Kingdom of the Grail (52 page)

CHAPTER 63

G
anelon fell through the sudden stillness of the air. Roland fell with him. The power in its turning had emptied him. He would spread no wings now. That was gone. He reeled down, clutching the Grail to his breast.

Somewhat before he had expected, he struck solidity. Struck, and lived. Warmth surged under him. Tarik in dragon-shape skimmed perilously close to the earth, above the heads of men locked in battle, not quite brushing the tips of spears. With a fierce beat of wings, he climbed upward.

He had something in his claws. A rag, a tatter of darkness. Ganelon's body.

Roland was scarcely more alive than that, but he was conscious. The Grail was a hard, almost painful shape between his breast and the
puca
's neck. He pressed his face to those beaded scales with their faint scent of fire, and clung blindly.

Tarik brought him home—if home was the castle of Carbonek and the tower of the Grail. The roof was restored, if indeed it had ever been gone. The
puca
settled there, eased him to the stones, then lay for a long while, wings and limbs splayed. He was covered in wounds, bleeding, battered, torn; but he was alive. The Grail had already begun to heal him.

Roland found that he could stand, though he reeled dizzily. He was still clutching the Grail.

Ganelon lay between the
puca
's forefeet. He looked like a broken stick, and yet he breathed.

Roland dropped beside him, catching his breath at the pain of bruised knees. The dark eyes opened. There was no yielding in them at all. No light; no spark of redemption.

Because he was what he was—because he was the champion of the Grail—Roland could do no other than what he did. He held out the cup once more. “Drink,” he said yet again, “and be healed.”

“Fool,” said the sorcerer, hardly more than a breath of sound.

Roland held the cup to his lips.

He turned his face away. “No healing,” he whispered. “Power. Only power. If I cannot have that, I will have nothing.”

“You will have damnation,” Roland said.

Ganelon's eyes glittered. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes.”

“You want it? When you could have the light and the glory of heaven?”

“Light.” The sorcerer spat. “Weakness. Folly. In dark is the glory. In damnation is the splendor. I choose that. I—choose—”

He reached up, hands clawed. They caught the plait of Roland's hair as it fell over his shoulder. They dragged him down. His breath hissed in Roland's face. It was cold, like old stone, and rank, like the breath of tombs. “I—choose—the dark.”

It opened beneath them, darker than night, colder than the deepest of winter, and no end to it ever. His grip tightened on Roland's hair. He dragged them both to the edge of the abyss. They would both fall—they, and the Grail, and all the world's light.

Victory in the jaws of defeat. Black triumph at the end of things. Ganelon exulted. He would have the Grail, and the Grail-king too, and a thousand years of night.

Roland could not even shape his refusal. There was no strength in him, no magic. Only desperation. He flung himself back, wrenching, twisting, rolling up against Tarik's bloodstained side.

Ganelon teetered for an endless moment on the darkness' edge. He would hold—he would escape. And Roland
would die, because he had nothing left with which to stand against the sorcerer.

The tower swayed. The darkness heaved. Ganelon fell.

He fell forever and ever. No sound escaped him, no scream, no cry of horror. He embraced the darkness. The darkness took him.

Silence. Even the Grail had gone still. The maw of the abyss had closed. Roland stood naked on a windy tower, under a sky swept clean of clouds. The sun was still high. It barely warmed him.

And yet he was warm to the bone. A great dark thing had gone out of the world.

On the field below, the battle had fallen into confusion. Demons and spirits of the night, freed of the bonds that had held them, had turned on the mortals about them. Those mortal slaves, slaves no longer, fought for their lives against their own allies.

The army of Montsalvat found itself somewhat less overmatched than it had been only moments before. Within the walls and the keep, the shadow-army had melted away. There were no living enemies there. The castle was clean. Only one hostile presence remained, and that was Pepin, held prisoner in the chamber of the Grail.

All this Roland knew in one sweep of eye and mind. The Grail had begun again to sing. The higher, the clearer its song, the stronger he was.

