Kingdom of the Grail (45 page)

CHAPTER 54

T
he enemy advanced behind a wall of darkness: shadows and shadowy things, and sleepers waking beneath the earth. One such slew a company of men from Poictesme, who had laid an ambush and been themselves taken by surprise.

It was the second battle of the war, and the first defeat. Word of it came as the castle's defenders broke camp and marched within the walls.

Roland had felt the blindworm's rising. It was too far, too late to warn the company in the valley. Even the Grail could do no more than conceal the few who won free, and close the valley against the creature's escape. But the blindworm had done what it was meant to do. The power that ruled it let it go. It sank back into the earth.

There was nothing Roland could do in this that the ladies of the Grail could not do better than he. It was a hard truth to face. His duty was to command the army; matters of high magic were not within his authority. And yet in the face of Ganelon's power, he itched to do battle with another weapon than earthly steel.

“Patience, lad,” Marric said. They were standing over the gate of Carbonek, watching the troops march beneath. Roland had not spoken his thoughts, but the bogle seldom concerned himself with such niceties. “You'll get your chance to hurl lightnings.”

Roland glowered at him. He grinned and sat on the parapet, as precarious a perch as Roland could imagine, but he seemed at ease there.

He was still grinning as Turpin climbed up the stair to the gate-tower. The archbishop grinned back, a fine display of broad white teeth. “And a fair morning to you, sir bogle,” he said.

“My lord archbishop,” said Marric with a mingling of respect and insouciance that Roland admired in spite of himself.

Turpin leaned on the parapet just past the bogle. “Nearly all in,” he said. “Our Franks are still refusing to believe that this castle can hold so many.”

“It's much larger within than without,” said Roland. “Tell them it's magic.”

“I already did. They keep on insisting that these walls won't stretch as far as they'll have to. They're all logicians since they were taken out of the world.”

“They'll see,” Roland said. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He had slept—days ago? He did not remember. Sarissa had had the night watch over the Grail, which mercifully prevented her from vexing him with commands to rest. Others he could ignore.

Even Turpin, who was fixing him with a look he knew too well. He met it blandly.

Turpin did not speak as Roland had expected. He lifted a brow. The bogle nodded. They struck before Roland could defend himself, caught him and tripped him and flung him over Turpin's shoulder, and carried him off into the depths of Carbonek.

Turpin dropped him onto a bed in a room he had not seen before. It was a large room, for a castle, and handsome, with its carpets and hangings and its wide curtained bed. There was no one else in it. It was a lordly place, fit for a prince.

The bed was too large and too soft. Roland was drowning in it. He scrambled up out of it. “I'm not staying here.”

“Until you sleep, you are,” Turpin said. “We'll get the men settled. You need to be up and in fighting form when the trap closes.”

“On us or on the enemy?” A vast yawn overwhelmed Roland. “At least find me a bed that won't suffocate me before I wake.”

“You're clever. You'll learn to swim in it.” Marric was hard-hearted, and Turpin was no better.

“We'll chain you to it if we have to,” Turpin said.

He was enjoying this much too much. Roland snarled at him. He laughed and abandoned Roland to the mercies of the featherbed.

Roland fully intended to fight his way free and escape to the duties that never relented. But his eyelids were heavy. His body was heavier. Just a moment—just a few breaths' time, to rest, to soothe the burning in his eyes.

He woke in darkness. Warmth pressed against his leg, purring as cats will, or a
puca
wearing the shape of a cat. The Grail's singing filled him.

He had been dreaming, but the dream had fled, except for a memory of sunlight. He sat up amid the coverlets of a wide and lordly bed. He could see a little: dim shapes of hangings, clothing-chest, a figure that drew him half to his feet, heart pounding, until he realized that it was his mail-coat on its stand.

Someone had come in while he slept, moved in his belongings and taken off his clothes. It was cold in the room, a keen mountain chill.

Wrapped in the coverlet, he rose. He was wide awake. He was a little hungry, but bread and cheese in a basket on the clothing-chest did not tempt him.

