Lost Years: The Quest for Avalon (29 page)

MIMUJIN

He retracked back down the long valley. He was thinking about the woman riding the pale palfrey behind him. He wondered if he’d taken some kind of deadly bait. Maybe a witch, too. When they camped, he’d study her. Watch and wait. Question. He was sure his people, would not be deceived…

His semi-amputated finger was throbbing again. He’d have to make a new poultice soon or risk fever. Frowned, grunted, felt uneasy, impatient. His simple plan to follow and kill already had a knot tied in it. Rubbed his divided nose.

Let his pony drift back until he rode beside her. She didn’t attract him, much; he preferred the dark, angled jet eyes and goldish skin of his own women. Her body was rounded and friendly-looking; face pale, lips thin, nose long and edged (he thought) like a blade.

She waited for him to speak first. Her pale eyes were like shallow, grayish water. She wore a rough, gray, shift-like dress, traveling cloak and shoes that resembled half-boots.

“Witch,” he said, “my people no believe word of woman.”

“I am no true witch, barbarian, sir. My powers are small.”

“Hmm. Bad for you. What you tell my people?”

“What Queen Morgana bade me.”

“Queen. Ho, ho. What tell?”

“To follow me to the Channel sea, there to join her.”

“Bah. Me spit. And what more?”

She looked away from him, staring down the long valley to where the low hills blurred away into grayish haze and fog. The clouds were like a dull wall to the east.

“I know not. Save that from there we will discover the sacred place where the Great King waits.”

“Hooooa. Mn. Great King. Great King. We see. We see.” Muttered in his own (she thought) foul tongue.

LAYLA

They’d been on the road all day and this time, after a meal break, they simply kept on, under a full moon that rose blood-red and then gradually faded to a pale copper. The land stayed flat and she thought, towards midnight, when they finally called a halt, she could smell the sea.

Because she’d tried to escape during the sex ceremony the night before, she’d been forced to walk after the meal. Her ankles were swollen and she wanted only to sleep. The plump girl was still her watchdog and shook her shoulder when she lay down and rolled herself up in a blanket on the grass.

“No sleeping,” the girl said.

“Fine, no sleeping.”

“You have been called to confess.”

“Called?”

“Yes,” she almost snarled. “The leader favors you.” Her envy was open. “I cannot see why.”

“He favors me. What happens were I on his bad side?”

She winced with a sudden abdominal cramp. She vaguely hoped it was her moon blood come round at last. She liked to think this a false pregnancy.

She stared up at the reddish moon, eyes a little blurry so it was a featureless hole in the night, like a dull ember.

“I don’t doubt but you’ll find that out,” the girl said.

She kept her unfocused eyes on the moon: an eye, she imagined, of dull fire. Maybe an omen of the year 999. Maybe nothing at all…

A little later she was called. There was no fire this time. She was walked into the center of the camp and made to face his divine roundness with others, the faithful, in a loose circle around them. They were all chanting something that sounded to her like children imitating frogs.

Brroack brroack brroa, she thought.

The chief amphibian came close to her, pale and bulbous under the dulled moon, his loincloth like a shadow under his belly.

If he touches me I’ll pop out his frog eyes…

She liked the image. She decided their true goal was to return to some far-off swampy pond where no one would notice or even care if the world did end.

“You know,” she said, unbidden, more or less to the spiritual fatness before her, “I went down the hill to visit the wise crone and since then I’ve been continually abducted. I’ve grown sick of it. I’m ready to kill and maim. I want my husband to join me for the first time in years. You know how desperate I must be?”

“You’ll need no husband,” he told her. “You are the bride now of holiness.”

“I need my husband to cut you all into fine pieces. He does it so well you’d have to admire him.”

“Foolish woman, kneel before the spirit.”

She was gripped on both sides by the girl and a skinny, harsh-fingered man and forced to her knees on the stony ground.

“If you pull your frog cod from your frogpiece,” she said, “I promise I’ll bite it off and spit it back at you.”

Her remarks (as usual) were lost on the armorer’s daughter and ignored by the leader.

“You,” he boomed, suddenly and she now believed his neck really puffed out as he spoke or croaked, “are guilty of the sin of pride and self-love?”

The question voice was back. “Am I?”

“Silence!” he blew at her. “Confess your sins?”

Standing above her his sleek roundness loomed. She was afraid he might fall on her. She imagined the suffocating mass of his puffy flesh plugging her mouth and nose.

