The Grail War (31 page)

Parsival gingerly touched, then rubbed, his face, as if surprised to find flesh on the bones.

As
well
he
ought
, Prang commented silently,
considering
what
has
been
.

“Yes,” Parsival said to Gawain. “Yes …”

“You speak as though he’s been off on a visit,” Prang put in.

“Do we?” Gawain said wryly. “He wanted to let it go,” he directed at Parsival.

“Yes,” that calm man affirmed. His hands fell back onto his chest again. He breathed deeply. “I’ll sleep now,” he said and shut his eyes.

Gawain seemed pleased. He settled himself down close to the last embers, wrapping his woolen cape around him.

“Tomorrow, young Prang,” he said lightly, “you’ll find out where we’re going … and it won't leave you any choice … to speak of.”

“What?” Prang said. “What?”

But Gawain muffled himself up and said no more.

Lohengrin was only a day’s ride behind the main force by nightfall. The road he was following with his bodyguard troops (about fifty horsemen) led over a rise northerly across the sunset. He was puzzled by how long it was taking the deep red glow to finally fade from the dark, massed clouds. They clattered over a narrow bridge and he saw dark shapes in the sluggish, gleaming water. A moment later he realized they were scattered bodies. He glimpsed a woman and child among the rest as they thundered past, up the steepening slope. Earlier in the day they passed under rows of gibbeted men and women where trees overhung the road. He’d wondered in passing what their crimes had been. In the late, angled sun, their bodies had cast long shadows that swayed gigantically over the bleak, autumnal fields.

Atop the ridge of a long line of hills that curved on either side (as far as he could see) to enclose the valley country below, he reined up, shocked, staring because the sun had nothing to do with this light: what must have once been a good-sized town and sprawling castle beyond were sunk in a sea of flames. There, even at two miles’ distance, he felt the heat. The air, sucked toward the center of the towering fire-jet, whipped the trees and long, dry grasses. The forest beyond (straight along the valley with open fields) was cut with long, blazing rivers as dry wood and leaves literally exploded and clumps of pine roared like torches … The dense smoke gathered, filled, and spread out over the sky. The crackling roar broke like thunder.

As they followed the road, wincing and turning away from the furnace across the field, Lohengrin spotted a peasant woman with a young boy and girl crouching in the flame shadows behind the low, broken wall. It was poor cover, he thought, but the best in the vicinity. He pulled out of line, motioning the others on, and crossed over to them.

He sat his horse, looking down at the frightened little girl, the pale, defiant boy, and the red-and-silver-haired woman. She had a sharp nose and almost ferocious hunger in her expression, a dauntless desperation too concentrated to show fear. He could see she wouldn’t die easily, and he respected that.

“What happened here?” he demanded, flipping up his visor.

“Where?” she said, watching him from hungry, shadowed eyes. She was lean and ready, he noted, hands hidden within the folds of her cloak.

She
has
a
weapon
under
there
, he thought.

“Was there fighting here?” he pressed her.

“I saw only one army today,” she replied, “with none to oppose them.”

That's
true
.
This
whole
section
is
undefended
.
But
why
would
we
destroy
anything
here
?
Killing
a
few
rabble
to
keep
order
is
one
thing
…

The children were watching the line of horsemen, dark shadows against the wall of fire in the distance, passing in single file at a steady trot.

“How did the fire start?” he wanted to know. Her eyes, he realized, never left him. He frowned, feeling vaguely uneasy, almost unsafe.

“Try your wits to guess,” she couldn’t help saying.

Who was the stupid general to allow this? You kept good order at least until after the battles were won.
What
fool
let
them
have
their
head
now
?

“So,” he said, mainly to himself, “the troops got out of hand.”

“No,” she said.

“Eh?”

“They threw everybody into the fire,” the little girl suddenly said in a too-high-pitched voice. There was a scream haunting the timbre. He realized she wasn’t afraid of
him
. She kept staring past even the flames and horsemen. “They threw …”

The woman (
mother
, he thought,
had
to
be
) pressed her hand to the child’s lips.

“Hush,” she said. “Hush,” she said, watching him, just watching him.

These
are
our
villages
, he thought.
Why
?

“Did any attack the troops?” he asked, floundering for logic.

“Attack?” she returned, watching him, “As cattle attack the butcher.”

The line of men was past now and receding.

“What stupidity!” he said. Well, the master would hear about this. He was supposed to join the main armies here, northwest of London, which Lohengrin had assumed was the main objective. From here and Camelot, if need be, they could establish rule over the south — that was, unless more idiots persisted in burning out the rich countryside to make the conquest worthless … As he reined his charger to follow the men, he glanced, scowling, quick-eyed, back at her. “How did you survive?” he wanted to know.

Just as he was sure she wasn’t going to answer, she spoke.

“Always some survive,” she said. “Anything.”

He started to speak, then shut his mouth. He scowled, nodded, and headed back to the road, thinking about what he’d say to Lord Clinschor later, thinking about the great plan and purpose that had changed his life, had turned a faithless adventurer into a dedicated emissary. Yes … but he really needed to see the master again, to clarify some things, as well as to complain …

Broaditch knelt over the dark water. The moon’s image shook slightly in the deep pool near the riverbank. The silver-black lacework of clouds glowed around the blotting outline of his head. He heard Valit sigh in his sleep under the overhanging willow tree.

He waited, watching under the surface. He wasn’t sure anything would happen. It was an instinct, he thought, or a voice without words urging him … He waited as the moon sailed in and out of the clouds and mounted higher.

He thought wonderingly for a while … half-dozed … then sat very alert, without a stir in his mind for an instant as moon and shadow formed shapes like rough-wooded and bone-bare hills; a lake; the narrow river (he was sure) right there, where it wound away from their direction … He seemed to see the best approach across the plains to the almost-round mass of high country they had to penetrate … He was almost certain he glimpsed that circle of brightness again that was (or shone through) a fortress, too … And then he blinked himself, he thought, awake as his face touched the cold water and he grunted.