Tarik stirred, lifted his fanged dragon-head, folded his shining wings. His wounds were all but healed. He yawned vastly. A curl of smoke drifted heavenward.

Roland armored himself in light, for lack of more earthly expedients. It lay on him like the sheerest of silk, but strong as steel. He found Durandal between Tarik's feet, where Ganelon had lain not so long ago. She slid joyfully into the scabbard that Roland fashioned of air and sunlight.

“Dear friend,” Roland said to the
puca
. “Will you carry me once more?”

“Once and always,” Tarik said in a voice like a great organ.

Roland mounted his neck. There were scars, but they were fading fast. He stroked the deepest of them. “The snake?” he asked.

“Gone,” Tarik said in enormous satisfaction. His jaws clashed. He spread his wings, ran for the tower's edge, dropped with throat-catching speed. The wind caught him and carried him up and up, soaring in a long sweep over the field of the battle.

The fighting slowed and stopped. Men stared open-mouthed. Demons paused in their feasting. Durandal swept the head from one, pierced the throat of the next. The third yowled and fled, and its kinsfolk and companions with it.

Tarik hovered above the field. Men cowered and scattered beneath. Roland could see himself in their eyes: great dragon of light, and warrior armored in light, holding up the shining splendor of the Grail.

“Peace,” he bade them all, soft yet clear. “Be still.”

They were still. His own people, the Franks, his villagers, gazed up at him in wonder and in clear delight. He smiled at them. His smile warmed most on Turpin, and on the children from Greenwood. They were together, and alive, though Kyllan was limping and Turpin's helmet was lost, his face streaked with blood.

“Gather the armies,” he said to them. “See to the wounded and the dead. Offer clemency to any who will surrender. If any refuses—do as you judge best.”

Turpin nodded for them all. “As you will,” he said, “my lord king.”

Roland's head shook at that; his hand rose to brush away the title. But Turpin was smiling as he said it, a smile that widened to a grin. They were all grinning. He had won—they had won. The war was ended. The enemy was dead.

CHAPTER 64

R
oland put aside his splendor, retrieved his old plain clothes and Durandal's worn scabbard, and set to work among the vanquished and the wounded. Tarik, likewise restored to his everyday seeming, came and went in cat-shape. He was useful for soothing the frightened and calming the enraged.

It was a long labor. Roland left command to the commanders, to Turpin and Huon and Morgan and the rest. His place was to heal what he could heal, and to bring comfort where he might. He did it quietly, without pretension. Few of those he tended knew who he was, nor did he trouble to tell them. It did not matter.

They were all talking of the Grail-king, the new, the splendid, the shining lord of light. The enemy's slaves, now freed, were more enraptured than not. Roland with his plain clothes and his quiet manner, they noticed only as they would have noticed any other healer. They never guessed that he was the king they spoke of.

That was exactly as he would have it. He labored untroubled by awe or by the exigencies of princes. He could see clearly how many of the wounded there were, and reckon the count of the dead. There were far too many of both. Full half the Franks of Charles' rearguard were dead or nearly so. Of the villagers, two in three would not come home again. The enemy for their part had suffered losses
as great, and too many of those to their own demonic allies after Ganelon was slain.

It was very late when he came to the camp that his villagers had made, in much the same place that it had been before they retreated into the castle.

One of the youngest recruits caught him as he came into the camp. The child's face was badly bruised. There were tears on it. “Tuan,” Roland said. “What is it?”

The boy caught his hand and pulled him inward.

There was a campfire in front of the tent Gemma shared with her sons. The tent's flap was rolled up, so that the firelight could illumine the space within.

Gemma knelt beside one of the cots. Kyllan was there, and Cieran and Peredur, and Long Meg and the smith.

Cait lay on the cot. She was not a large person, but she had always stood straight and faced the world boldly. She was all shrunken now.

Kyllan held her in his lap as if she had been a child, her head cradled on his breast. His eyes were dry. They burned on Roland.

They had tried to mend her. Roland scented magic on her. One of the ladies of the Grail had tended her, Nieve who was strongest but for Sarissa. That great power barely sufficed to keep her breathing.

