Pendragon's Heir (33 page)

She said, “Oh, Blanchefleur, you should have been there. A fig for Sir Lancelot! Sir Gawain is the most perfect knight in the world.”

Nerys pretended to look solemn and quelling, but her voice shimmered into laughter. “And more than twice your age, withal.”

“Oh, pfft!
You
know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Sir Lancelot?” Blanchefleur asked Nerys. Somehow, without meaning it, her voice fell like a little cold brass snuffer on the hilarity of the room.

Nerys said, “Did you not recognise him?”

“I saw Sir Gawain,” Blanchefleur said. “The other was Sir Lancelot?” A little flame of warmth sprang into her. “But this means the Grail Knight is yet to come.” And Perceval had not yet failed the Quest for lack of time.

Branwen emerged tousled from her own white tunic and said: “We offered both of them food, and Sir Lancelot ate, but Sir Gawain did not!”

“Even though you all teased him,” said Nerys.

“Oh! He was discourteous, and refused our hospitality, and declared himself our enemy, or so we all said.” Branwen giggled again. “And, Blanchefleur, he bore it all in the most knightly manner imaginable!”

“But why should he not eat?” Blanchefleur asked.

Nerys said hesitantly: “There is another supper for him to partake of. And these knights have sworn to refuse any other communion, with any other King, until they have found it.”

“It is a test!” said Branwen. “And Sir Gawain has passed it!”

Blanchefleur lifted the Grail from its table and paused. “But Sir Lancelot. Has he failed?”

“Let us see,” said Nerys, and took up the Spear.

When the three of them, walking in almost-tangible light, entered the great hall of Carbonek, Blanchefleur at once saw the stranger knights sitting at table. One was asleep, his shaggy dark head turned away from the Grail, burrowed into his arms. The other rose to his feet as she entered the room. It was Sir Gawain, and the way he stood with his chin upflung and his shoulders set square reminded her of Perceval. But in the Grail-light she saw with preternatural clarity a difference. This man was stubborn, unsubtle, bellicose. A good man to have at one’s side, if he could be kept there.

She went down the hall toward him. Sir Gawain stepped away from his chair and called in a voice with all the ringing gold of a trumpet, “Maiden of the Grail, in God’s name show me what these things mean!”

A sigh rippled across the hall like a harpstring that has been plucked and released. “Follow, and learn,” Blanchefleur told him. He left the table and paced after them, Naciens rising from his own place to bring up the rear. But when they had circled the hall, and just as the doors opened for their exit, Sir Lancelot stirred and lurched to his feet and followed with sightless, sleepwalking eyes. All the way up the stair to the chapel, his shuffling feet sounded on the steps behind them.

In the Grail Chapel they laid the Signs on the altar and Gawain went to his knees in prayer. Naciens closed the door after them, and Blanchefleur drew breath five times before she heard the soft groping of the sleepwalker in the dark, at the door. She touched Naciens’s arm and whispered, “Shall he fail the Quest utterly?”

Naciens saw the pity in her eyes. “Do as you will.”

Blanchefleur went and opened the door. Lancelot knelt there on the threshold. Was he awake, now, or still asleep? Certainly he never saw her, but stared past her to the Grail. She looked down at him, with his sharp-drawn face and the eyes that seemed a little too weary even for sleep to cure. She had been ready to resent this man, she realised, for the question-mark on her lineage. But now all she thought of was the piteous story of Elaine.

He shouldered suddenly up and forward, his eyes fixed on the Grail, as if to enter. Without thinking she darted out a hand to grip his arm. “No! Remain where you are, Sir Lancelot, for it was not given to you to enter here.”

He sank back to his knees, looking up, seeing her for the first time. Like Gawain, he was battered more with war than age, and though he must have been handsome once his face was now marred by weather and scars. They looked at each other, and something in Lancelot’s eyes recoiled, wounded; his lips framed one word: “Guinevere?”

She pressed her lips together. “No,” she said, and turned her back on him, leaving the door open for him to see. Further in, under the wash of Grail-light, the fire in him burning yet more brightly, Gawain was kneeling. While the Knight of the Lake saw only the Queen of Logres, what did Gawain see, beyond human sight and knowledge?

She remembered the question asked in the great hall, and said: “Sir, this is the blood of Christ, and the grace of God, given for you. Ask, and you shall receive.”

