King of the Middle March (13 page)

S
IR LANCELOT IS A KNIGHT OF THE HEART AS WELL
as the body. He is the knight of knights. King Arthur says he's won the greatest name of any knight in the world.

But if even Sir Lancelot cannot achieve his quest, how can we? How will we ever reach Jerusalem? Already we are foundering. We have lost almost one thousand men.

We speak with so many tongues, not only the tongues of English and Normans and Picardians and Angevins and Germans and Italians and everyone else, but the tongues of highborn and lowborn, of faith and zeal and ambition and self-interest and ruthless greed.

Mother Church herself speaks with many tongues, and some of them forked.

Why do churchmen preach love but despise women? Why do they turn a blind eye to injustice and suffering? Their thoughts and feelings and actions don't match their words.

O
NE OF THE MEN WE RESCUED IS ONLY TWENTY. HE'S
called Odd, which is a very odd name for a Venetian. He says it's because his grandfather was a Norwegian.

Odd told me that after the Doge had taken the Cross he announced that he wanted half the able-bodied men living on the Rialto to join him.

Some men were glad, but a great many more were not. They'd spent the last five hundred days boat-building, and hadn't been properly paid, and needed to attend to their own trades.

So the Doge and his councillors decided every man in Venice should draw lots.

First, candlemakers made pairs of wax balls, and inside one ball in each pair they put a little slip of paper. They gave these balls to all the priests, and the priests blessed the balls. Then they summoned their parishioners and put the balls into the hands of all the ablebodied men, two by two. Each man who found a slip of paper inside his wax ball had to take the Cross.

“Were you chosen?” I asked Odd.

“Yes,” Odd replied. “Chosen to half-starve and half-drown. Chosen to leave my sweetheart wife. Me and her, we only married last year, and Venice is packed with wolves.”

F
OR A LONG TIME LAST NIGHT I LAY ON DECK, UNDER
the mainmast, swaddled in skins.

I stared at the glittering stars, so beautiful, so merciless, and thought how night swallows almost everything.

Then I thought of my hopes and sorrows and how I used to write them down.…

I want to please God. I want to be a knight of the heart, and I'm eager to enter Jerusalem, but sometimes I have night terrors. I want a magic fish to toss back my gold ring; I long to meet my poor mother. For Gatty I want all she's worthy of, and more. I want Bertie to live for years and years, and Simona's father to spit the ocean out of his blue mouth and come back to her. I want my father to praise me. I want him to die. I want Lord Stephen to know I know how well he has fathered me. I want to marry Winnie. And couldn't Serle marry Tanwen? My namesake, Arthur-in-the-stone, has enemies inside Camelot. His fellowship has gone with the four winds, and I'm fearful for him.…My heart would sing if I could see Merlin again.…

Tears were streaming down my cheeks, hot and icy cold, and she was on her knees, bending over me, and for a moment I thought she was my mother.

“Arthur!” she whispered.

“It's nothing,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Everything.”

“This cold! It makes my eyes weep and my nose run.”

Simona looked down at me.
“Sunt lacrimae rerum,”
she said gravely.

“What's that?”

“The tears of things,” said Simona. “All human sorrow, all our longings. That's what you were weeping for.”

Then Simona flopped down beside me. She wriggled under my sheepskin. We slept like that.

D
O YOU KNOW ABOUT SAINT PLACID?” LORD STEPHEN
asked.

Turold shook his head and grunted.

“What about Maurus?”

“No, sir.”

“Novices. Both of them. When he was seven, Placid almost drowned in a lake, but Maurus walked on the water without realizing it, and saved him.”

Turold crossed himself.

“For martyrdom,” Lord Stephen added grimly. “Sicilian pirates cooked him in a pot.”

“They think the English all have tails,” I told Turold.

Lord Stephen and Turold and I watched as our oarsmen eased us into the port of Pirano, just southwest of the city of Trieste. I'm going to be able to disembark Bonamy tomorrow and exercise him here.

“Saint Placid and Saint Maurus share the same day—the fifth of October—the day the
Violetta
sank,” Lord Stephen said. “Our saints are so untrustworthy. Sometimes they hear our cries and help us, sometimes their ears are stopped with wax.”

“Like Sir Lancelot,” I said.

“Who?” Lord Stephen asked.

“This whole ship's sopping,” Turold observed. “It's as well your armor is well wrapped.”

“As well for you,” Lord Stephen said tersely.

Lord Stephen isn't often tetchy or downcast, and I could tell he must be worried. I don't think it's anything to do with me. Maybe it's Simona, alone now and far from home. Or maybe he started thinking of Holt and Lady Judith, and Welsh raiders. But he doesn't usually worry over things he can do nothing about.

