The War of the Grail (9 page)

‘No. We found something else, though.’

Kanvar stared at Jack. ‘What did you find?’

‘A place where many sattva streams meet. Many powerful streams.’

Kanvar gave a guttural cry and leapt to his feet, flinging the blanket aside. He moved so suddenly that Godwin jumped, scrabbled for a branch and raised it as a club. Even Jack flinched for a second and thought about grasping a weapon.

Kanvar’s eyes were wild, although he looked faintly ridiculous in nothing but a knee-length nightshirt and a turban. ‘This is astonishing. Truly astonishing.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jack said.

Kanvar stared at Jack with his gleaming, unblinking eyes. ‘I believe you have found what I’m looking for.’

‘What? The meeting point?’

‘Yes,’ Kanvar whispered. ‘You must come with me to Scotland. Show me where it is. I must know its exact location.’

‘Hold on.’ Jack raised his hand. ‘I can’t go to Scotland. The army are coming. I’m not leaving my people at a time like this.’

Kanvar crouched down again, licked his lips and fidgeted. ‘I understand. But I must locate the meeting point.’ He looked around at the others assembled about the fire. ‘It might be our last hope of defeating the Rajthanans.’

Elizabeth frowned. ‘So, this meeting place
is
a weapon. Is it the Grail, after all?’

Kanvar looked at his hands. He clenched his fingers into fists and released them again. A frown coursed across his forehead. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, ‘I know very little of this Grail. But I can tell you the meeting point is not in itself important. What I need to know is its location. I must mark it on a map.’

Jack gave a small cough. He felt odd, as if everything were unreal, as if he were in a dream. ‘If it’s a map you want, I might be able to help.’

‘What?’ Kanvar’s voice was a whisper once again.

‘I have some maps,’ Jack said. ‘The meeting place might be on them. I found them when I was in Scotland.’

‘Who created them?’

‘A Rajthanan siddha made some of them. He was doing some surveying in Scotland. The others are from a siddha called Mahajan. He was using the meeting point for one of his projects. He might have marked it down on his charts.’

Kanvar shivered and his eyes went moist. He stood again, and the blanket slipped to the ground. ‘I must see these maps. At once.’

The rain hissed on the roof of Jack’s hut. A strong gust of wind made the building’s timber frame creak like a ship. Jack paused as he stood before his old, battered chest. His tunic was drenched from the storm and dripped on to the earth floor. He wiped the damp hair from his eyes, then opened the chest’s lid and rummaged inside. Finally, he drew out the maps he’d brought back from Scotland, which he’d rolled into a tube and tied with string.

He turned round. Saleem and Kanvar sat before a newly lit fire. Godwin and Elizabeth had stayed behind to look after Cecily and snatch what sleep they could.

Kanvar was a strange figure in his turban, sodden nightshirt and nothing else. He’d been in such a rush to get back to Jack’s hut that he’d charged off into the night without even putting on his boots. His bare feet were now smeared with mud. He shivered – perhaps from the cold, perhaps from excitement – and watched intently with his saucer-like eyes as Jack returned to the fireside.

Jack squatted down and handed across the maps. Kanvar looked at the rolled-up sheets as if he were handling a bar of gold. He stroked the paper with his finger, then carefully untied the string and unfurled one of the charts, spreading it out over the rushes on the floor. The yellow firelight throbbed on the white paper.

Jack looked across and noted the dense scrawls of ink. He couldn’t understand any of it – he’d never been able to read Rajthanan maps. He’d meant to take the charts to the library at Clun Abbey but hadn’t found the time.

‘Can you see the meeting point?’ Jack asked.

‘Not yet,’ Kanvar said. ‘But this is promising.’

Kanvar rolled the first map aside, then spread out the second. His eyes flickered over the markings. He traced certain lines with his finger, muttering to himself in a language Jack couldn’t understand. He seemed enthralled, as if he were studying a profound mystery.

Jack glanced across at Saleem, but the lad was gazing at the fire, lost in thought.

Kanvar crackled the second map to the side and began studying a third. His eyes widened and he bent closer to the paper, eager as a cat stalking its prey. His spidery fingers flitted from one spot to another.

The fire popped and a spark jumped on to the chart. Kanvar jerked and gave an almost comical yelp. His hand shot out and flicked the spark away before it could leave more than a small black spot on the sheet.

He continued poring over the map.

Then he froze and began trembling. His hand shook as he prodded his finger at a point on the sheet, making the paper crinkle.

A strong squall rattled the shutters on one side of the hut. The door tapped incessantly in its frame.

‘What is it?’ Jack asked.

Kanvar tightened his jaw and looked up. ‘This is it.’ His voice was a mere whisper, so quiet Jack could barely hear it.

‘The meeting place?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes. Marked here. Up in Scotland. The exact location. The exact coordinates.’

‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘So, you’ve found it. Are you going to tell me what the hell all this is about now?’

A frown quivered across Kanvar’s forehead. He looked at the ground and mumbled something to himself.