Gawain stirred and stood like a sleepwalker himself, reaching out a trembling hand to the Cup. Some of the light passed from his face. Then, as if afraid, he drew back and went again to his knees.

“Let one who is worthy drink. The Grail Knight cannot be far.”

Was it motion that caught her attention, or only the wing-beat of a bitter mood? Blanchefleur glanced at Nerys and saw that she had bowed her head; disappointment lay in the bend of her neck. Naciens sighed and said: “Because you have asked to know what these things mean, the waste lands shall be healed of their blight. Long have we waited for this deliverance.”

“It is well. When I am dead, let that be the deed for which I am known.” Gawain rose to his feet, and stood a moment longer before the Grail. A look of longing passed across his face; then he turned resolutely away, and went out of the chapel. Outside the door Sir Lancelot had sunk down on the steps in a deathly faint. Without a word Sir Gawain bent, lifted him, and carried him down the stair.

F
OR TWENTY
-
SEVEN DAYS
S
IR
L
ANCELOT LAY
in a stupor and could not be roused. Meanwhile, Sir Gawain stayed at Carbonek, and meanwhile, for the first time in Blanchefleur’s experience of the place, summer descended with blue skies, flowers, and warmth. The castle’s kitchen garden erupted into plenty. And one day a herd of wild sheep with overgrown coats wandered into the valley where Carbonek for the present stood. In a hum of activity they were shorn, butchered, and smoked, while the women busied themselves with the fleeces, washing, carding, spinning, and weaving. The curse had lifted at last.

One soft and golden afternoon a week after the knights had come, Blanchefleur took her distaff and went to relieve the damsel who was watching Sir Lancelot. With all of Carbonek quickening into renewed life, Blanchefleur felt an odd kinship with the ill knight. Of all the castle-dwellers, they two alone faced an uncertain future.

She wedged herself into one of the chamber’s windows, sun and breeze at her back, tucked her distaff under her left elbow, and began to spin. The motion quickened her dull mood and with a quiver of anticipation she wondered what would come next, whether it would be Morgan or the Grail Knight, and whether she would see Perceval again.

The door opened and she slid down from the window as Sir Gawain entered. Although Blanchefleur had seen him in passing at mealtimes and in passageways, she had not spoken above five words to him since the Grail Chapel. Out of the light, did he recognise the Grail’s keeper?

He bowed to her now and went over to where his friend lay on the bed. “No change?” he asked.

“None, sir.”

He turned away with a sigh and stood looking at Blanchefleur. A smile softened his harsh features. “So you are Arthur’s daughter.”

“I believe so,” Blanchefleur said, but her eyes went involuntarily to the man on the bed.

If Gawain saw her confusion, he made no sign. Instead, he took her hand and touched the gem she wore. “Well, well. The old ring.”

Blanchefleur looked at the red stone on her finger and said, “That was Perceval. He gave it to me.”

“As I gave it to his mother,” said Gawain.

“He told me the story,” Blanchefleur said. Sir Gawain beamed at her paternally for a space. She blushed. It was not as though Perceval was actually paying court to her, she thought. And would Sir Gawain think so kindly of her if he knew how she had treated his only son?

She smiled awkwardly and said, “I thought I would come and watch Sir Lancelot for a while. One hears so much about him.”

Gawain laughed and glanced at the bed. “If he could hear you, he would crave your pardon for lying like a felled log in the presence of such a lady.” He turned to Blanchefleur again more seriously. “You do not know him, lady, the best man in Logres, saving only our lord King. Have you seen him in tourney? I, I press on wherever battle is thickest, but he will stay back, if there is a young or untried knight, and let him triumph. And so he gains the more glory by his courtesy than I do by my arm.”

“A woman might love him for that,” she said, greatly daring.

“Many have.”

“I spoke to Elaine of Carbonek before she died. She told me the story, some of it.”

When Gawain spoke again, his voice growled in his chest. “Elaine of Carbonek! Did she tell you that she bewitched him? Did she tell you that she almost destroyed him? Only by a miracle did he regain his wits.”

“She said something like that,” said Blanchefleur, a little wary of his passion.

“I know Lancelot. He could not have been in his right mind. He is incapable of dishonour.”