There's a long deepwater jetty at Pirano, so we didn't have to use the skiffs. When I stepped ashore, it took me some time to find my land legs. I tottered around like a two-year-old, and felt light-headed.

My father couldn't stay on his feet at all. He just plumped down on the quay in everyone's way. He protested he had bone disease, but for all that he looked cherub-cheeked and kept crowing and telling everyone today is his sixty-eighth birthday. Now the crusade is actually underway, he has somehow come into his true kingdom.

He's all impulse and appetite and argument and action.

Many crusaders whooped as they came ashore. I could hear some of the Norman foot soldiers shouting, “Glory to God! There is no God but God. Lord of the Universe!”

That sounded strange because those are the same words the Saracen traders used.

Bertie and I followed three of them as they lurched up the street. At the far end, it widened and there were a number of stalls. One was decorated with patterned rugs and burned orange hangings. It was a Saracen stall.

The Normans swore and made coarse jokes, then they rushed at it and started kicking at the supports.

The stall collapsed and when two grey-haired men struggled out from under the hangings, the foot soldiers leaped forward. They punched the Saracens' noses.

“No!” I yelled. “Don't! They're traders!”

The Normans took no notice at all. They kicked them in the testicles.

“Don't!” I cried. “Leave them alone!”

One man rounded on me. “What's wrong with you?” he snarled. “You want a kicking too?”

“You can't say that,” Bertie protested. “He's a knight!”

After this the three Normans cursed and spat on the groveling traders, and then they lurched on up the street.

I bent down and took one of the traders' arms. He was gasping and blowing bubbles of blood. But then some of the other traders left their stalls and began to shout angrily at Bertie and me. One woman came right up to me and screamed. She pushed me.

“They don't understand,” I said.

“And you can't explain,” Bertie replied. “Come on!”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me away, and we slowly walked back down the street.

Is this how things are going to be? Dishonorable and lawless and vile? We've come to fight the Saracens, army against army, not to attack traders who can't defend themselves. They were just old men.

On the quay, men were talking about the
Violetta,
and who was to blame. One knight from Champagne said it was the caulkers, and too little goat hair had been mixed with the pitch; and another man
thought there wasn't enough ballast, and the huge siege engines made the boat top-heavy; a third man said she was holed on a reef, and another told us there's a huge Adriatic sea-beast and this isn't the first time it has seized a ship in its jaws.

“It's because a girl was aboard,” Serle told us. “That's what all our oarsmen think.”

“Well, Arthur,” said my father, “at least you threw away that blasted flower. Otherwise, we'd be at the bottom too.”

Some crusaders, the French especially, think we took a great risk in rescuing people from the water. They say that when the sea's hungry she's hungry, and if you rescue someone, she'll drown you instead. You or someone else. The sea's entitled, and we're her lawful prey.

When we were on our own, I asked Lord Stephen whether he believed this.

Lord Stephen blinked. “It didn't seem to bother our oarsmen,” he said. “And a good many other boats tried to pick up survivors. I don't know. I don't think I could leave people to drown, if that's what you're asking.”

“Neither could I,” I said.

“So if there is a risk, it's a risk worth running.”

“Yes, sir.”

After this, Lord Stephen told me about the Seven Whistlers.

“Except there are six,” he said. “They're lapwings. Six spirits of drowned men whistling and searching for the seventh. And long may they search!”

“Why, sir?”

Lord Stephen laced his fingers over his stomach. “Because when they find him, this world of ours will end.”

Our horse carrier didn't dock until it was almost dark, so I won't be able to see Bonamy until tomorrow. I did want to write about a very unpleasant rumor I heard, but I'm running out of ink, and it's too late to mix more. Anyhow, everyone else aboard is already asleep, and I keep yawning.

T
HE RUMOR IS UNTRUE. AT LEAST IT DOESN'T MEAN
what I thought it did.

Last night, some of the Venetians were saying our fleet was going to turn back, and I thought that meant right back to Venice because I know many of the Doge's sailors are grumbling and asking exactly what will happen if the Christians in Zara refuse to renew their pledge of loyalty to the Republic of Venice.

As it is, though, we're only going back to Trieste, about twelve or thirteen miles northeast from here. This is so their councillors can swear new oaths, and I expect there'll be a ceremony with priests and candles and trumpets and handbells, just as there was this afternoon when the Doge finally disembarked and walked along a strip of vermilion carpet on the quay, and the councillors of the city knelt on cushions and affirmed Pirano's loyalty to Venice.

The Doge required the councillors to provide one hundred sailors and the same number of oarsmen. That amounts to two more men on each vessel.

When Serle and I went aboard our horse carrier early this morning, Rhys met us, smiling. There was a great deal of whinnying and stamping and snorting, and it can't do any horse much good to be cooped up for so long, but neither Bonamy nor Shortneck had come to any harm.

