Kingdom of the Grail (6 page)

CHAPTER 5

A
handful of days after the Saracens came to Paderborn, the king called all the lords and commons of the Franks to the great assembly. There in the field under the mountain's knees, by the ever-running river, the gathered prelates of the Franks sang the high Mass, a great rite of invocation and adoration.

When the chanting was still fading away, the plumes of incense scattering in a light wind, Charles told his people what message the embassy had brought. “Spain,” he said, “begs us come to its aid. Rebels have taken Cordoba. If we destroy that rebellion, great lands will be ours, and cities, fortresses, treasure . . .”

He had them in his hand. Roland, standing behind him with the rest of the Companions, felt the force of the people's faith in their king. They heard what they chose to hear. Spain—conquest—wealth. And for those who cared for such things, which was a great number, there was another thought, another desire: to restore an infidel country to the light of the Lord Christ.

Those voices rose louder and ever louder. “In God's name! God wills it!”

Charles let them rouse themselves to a fever-pitch. If there were objections, questions, voices of reason, they were all drowned out in that tumult. And that, thought Roland, was exactly as Charles wished it. Charles
wanted Spain—wanted empire. If he won it so, then he was content.

The emir Al-Arabi did not seem unduly dismayed. Nor would he be, since he himself had foretold that this would happen. Al-Arabi, like Charles, wanted what he wanted; nor did he care precisely how he got it.

When at long last there was something like silence, Charles' voice rose over it, clear and pitched to carry. “My heart is glad that you approve this, my people. We will bring the true Faith into Spain. We will ride in war over the mountains, and conquer a new land for the Lord.”

This roar was nigh as long as the first. It ended in a slow sigh like a surge of the sea. As it faded at last, the emir spoke. His Latin was purer than many a priest's, and there were priests to render it in the dialects of the Franks. Roland heard the overlapping of voices, Al-Arabi's words rendered in a dozen ways, but all with much the same meaning.

“In joy,” he said, “and in gratitude for the aid that you offer, I bid you all attend a feast. But first, if you will, in token of friendship, I offer a contest. Let your best warriors vie for the prizes: gold and jewels and the wealth of my people. And for the strongest, for him who conquers all, there is this.”

He beckoned. A turbaned servant stepped forward. In his hands was a long narrow bundle wrapped in crimson silk. He shook loose the wrapping with a flourish, and laid bare a sword.

It was a wondrous thing. Its hilt was plain silver, the pommel set with a white stone like the moon. Its blade rippled like water.

The servant lifted it, holding it as a priest might hold a cross. The sun caught it and it flamed with white fire.

Every man in that army loosed a long sigh of pure desire. None of them, not one, was proof against the light of that sword. It was beauty bare, perfect and deadly. It made Roland think of ice under the moon, and water in starlight. It was as pure and strong and dangerous as the highest of high magic.

A shiver ran down his spine. A sword was a thing of power, and a truly fine one would carry strong spells and secrets of the maker's art. But this was more.

His glance caught Charles, standing as still as they all stood, transfixed by that wondrous thing. Not even a king could resist the lure of it.

Not even a king, not even this king, would keep Roland from vying for the sword. Nor was he alone in that desire. All the Companions, the lords and fighting men, knew that same surety.

A stab of alarm brought him up short. Was this a plot against them all? Was it meant to divide them, to set man against man and man against king, and so leave them ripe for treachery?

The sword's gleam offered no answer. Roland's eyes, questing among the gathered faces, searched that of the emir. There was guile there in plenty, but of betrayal he saw nothing. He looked past that lean dark face, scanning the faces of the emir's retinue. Nothing.

Ganelon,
he thought. As if the thought had conjured him, he was there among the flock of priests, with his dour monks at his back, and close by him—disturbingly so—the king's eldest son, the hunchback. They were all watching the sword, but not as if they had anything to do with it. Pepin was rapt. His face, so like his father's atop the twisted body, was as full of naked yearning as any other.

This was not Ganelon's doing. Roland did not know if he was glad. Nor, he admitted, did he know that the sword was an ill thing. It did not feel so. It felt clean and rather cold, not a thing of heaven maybe, but not of hell, either. It was made of the elements of the middle realm, of earth and water, air and fire.

Roland would have to stop soon and consider what it meant that Pepin stood so close to the old enemy. Roland had been so preoccupied with guarding the king that he had not been paying proper attention to the king's children. Pepin was not the heir: his mother had not married the king in the eyes of the Church. But he was the king's eldest son. If Ganelon had got at him rather than at the stronger, wiser, far less vulnerable and far more strictly guarded Charles—

Later he would ponder the uses of diversion and distraction. For this moment, all that mattered was the sword.

The assembly hardly waited to be dismissed. They did not, just then, care exactly what they had decided to do
about the war. They were all in a fever to prepare for the contest, which would begin after the sun passed noon; then when that was done, the emir would summon them to his feast.

The Companions prepared together as they would for battle, gathered in the tent Roland shared with Olivier, which was the largest. Their servants ran back and forth, fetching clothing, weapons, armor. Only the twins Gerin and Gerer were not there: they stood guard over the king.

“He'll fight for it, too,” said Olivier as his servant shaved him—putting that poor man in great danger of cutting his master's throat, but he was used to it. Olivier was seldom silent even when he slept.

