The Black Chalice (21 page)

We all knew about her, Arthea von Uhland, a whore who was no less a whore for being a lady, who had slept with half of the Holy Roman Empire, and still had a place in the courts.

Her husband doesn’t care.
It was Otto’s squire who told me, the knowledge garnered no doubt from his master, who had a taste for scandal.
Why should he care?
he went on.
He’s slept with half the empire, too, and apparently it’s pretty much the same half….

I looked around the tent. There were maybe a dozen men there, all talking of the jousts, sitting on the floor, drinking, making wagers perhaps, as if they were nothing more than peasants at a bear-pit.

And I thought of Rome.

Not our Rome, the sacred city of the popes, but the old Rome, pagan and corrupt, with its circuses and its glittering champions. Its gladiators. Men who fought for the pleasure of it, or for the price of a good whore. Most of them had been soldiers once, mercenaries; gold was gold, after all. A good day in the arena, and then wine and camaraderie and the hero tended, his fine body oiled and massaged and honed for fresh glories— and why not? Without it he was nothing.

The margravine’s hands were edging downwards from the small of Karelian’s back. I turned without a word and left them.

Outside, people were everywhere, walking, sitting in clusters, gathered around chess boards or minstrels, talking about everything under the sun but mostly talking about the tournament. About the count of Lys. I left them too, and finding no place where I could be alone, I went finally to the chapel.

The stained glass windows were muted brilliance against the early evening sun; light fell through them in high poised spears, but everywhere else the chapel was dark. The sanctuary at the far end was a cave with a single unsteady crimson light, the kneeling worshipers were only silhouettes of black on grey. Then slowly, as my eyes adapted to the dimness, I made out the forms of two servants, the face of a duchess from Bern, who was said to be gravely ill. And, close to the altar, kneeling utterly alone and in the deepest stillness of prayer, Gottfried von Heyden, duke of the Reinmark.

How can I describe what I felt then? Everything around me seemed to stop, and turn, and become something different. The bright day shrouded, and this dark place became suffused with light. The silence filled with meaning, and the thousand voices beyond dissolved into a babble of stupidity, just dust and clashing swords and drunkenness and lust. Just the world, the same world as always, failing us as it failed us in Jerusalem. Angels led us to the Holy City, angels and visions and the prayers of all Christendom— but once we had taken it, once the infidels were slain and the city was ours, we filled it with taverns and brothels and market stalls and baths, with all the foulness of the world, as though it were merely another captured town, as though Christ had never walked upon its stones.

Why?

I wanted to weep with longing. Why could men not
be
what they were meant to be, chaste and devoted and true? Why was Karelian not here, kneeling in prayer like his liege, instead of lying in his tent with a whore? He had so much courage, so much strength of hand and will. Yet what did he earn with his gifts? A bit of gold, a bit of glory, some harlot’s hands between his thighs. That was all. It was such a waste.

I watched Gottfried. How serene he looked— troubled, in a fashion, and yet serene. For weeks I thought nothing could be more splendid than being part of the tournament, and yet now, suddenly, I was glad he was not in it. He was above it, untouched by all its gaudy violence.

Men could be different, I thought wistfully. They could be like Gottfried, like the young knights he was training to follow him, with their white surcoats and their shining faces. Ehrenfried was wrong. The warrior monk was not a contradiction in terms. The warrior monk was the only warrior in whom there was no contradiction at all. Worldly men did violence for pleasure, or gold, or self-advancement. Only a man who fought for God could be whole and sound and clean. He could be more than a man; he could be the very arm of God. He could be the man Karelian should have been, the man I always wanted to serve.

Did I really think those things, thirty years ago, on a melancholy afternoon in the chapel of Stavoren? Or do I now merely imagine I did, because of everything which happened afterwards? I know the heart can play strange tricks upon the memory.

But it was that day, I think, that strange and beautiful and troubled day, when I first began to hear a whisper, like grasses trembling in a summer wind. A whisper new and different in the quiet of my soul. A name, stern and majestic and separate from all the world around it.

Gottfried.

SEVENTEEN

The Golden Duke

Then he thought of how Parzival once said
it was better to trust women than God.

Wolfram von Eschenbach

* * *

I fell into sin in Stavoren. One single mortal sin, in all the history of the world, was enough to cause the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Who can say what my sin caused? Because of it I learned a thing I was never meant to know, and everything I did thereafter was shaped by my knowledge.

I do not remember the wench’s name; she belonged to the retinue of the Empress Theresa. She had a very fine body, and a way of moving which constantly drew attention to it. If the empress had permitted such shamelessness, I am sure she would have dressed herself like the witch of Helmardin.

She was always smiling at me, following me about, asking me questions, finding excuses to move close to me. Once as I sat in the courtyard engrossed in my own duties, she came over to me, flirting with me and teasing me about my virtue. She pretended to catch sight of a pretty butterfly, and leaned across me to reach for it, so that her breast touched the side of my face. I reddened with shame, and she laughed.

“Poor Pauli,” she said. “You’re in sore need of tending.”

