Parzival (5 page)

The king wished Parzival good night, like the courteous host that he was. Knights led Parzival to his bedchamber. Pages undressed him and put him in a canopied bed, where maidens brought him grapes and mulberry wine and bade him rest well.

Though Parzival was very tired, he tossed and turned, churning to troubled dreams of swords cutting his flesh and lances piercing his body.

 

When he awoke with a start, the sun was shining through his window. He waited for the pages or the knights or the master of the wardrobe to come in and dress him for the day. But the castle was deathly still. He sat up in bed. His underclothing and armor were laid out for him. He realized at once that he was meant to dress himself. He jumped up in alarm. Something dreadful must have happened.

He threw on his underclothing and armed himself as quickly as he could with no one to help. I must find the king and offer him my service, he thought. But he wandered from room to room and could find no one.

He yelled out as loudly as he could, but the sound of his own voice echoed in the empty air.

Finally, he went out the great castle door, and there at the bottom of the steps stood his horse, saddled and bridled. Someone had propped his sword and lance against the sorrel’s flank. By now Parzival was more angry than concerned. He ran out to the courtyard where he had been greeted so courteously the night before. It was as empty as the castle, but he could see that the grass had been trampled, as though many horsemen had mounted there not long before. He raced back to the sorrel and leapt into the saddle. The gate was open and the drawbridge down.

He galloped across, but when he got to the end of the drawbridge, someone behind him yanked the cable so abruptly that Parzival was nearly thrown, horse and all, into the moat. Parzival turned back to see who had done this to him.

There, standing in the open gateway, was the page who had pulled the cable, shaking his fist at Parzival. “May God damn the light that falls on your path!” the boy cried. “You fool! You wretched fool! Why didn’t you ask the question?”

“What do you mean?” Parzival shouted back. “What question?”

Without another word, the page turned on his heel and disappeared. At once the iron portcullis crashed down upon the stone pavement. Parzival was alone.

There was nothing for him to do but to go forward, following the tracks of those who had left the yard earlier. Perhaps the king’s men are engaged in a battle, he thought. I can join them and offer the service of this great sword that the king has given me. Maybe they think I am a coward and that is why they despise me.

He followed the tracks, riding hard, but the hoofprints began to split off until at last they disappeared altogether. It was then that he heard the sound of a woman weeping. He followed the sound and found a young woman sitting against a linden tree, cradling in her arms the body of a knight, which had been embalmed.

At first Parzival did not recognize her, for she had shaved her head and was dressed in the rough clothes of a peasant. “May I be of service to you, madam?” he asked.

“No, no one can help me,” the young woman said. “For I am grieving more each day. But where did you come from? This is the Land of Wildness and not safe for travelers.”

“I came today from the castle called Wild Mountain,” Parzival said. “I passed the night there in some splendor.”

The young woman looked startled. “You must be jesting,” she said. “No one comes upon Wild Mountain by chance. Only those who are meant to find it are brought to it. You are a stranger here. Perhaps you do not know then about King Anfortas the son of Frimutel.”

Parzival confessed that he did not know this king, so the young woman continued. “Anfortus is the eldest of five noble children. One is long dead, and three of them live on in misery. The fifth, Trevrizent, is a hermit, who has chosen the path of poverty for God’s sake. Anfortas, for all his wealth, lives in great pain. He can neither sit up nor lie down, neither ride nor walk. Even propped among his pillows, the agony is more than he can bear. If only you had been the one. If only you had seen him, you could have rid him of his suffering.”

“But I did see him,” Parzival said. “I saw the king and many wonderful and strange things there in Wild Mountain.”

“Why,” she said, “you are Parzival. I did not recognize you in the armor of a knight. Do you remember me? I am your cousin Sigune, whom you met on the road to Arthur’s court. I told you your true name. And since that day, you have been to Wild Mountain. Then tell me the good news. Tell me that the king is healed.”

“Can you be my cousin Sigune? I didn’t recognize you; you’ve grown so pale, and what has become of your beautiful hair? Come, Cousin, let me help you bury this knight.”

“There is only one thing on earth that could ease my pain,” Sigune said. “Tell me that the king is released from his. I see his sword bound at your waist. Dear Cousin, the marvels you have seen are nothing compared to those that are to come to you if”—she looked up into Parzival’s face—“if you asked the question.”

“What question, Cousin?”

Sigune’s pale face grew whiter still. “I cannot believe it. You were taken to Wild Mountain. You saw the marvels of that place. You saw the Grail itself and the awful suffering of its king—and you did not ask the question?”

Parzival was alarmed by the change in his cousin’s manner. “What question should I have asked? Tell me. I don’t understand.”

“Get away from my sight. I can’t abide to have you in my vision, you perfidious knight,” she said. “Have you no shred of compassion?” The woman was wild with rage. “You may live, but in the reckoning of Heaven, you are already dead!”

“Dear Cousin,” Parzival pleaded. “Please. I promise you, whatever I may have done, I’ll make amends.”

“Do you think to make the amends of a knight?” she asked, her voice cruel with sarcasm. “There are no amends for what you have failed to do. There is no longer need for you to follow the rules of chivalry. You were shorn of all knightly honor at Wild Mountain.” Sigune turned away from Parzival, her eyes on the pitiful figure in her lap. When she spoke again, her voice was so low that Parzival had to bend down to hear her words. “I will not, I cannot say another word to you,” she said. “Go. My only hope in this world is that I will never again have to look upon your face.”

