King of the Middle March (26 page)

S
OMETIMES I WAKE NOT BLINKING OR YAWNING BUT
alert, thinking I've just heard my stone calling me. At once I pull on my shirt and hose and then I unwrap my stone. With my right hand I grasp and warm it; I become part of it again.

It was like that early on this pale green Easter morning. I woke in my little room at the top of the castle before all the villagers began to gather in the courtyard, sniffing and coughing, talking in low voices, ready to climb Swansback and stare into the rising sun.

I remember doing that, and Haket crying out, “The Lamb! Can you see his banner burning white, and its blood cross?”

Rowena said the sun looked bloodred, and Izzie saw it black as a cormorant's wing, and I thought it was gold, then purple and green, and spinning, but Lord Stephen said it was burning white, and told me that each man who takes the Cross has seen the Lamb.

My stone glistened.…

Three knights are kneeling in an arbor beside the Guardian of the Grail. The wounded king. Shining blood is still seeping from the gash between his ribs.

The arbor with its shriveled vines and parched grass swells with light more dazzling than the rising sun.

“You have come to Corbenic at last,” the king whispers. He's in such pain. “Sir Perceval and Sir Galahad and Sir Bors, you are one in
three, three in one. You have mended Solomon's sword and voyaged to the Island of Elephants and stopped the spinning of the Turning Castle and fought with Joseph of Arimathea's shield against the demon Knight of the Dragon, and many other wonders. But more than that, far more, you are true knights-of-the-head-and-heart.”

The three knights bow their heads.

“You are the chosen ones,” the Grail King says in a hoarse voice. “You know a man is never worthy to become a knight simply because of his prowess. Strengths and skills are only means; they're not ambitions or ideals. A knight always has duties.…”

Yes, to have one heart hard as diamond, one heart soft as hot wax. To be open-minded, openhanded, and generous.

“You are the chosen ones,” King Pellam says again. “Sir Perceval, Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, you have given yourselves to God. Rise now and go to the Grail chapel. Go now and ask the question.”

My seeing stone flashed; it half-blinded me.

The Holy Grail is uncovered. It is made of light. Apillar of sunlight flows upwards out of it.

Sir Perceval and Sir Galahad and Sir Bors kneel in front of it. I see their faces reflected in it.

The air is thick with frankincense and myrrh.

Out of the Grail a man rises. He rises, with dark eyes. Except for His loincloth, He's naked, and His feet and hands and ribs are all bleeding.

“My sons!” Jesus says. “My sons! I will hide Myself from you no longer.”

The cheeks of the three knights are wet and shining.

“So many knights have quested,” Jesus says. “Many have come close. Each man and woman and child in this world can cure the wounded king and heal the wasteland.”

Sir Perceval and Sir Galahad and Sir Bors: three men, speaking as one.

“Whom does the Grail serve?” they ask.

“The Grail serves Me,” Jesus replies. “The Grail serves you.” Jesus lifts His voice. “My body and blood lie within you and each of you becomes the living Grail. You are knights-of-the-head-andheart. Vessels of the spirit.”

The three knights bow their heads, and raise them.

Above the Grail, within the pillar of light, Jesus rises. He rises again!

For a long time my stone shone. It sat in the palm of my hand, and shone.

The young woman wearing a wimple—the one who rode into Camelot on a mule—kneels beside King Pellam's bed with Sir Perceval, Sir Galahad and Sir Bors, and many other ladies and knights. She begins to sing the lullaby I heard her sing before:

“In that orchard, there is a bed, Hung with gold shining red,

“And in that bed there lies a knight His wounds bleeding day and night…”

King Pellam's terrible wound, the gash in his ribs, stops bleeding. It closes. All his wounds close.

His skin looks unblemished again.

Around the king, all the knights and ladies weep and pray. The young woman reaches up; she pushes back her wimple. Already her hair is beginning to grow, corn-gold.

The trees gently shake their heads, shoots of green grass begin to grow again, finches twitter and carol. On the arbor vines the grapes swell, misty-skinned.

King Pellam sighs. At last he's able to die in peace. He closes his eyes.

