At the Crossing Places (8 page)

A
RE YOU READY?” ASKED RAHERE.

“I am,” I replied.

Izzie stopped passing the shuttle through the loom and looked up.

“A voice is a musical instrument,” said Rahere, “and you can't play an instrument if you're standing on one leg and twisting your right earlobe. Stop fidgeting!”

“Love without heartache, love without fear,” I sang, “is day without sunlight—”

Rahere clapped his hands. “That's all wrong.”

“But is it true?” I asked. “Does love have to be like that?”

I don't know why but I suddenly thought of my dream about swinging on my climbing-tree, and how Tom and I competed to impress Winnie, and I was afraid of losing.

Izzie gazed at me with moon-eyes. She keeps doing that and I wish she wouldn't. She is so stupid.

Rahere shook his head like a wet dog. “Listen,” he said. “There was a Saracen called Ziryab, a wise singing teacher—”

“A Saracen!”

“—and he wrote down how he taught his pupils. First, they had to sing a long, steady note on each degree of the scale. Listen to this!
Uuu-uuu-uuu-t.
”

“How can you sing a note for that long?”

“You practice,” said Rahere. “Singing takes more wind than speaking, and that's why we must do breathing exercises. Now you try.”

“
Uuuuuu-t!
” I sang.

“You were forcing the sound,” said Rahere. “Wasn't he, Izzie? Sounds must come out of your nose and your head.”

“How can I make them do that?”

Rahere gave me such a strange look, half-begging, half-wild. Then, in the top of his head, he sang notes so long and low that they sounded exactly like a nightingale.

“How?” cried Rahere. “You fall in love! You sit at the feet of Ziryab!”

I
T'S SHAPED LIKE HALF AN EGG. LIKE A HUGE, UPSIDE-
down beehive. Or the pale half-moon, lying on her back.

“What is it made from?” asks Arthur-in-the-stone.

“Rock crystal,” says King Leodegrance. “One enormous piece.”

Arthur touches it with his fingertips, the palms of his hands.

“Like soap,” he says. “Mutton fat.”

“Adamantine,” replies Leodegrance. “Like an iron hand in a velvet glove.”

Now Arthur leans out across the massive table. He peers down into its hemisphere. Black spots like tiny tadpoles. Silver stars. Scrapes and swerves. Right down. This world's deep, dark fault lines that could split and shatter it; the sudden shinings and strong knots that brighten and fasten and secure it.

“Your father gave it to me,” King Leodegrance says, “when I swore him allegiance. Now, as Guinevere's dowry, I give it to you.”

“Nothing could please me as this table pleases me,” Arthur replies. “How many men can sit at it?”

“One hundred and fifty,” Leodegrance says.

“Each of my knights,” says Arthur-in-the-stone, “would have me believe he is the best. But when I sit them at this Round Table, not one of them will have a place above or below any of the others.”

“That is wise, Arthur,” Merlin says.

“I want all the knights at this table not only to be equal, but to form one fair fellowship. One round of honor. One unbroken ring of trust.”

“Is this your quest?” Merlin asks.

“I will build a castle to house this table,” Arthur says, “and around the castle a city, around the city a kingdom.”

“When Christ and his disciples ate their last supper together,” Merlin says, “their table was round. After Judas ran out, one place was empty, and it has been empty ever since. You must leave one place at this Round Table empty—the Perilous Seat for the knight who will achieve the greatest quest of all.”

“What quest is that?” Arthur asks.

“The knight who journeys across the dark wasteland, this world's wilderness, and reaches the castle of Carbonek. The knight who kneels before Christ's drinking cup. The quest for the Holy Grail!”

Now, man by man, the king's knights enter the hall. Sir Accolon. Sir Agravain. Balin and Bors. Sir Cador, Sir Dagonet…a quarrelsome, bright alphabet!

From north and south, east and west, they come to the table. They walk right round the rim, like a great hoop slowly turning, until they come back to where they began.

“Knights of the kingdom,” Arthur calls out in a loud voice. “To those of you who have little land, I will give land. Never injure an innocent man. Never murder a man. Swear this.”

“We swear it!” shout all the knights.

“Never betray my trust in you. Never commit treason.”

“We swear it!”

“If a man begs you for mercy,” Arthur calls out, “be merciful to him. Otherwise you will forfeit your place at this table.”

“We swear it!”

“Upon pain of death, help and protect those who are weaker than you—ladies, young women, orphans, poor people.”

“We swear it!” all the knights shout.

“Never take the law into your own hands,” Arthur calls out. “And never try to rise by pushing another man down. Let your companions at this Round Table be called Kindness and Friendship, Courtesy, Humanity, and Chivalry.”

Now each knight kneels in front of Arthur. He swears to be loyal and serve the king.

Sir Lanval…Sir Loholt…Sir Marholt…Sir Melwas…

“Beware of him!” whispers Merlin. “He will try to abduct your lovely young wife.”

Sir Marrok…

“And his wife will turn him into a werewolf.”

Sir Nescien…

“Stranded on an island spinning round and round in the sea.”

