Kingdom of the Grail (2 page)

“Then in his stronghold, amid his armies of demons and spirits of the dark, he heard a rumor, a whisper, a tale brought in scattered fragments from the world's heart. The Messiah had come to Jerusalem, or so it was said. He had come, and lived as the most mortal of men, and died as a criminal, hung on a cross.

“And that, said the messengers who brought this word to the world's end, was preposterous; and yet it seemed to be true. For the light is incalculable, and its ways are not mortal ways, and it does as it pleases to do, beyond reason or sense or logic.

“The sorcerer would have regarded this as a curiosity, a fine tale for a long night, except for the rumor that came with it. It was even more fragmentary than the word of the Messiah—who after all was but the incarnation of a minor deity in a very small province of the Roman Empire. And Rome, as every seer knew, was about to destroy that province utterly, and scatter its people to the winds of the world.

“Still, the rumor was this: that before the god's son died, he had celebrated a feast of sacrifice. He had offered up a cup of his own blood, blood of a god, in token of the life that would be given thereafter. And that, as any mage knew, was the greatest of sacrifices, the divine sacrifice, that could redeem or destroy the world.

“Others before him had done this. Osiris, Tammuz, the Green King—their blood bound the chains of earth and
heaven, and strengthened the light in its long battle against the dark. But none of them had left behind a relic, a remembrance, a vessel that had held his blood. That vessel was in the hands of a man of Jerusalem, or so it was said; it was kept hidden, perhaps in ignorance of its power.

“For power it had, beyond any instrument of magic that had been in this world. It belonged to the light, but it was not necessarily of the light. In the hands of a master of the dark, it would be a great weapon, and a mighty force for destruction.

“The sorcerer wanted it. He wanted it as he had wanted nothing in all the long ages of his life—even more strongly than he had wanted to live forever. He wanted this thing, the cup of a god's blood. He wanted it, and he set out to take it.

“And he could not win it. It was taken out of Jerusalem in its fall, when the Temple burned and Roman armies trampled the holy places. It was spirited away, hidden from him, taken to the far edge of the world, even to the isle of Britain. And there he found it, but he could not win it. It was too well protected.

“He wielded every sleight and wile and power at his disposal. He put on the semblance of mortal man: first a priest of the Romans, then a Druid of the Britons. But this cup, this Grail as it was called in Britain, was kept from him, and hidden away where he could not find it.

“Then at last he conceived a plan. He found a woman, a meek vessel as he thought her. He summoned a demon, a prince of his master's court, to lie with her and get a child on her. For he could not do this himself, much as he might wish to: that was another price of his deathlessness, to forsake all pleasure of woman's body, and all hope of getting children. But the demon whom he summoned put on his face, his semblance of supernal beauty, and so seduced the woman.

“In the passing of time she bore a son, a child without a father, a strange inhuman creature whose every breath was magic.”

“You,” said Roland. “That was you.”

“Yes,” said Merlin. “I was that child, wrought by a sorcerer to seize the Grail. But he had underestimated my mother. She was a princess of Gwynedd, a redoubtable
woman even in her youth, and she was a Druid and the daughter of Druids. She raised me as she saw fit, and that was in the light; and when my creator came to claim me, I was already corrupted. My mother had warned me what to expect, and advised me to betray as little of myself as possible. Therefore I seemed a biddable young thing, and dull, so that the sorcerer decided in the end to leave me where I was—but aware of his presence, and ready to do as he bade me, whenever he should have need of me.

“Which in time he did. He used me to make a king as he had done so often before: to raise up Uther as king over Britain, and to seduce him with the lady of Cornwall, and thus to beget Arthur. Arthur was to be his puppet, his kingly servant.

“But I was my mother's son, and from the very beginning I was Arthur's man. I loved him, both the child he was and the king I foresaw. I swore a great oath before the gods, that I would keep him in the light, and never surrender him to the darkness.

“So did I betray my maker twice over. I was not the meek slave he had wrought me to be, nor was my Arthur the puppet king that he was to have been. We had defied him, and worse, succeeded—and made him our bitter enemy.

