Pendragon's Heir (23 page)

The King said, “I am glad to hear it.” He paused. His next question, when it came, was even more daunting. “And what is her estimation of you?”

The Queen gave him no help this time. She placed her cup on the table and waited for his reply. Almost in a panic, Perceval glanced at his father. Sir Gawain looked back solemnly, and in a flash Perceval realised why he and his father were sitting here speaking to Blanchefleur’s parents. He remembered the last time he had sat in this room, and the King asking Sir Gawain if Sir Gawain objected to his son’s guarding the King’s daughter—

Perceval almost laughed with relief, and said, “Sire, I will be plain with you, for I catch your meaning. It has now and again come into my mind to win the regard of the Lady Blanchefleur, although I would not do so while she was under my protection and before I had your consent to it. As to her opinion of me, she is not ill-disposed toward me, and if you will give leave, I hope someday both to gain and to deserve her favour.”

A gleam of amusement shone in the King’s eyes. “Then you have my leave to try, on one condition. The Lady Blanchefleur is in Carbonek, guarding the Holy Grail. When the time comes and the Grail Knight appears, go in quest of the Grail. Achieve that quest, and when you meet the Grail Maiden in Carbonek, you will be free to speak your mind. But fail in the Quest or turn back, and with your hope for the Grail, relinquish your hope for the lady.”

Perceval nodded. Sir Gawain said, “This is a reasonable condition, if you ask me. The Quest will prove the true citizenry of Logres. And why should the Pendragon’s heir have to do with anyone less?”

Perceval said under his breath, staring into the fire: “There will be the Grail Knight too.”

“The Grail Knight?”

“Yes.” None of the others were saying it, and if they were discussing Blanchefleur’s future, and what would be best for her, then it had to be said. “Sire, your words to me today have been kind. But one may come with a better claim than mine.”

The King lifted an eyebrow. “The Grail Knight?” he said. “Of course he will be the best of us all. But would he come looking for a wife?”

Perceval said: “Forgive me the question. What
will
he come looking for?”

Sir Gawain said, “From the earliest time we have known about the Holy Grail, and the promise of the Grail Knight. Those who participate in the Grail participate in the will of God Himself. That is what the Grail Knight will do—he will lead us to the Holy Grail. It is his privilege to drink of that cup.”

“I thought it was for all of us,” Perceval said.

“In a secondary manner, yes. But we have other work. That is why we need the Knight. We do not expect him to be so worldly minded as to think of marriage.”

Perceval felt none so sure. But the King said: “In any case, when the Quest is fulfilled, it will be clear to all of us what the Grail Knight has come to achieve.”

L
ATER
,
IN THE RUDDY FIRELIGHT IN
Gareth’s rooms where a handful of the knights had gathered to talk, Perceval took a chair by his uncle.

“Have we news of Sir Breunis?”

Gareth ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I asked Lynet. Mordred came back alone and the name of Breunis is missing from the Table.”

Sir Gaheris, another of the Orkney brothers, leaned over. “Are you talking about Mordred?” he asked.

A slow silence fell on the room.

“What about Mordred?” asked Sir Lamorak from where he lay stretched out on the hearthrug.

Gareth said: “It’s nothing.”

The fourth and youngest Orkney brother, Agravain, spoke up from a corner. “You have never liked him, have you, Gareth?”

From the look on Gareth’s face, Perceval guessed he had forgotten Agravain’s presence.

“Agravain—”

“You know that no one has ever accused Mordred of illdoing.”

“I do,” Gareth said miserably. “But what
has
he done?”

“Nothing!” Agravain shot back. “Nothing at all!”

Gareth leapt to his feet. “You said it!
That
is what concerns me!” He stopped, stamping down the fire of his temper. “It concerns me about all of us, friends. When the Grail Knight comes, will we be ready for him? Or will he find us too busy doing nothing?”

Agravain said, “The Grail Knight? What? We are talking about Mordred.”

Sir Lamorak said, “Doing nothing? What do you mean, Gareth? You just delivered a village from a dragon.”

“I know, I know.” Gareth waved an impatient hand. “But is there not a certain hope we have in the Grail Knight?
Adveniat regnum tuum sicut in caelo et in terra
… the transformation of Logres. It is good to deliver villages from dragons. But that will not be the Grail Knight’s task. Sometimes I wonder…”

He laid his hand on Perceval’s shoulder. “What if the Grail Knight had already come, but nobody knew him? What if one of us, here, now, in this room, is the Grail Knight? You, Perceval? You, Lamorak?”