Sir Nestor…

With his slateshine eyes, Merlin looks deep into the king's eyes. “His own son will kill him,” he says.

I
KEEP WONDERING WHY ROWENA WAS SO FLUSTERED
when I found her and Haket together in the church. And what about her muffler?

I just asked her this evening whether she likes Haket, and she flared up like a dying candle.

“That's nothing to do with you!” she cried, and she hurried out of the hall up to the solar.

Later this evening, I looked into my stone…

“There are times when a man likes company,” says Arthur-in-the-stone, “and times when he needs to be alone.”

His servants bow and leave his pavilion, and at once he lies down on the bed. But he's too tired to sleep.

Now a knight on horseback dashes up to the pavilion. He dismounts and groans.

“What's wrong?” the king asks.

“You can do nothing about it,” the knight replies, and he remounts and rides away.

No sooner has Arthur-in-the-stone closed his eyes again than a second knight, with crossed swords on his shield, enters the pavilion.

“Sir Balin!” Arthur says. “Just now, a knight rode in, moaning and groaning. I don't know who he is or what's wrong with him. He rode off in the direction of Castle Meliot.”

Sir Balin catches up with the knight and a young woman as they ride through a forest.

“Sir,” says Sir Balin. “Who are you?”

“Which man has a name before he has achieved his quest?” sighs the knight.

“You must come with me,” Sir Balin says, “and explain yourself to King Arthur.”

“I will not,” says the knight.

“The last thing I want is to have to force you,” Sir Balin says.

“If I come,” the knight says, “will you guarantee my safety?”

“Of course,” says Sir Balin. “With my own life.”

“You wait here,” the knight tells the young woman. “I'll come back as soon as I can.”

But while Sir Balin and the knight are dismounting outside Arthur's pavilion, the knight howls and falls to the ground. He has been spiked with a spear. The point is sticking out of his chest.

Whoever has wounded the knight is invisible.

“Sir Garlon has killed me,” the knight gasps. “Take my horse. Follow my quest. Complete it…” The knight begins to choke on his own blood.

Balin cradles the knight's head. “I am a knight of the Round Table. I will avenge you,” he says. After a while, he closes the knight's eyes with his left forefinger and carries him back to the young woman in the forest.

“He knew he was in danger,” the young woman says sadly. “Against some kinds of evil there's no protection.”

“What was his name?”

“Sir Herlews le Berbeus,” the young woman replies.

When Sir Balin and the young woman have buried Sir Herlews, they ride on, and the young woman carries the shaft of Garlon's spear with her. That evening they reach a manor house.

“Not long ago,” the knight there tells them, “I jousted with a knight who was invisible. He's King Pellam's brother, that's what he told me, but I don't know his name.”

“Sir Garlon,” the young woman says.

“I couldn't see him,” their host continues, “but I could hear his horse's hooves, and I managed to throw him. ‘I'll pay you back for this.' That's what Sir Garlon told me. ‘And I'll pay back your best friend.'

“Do you know what he did? He stabbed my own son. He jabbed him under his rib cage with a short knife, and he told my son his wound would never heal without a pint of Sir Garlon's own blood.”

“You've good reason to find him, then,” Sir Balin says. “And so have we.”

“King Pellam of Listinoise has announced a feast,” our host says, “and it will be held in fifteen days' time. Sir Garlon is his brother, so he's bound to be there. We can ride together.”

When they arrive, Sir Balin and the young woman are invited into King Pellam's castle, but their companion is turned away because he has brought no lady.

“You must leave your two swords in your bedroom,” King Pellam's servants tell Sir Balin.

“No,” says Sir Balin. “In my country a knight always carries at least one weapon with him.”

“Not here,” say the servants.

“In that case,” Sir Balin says, “I will leave at once.”

The two servants look at each other.

“Well, then,” says one, “leave one sword in your bedroom and wear one to the feast.”

Sir Balin and the young woman step into the feasting hall. What a hubbub! Hundreds of knights with their wives, their lovers, their squires.

“Is there a knight here by the name of Garlon?” Sir Balin asks one old knight.

“Can't hear you,” says the knight.

“King Pellam's brother?”

The old knight smiles and cups a hand to one ear.

“King Pellam's brother! Sir Garlon!”

“What about him?”

“Is he here?”

“Everyone's here!” The old knight points at a whole group of knights and their ladies. “That one,” he says. “With the black face. Sometimes black, sometimes white. Makes himself invisible.”

Sir Balin turns to the young woman. “What shall I do?” he says. “If I kill him here, I'll never escape with my life. But if I let him go, he'll strike again; and this may be the last time I set eyes on him.”

Before the young woman can reply, Sir Garlon strides up to Sir Balin. “You've been staring at me,” he says in a loud voice, and he smacks Sir Balin across the face with the back of his hand. “Have you come to this feast to eat and drink or stare at me?”

“Not to eat and drink,” Sir Balin says.

Now Sir Balin steps back and, in one shock of light, he draws his sword, hoists it, and opens Sir Garlon's skull right down to his shoulders.

At once the young woman gives Sir Balin the spear shaft Sir Garlon used to kill her knight; and Sir Balin rams the shaft right into Sir Garlon's stomach.

