Pendragon's Heir (26 page)

“This is the seat of Galahad the High Prince.”

The young knight unclasped the white cloak from his shoulders and laid it over the back of the Siege Perilous as calmly as if it had been any ordinary chair. Then he sat down in it.

Not a breath stirred the silence. A knight of Gaul had sat in that chair once, and been consumed in flames. But nothing happened to the new knight, except that he glanced at Sir Perceval and gave a tight-lipped smile.

Perceval remembered how he had felt when first taking his own seat at the Table of Camelot and thought incredulously: He is shy of us all. He, the best knight of the world.

Then, in the hush, the Bishop of Ergyng saw his chance and took it. “
OREMUS! Benedic Domine nos, et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi; per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen.
”

That was the signal to begin eating, and the people of Camelot busied themselves with food. Perceval lunged for a pie as it went past and ladled some of it onto his trencher, thinking to give the Grail Knight a few more moments’ grace before the attention of Camelot fixed on him again. He was surprised, then, when the boy said very quietly under the clatter:

“I am Galahad. Have you been a knight of the Table long?”

“A year, more or less,” said Perceval, handing him the pie. Sir Galahad took it from him with pale scholar’s hands, but Perceval saw dauntless goodwill behind the shyness in the young man’s eyes and felt that here was a courage deeper than lay in his own power. “You are really the Grail Knight? Have you seen
it?
Is it near?”

Galahad shook his dark head. “No. I have come in quest of it, just like everyone else.”

His smile, something in the set of the teeth and the cock of the head, reminded Perceval of someone he knew. “Were you the boy Sir Lancelot knighted this morning?”

The smile fled. Galahad looked down at his trencher. “Yes, that was I.”

Perceval cried, “He’s your father, surely?”

“Is it so easy to see?”

“Huzzah! I am Perceval, the son of Gawain who is more than a brother to Lancelot. And now let no one marvel at your being the Grail Knight. The best knight of the world could only come from one father.”

At that Galahad looked so uncomfortable that Perceval tried to think of something else to say. “I never knew Sir Lancelot had a wife.”

“He has none,” said Galahad. “I am a bastard.”

He said the word softly, but when he raised his eyes to Perceval they were level, candid, neither bitter nor defensive. Perceval said: “Oh.” After that he could think of nothing to say at all. Only the food no longer smelled as good.

Sir Bors, on the other side of Galahad, claimed the young knight’s attention. Perceval looked around the Table. Sir Gawain was neither talking nor eating; he only sat still with his arms folded, a look of deep joy in his face. The King opposite also seemed to be feasting his soul, not on the food but on a sight never before seen under the high windows of Camelot: one hundred knights, none greater in the world. Was he glad, as Gawain was glad? As Perceval watched, Arthur lifted a hand and passed it across his eyes.

Sir Lancelot, for once, both spoke and laughed as though it was the proudest day of his life. He boasted of his son and Gawain’s, and said that today the keeping of Logres passed into hands mightier than his own. And cleaner, too, Perceval thought with a rush of something that was almost anger.

The Queen had come down from the gallery to speak to those eating at the long tables on each side of the Round Table, and stood with bowed head speaking to the young Bishop of Ergyng. Sir Ector, at the head of one of those tables, sat with chin sunk deeply in hand. Above, in the gallery, the Lady of the Lake had come forward and leaned upon the baluster. Her gaze burned into Galahad’s shoulders next to him, not his own, but Perceval almost flinched back from that white-hot pressure.

When Nimue saw his motion she drew back, veiling her eyes, and turned back into the crowd. But her pale fingers had left dents in the oak baluster.

At last the whole company rose and went down to the water again. There stood Naciens on the bridge with bent head, looking at the marvellous sword. The crowd reached him but did not overwhelm him, standing back as if some instinct warned it of the ancient hermit’s high authority.

Naciens looked up, up the hill. The crowd parted and waited. At last, walking slowly, Galahad came down from the castle between the King and Sir Lancelot. The Grail Knight reached out his hand and took hold of the sword-hilts. Immediately the stone sunk into the water, and Galahad lifted up his sword.

Naciens lifted his hand and said, “This is the sword of Sir Balyn, who struck the Dolorous Stroke. Now it is yours, Sir Galahad. Bear it to good fortune and God’s glory.”

