The Grail War (26 page)

“Oh,” he said.

“I have nothing left — no clothes.” Her eyes blinked nervously. She been scratching an insect bite on her neck. Left a streak of blood there.

He sensed there was more to this. Well, he had been a husband, however poorly, for years enough.

“So soon?” he mitigated.

“After weeks of wandering in wilderness,” she exaggerated, “is it a wonder? Look at this!” She yanked at the cloth until he caught his cue and embraced her comfortingly.

“My light dove,” he told her, “it has been less than two.” He felt her silently crying. Perhaps it was her time of the month. He only vaguely understood the mechanism of it, but he was all too familiar with the effects.

“But what may we
do
?” she said. He felt the heat of her breath, her wet cheek. He tenderly stroked her neck, looking over her heat at the twilight glimmer of water.
So
soon
, he thought. “Oh,” she said, “my lover, what’s to become of us?”

“Fear not,” he assured her. “We have a goal now. No more of this aimless drifting. Listen, we make our way to the coast and thence take ship to France. We’ll be safe enough there.” As he improvised he realized he might have suggested this course before. Why hadn’t he? They’d simply ridden and camped almost every day in the same moment-to-moment spirit they’d sneaked to the hayloft or sewing room to make love in … It hadn’t bothered him; he’d felt complete and content … But it was an obvious mistake! Why hadn’t he seen that …? Still, no matter what reason said, the complex idea of actually trying to leave the country seemed unreal. He knew he’d have to force himself to follow through …

“I’m sorry,” she was saying, “I’m weaker than I knew.” She pulled a little away and looked up into his face. She smiled wanly. “But I am content,” she said, “when you hold me.”

He nodded, studying her expression as always, looking for flickers of he knew not what.

“I’ll try to be braver,” she said.

She's
just
giving
herself
to
me
again,
he realized.
She
doesn't
want
to
say
yes
or
no
to
anything
.

“Otherwise,” she continued, “there will be no pleasure for you.”

“Pleasure? Is that all?”

“Well,” she explained, brightening, “we aren’t together to call up glooms like doddering scholars.” Her smile smoothed over and polished bright the rough places of his dissatisfactions.

He sniffed the air and spun away from her.

“The fish is burning!” he cried, running the few steps to the dark, smoking fire. “God’s wounds!”

She was laughing behind him and then shouted something and the fear brought him around, thinking:
I
should
have
sensed
it
what's
wrong
with
me,
seeing the armed, mounted knight come around the bend, sounds wiped away by the seething river roar. Well, still, if he were alone or with a party, unless it were an army, what should Parsival fear? Yes, but still he should have felt the presence as before … What was dulling those mysterious perceptions … ?

He stood waiting. The rider stopped near the fire, where the fish was hopelessly aflame.

“You spoiled our meal, sir,” Parsival said in greeting, a trace irritated. Unlea stayed motionless near the tent. When the stranger didn’t answer through his blank, closed helm, Parsival prodded him, wishing his power to divine thoughts had not faded. “Do you mean us ill, sir?”

“Hah,” the knight said, “I won’t begin to march in that circle again, master.”

The visor was flung open with a hostile bang and Prang stared coldly at his teacher.

“Well, then.” Parsival frowned. “You always find me. Is it a scent I give off?”

“It was the perfume, too,” Prang returned, “but you’re not hard to find. You don’t appear to have fled in haste.” He was expressionless.

“What perfume?” Parsival wanted to know.

“Of your lady, for whom I have a message.”

Parsival overlooked the sarcasm.

“So,” he said, “you stand in the Earl’s service.”

“More like in yours as is the steeple bell that warns the late sleeper.”

Parsival folded his arms. Unlea came a little closer.

“So,” Parsival said, “his worship comes on apace?”

“He comes,” Prang confirmed.

“Prang,” Parsival said, moving close to him until he stood by his stirrup, “I am sorry. I intended to — ”

“I came not,” his pupil interrupted sarcastically, “to learn your intentions. I am no spy.” He turned to Unlea.

“You misread — ” the teacher began.

“My gracious lady,” Prang was already saying, “your husband sends his greetings and says you have ridden over far for your exercise and he grows concerned. He will escort you back home if you come but a little way with me.”

“Back home to God’s bosom?” Parsival suggested. “Beware of fair words that mean doom.”

I
can't
let
this
end
badly
, he thought. The idea made him weak and sick for a moment.
I
can’t
let
it
come
to
that
. He shook his head slightly to himself.

“No,” Prang insisted, calmly, “he declares he knows no fault in her … But his thoughts are less kind for you, Sir Parsival.”

He was watching her face. He could see it: there was a wildness and relief there, a hopefulness unexpected. His heart and belly were chilled and sank. He anxiously looked out over the river. The last mists and twilight were dimming together. The white spume gleamed. The firelight became fuller and rich. The cindered fish smoke and stank.
No
, he thought.
No
.

Prang waited, expressionless.

“Well, my lord?” he finally said, glancing at Unlea, who twice had seemed about to say something, then checked herself.

“You feel betrayed,” Parsival finally got out. He had never felt so sick with depression and anxiety … It was true, he hadn’t really tried to get far away, they’d drifted … drifted … He felt shame because it was up to him …

“I?” Prang was remote. “My lord Earl has a better claim to that.”

