The Bloody Cup (54 page)

‘May I hold it, Galahad?’ Bedwyr asked. ‘I’d like to know what it is about that thing that made Percivale believe was worth his life.’

‘No! Get back!’ Galahad snarled, his handsome face contorted in anger. ‘You’re pagan, you’ve no right to touch the Cup. Back away!’ He clutched the Cup to his heart with his reddened, blistering left hand, while his eyes glittered with manic suspicion. He swung his sword slowly until it pointed at Bedwyr’s chest.

‘I’m Bedwyr, Galahad. I’m not your enemy, and I don’t want your sodding cup.’

‘If you value your life, heathen, stand back. I, Galahad, have won the Cup, I have achieved Artor’s quest. The triumph is mine alone. Go back to your forests and your pagan Druids.’

Bedwyr held his open hands away from his body and slowly backed away from his companion.

‘Whatever you decide, Galahad. But what shall we do now?’

Galahad’s face was transfigured by religious ecstasy. Bedwyr had heard of the condition but he had never believed that a man’s reason could be lost over a religious experience. Yet what else explained Galahad’s behaviour?

Galahad began to walk towards the sea. ‘I’m going back to Cadbury. You can go your own way to your satan.’

Bedwyr looked at his companion’s retreating back in bemusement. ‘I’d rather stay with you, my friend. I need your protection.’ Bedwyr padded past the prince so he could face him. ‘How will we get to Cadbury? It’s many weeks of riding.’

Bedwyr realized that he was talking to the prince as if he was a small child.

Galahad continued to walk, clutching the Cup to his chest. Bedwyr was forced to jog beside him.

‘My horse is dead, so I must walk,’ the prince replied evenly.

‘You’re going the wrong way, Galahad. Let me show you the shortest route to Cadbury. We can use Gronw’s horse - it’s back in the clearing.’

Galahad took no notice.

‘Stop this nonsense.’ Bedwyr shouted, standing directly in Galahad’s path.

Galahad struck Bedwyr across the head with an absent-minded but numbing left-handed blow. The blistered skin on the prince’s hand broke open but, if he suffered any pain, he gave no sign.

Bedwyr fell and rolled away from Galahad’s dangerous feet.

He shook his head to clear it and then launched himself painfully at his companion’s knees, bringing Galahad down, face forward. The Cup flew out of Galahad’s hands and rolled on to a tussock.

‘So you want to steal the Cup?’ Galahad snarled, and threw himself at Bedwyr’s sprawled body with vicious, murderous intent. He clawed at Bedwyr’s eyes and sought to find his throat with his iron thumbs.

Bedwyr twisted and turned, punched at Galahad’s genitals and tore at his companion’s long braids, anything that would keep those powerful fingers from obtaining a death grip on his throat.

He fumbled for the Arden knife in its scabbard at his waist and managed to find the hilt of the weapon. Somehow, he contrived to drag the knife free and drove the keen blade up into Galahad’s body between the side lacings of his breastplate. Galahad didn’t loosen his grip on Bedwyr’s throat as the Arden knife pierced muscle and flesh, so Bedwyr twisted the blade.

Galahad’s body slumped and the prince rolled away as abruptly as he had commenced the attack.

What have I done? Bedwyr thought as he fought to drag air into his aching lungs.

What have I done? Galahad wondered, as he felt an almost peaceful weakness wash over him.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ Bedwyr swore when he had caught his breath. His broken ribs made him a gasp and his throat and neck pulsed with dull pain.

He used his elbows to slowly drag himself to Galahad’s side, the Arden knife ready for use in his hand.

‘Oh, Galahad!’ he moaned. ‘Why did you make me do this thing to you?’

‘I think I’ve been a little mad, Bedwyr,’ Galahad whispered painfully. ‘I’ve been obsessed with the Cup, for I can’t remember a night when it hasn’t been part of my dreams. I thought you intended to steal it from Mother Church.’

‘I’m so bitterly sorry to have harmed you, my lord,’ Bedwyr whispered. ‘We must search for a healer to mend your wound.’

‘Help me to my feet, Bedwyr,’ Galahad ordered. ‘We must put the Cup in some safe place, for only holy hands may dare to hold it.’

Gingerly, Bedwyr scooped up the Cup with a scrap torn from his tunic. It was made of base metal and appeared quite battered. To Bedwyr, it was valueless, yet it had caused the deaths of many good men. He thrust it into his shirt. Miserably, he wadded another piece of his tunic to stem the blood from Galahad’s wound. Then he helped his companion to his feet.

