Kingdom of the Grail (27 page)

The serpent-creature hissed. Pepin realized that he was laughing. “What, are you bidding me follow my brothers into the void? Gladly would I do that, but it will avail you nothing against that one.”

Ganelon's fingers tightened. The creature's cheeks had gone somewhat dusky, but his expression never changed. “That is a child,” Ganelon said. “A boy. A mortal man's son. How can you fear him?”

“No fear,” said Siglorel, a bare breath of sound. “Go, look, see him with your eyes. See what he is.”

“I know what he is,” Ganelon gritted.

The hairless head shook. “Go and see,” said Siglorel.

With a hiss of disgust, Ganelon let the creature fall. Siglorel dropped bonelessly, and lay like a dead thing. Ganelon stepped over him, seemed to forget him, left him unheeded behind.

Pepin followed the sorcerer. It was a fool's act, or a madman's, but he was full of himself still. He was strong. He was invincible. Not even Roland could touch him.

Roland was with the king, flaunting the royal favor in that way he had, as if it mattered nothing to him at all. Ganelon slipped in among the clerks, silent, all but invisible. Pepin, who had no such fortune—there was never any hiding his hump, or the face so like the king's—chose to hide in plain sight, in a clutter of courtiers. If he stood just so, and wore his face just so, he could make it seem that he had been there from the beginning. Pepin the cripple, Pepin the fool, could never have been sacking cities or burning churches. Oh, no, not Pepin.

He watched Ganelon watch Roland. The sorcerer's face was as opaque as a wall of stone, but Pepin had learned to read stone. He saw how the long eyes narrowed, how the
thin mouth tightened. The white fingers wove strands of air, mingling light and shadow under cover of his robe. He flung them like a net, invisible except to eyes that could see.

Roland did not seem to move, but the net slipped past him, never touching him. For an instant Pepin saw no man at all but a figure of light, and on its breast a living star.

He covered his eyes against the power of it. The fire he had raised was nothing to what lived in that shape of almost-mortal flesh.

When Pepin could see again, he looked for Ganelon. He was almost surprised to find him. The sorcerer stood as if rooted. He had seen it, Pepin thought: the thing that Siglorel had willed him to see. What he thought of it, what he would do, Pepin could not tell. But he would learn. He was Ganelon's eyes, and sometimes, now, his hands. Ganelon would use him again against Roland.

It was not the revenge he had looked for. But it was better than none at all.

CHAPTER 30

T
he sack of Pamplona was the Franks' farewell to Spain. Laden with its wealth and sated with its suffering, they rode into the mountains. Already their hearts were in Francia. If they could have flown, they would have done it, the sooner to be back again.

Roland, who could fly if he chose, chose to be earthbound, to be human. He was the commander of the rearguard, protecting the king's back. Charles had little fear of attack; Spain was as glad to be rid of him as he was to be rid of it. But they posted guards in the nights and sent out scouts by day, as an army should.

The flat brown plain was far behind them. The mountains rose like a wall. Deep valleys plunged down beneath the mountains, dark and shadowed with trees. The road wound from ridge to forest and back again, from high harsh sunlight to green shade.

When Roland had come down this way into Spain, he had ridden in joyous anticipation. Now, in what was not defeat but was not victory either, it seemed to him that the woods were full of eyes.

Not all the eyes were hostile, but by no means all were friendly. Roland's back tightened as he rode, last of all that long column. Nothing stirred behind, but his bones knew that there were watchers hidden in the trees and in the tumbled rocks of the peaks. The amulet on his breast was
strangely heavy, and warmer than his skin, though not quite burning.

This country was made for ambush. But whoever they were who watched the army, they were hidden from him.

He wondered often if one pair of those eyes belonged to Sarissa. He had not seen her since the night before they sacked Pamplona. Tarik came and went as he pleased, but he answered no questions, nor offered explanations. His presence reassured Roland in an odd way. It was as if she had left the
puca
as a gift and a promise. Wherever she had gone, she had gone of her own free will. She had some duty, some task which she must perform. When it was done, she would come back.

In the evening of the fifth day of the march into the mountains, when they camped in a valley somewhat broader and somewhat less densely wooded than the rest, Roland made his way through the trees to the center, where the king had pitched his tent. Charles was in council when Roland came, settling matters of the kingdom as he did every evening on the march. Roland settled quietly on the edges, watching and listening, doing nothing to attract notice.