Lamorak laughed heartily.

“I don’t see what this has to do with Mordred,” said Agravain. “Unless you are blaming him for not being the Grail Knight.”

“The boy has a point,” said Gaheris with a smile.

Gareth pursed his lips. The passion in his eyes went out and he sat down again.

Perceval bowed his head and said, “I am not the Grail Knight, Gareth.”

“Perhaps not,” he said with a smile. “But you
could
be. Mordred? No.”

Some of the men laughed.

Perceval said: “Why are you so sure? Gareth, he must have done
something
to earn your distrust.”

“Well, then,” said Gareth, “my reasons are three. First, his parentage. Second, his face, which is as close and secret as a grave. And finally, eight days ago on the Wye River, I saw him riding south in the company of Sir Breunis, who you tell me was a villain and robber until you fought and all but killed him.”

“The first two are not firm evidence, brother,” said Sir Gaheris. “But to see him in the company of Sir Breunis? Perhaps an answer can be found therein.”

“I am leaving Camelot in a week,” Perceval said. “When the King gave Sir Breunis his life, it was on condition that he mend his ways. If he does not, I owe him death. Let me go to see whether he has kept his oath, and perhaps I will also discover what Mordred does in his long errantry.”

“Good! A plan is better than talk,” said Sir Lamorak.

“Bring me back word,” said Gareth, “and if Mordred is cleared of fault in this, let me never speak another word against him.”

Sir Caradoc had been listening to the conversation and now said: “I wonder you do not take it to the King.”

“The King esteems Mordred,” Gareth said. “And I am no backbiter, even if I distrust him. If we find any evil in my cousin, then we will go to the King, not before. Let us not add needlessly to his troubles.”

Sir Lamorak sighed. “He is no longer young. I fear he grows weary under the weight of Logres.”

Agravain said: “Does he? Sitting at feasts and tourneys while the rest of us spill our blood in the marches of Logres? Surely he could weary himself to better purpose.”

Someone hissed in a breath and the whole room went suddenly very cold. The youngest son of Orkney seemed to shrink a little. At last Gaheris spoke: “Agravain! You know that is false. The King has never neglected the good of Logres—and he is never idle.”

“It worries me,” Agravain said sulkily. “What if there was another Saxon invasion? Would the King lead us to victory then, as he did when he was young? Or has he grown old and fond of comfort?”

“
O tu minimae fidei!
” said Sir Gawain, putting his head in at the door. “You speak as if he were half in his grave, Agravain, rather than occupied with other matters. I am going down to the chapel, Perceval. Come with me.”

Perceval clapped Gareth on the shoulder, left pinched silence behind him, and followed his father down uneven tunnel-like corridors to the little chapel. Camelot castle was overbuilt and twisted, and hundreds of years had bowed it in on itself. But the chapel, to one side, stood straight and fair.

Its spear-pointed stained windows would come alive in the sun, but they loomed dead and dull in the clouded night. Only two candles gave light from the altar, flinging shadows overhead like tall watchers bending to stare at them.

Until now Perceval had stood in the chapel only in services among a throng of people. But here, in the lonely dead of night, he bent his head and saw that upon the stone by his foot was written a name.

King Pellinore
said the stone, and then the other stones of the floor crowded upon his view, whispering.
Sir Cador. Sir Balan. Sir Galehault. Sir Hoel
.

“Do you see the names?” Gawain asked, bringing light. “Look.”

And he saw a name upon every stone in the floor, and more names on the stones in the wall.

“What do they mean?” Perceval breathed.

“These are the knights of our brotherhood who have gone from us,” said Gawain. “For they shed their blood like water in defence of the defenceless.”

“How many?”

“All, in the end.” Gawain laid his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Sir Perceval, when the priest reads the lesson, he says that he who would save his life must lose it. Good words for any man, for there are moments when cowardice will bring death more surely than boldness. But the ordinary man knows, when he goes out to meet the wolf in his road, that he may yet come home in peace. Not so the knights of the Round Table. We win through one deadly peril only to face another. If we banish one evil, we must go on to the next and after that, to the next—until death meets us in the path. We yield up our bodies every day, not for glory and fortune but so that those weaker than ourselves may live. Do you understand?”

