The Grail War (4 page)

Lancelot attacked again; the rest moved carefully to enclose the helmetless knight in a loose circle as, from behind the tents, a mounted squire led another charger by the bridle in a slow-motion gallop through the onlookers as Lohengrin rushed the warrior farthest from Lancelot, beat him flat into the mud, as though the man had run into a stone wall, leaped up, and held the flank and saddle long enough to be dragged away across the field as Lancelot, visor flung open, shouted orders and curses. As the horses went on out of the encampment, Broaditch could see Lohengrin finally levering himself onto the mount s back …

Broaditch was thoughtful. Well, he reflected, he could catch him on a mule, which these days was as good as a horse, and shank’s mare was nearly as swift as that …

The first knight still protruded from the mud, legs bent like a frog’s, a rain-stippled stain of blood spreading out from him. The second lay on his face, struggling faintly to crawl as he sank into the ooze. The third was sitting, dazed, bent shield still held protectively up. The sliced woman was being bound by a surgeon, though she clearly was nearly dead. Lancelot stood there, legs planted solidly, staring after his escaped quarry …

Lohengrin and his squire were clacking along a paved road with excellent drainage. The rain was lighter; a dense, smoky fog flowed everywhere, as though the countryside were damply burning.

Lohengrin was smiling sardonically at the pale youth.

“But, sir,” the boy, Wista, was saying, “I have heard that even your father had broken his sword and vowed never to raise it again in any cause.”

The supple, dark-faced knight, head in a tight leather cap, was amused.

“My sire, Parsival,” he said, “speaks honey and gold. But I have seen him at closer range than others. The men he has dispatched to judgment would make a hill to climb with labor.” He laughed. “And that without the horses and serfs in the stack!”

“But he has since broken his sword,” the squire insisted.

“Yes. And in good time. Who was left living for him to overthrow?” He frowned. “Just Lancelot, and even he feared the old dragon.” He poked his finger at the boy. “Do you know how many families have sworn to have my head and my sister’s and mother’s, too, and any spare cousins thrown in for the sake of my father’s gentle deeds?” He was now staring hard ahead into the billowing fog.

“Still, he’s come to renounce the life of a warrior and become a holy sage.”

“Like a glutted man abjures food, and the pox-struck turns from women.” He chuckled. “Why, once I heard a man in the stews swear, with ten whores all about him, never to come in the bawdy house again in God’s true name, by Christ’s back teeth, by Herod’s arse, by Pilate’s hands, by the wangers of all the saints who’re men, and the boltholes of all the female …”

“God’s mercy,” murmured the boy, crossing himself and looking around nervously.

“Fear not blasphemy.” Lohengrin laughed. “Worse things than words go unpunished.” He resumed: “So, swearing by these potent potentiations, so to say, this poor fellow dared not ever leave the whores if he were to keep both vow and pleasures intact!” He grinned, easy, sardonic, relaxed, his eyes always watching into the folding and unfolding mists. “So even my father’s broken blade may be joined again.”

“Why does Lancelot seek your life?”

“It seems he loves me not,” Lohengrin allowed, grinning. “Thank my great father, I suppose.” He was thoughtful. “I should have asked him …”

“Your father?”

“Lancelot, wistful-Wista.” Grinning, watching into the fog. “That grunting dung-lump will answer to me in the end. I wait and watch, when need be, and strike at last …”

“Have you seen your father since — ”

“Peace, break off!” Lohengrin commanded in a whisper. He touched the other’s reins as he halted his own steed. The light drizzle trickled over their faces. There was a plip-plip-plop of oncoming hooves. “One rider only,” Lohengrin murmured. “And a weighted beast. Here comes my new headgear and chestplate.”

A dim, mounted figure seemed to take form before them out of the coiling, insubstantial fog.

“And lance, too,” Lohengrin completed the list, observing the long spear held straight up.

The knight came closer, his smooth, gray-green armor blending into the leaden background. Lohengrin was unconsciously smiling.

“Sir knight,” he said in classic style, “good day.”

The other pulled up and waited in silence.

“Sir,” Wista said to his master, “why not pass in peace?”

“Were you weaned in my grandmother’s gardens?” Lohengrin demanded. “Are you a girl, in truth, and not just under the blankets?”

The gray-green knight’s visor stayed shut. Blank steel.

“Give the ground,” he finally said, his voice hollow in the helmet. He sounded somehow weary, too — not weak, but weary.

“Come and take it,” Lohengrin invited. He didn’t even draw his sword yet.

“So,” said the other, “what boots pride?” And he began to turn his bulky stallion aside so as to pass around them.

“No,” Lohengrin declared.

The gray-green knight stopped.

“So you force me?” he said as a question answered. He kicked his mount into a tight half-circle, the fog flowing around them like a billowing cape. On one side the land fell away steeply downhill from the road; on the other, dim tree shapes loomed like a wall.

Lohengrin floated his mount sideways, hooves clack-clacking on the stones, then moved up fast to minimize the other’s start. The gray-green knight charged, then veered suddenly aside instead of coming straight on and giving his opponent a chance to deflect the lance with a sword-stroke. Then he lifted and tossed the massive pole one-handed, like a javelin, the heavy head glancing off

Lohengrin’s shoulder, spinning him around in the saddle. As the gray-green warrior closed, Lohengrin just managed to whip out his blade and check the terrific blows that followed, an incredible flurry that bent, then spilled him out of the saddle, cut, bruised, and stunned, onto the hard road, where he clanged and rolled from under the trampling hooves and over the side, bouncing thirty feet or so down the rocky slope before he could stop himself and crouch there glaring up with rage, shock, and respect. His enemy looked through the mists at him, leaving his visor closed.