“It was he who sent the vision of the Grail into Arthur's warband, and so broke the fellowship in its obsession with the quest. And it was he who seduced Nimue and set her to betray me; but she woke to the truth too late, and knew what she had done. She could not free me, but she could protect Arthur, and did, as much as she might. His kingdom fell, but his soul was saved; and his son, who was to have been the sorcerer's puppet, was slain by Arthur's own hand.

“As for the Grail, which was the cause of it all, it was indeed almost betrayed into the sorcerer's hands. He found it in its hiding place in the kingdom of Montsalvat, in a fortress called Carbonek, protected by nine enchantresses and by a brotherhood of holy warriors ruled by a Druid king. The sorcerer corrupted the king's son, maimed and nigh destroyed him. But when the Grail was all but in his grasp, one of Arthur's own warband came bearing the power of the light, and so saved the prince
and the fortress and the Grail. The sorcerer was cast down by the might of the Grail. His beauty was rent from him, and much of his strength. The Grail was saved. The light had conquered.

“But it was too late for me,” Merlin said, “or for Nimue, whom I still loved. Poor child, she was racked with guilt. She swore to guard me, and bound our daughter to it, too. I would not have permitted that, but she was careful to do it where I could not prevent her.

“For she was convinced that as greatly diminished as our old enemy was, he was not dead; and he would look for me, to destroy me if he could, for I had betrayed him in everything that I did. I had raised Arthur in the light, I had won over Nimue—and yes, I had taught that young warrior, too, the one called Parsifal, so that he came to Montsalvat and redeemed its prince, and saved the Grail. He had a fair store of magic, did Parsifal. His forefathers had brought the Grail out of Jerusalem before its fall; and Nimue was his mother's child, his own sister.”

“You taught him deliberately, then,” said Roland. “You knew what he would be.”

“Ah,” said Merlin, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “I take no credit for that. The gods—or God, if you will—had rather more to do with it than I did. But he was a good pupil. Not as good as his sister, or for that matter as you are, but good enough in the end. He nearly failed, you know. When he came to Montsalvat, his foresight abandoned him. He was silent when he should have spoken, and shrank back when he should have been bold. But for that, the sorcerer would never have found the Grail's hiding place at all.”

“But because he did,” Roland said, “he was destroyed. Wasn't it a good thing, then, that Parsifal did seem to fail?”

“Some would call it blind luck,” Merlin said. “I call it the gods' hand—and their humor, too, maybe.”

“You are not a Christian,” Roland said, as if he had not realized it long before.

Merlin laughed—and that was something, too, that he had not done in long ages before this child came to disturb his peace. “I am half a devil, boy. Do you think the Church would have me?”

Roland's eyes narrowed. His head tilted. He was not
laughing, but his eyes were glinting. “I think,” he said after a while, “that it would try to exorcise you.”

“It would indeed,” Merlin said.

“And yet you believe in the Grail.”

“I believe that it held the blood of a god. The Messiah, if you will. So yes, I believe that your Christ is the son of your God. And he is a face of the light, which I do my best to serve, though I am half a child of the dark.”

“That's how she bound you,” Roland said. “That's how she did it. She laid the binding on the dark half of you. But she couldn't destroy you—which is what he wanted, isn't it? He wanted you dead and worse than dead. She loved you; and you are half of the light. That half saved your life.”

“Such a life,” said Merlin.

“You'd rather be dead and in hell?”

“Not likely,” Merlin said.

“I will free you,” Roland said. “However long it takes me, whatever it costs me. I will set you free.”

“You need not bind yourself to that,” said Merlin. “I earned this captivity; I had sins enough, when all was told.”

Roland tossed his head in refusal. “You did not! I will break the spell. That I swear to you. And if I fail, may the earth gape and swallow me, may the sky fall and crush me, may the sea rise up and devour my bones.”

Merlin flung up a hand. But it was too late—as it had been for Nimue. The great oath rolled out of that slender body, made all the more mighty by the strength of the boy's magic. Magic that he had inherited in full measure from Merlin, and from Nimue, who was of the blood of the Grail: light and darkness melded in him, so strong and so fierce and so headlong that even Merlin could not stop or slow him.

