Kingdom of the Grail (40 page)

Farther down the line, others did the same, and others past them, in a rippling wave. The lord's guardsmen, between Roland and the villagers, slid eyes at him, but one of those nearest the rear lifted an ivory horn to his lips and blew a long exhilarating blast. Drums rattled and rumbled and boomed. Pipes skirled. Voices of men and women rose in a marching song out of old Rome. There was a strong rhythm in it, and a vaunting arrogance that made some of them laugh even as they sang.

The dragon in the earth lashed its tail. The ground trembled.

Laughter, Roland thought. More than marching feet, more than drums or pipes or horns or song, human merriment drew the thing—lured it, enraged it.

“Slower!” he called. “March slower. Laugh! Taunt this thing. Shower it with scorn.”

The lordly guardsmen were affronted. The villagers howled with delight.

The army was some distance away now, ascending a long slope to the summit of a hill. The van had already passed out of sight below. A broad stretch of white road lay open between.

Some of the boys from Greenwood had begun a dance in the grass by the road's edge. It was a very bawdy dance, with much clutching of rears and waggling of anything lengthy that came to hand. One man brandished a sausage as great as a stallion's rod, strutting with it thrust full out before him. As he danced he sang a long wicked paean on the subject of dragons, serpents, and the moistly pulsing caverns of the earth.

The earth swirled and roiled beneath his feet. Jagged knives of crystal flashed within it. Vast jaws snapped shut.

He died laughing. His fellows fled from the great gleaming thing that surged up out of the ground. It snapped, slashed. Some were not fast enough. They vanished in sprays of blood.

Roland's gelding was beside himself with terror. Roland held him by sheer force of will, and drove him forward. The
rearguard was holding, save only where the dragon was. And there, most had managed to escape, to dart out of its reach.

Their courage was holding. They fell back in a broad ring, spearmen foremost, archers behind, bows strung and arrows nocked. “Now!” cried Roland.

Fire leaped from his hand and from the hands of the mages scattered round the great circle. The arrows sprang into flame. In a single great swoop, they soared above the spearmen's heads, touched the vault of heaven, bent down upon the dragon.

It was drowsy still, confused by the light, its maw full of still-warm flesh. And yet it was lethally fast. From its sides unfurled wide shimmering wings. The wind of them flattened the spearmen like a field of tall corn. The arrows whirled away.

The dragon struck, swift as a snake. It snatched arrows from the sky and men from the earth. It feasted on blood and fire.

It gleamed with a terrible beauty. It was all silver like the sheen of moon on water. Its eyes were moon-pale, swirling with slow fires. Its wings were the color of mist and smoke.

Claws dug into Roland's shoulder, even through mail. Tarik deafened his ear with a shrill cat-screech.

Roland started violently, and staggered. His strength had drained away, turned all cold by those cold, cold eyes.

Fire burned over his heart. His hand came to rest above the amulet. The heat of it seared his palm, even through linen and leather and mail. He sucked in a breath of sunlit air. It seared his throat and lungs. Fire ran in his veins.

The mages were down or staggering, overcome by the dragon's power. The villagers had drawn back perforce. The lord's guardsmen rallied for the charge, mad and foolhardy and palpably futile, but what else were they to do?

This,
Roland thought. He was perfectly calm.

He let the fire go. It left him in a roar of flame, a blaze of light. It fell on the dragon like a great burning mantle. It wrapped the thing close.

Scales of ice melted. Wings of mist vanished into air. Teeth of crystal, claws of diamond fell clattering to suddenly empty earth. And in the center of them all tumbled a coldly gleaming thing, a great white stone that had been
the dragon's heart. Fire lived in it, enclosed in it. Of the dragon's body there was no sign, nor of the bodies of the men it had devoured.

Roland sagged on the gelding's neck. His bones hurt. He was empty, scraped dry. Only the dimmest flicker of magic remained in him. Even the amulet was cold.

Victory. And half a dozen lives lost, men and women he had led and trained, who had fought as best they could against an enemy greater than any of them.

There would be many more dead before this war was over. Roland too, maybe, if that was God's will. But not today. Not now. In this first battle of the war, the Grail's people had won.

“May it always be so,” he said, or thought, or prayed.

CHAPTER 49

L
ord Huon's army marched in at evening, last of them all, but first to have met and engaged the enemy. News of the battle had run ahead, and not only through messengers. Sarissa had felt the dragon's rising—felt the Grail wake to defend against it. One of Huon's mages had been the instrument of that defense, said the messenger who paused by her hilltop before riding up to the castle.

