At the Crossing Places (13 page)

W
HERE DO TRUE NAMES COME FROM?” ASKS ARTHUR-
in-the-stone.

“Where do flowers come from?” Merlin replies, and he pulls up his dark hood, and then sweeps it off again. “From waiting and secret thought.”

“Slowly, then,” Arthur says.

“But all at once,” Merlin replies. “One man looks for guidance to his own family tree, one woman hovers over a name because she hears its music's meaning, children float twigs, wisewomen divine dreams…But these ways are only pointers: They may point to the true name but they do not name it. And then one night, after long listening and only because of it, the name grows out of the dark. It perches in your morning mind, singing like a blackbird.”

“Merlin,” says the king. “I have listened. I've waited. My castle and court, and the city surrounding us: Their name is Camelot.”

A
S SOON AS WE'D FINISHED OUR LENTEN STEW, AND
Lord Stephen and Lady Judith had bidden us a safe night, I brought a candle up to my room.

First I thought about Winnie, and how she kissed me…She always seems to know exactly what she thinks and expects people to do as she wants. But whenever we argue she starts to grin, and I think she's just testing how strong I am.

I'm really glad Sir Walter has invited me to Verdon and hope Lord Stephen will let me go soon.

After that, I thought about Arthur-in-the-stone. I saw him on the day he was born, wrapped in gold cloth; I've seen him the same age as I am, pulling the sword from the stone; I've seen him grow older than Serle, and marry Guinevere, and be unfaithful to her…

One fair fellowship. One unbroken ring of trust. That's King Arthur's dream, but he cannot always live up to it himself, and some of his knights are quarrelsome and murderous.

I pulled my stone from its hiding place and unrolled the dirty saffron bundle.

“Knights of the Round Table,” Arthur-in-the-stone calls out, “you can see Sir Miles's body lying here. You've heard from his squire how he was killed. Who is going to avenge him?”

Not a word. No one says anything. But when the king asks his knights for the third time, a boy calls out, “I will! I'll avenge him.”

“Who are you?” asks the king.

“Griflet, sire.”

“How old?”

“Fourteen, sire. I'm a squire. And if you'll knight me, I'll avenge Sir Miles.”

“I can't knight you,” Arthur replies. “Your voice hasn't even broken.”

“Knight him, Arthur,” Queen Guinevere tells him. “He's honorable.”

“He's too young.”

Merlin stands behind the king. Like his own inner voice: the one Arthur should never ignore.

“You're right,” he says quietly. “If Griflet fights the knight who killed Sir Miles, you may never see him alive again. Give him time to grow up, and he'll be loyal to you for as long as he lives.”

“Dear God!” the Queen complains. “Are you married to Merlin or to me?”

“All right, then,” Arthur tells Griflet. “I will knight you.”

At once Griflet drops onto his left knee, and Arthur touches his right shoulder with his sword. “This is my gift to you,” he says, “and now you must give one to me.”

“Anything, sire.”

“Promise me that as soon as you've fought the knight who killed Sir Miles, you'll come straight back to court.”

“I promise,” says Griflet, and at once he leaves the hall.

Now Griflet canters up to a tree and there's a shield hanging
from it. He reverses his spear and rams it so hard against the shield that it falls off the tree, and at once a knight strides towards him.

“What's all this?” he demands.

“We're going to joust,” Griflet replies.

The knight shakes his head. “Your voice hasn't broken.”

“I'm a knight.”

“Nonsense!” says the knight. “I'm much stronger than you.”

“Even so,” says Griflet, “you killed Sir Miles, and I've sworn to avenge him.”

“If you challenge me,” the knight says, “I have no choice. But I don't like it. Where do you come from?”

“The court of King Arthur,” Griflet replies.

Now Griflet and the knight gallop towards each other. Griflet aims his lance right into the center of the knight's shield, and it shivers and splinters. But the knight's so strong he drives his lance right through Griflet's shield into his shoulder, just above his heart. Griflet and his mount are both thrown to the ground.

“God's bones!” shouts the knight. “I haven't killed him.”

At once he dismounts and unfastens Griflet's helmet, and bathes his face with water. And then the knight prays.

“Father,” he says, “breathe on this boy. He does not deserve to die.”

Now the knight tenderly lifts Griflet onto his own horse and carries him to Arthur's court.

The knights and ladies see Griflet, lying facedown. They see the knight's expression, so sober and downcast.

Merlin takes Griflet into his arms and lays him out on a table, and examines his deep wound.

“He was prepared to die,” says the knight.

“And just one inch away from his death,” Merlin replies.

“His only fault was his impatience,” says the knight. “He wanted to achieve too much too soon.”

Merlin looks up. He stares at Guinevere unblinking, and fiercely she glares back at him.

O
UR EYES WERE STREAMING AND OUR BOOTS WERE
sopping. But we got to the top of Swansback just before the sun rose.

Haket surveyed us. His panting, obedient Easter flock.