He called down, “I won’t wait and kill you. Your defense was very good. You should be dead, otherwise.” Lohengrin said nothing for a moment. This was no man to vent spleen at lightly, he realized. He was surprised to be alive himself.

“What’s your name?” he finally called up.

“What matter?” was the reply. “I have sufficient enemies. Enjoy your life,” he said, turning his horse around, “for so long as you keep it.”

Lohengrin heard him ride off into the mist. After a while he clambered up the roadway. His squire waited, holding his mount.

Lohengrin stood there for a moment before getting on the horse.

“I’ll find him again,” he said seriously, “and stand on better terms without tricks.”

Wista seemed puzzled.

“Why fight again, sir?” he wanted to know. “You yourself say that a fight for no profit is for fools.”

“So it is.” Lohengrin nodded as he mounted. “A sham, the fiction of chivalry and honor. Something for songs and stories, boy.” He leaned his sharp face and dark, magnetic eyes close to the other. “But it’s my one purity, you understand?”

The squire shook his head.

“No,” he admitted. “What purity do you speak of?”

“To test my skill with death.”

Wista took this in thoughtfully.

“Why?” he still wanted to know.

“Because,” was the answer as they started to ride on, “you live or die, win or lose, and there’s no lie in it. There’s decay in lies. And all else but this
is
a lie, boy.”

* * *

Broaditch, Handler, and Valit had found shelter in a narrow crack of a cave. They’d lost the road at dark, though it could not be far in any direction from where they were. The rain still fell steadily at the entrance and drained noisily away down the slope.

There was no hope of finding wood for a fire, so they crouched miserably around the chill walls in utter darkness.

Broaditch was contemplating the implications of an unusually foul odor in the cave. A wild beast? Long-dead prey? Offal? It was certainly a stench among stenches …

“Well,” said Handler, “we’ll reach the town tomorrow. You’re welcome to stay at my daughter’s.”

“I thank you,” Broaditch replies, “but I may not.”

“You mean to go on with the world washing away looking for I know not what?”

“If the world be about to wash away,” Broaditch answered, “then I’ll sink or float wherever I find myself.”

“Why are you whimpering?” Handler asked his son. “Ah, it’s the damp here,” was the reply, through chattering teeth.

“Here, boy,” Broaditch said, rummaging in his pack, “I’ve a dry blanket my wife rolled in hide for me.”

“Alienor,” Handler’s voice said in the blackness. Broaditch found the blanket and passed it across the narrow chamber.

“I miss her,” he remarked. “We fit together like mortar and pestle.”

Handler chuckled.

“Aye,” he agreed, “I understand such things. If I were you, I’d have stayed at home.”

“We’re good friends. After so many married years, you become friends at last or hate until death.”

“Well, with my woman, his mother, it were neither one nor the other.” He paused and reflected. “But she were a wonder to lie with, though. An’ I lay with more than one!”

“So you did.”

“Aye. An’ she, as well,” Handler said, “she were a woman, though she were never my friend.” He chuckled. Then he sighed with memory in his voice.

He sighed as a raspy, penetrating voice cut suddenly through the darkness. Valit cried out involuntarily. Broaditch instantly thought in defense:
he
can't
see
us
,
either
.

Handler called out, “Who’s here?”

“Impure of minds,” the voice intoned. “Dark are your worldly souls.”

“Who speaks?” Handler demanded.

“The pipe is played, but ye dance not,” the voice said grimly.

“A hermit’s cell,” Broaditch murmured. “Forgive us, holy one,” he said, placating with a certain seriousness and calculated reserve. “We sought shelter from the rain.”

The shrill voice spoke as if bodiless and unaffected as a ghost’s would be to any possible response to it.

“The floods gather and ye heed not! Free thyselves from thy long chains of sin, feel thy shame, fall on thy knees and remain so for ten years, cry to the holy spirit ere thy complete destruction is accomplished!”

“Damned fool,” Handler complained, “to startle honest men and use them so.”

“Abase thyselves, wicked ones! Death gnaws at thy heels, his cold hand is on thy limbs, his chill breath fills thy nostrils.”

“Then what use to pray, holy one,” Broaditch asked, “if there is no hope of salvation?”

“Ah-ha!” cried the voice with glee and rancor. “Hear, O Lord, how the devil kneads the truth to bake his bread!”

“Since God has left so many hungry mouths,” Broaditch snapped, irritated, “peace, hermit. I weary of sermons and misery.”

“I’ll hear nothing said against God, Broaditch,” Handler’s voice, broke in.

“God?” Broaditch wondered. “God is in your heart, not your words.”

“The devil lives in yours,” the voice hissed.

“Have you tinder for light?” Valit suddenly asked.

“Aye, boy,” the voice declared, “a light brighter than the blaze of summer noon, and ye are the tinder.”

“We don’t need one like that,” Valit said. “Even a candle end would do in here.”

Broaditch smiled in the darkness.
Who
can
burn
words
at
need
? he asked himself.
If
we
could
,
we'd
all
bathe
in
warmth
…

As Lohengrin and his squire, Wista, were crossing the castle yard, the sun was suddenly out. It was a shock. Men stopped their work; people of every degree could be seen leaning out windows. A stout peasant woman toting a bale of wet sticks stood knee-deep in mud, her lips moving in prayer. Lohengrin looked up into the brilliant warmth and then, just as the standing pools began to steam, it disappeared …

Well
, he thought,
it
still
burns
in
heaven
.

All around the people suddenly looked depressed and gray again.

“At least the rain has let up,” his young light-haired squire remarked, tilting his handsome face around.

Lohengrin grunted.

“At least,” he paralleled, “we’ve come to where the gold is supposed to be. If there’s none in the sky, at least some will shine in my dark purse.”