Rhys backed them out of their stalls and led them down the plank; then he saddled them, and Serle and I exercised them until the sun was well up and we were very hungry.

They worked up a sweat more quickly than usual, like people when they have winter colds, and once they pulled us over towards standing water and slurped for so long, I thought they'd burst.

“Your boots are splitting,” Serle said.

“I know. I must get them mended.”

While Bonamy and Shortneck drank, Serle began to chant and I asked him what the words were.

“Part of an old poem:

Then those brave warriors spurred their warhorses,

their chestnut mounts renowned for speed and stamina.

They raced each other where the track was even…”

Serle looked at me, and his eyes shone. He spurred Shortneck and I spurred Bonamy. First we galloped side by side, and then he pulled ahead.

“You won!” I gasped.

Or else we both won. Serle is often supercilious, but this morning he was companionable, and treated me as an equal, and once he even praised me.

“I like how you stand up for Simona,” he said.

Sir William, spirited; Lord Stephen, tetchy; and now Serle, friendly: This crusade seems to be changing everyone. I wonder how it is changing me.

It isn't easy to find anywhere on board where I can be on my
own but late this afternoon, as everything turned blue, I climbed down from the poop deck into the small skiff hanging over the water. For a while I stared out across the sea, so calm again now; I became calm myself, and then I unrolled my trusty, filthy, saffron cloth.

Sir Lancelot has come back to Camelot, and he and Queen Guinevere are alone. They're standing on a little drawbridge.

“You were so passionate,” the queen says. “So wild. That's how you were. But now?”

“My lady,” Sir Lancelot says, “I quested for the Holy Grail in your name and failed because of my love for you. Because in my heart I knew I would come back to you.”

“And now?” the queen repeats.

“Now I fear for your reputation,” Sir Lancelot replies. “People are talking.”

“Who?” demands Guinevere.

“Sir Agravain. Sir Mordred.”

“Vermin!” exclaims Guinevere.

“And many, many others,” Sir Lancelot says. “I can come and go; you cannot. I can fight them; you cannot.”

“Are you avoiding me?” asks the queen.

“I will not have your name dragged through mud,” Sir Lancelot protests.

Guinevere narrows her chestnut eyes. “You don't love me, not as you did. That's the truth.”

“It is not,” Sir Lancelot says.

“How dare anyone slander us?” the queen demands. “And why are you listening to them? If that's how little you love me, I'd rather
not see you at all. Half-love's worse than no love.” Queen Guinevere starts to sob, and dabs her eyes with a little white kerchief.

“Lady,” Sir Lancelot begins gently.

“Leave Camelot!” Guinevere commands him. “I don't want to see you.”

In my stone places can change, and hours can pass, in no more than an eyeblink.

Now Queen Guinevere is sitting at a long table with the very knights who gossip about her and malign her, Sir Agravain, Sir Mordred, Sir Gawain and Sir Bors and twenty more. But not Sir Lancelot. “Welcome to this feast,” she says. “No woman is as fortunate as I, with such knights for company.”

Many of the knights look at one another. They know how bitterly the queen resents them; they suspect her intentions.

“Gawain,” says Guinevere, “you always like to eat apples at each meal. Here!” She picks up a rosy apple and playfully throws it to Sir Gawain.

“And for you,” the queen calls out, and she throws Sir Agravain a pear.

Sir Gawain and Sir Agravain grin; they toss their fruit to one another. Quickly all the other knights join in. Soon the hall is full of shouts and laughter, and the air is thick with flying apples, pears, oranges from Spain, cucumbers, greengages…

But all at once Sir Patrise clutches his stomach. His body is blowing up, like a bladder-ball. His face is purple.

He tries to stand up. He struggles, knocks over the whole bench, and falls backwards. Sir Patrise is dead. Dead as a boiled lobster. And in his right hand there's a half-eaten apple.

The knights stare down at the dead man. They glance at each other. They do not look at the queen.

“He was my cousin,” Sir Mador says, “and I will avenge his death.”

“Lady,” says Sir Gawain, frowning, “your good name is in jeopardy.”

Queen Guinevere just stands there, eyes lowered. She says not a word.

“Lady!” Sir Mador says loudly. “You have no love for any of us. I accuse you of poisoning that apple, and causing Sir Patrise's death.”

When King Arthur hears Sir Mador's accusation, he tells him not to be so hasty.

“I do not believe it,” he says. “Some knight will defend the queen. Some man will risk his own body rather than see hers burn. If I were not your king and judge, I would gladly do so myself.”

“Not one knight who sat at that dinner is prepared to defend her,” Sir Mador replies. “We know how she hates us.”

