Pendragon's Heir (15 page)

They came out onto the lawn below the house, where light streamed out onto the grass, and Perceval looked at her. “Why, damsel,” he said, with surprise and ineffable disappointment in his voice, “are you afraid?”

“Yes, terribly”—she bit back the words and glanced back the way they had come. The last light had faded out of the west and even the trees hardly seemed blacker than the sky. “I am sorry,” she said at last. “The darkness made me afraid. In the light I will be brave enough.”

Perceval looked out at the night and his answer, when it came, shook her. “I know what you mean by fearing the dark,” he said. “The tales I heard of Logres spoke of it as a beacon of light. But I found it sieged by shadows.” He glanced back at Blanche. “I, too, fear the future. I fear that Logres is doomed to flicker and die, leaving only the dark, and that nothing I can do will stop it.”

Blanche stared at him. “Do you mean that Logres is in danger?”

“It has always been in danger,” he replied, with a smile.

“From Morgan le Fay?”

Perceval shook his head. “She is only the foremost of our enemies. Britain is full of sorcerers, barbarians, brigands, raiders, and rebels. It is the work of the Round Table to resist and subdue them, to shield the little people against them. Had you not heard this?”

“I—” Blanche began, and then fell silent. She could not truthfully say she had been ignorant of it, and suddenly, sickeningly, she was ashamed of herself. “I had heard it,” she said, in a voice she hardly recognised. She laid her hand on Perceval’s arm. “But what are you going to do about it?”

He smiled encouragingly. “The task at hand. The King said that the fate of Logres rests on your safety.”

“That’s what the prophecy said. But how?”

“You are his heir,” said Perceval. “The one who will inherit Logres when he is gone. The one who will fend off the night. But you knew this too.”

“I did,” she said in horror. “But I never thought of it this way before. I never knew what was at stake.” For a moment, the evening dark pressed in like the enemies of Logres; ahead, the windows of her own house gave off a comforting glow.

Blanche looked Perceval in the eye. “I am mortified,” she said. “Here I have been telling you my own selfish woes, while you are trying to save a civilisation.”

Perceval opened his mouth to speak, but there was the sound of a gong from within the house.

“It is dinner,” said Blanche with a shaky laugh. “Let us go in.”

I
N THE LIGHT
,
AS SHE HAD
predicted, she felt stronger. It was good modern gaslight streaming from lamps mounted on the wall, and with the addition of a good solid butler like Keats to fill glasses and pass plates, Blanche felt even better. But the vision which had filled her imagination a moment ago on the lawn, of a kingdom besieged by primeval chaos, still weighed on her mind.

She fought it with forced mirth.

“So the railway has your box, Cousin Percy,” she said in Welsh as Keats swam in with the soup. “You had better hope they disgorge it soon, or you will be wearing Sir Ector’s clothes all the way back to Merthyr Tydfil. Our gentlemen’s outfitter in the village is not the thing at all.”

“No, not the thing,” said Perceval, playing along valiantly, although he evidently did not understand one word in three.

“When we have a moment, you must tell me all the news. Thank you, Keats.” Blanche took a feverish spoon of soup and was grateful that Perceval had apparently learned some table manners in the last few months.

Perceval spoke. “They say the new Bishop of Trinovant nearly burned down the cathedral by mistake during the winter.”

“My goodness,” said Blanche. “How extraordinary. Keats, will you close the curtains over there? I feel the dark coming in. The cold,” she corrected herself, and afterwards fell silent.

After dinner, in the drawing room, Perceval wandered to the corner and inspected the bookshelves. Blanche sat down at the piano and tinkled a few bars of the
Well-Tempered Clavier
. Surprised, the knight whipped around to see what had caused the strange noise. Then he relaxed and came off guard like a dog coming off point, grinning as though he hadn’t convinced her for a terrifying moment that some enemy had silently entered the room behind her.

Blanche banged the lid shut over the keys.

Perceval held up a book. “Tell me what this is.”

“It’s a book.” She took it off him and flipped it open. “See inside? Writing.”

He peered at it. “The little words. I never learned the trick of them.”

“You never learned to
read?
”

He shook his head. “We had no books in the cave. And no parchments.”

“The cave!” Blanche pressed her hand to her forehead.

He laughed and gestured to the piano. “It had no lamps or singing machines, but it was warm if you kept the fire going.”