Roland had bound himself in ways that he could not begin to understand. Not only to Merlin, but to all that Merlin had done, both good and ill. And—

“Child,” Merlin said in the vast silence after the oath, “be wary. Oh, be wary! The sorcerer who made me, who through your foremother bound me, is still alive. He is still powerful, though never what he was before Parsifal cast him down. That is why I was guarded—as the Grail was, to protect me from him. That is why Nimue and our daughter and our granddaughter stayed hidden here. We are all safe
in this place, as the Grail is safe in its stronghold. But if we are betrayed—if the sorcerer finds us—”

“Let him find us,” said Roland in the arrogance of his youth. “He's grown weak. We're strong. And maybe, if he's destroyed forever, all magics that he made will be destroyed, too. And that will free you from your prison.”

“Child,” Merlin began, but he could not go on. He should have known. He should have waited till the boy was older to tell him this of all stories—till the boy was a man, and preferably a man of ample years. Youth knew no restraint, and despised prudence.

But it was done, and could not be undone. Nor was Roland strong enough yet to break the spell. Maybe he would never be—and maybe the enemy would never find him. Even when, as he must, he went out into the world; when he took up the lordship that was his by right, and stood up before his peers and his king, and made himself known to them by name and face.

Merlin caught himself praying for that, to a god for whom he had had little use before: the boy's own God, the God of the Christians, who ruled now in this part of the world. Merlin doubted that one of all stiff-necked and narrow-minded divinities would listen to the son of a devil, but he prayed nonetheless, for the boy's sake—this boy whom, day by day and year by year, he had come to love. That he would be safe. That the enemy would not find him. And that his oath not rise up to destroy him, that oath he had sworn in the fullness of his heart, and so bound himself beyond any unbinding.

Unless his God could set him free.
Keep me bound if you must,
Merlin prayed,
but let him be free. God of the Israelites, Lord of the Grail—let him be free.

CHAPTER 1

O
livier had won the toss for the girl. Turpin, who never played, and Roland, who often won, lingered for a while outside the tent. The rest of the king's Companions had wandered off in search of other amusement—and another woman, too, if that was to be had.

It was still broad daylight, though the shadows were lengthening. The warmth of early spring was giving way to a creeping chill. Turpin shivered. Roland tossed a new log on the fire, feeding it till it swelled to a respectable blaze. He stayed there on one knee while the sounds from the tent swelled to a crescendo. The girl, a strapping Saxon, was loudly enthusiastic.

Turpin opened his mouth to remark on it, but shut it again after a moment. Roland seemed lost in a dream, or in contemplation of something very far away from this royal assembly of the Franks. The fire cast ruddy light on his face and lost itself in his eyes. Such odd eyes, yellow as a hawk's. Sometimes he did not look human at all.

He raised a hand idly, slipping it in among the flames. They licked his fingers. He stroked them as a woman pets her cat. They purred as a cat purrs, leaping, curling about his hand, arching under his palm.

Turpin set his lips together carefully. Equally carefully, and with an effort, he turned his eyes away. Roland was not as other men were. All the Companions knew it; and none
of them said a word. Roland was their brother, their comrade in arms. They would not betray him.

Roland came to himself all at once, and rose so quickly that Turpin started. Roland was still oblivious to the man beside him, or seemed to be, until he said, “Something's coming.”

Turpin frowned. There were always people coming and going where the king was—and here, at Paderborn, in the forests of newly conquered Saxony, the whole might of the kingdom had gathered. People came from all over the world to speak with or present petitions or offer tribute or threaten war with the King of the Franks.

But Roland meant something else—something alarming, from the look of him. He was striding away already, aiming toward the middle of what was now little more than a camp; but in time it would be a fortress, a strong holding amid the Saxon forests.

The shape of the citadel was cleared, the line of its walls marked out. Most of the camp spread outside of it, but the king's tent stood in its center, and he sat in front of it, holding audience and judging disputes. Roland was well on his way there before Turpin mustered wits to follow.

Turpin's longer legs brought him level soon enough. Roland glanced at him and let slip the flicker of a smile. Turpin suppressed a sigh. People who said the Count of the Breton Marches was a witch did not know the half of it.

Jehan Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, Companion and battle-brother of the King of the Franks, preferred not to ponder too many complexities when it came to his friends. If that made him a bad priest, then so be it. God would judge; and, Turpin hoped, be merciful.