“So do we let him win it?” Milun was the youngest of the Companions, younger than Roland, and inclined to fret over matters of precedence. It was his mother's fault, his cousin Thibaut was wont to say. That lady had made a high art of fretting, and she had taught it to her son.

But Milun was a good fighting man and fair teller of tales by the fire of an evening. The rest of them forbore to knock him down and teach him sense. Turpin said, kindly enough, “Of course we don't let him win it. He'd have our necks if we tried. This will be a fair fight. If the king wins, he'll win by his strong right arm, and nothing else.”

“But he's the king,” said Milun.

Thibaut cuffed him not quite hard enough to fell him. “Stop it, puppy. You'll fight as we'll all fight, for the honor of your name. Maybe you'll win. Stranger things have happened in this world.”

Milun growled but subsided. In any case he would not have been able to say much more: two of the servants had brought him his mail-coat. They climbed up on stools on either side of him and hefted the heavy thing above his head. He lifted his arms. They lowered the mail-coat, grunting a little with the weight, working his arms into it and settling it on his shoulders.

Roland, whose own coat was already on, set about helping Olivier with his. Olivier's fair cheeks were scarlet with the razor's burn and the fever of excitement. “Did you see that sword?” he kept asking. “Did you see it? Where do you think it came from? Spain? Araby? India?”

“Fire and water,” Roland said without thinking.

No one took much notice. Roland was always saying things that no one else could make sense of; sometimes, as now, not even himself.

“It is a marvel of a blade,” Turpin said. “I wonder what its name is.”

“Do Saracens name their swords?” Olivier asked.

That stopped them all. After a moment Ascelin said, “No. No, I don't think they do.”

Ascelin was a Gascon. They were not always friends to the Franks, and as often as not they were allies of the Saracens. When it came to infidels, Ascelin knew more than most.

“Well,” Olivier said, “then how do they acknowledge the power that's in a blade?”

Thibaut snorted. “That should matter? They can fight. The rest is ceremony.”

“They'd fight better if they knew who their weapons were,” said Olivier.

“Then it's well for us they don't,” Turpin said. “Here, are we ready? Shall we go?”

Everyone was ready, even Milun, whose servant handed him his helmet.

“Let us go, then,” said Turpin, “and may God bless us all. And if He doesn't choose to grant that I should win the sword—then may it go to another of us.”

“Or the king,” Milun said, “in the Lord Jesus' name.”

They crossed themselves and bowed their heads. Turpin blessed them all, marking a cross on each forehead and sealing it with a kiss.

Roland was last, as it happened. Turpin held him for a moment, smiling a remarkably sweet smile. Roland returned it. His heart was suddenly as light as air.

“Fight well, brother falcon,” his friend said.

“And you, brother bear,” said Roland.

They laughed and embraced, and followed the others into the bright daylight.

While the Franks prepared, the emir's men together with a great company of the king's servants had readied the field of the assembly for a trial by combat. Its boundaries were marked, and places set for those who would watch. There
was a canopy for the queens and their ladies, and another for the Saracens of rank and their attendants.

They would all fight as they were accustomed to do, in mock battle, ranked as they would be in war: lord by lord and company by company. The Companions took places at the king's back.

The emir Al-Arabi rode down the lines on his fiery little mare, with a following of men in Saracen armor. He bowed as he passed the king, and there paused. “My lords,” he said, “and men of the Franks, here is the challenge I set you: to draw lots, and so divide, left hand and right. One side, my lord king, of your grace you will command. For the other, let one be chosen who is a strong commander in battle. He who drives his opponent's forces back, even to the border of the field, shall be counted victor.”

“And win the sword?” Charles asked.

“Why, no, my lord,” said Al-Arabi. “For the victors we have prizes of gold and fine jewels, silks and treasures of my people—and the right to contest for sword when the melee is done, in single combat, man against man.”

Charles laughed and applauded. “That is grand sport!” he declared. “Shall we begin?”

Battle was battle, whether mock battle against friends and brothers, or battle to the death against the enemies of the Franks. First the waiting as the captains settled sides and drew lots for command against the king; then further waiting as they took ranks on either side of the broad windswept field. The sun was direct overhead. The sky was clear blue. The wind caught the pennons: gold for the king, green for the other, with Anselm, Count of the king's palace, as lord and commander.

Roland sat on grey Veillantif at the king's right hand, breathing deep to steady himself. The world was preternaturally clear, as it always was before a battle. But his skin quivered and rippled, itching to shift, to sprout wings and fly—and that had not been common before Ganelon came to the king's camp. With an effort he held it in check. His skin quivered one last time, as if in protest, then stilled. His senses sharpened to falcon-keenness.

The horn rang the signal. Roland's lance lowered. On
either side of him, lances came down in unison. With a roar of delight, they leaped to the charge.

He set his eyes on a green pennon and a faceless helmet behind it. It did not matter who it was, or what he might be when he was not the enemy in battle. Roland had all the leisure in the world to straighten his lance, to aim at the broad mailed breast, to thrust its blunted end home. The man fell.

There was another behind him, and another. Lances thrust. Swords flashed—not blunted, those, and as deadly as they ever were. There were axes, and here and there a club, whirling about a helmeted head and falling with crushing force.