“Questors for Christ,” he called out, “watch the sun dance!”

I put my hands over my eyes and peeped through my fingers. For a moment the sun was gold, then it turned purple as an Easter anemone. And then green. It began to spin.

“Bloodred,” sighed Rowena.

“No!” shouted Izzie. “Black as a cormorant's wing.”

“White,” said Miles.

“Burning white,” Lord Stephen said.

They were standing all around me, I knew that, and so were Lady Judith and Rahere and Simon and Anian and Catrin—everyone in the household except for Gubert, who stayed behind to prepare breakfast—but their voices seemed distant.

“Is it leaping?” Haket asked.

“I can't!” cried Rowena. “It's blinding me.”

“When you think you cannot,” Haket urged her, his voice rising, “that's when you must.”

“I can't!” protested Izzie, and I heard her flop down on the wet grass beside me.

“Can you see Him?” shouted Haket. “The Lamb! Can you see His banner burning white, and its blood cross?”

I don't know whether I could or not. I saw all kinds of shapes, but they kept changing. Seething dark brightnesses!

“Could you see the Lamb, sir?” I asked Lord Stephen, as we walked down from the hilltop.

“Each and every man who chooses to take the Cross has seen the Lamb.”

“I mean…”

“I know, Arthur.” Lord Stephen turned to me and half-smiled. “No! I couldn't. Poor eyesight.”

“Rahere and Miles say they did.”

“Mmm,” Lord Stephen murmured. “Unless their eyes deceived them.”

“But do you believe…”

“What was it you told me when we talked about the Sleeping King?” Lord Stephen replied swiftly. “Yes: ‘It's best to believe unless it's impossible to do so.'”

“We've never done this at Caldicot,” I said. “I'm going to tell Oliver. Everyone could climb to the top of Tumber Hill.”

After Easter Mass at Caldicot, we have always said the same words before leaving church, words that told the Resurrection, and each year we took different parts. Last year I was one of the Roman soldiers who discovers on Easter morning that Jesus's body has gone from Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, and I had to shout out:

“What? Gone? Not a sign? Not a trace?
Where's the corpse that lay in this place?
If Sir Pilate finds out, we'll be in disgrace.
He'll give us a clout!
He'll crown us all with his spiked mace,
And lay us out.”

Lady Helen and Ruth and my grandmother Nain were the three Marys told by the angel that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, and that Jesus has risen from the dead. Tanwen was the angel. Everyone in the manor house had a part in the play, even Sian. She had to curl herself up and keep absolutely still, because she was the huge and heavy stone.

Each time we called out these words in church, I pretended I was really standing beside Jesus's empty tomb, scared as the soldiers, amazed as the three Marys, calm and certain as the angel:

“He is not here, wonder to say.
This is the place in which he lay
And here's the shroud he wore that day
When he was cold.
He is risen and gone on his way
As he foretold.”

For dinner, we had hare pie, and before Lord Stephen ate the first mouthful, he showed the palms of both his hands to the hare and said, “Eostre, Eostre, this is your hare. Keep us all in your green care.”

“Who is Eostre?” I asked.

“Do you know, Miles?” Lord Stephen said.

“No, sir,” said Miles.

“A saint, I suppose,” said Lord Stephen. “Anyhow, it's what we always say before we eat hare pie at Easter. I can remember my grandfather saying it.”

“Eostre sounds like Easter,” I said.

“True,” Lord Stephen replied rather thoughtfully.

Not only hare pie. Boiled flounders from the estuary of the river Severn—fresh and unsalted—shin of beef layered with marrow, and then chicken, roasted on the spit. Lent was over at last.

After dinner, Gubert told us that while we were up on Swansback, he'd seen the Easter Hare.

“He came right into my kitchen,” he said, grinning. “And this hare, you know what he did?”

“No,” we chorused, though of course we all did.

“He laid a nest of eggs, and I'm not saying nowhere.”

This was the signal for us to run out of the hall in different directions and begin to search for the nest of eggs, just as we did at Caldicot.

“Wherever you like!” Lord Stephen called out. “Our solar. Our bedrooms. Anywhere.”

It was Lady Judith who found the nest, and she turned pink with pleasure.

“Tucked between those sticks,” she clucked. “Right under our noses! Well, I never!”

There were fifteen little eggs in the nest—plover's and pigeon's and thrush's and blackbird's—all different colors and sizes. Lady Judith gave one to each of us, including Gubert, and that left her with three.

It is dark now, but when I close my eyes I can still see the sun. Inside the disk, I can see shapes. I can see Jacob's shadow, staggering, and another shape, jerking and twisting.

But Christ is risen! Christ is risen, and in Christ we will all have eternal life.

T
HE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE HOLD THEIR NOSES.
The ladies bury their faces in their sleeves as they pass the wounded man, the Knight Without a Name, lying in the chamber that leads to the hall.

A snapped sword blade is sticking through the knight's rotting rib cage. Barbed arrow-tips are embedded in his neck, his stomach.

