Blood and Dreams: Lost Years II (18 page)

LOHENGRIN

A night’s rest and warm food in a peasant’s hut by the riverswamp turned us around for the better.

Lanky Veers (I trusted him a thumb-length) and beefy young Beef complained that since they’d met my family, they’d lost their boat and nearly their lives.

“You got off softly enough,” I told them the next morning. Under mild skies, we munched bread and cooked eggs and negotiated for horses, mules, and meat with the crookback pig farmer and his potato-faced wife. “Most who meet us have a sore time of it.” I grinned, looking at Chael. She’d bathed in a hot tub and seemed softened and teased another kind of appetite.

“Did we lie easy?” Veers asked. He spat.

“Come along and I’ll see you repaid for your troubles.” I felt generous. If we found a great treasure, then I could afford it. If not, these low born churls would see some interesting sights and possibly prove useful.

“And if we choose it not, young Lord somebody?”

I liked him. I liked some men. Why, if you’re sour enough, it will pass, at times, for wit. “And if I make you choose it?”

“Hah. Make is it?” He spat. “Like the Jack what mistook marsh weeds for peat grass and went in over his head.”

“If you’re a hard case,” I said, “all the better for my purpose.” I grinned at Beef and thought about touching the girl in her secret places again. “There’ll be profit for all and rare great times.” I turned my back, still talking, looking around the muddy pig yard, drew and cut in one motion (I never was to meet anyone quicker at that feat) and arched the blade behind me so that it stopped an inch or two short of clipping Veers’s neck. I was pleased, except that he’d managed to jerk out his dagger in that splintered second and almost blocked my blow. I was impressed. “You fought in the wars?” I asked, sheathing.

“Wars,” he said and spat again.

“Why don’t we kill him, Dad?” Beef inquired.

I liked that. There was life in the lump. “Yes,” I agreed, “and carry off my vast riches. Ambitious

bit of beef, your Beef,” I laughed. “Follow me, hard edges,” I told them, mounting the serrated horse the hunchback held for me. His cocked, avid face twisted up to me. His distrust burned like a flame. With good reason. The others all climbed into their saddles. Chael sat a pale mule and Beef a gray, while long Veers dangled his bones over a pony. I gazed back over the mudflats and estuary, then aimed in land without regret, nodding to my temporary lady.

“On to fortune,” I said, casually kicking the crookback pig farmer away from the bit where he’d locked one lumpish hand. He let go and dipped back, slipping in the muck. His two lean sons had come out of the barn and were watching us carefully, leaning on thick staves.

“Our pay,” croaked the crippleback.

Veers watched me. He didn’t want to ride away on a fellow lowlife’s property. I had the answer for that.

“As I promised,” I declared solemnly. Had I been alone, I’d have ridden the insolent scum down. “You can have your little fee now or a purse of gold later if you invest these mounts with me. We ride to gather great wealth.”

“Aye, to be sure, me lord, to be sure,” the dark faced, squinty rogue agreed, dipping and sidling to keep between me and the open gate. “But we need no great fortune, me lord.” They were all tense as nuns in a bath. “Just pay for our good mounts.”

“Mounts?” I said. “You mean these rotting bags of meat? Dogs would bury these bones sooner than gnaw them, I think.” I grinned.

“You know best, me lord. May happen you’d do fairer afoot, eh?” He half grinned without teeth to brighten the grimace. Everyone waited, tense. Chael shifted in her seat, miserable, not heeding much else.

“Rather than slay you for insolence,” I said, gesturing with the spear in my left hand, “I’ll keep my bargain. Behold!”

I drew off a ruby ring from my pinky. It caught the light and every eye. It was quite worthless. But glitter is all, whether in pig yard or on great estates. “Here is ten times the price. Take it and be damned!”

I flicked the bauble with my thumb and it arched, glittering like a pearl of blood into the dark muck of the sty behind them all. The flash lit greedy dreams, and they had to chase and crash together, slip and scramble for it. I was grinning as I led my peculiar troop out of the foul, stinking place.

