The Black Chalice (7 page)

FIVE

Karelian

Therefore I find no love in Heaven, no light, no beauty,
A Heaven taken by storm, where none are left but the slain.

From the Arabic —
translated by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

* * *

Her hair was black mist shrouding her face, black silk whispering across his flesh. Somewhere, far away in the world, it was midday and winter. Here there was neither time nor season, only a small sheltered chamber in a castle which did not exist, and a spent fire dissolving in his blood, and this strange, enchanting creature lying in his arms.

And a question. The question which desire always silenced, and which caution always posed again.
What place is this, and what manner of woman are you, and where will all of this end?

His hand played in her hair, slid down the smooth valley of her back. Lovely, he thought, so utterly lovely…. He was worse than a boy, unable to keep his eyes off her, or his hands; and recklessly unwilling to think about the consequences. He had smiled sometimes at other men who fell like this— mature men who should have known better, tangled up in the smiles of a pretty courtesan, or risking land and life for the caresses of some other man’s wife. More than once he had played the prudent friend, advising a prudent retreat. It had all been babbling in the wind. And so it would be now, if his own friends came with the same excellent and utterly useless advice.

“What must I do,” he murmured, “to make you tell me your name?”

She propped herself on one elbow and played a taloned finger softly across his cheek.

“My true name? Only the Nine know it, and one or two others. But I have a pet name my mother gave me. She said she was tired of chanting an invocation every time she wanted me to come to supper, or get down out of a tree. She called me Raven.” She paused, studying him. “You find that strange, Karel. Why?”

He considered evading the question. For hours he had been telling her about his life, and she told him very little in return.

“I went to see a wise man in the Holy Land, in the city of Acre—”

“The great mage of Acre,” she broke in. “I’ve heard of him. Is he as wise as they say?”

“Perhaps. He told me there were four things of great danger which lay in my path, and I should fear none of them. Dread neither forests, he said, nor dead men, nor ravens, nor storm.”

He did not think it was easy to surprise a witch, but he appeared to have just done so.

“That’s extraordinary,” she said.

“You don’t… communicate with him, by any chance, do you?”

She laughed. And then, quite suddenly, she grew serious again— too serious, as though something hard and bitter had moved into her thoughts.

“Things become known in the world, Karelian, by those who wish to know them. Such knowledge crosses boundaries, and passes easily through time and distance. And yet it is scattered knowledge; no one directs it, and no one can; it’s simply there, like stars and water. I’ve never spoken with the mage of Acre, nor sent him any messages, nor did he ever send anything to me. Whatever counsel he gave you came from his own wisdom.”

She spared him a small, melancholy smile.

“I am only half veela, Karelian. I was not above wishing I was wrong, wishing you might simply share my table and my bed, and ride away again, free. But if a wizard halfway across the world has helped to send you here….”

The words faltered and fell still. He observed, not for the first time, that she was no longer young. There was a world of experience in her eyes, and a hardness in the lines of her mouth— a hardness which laughter and graciousness mostly hid, but which he knew would always be there, always in reach if she needed it.

It troubled him, but it did not make him want her less.

“I had hoped to capture a valiant knight, my lord of Lys. I think perhaps I’ve captured something better.”

He shoved her away and got to his feet. “That’s a compliment with a knife in its teeth, lady.”

Captured….
Well, what had he expected? Sorcerers never lured men into their realms of power except to use them or destroy them. Any child could have told him as much. Reinhard had warned him. Poor Pauli, too loyal and too frightened to protest, had followed him shivering with fear.

Yet he had come here almost without hesitation, with his head up and his banners flying. He had never been afraid of it, not really, not even now. Was that sorcery too? Or was it something in himself, something so ravaged and so angry at the world that risks of any sort no longer mattered much?

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked bitterly.

“To save the Reinmark,” she said. “If it can yet be saved.”

All along she had been evasive and indirect; this sudden frank statement astonished him.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid her feet gracefully into her sandals. She picked up the soft, shimmering garments abandoned on the floor, and pulled them on— like an autumn moon, he thought, full and wanton, drawing around herself whispers of cloud, so shamelessly beautiful that ordinary common sense and judgment, and all those other things a man depended on, simply failed him. They tinkled to a stop like tired bells, and all he wanted to do was look at her.

She swept her gold belt around her waist, knotted it, and confronted him.

“Do you intend to accompany me through the halls of Car-Iduna stark naked, my lord count?”

“My apologies, lady. I didn’t know I was expected to accompany you anywhere.”

She stood, one hand on her hip, watching him. He was unconscionably pleased by the admiration in her eyes.

“Now that I think about it,” she said, “it might not be a bad idea. Consider what it would do for my prestige.”

“More, I fear, than it would do for mine.” Her hair was still tangled from sleep and pleasure, and his hands found their way into it all by themselves.
Christ, I am as defenseless as a baby….

“Will you tell me the truth, Raven of Car-Iduna? What do you want from me?”

She did not smile. “Everything,” she said. “Everything you have in exchange for everything you want. Come.”

She led him to the chamber which lay next to the great hall. It was, as he had guessed, a pagan shrine. In the center was a high dais, where the Black Chalice stood alone, dark, yet almost incandescent. Below was a stone altar with many carefully arranged objects: colored stones, sea shells, pieces of polished wood twisted into strange shapes. And among them, a small onyx cup, shaped like the great urn and crusted with jewels; over the top of it lay a splendid curved horn.

The horn in my throat, and my blood in the cup… is this how it ends? What a wicked irony, for a man who marched to Jerusalem and spilled so much blood for a different god….