“It was a demon,” Gemma said. “She killed it, but it had its claws in her before it died. They were poisoned, the white lady said.”

“Yes.” Roland ran hands over the small huddled body. Darkness ran in its veins. Fever burned it. It was all but ashes.

He could free her body from pain. He could give her peace. Life there was none, not even for the Grail to restore. She had gone too far beyond the river of light.

Before he came to Montsalvat he had been a warrior, not a healer; a slayer, not a mender of men. Through this night he had grown accustomed to the glory of healing, to seeing even the dying rise up before the power that was his to wield. It was like strong wine—dizzying, exalting.

It would not come to him here. There was no malice in the refusal. It simply was. He wept as much in frustration as in grief, but his tears did nothing to restore her. She was dead. It only remained for him to set her free.

That was the taste of victory: honey-sweet, but bitter in the dregs. Kyllan and the rest regarded him with wide hopeful eyes, but he had no hope to give them.

“Make her live,” Kyllan said.

“I can't,” Roland said.

“You mean you won't.” Kyllan was past reason, past mercy. “You don't want to. She doesn't matter. She's not a prince or a queen. She's not—”

Gemma slapped him hard. “Stop that! Can't you see he means it? He
can't
.”

“He can do anything he wants to do,” Kyllan shot back, though his lips and cheek must have stung abominably.

“I wish I could.” Roland spoke with all the weariness in the world. He took Cait gently from Kyllan's slack grip and laid her on the cot. Softly he closed her eyes that had fixed upon the light. He kissed her brow. “Rest you well, brave warrior,” he said.

Kyllan cursed abominably and burst into tears. “What good is being a king, if you can't do this? What good is anything at all?”

“I do wonder,” said Roland.

“I won't forgive you,” Kyllan said.

“Of course you will,” said his mother, sharp as a slap. “Enough of that now. Get yourself together and see to the burying.”

Roland moved to go with them. Her hand stopped him. “Not you. Let them do it themselves. It will be good for them.”

“And not for me?”

“You have ample else to do. Go and do it.”

“Not unless you come, too. As mayor of the palace.”

He had never seen Gemma astonished before. “As
what
?”

“It's exactly like running an inn, only bigger. And more hands to do your bidding.”

“I can't do that. And what of the one who is mayor already? Won't he—”

“He is dead,” Roland said. “He died in the shadow-battle.”

“I can't,” said Gemma. “I wouldn't know where to begin.”

“You already have. You order me about with no qualms at all. Let that be the first act of your new office: to dispatch me to my duties.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She blinked hard. He watched it dawn on her, what she had got herself into, and how she had done it. She was a little appalled—and a little, just a little, intrigued.

“I have no noble blood at all,” she said. “I'm as common as the earth under your feet.”

“Earth of Montsalvat,” Roland said. “That's a royalty of its own.”

She shook her head. “You won't let me go, will you?”

“No,” he said.

“Even if I beg? Even if I tell you I'd rather die?”

“Would you do that?”

“No,” she said after a moment. “No, I wouldn't. Damn you. Have you told the queen yet? That you were rather more to me than a stable-lad?”

Roland bit his lip.

“I'll wager she knows,” Gemma said. She sighed. “Very well, since you insist. I'll do it. But I'll do it my way. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” Roland said.

“I do hope so.” She squared her shoulders, drew a breath. “To the castle, then. And gods help the lot of us.”

Roland had not meant to return to Carbonek so soon. But Gemma's will bore him with it, taking him back through the battered gate. The dead were gone from the courts and the halls. Servants were cleansing the blood from the stones.

Gemma took it all in with a swift and raking glance. She nodded to herself. She thrust up her sleeves, tied back her hair more securely, and set to work.

Roland went up to the tower of the Grail. The chamber was quiet, the roof secure, the shrine open. It received the cup with almost a sigh of relief.

He let it go without reluctance. The physical thing, the wooden cup, might rest here, but the heart and the power of it were woven into his own flesh and bone.