I kept looking back and saw, as they scrambled, scattering the ragged chickens and geese, the hunchback staring after me with concentrated fury and defeat in his stare, because I had him and he’d lost his support and he’d been taken.

I waved. Veers was beside me now.

“I always pay what I truly owe,” I told him.

Chael knew the way. I have to admit I was surprised. After a long two days we reached a moonlit road that writhed through a dense, sweet-smelling pine forest. Beef complained. His father snarled at him. My unhappy and uncomfortable guide sighed in the saddle, pouting with her whole body. The moon was round and bright above the treetops as we slanted and cut back this way and that.

“How do you know we aren’t lost?” I asked her.

“I remember things,” she said. “Numbers and places.” She shifted and pouted. “I’m so tired … Can we rest?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“But I’m so tired.”

“Yes. Later.”

“She used me for this.”

“What? For rest? Like a pillow?”

“No. To remember. How much … where.” She shrugged. A ghost of herself in the subtle, deceiving light. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Go back then,” snarled Veers at Beef. I cocked an ear. I love dispute. Mother always said I liked to stir things up. It makes the time lively.

“We should have killed them all,” Beef said. I liked that. “You’re a fool, Veers my father.”

“Ah, still yourself.”

“I won’t indeed. Mother speaks true. Your father, she says, is dead a dreamer.” He jerked his head. “He’ll dream us into beggary.”

I leaned back to miss nothing of this exchange.

“That’s what she says, is it?” Veers wanted to be sure.

“I’m really hungry,” Chael nagged. I shushed her softly. The woods were a black wall on either side. “She says you follow the moongleaming on the water.”

“So that’s what I do?” Veers was too calm, I noted with glee.

“And you’ll come to the reefs from it,” Beef added. “We shoulda’ killed them all and gone about our proper work.”

“Don’t hush me,” she whined.

“Hush,” I recommended. I itched to smack her bottom. Well, I would have liked to play breakhead with the lot of them. “Beef,” I called back, “I’ll have you in a stew or salted if you seal not the shithole you use for speaking.” I thought that was aptly put. I love dispute and a test of winning. It wakes life from the general dullness.

“Aaaah,” Beef reacted. “He’ll trick you, old man Veers.”

Veers ignored my remarks, which wasn’t foolish. “He’ll trick you like he did them shit muckers back there with the bit of bauble. There’s no great treasure waiting on us,” Beef went on.

“Now, lad,” Veers told him, “save your words.” His voice was dangerously controlled. “Not another one, so please God.”

“Arrr,” said Beef, and I wondered if that counted as a word.

“I’ll follow what moonspinning I wist, you young bastard. Who can say what its light can lead you to? Your mother …” he snorted. “Hah. She’s got no …” He groped. “… no … She thinks there’s no more than hard bread and watersup in life. Aye, so. Aye, so.”

“I want to eat soon,” Chael went on.

“You’ll eat. I promise,” I promised.

“I’m so tired, and I feel sick. I think I have a fever coming over me.”

“Fever,” I said. “Then starve it.”

“Who can say,” Veers asked again, “what its light can lead to?”

I could have told him. I didn’t.

“Arrr,” repeated Beef, and I laughed this time.

“I’ll feed you Beef,” I said.

She said something more, which I only half heard. Women have taught me to half-listen. Women and priests …

LAYLA

I think it was morning. I think the daylight was gray and chilly … I think … because the door to the tower room was open and I think my daughters were gone. Yes, they were. I remembered and I went into the hallway. Chilly color at the window slits. I didn’t bother to look out, because I couldn’t have seen much and what I saw was best seen through one eye only … My head didn’t hurt, but everything slowly spun and I knew I’d be sick soon, sick on the stairs that suddenly rushed up beneath my feet so fast I skidded onto my little backside and bounced. It hurt, but only from far away so it didn’t matter any more than the blurry gray light … All far away and the blurry walls and roof … I laughed, because I understood how silly it all was, everything on earth . . . everything on earth … yes …

My feet were walking again a little too fast. I didn’t really feel them hitting the steps … fast … I said a few things. I was thinking about my husband again, and then I was very sad, in the blurry gray chilliness, and lonely … lonely … It was too late to go back to the nice room where the wine was … That was the saddest …

I called my children’s names, I think. My voice was lost in the emptiness. Nobody cares. That’s the fact you always trip over. I hate facts.