He had learned the ways of the castle, because a general always knew his ground, either friendly or hostile. This room would be one of those in the king's tower. The Grail was at the top of that, closed in its shrine.

Maybe one did not simply go to it. Maybe one should be taken to it, or summoned. And maybe he was summoned, as he had been to find Durandal.

There was no moon tonight, no stars. Things gibbered against the walls of air, the high magic that protected the castle and the kingdom. He ascended the stair without haste. Somewhere, echoing in the passages, now near and clear, now faint and far away, monks were singing the night office. He recognized Turpin's voice, deep but surprisingly clear.

Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men, preserve me from violent men.

Save me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked: from the horns of the wild bulls, my wretched life.

Roland was rather startled. He had not perceived this as a Christian place, though it held the greatest of Christian relics.

Well; and there were monks among the Franks, and priests, and an archbishop who sang Mass every day wherever he was. It was fitting that they should raise that chant here, with the Grail's descant running beneath it.

The king slept in the antechamber. Inanna, the dark lady, sat the long vigil beside him. Roland bowed to her, then more deeply to him, though he was not awake to know it. She did not speak or try to turn him back.

The door opened to his touch. He walked into a singing darkness and a faint shimmer of light.

Three of the Grail's guardians knelt about the shrine, each at a corner of the earth. Sarissa had the east, Nieve the south. Pale Freya held the west.

It seemed they had been waiting for him. Without a word, without asking leave, Roland took the station of the north. The floor was stone, cold and hard under his knees. It dawned on him that he was naked but for a blanket.

It did not matter to the Grail. The ladies were deep in trance, raising a tower of light above castle and kingdom. He lifted up a pillar, to bolster them, to spare their strength.

There was great rightness in it, and something better than sleep. The Grail, he thought distantly. It nourished him. It seemed only fair that he stand guard over it and defend its people.

The enemy was close. Tomorrow he would come to the castle. His army was vast, his strength immeasurable. Even the edge of it was strong enough to wring a gasp from Roland, safe though he was in the armor of the Grail.

He would not give way to despair. He would hold, as the others held; as the Grail itself stood fast. It had defied this ancient enemy before. It would do so again.

Morning took him by surprise. Light flooded the high round room. The shrine caught fire with it. Sarissa rose from her knees at the gate of the east and approached the shrine. Nieve and Freya stood also, then Roland, stiff
as they had not seemed to be, clutching his blanket about him.

Sarissa opened the shrine and uncovered the Grail. A great part of Roland wanted to fall on his face. But he stood as the others did, rapt in awe before that simple wooden cup.

She brought it to him last. He would not have been surprised if she had passed him by, but her eyes on him were calm, her expression serene. She raised the cup to his lips.

Sweeter than wine, stronger than blood, fiercer than fire. He gasped. His knees buckled. But he kept his feet. She smiled faintly and moved on, returning the cup to its shrine.

He was full of—he was aflame with—

Coolness bathed him. It felt almost like water pouring over him, but it was light, of sun and Grail both, and a whisper of breeze passing through the room. He did sink down then, down to his face. The floor was blessedly cold against his skin.

It was very, very strange. He was not exhausted or reft of strength. He was as strong as he could ever remember. But his knees would not hold him up.

The guard was changing. He could keep watch with these three, too, he supposed. But it was morning. The castle was full of soldiers—his soldiers. And the enemy was coming.

Somehow he got to his feet. He found that he could walk. Liu and Maya and Thais regarded him without surprise, but in some bemusement. He found what he hoped was a smile for them. He walked out of the room, his strides steadier with each step he took.

Sarissa was waiting for him beyond the antechamber. He braced for a blast of rebuke, but she only said, “Don't tell me they took all your clothes away.”

He blushed.

She laughed at him and kissed him, which heated him all over again.

“You're not angry,” he said.

“Should I be?”

“Everyone is,” he said, “when I do something other than sleep.”

“That is better than sleep,” she said. She slipped her arm about his middle. “Here, I'll help you dress. And eat—you should eat. And—”

“And?”

Were her cheeks ever so faintly tinged with rose?