He sank to his knees, then to his face. Part was reverence. Much was simple weariness. He was still living flesh, though the Grail lived in him.

He knew when Sarissa came and knelt beside him. Like the Grail, she was part of him now.

She had been laboring as relentlessly as he, after fighting battles no less terrible than the one he had fought. Yet her presence was warm, her strength seemingly unwearied.

He rose stiffly. Her smile bathed him in light. He half-fell into her embrace.

“My poor love,” she said. “You're worn to a thread.”

“And you are not?”

His flash of temper only made her smile widen. He was young, that smile said, and male, and not particularly sensible. And he had done a very great thing. She kissed him, deep and sweet.

“Do you know,” she said, “we had a wedding, but no wedding night.”

“We had a battle,” he said. “Now it's morning. I should—there is still much to—”

“That has all been seen to,” Sarissa said.

“But I have to—”

“You've done everything that was required of you,” she said. “All the rest, your servants are doing, and gladly.
They
slept and ate while you drove yourself without mercy. Now you will eat with me, and maybe sleep.”

“With you?”

Her eyes glinted. “Certainly not with any other woman while I have a say in it.”

His cheeks flamed. It was sudden and mortifying, but he could not help it. “I wouldn't—I didn't—”

“Not any longer,” she said.

She rose, drawing him with her. His feet were steadier than he had expected. His face was cooling slowly.

The chamber to which she led him was not the one he had slept in since he was brought into Carbonek, which he had taken for the king's. Now that he saw the king's chamber indeed, he could not have mistaken it for any other.

It was clean and swept, fresh with scents of herbs, but he caught a faint glimmer of mustiness, as if this and the suite to which it belonged had been untenanted for some lengthy while. The appointments were very fine but surprisingly plain; there was little ornament, and much that was useful. He had seen such rooms in Rome, in old villas. Few furnishings, a good rug or two, well-wrought but faded frescoes on the walls. There was even a courtyard with a
pool that reflected the sky, an atrium as such were called in Rome.

The bedchamber was Roman, too, not large, and gracefully uncluttered. And the bed, to his enormous relief, was a broad couch, more hard than soft, covered with good linen and well-woven wool. No feathers, no silk.

“Now this is to my taste,” he said.

“I thought it might be.” Sarissa sounded pleased with herself. She set about freeing him from his clothing, taking her time about it, savoring the small things: the curve of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulder.

If he closed his eyes he would fall headlong into sleep. He kept them open, not particularly easily, though the sight of her made it less difficult than it might have been.

She met them steadily. She had not done that before, he realized with a small shock. Glances, yes; but never this clear, level stare. She had always avoided it. Because he had hawk's eyes, Merlin's eyes—eyes of, she thought, an enemy.

“Do you trust me now?” he asked.

“With my heart and soul,” she said. It could not have been easy for her. She drew his head down and kissed his eyelids. “I'll never be such a fool again.”

He teased her hair out of its plait. It sprang free with joyous abandon, tumbling over her shoulders, springing about her face. He tangled his fingers in it. “And do you love me?”

“As much as you love me.”

“Ah, wicked,” he said. He slipped the robe from her shoulders. She was naked under it, breasts high and taut with the room's chill. He warmed them with his breath. She shivered with pleasure.

He had dreamed of this, of limning her body in kisses. They had had so little of it since those days in Musa's house, and so much of that tainted with mistrust or with the threat of war. And after that he had been so angry, so little able to forgive.

Anger was long gone. The war was over—still the aftermath to face, still grief, still pain, still long labor, but the cause of it, the great enemy, was vanished from the earth. The deep realms of hell held him now. Not even the gods could bring him back.

Her fingers worked into his hair, freeing it as he had freed hers. It was not exuberant as hers was. It was thick and determinedly straight, so that plaiting barely crimped it. It slid over his shoulders. Saints, when had it grown so long?

“Don't cut it,” she said. “It's wonderful.”

“You are wonderful,” he said. “Beautiful. Glorious. Beloved.”