‘Your wound need not be mortal, Galahad. Cleansing, bandaging, rest and care may yet see you well.’

‘If it’s God’s will that I’m to die in this quest, then so be it,’ Galahad replied in a monotone. ‘But first, I want to cleanse myself from sin in the sea.’

‘We waste time, my friend. You needn’t perish. For the sake of your God, you must see sense!’

‘Don’t be an ass, Bedwyr,’ Galahad replied in his usual superior tone. Unaccountably, the prince’s scorn made Bedwyr feel a little better.

With the help of Bedwyr’s shoulder, Galahad began to walk, his steps becoming firmer as he slowly gained some balance. The two men retraced their steps past Gronw’s corpse towards the saddlebags that were lying beside the dying fire.

‘How did you manage to reach Gronw so quickly?’ Galahad asked painfully as they struggled towards the river edge.

‘I used a coracle. I’ve never paddled one of the infernal things before, so I’m lucky to be alive to tell the tale. I can’t swim.’

Galahad tried to laugh, but he coughed and spat blood into the grass. Bedwyr averted his gaze in shame.

‘Your coracle will suit my purposes admirably.’

Eventually, Galahad eased himself on to a large stone that had fallen from the Roman bridge.

‘The Romans were great builders,’ Galahad said softly as he looked in appreciation at the stonework of the structure above him. ‘It’s one of the reasons that King Artor has been so successful, for he’s always tried to retain the best that they left behind.’

Bedwyr was surprised by the sensitivity of Galahad’s words, for the Otadini prince was hardly an introspective man.

‘I’m beginning to think that he could do without the bad influence of Lucius’s Cup,’ Galahad went on. ‘I won the Cup in fair combat, so I think I should be the one to determine its fate.’ He smiled at Bedwyr with a hint of pride. ‘You may return it to me now.’

‘You won’t try to kill me again?’ Bedwyr asked carefully as he drew the relic out of his tunic and handed it to the prince.

‘I don’t think I have the strength to try,’ Galahad replied ruefully. ‘It will be coming with me on my journey, so there’ll be one less temptation for evil to use.’

Bedwyr stared into Galahad’s stern, beautiful face. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ll head for Mona Island in your coracle. The holy men there will cure me if I survive the journey. If the Cup of Jesus should reach the priests of Mona, they will protect it with their lives. If not, the sea will take it and keep it safe from the impious hands of mortal men until the Last Judgement.’

‘You can’t reach Mona in a coracle’, Bedwyr stated, aghast at Galahad’s intentions, for the crossing could take many hard days.

‘With God’s grace, I shall complete the journey. But you mustn’t look for me among the courts of men, for I’ve lost the right to stand beside my fellow warriors.’

Bedwyr was stricken. ‘I’m the only person who knows about your lapse, and I won’t tell anyone, because I’m the one who has sorely wounded you.’

‘For the sake of my resolve, Bedwyr, I beg you to be silent. Help me into the coracle and then I’ll be gone. If you won’t assist me, I’ll launch it myself.’

Bedwyr realized that Galahad was in deadly earnest.

‘I won’t stop you, but you must have fresh water if you’re to survive the journey. Isn’t suicide a mortal sin in your faith?’

Bedwyr ran back to Gronw’s camp to snatch up a leather bladder of water and then hurried back to Galahad. With regret, he helped his companion to the water’s edge and dragged the coracle with his free hand.

He stood knee-deep in the water while he loaded the water skin and the remainder of their rations. Galahad sat quietly through the operation, the Cup held loosely in both hands.

‘Why didn’t the Cup betray you, Bedwyr? Why could you hold it, and yet it had no power to touch your heart?’

Bedwyr held the frail boat steady with both hands and frowned.

‘My eyes saw the Cup as a fragment of old metal and nothing more. Lucius of Glastonbury used it to hold clean water, the purpose for which it was first fashioned. It may have held sacred blood, or poetic inspiration, or the hopes of good men, but its value was always in the hands that held it. I’ll not revere an object, and nor will I kill, or die, for such a thing. But I would be prepared to die for Lucius or Percivale. I would even be prepared to give my life for you, Galahad. Yes, I’d die for human hands and hearts, but not for that thing. I’ve seen too much death and sent too many men to the shadows myself to give a damn for any object, regardless of its power.’

Galahad was silent, as if sunk deeply in thought. Then he rose painfully to his feet.