This
was
no
dream
, he told himself. He was sure of the direction now. The place was surprisingly close. And then he was frightened a little. What happened when he got there? Because whatever it was, it would be the worst and hardest thing yet …

“What are you doing?” a voice asked and Broaditch started, twisted around, and recognized Valit a moment later.

“Ask your eyes,” Broaditch remarked.

“Praying to the water?” Valit wondered.

“Praying for more wisdom and fewer young asses.” Broaditch stood up, went and sat under the willow.”

“You think me simple?” Valit wondered.

“I was studying our future. Do you believe that?”

Valit shrugged and settled himself down again.

“You are not light in wit, Broaditch,” he replied. “So I’ll watch and wait.”

“For your profit, Valit?” Broaditch grunted.

“What better thing for a man to watch and wait for?”

After a time, Broaditch cryptically remarked, “If you truly mean to be like Jews, you do better to take on their trust in heaven and dauntless spirit. For even though they be in error, yet they defy all the armies of man and time. For if they truly cared for profit alone, all would’ve turned Christian ere this.”

There was no reply. Broaditch smiled, turning on his shoulder and wishing he could turn aside the constant fear that haunted all his waking time.
And
, he wondered,
God
knows
what
each
night's
sleep
may
bring
in
these
times
…

Wista was riding north along the same track Lohengrin had followed several days before. Wista had been summoned and two warriors accompanied him. They were poor companions: one of the turbaned Orientals who spoke spare fragments of English, and a stocky, tough, old veteran commoner, a mounted sergeant, foul-mouthed, taciturn, and world-weary to an astonishing degree.

Wista was thinking about Frell. He’d been sorry to leave her, it turned out. She was a sweet taste, a tense, awkward, wonderful experience … She gave herself so intensely in the end, and, surprisingly, with few words and long, tender, stroking hands … he remembered …

The air was brisk. Time was crossing into winter, though it was still too warm for snow. The pale sun barely pressed through a misty sky. He noticed a castle on a nearby hilltop. He’d seen it a number of times before. It looked like an empty shell, was his first thought: gutted, blackened, walls thrown down, shattered, gaping.

“Was there a siege here?” he asked Grontler, the sergeant. “So near and yet we heard not of it?”

“Hah!” the soldier replied. “That was orders. You’ll see yer fill of such sights on this road, laddie.”

“Was it a battle, then?” Wista pursued.

“Hah! Not fucked much a one.”

Despite Wista’s efforts, the man had no more to say on the subject.

Toward noon they stopped to rest by cultivated fields marked off by low stone walls. Wista sat on the soft earth chewing a small loaf of hard bread that slipped from his bite and rolled into a furrow. He dusted it off on his sleeve, took another mouthful, then spat it out. It burned. He swigged water from his leathern gourd.

“Salt,” he said, half to himself.

Grontler looked amused.

“Don’t you care,” he said, “for the seasoning?”

Wista was poking and digging in the crumbly soil. It glittered in his hands. The fields had been salted. Ruined. He looked up in outrage at the crafty veteran.

“More orders?” he coldly asked.

The man winked and spat out a crumb of food. The Saracen sat a little apart, eyes gleaming, inward, dour, remote.

“Well, laddie,” Grontler said, “the great lords are doing the world like eating pig: after the slaughter, they salt and roast it.”

Wista just looked at him with disbelief and outrage. He started to speak, then checked himself.

“You’re on a fucked road, laddie,” Grontler advised, “you best get used to fast and fine. You ain’t in your fucked mom’s bath getting in a toe at a fucked time!”

“But what sense does …”

“Hah!” he came in, tilting his head toward the hard-faced, fanatical-looking son of the desert. “Do yer hear him? This youngblood wants to know answers.” He clucked, cocked his head to Wista. “He don’t speak our talk unless anybody curses him.” He nodded sagely. “Y’see?”

Wista shrugged.

“But,” he whispered to himself, “why spoil all this good land? For what cause?”

“Why, the poor black bastard.” Grontler indicated the Moorish-tinted fellow with an expressive drinker’s eye. “He’s in a worse plight than you, yourself, eh? Or me, eh? Why, he don’t know the north winds in this land blow from the devil’s ice asshole.” He nodded, uncorking a stone jug. Wista felt the stinging aroma. Grontler sucked from the mouth and shuddered a little. “Ah,” he said, wheezing, “I freed this from a fucked priest …” He offered a taste to Wista, who declined. “Don’t let none of this trouble you, laddie.” He shook his head grimly enough. “What’s the fucked point of that, I ask? Hah?” He sucked at the brew again. “None,” he concluded. “We’ll all be mush and muck soon enough … Did y’ever see the dead in the field? Hah? With flies crawlin’ and buzzin’ in an’ out of the fucked head? Where the eyes used to be? Hah?!” He chuckled. Wista felt uneasy. He shook his head. “Weil, you will. And show me one fucked feller who don’t come to that end … Hah!” He corked the jug with a self-satisfied twist. “Fact is fact, like the wise wanger saith.” He gestured at the Saracen again, who was on his feet, impatient to be off, it seemed. He looked, to Wista’s imagination, like a brooding spirit of desolation. “What’s he doing here? What’s the good of it? Hah! Any fucked bastard can ask ass’s questions, laddie … And who cares? What fucked difference makes it if you die here or there?” He grinned and stood up, heading for the horses. “Ask the devil that while your fucked mouth is full of air.” He mounted and rubbed the animal’s neck. He looked confidentially at the boy. “Did you ever prod a sheep, laddie?”