The Grail War (29 page)

“Stop dreaming. Pay attention to what is important!”

But it was so beautiful, and all that he was, was past, and what he had done was done, and he strove somehow to soar higher and float (for the rays went freely straight up) into the rising flame of the melting castle … In a flicker it was stark night … No, the light was simply darkness, a darkness that sucked all illumination into itself, and he shivered and trembled and tried to escape, go back, wake up, anything … sleep … yes, that was it …! Go to sleep … sleep and escape …

“Fool, pay attention!”

Yes, the darkness was not total; he saw that now. There were outlines, crawling flickers of flame, like embers of a burned-out country, and the flashing far-near vision showed intermittent shadow-flashing glimpses: dark-armored men marching … burning towns and castles … smoke rising and spreading everywhere … the darkness was smoke blotting, drifting … He saw a beautiful knight lying on his back, as if asleep or preserved in death within a clear crystal dimly lit by flame glow … He wished he could help the knight break free as the smoke and fire closed in all around him … For an instant he thought he recognized the face, though greatly changed with age, and tried for a name in a state where names and words were not … The knight in full armor lay as if enchanted (he heard thunder that seemed to swell into a pulsing incantation), and he tried to call out his name to him to rouse him from what seemed a solid, blinding river of crystal … His sword lay beside him … The vision was rippling now, shaking like a sheet in wind, and he felt pulled and shocked and torn as the energy failed or was somehow attacked, and he glimpsed a man dipping his bare arm into a bowl of fire and removing a handful of flame that lit his long, wide, soft, bony, pale face and bright, cat-like eyes and up-curled moustache, standing in a strange, round room … no … prisoned in a blackened iron ball, and then the universe popped like a bubble and he woke up, sat bolt upright on the damp turf, thinking he was screaming and finding himself silent … The stars were silent overhead … the sea wind cool … Valit was snoring quietly …

He just sat there for a time. His fingers were trembling slightly … He was heavy, dense, dull at first, then, gradually, lighter and lighter, until he suddenly feared he might lift into the air and repeat what he didn’t yet call a dream. He breathed deeply and slowly until he felt more controlled.

He still wasn’t thinking thoughts: there were no words in his mind, no images, just the same flowing awareness that seemed to take in near and far as one … He felt the world moving, not physically, but in a flowing order where every movement melted into every other so there were no seams anywhere … sitting there, air bursting crisp and rich into his lungs, feeling his blood so fierce that, despite his aches and battered places, he stood lightly up with an urge to dance down the hillside and race back again, bounce and half-fly … Nothing was impossible … it was all true … He would do it, whatever it was, because he could ride the flow and reach the end, that the goal was intended for him before he was born, that time and nature had been moving toward this moment forever … He grinned, then laughed aloud, feeling as tall as the hill and as wide and inexorable as the world …

He sat down again, feeling peaceful and ready to really sleep. He was starting to think again, but that was all right now …

The
goal
, he thought. Well, he’d fill in the details tomorrow. Great Christ, but he felt well! I
accept
, he told something, the earth, air, night,
I
accept
… He’d fill in the details …

He shut his eyes and was instantly, sweetly asleep. He floated away …

Morning was bright gray. Broaditch woke up feeling refreshed and not too chilled. His new energy seemed to have survived the night. He stretched deliciously and nudged Valit with his toe. He got a grumble and stir for his trouble, then a muffled curse.

I’ll
make
an
effort
with
him
, he thought cheerfully.
Every
persons
worth
every
effort
… He smiled at himself for thinking that.

“I accept,” he whispered. He stood up, shaking with a yawn, opened his codpiece and urinated against the rock, looking out over the blustery autumn day.

“Wake up, lad,” he said. “Welcome to the first day of my life … and yours!”

Valit had rolled over, blinking and bleary-eyed.

“Dung and blood,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Fields of scum …”

“Ah, the cheery bird greets the morn!”

By midafternoon Valit was trudging and Broaditch was musing. He’d cut a fairly straight sapling and made himself a staff that he swung, marching along over fields thick with berrybush and long grass. So far they’d passed no habitations. They were climbing gradually toward a low wall (they didn’t know it was Roman) which followed the curves of the landscape.

“But where
are
we going?” Valit was saying, repeating.

“Over there,” Broaditch said, pointing with the stick.

“And then? I don’t understand what you said back there. Where — ”

“Valit,” Broaditch said, ‘what do you want? What do you hope for?”

“What?”

“Come, come, you have ears.”

After a few thoughtful paces, Valit said, “I trust no one.”

“A happy condition,” Broaditch reproved.

“With reason,” he nodded in dour self-confirmation, eyes fixed on the green-gray earth. “Yet I trust you, Broaditch, this far, since you helped me twice and I still ow you — not that I would stand to the depth with any to witness.”

“There’s no depth that matters,” Broaditch assured him.

“Be it so or nay, I trust you so far to say that many think me a fool because I would not work at bending iron like my father.”

“Well,” Broaditch pointed out, as they reached the square-stone wall, “there's no better trade and few as solid. For …”

“I know all the words to that song I oft have heard,” Valit cut in impatiently as they climbed to the wide top, which commanded an impressive view of the deserted barren highlands. Broaditch suddenly realized the storm had blown them a remarkable distance north. “But,” Valit continued, sitting himself on the edge, “I care not for it. I trust you this far: I have watched the Jews.”

“The Jews?”

“Aye. I made a sort of friend, Cay-
am
of Camelot. I have seen swords beaten from gold, aye, and found them much keener than steel.”