“Find our companion!” he shouts. “Tell him to take as much blood as he needs to heal his son.”

King Pellam himself stalks across the hall and stares down at Sir Garlon.

“You have killed my brother,” he mutters, “and you'll pay for that here and now.”

“Kill me yourself then,” Sir Balin says.

King Pellam pulls his mace out of the rack by the door. He rubs one of its steel spikes between his fingers. Then he swings it and tries to bury it in Sir Balin's brains.

Sir Balin holds up his sword like a steel bar in front of his head. The spiked mace crashes against it, and the sword breaks into a thousand splinters.

Sir Balin runs out of the hall, searching for another weapon, and King Pellam follows him.

Out of the hall into the solar; out of the solar into the kitchen. From the kitchen to the storeroom to the pantry to the staircase. Sir Balin runs along the creaking gallery and turns into a bedroom…

Tapestries…a canopied bed…a man in the bed: Sir Balin
has no eyes for them. He sees a golden table with silver legs. A lance is lying on it, blood trickling from its tip.

Sir Balin snatches it up. And as King Pellam charges into the bedroom, he runs him through his left side with the lance.

Heaven itself howls. The whole world shakes. King Pellam's castle begins to crumble and collapse. Now the bedroom ceiling sags and falls in. The sleeping man is safe under his oak canopy, but Sir Balin and King Pellam are both trapped beneath fallen beams and plaster.

Now Merlin walks into my stone. Merlin! Where has he come from?

The magician stares at the wreck of the room. From the rubble he lifts King Pellam and lays him on the golden table. Then he takes Sir Balin's right wrist and the knight opens his eyes.

“Where is the young woman?” Sir Balin asks.

“Dead,” says Merlin. “And so is your companion. Everyone in this castle is dead, except for you and King Pellam and this sleeping man.”

“Heaven howled,” Sir Balin says dreamily.

“This the lance Longinus used,” Merlin says, “when he pierced Christ's side while He hung on the cross. The king will lie in agony and his kingdom will be a suffering wasteland until the day a knight achieves the most difficult of all quests—the quest for the Holy Grail.”

“Who is the sleeping man?” Sir Balin asks.

“King Pellam's father,” Merlin replies. “The man who wrapped Christ's body in linen and laid him in his own sepulchre.”

“Joseph of Arimathea!” Sir Balin exclaims.

“Now!” says Merlin. “You must find two new swords. One is shattered, and the other buried beneath this castle. Then ride back to the court of King Arthur.”

“Will you ride with me?” Sir Balin asks.

Merlin shakes his head. “I have work to do,” he says.

In my stone, I see Sir Balin riding through the wasteland. Parched fields where grass and wheat have withered. Starving children sit outside huts and hovels, and follow Sir Balin with their slow eyes.

At last Sir Balin leaves King Pellam's kingdom and he comes to a moated castle. I can hear the pulse of music inside it, and a lady comes to the drawbridge.

“I am Lady Dionise and you cannot come across. Not until you've jousted with the island knight. Any man who comes here has to joust.”

“I'm weary,” says Sir Balin. “And so is my poor horse. We've been riding for eight days.”

“Your shield's rather small,” Dionise calls out. “I'll lend you a larger one.”

Then servants lower the drawbridge and Dionise walks across. She gives Sir Balin a large shield and takes the one with the two crossed swords on it.

“There's the lake,” she says. “Row yourself and your horse out to that little island. The scarlet knight is waiting for you.”

First, Sir Balin and the scarlet knight joust and throw each other, then they fight with their swords. They slit each other's
chain mail until the scarlet knight's arms are bare and Sir Balin's chest is naked and gaudy with wet blood.

“Who are you?” Sir Balin shouts. “The only man I've ever met who can match me.”

The scarlet knight lowers his shield and sticks his sword into the blood-stained earth.

“Balan,” he pants. “The brother of Balin.”

Sir Balin gasps. He topples over sideways, more dead than alive.

Now on all fours, Balan crawls towards him and tugs off his helmet, but Balin's face is masked in blood, and his brother doesn't recognize him.

Balin opens his eyes. “My brother,” he murmurs. “You have killed me. I've killed you.”

“You're not carrying your own shield,” Sir Balan cries. “I didn't recognize you.”

“Lady Dionise took it,” Sir Balin says in a weak voice. “She said mine was rather small, and so she lent me this one.”

Balan growls. “First she trapped me, and now she has trapped you.”

While the brothers are talking, Lady Dionise and her servants row across to the little island.

“We came out of the same dark womb,” says Balin.

“And we'll lie in the same tomb,” Balan says.

“It shall be done,” the ladies promise, and they begin to weap.

“And the stone which shadows us,” Balin whispers, “let it say we are two brothers who loved each other and killed each other.”

Lady Dionise sobs. “I did not know your names,” she says.

Then she and her servants comfort Sir Balin and Sir Balan.

“We will send messengers to King Arthur,” says Lady Dionise. “Today and tomorrow and each tomorrow: Whoever passes this way will pray for your souls.”