“Nobody cares!” I’m sure I yelled.

And then a long, low room I didn’t know … I didn’t even remember that I was in my own home. The gray fuzzed everything. I wasn’t on the stairs; I was leaning on the wall.

And next I was in the low room, and I heard her sobbing so I said: “Don’t be sad, darling … No, no, no …”

I knew it was Leena. That broke my heart. I pushed through the grayness and saw her lying on the bed, too much skin showing, and the lump shape that stood up naked and reddish blotched … a naked reddish blotch … reddishblotch man and my child Leena on the bed sobbing, you see. Sobbing. That was very bad. And then next I knew who it was, the manshape, the lump. Him. Him, the lump, and my throat filled and hurt with howling, yelling (I suppose) words that pushed at him, that hit him so hard he went over (him: Sir Chinkey the Chinkshit) over on his side or off the bed into the blurs because the floor tipped me over and hit my head, which didn’t hurt much, and it went clear just then in the grayness the bed white and gold-red hangings and the naked man falling or maybe standing up again and her … her, my child, crushed down by the terrible weight (I couldn’t see it but I felt the weight) the cruelness had crushed her down into the snowy sheets and the blood, bright, a shock so crimson on the smooth, smoothness of her crushed down belly and legs and her sobbing … sobbing … in the pain of torn dreams … and my throat bursting full of my voice, the sounds hitting him and pushing him away and out the door.

HOWTLANDE

The place was empty, so far as I could determine. Bearing in mind the castle was so huge that a tournament could have been held in the back and you’d not know it in the front. A vast place, full of dooms and secrets.

We entered the front gate. It was wide open. Gobble sent lots of men around the sides and left others to lurk in front. The biting dwarves charged everywhere and found no one at home. I didn’t mind. Gobble limped and twisted and seemed lost in some inner focus, most of the time.

“We’ve beaten them all here,” he confided, staggerstepping with a sprightly and smug expression. “Stone by stone,” he commanded, “we’ll root through this hole until the evil thing is found. The poisonous Grail, the bane of our Lordmaster.” He grinned, to one side. “And we’ll take the others when they come for better purpose than you know.”

PARSIVAL

The gate stood open. I didn’t favor that. Modred and Morgana were pleased. I was still trying to figure out if I’d actually made love to her back in that castle chamber, back and lost in yesterday’s half-sleep …

I supposed it was the same castle. I’d never had a good look at it. I’d been unconscious going in and was too busy to notice much going out.

We dismounted in the yard, the pale priest glaring around, Modred nervously keeping in the midst of everyone else, Morgana just ahead of me, marching supple and rapid through the big door that wasn’t barred.

The main hall was vast enough, cobwebbed and dying into night.

“Torches,” she said.

“Did we make love?” I wanted to know.

“What?”

“The other night. I’m sick of melted facts. Tell me the truth.”

“If you’re so sick,” she advised, “then pay more attention to what happens to you.” Fair advice. At the far side we entered a vaulted hall, narrow and high. Modred was hesitant.

“Where do you lead me?” he asked.

The holy man had a glimmer.

“To the peril of your immortal soul,” he announced. “She would lead you to the bottomless pit, my lord.” Morgana snorted. Modred looked even more uneasy.

“It wouldn’t be a pit then,” I reasoned, to irritate. “Just a tunnel. “

“What’s that?” Modred wanted to know. His soft-fleshed face peered around at me. The torch flames didn’t improve his looks. The runty priest had no expression below his intolerant eyes. He reminded me of many men I’d disliked.

“You, Parsival,” Modred said.

“Yes?”

“I’ve heard much report of you.”

“All foul?”

“You are sworn to serve Arthur.”

“That’s sufficiently foul,” Morgana put in.

“I’m in retirement,” I said.

“I trust you not,” he concluded.

“It’s certain he trusts you, nephew,” said the lady.