‘Farewell, my friend,’ he said as he struggled into the flimsy vessel that Bedwyr held steady for him. ‘I hope to see you in my heaven one day, even though you will always be a pagan. You’ve proved to be a far wiser man than I shall ever be.’

He gripped Bedwyr’s wrist in the time-honoured sign of friendship.

‘When you speak with Artor, perhaps you shouldn’t tell the whole truth of the Cup. Some tales are best embroidered if the truth can cause harm. I ask only that you tell my father that I achieved my avowed task.’

‘Is there nothing else I should tell him?’ Galahad had made no mention of messages of love or regret, even to his mother.

‘There’s nothing more to say,’ Galahad replied.

Bedwyr would remember the Otherworld calm and the eldritch glow on the face of the prince for many years to come, and would wonder if the sacrifice of such an extraordinary life was necessary to expunge a momentary lapse of honour.

Then the fast-flowing current gripped the coracle and its passenger, and Bedwyr began to weep for the loss of his companion.

When he reached the hamlet where he had left his horses and Percivale’s body, the fisherman wondered at his ragged dress and the lines of pain and grief in his face.

Bedwyr dismounted and apologized for losing the coracle, but the fisherman simply jerked his head towards the river where a new coracle rested, upside down, on the grassy bank. Bedwyr grinned in amusement, a response that convinced the fisherman that this scarecrow was daft.

‘Keep this horse in lieu of your lost vessel, my friend. I’ve no further use for the beast and I hope you have better luck than the last man who owned it. I’ll simply take my property and leave you in peace.’

‘We put the corpse in the shed, so the snows will have kept him fresh. I hope it worked.’

‘I’m sure you did your best. Does your kindness extend to providing me with a meal and a store of grain for my horses?’

‘Aye, I’m no thief. For such a beast, you can take whatever grain and fish you need. A horse will make the ploughing easier.’ The fisherman peered between the beast’s legs and grinned with real delight. ‘He’s a stallion too. Shite, he’s worth a jug of cider, if your lordship isn’t too proud to drink a poor man’s tipple. Aye, this big boy will pay his way with the mares around these parts. It were a good day for me when you bought my old coracle, my lord.’

When Bedwyr departed for Bremetennacum, he left with a large bag of grain, and a supply of smoked fish and meat that would last through his journey. He had developed a liking for these laconic peasants and their untroubled approach to life’s tragedies and unexpected windfalls. He wished them well.

At Deva, Bedwyr rejected the main route leading to the south in order to visit Lady Nimue at Caer Gai. Dragging his friend’s corpse all the way to Cadbury was impractical, so Bedwyr decided to ask Nimue if Percivale’s remains could lie in peace close to her home.

Little more than a goat track snaked through the tall, grey-black mountains to the eyrie of Caer Gai. The route was cruel and Bedwyr was forced to lead his horses on foot to spare the beast’s hooves from the flinty and treacherous terrain. His own feet suffered too, for his boots had split apart through hard usage and water-damage.

‘Who’d choose to live in this desolate place?’ he asked the wind, in the absence of any living companion and to break the cold, aching silence. Above him, the mountains frowned down on the bare track and an occasional hawk circled in the thin air. Sometimes, out of loneliness, Bedwyr caught himself speaking to Percivale whose corpse should have long since been buried.

Eventually, he arrived at a remote village in a fold of the hills and he recognized the influence of Myrddion Merlinus. The people were hardy and stunted, like the trees that set their roots in barren earth, but they were well fed and clean. They had probably dwelt in this isolated, unforgiving place for generations beyond counting. Bedwyr noted the cunning irrigation that fed their crops and explained the prosperity of the village. What arable land existed had been ingeniously put to work, and well-fed goats and sheep were penned where they could be protected from the extremes of weather.

He asked for the whereabouts of Lady Nimue from each person he met, but every villager steered him unceremoniously towards the headman of the village. The farmers regarded him with suspicious, unfriendly eyes, while large-eyed children clutched their mothers’ skirts and sucked their thumbs. The obvious evidence that the stranger carried a corpse made him fearsome to these simple folk, and Bedwyr noticed that several of the women warded themselves and their children from the curse of evil magic.

‘I mean Lady Nimue no harm,’ he told the headman. ‘Her son, Taliesin, is well-known to me. I bring news . . . and the body of her friend.’

The headman continued to shake his head, as if he feared Bedwyr would spirit the Lady of the Lake clean away when their backs were turned.