Kingdom of the Grail (8 page)

“We should have seen that one,” she said. “We should have known.”

Maybe that one was warded, Tarik observed, sitting up, yawning, licking a soft grey paw. Maybe he was protected, so that even strong magic—especially strong magic—could not touch him.

“Maybe he is a demon's child,” she said sharply.

Tarik, who was a minor demon himself, saw nothing objectionable in that. He hissed at her, showed her a splendid armament of claws, and stalked off into the night.

She sank down shivering, wrapping her arms about herself. Very carefully, very clearly, though she was all alone, she said, “The sword shaped itself of water and earth, air and fire, at my will and the will of my people who sent me, to choose and consecrate a champion. All foreseeings, all foretellings, led us to believe that that champion was Charles of the Franks. And if it is not, if it is this one who is not truly a man, how can we trust him? How can we know that he will do what is required of him? What if he turns against us? What if—what if he betrays us?”

The night returned no answer. Her heart was running wild in spite of her, remembering a fine young body and a fine white smile. All the worse for sense or sanity that he should be beautiful. Charles was pleasing to look at, imposing and kingly, but he did not turn her knees to water, or bring her close to forgetting all wisdom or caution.

And for that she almost hated this champion whom the sword had chosen, this Roland from Brittany. She could almost, even, hate the sword; and that was patently absurd. The sword was the greatest hope her people had—the sword, and the one whom it chose to wield it.

CHAPTER 7

R
oland dreamed, there in the night, lying in the king's tent. He was a boy again, barely a man, just come from Brittany to the king's court. He knew, or so he thought, as much as a young lord needed to know. Above all he knew that if he was to be safe among the common run of humankind, he must conceal his magic. But no one had told him that he would be lonely—he who had been alone and happy all his life—or that he would be so desperately homesick for Merlin's prison in Broceliande.

In his dream Merlin came to him, walking free in the world, and said, “Sword and spear, cup and coin. Remember.”

Roland tried to ask him what he meant, but Merlin was sinking away beneath deep water. Roland drifted inexorably toward a glare of light that, when he came to it, proved to be the flicker of a lamp.

She was there, bending over him: the lady of the white stallion, the lady of the sword. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. He was dizzy with her beauty, giddy as if with wine. It made him say things that in his right mind he never would have said. And then he mocked her. He laughed, and she left him, as well she might. He must have given mortal offense.

He tried to follow, but Turpin barred his way. “Not tonight,” he said in his deep growl of a voice. “Tonight you sleep.”

“I've slept enough,” Roland said.

“You'll sleep more,” said Turpin, tipping him neatly and all too easily into the bed he had just now abandoned. He snarled, he fought, but Turpin was too strong for him. He had no choice but to yield.

He did sleep. He dreamed again, too, dim confused dreams that he remembered in snatches. Merlin in his wood, Charles on his throne. Jagged mountains towering against a bitter-blue sky. A fortress on a crag; a king dying in a bare stone chamber. Sword and spear, coin and cup—cup full of blood that overflowed and lapped the edges of the world. A shadow rose above it, darkness visible, stretching wings as wide as the sky.

She stood beneath that vast and starless blackness, a slender figure faintly limned in light. The sword lay at her feet. The spear, thrust in earth, burned like a flame in the dark. The coin hung on a chain about her neck, a wheel of silver fire. And in her hands she lifted the cup, the cup of bright blood.

Sarissa.
He woke with her name on his lips, sweet as honey, rich as blood. She was gone still. Turpin slept upright in a chair, snoring to wake the dead.

He shook himself free of the rags of the dream, and rose softly lest he wake his friend. He was naked, wobble-legged, but apart from the pain in his ribs, he was as well as ever. His knees steadied soon enough. He found his own clothes, clean and only a little damp, folded at the bed's foot. The silver token was tucked inside the tunic. It sang faintly as it lay in his palm.
Coin,
he thought,
and cup. Yes—and spear.
They meant—something. And there was the sword where it had lain beside him nightlong.

He slipped the silver chain about his neck. The coin settled on his breast, warm and oddly heavy. Its weight comforted him. Guarded him—protected him. It was an amulet, he thought. A defense against harm.