“But,” Broaditch said, frowning, not catching the meaning immediately, surprised by the fact and manner of these revelations, “Gold is soft and will be a poor … aye, I see. I see.” He was more impressed with Valit now. “So you mean to become a Jew?”

“In a way. If I can. I trust you this far, but I’ll say no more.”

Broaditch was certain he wouldn’t. He cocked his head at the serious concentrated young fellow and half-smiled and half-frowned at him.

“Well, well a-day,” he said to himself. He thought it funny, but for some reason he wasn’t really amused. He made the remark, anyway: “And how many will your sword of gold slay, I wonder, lad?”

The watchful eyes took him in as they began walking the paved road that ran along the wall across the wild, mist-strung hills.

“I trust you this far,” Valit reaffirmed, “but no man more.”

“Not even your friend, Cay-
am
?"

“Him less.”

It was pleasant to be sheltered from the edged north sea wind. Broaditch tapped his staff on the smooth paving. He whistled a little tune and watched some crows circling high.

“Whatever you wanted,” Broaditch suddenly told him, “lay it aside for the time. Trust me and there’ll be more than riches.”

Valit just looked at him without a word. Broaditch was surprised by what had just come out of his own mouth. He felt wry and very serious. How was he going to explain this?

“Suppose I told you,” Broaditch offered, “that wizards and angels direct me?”

“Ah,” the young man responded.

Broaditch tapped his stick a few times on the paving blocks and went on whistling tunelessly. He revolved a number of approaches in his mind.

“They seem to be leading you on an uncommon, hard route, master Broaditch,” Valit suggested deadpan.

“Never mind wizards and angels,” Broaditch said, suppressing a chuckle.

“I rarely do,” his companion remarked. Broaditch shut his eyes and shook his head.

“Strike not the fallen,” he said, sighing, “though they make the most tempting targets … apart from wizards and angels.” Broaditch cocked his eyes sidewise to hold the other’s tongue in check, “Which were but, in a sense, a way of speaking — ”

“Why trouble yourself?” Valit cut in. “I might as well trail behind you than wander by myself. I care little for the nonce, whether it be demons or mooncalfs you follow. But I pray you,” and for the first time since they’d met Broaditch saw the crinkle of a friendly smile, “find guides who favor these stone roads, and friendly folk.”

Broaditch laughed.

“So,” he said, “but I swore to Balli we’d return to swim in his swamps and meet all his kin.”

Valit’s expression went dour except for his eyes.

“Even if every sprite in heaven and earth,” he assured him, “pointed to that bloated dung bag’s dwelling with fingers of fire I’d let the invitation age a lifetime before I took it up.”

Broaditch appreciated this rush of eloquence; then he became serious. Smoky streamers of fog flowed over the wall as they marched steadily on.

“Still, lad,” he finally came out with, “this is grave business, I think. And, uncertain as I am of how I was led on, for I may even be bent and battered in my senses and straying with the moonbeams, nevertheless, I am fixed in my purpose, though unsure of it …” He looked at his companion. “Well, I’m not mad, lad. But I cannot make this plainer until it’s made plainer to me.” He gestured with his staff along the sweeping walled road. “For now we walk south.”

“To end where?” Valit asked, neutrally, “or know you not.”

“I
almost
know,” Broaditch said, shook his head and smiled, “I’ll discover when I get there.”

“And then? The angels and them will lay it plain out?”

Still grinning, Broaditch clapped him on the shoulder.

“Valit, lad,” he declared, “you’ll have to bide impatience.”

“Oh,” was the reply. “To see this I am more patient than the sea has waves.” He considered. “Or Balli rings of fat.”

“Or sins in London town,” Broaditch added, “regrets in hell, fools in the church, devils in the government … pray, don’t make the list as long as the wait.”

Valit’s face had closed down again, his eyes and expression withdrawn into his inner haunts. They went on without speaking for a time, up and down and around the steeply writhing roadway.

“There’s often truth in strange prophecy,” Valit suddenly came out with

“And,” Broaditch said, “no doubt there are lies in common hindsight for all of that.”

“But what think you?” Valit persisted.

“Aye, there’s often truth.”

“Even in things unmeant?”

Broaditch shrugged with the stick.

“Commonly,” he replied, impatiently, “so it is said.” He was staring across the moors: he thought something had moved.
Perhaps
a
buck
deer
, he thought,
who
knows
? …

“So,” Valit said, with the triumph of a true abstract reasoner, “I may yet come to solid profit by way of your insubstantial vaporings!”

Broaditch was delighted again.

“Valit,” he cried, “I’m grateful for you! I swear it! I think the world’s about to be chawed, swallowed, and shat out and there you are prepared to grope and finger for pearls in the steaming dung!”

Broaditch saw Valit was just watching him so he waited. And the young man said at length:

“So you don’t deny it?”

“Deny what?”

“That I may find solid profit?”

“What?” Broaditch was laughing hard. “No, no, lad, I swear, I think you’ll find all you seek … and more … much more …” laughing at the same time feeling a warmth and sense of responsibility. He thought of his children … repeated their names to himself. Would he sec them? He had already accepted the alternative possibility if it had to be. Well, time would explain itself if he kept breathing and walking. “Solid profit,” he said, grinning.

Parsival waited; the pack mule rocked uneasily; Unlea’s palfrey mare was agitated as two mounted, heavily armed knights in dark armor inwrought with silver loops and blazes wearing flat, blank, silver masks, cantered out of the line of trees and halted. He could see the steam rising from the dark chargers.

Just
two
of
those
again
? he wondered, recognizing the armor from twenty years ago.
So
Gawain
was
right
…
flesh
and
blood
at
last
.