The earth itself sighs and begins to breathe.

The wasteland lies waste no more.

“But our world still waits and suffers,” Sir Galahad says. He's holding the shield the young woman left hanging on the pillar at Camelot: the snow-white shield on which Joseph of Arimathea painted a cross with blood. “I have work to do,” he says. “I will sail to Sarras, near Jerusalem, and fight Estorause, the pagan king.”

“For as long as I live, my quest will not end,” says Sir Bors. “I will go on a crusade.”

Sir Galahad leans over the Grail King and gently takes off his scarlet hat emblazoned with a gold cross. He places it on Sir Perceval's head.

“Guardian of the Grail,” he says.

“So many of us have quested,” Sir Perceval says. “Many have come close. Each of us must have a dream.”

Below me, in the courtyard, everyone is gathering. A peacock swaggers across the drawbridge. It screams the resurrection.

L
ADY ALICE WAS WEARING HER OLD BURNT-ORANGE
cloak. She lifted her reins in greeting as she always does, and I was filled with such a rush of joy that as soon as she had dismounted, I threw my arms around her and crushed her.

“Arthur!” she cried in her light voice. She kissed me on both cheeks and shook out her gown, and tucked her sandy curls under her wimple. “Squeezing me like that!” she said reprovingly. She put her head on one side and inspected me. “Can it be you? Where is everyone? We didn't think you'd come home this year!”

“Come up to the solar,” I said. “Lady Judith's there. And…”

How long did we sit in the solar, the three of us, under the wall hanging, with Lord Stephen sleeping in the inner room?

The sun was not long past its zenith when Lady Alice rode in. It was bleeding and dying when we stood up.

I told them everything.

Backwards.

I mean I told them first about how Sir William attacked Lord Stephen. They both stiffened and sat up straight. They didn't look at each other to begin with, and their breasts heaved, and then they both began to weep and sob, and Lady Judith crossed over to Lady Alice and raised her and held her in her arms for a long time.

Sometimes, even words just get in the way.

After a while, they asked me questions, hesitant at first, as if they didn't really want to know.

I answered. I answered them all. I told them about the horrors, the Saracen singing teacher and his wives and their slashing scimitars, the boy, the dark-eyed Zarans, the old Saracen traders being beaten, crusaders attacking each other and Bertie being wounded, the rag doll. I told them there was so much bloodshed and cruelty that it began to seem normal—as normal as courtesy and kindness feel here.

Sometimes I had to stop because one of them began to weep again, and that made the other weep, but I told them many other things too. About Simona, and the
Violetta
sinking, and how Lord Stephen and I often talked and he counseled me, and the wonderful day when Milon knighted me and gave me a superb sword, and how Sir William was the oldest knight and I was the youngest in the entire army and how we met the Doge.…Sometimes they were listening; sometimes they seemed to be far away, inside their own heads and hearts.

But when I told them about my mother's gold ring! About her sending it and Thomas giving it to me, and Sir William ripping it off my finger and throwing it into the sea! They both listened then, and Lady Alice's whole body jerked as if she had convulsions.

“God forgive him!” she sobbed. “God forgive him! I cannot.”

Lady Judith had Catrin bring us up little honey-cakes and juice pressed from pears. We sat quietly together. Talking about little things. How my boots need stitching again, and Lady Alice saw a
red kite on her way over this morning, and how at Gortanore Grace found the Easter Hare's nest this year.

“Gubert made hare pie for us,” Lady Judith said. “And Arthur said the words.”

“What words?” asked Lady Alice.

“The ones Lord Stephen says each Easter before we eat dinner,” Lady Judith replied. “He shows the hare the palms of both his hands and says, ‘Eostre, Eostre, this is your hare. Keep us all in your green care.'”

“Who is Eostre?” Lady Alice asked. “Easter?”

Lady Judith shook her head.

“In Zara,” I said, “there's a church and the builders used marble from the old Roman temple with the names of old gods on it. Eostre could be a name like that.”

Then Lady Judith stood up, and asked Lady Alice to go with her to Lord Stephen's bedside and pray. She turned me round to look at the wall hanging.