The sword was a defense of another sort, and a great one, too. He wrapped it in the coverlet and carried it in his arms.

It was still somewhat short of sunrise. Olivier was not in the tent they shared. He had found a woman, no doubt, and well for him. Roland would have welcomed a warm and odorous and thoroughly human embrace himself, just then,
but there was no one to give it. The tent was empty even of servants. He slipped his father's sword from its sheath and laid it gently on his bed. It was only steel; it had no song for him. Still he felt the pull of parting, as if in laying it aside he had made a choice. Had chosen—what?

He did not know yet. It could be something terrible, something even that would bring about his death. And yet he could not turn away from it. What he had won, he would keep.

His father's worn old scabbard did not fit Durandal too badly. It would do until he could have a better one made. He settled the baldric across his breast—allowing himself to wince, here where he was alone, at the tug on his poor abused ribs—and stepped out again into the morning.

It was an ordeal, that morning, as it always was after a battle. Roland did not set out to be hero or champion. He could not help himself. He endured the flood of adulation with as much grace as he could, drew the sword a thousand times, declined a match or ten against a blade that, its owner swore, was at least as wondrous.

He had duties, but when he went to perform them, the king's messenger met him near the royal tent. “Not today,” he said. “The king says rest; heal. Do as you please. Tomorrow is soon enough to be his servant again.”

Roland was not surprised; he knew Charles too well. But the messenger made him widen his eyes. The king's eldest son was of age and rank to send servants of his own, not to play the servant before a mere Marcher Count.

Pepin looked nervous. He was not the calmest of men; he had his father's perpetual restlessness without, some murmured, the keen wits that gave it direction. It was difficult to remember that Pepin had been born in the same year as Roland. He seemed much younger, a raw boy, awkward and uncertain.

“Would you like to see the sword?” Roland asked him.

Pepin nodded jerkily. Roland drew it as he had so often already. The sun caught the blade, dazzling him. Pepin threw up his hand against the flame of it, and shrank back with a half-choked cry.

Roland sheathed it quickly. “Ah! I'm sorry for that. I didn't expect—”

“Didn't you?” The question was so bitter, the eyes,
blinking still and running with tears of pain, so sharp with resentment that Roland stood astonished. Then Pepin shook himself and laughed, a little painfully, and said lightly enough, “Such a weapon! You don't even need the edge—you can kill with the light glancing off the blade.”

Maybe Roland had imagined the resentment—no, more than that: hatred. Maybe it had been meant for the sword, and not for himself. He chose to take it so, for comfort's sake. “I saw you fighting in the melee,” he said. “You fought well.”

“Our side lost,” said Pepin, but he seemed little enough moved by it. He shrugged. “Ah well. Everyone knows how great a warrior you are. My father most of all. I don't think anybody was surprised that you won the sword.”

“I was lucky,” Roland said.

“God willed it,” said Pepin. “We could all see that. My father, too. He's not angry at all, that you defeated him.”

“The king is a magnanimous man,” Roland said.

“So should we all be,” said Pepin. “Go and rest, my lord. You've well earned it.”

Roland was hardly minded to disobey, or to resent the dismissal, either. In truth he was a little relieved. He had never been able to like Pepin.

Rather too late, he remembered a thing that had been niggling at him. Pepin in the crowd before the melee, standing close by Ganelon. Standing with the old serpent as . . . pupil to master?

Oh, no. Surely Charles would not have allowed that.

And why not? Charles could not know what Ganelon was. No one did. They all thought him a cold man and odd, but a good priest, learned and wise. Why should he not be chosen to teach the king's son?

It was too late to catch Pepin, to ask him if it was true—if he was Ganelon's pupil. The prince was gone.

Roland could not go to Charles now. He had nothing, no proof, only the certainty in the bones of his magic, from the moment he looked on that pale wise face, that this seeming priest was the ancient sorcerer, the enemy of the Grail.

Tonight he would do what he could. Today, by the king's command, was his own. There were already people coming toward him, smiling, calling to him, besetting him with their mingling of envy and admiration. He turned aside from the
path he had been taking toward the king's tent, slipped down a line of tents and dived into the arm of the wood that touched on the end of it.