“Heed her not,” said the priest. “She will —”

“Yes, yes,” Morgana cut him off, “we know. The pit.”

Modred’s paffy face came closer to me. It looked like dough in the shifting reddish light. His small eyes were surprisingly hard. I didn’t doubt his cruelty. “I mean to be king,” he said as if it meant something to say it. “I mean to rule.”

“Why?” I wondered, because I’d never really understood that ambition, not in my heart, at least.

He sniggered. Turned away.

“Why?” he echoed.

“He’s still the fool they called him,” he decided. The evidence was all in.

Morgana was intense. “Greatness is a call not all men hear, much less heed,” she said. “All history has a purpose and meaning. Though you cannot grasp these things altogether, know, all of you, that beings return to walk and live again in these fleshy suits. All of us.” She strode ahead, her back to us. “The soul returns to earth and must live in the world it has made in the past.”

“Hah!” hissed the priest. “Heresy! The gnostic and heathen lies the Mother Church has stamped out. The false views of the Devil in hell!” He was very excited now. “Put a tongue in the anus and who can say what you’ll have to hear?”

“If I’ve lived before, lady —” I said. I’d heard fragments of this doctrine myself and wondered about it. Merlinus had hinted things. “If I’ve lived and come back to do no better than this, then God help the world, were I king of it.”

She chuckled. “Well said,” she agreed, “yet the wheel of fate spins, and we must all walk as best we can. I am leading you all to greatness, if you find footing to follow me.”

“I knew I recognized this road,” I said.

She was too serious now to understand me. “You remember this tunnel?” she asked. She actually had a map of the place. She unrolled the parchment at the first intersection of corridors. The priest was muttering still. Modred was thoughtful. To the limits, I’m sure, of a snake’s powers of reason.

“We must descend,” she announced.

And then I did recognize something: the corridor veered down (part of the labyrinthine interior) and looked like the spot where I’d fought the biting little cripple, Gobble, (my heel would hurt in wet weather from his teeth for many years) the fat foreigner, and the sweet girl I’d had to murder during that absurd charade. That had all ended at the well, which obviously had a bottom, and nothing had, in fact, ended at all. The madness had merely been reincarnated (so perhaps she was right about that too) …

She led on, holding a torch near her map. I found that almost amusing, though I doubted she’d understand why. Fanatics seem to laugh in all the wrong places. Fanatics plague my life.

“What do we look for?” Modred asked.

“The gate to hell,” said the runt.

We were descending a circular stairwell. The only light was from our torches. The troops strung out behind us seemed to be keeping good order. We’d kept about fifty men, I estimated.

“Better than that, Father,” she said.

“The Devil himself?” bitingly asked the prelate, eyes a small hard glitter in his narrow face.

Morgana was enjoying herself, I think. We came to a chamber where the walls went up beyond the flickers of our torchlight so high you couldn’t have proved there was a ceiling. Words (that might have been Greek for all I knew) were graven into the dark stone. Strange. The blocks were larger than any I’d ever seen in a castle and certainly I didn’t remember seeing these things the last time — if I had really been here.

As we went on, I noticed that the walls gradually began to slant together, so that before long we were funneled into single file behind the witchwoman. My misty memories from about twenty years ago of what was supposed to have been the Grail were nothing like this. I’d been received into an open hall with a roaring fireplace, pages, fine ladies and knights in silk and samite, a feast with music … I’d swilled wine and fallen asleep, stuffed with pastry and sweetmeats. Now it was all underground ways and twisting passages, all mysterious sneaking and stalking and all for the same nothing, in any case.

Why had I come here, I asked myself. The answer was a shrug. Maybe I’d find Lohengrin, though I doubted it. Maybe there was something to Morgana’s claims … And then there were my wife and daughters to consider.

“This looks promising,” I said to her.

“Patience. “

“Soon,” I said, “the Grail will come bounding to me like a loyal dog.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

Modred was behind me.

“This is senseless,” he said. “We’re getting nowhere.”

“Patience,” I said. “Permit the lady her quiet madness.”

She didn’t deign to turn back but said:

“You know better than that. Both of you.”