“As you can see,” she said, “Rowena and I have been busy. This panel shows the two of you taking the Cross in Soissons. But when people are looking at the life of Lord Stephen de Holt one hundred years from now, what else should they know? This linen and silk, Arthur: What are they to tell? Your crusade may have been curtailed, but it has still been the greatest adventure of Lord Stephen's life. I think we should sew four or even five panels, don't you?”

“There are so many things,” I said. “One panel could show the Saracen traders and all their spices.”

“You must choose.”

“Lord Stephen reminded me about buying them,” I said, “and I got them for you in Venice on the way home. Lots of different kinds.”

When Lady Judith and Lady Alice came back from the inner room again, I told them I didn't know what to say to Tom and Grace.

“I mean,” I said, “do they have to know everything?”

“Yes,” Lady Alice said at once. “It will hurt them. No one wants to hear evil of their own father. But in the end it's better to tell the whole truth. You know that, Arthur.”

Lady Judith sipped some pear juice, and cleared her throat. “What you've told us, Arthur, has been very painful,” she said. “Painful and difficult. For you too I know. You've been very careful.…”

“And fair,” Lady Alice added. She looked at Lady Judith, and I saw her give a slight nod. “We have something to tell you as well,” she said.

The moment she did so, I thought of the way Sir John told me he and Lady Helen were not my blood-parents.

“Why?” I said. “What is it?” My heart rose up, protesting, inside my chest. “It's not my mother?”

Lady Alice gently shook her head. “No,” she said.

“What is it then?”

“Winnie.”

“What?”

“She's only fourteen. Not even fifteen. You're betrothed, of course, but…”

“Is it Tom? Is that it?”

“You know how impatient and impulsive she is. She blows this way and that way.”

“And my brother's not firm enough with her,” Lady Judith said.

“She hasn't seen you for a year,” Lady Alice said, “and, really, she didn't think she'd be seeing you for at least another year. None of us did.”

“Then what…,” I began. I wasn't sure what to ask.

“You must go to Verdon,” Lady Judith said.

“Nothing's decided,” Lady Alice said. “Nothing at all. It's just that it's not as clear as it should be.”

“I almost knew,” I said. I looked at my rough knuckles. I thought of the poem I wrote for Winnie: “Why am I anxious that you'll be true?”

“You must go to Verdon,” Lady Judith said, again.

“And then things will become clearer,” Lady Alice said. “We will help you, all of us, but you and Winnie and Tom must decide for yourselves.”

T
HAT FRIEND OF YOURS,” SAID RAHERE
.

He looked at me with his sky-blue eye, then with his green eye.

“Who?”

“Who walked here from Caldicot just to see you.”

“Gatty.”

Rahere raised his eyebrows, then lifted his pipe and played a trill. “You may be a knight now, but you could learn a thing or two from her,” he said.

“I have.”

“You rascal!”

“No! I don't mean that.”

“That potbellied priest brought her over.”

“Oliver. I hoped he might!”

“So I could listen to her voice.
Ut, re, mi
…out of her nose and head. The very top of her head.”

“She's never had any lessons.”

Rahere shrugged. “Her voice is the voice of an angel,” he said. “Do you remember I told you about the Saracen? Ziryab, the singing master?”

I remembered Nasir and lowered my eyes. “I do,” I said.

“If he'd heard your Gatty…mmm…I don't know what. If
all the Christians and Saracens could hear Gatty, I don't think they'd want to fight any longer.”

“Rahere!” I exclaimed. “That's wonderful!”

“She should go into a nunnery and have singing lessons, and put her voice to good use. That's what I told Oliver.”

“What did he say?”

“It costs money to enter a nunnery, lots of it, and Gatty hasn't got any. Or anyone to pay for her. What's so funny?”

“The thought of Gatty being a nun,” I said, grinning.

“Well, she's wasted out in the fields all day,” Rahere said. “That's what I think.”

I can't wait to see Gatty. When I tell her everything that's happened! She'll be more interested and understand better than anyone else.

I want Gatty to sing to me.