She had to let go of her dismay and laugh. “No, no, I’m sure it was lovely. Only I just remembered that the dinner party is tomorrow night. And you were brought up in a cave.”

“Yes.”

She said: “Well, at least Emmeline and I can speak Welsh. And at least the Welsh have a reputation for being half-savage, because I think we’re going to need it.”

B
LANCHE SWISHED ACROSS THE HALLWAY AND
tapped on the door of the room that had once been Sir Ector’s. Silence. She tapped again. “It’s me.”

“I think,” said Perceval from within, “you had better help me with this gorget.”

She opened the door and found him struggling with his collar. “Do try to remember what I told you,” she said, brushing away his hands and pinning the collar on. “Say how-do-you-do to the guests, watch which forks and spoons I use, and avoid all subjects of religion and politics. There’s the bell. They’re here.”

Kitty Walker and Emmeline Felton were in the hall removing wraps and hats when Blanche and Perceval came downstairs to meet them.

“Blanche, you look
delicious
,” said Kitty, kissing the air by Blanche’s cheeks. She glanced at Perceval. “Why, you coy thing, you never told me you were expecting anyone
else!
”

“I wasn’t,” Blanche said repressively. “This is a cousin from Merthyr Tydfil, Perceval de Gales. He only speaks Welsh.”

Kitty looked at Perceval and giggled and said, “
Noswaith dda
.”

“Good evening,” said Perceval in the same language.

Blanche hissed in English, “I thought you didn’t speak Welsh?”

“Welsh nanny,” said Kitty. She switched back to Welsh, sidling up to Perceval. “I haven’t spoken the language for years. Do tell me if I say anything very funny.”

Blanche sighed. “Hello, Emmeline dear.”

The Vicar’s daughter squeezed her affectionately and said, “I am so sorry you are going away, Blanche. We’ll miss you.”

“Oh, Emmeline, and I never thought—I’ll miss your wedding. If I’m still here when Mr Pevensie comes back from London next week, you must bring him to visit.”

Keats ushered in Mr Corbin in immaculate evening dress. The sight of him threw Blanche into confusion. She had meant to ask his advice. Kitty had probably let him know that she urgently wanted to speak to him. But now that she stood face to face with him, she had another twinge of conscience. She’d already told him about Logres, about her parents, about everything. She did not have the time to reason it through; only sudden doubt hit her that it had been wise to reveal so much.

“Don’t fib!” Kitty’s delighted voice sliced through the hall, startled back into English. Blanche turned to see her dissolving in helpless laughter. “Blanche, darling, he says there are dragons in Wales.”

Perceval laughed along with Kitty, as if enjoying her mirth. Blanche stood wordless.

“They
are
more difficult to find than they used to be,” he said to Kitty in Welsh. “The giants, on the other hand, grow more numerous.” She went off into fresh peals of laughter.

“Miss Pendragon, good evening,” said Mr Corbin’s soft amused voice at her side. “Where did you find such an original?”

She turned to him, forcing a smile. “M-my—” and then she caught herself. This man had nothing to do with Logres, and her guardian and Nerys had gone to great lengths to keep the servants and others in Gloucestershire from knowing where they had come from. Her conscience nudged again, and she heard herself continuing smoothly:

“A friend of my guardian’s, come down to keep me company. Percy de Gales. Of the Merthyr Tydfil de Gales.”

“Will you introduce us?” said Mr Corbin.

“Oh, I’d love to, although he doesn’t speak English.”

“That need not hinder us,” said Mr Corbin in perfect Welsh.

Blanche stared. “I suppose you had a Welsh nanny too, then,” she said feebly.

“No,” he said, smiling. “My nanny was a woman from Carlisle. But I learned the language years ago conducting a study on conditions in a Welsh ordnance factory. And now I’d very much like to meet your friend.”

There was nothing to do but lead him over and make the introduction. “Percy, this is Mr Simon Corbin. He—what
do
you call the profession, Mr Corbin?—he writes letters to
The Times
about education reform.”

Blanche, watching the two of them exchange politenesses, wondered if it could be possible to find two more dissimilar men. Even the tentative air she detected in Perceval, as he tried to conceal his ignorance of Gloucestershire manners, could not veil his open face or chill his laughing eyes like the mocking and secretive melancholy of Mr Corbin.