That had been a great power—fire so fierce, so strong, that she had felt it in her own heart. She had not known there was such magic in the marches of the kingdom, though there were mages enough, and wildfolk, and creatures of earth and water and air. This was high magic, magic so white and pure and strong that it could wield the Grail itself.

It was not Lord Huon, who rode at the head of his army, resplendent in silver armor. It was none of the mages at his back. Nor certainly was it any of the troops, mounted or afoot, who rode and marched behind him. She did not see it at all, though she would have sworn on the Grail that she would know it if it passed before her.

Was it—could it be—?

No. It could not. He had not known fully what he was, nor had he seen the Grail. And he was long gone.

Still she searched as many faces as she could, as the army marched on past. There were pale faces enough, and straight black hair, and keen profiles—faces of old gods
and heroes, stamped in their children both high and low. But none had the eyes of a falcon, bright and inhuman gold in a passably human face.

The rearguard was an odd and rather untidy mingling: princely horsemen in silver mail, and leather-armored common folk marching stoutly afoot, armed with spears and bows. They seemed much at ease with one another: they were singing as they came, first the footsoldiers, then the mounted warriors.

It was a contest, she gathered. They were singing a satire on the dragon's slaying. One wild redheaded boy had a wicked turn of phrase. One of the armored knights, young and headlong, almost matched him.

Last of all rode an armored man on a bay gelding, and a—man?—on a brown pony.

Not a man. A bogle, dressed in well-worn mail and armed with a Roman shortsword, wearing a thin mask of human seeming over his quite inhuman self. He was grinning as he rode, taking clear pleasure in the satire. What his companion thought, she could not see: he was helmeted, and he rode in silence, light and erect in the gelding's saddle.

No, she thought. Oh, no. That was not—but that seat on a horse, that straightness in the back and shoulders, that lift and turn of the head, as if in spite of itself, as he passed by the hill on which she stood—

“Roland.” That was not her voice. That was Turpin, forgotten beside her, leaving her side, running down the hill. “Roland! Roland, you devil's get!”

She thought, with the distant clarity of pure shock, that he would ride on, oblivious. But he had halted at the hill's foot. The bogle sat beside him on the shaggy brown pony, grinning as bogles could, from ear to sharply pointed ear. It was rather a disconcerting spectacle. The bogle had very sharp teeth, and there were very many of them.

“Marric,” Sarissa said. Not that other name, after all. She could not bring herself to say it.

The bogle rode up the slope of the hill. His grin had faded somewhat, but his eyes were wickedly bright. He paused just below her as she sat on the summit, and bowed low over his pony's neck. “My lady,” he said with courtesy that he had learned on her hearth, long years ago.

“So,” she said. “You brought him back.”

“Someone had to,” Marric said.

She refused to weep. She dared not rail at the prodigal, whom she had not even looked directly at, yet, though his helmet was off and he was off his horse and Turpin was pounding him thunderously on the back. It was Roland, indeed: white face, long arched nose, yellow eyes. She could never forget that face, not if she lived another thousand years.

She was aware, dimly, that the rearguard had broken ranks. A good number of them were hanging about, staring at the big man in the monk's robe and the finely woven mail. They must be wondering why he was weeping on their captain's shoulder.

He did not do it for long. Were Roland's eyes somewhat damp themselves? Sarissa could not have told. He was expressionless, drawn in tight, betraying nothing.

Wings beat overhead. A grey falcon came to rest on Roland's armored shoulder. Tarik regarded her with a bright insolent stare. There could be no doubt of his opinion in the matter—or of where he had been, either.

He had chosen sides long ago. Sarissa met his stare with one as level and as unbending.

While she tarried on the hilltop, the Franks had come in their companies. They came in some semblance of order, but word had run like fire among them: that the Breton Count was alive and riding to the war.

Lord Huon's villagers were swallowed up by that army of strangers. A surprising number clung to places near Roland. A few had let themselves be removed, pushed up the hill to Sarissa's side. “What are they saying?” they demanded of Marric. “What are all those men saying?”

“That they thought he was dead,” Marric answered, “or gone forever. That they're beyond glad he's back. That—”

“Is he their king?” asked a wiry girl-child with fierce eyes.

“Not so high,” Marric said. “They're calling him a count.”

Breaths hissed. “Is that higher than a lord?” the girl wanted to know.

“Oh, yes,” said a redheaded boy in tones of ancient wisdom. “But not as high as a prince.”

“If he's what
I
hear he is,” one of the others said, “he's higher than anybody.”

“Then what was he doing with us?” the girl said. “Wasn't he a drooling idiot in Greenwood?”

Sarissa bit her lip till it bled. The children babbled on, unmindful of her.