After waiting for perhaps twenty seconds, Jack said, ‘Are you going to explain yourself, or do I have to wait around all night?’

‘Yes.’ Kanvar looked up suddenly. ‘Yes, I will tell you. But it will take some time.’

Jack stood with Kanvar in the middle of the glade. A chorus of birds sang in the surrounding trees. Bees murmured and a gentle breeze combed the grass. The storm had passed during the night and the sky was now a sharp blue. The sun baked the wet earth and the scent of the rising steam mingled with the smell of warm grass and wild flowers.

‘Look, Kanvar,’ Jack said. ‘I need some answers now.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Kanvar said. ‘Soon.’

They were about a quarter of a mile from Folly Brook. Kanvar had insisted on coming here before he explained anything further. The Sikh seemed fully recovered now, despite only sleeping for three hours. Jack, on the other hand, ached with tiredness. But he was eager to hear what Kanvar had to say.

‘Walk forward,’ Kanvar said.

Jack frowned. ‘What?’

‘Just a few steps.’

What was Kanvar playing at now?

Jack thought about protesting, but he’d gone along with Kanvar’s wishes so far. He might as well go along with them for a little while longer.

He took three steps forward and slipped into a powerful sattva stream. The invisible substance swirled about him and sent his skin quivering. The sweet scent tickled his nostrils.

He turned and looked back at Kanvar. ‘It’s a sattva stream. So what?’

‘This one flows back down to Folly Brook and through the House of Sorcery.’

‘Thought as much. Never followed it up the valley this far, but I would’ve guessed that.’

‘It flows on after the village, all the way to Clun Valley and even beyond. And there are streams like this all over England, are there not?’

Jack sighed. ‘Of course. I know—’

‘Let me show you something.’ Kanvar crouched on the ground and fished a sheet of paper from his satchel.

Jack walked over to him, sliding out of the stream again. He squatted down and watched as Kanvar unfurled the sheet and flattened it over the grass.

‘Looks like a map,’ Jack said.

Kanvar gave him a small smile. ‘Well done. You are learning. In fact, it is a map of this region.’ He pointed at a spot near the centre of the paper. ‘This line here is the Folly Brook. These markings here are the hills to either side.’

Jack hunched over the map. He could see a squiggling line which was presumably the brook. He couldn’t see anything that looked like hills, though.

‘Don’t worry about the detail,’ Kanvar said. ‘Just note this blue line here.’

Jack followed Kanvar’s finger to a line that curved gently to the right side of the brook.

‘That,’ Kanvar said, ‘is the sattva stream you just walked into. I marked it down myself the last time I was here. Blue is always used for sattva.’

‘If you say so. What’s the point of all this?’

Kanvar swept away the chart and retrieved another from his satchel. He laid it out before Jack, saying, ‘This map is smaller in scale than the last. It shows an area a mile across. It’s of a part of Yorkshire. Take a look. See if you can see it.’

‘See what?’

‘Look.’ Kanvar pointed at the map. ‘The sattva streams.’

Jack peered at the map. A blizzard of lines confronted him. He could make no sense of them. This was ridiculous. ‘Enough. I need some answers. Now.’

‘Please, try again.’ Kanvar flicked away a beetle that had crawled on to the paper.

Jack gritted his teeth and stared again at the confusing mass of markings. Kanvar had told him the blue lines were sattva streams, so he concentrated on those. There were many of them, perhaps hundreds, wriggling all over the chart.

What was he supposed to see?

He was about to give up when he noticed something. He sat still and stared more closely. The blue lines covered only the central part of the map. There were none at all in the four corners of the sheet.

The blue lines were all contained within a circular area.

A circle. Interesting.

And then the design leapt out at him. He’d been looking at it all along, but his mind hadn’t been able to put it together. It was like tracking a deer in the forest. At first, you could only see the trees and the branches and the leaves. But if you sat still and concentrated for long enough, you could pick out the tiny details of the animal ahead of you.

A shiver ran up his spine and his scalp crawled.

The blue lines formed a yantra.

A
smile crept across Kanvar’s face. ‘You see it?’

‘Aye,’ Jack said. ‘A yantra. Not one I know, though.’

‘It is a minor one. Grow Wheat.’

Jack sat back on his haunches. A hundred questions were tumbling through his head. ‘So, the sattva streams are in the shape of this yantra?’

Kanvar bowed his head slightly. ‘That is so.’

‘In some spot in Yorkshire?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why is that?’

Kanvar hesitated and held his lips together tightly for a moment. ‘I am not supposed to tell you. I have already told you more than I am permitted to. A siddha is not supposed to speak of these things to anyone outside his order.’

‘I see. This is all part of some siddha secret.’ Jack was well aware of the secrecy surrounding much of the siddhas’ teachings. Few people were taught the siddha language – and even fewer were allowed to see the yantra designs. Jhala had told him only a handful of people had ever set eyes on the most powerful yantras.

‘Yes,’ Kanvar said. ‘This information is kept secret as far as possible. Although it would mean little to those who are not siddhas.’

‘But you’re going to tell me anyway, right?’