Then Keats appeared to announce dinner, and Blanche asked Mr Corbin to escort Emmeline. Kitty took Perceval’s arm. He solemnly offered the spare to Blanche, and she took it, the better to surpervise his conduct on the way into the dining-room.

Entrée and soup. Kitty, making desultory conversation with Perceval, wanted to know if he had been up to Llanstephan at all, and didn’t he adore the little town? Perceval said No, but fame of its beauty had spread throughout Merthyr Tydfil and the countries around. Emmeline was talking to Mr Corbin about the war, in Welsh for courtesy’s sake.

Main course, lamb cutlets. “I don’t think it’s right at all,” Emmeline was saying. “Poisoning the wells, burning the houses, and shutting up the women and children in camps? This is not a just war.”

Mr Corbin smiled. “How else do you propose we shall win, Miss Felton? We are fighting a mobile and well-supplied guerrilla force. The Boers buzz about our ears like gnats, and while the generals make futile attempts to swat them, hundreds of men are dying of typhoid.”

Emmeline looked beseechingly at Blanche. But Mr Corbin went on: “You think me heartless, Miss Felton, but I assure you I am not. The families in the camps are being cared for; outside, they would only starve. Meanwhile, it behoves us to take every advantage in this struggle. Is it not better to win at once and end the suffering, than to continue locked in stalemate?”

Emmeline bowed her head, but said, “If the Boers thought so, they would already have surrendered.”

“If the Boers thought so, there would not have been a war,” said Mr Corbin with a laugh. “In a perfect world these sad decisions would be unnecessary.”

Perceval had been following the conversation, and now he spoke. “Yet in fighting, as in anything else, Christian warriors must act in accordance with their prayers.
Adveniat regnum tuum sicut in caelo et in terra
.”

“Christians? Mr Corbin is a
nonbeliever
, Percy,” said Kitty with a laugh.

Mr Corbin raised a conciliatory hand. “Yet I understand you, I think, sir. You mean that the citizens of heaven must act as though they were in heaven. But this is my point. God knows—if He exists—where heaven is, but it certainly is not on the earth.”

“Augustine says—” Blanche began to object, but Mr Corbin had not finished.

“This is the real world, sir. Save your ideals for heaven.”

“I say that a battle which cannot be won without treachery and dishonour is a battle not worth winning.”

“It is a pretty idea, certainly,” said Mr Corbin with a smile which even Blanche thought was rather provoking. “But
I
think that if you were a fighting man, de Gales, you would find the model difficult to put into practice.”

“It can be done,” said Perceval, sitting back in his chair with arrogant ease and folding his arms.

“Can it? Let us try it ourselves, now. Cast me as the villain in a melodrama, de Gales. Having crippled you with a cowardly blow, I turn to condemn one of these adorable ladies—” he turned with half a bow to Kitty, who giggled—“Miss Walker, for instance, to death, or a fate worse. I twirl my moustache. Miss Walker faints. And you, sir, recollect that you have a weapon concealed on your person.”

Perceval shifted in his seat. Blanche read his face like a book. Oh dear. He
did
have a weapon concealed on his person.

“Do not deny, Mr de Gales, that to preserve her you would take your last chance. You would bury your knife in my back without a second thought, without a warning, no matter how unchivalrous that might be.”

Perceval, less arrogant now, stared mutely at the table. At last he stirred and said, “It would depend—”

“Sophistry, sir!” Mr Corbin thundered. He went on: “Ah, but even now you fail to understand me. What if it were not the villain doing these dastardly deeds, but your colleague, or your commander?”

Perceval looked up with quick displeasure. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, “that by your own showing, the greatest threat to heaven comes from within the ranks of the angels themselves. Before you can prove to me that heroes can defeat villains with nothing but the purest chivalric ideals, you must convince me that heroes do exist, and that villains are not a fanciful tale for children. You must tell me, sir, if you dare, that you are incorruptible, and that your colleagues and commanders are as pure as you. Your health.”

And Mr Corbin took a sip of wine. Perceval, with a furious scowl, stared at his plate. Blanche herself was suddenly angry with the schoolmaster. It hadn’t been a fair fight; Mr Corbin was so much older and so much more worldly than Perceval. But she could not take up the argument on his behalf. For one thing, she had been lax in her duties as a hostess in not diverting the conversation sooner. And for another, if she was honest, she was inclined to agree with Mr Corbin.