He had not done such a thing in—years? Indeed. Since the first year he was in the king's court, when for loneliness and sheer homesickness he had run away more than once. Then Olivier befriended him, pressing at him until he was friend and brother in spite of himself, and Turpin made three of them, and between those two he found himself among the king's Companions. Then there was no running away. He was one of them, brother among brothers, and that other part of him was put aside.

She had brought it back—Sarissa, with her wonder of a sword. The sword rested like a familiar hand across his back. The amulet lay warm and strangely heavy on his breast. It was hers, he knew as enchanters know. It had come from her. Its warmth was the warmth of her presence.

He ran light as a young wolf through the thicket of trees. Somewhat within, out of sight of the tent-city, one of the myriad springs bubbled from a rock and ran down in a bright rill. The magic of wood and water danced in his blood.

He left his garments by the rill, hidden under a stone, and the sword buried beneath them. Even as his being shifted and changed, became air and winged swiftness, he remembered the amulet. It swung against his breast, brushing the soft hawk's feathers. He made a sound in his throat, a hawk-sound, that might almost have been laughter. He leaped into the blue heaven.

Freedom was beautiful, glorious. But the man's spirit ruled the hawk's. It brought him back well before the sun set. He was replete with the succulent flesh of a rabbit, and weary, but pleasurably so, with flying high and far. The return to human shape was a bit more of a shock than it usually was: bruises, cuts, cracked ribs, all reminded him forcibly of the battle he had won.

He dressed with care, moving stiffly, but never regretting his long hours' flight. His head was clear, his heart light. He knew what he would do. He would speak to Charles of Ganelon, and tell him the truth; all of it, however difficult,
however dangerous. He would trust the king, whom after all he had sworn to serve.

As he laced up his tunic, a flicker of movement caught his eye. He paused. The wood was still. His ears sharpened. Was there a faint, the very faintest hint of indrawn breath?

He moved again with careful casualness, to finish dressing, to sling the sword on its baldric. Someone was watching. Had that person seen him—had he, or she, seen the change?

He bent to dip a handful of cold springwater. The watcher moved—toward him, not away. He gathered himself. Very carefully his hand crept toward the knife at his belt.

Leaves rustled. A supple body slipped between a pair of tree-boles.

He gaped like a fool. For an instant he thought it was she; Sarissa. But this was a taller, slighter shape, and darker, more evidently Saracen. She carried a jar, as if she had come to fetch water; but this spring was a long way from the Saracens' camp.

She smiled at him, long lids lowered over great dark eyes, dark lashes brushing the cream-smooth cheeks. Oh, she was beautiful, this infidel woman, lissome and light, swaying like a young tree in the wind. There was gold on her brows and her fingers, and clashing rings of it on her slender wrists and her delicate ankles.

This one must be a Saracen's prized possession—perhaps the emir's himself. Every fear Roland had had when he first saw Sarissa, he well should have now. Yet they were alone, and she had all too clearly come seeking diversion. And he had not lain with a woman in longer than he liked to remember.

The hawk's mind was still foremost, the man's not yet returned to full strength. A hawk took what he pleased, when it pleased him. When the falcon came into her season, he was ready; he mated.

This woman wanted him. Her smile was full of desire. She ran the tip of her tongue over her red lips and swayed toward him. She let slip the mantle that covered her.

She was naked beneath it, her skin white and rich as cream. Even as slender as she was, her breasts were round and full. Her belly was a sweet curve. Her sex was plucked
smooth—so that was true, that traveler's tale. It was white and round, the nether lips just visible, as red as her mouth.

She danced for him, serpent-supple, gliding over the forest mould. Long rays of sun illumined her, casting bars of light and shadow across that face and that wonder of a body.

His own body was burning, his manly parts in outright pain. There was no thought in his head but to take what she so freely, so irresistibly offered. A very distant flicker of sanity cried to him to run, but even as he thought of it, she had him in her arms. She smelled of spices, and of something darker, closer to earth. Her lips fastened on his. Her body wound itself about him.