Galahad went down on his knees, and Naciens blessed him. Then the little, bent old man untied his mule from the castle gate and went away. Perceval watched his brown and battered form shamble into the woods, resisting the urge to run after him and offer his protection. Naciens, of all men, did not need it.

Galahad rose to his feet and brushed futilely at the mud on his knees, only succeeding in working it further into the mail he wore. When he looked up, he met Perceval’s eyes and laughed.

Perceval wondered: Where did one learn such humility, not even to resent such wrongs as Galahad had been born to?

The company went back up to the castle. Sir Lancelot called, “A joust!” and others took up the cry—“A joust! Put the new knight to the test!” Perceval lengthened his stride and reached the keep ahead of the main body of the crowd in time to find a pageboy to saddle his horse. Then he dashed up to his room, wrestled into his leather and mail, and came running out again, buckling his sword on over his surcoat as he went.

Most of the knights had gone to arm themselves as well. Only Galahad, who was already armed, stood in the empty Great Hall speaking to the King. Perceval went over to them and the King smiled at him, reached out, and gripped his shoulder.

Perceval said to the Grail Knight: “Will you break a spear with me this day?”

He did not expect Galahad to look down on him from Lancelot’s immense height and say, gently, as if he knew it must disappoint, “Sir, I cannot.”

“No? Well, there are others to fight,” said Perceval, trying not to show how vexed he felt to be denied the honour.

“Not for any lack of love,” Galahad added. “But for the regard in which I hold you, Perceval of Wales.”

Courtesy, Perceval thought, almost in a panic. It would be easier to break a spear. He said, trying to mean it: “Your kindness is better than any fame.” And then, with a rush of more sincere feeling, he added, “I ask your pardon for falling so silent at the Table today when you told me of your birth. It meant no disdain. I can imagine no harder thing befalling a man, than to be cast off by his father.”

“I knew you thought no ill of me,” said Galahad. “And of your kindness, think not much ill of him either. So far as the matter lies between him and me, we have killed and buried it.”

And again, although he searched for it, Perceval saw no trace of bitterness in Galahad’s eyes.

So when Perceval sat by the side of the meadow with the others whom the Grail Knight had refused to joust, Lancelot and Bors, he did so with no shadow of resentment for Galahad’s sake. There was good sport, for Sir Galahad knocked Sir Lamorak, Sir Gareth, and Sir Tristan off their horses in quick succession. Perceval whistled as Gaheris went down like a ninepin, and glanced sidelong at Sir Bors. “He strikes like a thunderbolt. And I thought him scholarly!”

The older knight smiled. “I am no longer sorry to be passed over,” he said.

Perceval laughed and remembered the tourney at Carlisle.

After Galahad unhorsed everyone he would agree to fight, however, it was Perceval’s turn to take the field. After a year as a knight, his skill had grown to match the wit, strength, and audacity that had assisted him from the beginning. He went through Sir Tristan, Sir Lionel, Sir Lamorak, and Sir Aglovale almost as easily as Sir Galahad had; only Sir Tristan came close to unhorsing him. He was just leaning down from Rufus to help Gaheris off the ground and shake his hand when the people lining the town walls and the grassy bank above the lists began shouting and cheering in good earnest, and Perceval turned to see Sir Lancelot trotting up.

“May I beg a breaking of lances?” asked the king’s champion.

Perceval agreed and drew back, his stomach suddenly full of March-flies. As he laid his spear in rest, the sickening jolt of his fall at Carlisle came back to his mind. Perceval fought down the nausea and dug resolute spurs into Rufus. If he kept thinking of that, he would have to hang up his shield and take to farming, for his spear would never keep him again… Ahead, Lancelot thundered down on him, and then there was the familiar double shock, and with some resignation he went rolling through the green grass of summer.

Perceval staggered to his feet, vaguely aware of the crowd’s yelling, and looked around for the victor. But Lancelot was not far away. He, his helm, and his saddle diversely littered the ground. His horse wandered, confused and shocked, on the other side of the lists. Perceval tore off his own helm and went to shake hands.

“Well struck. No, not again: another such fall might cripple me,” Sir Lancelot gasped, and struck Perceval between the shoulder-blades with painful goodwill.