Ganelon sat close by the king. Roland did not recall that that had been so before this march. The counsel that he gave was wise enough, as far as it went: dispositions of lands and benefices, assessment of taxes and tribute, and the army's dispersal once they came to Francia.

But as Roland listened, knowing what Ganelon was, it seemed that he heard more than simple goodwill in those soft sage words. There was something in the way he spoke, in the pattern of lands and taxes and fighting men—as if he were gathering them. As if—

It might be illusion. Ganelon had been the king's emissary in the west and south, and particularly in Gascony. It was well within his purview to advise the king on matters of that domain.

“Spain may be well pleased to be rid of us,” he said in his soft cold voice, “but it may also wish to assure that we never return. Gascony has been . . . difficult before. If it should ally with certain forces in Spain, there may be rebellion on your borders.”

“You have sure knowledge of this?” Turpin asked.

Ganelon's expression did not change, but he managed to
convey a clear sense of patience with the foolishness of children. “The Gascons are ever ready to cast off the Frankish yoke. Therefore, sire, I would advise, with due respect, that once you come over the mountains, you consider diverting a portion of your army thence.”

“A clear victory would not sit ill with the people,” observed Riquier, who had been Ganelon's fellow emissary among the Gascons.

Charles nodded. “Yes, I see that. But if I keep the men in arms once we enter Francia, after I promised them a return to their lands and their wives—”

“So they will,” said Ganelon, “but with the pride of victory and the booty of the Gascons. Who, whispers say, are very wealthy of late, enriched with infidel gold. It may be that you find them waiting when you come out of the mountains.”

“If they're waiting for me,” Charles said, “I'll meet them gladly.”

Ganelon inclined his head. He seemed pleased.

And why, Roland wondered, should that be? What did Ganelon have to gain from a Gascon war? Charles' heart? His spirit? Or more—the strength of Francia?

And there were eyes in the wood, and watchers on the mountaintops. What Roland had not felt in Spain, he felt here. Imminence. Danger, and the cold touch of death.

His amulet had warmed to burning. Death, if that was what it was, passed over him like a gust of wind. In the moment after its passing, he raised his eyes full into Ganelon's black and bottomless stare. It was like deep water. He could drown in it, if he had not been armored in light.

Ganelon knew him. All of him. It came as no surprise, and roused no fear. It had been inevitable from the moment the old serpent entered the royal camp in Paderborn.

Roland inclined his head the merest fraction. Ganelon moved not at all. And yet Roland knew that the lines were drawn. It had always been war between the old enemy and Merlin's children. Now there would be battle—if not this moment, then soon.

The council went on about lesser matters, without a decision as to the Gascons. Nor did Ganelon press for one. He could be patient; there were days of marching yet before the army descended into Francia.

Roland left a little while before Charles dismissed the council. The sun had set; the swift night was falling. The king's servants had prepared his bath, which he must have even in this remote place. Roland dismissed all of them.

Charles came to his tent while the water was still steaming hot. He greeted Roland with a swift smile and a raised brow. Roland matched the smile, and bowed. “Your bath, sire,” he said.

If ever one wanted to betray this man, Roland thought as he bathed the king, he could do it all too easily with the lure of water and cleanliness. Charles naked, alone, unarmed, all at ease in the basin, could die with a single stroke to the heart, and never know what had felled him.

But then, thought Roland, Charles was never a fool. This was great trust he gave his Companion, such trust as he gave seldom. Roland returned it by refraining from vexing the king while he luxuriated in his bath. When he emerged from it, scrubbed clean and wrapped in a robe of fine silk, he said, “Come, share the luxury. The water's still warm. I'll be your servant as you were mine.”

This was not a choice. It was a test of sorts. Roland acquiesced to it.

He stripped and stepped into the basin. Charles was a surprisingly good bodyservant: quick, thorough, and not too heavy-handed. Roland let himself melt into the water, and for a little while be all at ease, trusting utterly this man to whom he had sworn his life.

