ain’t ya, little starling! Oh but that I were younger, I would bone you for a bone! Now I could barely pick my teeth with you. What business have you here along the street of love? You’re too scrawny for a rent boy and bound to have less money than a drowned rat, so you ain’t a client, that’s for sure. What is it, boy?’
Galahad nods politely. ‘I’m looking for a job, ma’am,’ he says.
The woman hoots a laugh. ‘Did you hear what he called me! My, my. The name’s Maggs. I’m a relation of her majesty the queen, you know.’
‘I didn’t, ma’am.’
‘Oh, isn’t he adorable?’ She whistles down below. The guards on the door look up.
‘Fetch him up for me, will you, dears?’ Maggs says.
The guards move on Galahad. He stays put. Above the door he sees a discreet little sign in pure gold: The Gilded Cage.
The guards escort him inside.
58
Galahad admires himself in the mirror. That soft white shirt, freshly washed. That fetching red coat with the gold buttons. Those fine leather boots.
‘You missed a spot,’ he says.
‘Sorry, sir.’
The boy trembles. He scrubs and scrubs the latrines. The club’s about to open.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Gaheris, sir.’
‘Well, you listen to me good, Gaheris. You see me now? You see how I stand here before you, in my fine plumage, manager of this fine establishment, holder of the keys?’
‘Sir? I mean, yes, sir.’
‘Five years I cleaned this shitter, boy!’
‘Sir?’ The cleaner looks both afraid and confused.
‘Five years I cleaned the bogs. These same ones as you are cleaning now. My first job here in this city. Old Maggs gave it to me, Jupiter bless her shrivelled old heart. And do you know what, Gaheris? I did it with pride. I worked my way up. I made something of myself.’
Galahad quite enjoys giving the speech, even if it isn’t strictly true. Two weeks into the job he stabbed the picker of the glasses after work one night and took his spot the next evening. Six months of that and he poisoned the bartender. After that it was easy, management saw the value in him. As Maggs once told him, good men were hard to find in Camelot.
‘You do a good job, Gaheris, in five years you could be working coats. Maybe even picking glasses! Think of the tips!’
‘Yes, sir! Of course, sir!’
My, but the boy looks dim-witted. Galahad runs a comb through his hair and smiles at his reflection. He finally got the job when the last keeper of the keys fell out of a top-storey window.
Well, accidents happen.
And now the Gilded Cage is all but his.
‘Keep up the good work,’ he says, and leaves.
Another shit-boy. Another empty-headed kid with dreams large as the moon, too ugly to make much giving blowjobs and too dumb to steal anything good. Perhaps the speech will keep him there another week or two. The turnover’s a killer in that job, and it’s not like the city’s going to run out of shit anytime soon.
You’d think people would be glad for steady pay.
He strides onto the floor. The band starts playing. Ex-druids and drummers washed up on too much Goblin Fruit, runaway slaves from the continent playing the horns, a drunk Roman who came out of nowhere but is a genius on the cithara… The lead singer’s a Saxon, of all things, but with a voice like rough wine and cannabis smoke, it sends a shiver down your spine.
The doors open and the punters start filing in.
Galahad clicks his fingers. The beer girls begin to circulate. Galahad gets a take from the door and a take from the bar and a take from the dancers and the show. He gets a taste of everything. He clicks his fingers again. Someone hands him a glass of beer. He raises it high.
‘Salutaria!’
And now come the dancing girls onto the stage. Garlanded in flowers. Dressed in leaves. Like wood nymphs out of legends. It’s in the eyes, he thinks again. The look they give you even as you undress them with your eyes. The look that says they see right through you. That they know your heart. They understand desire like a banker savvies coin.
The torches burn. the ground is raked and fresh. Muscle boys circle with appetisers on trays.
‘Hey, magister,’ a rough voice says, and Galahad turns to see the twins.
‘Balin,’ he says. ‘Balan.’
Two brickhouse shits with sandy hair and killer’s eyes, they run the wholesale copying and distribution of the erotica trade. Just outside the city they have a whole village of sculptors and pot-makers, painters and artisans. Galahad supplies the models, and in exchange he gets a taste. He has his finger in more pots than there were slain Christians in the Roman colosseums, and that’s a lot.
‘We need a fresh batch,’ Balin complains. ‘Fresh off the cart. The punters always want new faces.’
‘New boobs,’ his brother says and leers.
‘Same here,’ Galahad says. ‘And yet we never run out.’
‘Anyone good on tonight?’
‘Some Angle girls from Magoset, two Jutes from the Wihtwara, and’ – he lowers his voice confidentially – ‘a Pict, white as snow, and with no trace of a snowline, if you get my meaning.’
The brothers exchange looks. ‘No shit?’
‘Smooth as a glacier. Look at the house. We’re already packed.’