T
HAT EVENING THE HUNDRED KNIGHTS OF
the Round Table gathered in the Great Hall with their guests, and with the last light of the day came the Grail. Late in the afternoon it had begun to rain, and the clouds gathered thick and angry over Camelot, but the wind changed at sunset. There was a great cracking and pealing of thunder, as though Camelot itself was broken and thrown down; then, through the western windows of the hall the sun flickered and gained strength and struck the floor in the midst of the Table’s ring. And there floating in the sunlight was a vision of the Holy Grail, all covered over but burning with unbearable light.

In that marvellous light the knights stirred like sleepers waking. Perceval saw faces turned to him which seemed fairer than mortal flesh, as if remade in some new mould.

A subtle, mazing scent stole through the air, as if all the spices in the world were there. Suddenly—impossible to see how—the table was full of food and drink. And then the wind blew the clouds together, the sun sank, and the vision was gone as quickly and heartbreakingly as it had come.

In the sudden dark, the King drew long breath. “Now,” he said shakily, “let our Lord Jesu be thanked for what we have seen this day!”

The meal was almost done when Sir Gawain rose from his seat.

“Brothers,” he said, “we have eaten of the Grail’s bounty, but it was veiled from us, and not explained. Wherefore I vow that I shall labour in quest of the Holy Grail for a year and a day, or more if necessary, and never shall I drink in any other name than in the Name of that cup until I have seen it more openly. And if I may not prosper, then I will return as one that may not set himself against the will of our Lord Jesu Christ.”

Perceval stood. “And I make the same vow.”

He was followed by a great number of the knights of the Table. But the King buried his face in his hands.

“Alas!” he said. “For all the years we have longed for this day, my heart misgives me at last. Fair nephew, you have well-nigh slain me with this oath. For you have dispersed the fairest fellowship in the world, and where might I find others to take your place?”

P
ERCEVAL SET OFF THE NEXT MORNING
after matins, taking only Rufus, his arms, a bottle of water and a packet of hardtack, and a blanket rolled up behind his saddle. He rode as far as the bridge with Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad, and halted with them by a meadow still pockmarked with the hoof-prints of the day before. It was a grey, drizzling morning and few of the people had ventured out of doors to wave them goodbye.

“Well,” said Perceval.

“I am going north,” said Sir Galahad. The early morning light on his pale face suggested that he had not slept, but a mood of piercing keenness burned in him.

“I will go straight into Wales,” said Perceval. “That is where I found Carbonek in the autumn.”

“I mean to wander as the wind blows,” said Sir Lancelot with a smile, and held up a finger to test the air.

But Sir Gawain put up his hand to shade his eyes and squinted. “Is that Sir Mordred, going west?”

“Is he going after the Grail?” Perceval asked, with a friendly impulse.

“Most are,” said Gawain.

Galahad shook hands with Perceval. “Farewell, fair brother. We will meet again. Goodbye, Sir Gawain. Goodbye, Father.”

He turned his horse and went trotting up the river. As the road bent, he turned and waved before he went on. And so went the Grail Knight from Camelot.

Lancelot grinned after him, slapped Gawain on the back, and with a shout sent his horse plunging towards the forest.

Sir Gawain rubbed his shoulder. “He’ll be my death someday. I expect you to avenge me, when it happens, Perceval.”

Perceval laughed. “I shall slay him in kind, with thumps on the back.” He paused. “You knew, didn’t you? That Lancelot had a son?”

“It was no secret. We had forgotten it, out of courtesy.”

“But I thought there was a penalty for adultery. Burning.”

“The penalty is only so harsh in the case of certain high ladies, as we read in the laws of the ancient commonwealth. In any case, it is within the King’s discretion to show mercy. Lancelot was judged penitent.”

“And so it was forgotten.” Perceval frowned. “So easily.”

“He has lived a blameless life since.”

Perceval remembered what he had seen in the moonlit garden. “And if I knew that he had not? If I knew that he—or anyone—was to blame for something
now?
Should that be forgotten, too?”

Gawain glanced at him. “What! Do you mean that you know any ill of Lancelot?”

“No. No, sir.”

“If you think ill of any man, keep your tongue in your head. If you know ill of any man, speak boldly. Pursue the enemies of Logres, wherever you find them, and leave good men in peace. This is no more than you have always done.”