“I—I beg your pardon, but I wish I could be as sure as you are.” She looked at him pleadingly. “But I’ve heard it said that perhaps I am not Arthur’s daughter.”

“Who says so?”

The answer came back sharp and stinging, like a whip. Merciful heaven, there was a quick rage and an awful strength kept in hand there. She picked her words carefully. “People who hope it is false. Nerys, and the Lady Nimue, and others. They say Sir Lancelot loves the—my mother.”

“That would be high treason.” A dark flush spread across his face. “The Lady Nimue should know better than to spread such slanders, and if she were a man I would defend my Queen’s spotless honour against her without fear.”

She could not help smiling at that. Gawain softened and laughed with her, and the quick rage was only a memory that left the air cleaner and fresher for its passing. He said, “I know Lancelot better than to think him capable of such a thing. His love for the lady Queen lends him strength and spurs him on to the great deeds he does for the good of Logres, but he knows his place. I love him like a brother, but I would kill him without hesitation if I thought that he had touched her.”

He turned to the bed and stretched out his hand above the sleeper. “Even now, where he lies! Not just for the sin. Do you not see what is at stake here, O maiden of the Grail? Lancelot’s treason would utterly destroy us. Logres would rip in half between her king and her champion. And all the works of our hands would perish.”

He turned back to her with the fire in his eyes gone, leaving them bleak and grey. Blanchefleur said, “Sir, you fill me with dread.”

Gawain shook his head. “It is only a nightmare. This is the waking day.”

“God grant you are right. But I cannot tell for sure, and I am afraid.” Much as she feared his anger, much as she sensed the deep differences that lay like a gulf between them, Blanchefleur looked into his eyes and knew that he of all people would understand her doubts. She said: “I have learned to love Logres, or what I have seen of it here in Carbonek. And I have seen the holy city. I have shed my blood on its stones defending the Grail. I will go back there, and I will face the enemy of Logres, and I will die if I must to save her. It is unbearable to think that after this, by proving myself false-born, I might cause the downfall of Logres and all our hopes.”

She took a deep and uncertain breath.

“But even if it does destroy us, shouldn’t I know the truth?”

He looked down at her for a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last.

“I dread passing myself off as something I’m not,” she said with a faltering smile. “Nerys says I worry too much, but how in good conscience can I take such an exalted position without being sure?”

“You cannot.” Sir Gawain frowned, but then his brows smoothed into a smile. “I say, seek the truth, lady. But I agree with the damsel: you worry overmuch. The truth is that you are true-born. That truth cannot hurt us.”

25

Sunder me from my soul, that I may see

The sins like streaming wounds, the life’s brave beat

Till I shall save myself as I would save

A stranger in the street.

Chesterton

S
IR
L
ANCELOT WOKE FROM HIS STUPOR
on a sunny morning in late spring, and the day after, he and Sir Gawain left Carbonek. Before they went, Lancelot asked to see Blanchefleur. She went down to him in the courtyard where Gawain was buckling straps and making stentorian farewells, and led him into the kitchen garden, where they walked between rows of cabbages like big blooming roses that reminded Blanchefleur of Sarras.

Lancelot walked with bent head and downcast eyes, hands clasped behind his back. “You are very like her,” he said at last. “I would have mistaken you for her, if not for your colouring.”

“Yes,” Blanchefleur said. “Elaine—” and she caught herself.

There was a moment’s silence before Lancelot spoke in a voice that seemed to come from very far away. “You saw her before she died?”

Blanchefleur looked at the cabbages, unable to subject him to her direct gaze. It was a strange world, she thought. Not only was this the most well-loved man in Logres, but he could have been—he could still be—her father. And yet he stood in the sun between cabbages and turnips, his eyes fastened upon the ground, looking like a whipped dog.

“Yes,” she said. Then: “She told me the story. I know it wasn’t your fault.”

He looked up and said with desperate finality, “Yes, it was.”

His flat voice warned her not to dig deeper, even if she had wanted to. Blanchefleur said:

“Take heart, sir. You came so very close to achieving the Quest.”

But that was a double-edged comfort. When his eyes dropped back to the ground she wondered if it had cut too deep, and hurried on. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be shut out at the end of it all. But you were there. You
saw
it. That is more than has been granted to any other man save Sir Gawain. And time is growing short. In a few weeks the Quest will be over.”