The Final Quest (The Parsival Saga Book 3) (4 page)

VI

The air was sparkling and fragrant. Parsival stood in the walled garden inhaling the day, the flowers and spice, the cool gray stones rich with sweeps of ivy, the heavy hanging trees creased and nicked with yellow light and blue shimmer. The moment seemed charged with something from long ago and he felt a strange, sweet sense of time last and of no time passing at all …

smiled and stretched his limbs till they shuddered a little. Sat down on the grass with the sunlight pushing against his bare face and arms.

“What delight,” he whispered. This was a day from the purest depth of childhood and if he forgot to tell himself how many years had come between, there suddenly were no years at all, just this moment …

He smiled and shut his eyes and the brightness still glowed into them.

He shook his head. Was startled because the shadow of the wall had shifted noticeably though he was certain his eyes had been closed but a moment. And now one of the monks was standing there, young, round-faced, nervous-looking, partly smiling.

“I feared to disturb you, sir,” he said.

“I must have dozed.”

“Do you really think so, sir?”

Parsival concentrated on the man.

“I ought to know,” he declared, at length.

The monk nodded nervously and brushed a hand through his unevenly tonsured hair. Parsival noted that for all his uncertain looks his voice seemed quite assured.

“So you ought,” the holy man said, ambiguously. “There’s food and drink waiting, if you are ready.”

He’d been there perhaps two hours. Since mid-morning. He was hungry. He’d passed an empty, crumbling, white stone church and followed a cart trail across a dense, flowery glade under full trees (that rushed and creaked) to where the thin double ruts ended at a white, overgrown wall whose stones were spilled among the high grasses. He’d thought it odd for tracks to end where there was no gate. Noticed the rusted fragments of an ancient suit of armor and a broken sword lying as if the rocks had been dropped to shatter them there. Clambered over the wall and saw the monastery with the brothers working in the fields around the large, low, rambling structure, the same bright white building rock. No one had spoken or seemed to notice him until this one monk led him through cloistered passages that wound within and without the inner buildings past vistas of sudden bright green richness at the end of long, dim halls. Strips of crystal sky vibrated through slitted windows. Finally the fellow had left him in this silent interior garden.

“Yes,” he murmured softly, thoughtfully, “I’m hungry enough.”

“Are you awake now, sir?” the monk asked with the same ambiguous overtones, still partly smiling.

“If you mean to say something, brother, why don’t you say it straight out?”

The monk brushed irrelevantly at his hair again.

“Some things,” he replied, “can’t be said plainly or they vanish like a moonbeam in a candle flame.”

Parsival nodded.

“Very well,” he said.

“Were still waiting for you to wake up and come and eat and drink.” Rubbed his head vigorously. “The table is laid, the wine poured.”

Parsival stood up. For an instant afraid he lacked the strength to do it all in one motion, as if he’d been stuck to that lawn under him.

“I want nothing to do with that anymore,” he said.

“With nourishment?”

“You know what I mean. It’s all trick roads that lead in circles. Sweets that turn bitter, drink that sours.” He shook his head and stubbornly set his lips. “If you tell me the Grail is here I’ll run away.” He paced back and forth under the trees, body breaking thin threaded sunbeams that spattered the grass like golden coins. “I want none of it and no
powers
either. Look, fellow, I’m an ordinary man. That’s the remarkable thing about me.”

He stopped and planted his hands on his hips. A fragile trickle of light creased his face almost in half. “Was I led here? Is that it?”

“You’re led everywhere,” the monk said, “whether you know it or not.” Played with a smile.

“I know all this talk,” he said. “I’ve heard it for years.” He moved and the thread snapped. “Talk to me after the grave. I’ll listen then.”

“Too many ‘nays,’ sir, if you ask me. You’re free to do all you choose. God has granted us that much.”

“I want none of it,” Parsival said, remote, shaking his head. “I paid my debts on that mountaintop. I did all I needed to. I was once a fool and famous for it. I lost my family and my peace of mind.” He was heading past the monk now, aiming for the arched passageway. “I’ve been your damned hero and damned magician too and that’s all done with.” He stepped out of the sunlight and seemed to vanish into the hall, still talking, voice echoing back directionless, suddenly distant and hollowed. “So lead me to your food, and I’ll starve at your table or chew my own flesh before I’ll touch
your
meat!”

The monk had moved to the archway standing just outside as if speaking to the shadowed void before him.

“You opened a door, sir,” he said, pleasantly, “that can never be shut. You’re needed. When the wolf comes to the fold what shepherd turns his back on the sheep?”

Parsival’s answer was lost in its own rattling reverberations far down the hall but the monk seemed to understand well enough. He looked faintly wry.