“If no one here can heal my wounds,” the knight says quietly, “I will soon die.”

But no one can. Neither Sir Gawain nor Sir Balin, nor Sir Tor or his father King Pellinore. Not the ladies who feel the knight's pain as if it were their own. Not even the healers or teachers at King Arthur's court.

“The only man who can heal me,” says the Knight Without a Name, “is the one who swears to avenge me. He must fight every single man loyal to the knight who gave me these wounds.”

“No one here can do that,” Arthur-in-the-stone tells his knights. “Who knows what that might lead to?”

Now there's a rumpus at the hall door: Nimue has returned to court. The moment Merlin sees her, he sighs and hurries down to meet her. He is almost old and she is almost young. He cannot help himself.

Behind Nimue, there's a young man, and I like the look of him.
His brow is broad and his eyes are like Tom's eyes, blue and amused. His horse is white, he's wearing a white woolen cloak, and the sword slung around his neck has a white scabbard. His shield, though, is blue as lapis lazuli and has three gold lions prancing across it.

Guinevere stiffens beside King Arthur. “Who is that?” she asks.

“We'll soon find out,” Arthur replies.

“He looks rather pleased with himself,” says Guinevere.

“This young man, sire,” Nimue says, “is my foster son. Lancelot!”

“He is welcome here,” says Arthur.

“His father was Pant, king of Gwynedd. When his kingdom was under attack, he sent Lancelot to me under the lake, and I brought him up with my own sons, Hector and Lionel.”

“Lancelot of the Lake,” Guinevere says.

“Will you grant me a wish?” asks Nimue. “It will cost you nothing.”

“I hope I can,” replies the king.

“Knight Lancelot then,” Nimue says, “in this white cloak and white scabbard.”

“My new custom here,” says Arthur, “is for the king to give a new knight his clothing and his sword.”

“If you refuse,” Nimue says, “I'll take him to another court.”

“Are you threatening me?” Arthur asks.

Nimue says nothing, and I can feel Guinevere stiffen again beside me.

“Arthur,” Merlin says quietly, “do as Nimue asks.”

“You're besotted with her,” Arthur replies.

“Merlin's right,” Guinevere says.

“Last time you said he was wrong,” says Arthur. “Because of you, I knighted Griflet.”

“We're not both wrong,” Guinevere says huskily. “A young man as promising as this—you must not allow him to go.”

Lancelot kneels before the king. “Pure in mind…” he begins, “pure in body…I will oppose evil…”

Arthur-in-the-stone listens to Lancelot's voice, unhurried yet eager. And now, with Excalibur, the king gives him the accolade: Three times he taps his right shoulder.

“Go to church,” Arthur says. “Make your confession and receive the Sacrament. And when you come back, I'll belt on your sword.”

Lancelot bows to the king, glances at Guinevere, and then leaves the hall. But he doesn't go straight to church. He turns aside to the wounded knight lying in the chamber.

“I will heal your wounds,” he says.

“You cannot,” says the Knight Without a Name. “Not unless you swear to avenge me. To fight every single man loyal to the knight who dealt me these wounds.”

“I swear that.”

“You are very young,” the knight says.

“Better I should die than you,” Lancelot says. “You may be one of the finest knights in this kingdom, whereas I've done nothing yet to prove myself.”

“If your actions speak as well as your words,” says the wounded knight, “you'll have no equal.”

Now Lancelot bends over the Knight Without a Name. Very
gently he draws the sword blade from between his ribs, and the knight scarcely feels it. And now Lancelot unhooks the barbed arrow-tips. The wounded knight quivers and closes his eyes.

“Send for a doctor,” he murmurs, “to wash and dress my wounds. Lancelot, may you become King Arthur's best knight—his most trusted friend.”

Now Lancelot does go to church. He makes his confession and receives the Sacrament, and for a long time he remains on his knees. When at last he returns to the hall, no one is there except Queen Guinevere.

“The king waited,” Guinevere tells him, “but you did not return.”

“I was in church,” Lancelot says.

“He has retired to his rooms.”

“What shall I do?” Lancelot asks. “The king said he would belt on my sword.”

Guinevere half-smiles, and then she sighs. “I will belt it on myself, then,” she says.

Guinevere takes Lancelot by the hand, and he gives a start when he feels the queen's bare skin touching his. I felt the same when we were out hare hunting and Winnie kissed me.

“You've belted on my sword,” Lancelot says, “and from now on, wherever I am, I would like to think of myself as your knight.”

“I should like you to do that,” Guinevere replies.

“I have healed the Knight Without a Name,” Lancelot tells the queen, “and now I must avenge him. I must fight each man loyal to the knight who wounded him. Far better I should die than some greater man.”

“No,” says Guinevere.

“I'm ready to die,” Lancelot says. “Who can fully live unless he's ready to die?”

Queen Guinevere bows her head. There are tears in the corners of her eyes.