“He was mad,” the redheaded boy said. “He was all taken out of himself. So for a while he had no wits to speak of. But he got them back. You know that.”

“I don't think he wanted people to know who he is,” the girl said.

“He slew the dragon,” said the boy. “Every mage and enchanter in Montsalvat knows who he is by now.”

“He can't help himself,” the girl said. She chewed the end of her fair brown braid, frowning at the great crowd of men below. “He just
is,
you know? It's like breathing, for him. He slays dragons. He commands armies. He teaches village children how to fight.”

They loved him, Sarissa thought. They were not in awe of him, though they knew what he was. He was theirs. They looked on him with a proprietary air, worried for him, but proud, too, and sure that once he had disposed of all these clamoring strangers, he would come back to them again.

They took no notice of her. But Marric left his pony to graze on the hillside and sat beside her as bogles liked to sit, knees drawn up to chest, sharp chin on them. He was very large for a bogle, as large as a smallish man, and sturdy as bogles went, like a brown tree-root.

“You've prospered,” she said to him.

He shrugged. “I get by. And you—you're all worn down with worry. For him?”

“For everything,” she said.

“But a great deal for him.” Marric sighed faintly. “He can be a terribly worrisome creature.”

“Is it true, then?” she asked. “He was mad when he came to you?”

“Completely out of his head,” the bogle said. “Lost in the hawk's spirit, and no man left in him at all. You see that woman down there, holding his horse, making sure he doesn't see how she's looking at him? She took him in. She fed him, clothed him. She taught him to be a man again.”

Sarissa had not seen the woman until Marric pointed to
her, out of so many. This was not so much a child; she was a woman grown, and ripe with it, with a great deal of fiery hair and a broad, unbeautiful but very comely face. Her eyes on Roland were raw with hunger, and with something like grief.

“Maybe it wasn't wise to tell me this,” Sarissa said to the bogle.

“Maybe,” Marric said. He did not seem dismayed. “Will you kill her for doing what you were too haughty to do?”

“That was presumptuous,” she said.

“Bogles are,” he said. “Look at her. She knows he's not for her. She cast him off as soon as she was sure of it. She wounded him, but he'll recover. He's strong again. You know how a broken bone heals—maybe it's thicker, sturdier than before. Maybe his spirit is like that.”

“I'll kill
him,
” Sarissa said. “For running away. For staying away so long. For—”

“For coming to know this kingdom as few lords would trouble to know it? For taking its land and people to himself? For coming back when he could have run far away and never come near this place—or you—again?”

She thrust aside the pain of that, though it was like a knife cutting her heart. “Why did he come back? Did you force him? Or Tarik?”

“Truth to tell,” Marric said, “Lord Huon's man saw the pair of shoulders he has and counted him in the muster, though he was still as witless as a newborn baby. But when he had his mind back, he stayed with us.”

“Huon knows?”

Marric tilted his head. “Look at the shield.”

It was hanging on the gelding's saddle, uncovered, gleaming in the last of the light. Blue field, silver swan. Her brows rose as high as they would go. “And where did Huon of the Horn get a shield with that device, of all that he must have in his armories?”

“Ah, well, you know,” said Marric. “These lords from the old days, they keep any number of things. And maybe some prince of Carbonek left it behind, a long time ago.”

“Does
he
know?”

“I don't think so,” Marric said. “The common folk aren't likely to know or care, and he doesn't trouble himself with the lords.”

“But surely—” Sarissa shook her head. “No, who notices a captain of foot? Or pays attention to what he carries on his shield? It could be livery, after all.”

“Lords would do well sometimes,” Marric observed, “to lower their noses a bit and see what's passing underfoot.”

“Champions and dragons,” she said. She had lost sight of Roland. The Franks had taken him away to their camp.

The redheaded woman handed his gelding to one of the villagers who still lingered, though most had gone with Roland and the Franks. She climbed up the hill, wearily, and flung herself on the grass beside Marric. She did not seem to see Sarissa, or if she did, to reckon her worth taking notice of.

“They're going to fight over him,” Marric said, “if somebody doesn't do something.”

“Not tonight,” said the woman. “I made them swear to keep their heads low and their eyes on him. And make sure he sleeps where he belongs.”

“With the Franks?”

She shot him a glare. “With his own people.”

“But those are—” Sarissa began, startled out of silence.

“We are his people,” the woman said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Sarissa carefully refrained from speaking her thoughts, which were too confused in any case to make much sense of. Of all the ways she might have expected Roland to come back, this was one of the last.

And yet it was very like Roland. She sighed and let herself sink back into the grass. The stars were blossoming overhead. The earth was quiet beneath her, secure in the living presence of the Grail.

As was he. As, at last, was he.