Oh, no. She never blushed. Not she.

And in any case, there was no time. He could dress, make himself presentable, choke down a little bread, but then he must be among his people.

“Surely,” she said when he told her that. They had come quickly to the chamber—which, he thought, might even be the king's own, since he was set in the king's place. He did not like it. He would have it changed. He would—

She backed him against the tapestried wall. The blanket was lost, he hoped not irretrievably.

There was time, after all. All the time in the world. She was bare under the white robe, and fierce with eagerness. Almost too fierce—as if she feared there would be no time later; this was all they had.

He did not believe that. But he would take it, and her, in a kind of wild joy. Maybe Mother Church would be appalled to see them sinning so lustily in the very house of the Grail, but the Grail sang with them. It blessed them. It gave them this gift.

“The great marriage,” he said, or she said, or they both did. It hardly mattered.

She clutched him fiercely to her, kissing him until he was dizzy. “It is made,” she said, “and made again, from the moment we consented to it. But for the people—”

“For the people,” he said, “we need a festival. Though if the enemy is here—”

“What matter if he is? Nieve can say the words, and Father Turpin, for Goddess and God, who are one. Three days, beloved. On the day of the new moon.”

That gave him pause. “But isn't that—”

“The Prince of Darkness corrupts all that he touches. Long before he laid his hand on the moon's dark, it was sacred, beloved of the Goddess. We'll remember, my love. We'll make the night clean again.”

“He'll be at his strongest. Whereas we—”

“We, too,” she said. “And we held the night before him.”

He looked into her face. He was supposed to be angry;
to refuse to forgive her. But that was such a small thing, and this between them so great, in so great a war.

He brushed his thumb across her lips, then kissed them softly. She closed her eyes and sighed.

“If we die,” he said, “we'll die in the light.”

“We won't die,” she said.

She believed that. He wanted to, but he had been a soldier too long. He set his lips together and was silent.

CHAPTER 55

A
black tide of despair ran ahead of the enemy. At first it seemed to be no more than a cloud across the sun, or a passing of fear as word spread of the enemy's coming. The air dimmed. Moods darkened though the morning drew toward noon. Quarrels flared. People squabbled over small things: a loaf of bread, a rent in a cloak.

The Franks seemed inclined to believe, at last, that Carbonek was much larger than it had looked. They had the west tower and the workings beneath it, wide and surprisingly airy chambers lit through deep shafts in the mountain. There was room there and to spare for ten thousand men, their animals, their baggage, and even their complement of camp-followers.

Maybe because most of them were underground, they caught the contagion late; or maybe, being Franks, they were simply inured to fear. Roland's villagers, bivouacked with them, took heart from their lightness of spirit, though not a few muttered about the thickness of the Frankish skull.

“I didn't hear that,” Turpin said as he happened past a scowling knot of villagers. He recognized red-headed Kyllan, though he did not see the girl Cait—usually the two were inseparable.

Kyllan's scowl was not as dark as the others'. He seemed relieved by the distraction. Turpin had barely paused; as he
went on, Kyllan followed, a bit like a pup in search of a master.

“I was trying to tell them,” he said. “It's not us. It's coming from outside of us.”

Turpin raised a brow. “You think so?”

“I know so,” the boy said. “Some of the others are out trying to convince people, too. But people don't want to be convinced.”

“That may be part of the spell,” Turpin pointed out.

“Franks must be immune to it,” Kyllan said. “And a few of us. Maybe because our skulls are denser than most?”

Turpin laughed.

“I'm glad you can laugh at it,” Kyllan said. “It's the first wave, isn't it? The first battle. He's going for our souls.”

Turpin's nape prickled, though he kept his smile. “We're not immune,” he said. “Just, maybe, better at fighting it. The world's a dangerous place outside of Montsalvat.”

“And a dark one,” said Kyllan. “Not that we don't have our own dangers. But we've been sheltered for so long—Father Turpin, do you think we can do it? Can we win this war?”

“I think,” said Turpin, “that you—we—have the Grail. And that you have us. And yourselves.”