“I confess,” she cried, furious, disgusted, “that I slew one of your brothers, not a fortnight past.”

“What? What?”

“As he was hopping back to the stream my mare trod him under to a pulp.”

“Trod? Trod who?”

“Your bloat green brother.”

“I have no brother?”

“Then have I much offended a blameless creature???”

He looked straight down at her over his belly. The plump girl and the skinny man shook her in outrage. She’d had enough by now. Of everything.

She flailed her right elbow into the girl’s thick throat and sent her gasping onto her back. She wasn’t able to hurt the skinny, hard-handed man who kept his grip so she contented herself with leaning up and sinking her teeth into the leader’s bellyfat. He screamed. She held on. The skinny man pounded her head. She held on.

The leader kept screaming and fell sidewise. She tasted his blood. Fine. She bit harder and harder until her locked jaw ached. She barely felt the blows from the man or the others who ran over, yanking and strangling her until she was almost unconscious, mouth now full of blood and flesh, blows raining all over her and, as she fell into a dark pit with no bottom, she heard him still screaming…

PARSIVAL

Their horses secured in the bow of the longship, Parsival and Lego sat in the stern, backs to the gunwale, watching the fog billow and flow as the rowers rhythmically heaved the ship forward across the grain of the chop, the sail virtually useless at their present angle to the onshore wind. At times, the prow was almost invisible in the dense grayness.

“I hate the water,” Lego was just saying. “Can you swim?”

“Would it matter out here?” Parsival nodded.

“Good point,” he admitted.

“They mean to kill us once we get wherever we’re going. How will we get there in any case, since we can’t see a pecker length ahead?”

“Much depends on the pecker,” the knight said, grinning. “Could be a difference of half a thumb. These fellows, I’ve been told, find their way at sea like hounds find a rabbit.”

“You mean they smell their way? They smell ripe enough themselves.”

The knight shrugged.

“They are quite sanguine,” he said. “Anyway, we’ll try to avoid being killed, if we can.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

The wide, English-speaking Viking walked across the bouncing deck to them as if, Parsival thought, he strolled on a garden path. “Well, Briton scum,” he said, cheerfully, “we’ll soon see, won’t we?”

Parsival was getting tired of him. He cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ve refrained from killing you,” he said, friendly, “but my mood is shifting.”

“Brave words.” They were on the leeward side so the man leaned up on the rail and urinated into the waves. Shook his stubby pecker when finished. “If you told us a wild tale,” he remarked, “you’ll find yerselves afloating home like the turds yer are.” Chuckled.

“No,” the knight said laconically, “more like we’ll be alone on this craft hoping the wind blows fair.”

“My Lord,” said Lego, “Let’s let the sailors sail, eh?” He was queasy and the thought of being alone on a ship in the foggy heavings of the North Sea stirred his stomach bile.

“He an’t so dumb as seems,” the Viking said.

“You don’t sound like some Norser,” Lego said, trying to be conversational.

“I growed up in Lincolnshire and was took by a raiding party when I was a lad. Raised as one of ‘em. I am a Berserker, by Odin, an fear no man or divil.”

“Well, then,” said Lego. “Very good.”

“I’ve known dogs that feared not wolves,” said Parsival, “and died bravely.”

He was looking into the mist ahead.

“My master here,” Lego put in, “is more or less a Berserker himself, you might say.”

As they moved up the Channel they were starting to pick up ocean swells which were getting to Lego. Everything was starting to slowly tip and spin and his stomach was responding. Parsival was generally unaffected. If asked, he might have quipped that he’d spent his whole life at sea, one way or another.

“What truth in your tale?” He sat up on the rail, holding a stay for balance. On board, he had no duty but to fight. “The great treasure ya bent the chief’s brain with?”

Lego shrugged. “There’s the map,” he said. Closed his eyes. That was worse. “Is it always this rough?”

The Berserker laughed.

“This be dead calm, landsman,” he said. “Wait until we’re in the Dragon Sea.” Laughed again.

Lego said nothing. Sighed. Knew he’d soon vomit.

Parsival was enjoying the ride. He was tired of thinking and planning and fretting and frustration. The die was cast. No back-looking. The world was behind him again. Maybe for good this time. This was what his family disliked about him; but what choice was here? Who knew where his wife was… probably home, he decided.

This has been forced on me… in any case, I meant to leave for good when I set out… I’ve been forced into armor… tricked by an unnatural defeat… that witch… I used to follow Merlinus’ mystic pointings… I’ve consulted monks and wizards and fools and visions… and here we are entering the Northern sea of mystery and doom…

“What’s your name?” he suddenly asked the Viking.

