Pendragon's Heir (35 page)

“You know little of me if you expect me to do that,” she whispered.

Morgan stood with her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the stone knife. Blanchefleur cleared her throat, backed a step, and said, “I am curious. What happened when you stabbed me in the autumn? You never touched the Grail, or we would know of it at Carbonek.”

Morgan stirred, and her glare was knife-edged. “Sarras spat me out. I woke.”

“Ah,” said Blanchefleur. “I am brought to Sarras only when there is an attempt on the Grail. And if you kill me in Sarras, you put the Cup beyond your own reach.”

Morgan tilted her chin, and her hand drifted to the knife at her own belt. “Tell me of yourself. Are you dead now, or living?”

“Do the dead guard the Signs of Carbonek?”

“Shall I pass my blade through you and see?”

Blanchefleur remembered that her mortal body lay in the Grail Chapel at Carbonek, far from the infirmary. Another wound like the last and she could die there, helpless.

Was death really too high a price to pay for the protection of the Grail?

She forced a smile. “Please, do that, if there is no easier way to rid Sarras of you.”

Slowly, Morgan’s hand fell from the knife-hilt.

Blanchefleur backed another step, away from the Table, toward one of the arrow-shaped openings that looked out on the mountain city of Sarras. The fall to the cathedral floor was far enough to kill her. She could go over clutching the Grail. Perhaps, by heavenly grace, she would not also die in Carbonek.

But it was a desperate gamble.

“Stop!” Morgan seemed to guess what was passing through her mind. “Why? Why die for it? It is only a cup.”

Blanchefleur backed another step. “It is our only hope for Logres,” she said, and remembered what Nerys had said so long ago. “And more than Logres. The kingdom that shall never be destroyed.”

Morgan bowed her head. The gesture hid the warning spark in her eyes. Then she sprang.

Blanchefleur reacted faster than she could have imagined possible, dodging to one side. Only let Morgan’s impetus carry her to the window, and a single shove would suffice to kill Morgan and leave Blanchefleur in possession of the Grail. Her heart stood still as Morgan went past. Then the witch flung out a hand and clenched Blanchefleur’s right arm. They staggered another step, to the window’s edge, before steadying on the very brink. Blanchefleur yanked away, back into the room. But Morgan held her grip with fingers that bored into Blanchefleur’s arm and reached for the Grail. Her left hand found the Cup and closed. They strained for a moment, then Morgan twisted the Grail and with it Blanchefleur’s arm. She fell to her knees, whimpering in pain, and then lost her grip with one last jerk that tore the Grail free. It hit the ground too far away for her to reach. Morgan was on it at once.

Her shadow pooled beneath her as she knelt to retrieve the Cup. Blanchefleur saw it, and within the same heartbeat she saw the purpose of the knife that could cut sunlight.

Morgan rose to her feet, holding the Grail. Her shadow flowed across the ground. Blanchefleur hurled herself forward and sliced through the air at Morgan’s heels. As the blade skimmed the floor, tiny ashen curls of grass parted and floated into the air, shredding into smoke. Through light and shade the knife flashed, and parted Morgan from her shadow.

Morgan whipped around, her face suddenly pale as paper. With a puff of wind, the shadow twisted like smoke and drifted away. Her hands, white to the knuckle, clenched on the Grail and trembled.

“No!” she whispered.

The Grail fell through her fingers into Blanchefleur’s hands. Another puff of wind caught Morgan as it had her shadow; she floated a few steps, regained her footing, mouthed “No!” again, and was gone on the sweet warm breath of Sarras.

Blanchefleur rose to watch the wind carry her away. Then, moving very slowly, she set the Grail on the table, straightened the spear, replaced the platter, slid the stone knife into her pouch, and closed and locked the trapdoor.

The steeple still smelled of smoke, and the black grass was prickly and sooty, but Blanchefleur was too tired to care. She stretched herself out full length and for the first time in months, drifted into dreamless sleep.

26

Far in the Town of Sarras,

Red-rose the gloamings fall,

For in her heart of wonder

Flames the Sangreal.

…

But where the Grail-Knight entered,

Ah! me! I enter not.