He might have fallen asleep, had Charles not caught him by the hair and drawn his head back. There was a razor at his throat, light and cold. He smiled into the round blue eyes. So unlike Ganelon's, those; so clear, and so full of light.

Charles shaved him adeptly enough, then laid the razor aside. He had drawn no blood. He folded his arms on the basin's rim and inspected Roland critically. After a moment he nodded. “You'll do. I'll lend you a shirt—yours isn't fit for a dog to roll in.”

“I'll be swimming in it,” Roland said drowsily.

“And wouldn't it be splendid if we could swim in truth?” said Charles. “Do you know, when I've settled the kingdoms, I've in mind to find myself a city with baths in it. Roman baths. Or a hot spring, or better yet, both. I'll make
that my city, and live there as much as I can. And every day I'll swim in the baths.”

“Aachen,” said Roland.

Charles blinked. “What?”

“Aachen,” Roland said. “It's in the east of Francia. It has baths, and a hot spring. The water is wonderful for the skin, Sister Aude told me once.”

“I know Aachen,” Charles said. “It's a pleasant place. And the baths—yes. I remember them. They're half a ruin now, but they were splendid once.”

“And can be again,” said Roland.

“Are you making prophecies?”

Roland shrugged. The water was cooling fast, but he was too lazy to climb out of it.

“If I asked, would you?” Charles asked him.

“Are you asking?”

Charles paused for a moment as if in thought. Then he said, “No. I think it's best I not know.”

“Wise,” said Roland.

“Not wise,” the king said. “Cowardly. If I knew the worst, I might never lift my head again.”

“Not you,” Roland said.

“No,” Charles said. “After all, no. I'd thrash like a gaffed fish, and whatever ill is to come, I'd make it infinitely worse.” He peered into Roland's face. Whatever he read there did not disturb him unduly. “You didn't come here to share a bath. Tell me.”

Roland roused with an effort. He pulled himself out of the water. Charles, still playing the servant, dried him in spite of his protests, for after all it was hardly fitting that a count be waited on by a king.

“I choose to,” Charles said. “Now stop wriggling and talk. What brings you away from your post?”

“Suspicions,” Roland said as he submitted to the king's ministrations. “We're being watched.”

Charles nodded. “There are people in these mountains—ancient and secret. Basques, they're called. They'll let us pass if we hold to the straight road and offer no threat.”

“Not Basques,” Roland said, “or not only Basques. There's something else out there.”

“An ill thing?”

“Something I don't like,” Roland said. “And here in this army—sire, you don't want to hear it, but there is one who is no friend to you.”

“That good old man? Still?”

Charles was more amused than not. Roland was not amused at all. “Consider, sire, why he counsels that the men stay in arms.”

“The Gascons—”

“Certainly the Gascons, sire. But what I know of this one who wears the face of a man . . . he bends kings to his will, and seduces their sons. He has a use for this army. What it is, I don't know. I only know that it will be a weapon in his hand.”

“That,” said Charles, “is a great leap of unfaith.”

“It may be nothing,” Roland said. “He may be content with small evils and tiny corruptions. He has a prince in his power—maybe he intends to wield that power long years from now. But he wants this army in Gascony. I would ask why. What use does he think to make of it?”

“To put down rebels,” Charles said. “To secure my western borders before I cross the heart of Francia.”

Roland shook his head. He needed words of power and terror, but none would come to him. There was no proof, nothing to point to and say, “This. This is his doing.”

“I'll post sentries,” Charles said, “and send out scouts when we march. This country is made for ambush. We'll avoid it as we can.”

Roland bowed. “And the other?” he asked, not wisely, but he could not help himself.

“Find me proof,” said Charles, “and I'll act on it.”

That was no more than Roland had ever had, but at least it was no less. Dressed in the borrowed tunic, which fit him not so badly after all—it must have been made for one of the king's servants—he returned to his post.

The night was quiet. The watchers had withdrawn, though Roland sensed them still, waiting out the darkness as the army itself did.

It struck him as he walked, that Charles had said nothing of another stranger who was other than she seemed. Roland's arms were empty, his heart cold. Sarissa had abandoned him without even a word of farewell. Because of that, he had not wanted to speak of her; it hurt too much.

No one else had spoken of her, either. It was as if they had forgotten her existence. And that was strange. Very strange, amid so many odd things.