‘Well, fuck me, Galahad, why didn’t you say?’ Balan slaps him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll make the arrangements?’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘Good man.’
They air-punch at his stomach playfully and scamper to their table.
Galahad mops his brow. Talking to the twins always sets him on edge. He once saw them strangle the waiter just for spilling a drop of their drink. They just did it for fun. They are that sort of guy.
But they’re made guys, they are part of a crew. The crew.
They are knights of the Round Table.
Fuck but he’d kill to be made. Five fucking years and he hasn’t even come close to counting in this town. He’s just another dick-and-tits merchant, just some guy out of a bunch. He has no protection.
He stalks to the bar and stands there breathing heavily. He hates Balin, Balan, this fucking town. All his good cheer evaporates.
The torches dim. A hush falls on the
crowd.
The show’s about to start.
Galahad watches without much interest. Which play is it tonight? Slaves of Passion? The Maiden’s Touch? What the Servants Saw? He can’t keep track. The Gilded Cage keeps several playwrights on rotation and every half-assed literate with a smattering of pig Latin shows up at their doors asking for a showing.
‘Ah, Pig in a Poke again, Galahad? I must admit it’s one of my favourites.’
He turns. His employer and the king’s right-hand man stands there, not tall, soft spoken, with eyes that are sad and deadly in turn.
‘Sir Kay,’ he stammers. ‘I did not realise—’
‘Yes, yes. Relax. I came to see the Pict. I must admit I was curious. Bald?’
‘As the moon, sir.’
‘Imagine that. It will be all the rage in Camelot by morning.’
‘She is a talented actress, sir.’
‘I do so enjoy a good comedy,’ Kay says. He watches the stage, where the aforementioned Pict has emerged from the bath house, and is now confronted by the enormous unsheathed swords of the guards. She stares in shock and admiration at their manhoods before reaching decisively.
‘Grab the sword by the blade, dear, that’s right,’ Kay says. ‘I swear to you, Galahad, if only there was a way of somehow capturing this sort of entertainment in a more permanent form. Merlin always does mutter about types of material that may capture and store light… I am sure he is getting crazier by the day. Still! Imagine if we could do that, and somehow sell it.’
‘It would rather spoil the art of live theatre, sir, don’t you think?’
Kay smiles.
‘You appreciate art over money, Galahad?’
‘Money isn’t everything, sir.’
‘My, my, you truly are pure…’
‘I only mean… Sir, it is power that matters.’
‘Money is power, Galahad! Don’t you ever forget it.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Your time will come.’
‘When, sir?’
‘When you’ve earned it, boy. Now go make me some money.’
Kay looks at the stage. Galahad nods. Galahad turns to go.
‘Oh, and Galahad?’
‘Yes, sir?’
Kay smiles. He raises his glass.
‘Salutaria,’ he says.
59
‘This is it, boyo,’ Gaheris says, all excited. ‘This is it, you shit!’
Galahad grins. He can’t help it. His friend’s excitement is contagious.
They stand on the top floor, looking over the city through the wide windows.
Camelot. It is finally his. Like a fruit ready for plucking.
‘You worked hard, now it’s your turn, Gally! Now it’s your fucking turn!’
‘Ain’t that right!’ Galahad says.
‘Amen!’ Gaheris says, using the Hebrew word the new Christians are so fond of in their services.
Galahad smiles. ‘Amen,’ he says.
He’d plucked Gaheris from the latrines and the boy followed his lead. Took everything in his stride. Looked up to Galahad like an older brother.
Became his friend.
What a strange word, ‘friend’, in this town. Yet there it is. Galahad wraps his arm around his friend’s shoulders, and together they stand and watch the lights. The city’s spread in the past few years. New quarters outside the city walls, and always there’s construction, the carts come in with timber, builders everywhere, and scaffolding, and sewers being dug, then clogging, then drained, until the city stinks, it stinks like rotting fruit and shit.
‘Yours, now, Gally!’
‘Ours.’
His friend smiles.
‘Ours, then.’
The castle is alight with torches, the wizard’s tower flashes with its strange illumination, down in the street the hawkers and the punters and the whores converge, a never-ending night in a city that never sleeps.
And it is his, at last. He’s done everything right, and when he heard two foreign fellows conspiring against the king he did the right thing and informed on them right away. They were tortured into confession and executed, and he had the king’s favour.
So what if they were just some merchants out of Deira with no more thought in their heads as to getting drunk and getting laid?
He did what he had to do. No one can blame a fellow for that.
And now the city will be his.
‘I can’t believe it, Gally, I still can’t!’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe it either.’
‘Look! There!’ Gaheris points. They watch the knights approaching. Lancelot, Kay, Elyan and Bors. The old guard. They come to the doors of the Gilded Cage and wait there.