Taylor

O
N A WARM EVENING THAT SMELLED
of summer, while the sun hovered low in a purple evening sky and the whirr of crickets underlined every other sound, the Grail Knight came to Carbonek. Blanchefleur heard the cry as she carried bread into the hall. The children were the first to race for the door with shouts of excitement; then the squires, with longer legs, outstripped them. One of them paused to hand Branwen a dish of mutton before dashing away. She squeaked in outrage, flung the gigantic platter onto the nearest table, and ran after. As a hush dropped over the emptying hall, Blanchefleur found Nerys standing like a statue with her arms wrapped round a stoup of wine.

“Nerys,” she said. “What if it’s him? At last?”

Sight slid back to the fay’s fathomless eyes. She shook her head wordlessly and put the wine on the table.

Branwen swooped back into the hall in a storm of excitement. “Blanchefleur! Your knight is here!”

Relief bloomed in her tight chest. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes! Well, it would hardly be Sir Gawain again, would it? And anyway the device is labelled.”

“And no one else?”

“Two others—”

“Is there the device of the red cross?”

“Argent and gules? Yes.”

Blanchefleur took another deep breath. “The Grail Knight.”

Branwen’s eyes widened. Blanchefleur added, “I saw him in Sarras.”

Nerys stirred. Her wonderment blazed like the light in a long-dead lantern. “You saw him in the City?”

Blanchefleur nodded.

“And never told me?”

“They’re coming!” one of the pages yelped from the doorway.

Blanchefleur was struck with shyness. If she was going to see Perceval again, after all this time, she wanted at least the bulwark of Grail-light to strengthen her. “Let’s go.” She dumped the bread onto the table. “Stay if you wish, Branwen.”

Branwen clamped her hands over her stomach. “I have no appetite.”

Nerys and Blanchefleur looked at her in double concern. Branwen smiled weakly. “Let us see the end of the Quest first, and eat after.”

“There’s the Branwen we know,” said Blanchefleur with a laugh. But then came the sound of many footsteps from the door, and she ducked into one of the side passages, trailed by the others.

With every step of the way up the winding stair to the Grail Chapel, the shining purport of what was about to happen weighed more heavily on Blanchefleur’s shoulders like a robe of office. From Branwen’s lip-bitten smile, and from the impression she had, every time she looked at Nerys, of deliriously triumphant music playing just beyond the borders of hearing, she knew that the others felt it too. In the chapel, bathed in light, they drew on their tunics and waited in a silence too glad to break.

At last Branwen said, “Can you believe it is happening at last?”

“Anything might happen if you wait for it long enough,” said Nerys, with a smile.

“Not all of us can wait a thousand years,” Branwen reminded her, “and then see our desires with our own eyes.”

Nerys said: “The dwellers in the City, on the hill of hallowing, see their desires with their own eyes. And in their presence, all the selfsame threads they have spun in the web of their lives are drawn on, through men and deeds yet unborn and unthought-of, to the service of more mighty ends than even the dreams of the City could prepare them to imagine. It is the second of all joys.”

Her voice faded to a whisper as she added half to herself: “We fays do not speak of the first; the memory is too grievous.”

Silence unspooled. Blanchefleur gripped her hands together, thinking of the first time she and Nerys had talked about the Grail. “
Fiat voluntas tua
,” she said at last. “What threads will run from this day, Nerys? What will happen in Logres because of the Grail Knight?”

The fay lifted her palms upward. “Have I the eyes of Sarras? Like you, I can only wait and hope.”

Blanchefleur thought of Elaine on her deathbed, Lancelot in the kitchen garden, Arthur and Morgan in the cloistered walk. That. That, she hoped, was what the Grail Knight would somehow purge away, although she could not think how.

“We must have stayed long enough,” Branwen said.

“Then forward, in God’s name.” Blanchefleur stood and picked up the Grail for the last time. She rubbed its ancient ridged surface with her thumb, suddenly flooded with gratitude for its safety. After all her worry, after all the dreadful adventures of Sarras, here it stood at last, inviolate at the achievement of the Quest. Cradling the Cup in both hands, she turned and started down the stair.