He followed Roland in among the crowd that was always present where the king was. Roland was not a small man, but he was lighter built than Franks tended to be. He could slip through gaps too narrow for a man of Turpin's bulk, and make his way all but unnoticed to a place almost within reach of the king. Turpin had to push and thrust and trample toes to do the same.

Rank had its privileges—and episcopal garb cut short many a curse. Turpin smiled sweetly at the most irate, and stared down one idiot who would have drawn blade—here, in front of the king, where he could have his throat slit for
thinking of it—and settled in some contentment just in back of Roland.

Charles the king sat in a chair that he had brought up last year from Rome: a very old chair, a curule chair, such as consuls had sat in when the Empire was alive. It was a chair with broad aspirations, which was fortunate, for Charles was a large man. A giant, the Romans had thought him, as tall as he was, and as broad, and as manifestly strong. Those shoulders could heft a whole ox, and those arms wield a great sword for half the day.

The late sun glimmered on his hair. Bright gold when he was a boy, it was early going silver. What gold was left in it matched the metal of his crown. He sat with chin on fist, frowning at the intricacies of a contention between a pair of freemen.

On another day Turpin might have listened, for he found the law fascinating, and the king's grasp of it was remarkable. But Roland was not watching the king or the petitioners. His eyes were on those who waited their turn, still a sizable company though it was nearing sunset. Most were Franks, and a small number of those were noblemen. A pair of king's envoys stood off to the side, with a small retinue at their backs.

Roland had come to court a hand of years ago, somewhat after Turpin had last seen these two of the king's messengers. They had been away whenever the Companions were in attendance, running the king's errands through the south and west of Francia. It was unusual to see them here in the far reaches of the realm; they must bring news that could not wait for the king to make his way into their own country.

Roland was watching them with peculiar, almost alarming fixity. He looked like a hawk hunting its prey.

The freemen ended their wrangling at last. Charles pondered briefly, nodded, said to one of them, “You take the cow. He takes the calf. And have a care! If you try to take the calf back, I will know of it, and demand an accounting.”

Then they were dismissed, and his envoys from Aquitania had come forward, bowing low. Charles rose from his chair to greet them, pulling them erect, laughing and embracing them both. “Riquier! Father Ganelon! Well met, well met indeed! It's not bad news, I hope?”

“Not bad, sire,” said Riquier, “so much as interesting.”

“So?” said Charles. He laid an arm about the shoulders of each. “Here, let me finish here, then we'll eat. Then you can tell me everything.”

Riquier grinned. He was a big florid man, very fond of his wine and his meat—and of a willing woman, too, by all accounts. Ganelon the priest beside him seemed a grey shadow: small, thin, frail, with pallid hair thinning round the tonsure. Only his eyes had any color or substance to them. They were long and dark, hooded under heavy lids. He leaned on the arm of a man whom Turpin recalled as a kinsman of his—brother or nephew—and rested within the protection of two more like the first. They were as gaunt as he, robed as monks, and their faces were empty of expression. As far as Turpin knew, none of the three had ever spoken a word.

Roland gripped Turpin's arm so tightly that Turpin's breath caught with the pain. “That one,” he said, low and harsh. “What is he?”

“That's Father Ganelon,” Turpin said, “the king's counselor. He comes from somewhere in Italy, he and his kinsmen. He's not much to look at, but he's skilled in keeping the king's peace. The king trusts him.”

“Italy? He comes from Italy?”

“Somewhere in—Apulia? Cumae?”

Roland laughed, sharp and short. “Oh, yes. I would believe that he comes from the gates of hell.”

“Come now,” Turpin said. “Pretty he is not. But he can hardly be a devil.”

“The Devil may quote Scripture,” Roland said. He slipped under Turpin's arm and was gone, vanished in the crowd of Franks.

“And aren't you a fine one to speak of devils,” Turpin muttered to the place where his friend had been.

Roland heard that. His ears were keen—too keen for comfort, sometimes. But he heard no anger in the archbishop's voice. Turpin was remarkably supple of mind for a priest. Whatever he guessed, whatever he knew, he kept to himself.