Wait there for him.
His friend gives him a hug. ‘I love you, man.’
‘I love you, too. You wait. I’ll pull you up the way we’ve always done. You’ll be a knight in no time, too, Gaheris!’
‘Me, a knight!’ Gaheris laughs. ‘And I believe you, too. You make the impossible possible.’
‘Alright, alright.’ They extricate from each other. ‘I’ll see you after.’
‘Go with God, Gally.’
‘Later, then.’
He leaves his friend there and descends the stairs. They’re outside when he comes out. They slap his back.
‘Come on,’ they say. ‘We’ll take you there.’
‘Take me where?’ he says, delighted. He is delighted with everything. He’s going to get made. He’s going to be a knight, a fucking knight of the Round Table!
‘To the party, man! Come on!’
They pass him a bottle of something fermented and strong. He takes a pull, almost chokes.
‘Jesus!’
‘He never had this,’ Bors says.
‘What is it?’
‘Mead and Goblin Fruit.’
‘Jesus,’ he says again. He takes another pull. A numb, happy feeling.
They lead him away, through the narrow streets, singing.
*
It is hours later and he is drunk and stoned, mellow and wired at once. His legs wobble. He sees impossible things all around him: faces in trees, unfamiliar colours, the stars formed into lips that whisper out words.
‘Oh, man,’ he says. ‘Oh, man.’
They’re somewhere outside of town. There’s no one else around. The knights have built a fire and it burns inside a ring of stones. The air is cool but Galahad is sweating.
‘It’s time,’ someone says; Lancelot, perhaps. ‘It’s time.’
‘Time for what?’ Galahad says. His tongue feels too thick in his mouth, the words crawl out like worms.
‘Draw your sword.’
Galahad does, gladly. The blade glints in the light of the fire.
‘To join up you must prove you’re one of us.’
‘I am.’
Lancelot nods.
‘Please, don’t, let me go, let me g—!’
Galahad hears the screams but at first they don’t really register. He’s not even sure they’re real. But then he sees them.
Balin and Balan, as large as oaks and as mean as dogs, carrying a smaller figure between them, a hood over that person’s head. They reach the small campsite and push the victim roughly down and he falls. His hands are tied behind his back with rope.
‘You know what to do,’ Lancelot says softly.
Galahad is ready, surely he is ready? But at Lancelot’s nod Balin pulls the hood off the victim’s head, and Galahad sees with fear that the pulped face that was beaten and stomped on by the twins is known, that in fact he had known the voice, had somehow only pretended he hadn’t.
Gaheris looks up at him through his one remaining eye.
‘Please, don’t,’ he says.
Galahad sways.
‘Gaheris?’ he says. Still not comprehending. ‘But what are you doing here? You should be waiting for me, at the Gilded Cage—’
‘Please, Gally. Don’t.’
‘There must be
some mistake—’ Galahad says stupidly.
Lancelot says, ‘There isn’t.’
Balin sniggers. Balan farts.
‘Gally…’
‘Shut the fuck up already!’ Balin slaps the bound man on the back of the head, hard. Gaheris, pathetically, starts to cry.
Galahad closes his eyes. He can hear them all around him, he can hear the stars. There’s no way out. This is what he’d always wanted. It’s such a small price to pay.
He opens his eyes. Looks up at the stars. For just a minute he wishes he could go there.
Then he lowers his head and looks at his friend. Gaheris kneels there, waiting. He cries without sound, now. The tears and the snot and the blood.
They see each other, then. That thing we know, yet can’t accept.
Gaheris gives a tiny nod of acquiescence. Or perhaps it’s a trick of the light. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Galahad’s sword is already swinging.
The soft whoosh of metal, the sick plunge into skin and the hiss of blood, the sound of a bone breaking.
The head rolls in the dirt. The headless body falls forward and is still.
‘One of us,’ Lancelot says.
One by one, the knights begin to chant.
‘One of us, one of us!’
Galahad stands there, the sword in his hand.
‘Let’s get fucked,’ someone says.
‘Yeah,’ Galahad says. He slides the sword back in its scabbard and accepts the offer of a drinking jug. He takes a deep pull on the concoction, until his eyes water, at least that’s what he tells himself. He wipes away the tears.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Let’s get fucked.’
PART ELEVEN
THE GRAIL
60
But that all happened a long time ago and far away.
And in view of what is about to happen to Galahad, those really were the best of times.
Even if poor Galahad doesn’t quite know it yet.
For we have come, at last, to the matter of the grail.
*
Now the bird that is Merlin rises high in the air above the terrestrial plane.
It’s hard to make the crash site out clearly. He can trace the path that the dragon took in its flight all those years before. A trough of blackened earth, as though the heat of the object was so powerful that it eradicated everything around it in its descent.