She could not have been a day past sixteen, yet she set out deliberately to seduce me. Twice she pursued me so as to find me alone, and the second time I fell. I can blame this only on my weakness, for I did not like her. I did not even want her. She never lingered in my thoughts, neither before nor after; it was the darkness of a moment.

She found me, the second time, in a hallway in the duke’s palace; I was returning from delivering a message for Karelian. It was nearly dusk. The light was failing, and I was absorbed in my own thoughts. A door opened just ahead of me; I recognized her voice and her scent before I could make out her face in the dim light.

“Pauli? Oh, I am so glad it’s you! Can you help me?”

You may well call me a fool for believing her. She said there was a kitten trapped in a closet, and I followed her into the room to rescue it. Of course, there was no kitten. There was only her laughter, her body pressing against me, her mouth all over my face and her hands sliding over my back. The suddenness of it, the rawness, was both compelling and awful. I found the strength to seize her wrists and push them back, trying to shove her away.

“Am I not pretty, Pauli?” she said. Her voice was soft, mocking. “Are you really so sated you don’t find me pretty? Or do you like little page boys better?”

The soul eager for sin can persuade itself of anything. I should have flung her aside and stalked away:
I don’t care what you think, you little whore! And anyone who does care what you think is too stupid to concern me!

It’s what I should have done. But instead I stood frozen, appalled by her words, appalled that anyone would say such a thing about me, even in mockery. Dear Christ, what if she said it to others? She was pressing against me again, laughing, and because I did not know what to do I did nothing, and she did as she wished. There was an astonishing power to the encounter, yet I did not enjoy it. Through it all I was aware of how animal it was, how meaningless. Her writhing body disgusted me, and my own disgusted me more. I could hardly believe it was my own, behaving so, burning and heaving, caring about nothing except itself.

This was the burden of original sin. Through Eve we were lowered to this, and through Eve’s daughters we were dragged back to it again and again….

She wanted to kiss me after, and play with me, but I could not bear her presence, or the foul sweetness of her perfume. I went alone to the chapel, and there, sick with shame and self-contempt, I wept.

It was the first time, and the last. I never sinned with a woman again. For no matter how much they tried to tempt me — and they did, sometimes, before I left the world — I never yielded, remembering how ugly it was, and how shameful.

There was another unlikely outcome from my sin. Six days later, while walking in Duke Gottfried’s orchard, I avoided a meeting with her by hiding myself in one of his private pavilions, and so learned the future of the world.

It was two days after the tournament ended. The finish was glorious. Until the last, Karelian and Prince Konrad had outshone everyone else. There was barely any difference between them in the scoring, and neither was prepared to concede victory to the other.

A great deal has been said and written about Prince Konrad through the years; I would just as soon write nothing more. I never thought well of him. Like so many young men raised to power, he thought uncommonly well of himself. He was impulsive and cocky, and tended to say whatever was on his mind without thinking of the consequences.

Those who liked him admired his outspoken manner; they called him honest. Those who saw more clearly judged him reckless, for he respected neither fate, nor his father, nor his God. Certainly he was fearless. As heir to the imperial throne, he was not expected to take part in tournaments; they endangered not merely his own life, but the future of the dynasty and the security of the state. But in this as in most things Konrad did as he pleased. He enjoyed combat; he loved to win. And there were some who whispered, even then, that he fought so boldly because he had so much to prove.

I do not know the truth of those rumors. Powerful men always have enemies, and terrible lies can be fashioned out of innocent truths. But the prince was still unmarried, and seemed inclined to remain so as long as possible. All of his close friends were young men, some of them quite beautiful, one of them a minnesinger with amber eyes and a voice which could have melted granite. This youth went everywhere with the prince; he even sang in Gottfried’s court. The enemies of the Salian kings watched him, and smiled, and nudged each other’s ribs.

But Konrad was a warrior, a very good one. And at the jousting field it was the friends of the Salian kings who smiled and nudged each other; they knew a man when they saw one.

For myself, I was never sure, though I admit I was inclined to think the worst of Konrad from the beginning. As the tournament drew to a finish, and he kept winning, just like Karelian, I liked him less and less. I wanted to see him beaten.

So, I think, did Gottfried, though he was much too wise to say so. What he did say — and most everyone agreed — was that a point or two of difference in the scoring proved nothing in a match like this. Whichever man won, the victory would satisfy no one. They had to meet in a duel, and settle it, just the two of them. Three passes with the lance, and then swords, until one or the other yielded.

Nearly everyone expected Konrad to win. Even I, in my most honest moments, thought it likely. There was nothing to choose between them in strength, and very little in skill. But after days and days of exhausting combat, youth was now Konrad’s great advantage. Karelian was tired, so tired that I grieved for him. I knew he was asking himself what in God’s name he had begun this for, surely not for a hundred gold marks and a wreath of pretty flowers?

He dressed slowly that morning; every careful motion betrayed his pain. When I had buckled on his sword, and pulled the hem of his surcoat to make it neat and straight, he took a little wine, raising the cup briefly before he drank.

“The last time,” he said.

Something cold went all through my bones. For a reason I could not name, I believed him: it was the last time.