Roland's flight took him almost out of the tent-city, down the little river that flowed from myriad springs, to
the edge of the horselines. The pack animals grazed in a herd, but the warhorses, the big fierce stallions, were tethered one by one near the water's edge. They called to Roland as he came, cries of recognition, welcome, the occasional challenge. He grinned at that, in spite of his heart's trouble.

His own stallion grazed midway down the line, between Olivier's massive bay and Turpin's fine red chestnut. Veillantif was his name. He was not as tall as some, but neither was Roland; and he was a grey, dappled like the moon. His sire had been one of the king's own stallions. His dam had come from Spain, where the horses were the most beautiful in the world. He had his sire's strength and his dam's beauty, and a swift intelligence that delighted Roland beyond measure.

He greeted Roland with a flutter of the nostrils and a toss of the head, pawing imperiously for the bit of sweet cake that he knew Roland would have for him. Roland leaned against the high arched neck and for a little while simply breathed. The temptation to put off his human semblance was so strong that he almost could not bear it. He felt the shifting within, the blurring of his edges. It was all too easy in this place of living waters, in the embrace of the ancient wood.

With an effort of will he stopped it. Now of all times he must not yield to temptation. He must be master of his magic, and of his heart, too.

“He has come,” he said to Veillantif in the old tongue of the Bretons. “The old one, the evil one—he is here. He is
here
.”

Veillantif snorted and nosed at Roland's tunic, searching for another bit of cake. Ancient evil meant little to him. Sweet cake was here, and it was now, and he wanted it.

Roland sighed. If he had wanted to wallow in terror, he would not have come to this place. He smoothed a tangle in the stallion's long pale mane. He had to think, and think quickly. But first he had to know where to begin.

The guards were talking, out past the line of stallions. Two of the four rode the edges as they should, but the others idled for a while in the shade of a young oak. Roland's ears caught a name, as if the thought had conjured it: “Ganelon? Yes, he's here, and Riquier, too. They're running just ahead of their news. Spain has sent an embassy.”

“What, the infidels?” drawled his brother. If Roland had not known better, he would have thought the man had drunk too deep of Saxon ale, but few in the king's army were fool enough to do that while on watch. Charles was merciless toward drunkards.

This one was lazy by nature, that was all, and disinclined to exert himself for anything so trivial as an embassy from heathen Spain.

“The infidels,” the elder brother agreed. “It seems they need our king to settle a dispute.”

“Everyone wants our king to do that,” said the younger. “Now tell me something that matters. Tell me there will be a woman in our bed tonight.”

“Not much chance of that,” the elder sighed. “The lords have taken what few there are. Me, I'd give gold if I had any, to get me a fine wanton Saxon with long yellow braids.”

They yearned together, at length and in tedious detail. Roland pondered what they had said. Spain? A quarrel among infidels? Surely that was not enough to have brought two royal envoys so far out of their accustomed round. There must be more. Something had brought the enemy here. Merlin's enemy, the enemy of the Grail.

Roland shuddered, clinging to the warm solidity of Veillantif's neck. He tried to laugh at himself. He was a lord, a prince, a warrior of renown; and he was an enchanter, if a very young and foolish one. And when at last he set eyes on the one against whom he had sworn the mightiest of oaths, he had run in sheer mindless terror.

He could tell himself that it was more surprise than fear; more astonishment than cowardice. He had not looked to find the enemy here. There were kings enough in the world, and princes, too. The Lombards, the Saxons, the Gascons, the Basques, the infidels in Spain—any or all of them could have fallen under the enemy's spell. But not Charles. Not Roland's bright strong king.

Part of him cried out to rise up, raise all his magics, destroy the sorcerer. But he was not a child any longer. He was a man, and a man knew his limits. He was not strong enough. And if he flung himself into the battle regardless, if he lost his life and his soul in challenging an enemy who, even vastly weakened, was still far stronger than he, then
everything was lost, given up to the enemy. Merlin in his prison in Broceliande. Charles the king on his throne. All the bright realm of Francia, and all the realms that Charles might come to rule.

Wisdom was a bitter thing. His heart called it cowardice. He thrust it down and set his foot on it. He would fulfill his oath. But not now.