In the hall at table, three knights sat silent and unmoving before untouched food. One of them was strange to her, a bulky man with calm level eyes and a red-barred device that marked him kin to Sir Lancelot. The next she knew: Sir Galahad, full of glad awe, leapt up like a tongue of fire. Beside him, more slowly, Perceval rose to his feet. He had grown broader since she saw him last, and beneath, in the piercing and perceptive light of the Grail, she sensed all Gawain’s passion, but held in tighter check. And what had become of the easy bravado she remembered so well? He stared at her and at the Cup with almost grim reverence, and the whole eighteen months that lay between them and their last meeting seemed to rise up and cast its shadow on his face.

Then she recalled the burden she bore, and went on into the hall, walking in a light that no shadow would ever dim.

As they drew close to the three knights, Sir Galahad lifted up the hilts of his sword like a cross and called “In the name of Our Lord, stay a moment.” Blanchefleur halted, and the Grail Knight came forward and bowed and kissed her cheek. For the fraction of a moment she gave him the wordless greeting of her eyes; then Galahad turned and took his place at the head of the procession. From the king’s high dais, Naciens rose and said, “Now shall all true knights be fed. Take up the Maimed King.”

Bors and Perceval went to the dais and lifted the couch of King Pelles. An extra hand was needed to steady the head, and Naciens called the squire Heilyn. Then Sir Galahad led them all through the hall and up the long stair to the Grail Chapel itself, unhesitant, as if led by long-ago memory or a messenger none of the others could see.

From below, in the great hall, not a whisper of sound stirred the air. Carbonek, man and beast, sat breathless in expectation.

The chapel filled with people. Blanchefleur set the Grail on the table and stood aside, near Naciens. Branwen followed with the platter and then tucked herself out of the way by the door. Perceval, Bors, and Heilyn eased the King’s couch through the narrow chapel door, laid it down in the middle of the room, and straightened. Sir Galahad rebuckled his sword and turned to Nerys.

“Damsel, if I may.”

She put the Spear into his hands. He went to his knees by King Pelles. Blanchefleur did not hear their low words, but she saw tears spring up in the eyes of the grandfather of Galahad. Then the Grail Knight eased back the King’s robe and unbound the wound he had suffered so long ago by the hand of Sir Balyn in this very place. It was partly healed, but festered below the surface. When Galahad poised the Spear above the wound, Blanchefleur quickly transferred her gaze to the window. Only King Pelles’s groaning breath was audible as the Grail Knight sliced through the oozing flesh. Then the breath slowed and the smell receded. There was a soft murmur of surprise from Branwen, and Blanchefleur turned to see the King of Carbonek, tears streaking his face, rise to his feet supported by Galahad at one elbow and Heilyn at the other.

King Pelles put them aside, took the remaining three steps to the table alone, and knelt. The company in that little room was still watching him in silent wonder when Naciens reached out and lifted the samite cover from the Holy Grail.

A burst of light blinded all of them. Blanchefleur flinched and flung up a hand to cover her eyes, but before she had lifted it as far as her mouth her eyes hardened to the blaze and she stood poised in sudden joy. They were standing in the spire of Sarras with the whole world unfolded around them.

Perceval said, “
Mirabilis!
” Nerys lifted both her hands to her mouth; all the colour drained from her cheeks. Branwen, with wide unblinking eyes, moved over to Heilyn and slipped her hand into his. But Naciens said to Galahad: “Holy knight of God, take this long burden from my keeping, and release me from the vow I made to Joseph of Arimathea at the uttermost dawn of my life.”

Galahad took the Cup from the hermit’s hands, carefully, for it was brimming full of wine. He turned to the company. “Now the Quest of the Grail is achieved,” he declared.

And he said: “Knights, and servants, and true children, you have come out of deadly life into spiritual life. I give you no new teaching. Only an old one, lest it be forgotten:
adnuntite mortem Domini donec veniat
, for this is the only true foundation of the City. Now take and receive the high meat which you have so much desired, for this night the Grail shall depart from the realm of Logres.”

All of them received the Eucharist there at his hands.

When this was done, Galahad said: “Come down with me into the City.”

“Gladly,” said Perceval, and the nine of them followed the Grail Knight in silence down the stair to the grassy cathedral floor.

Blanchefleur stopped under the steeple and knelt to feel the ground for a tell-tale hollow. There it was, but the broken saint had been repaired, and stood again upon the spire of the cathedral.

The sound of feet and awed whispers moved away. Near her there was only silence until a voice spoke.