Four

Under Curse

WHEN
Parzival saw that it was useless to plead with his cousin, he mounted the sorrel and spurred him to a gallop, wanting only to leave this cursed place of sickness and death. But the farther he rode, the more the grief he had left behind crowded the narrow spaces of his heart.

No amends! How could that be? He had meant no wrong. Indeed, all he desired was to be a man of knightly honor and courtesy—to be a man of whom his wife, his mother, and his foster father, Gurnemanz, could be proud—and it had brought only disaster. Bathed in perspiration, Parzival took off his helmet and slowed his sorrel to a trot.

Suddenly, he saw ahead of him in the road a sorry sight. It might once have been a horse, but now the poor creature was nothing but bones with skin stretched over them, and the skin itself was near worn through. He recalled the nag his mother had given him those days long ago when he was a raw and happy boy. Why, that old mare would look like a mighty warhorse compared to this wretched beast.

Parzival had had no warning that there were another horse and rider ahead. Now he saw why. Every bell had been ripped from the sad beast’s saddle. Indeed, the saddle itself no longer fit the horse’s poor, swayed back; and more pitiful than the mount was the rider. It was a woman, but she wore no gown, only a tattered shift, belted with a piece of rope.

When Parzival came alongside her, she looked at him with alarm and covered herself with her arms. “Go away and leave me alone,” she said. “I saw you once before, and since that terrible day I have had nothing but misery on your account.”

“My lady,” Parzival said, “whatever I have done or left undone, since I have become a knight no one could say that I have ever been unkind to a lady.”

“You were most unkind to me,” she said. “You would have my ring and my brooch. And see what has become of me because of that.”

“Madam,” Parzival said, recognizing the duchess he had met on that day he left home in search of Arthur’s court, “let me cover you with my cloak and then I will make amends for this wrong I did when I was but a foolish boy.”

“Leave me,” she cried. “Or my husband will return and kill us both.”

In fact, the jealous Duke Orilus had already heard the sorrel’s whinny and was returning to see who had met his wife along the path. Quickly, Parzival put on his helmet and spurred forward to meet the duke. The poor duchess was distraught. As much as Parzival had wronged her and her husband had punished her unjustly, she did not wish either man to die on her account.

It looked as though someone was sure to die, the fighting was so fierce. Part of the duke’s fury was his own guilt that he had left his wife unprotected that time before when, as he thought, she had given a stranger her favors. Now he fought like the very dragons that adorned his shield. Parzival was his equal in fury, determined to make amends, at least for the childish behavior that had caused the duchess so much humiliation and pain.

They struck at each other with lance and sword, charging until both horses were in a lather. But neither man could unhorse the other. The duke, in desperation, snatched hold of a buckle on Parzival’s armor, but the strong young knight grabbed the duke around the waist, hoisted him from the saddle, and hurled him through the air as though he were a bundle of twigs.

Parzival leapt off the sorrel and raced to where the duke lay gasping upon the ground.

“You have humiliated this good lady without a cause,” Parzival cried. “If you will not restore her to favor and give her back her good name, I will not let you live!”

“I cannot do that,” Duke Orilus replied. “She has given me too much grief—be—traying me with some stranger in the woods.”

“Then you are lost.” Parzival raised his sword.

The duke did not want to die and said so.

Parzival lowered his sword arm. “There is a lady in Arthur’s court who has suffered humiliation on my account,” he said. “Go there and say that the Red Knight has sent you to offer her your service.”

“That I will do and gladly,” the duke answered.

“But,” said Parzival, “that is not all. I cannot let you go unless you repent of your wrong to this good lady, your wife.”

When the duke saw that Parzival would not relent, he swore finally that he would restore his wife to favor. Parzival let him stand and returned to him his sword and lance.

“Now that you have sworn,” Parzival said, “I will tell you that this lady is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. I know, for I was that foolish youth. Here is the ring I took from her against her will. The brooch, I’m sorry to say, is gone. I gave it in payment to a greedy man. You, sir, have nothing to forgive. Your wife has never betrayed you. I only pray that she will forgive us both.”

This the good duchess was glad to do. Her husband wept to think of the wrong his jealousy had caused. He gave her back her lovely garments and procured a beautiful mare for her to ride, its saddle trimmed with hundreds of silver bells. Duke Orilus and his duchess asked Parzival to go with them to Arthur’s court, but he sadly refused. His cousin had told him that his failure at Wild Mountain stripped him of all knightly honor. How could such a one approach the noble Arthur? He bade the now happy duke and duchess farewell.

 

Parzival traveled alone for many a weary day. It began to snow, though it was not long past the feast of St. Michael and the Angels and so not yet winter. To Parzival, night and day, summer and winter were the same dreary time. He mounted his horse at dawn and rode past dark, but he did not know where he was going.

Nor did he know that Arthur had ridden out from the court at Camelot with his queen and a large company of knights and ladies. The king had decreed that this would be a time of hunting and pleasure. No one was to joust or seek adventure in battle. Arthur’s men had made a camp of bright-colored pavilions with banners flying. The word of this encampment soon spread through the countryside, so that Duke Orilus and his duchess quite easily found their way there. When the duke sought the lady to whom he was to offer his service, he found to his surprise that it was his own sister. As for Sir Kay, that knight was somewhat disquieted to realize that the foolish youth he had despised had sent yet a third knight to Lady Cunneware’s protection.

Since Parzival did not know that the king of the Britons was encamped nearby, he had no way of knowing when he woke up that snowy morning that one of the king’s falcons had flown out from its falconer the day before and had not returned. This same bird was in the tree above his head, and when he set out on his day of aimless travel, the bird, who felt at home in the company of knights, followed him.