VII

The red and black knight was standing with the least old of the men, the lithest women and the strongest boys. He lined them up with homemade spears, poles, clubs and a few rude axes. The afternoon was hot and cloudless. The heat pulsed on the dry ground.

Whoever
I
am
, he was thinking,
I
seem
to
know
about
fighting
.
I
clearly
had
a
bitter
trade
. He could remember fragments of battles, armored warriors clashing with blind fury, himself ripping into them, a flash of burning cold power and satisfaction as his blade hit home again and again, sheared metal, sprayed bright blood …
I
suppose
the
woman’s
telling
me
the
truth
.

He’d confided somewhat in her this morning, explaining that his memory was in pieces, that he didn’t know who he was or what he stood or didn’t stand for, and asked her opinion of his possible history. She’d sat in the dust beside him, worn, hard, work-twisted fingers steadily enmeshed in complexes of yarn, pulling, knotting, stringing the shapeless tangle (as if by a kind of magic) into what gradually was becoming a child’s garment.

“It’s clear you been a knight,” she’d told him. “None would dispute that, me lord.”

“Well then,” he’d replied, fingers drumming on his sword hilt, “but what do I do now? Where do I go? Or do I?”

“If you stay here, me lord knight,” she’d said, carefully, not looking at anything, the threads flowing through her unceasing hands, “you’ll be soon set upon, as we all will be, for the few grains of food we have. We’ll all be put to the sword, sooner or later.”

“How know you this?”

“A week since, old Halpp was found in the back hills, chopped fine by an ax.”

“Did he tell you aught?”

“His wounds did. And the single pair of feet marks in the ploughed earth. We was seen and where there was one they’ll come more.”

“But what must I do?” He’d gone back to that. “Wander and hope to recover my yesterdays? For all I can tell, those who knew me are dead and gone …” He’d shaken his head.

“Aye?”

He’d shrugged. Poked his fingers in the dust.

“It’s difficult to say these things … but what should I do? Where do I look?”

She’d never ceased twisting the material into form, fraction by inescapable fraction.

“Why not plough the earth God gives you?” She’d knit her eyebrows, watching him now.

“What?”

“You’re bound by a code.” Not looking now.

“Code?”

“Aye. Chivalry, me lord. You need go nowhere to do your duty.”

“How do you know this?”

“Knights are all bound thus.”

“To what end, woman?” He’d let the yellow dust run through his fingers. The sun was beating almost straight down.

“Ah,” she’d said, “to help them as has great need a help and deep distress.”

She’d explained it well enough, he was thinking now.

Out
of
this
chivalry
may
come
something
I
need
to
know
…

“The first thing,” he was telling them now, “is to get them to fight where
we
wish.” He smiled. Obvious. Necessary.

The long-boned woman, his advisor, was watching, sitting just in the shade of the barn on a backless stool. Her hands still worked on a garment. He couldn’t tell if it was the same one.

“If there aren’t too many,” he told them next, “I’ll keep them away from here.” Squinted at the woman, whose head was tilted forward as if absorbed totally in her working. He touched his raw scar again. “I need a headpiece,” he said. “Have you one here?”

An old man looked uneasy.

“We’re but villagers, great lord,” he said, “how could we —”

“Go on, Palit,” the woman said from the shadow, not looking up, “bring him all the gear.”

“But … Maryls … we —”

“Be still, old fool. Get him the gear.”

The man nervously labored away, signaling one of the boys to follow. She explained:

“There was a battle in the valley. We gathered what we could. Who could blame us?”

He shrugged.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, “but you all must fight and not flee as you did from me on the bridge.” Went over to one boy. “Hold the spear like this …” He began instructing them and continued as the sun tilted down into the burning west and the landscape began receding into dim spaces and shadow.

The sky was like dark blood, the sun under the smooth-topped hills that were purplish black, depthless as the twilight seeped among the trees and huts in a glimmering, grayish tide.

He sat in front of the barn, the woman behind him. He heard nothing beyond the steady droning murmur of the July night. He knew she would still be working, that her hands were moving unceasingly. He’d watched her peel potatoes for his supper, clean greens, fill the pot, cut, slice, shred so neatly as to seem almost magical to him, and he’d recalled a woman seeming dreamlike in flowing golden silks, a bright-blue tent behind her, a long, fine-boned, smooth face tilting down, long hair piled high and bright and she moved as if balancing it, holding something he knew was a sweet out to him, smiling in her violet, shadowed eyes … and then lost it and thought:

Was
that
something
holy
?
Or
something
I
remember?

And then he was standing up, intent, alert, before he even caught up with his body’s responses, as if lifted to his feet by unseen hands, and he realized he’d felt rather than seen the blot of movement on the far hillside that rolled down to the river, and he was already running, the mail links shaking and ringing softly, holding the sheathed sword still at his hip, pushing the boy who’d fallen asleep by the low brick wall that partly encircled the village with a wobbling and crumbling arc.