“I do,” said Sir Perceval. “And I say that there is no nobler calling. I am content.” But then he thought of the Lady Blanchefleur kissing his brow on a night of fire and blood, and with a sudden ache of grief told himself that even a hundred years of peace would not be enough time to spend with her.

18

Sweet lord! how like a noble knight he talks!

Tennyson

S
EVEN DAYS LATER AT DAWN
P
ERCEVAL
stood in the courtyard, huddled into his cloak but fiercely happy to be questing again. As much as he liked the warmth and ease of life at Camelot, it still took an effort for him to come off his guard there, to feel less hemmed in and surrounded. Now, despite a cold wind knifing through all the layers of wool, steel, and leather he wore, Perceval’s spirits soared.

Dame Lynet handed him his shield. “Go with God’s favour,” she said. Perceval turned and grinned at her.

“May it also be with you. I’ll be back at Pentecost to meet the young one. And take care of Gareth. I fear I have sent him to bed for a month.”

Lynet wrinkled her nose. “Yea, you inflict the deadliest of bruises.”

“Sir Gareth of the Black Eye. It sounds well. As I watched him tumble from his horse the third time—”

“Another word, fair nephew, and an aunt’s revenge falls upon you,” she warned.

Perceval swung to Rufus’s back. “Then call the retreat!” he laughed, and setting spur to his horse, clattered out of the courtyard and down the hill.

His first aim was the little valley in the north where he had fought Sir Breunis. Here he came one icy January day under a colourless sky, and wondered at first if he had wandered into the wrong valley. Then he saw the raw stump where the oak-tree by the castle gate where Sir Breunis’s shield once hung had been cut down and carted away. Perceval stared at it in surprise and urged his horse toward the castle. His first visit to the valley had shown an overgrown, ill-kept country, and Sir Breunis’s men had slouched out of the castle and village in stained and slovenly clothes. Now everywhere he saw signs of industry and care. A little way up the hill, on the other side of the village, a mill was being built over the stream. Perceval spurred Rufus into a trot and went to examine it.

Sir Breunis’s men worked about the gaunt and skeletal structure. Not a head rose at the traveller’s approach. The overseer, a short, heavy-featured man of middle age, strode about in the cold to keep warm, shouting into the wind. When Perceval checked his horse and shouted “Ahoy!” the man finished a string of directions to his men and then stumped over to the knight and planted himself before Rufus, thumbs stuck into belt, face impassive.

Perceval undid his helm and leaned down. “Ho, there, fellow. Tell me about the work.”

“Flour-mill,” said the overseer, and his mouth clamped shut.

“This land does belong to Sir Breunis, doesn’t it?”

A grunt of assent.

“Where is he? Might I speak with him?”

“He’s not in the valley.”

“Your magniloquent response fills me with mingled joy and disappointment, my good fellow,” Perceval said, his temper wearing thin. The only reply this time was an uncomprehending stare. Perceval looked downhill to the little village and pointed at another new structure. “What have you built there?”

“Schoolhouse.”

It was Perceval’s turn to struggle over an unfamiliar word. “A what?”

“
Ludus
.”

“Really?” Perceval looked from one to another of the buildings. “Sir Breunis had you build these?”

“Yes.” Was there a shade of hesitation in the answer? But then two men strained by beneath a great oaken beam, and the fellow wheeled away, shouting directions for them. Unwilling to disturb the labour, Perceval reined around and rode back down to the castle. Here the overseer’s words were confirmed—Sir Breunis was away.

Perceval left the valley feeling stern with himself for the disappointment he felt. Part of him had looked forward to settling accounts with Sir Breunis today—just how much, surprised him. It was all to the good, he told himself, if the man had kept his word and begun to live honestly, making provision for his people.

And then there was the fighting he had done a few days ago, when he met Gareth in the meadow outside Camelot. Nor had it ended with Gareth: he had unhorsed five more knights before the bell went for Vespers, and on the way back up the hill to the castle he had overheard Sir Culhwch suggest matching him with Sir Lancelot. The most renowned knight of Logres was on some far-roaming errantry, or maybe Perceval would have had his chance then and there.