“They clept me Gralgrim, Briton. An you?”

“Sir Silly,” he answered. “Once we land on the island I will show you what must amaze you.”

“The amazement is our brave chief thinks ye’ll lead him to the sacred land.”

“He didn’t mention that.” Parsival was startled. How would they know that was the secret destination? Their fancy, no doubt: the pursuit of what-you-will mists shaped like what-you-will that they all pursued. “What sacred isle?”

Gralgrim rocked himself back and forth to balance the increasing push of the waves. Said:

“No one says tis an island or no. The land of Thule.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Lego started to say but at this point, a slow swell tilted the ship at a slightly steeper angle, and he gagged, clawed around and up the side, got his bilious head over and sprayed all within him into the gray sea.

“Pity the fish,” roared Gralgrim, delighted.

MORGANA

Morgana, Modred and their entourage were now on the same road, a day after Mimujin and Alyal had passed. The sky was solid gray. The misty hills ahead were behind a solid curtain of fog.

The boy rode a black charger with a tendency to drool but had a gait so smooth the rider hardly rocked in the saddle. He wore one of the half-masks. His mother rode beside him.

“A castle boy spoke to me,” he told her. “And?”

“He said I could never be a true knight because I was trained by a woman. He said I –”

“This woman could defeat half-a-dozen true knights, at once,” she responded.

“But he said I could not be knighted by a woman so –”

“You will be king and dub thyself.” She looked around at her women. “We are not bound by forms.”

“Aunt, where are we going? I don’t like long rides.”

“To meet your father.”

Ahead was a wall of viscous gray. “What about the king, mother?”

“Him too, my child as I say.”

While the little tribesmen sought the lair of their dark lord she believed was Clinschor, they rode as far north as land permitted, staying close to the coast to avoid the highland Picts, if possible. Morgana didn’t fear them, particularly, but why complicate things?

GAWAIN

He went back to the dock area. In the mists ahead, he made out the outline of the woman in the golden mask. She was on the beach in a backless wooden chair without arms, the type used in noble’s tents.

The small waves were slapping the beach, unseen in the deep fog. She was alone. After his troubling conversation with Lohengrin he’d had to improve his blackened mood: his mood was improved, for now, by swigs from a stone wine jug. Was feeling the familiar tight alcohol heat suffusion.

He stood over her on the gritty sand. As the fog filled and thinned in the breeze, so at times he could only see her outline. She was facing the water and chose not to turn when he spoke.

“See much?” he asked.

“Yes. Much, indeed.”

He stepped around and stood between her and the invisible surf. Reached for the mask with his wooden hand, not quite touching it. She didn’t react.

“You show me yours,” he quipped. “I’ll show you mine.”

“What do you want, knight?”

She kept staring, more or less, at his midsection since she hadn’t shifted her gaze when he stood in front of her.

He shrugged.

“Many things,” he replied. “Right now, to see the truth.”

“My visage is the truth?”

Shrugged again. “Mayhap, a start,” he said.

Now she looked into his hood. The mist seemed to fill it.

“I have no particular interest in seeing you clearly, sir,” she said. “You make too much of yourself, I think.”

Gawain nodded. He liked her, suddenly.

“Well said,” he agreed. “Why are you leading these fools? I’d still like to see what you are hiding.”

She looked away again.

“I may be dangerous,” she said. “I might have some power to harm you.”

He laughed. “Excellent, my lady. What will you do? Shear my arm off? Cut my face in half?”

She took it in.

“You don’t believe in the great goal,” she said.

He cocked his head to the good side and lifted the cowl away, showing his absolutely handsome profile, rugged and chiseled. Where Parsival had a magnetic, head-turning attractiveness, his nose was too long, lips too thin and so on; Gawain was perfectly proportioned. Any actor would envy him – half of him, anyway.

Even the masked, stern woman was impressed. “Well,” she said, comprehensively. “Well.”

“We’ll marry then?” he asked. “Is it settled?”

She surprised him by chuckling. slightly. “You wish to post banns?” she wondered.

He nodded, closing his hood again. Tilted up the jug.

“I’ll get a left mask of silver,” he declared, burping, “and we’ll clash them together as I hump above you.”

This time only her eyes showed amusement.

“I sit on men,” she told him. “None top me, Sirrah.’ He nodded.