“I didn’t bring you here to lop your head off, Karelian, but if you continue to scowl at me, I might consider it.”

He forced himself to smile. “I’ve never scowled at a pretty woman in my life. I merely find all of this… surprising.”

“I can’t imagine why. You’ve already contemplated all the awful possibilities. That I’m a demon, a vampire, a succubus, a lamia… have I forgotten anything? Men are wonderfully inventive with such notions! All of it has crossed your mind, my lord, has it not?”

“Yes. Briefly. A man isn’t responsible for every thought which might run across his mind.”

“And what do you think now?”

“That you are still the loveliest, most desirable creature I’ve ever seen.”

She smiled. “I must say I admire your poise.”

She picked up the chalice and the horn, murmuring, raised them four times, to each corner of the world, and placed them back on the altar.

“You asked me who I am, Karelian. I am three things: guardian of the Reinmark, keeper of the Grail of Life which Maris brought here from the vale of Dorn, and high priestess of Car-Iduna. I brought you here to make a bargain with you.”

She paused, her mouth crinkling with amusement. “It’s not what you think. I don’t bargain for my bed— at least not very often, and never with a man like you.”

“Why not with a man like me?” he asked, offended.

“Because I would find myself content with pleasure, and forget to ask for anything else. My bed you have for a gift, and willingly. But my protection and my power— those are different matters. If you want to have those, you must pledge me your loyalty, and acknowledge my gods.”

“Neither of those things is possible, my lady.”

“Are they not? How truly do you believe in your Christ— the Christ for whose sake Jerusalem was drowned in blood?”

He looked away, to the spill of winter light falling from a curved window.

“I don’t know what I believe,” he said heavily. “But however many doubts I have about Christ, I have as many about Odin.”

“Odin?” She made a small, dismissive gesture. “Odin is an upstart. He’s like most of the sky-riders— Zeus and Yahweh and your bachelor Father Eternal, and now Allah, too, as if we needed another one. They’re like spoiled princes, racing their chariots across the world, full of threats and vanity and blood-lust. I serve better gods than that, Karel.”

He waited.

“The Vanir,” she went on, “the ancient earth gods; and those of the high Aesir who still remember that sky belongs to earth, and is nothing but emptiness without it. Gods of the herds and the hunt, of the fields and the fires. Gods of love and pleasure, and of the winter tree which never dies. They aren’t always gentle, but they don’t destroy men just to prove they can.”

He watched her, silent. Priestess, she had called herself, an alien word in a Christian world, so strange it lingered in the mind long after the conversation had moved to other things. Sorceress was a word a Christian recognized, yes, and catalogued instinctively, without needing to think about it. But what was a priestess? And who were these gods she claimed to serve? Were they true gods, or were they demons? Indeed, were they real at all, and would it ever be possible to know?

He had wondered about such things in his later youth, in the years before all the gods began to seem unworthy of their divinity. He had been raised staunchly Christian, as the children of the aristocracy mostly were. And he had been a bright lad, eager to excel in learning as in everything else; the teachings had gone deep. But all around him the pagan world still lingered and whispered under its breath. Men might cross themselves at the crying of a raven, but they watched its circling path for omens nonetheless. They wore holy medals and heathen charms on the same thongs around their necks. They sang the songs of the old gods, and told their stories, and claimed them as founders of the race.

Some Christians said it was all foolish superstition. Others called it evil, a dangerous flirting with old, demonic powers. A long time ago he had wondered which opinion was correct. Now both seemed inadequate and self-serving.

The priestess spoke again.

“Whatever powers we choose to serve, Karel, those are the powers we unleash in the world. Pagan or Christian alike; it doesn’t matter; if the lords of heaven must always have their own way, and kill and wreak havoc to get it, the lords of earth will do the same. Odin has his place, but it was a small place once, and it should have stayed small. I acknowledge him, because he’s there. But I do not call him All-father, because he isn’t. And I bring my gifts to others. To Iduna of the golden apples, and to Tyr, who was earthmate and high lord of the Germans before Thor and Odin ever came here. They call him Aesir, too, but he’s of a far older breed, and proved it.

“Do you know the story of Tyr, Karelian? Do you remember what happened when the gods of Asgard went to bind the Fenris wolf, the monster Loki fathered on himself?”

“Yes,” he said. He knew the story; everyone did. It was Tyr who fed the monster when he was small, because no one else had the courage to go near him. And when Fenrir grew to be evil and dangerous, so was it Tyr who undid his power.

Loki’s wolf-creature grew mean and strong— so dreadfully strong he might soon destroy the world. The gods brought different kinds of ropes to bind him, teasing him about his strength, wagering he could not break free. He always won. Only the last rope was different, a slender cord, woven from the sound of a cat’s footfall, and the beard of a woman, and the roots of a mountain, and many other things, woven in great secrecy, and with such skill that none of those things was ever seen again within the world. Fenrir was wary, and made them all swear an oath: if he failed to break the cord, they must take his wager and set him free. But even then he did not trust them.
Very well,
he said,
you may bind me. But one of you must first put your hand into my mouth.

“And not one of them would do it,” Raven said scornfully. “Odin the great fighter and Thor the great boaster and Loki the great liar all stood by, and looked at each other. Someone else could do it, sweet heaven— what would Thor be if he couldn’t pound his mighty hammer, or Odin if he couldn’t wield his sword? And so Tyr put his hand into the beast’s mouth, knowing he would lose it. And they bound Fenrir, and so he will be bound till the end of time. But it hardly made a tale for the drinking halls of Valhalla. No great battle there, no fields of dead. No glory in such a small, precious sacrifice. Tyr walks lonely in the world now.”