“Are you so full-fed and safe, boy?” he demanded. “Go softly and tell everyone to prepare.” Watched as the fourteen-year-old scurried away, became a blur lost in the deepening dusk. The huts and trees were now indistinguishable dark blotches. The stream was a faint, silvery trace creasing the twilight-blended shapes.

He felt a strange, cold anticipation as he trotted easily, then moved into a quiet walk down the slope to the bridge. They wouldn’t see any reason to get wet. They’d send a scout or two at best to cross over the hard way. Well, the peasants would have to deal with that.

Chivalry
, he thought, recalling his conversation with the woman. He stopped under a willow, screened by the dense, sweeping wands that whispered and shifted in the veerings of air. The sunset was a lost violet hint above the single darkness of hills, woods, fields … the water splashed faintly past … the bridge seemed to arch into nothingness …
Chivalry
…
ah
,
would
but
these
pieces
in
my
head
unite
themselves!
I
might
then
give
a
name
and
reason
to my life! Well, these folks here are afraid for their potatoes and so I’ll do this chivalry … my God, but this is passing strange … I know names and the world and yet my own is absent, my traces faint … I must wait and watch and learn what I may … wait and watch … ah …

Heard a clinkering of metal … then a loud whispering voice. They were just across the water now.

If
I
try
to
parley
they’ll
think
me
weak
and
attack
anyway
… He knew these things without particular memories to tie them to: the way you swing a sword without having to recall any or every particular time in the past.

I’m
a
somewhat
cynical
fellow
,
as
I
begin
to
see
.
But
that
comes
from
watching
life
…
no
…
watching
people
.
Life
is
indifferent
to
anything
…

He smiled. He was learning. He expected everything would come back to him in time.

He saw them across the short, narrow arc of bridge that darkly spanned the faintly luminescent water, saw a vague metal gleaming and then shadows separating from the deeper background, the wood reverberating slightly as they crossed, an unintelligible voice half-whispering over the cricket’s summer hysteria in the warm, seamless night full of immense ripeness and perfume.

He stared into the deep blanknesses, seeing only the blurred edge of their movements. He felt his throat tense, mouth dry, heart quicken, and suddenly this all seemed absurd. What was he actually doing here? He didn’t know these men or their purposes … why not just live and eat and sleep and enjoy all the richness of this world? Absurd … this had nothing to do with him, his inner blanks left him free and innocent, and he struggled as if to break invisible bonds as feet drummed softly on the wood and a voice, hushed, fragmentary, said:

“… some … if God wills or … Devil … sleep for a fortnight, I …”

I
have
naught
to
do
with
any
of
this
.
Whatever
I
once
had
to
do
with
is
lost
in
bottomless
shadow
and
let
me
leave
it
there
…

He watched the vague sheen of a river and felt a deep urge to follow it up and around the shadowed, mysterious bends … on and on … remember nothing … start all time from now …

And then he found himself already walking, the draped willows whispering over his armor, turning his back on the raiders, almost strolling along the soft riverbank, faceplate open to the tender breezes.

“I’m free,” he murmured, partly aloud.
I
don’t
want
to
know
anything
more
. “I’m free.”

Except something in him knew, expected and so was unsurprised when a crouching, lithe figure, dripping water, cursed and swept a two-handed ax stroke at him. The hushed, flowing moment receded and was lost and he was caught again by his own motions, smoothly stepping aside, hearing the blade hiss past his ear as he drew and cut in one fluid motion and the man (hit glancingly in the upper torso) was shocked shrill and fled yelping, hoarse, crashing through brush; could be heard falling and getting up.

He turned now into the inevitability of the men charging from the bridge, all surprise lost for everybody, and he wondered why he had no fear. Then, as the blots and gleams and voices rushed up out of the fallen night to meet him, he leaped ahead (waiting for the fear and then forgetting even that) as if in a fast current, curious and ferocious, amazed (from some inner distance) at what he was doing, at his ducking, blocking and near-miraculous slashing that seemed to blow the vague, raging forms away from himself with hardly a felt shock, seeming to float in almost peaceful suspension above the actual cries and crashes and shadowy tumult. Then he heard the yells of the peasants farther up the slope and wondered how many there were coming on … but it was all so easy, moving in the dark, in and out of the screen of willow, great hissing rents cut in the branches. He felt supple, twisting and moving like a dancer; thrilling in little shocks each time a blade or ax brushed past his face or skidded from his chain armor, each shock whirling him deeper and more intricately into the ferocious dance, sparks flying, the shadows falling and fleeing, and he felt towering and coldly sweet and beating with a strange joy …

This
is
what
you
are
without
even
a
name
, a voice that was probably his own kept repeating,
this
is
what
you
are
…