“I accept your terms, my Lady Mask.” He dropped to one knee before her. “How long must I wait before I am sat upon?” he wanted to know. “I am all eagerness. A thirsty horse before water. A starving beggar outside a feast. A —”

Whatever was next was cut off by John of Bligh’s arrival. He came up like a gout of fog spilling into small, nervous shape, already pacing before them as he said:

“You, lady, have joined my forces. As much as I respect your wisdom and dedication, yes, yes, because the cause is first and above all else, and —”

And she then cut him off as Gawain let himself sit down sidewise on the sand, chainmail surcoat scraping, enjoying the scene. He set the jug before him.

“You mean to complain,” she said, “when you come around to your point, that I have ordered a new ritual to be observed.”

John nodded, vigorously. As he paced he kept thinning and thickening.

“That’s the way of women,” she added in, “undermining a man.”

“Exactly,” John said, ignoring Gawain. “We must not confuse the people.”

“Then,” said Gawain, “you should fall permanently mute.”

She was, he noted, amused again. He watched her eyes above the carved gold that hid the lower half of her face.

“These people, this army,” John went on, “are the last hope of the world. Beyond this there is only —”

Again she cut him off:

“Save your speeches for the ‘hope of the world,’” she advised. “Without the map and my guidance, there is no hope for any of you!” She tilted her head up, eyes fierce. John quailed, slightly.

Gawain was delighted. The meadwine had floated him to humor. “Yes, yes!” he cried. “The map! Don’t forget the map! The map inscribed by the wisest Jew of all, great Solom himself! A guide to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory between, I say. Ah, forget not the map that even Jesus Christ himself consulted ere he dared rise, with the angels, into his Father’s shining Kingdom!”

Gawain was laughing so hard, now, that he toppled sidewise and was spitting sand from his mouth.

The map, he thought. Ah, God’s devise… but her mask… I must know… I think I’ll possess her if she but have space even for a mandrake root between her legs… even if not, her bunghole alone would suffice for relief…

“I love you, masked lady,” he said, face parallel to the sand, “though you have no nose.”

This actually distracted her from the confrontation (one-sided as it might be) with John. She looked down at Gawain.

“What stupid nonsense,” she snapped at him. “Unlike you, dull knight, I have nose, lips, chin, both ears and all.”

“I mean to marry her,” he said to John and the sand and the fog, shaking with silent laughter. “I needed to know if she comes with a nose. Her slitted quim might be stopped or sewn closed…this could I work around…there are other paths or, better, doors to ecstasy. But, lacking a nose, why that’s a hard detriment in a woman… or any other, if it comes to that …”

John looked around like a baffled sheep. “What is all this senseless —”

Cut off, again:

“Be still,” she snarled, this time. “I conceal my features to prevent the mad, hopeless love of mortal men from cluttering the path I must follow.”

“I knew it,” cried Gawain, rolling over on the sand that squeaked under his steel outside. “My future wife is a goddess!”

“Gawain, be still,” John cried; then, to her: “We must confer together before deciding —” And again:

“I do what must be done,” she said, standing up and looming over him. Gawain was flat on his back now, hands locked behind his head, enjoying himself. “You are with me or not, as you please.”

“Suppose, instead,” John railed back, “I cut off your senseless head!”

She snapped out one lean arm and caught his neck in the long, spiky-nailed fingers. He gagged as she lifted him to his tiptoes, effortless, at arm’s length, her strength amazing the knight. John flopped like a fish, blood running down into his chest.

“Listen,” Gawain called over, “Show me just your nose, to settle my mind, and I swear I’ll not drop before you. Surely the sight of your nose alone is not enough to —”

Now he was cut off, or, rather, had not even been listened to in the first place. He didn’t care. He watched John strangle and thought how many times he’d almost served him thus.

She dropped him and he fell backwards, gasping, thrashing around, rolling towards the water and almost disappearing. She stood there, dramatically, holding her arm out straight before her, as if in salute to the unseen waves.

“Just two-thirds of your nose?” Gawain asked her. “I promise not to clutter.”

She looked down at him. Her arm went back to her side. She shook her head. He knew she was still amused.

“Have you ever surrendered?” she wanted to know.

“Only to beauty.”

Meanwhile John had regained his feet, standing, almost invisible, in the fog, raging. He croaked instead of shouting. Frustrated, he picked up something and hurled it at her – except it sailed in a curve and Gawain realized it was a clam shell.

“Traveling with you people,” he said, sitting up, reaching for the jug, “is better than a king’s troupe of entertainers.”