“I give the queen fifteen days to find a knight to fight for her,” King Arthur says. “If no one comes forward by then, she will burn. Be ready, Sir Mador, to fight on that day, here in the water-meadows.”

Now all the queen's accusers leave, and she and the king stand alone.

“I am innocent,” she says. “In the name of God, I swear I didn't poison that apple and I don't know who did.”

“Where is Sir Lancelot?” asks King Arthur. “He'll fight for you.”

“He has left court,” Guinevere says in a low voice. “He did not say where he was going.”

“What is wrong with Sir Lancelot?” King Arthur says. “No sooner has he returned to court than he's away again. Ask Sir Bors to defend you—for Sir Lancelot's sake.”

Again, time and place change in my stone.

“I cannot, my lady,” says Sir Bors. “I was at that dinner and if I fight for you it will look as if I'm in league with you. You've driven away the man who never fails you, the man I love most, and now you're shameless enough to ask me to help you.”

Queen Guinevere gets down on both knees. “You are right and I am wrong,” she says, “and I'll make amends. But unless you defend me, I'll be put to death. Is that what I deserve?”

Now King Arthur walks into the stone again. “Guinevere is wrongly accused,” he says. “I am certain of it. Promise you'll fight for her.”

“You could not ask anything more difficult,” Sir Bors replies. “If I do that, my fellow knights will turn against me.”

“Swear it!” the king says.

“In the name of God, then,” says Sir Bors, “I swear to fight for Queen Guinevere unless a better knight comes forward.”

Somewhere below me, there was a great flapping and yapping. A sailor must have thrown something overboard—a slimy bone, a piece of gristle—and hungry gulls were competing for it. It was almost dark.…

When I looked into my stone again, Sir Bors was standing at the mouth of a cave, talking to Sir Lancelot.

“They're saying she destroys knights,” Sir Bors says.

“Destroys?” retorts Sir Lancelot. “She praises them. She gives them gifts. She never fails her king. What more do they want?”

“Her blood,” Sir Bors replies.

“They're mean-minded,” says Sir Lancelot, “and they're jealous. I will fight for the queen. You prepare, and ready yourself, and at the last moment, I will ride into the meadows.”

Sir Bors does exactly as Sir Lancelot says. He rides to the watermeadows, and he and Sir Mador go to their tents and arm themselves. Sir Mador rides out, yelling, “Where are you, then? Knight of the false queen! Why are you keeping me waiting?”

Sir Bors delays as long as he can. But at last he slowly trots out of his tent.

At this very moment, a knight on a large white horse gallops into the water-meadows, bearing a red shield.

This knight rides straight up to Sir Bors, Sir Mador, and the king.

“This fight is mine,” he tells Sir Bors.

“Who is he?” asks the king.

“That I cannot tell,” Sir Bors replies, “but this knight will fight for your queen today.”

“I've come here,” the Red Knight declares, “because I cannot allow this noble queen to be shamed. You knights of the Round Table dishonor yourselves by dishonoring her.”

“Enough talk!” Sir Mador says. “I'll shame you.”

At once the Red Knight and Sir Mador ride to opposite ends of the list, couch their lances, and gallop towards one another. Neither swerves one inch.

As it strikes the Red Knight's shield, Sir Mador's spear splinters, and he is thrown backwards over his horse's rump.

At this, the Red Knight dismounts, and he and Sir Mador unsheathe their swords. They step forward, step back, feint, thrust,
parry, whirl, swipe, and now the Red Knight cracks Sir Mador on the side of his helmet, and Sir Mador drops to his knees.

The Red Knight steps forward and reaches towards Sir Mador's helmet. But his opponent lunges with his sword, and gashes his right thigh.

The Red Knight smacks Sir Mador on the side of the head again, and Sir Mador begs for his life.

“On one condition,” the Red Knight replies. “Withdraw your accusations and end your quarrel with the queen.”

“I swear it,” Sir Mador says.

The Red Knight helps Sir Mador to his feet, and the two men lumber over to Arthur and Guinevere.

“You are wounded,” the queen says, taking the Red Knight's arm.

“Both of us,” he replies. “Nothing that will not mend.”

“I owe you lasting gratitude,” the king says. “But whom am I thanking?”

The Red Knight pulls off his helmet.

It is Sir Lancelot.

“It is I who should thank you,” Sir Lancelot tells the king. “You knighted me, and the queen belted on my sword. That's why I am her knight, and whoever quarrels with you quarrels with me as well.”

The king sighs and smiles. “Sir Lancelot!” he says. “I will repay you.”

Guinevere is weeping. Weeping without making a sound. She keeps looking at Sir Lancelot through her tears.

I know Queen Guinevere is innocent. She did not poison that apple. So who did?