His head and throat were wrapped close in his coif of ring mail. Armor though it was, this garment could give even hardened warriors a strangely youthful look, almost … yes, I will say it: almost feminine … before the helmet was fitted over it. A transformation I always noticed, and which always disturbed me.

“You will ride in many tournaments yet, my lord,” I said. “You are younger than Duke Gottfried.”

He ignored the comparison.

“No,” he said. “I will not.” Then he smiled, beautifully. “That’s why I intend to win this one.”

And he did, the only way he could have won it: by being wiser, cooler, more experienced than his opponent. At least, that’s what everyone said at the time, myself most of all. We marveled at his steadiness, his ability to wait; we marveled especially at his gift of anticipation. He did not outfight Konrad. Strictly speaking, he could not have done so. He out-thought him. He seemed to know everything Konrad was going to do before the prince did it. Three times I was certain Karelian was finished; three times I saw the blow coming which should have ended it; each time, at the lethal moment, Karelian was somehow not there.

A year later, I would reflect on the encounter again, in a less worshipful frame of mind, and wonder if it was purely skill. No doubt the witch of Car-Iduna wanted him to win. She wanted him raised to the greatest possible heights in Gottfried’s confidence. He was good, God knows, but he was just a man, and he fought that day like something more.

Alas, it is all hindsight now, like so much of my wisdom. At the time I was exactly like the others, caught up in the excitement like a twig in a whirlpool, flung back and forth between triumph and dismay. They rode at each other and broke both their lances, and we cheered. They rode again, and crashed together, and went down. Neither had been unhorsed, not even once, in all the tournament; now both were tumbled into the dirt. Karelian got to one knee and faltered there, reeling as the prince strode towards him. That was the first time I thought it was over. But he recovered in time to parry Konrad’s blow. And then he led him slowly, pitilessly, to defeat.

Slowly? In truth, I do not know if it was slow, or very quick. It seemed forever, an unending, brilliant masque; not mortal, and yet perilous enough, a dance of splendor and darkness. I am a monk now; I know the vanity of it; and I know, too, how evil both men really were. Yet still I feel a tug of admiration. Their swords struck sparks off the sky; they attacked, parried, stumbled, missed ruin by a breath more times than we could afterwards remember. They stood poised, sword caught against sword and neither yielding, and we held our own breaths until one or the other swung free, and struck again.

Almost from the start, from the moment he had seen Karelian dazed and on his knees, Konrad believed he had the best of it, and he fought accordingly, with daring and confidence, pressing what he believed was his advantage. He never understood that in everything except youth he was outmatched; he grew angry and ever so slightly desperate as victory eluded him. As Karelian eluded him, and continued to return his blows— not as many blows, perhaps, all counted, but just as many dangerous ones. As Karelian began finally to lead, to set the pace and the style of the fight.

I never saw the raven; I was too busy watching the field. But some others did, and mentioned it later. It had drifted across the plain of Stavoren in a smooth, high arc, safely distant from the massed gathering of fighting men and weapons. Without haste, they said, and wonderfully graceful, its wings stark and black against the summer sky. Drifting away again, as though it had only come there out of idle curiosity.

As perhaps it had. Perhaps it was just a bird, an ordinary raven of the forest. That’s what my father would have said, shaking his head at me. At the moment I might have said so myself; the ordinary world was very real just then, very bright and loud, all harsh voices and iron and dust. Konrad suddenly attacking, Karelian circling away, the prince’s sword flashing out like the jaws of an adder, too quick to follow with the eye, just a blur of menace, but the count’s shield was there, breaking its force. Konrad stuck again, in pure fury, all of his strength and weight behind the blow. Karelian swung his blade upward, catching the other in mid-air. For a tiny moment nothing moved at all; they stood like stags in autumn, feet braced and weapons locked. But Konrad had put too much into his massive blow; he was off balance— just a little, just for a breath.

A breath was all Karelian needed. A sudden shift of his weight, a savage whiplash motion of his wrist, and Konrad’s sword was gone, spinning like a silver trinket across the field.

After, there would be clamor and chaos and cheering and dismay, but for one long moment there was pure silence. Even the king was struck dumb, leaning forward from his fenced and guarded dais as the young prince recovered his footing and backed away, disarmed and bewildered.

I remember the moment as clearly as if it were painted on my wall. I remember how good I felt. None of us knew the future. None of us imagined that these two men, meeting for the first time here in a game of chivalry, would soon meet again in a war camp in Mainz. They would regard each other once again across a small, charged patch of ground, and smile.

Konrad wiped his arm across his face. He did not like losing, and it showed.

“Are you going to insist on my oath of surrender?” he demanded.

“No, my lord,” Karelian said.

And then, before Konrad’s squire could hurry out to help his master, the count bent and picked up his rival’s sword himself, and offered it to him with a small bow.

It was a singularly courteous gesture. But it was more, and a soft, awed murmur passed over the gathering. Karelian was a profoundly political man. He knew how much bitterness remained against Ehrenfried after twenty years of civil war. He knew how many of the watching lords were pleased to see the Salian prince humbled. Some would have been pleased to see him killed. For Karelian, this was no simple act of chivalry; it was a clear political statement. The game had been a game, and now it was over. Victorious or not, he was still the loyal servant of his king.