“And Count Roland,” Kyllan said, “who belongs to all of us.”

“And Count Roland,” said Turpin.

As if they had invoked him, he was there. The hall was wide, its vaulting high, and he had come in at the far extent of it; but it was as if the sun had come down into the earth. The rumble of discontent faded. Faces, eyes turned toward him.

Turpin felt the light of him, the bright clean presence, with a splendor in it that made him nod suddenly, and almost laugh. Roland had been in the presence of the Grail. He had brought its healing down with him, and poured it out without stinting.

To the eye he was no more or less ordinary than he ever was: a man not small but not particularly tall, slender rather than sturdy, but wide enough in the shoulders. A black-haired man, white-skinned, and young—startlingly so, sometimes. He was plainly dressed as always, with a glint of mail under a leather tunic. From that distance one
could not clearly see the oddity, the hawk-yellow eyes in the pale face.

He stood on the stair above them, scanning the hall. Counting faces, Turpin thought. Reckoning mood, judging hearts. Turpin was no enchanter, but he could feel the darkness yearning toward them all, like wings beating against a wall of glass.

“It will get worse,” Roland said, not particularly loudly, but the vaulting carried his voice through the hall. “The enemy will try to destroy us in spirit before his armies slaughter our bodies. Things will come—black dreams, nightmares, terrors from the dark regions of the heart. Whatever you fear most, hate most, he will raise up for you. You must be strong, my people. You must hold fast.”

“And if we can't?”

Turpin did not recognize the voice, but it spoke for a great number of them.

“You can,” Roland said. “Remember what you fight for—and what fights for you. Remember the Grail.”

“We've never seen it,” the man said. It was a Frank, not particularly prostrate with fear, but not greatly endowed with courage, either. “How do we know it's real?”

“It is more real than anything you ever knew,” Roland said. He lifted his hands. “Look!”

Light blazed out of them, sudden, astonishing. Men fell on their faces. Some gasped; some cried out. A few wept.

Turpin kept his feet. The light was blinding, but he could see. He saw the cup of the Grail, suspended above those strong narrow hands.

It was there. Open, unveiled. Turpin thought perhaps he should be outraged, but all that came to him was wonder.

Roland spoke through the glory of it. “Now do you doubt?”

“No, my lord,” said the Frank. “No. Never again, my lord.”

The light dimmed. Men groaned in protest, but the Grail had taken itself away. Roland stood on the stair, hands at his sides. Turpin wondered if he knew what he had done—what he was. Sometimes Roland just
was
. It seldom seemed to dawn on him that he was anything out of the ordinary.

Beside Turpin, Kyllan let out his breath in a long sigh. “Glory and splendor,” he said. “Was that—really—”

“Yes,” Turpin said.

“By all the gods,” said Kyllan. “And he just reached, and it was there.”

“Wait till they hear, up in the castle,” Cait said, slipping in between them. “What will they say when they find out he's been making free with
that
?”

“
Ai
,” said Kyllan.

Roland spent most of the morning among his troops. He did not invoke the Grail again, but word of it had spread like fire. It burned away the darkness and lifted the cloud of despair.

By noon the guards on the towers could see the army advancing through the empty lands, out of the mist that veiled the world's end. It came on like a swarm of locusts. Thousands, tens of thousands, warriors innumerable, human and unhuman.

This they had let in. They had guided it here, in hope of sparing the rest of the kingdom. And yet now they saw it, not a few began to regret that they had ever done such a thing.

“We could have held the walls of air,” said a lord of Caer Sidi, “until he wearied of assailing them.”

They stood on the walls of stone, protected by the parapet, watching the enemy march and crawl and fly toward them. Turpin looked for Ganelon, but there were too many, and they were too far. He could not see any one face, only the swarming mass of them.

The lords near him were making no effort to speak quietly. He had seen clusters like that too often before, huddled tight, muttering to one another, shooting glances beyond their circle. “We should have kept this army out,” they said. “If we had been consulted—if
he
had not high-handedly—”

He
was standing somewhat apart, arms folded on the parapet, watching his enemy—his personal enemy, even beyond the wars of the Grail—advance on the castle. Turpin doubted very much that he cared what anyone was saying, in earshot or out of it.