“Parsival …” Unlea began to say. “I — ”

“I accepted you,” he was saying to the young knight, “so I ask you to wait.” He stared and blinked.

“Wait?”

Parsival sighed and shrugged and shook his head.

“In any event,” he said, “Unlea and I will go on.” He didn’t quite look at her but saw her expression where the firelight traced her face on the deepening shadows. She nodded agreement, but, it seemed, after a fractional hesitation. Well, never mind that. “We have to go on,” he told Prang earnestly, advancing half a step more so he was looking straight up into his face. Beyond the fellow’s hurt and assumed dignity there was still a feeling, a sadness, even, Parsival detected.

Prang took a long, deep breath and glanced from the now silent lady back to the man. She had nodded again.

“We must go on,” Parsival repeated, eyes intense and wide. “For love … for love … There’s no turning back.”

“God shield you, then,” the young man feelingly declared. “I will be silent and say I’ve seen you not. And for her sake.”

Because
Bonjio
doesn’t
care
to
slay
a
second
wife
, Parsival thought.

“No,” he said, taking a few steps in pursuit as Prang, with a bowing farewell to Unlea, turned his horse and headed back into the thickening night along the river bend. “No,” he repeated, not even caring if Prang heard him …

He kept his back to her. She didn't speak. He watched the faint fire gleams on Prang's armor fade to a hinted afterglow beside the dimly silver rushing water.

My
God
Lord
Christ
, he thought over and over,
am
I
losing
this
,
too
…?
Am
I
going
to
lose
this
,
too
… ?

Broaditch felt the rasping first sawstroke of the ragged knife split his ear; felt the blood spurt and run down his cheek into his beard as he struggled in Balli’s soft, irresistible grip, feeling smothered in the overwhelming, rotting, fecal stink of the mad halfwit. He didn’t register the other voice at first as Balli drew back somewhat, blade still poised to saw again.

“Hold!” was the shout. “Hold! You wit not the true law!”

This, Broaditch noticed, seemed the right track, for he was tossed aside, bleeding, stunned, as Balli turned to face the newcomer. He was surprised to see Valit in the doorway, albeit ready to fly, yet theatrically and still arrogantly there.

“Balli knows law!” the mountainous being cried in anger. “Balli has seen. Balli has heard.”

My
God
in
the
highest
heaven
, Broaditch thought,
but
this
creature
is
the
whole
world
in
more
than
his
vast
and
unyielding
size
. He gasped and pressed his sleeve to his wound, which, while shallow, stung terribly.
He's
as
senseless
!

“No,” Valit insisted, sneering, petulant, “he has a right you cannot fail to grant.”

What
?
To
cut
his
own
ears
off
? Broaditch wondered. Better if he’d argued with the tort of a twenty-pound stone, he felt … though that might have won no judgment considering the knotted head in question, he dimly concluded.

“Balli grants no rights!” was the reasoned reply. “You’re a thief yourself! Balli — ”

“Balli me great arse,” Valit sneered. “You fat and witless shithole.” This seemed, for some cause lost on Broaditch, to check the giant again. “Be still and hear me! You say you must follow law?”

“Balli follows law. Yes. So I take this thief’s ears and hands and — ”

Ah
,
yes
,
Td
forgotten
the
hands
, thought Broaditch.

“But he may call on God to judge the case, fat sack,” Valit pronounced, leaning almost jauntily against the door frame, the starry night at his back.

“God?” Balli was uncertain.

“The combat,” Valit said triumphantly. “He has the right.”

“How?” Broaditch groped. “What? Whom?”

“The combat?” Balli frowned, squinting up his single perpetually surprised-looking eye.

“It’s truth,” insisted Valit.

“Trial by combat,” Broaditch said, trying to regain his feet, “against this monstrosity?”

Valit shrugged.

“Well,” he said, “could you be worse off than at this moment, brave Broaditch?”

“If so,” came the muttered reply as the brave finally got to his feet, “you’ve found the way.” He stood stolidly there, dabbing at his ear.

Balli, for his own convoluted, fixed reasons, had to accept, and the prospect gradually was coming to please him. He nodded after a little time.

“Balli is just,” he declared. “It shall be as you say. Balli has seen the knights do this combat …” He beamed, for the first time so far as Broaditch had witnessed, and the effect was not encouraging. “It shall be as you say. And you are his fighter!” he told Valit, who went white.

“What?” he said. “I — ”

Balli, with his terrible, fluid speed, had leaned over and yanked the young man inside.

“Now choose weapon,” his roundness said. “Cudgel? Fine blade?” He held up the notched knife. “You choose. Balli has justice.” He was drooling a little, batting his reddened eye, pursed lips working like, Broaditch imagined, an anus, sucking in and out …

He's
the
very
world
, Broaditch said to himself again.

“There’s only one way to defeat the world,” he called to the terrified Valit, who looked wild-eyed at him. “And I thank you for coming in good time, young sir.”

“What?” Valit wanted to know. “What way?”

“Trick it and run. Else we fall overmatched by a mountain of vicious dullness.”