“Arrogant,” muttered the lordlings from Caer Sidi. “Blood of the Grail or no, what right or authority has he to command us?”

“The king did give him—” one of them ventured.

The others shouted him down. “The king is dying. Maybe he's dead—has anyone seen him or spoken to him since we came here? I'll wager there's a corpse in that tower he's said to be lying in, and his women are speaking for him. The chief of them—she chose that one, it's said. And not for any fitness or even purity of heart. Because he has a handsome face, and knows how to please a woman.”

“He does that,” Sarissa said, sweet as honey. Her smile scattered them in great disorder. She came to stand beside Turpin.

He regarded her out of the corner of his eye. “I'm sorry you heard that,” he said.

She shrugged. “I've heard worse.”

“The one out there—he'll feed any dissension, and turn it into treason if he can.”

“That is his way,” she said. She sounded little enough concerned.

“You're not afraid for him? Or for yourself?”

“I'm terrified,” she said calmly. “I don't see the use in indulging it.”

He pondered that; then he nodded. “Wise,” he said.

“Maybe not.” She wrapped her cloak a little closer about her. Though the sun was high, it was veiled in cloud, and the wind was chill.

“Father Turpin,” she said in a different tone, one somewhat sharper. “Will you make a marriage for us?”

Turpin blinked. “Will I—you—
you
two?”

“Yes.”

“And why isn't he asking?”

Turpin bit his tongue hard. He did not mean to sound so flat.

She seemed not to mind. “He means to. But with all that's happening—and with what he did this morning, which he has yet to see the end of—I doubt he's stopped to think of it.”

“Of course he hasn't,” Turpin said. “Yes, I'll do it. How could I not?”

When she smiled as she was doing now, he could almost regret the vows he had taken. Almost. She was not for him, even if he had been free to take her. “You have both our thanks,” she said.

Turpin bent his head to that. “Tell me one thing,” he said. “Will he be king?”

“What do you think?”

“I think he already is, but he doesn't know it. Nor do yonder idiots.”

“He doesn't want it,” she said.

“That should make a difference? Did you hear what he did?”

“I could hardly avoid it. The whole castle is humming with it.”

“Are you as angry as the others seem to be?”

“No,” she said. She let her head fall back, turning her face to the boiling sky. A shaft of sunlight broke through and pierced her. For an instant he saw her as she must be beyond the veil of flesh, as a slender pillar of light. Then she was Sarissa again, with her warm brown skin and her imperfectly disciplined brown curls.

“You knew it would happen,” Turpin said in sudden understanding.

“No,” she said again. “But I wasn't surprised. None of us was—not us nine. Nor the king, either.”

“He can't help himself, can he? He belongs to it. It uses him as it pleases.”

“He has free will,” she said. “He can refuse.”

“Can he? Does he know he can?”

“He has been told.”

Turpin shook his head. “You trapped him. You're lucky he's forgiven you. He loves you. He'd die for you.”

“And I for him.” Her voice was soft, but her eyes were fierce. “I fought it—oh, too long. It nearly destroyed us. But he, with his great heart—he forgave. In his own heart he forgave me.”

“Did you ever doubt he would?”

“I doubted far too much.”

“And now?”

“I've taught myself to trust him. The Grail does—utterly. Else it would never have come to him.”

“He didn't steal it. He called. It came.”

“I know that,” she said. “I felt it answer him.”

“No one tried to stop it?”

“No one could.” She was smiling, though the sky was growing ever darker, and the foremost ranks of the enemy
swarmed on the edge of the chasm that warded Carbonek. Her eyes were on Roland.

“Arrogant,” she said, but without censure. “Oh, yes. It was the most arrogant thing anyone has done in Montsalvat, and we have had our share of haughty lords.”

“He is not—”

“That's the beauty of it,” she said. “He puts on no airs at all. He simply does what he pleases. Sometimes he apologizes. Mostly he doesn't know that he should.”