Grail Prince

  Garf was the first to kneel, his wrist bleeding from the dagger blow. Ralf had Percival’s sword knocked from his hand, and one good blow from Lancelot’s sword shattered Dinias’s weapon.

  Galahad looked down upon them in disdain. “Percival, take back your sword.”

  “I have it, cousin.”

  “Are you all right? You’re swaying on your feet.”

  “I’ll be fine in a minute. You saved my life, Galahad.”

  “Nonsense,” Galahad said grimly. “These are poor excuses for fighters. You could have taken them yourself in daylight. You’d better pack up the horses, though.” He gestured toward the leader. “We’ll have to find the nearest village. This one needs tending to.”

  “You are merciful, my lord,” Garf whimpered, clutching his wrist. “We don’t deserve sparing.”

  “It’s beneath me to kill you,” Galahad returned flatly.

  Percival gathered up the weapons and the bedrolls. He paused before the kneeling men. “Think twice before you set upon innocent men. You don’t know who you’ll come across. Tonight you made a grave mistake. No one in all Britain can take this man.” Three pairs of eyes looked dumbly at him. “This was child’s play to him. I’ve seen him take six of my father’s men in the training yard, all seasoned soldiers, all at the same time. This is Sir Galahad of Lanascol. Lancelot’s son.”

  Garf threw himself to the ground. “Sir Galahad, I beg your pardon! I’d never have harmed you if I’d known—I fought with your father, sir, against the Saxons—there never was a better man!”

  “Give me your name, soldier.”

  “Garfalon. Garfalon of Roundhill.”

  “How does a soldier in the High King’s army sink to banditry?”

  Garfalon began to weep. “Oh, my lord, that were my shame! But my wife’s been dead these three years and my children are starving. The garden failed this summer and the stream’s run dry. And the game’s gone up into the hills. Ralf’s my cousin, and Dinias, he’s a half-wit. Strong as an ox, but not a featherweight of sense. Don’t blame them, Sir Galahad. It’s all my fault.”

  Galahad sheathed his sword. “Is there a village hereabouts, Garfalon?”

  “Aye, my lord. I’ll show you the way. My sister keeps a roadhouse there.”

  “Your sister can bind your wounds. And perhaps give us a place to sleep.”

  Dinias made a torch from a stout branch and an oily rag. Galahad and Percival rode behind the three bandits down the ridge to where a hamlet lay nestled at a crossroads. The crescent moon hung silver among the pines and nightingales sang sweetly in the wood. Somewhere a dog barked at the sound of horses. The night air breathed chill on the back of Percival’s neck and he was glad when they reached the open door of a tavern. A stout woman stood silhouetted against the background glow of a cooking fire.

  “Garf?” she called out. “Is that you?”

  “Aye, Grainne. And I’ve brought you company.”

  “What have you been up to, you lazy lout? I thought you went to chase those poachers from our woods!”

  “Now, now,” Garfalon said hastily, “no poachers, Grainne. Princes.”

  “Princes, my left foot. Is that blood? You’ve been wounded!”

  “No more than I had coming to me.” He turned as the boys slid off their horses. “This is Galahad, Sir Lancelot’s own son, and young Percival, King Maelgon’s boy. Give ’em the best you have, Grainne. I done wrong by ’em.”

  “Come in and let me dress that. Dinias can stable the horses.”

  The silhouette backed toward the light as the woman made way for them. She was thickset and ruddy-complexioned, with meaty arms and a fierce, distrustful eye. “Why, they’re only boys! Where’s the man who cut you?”

  “Boys they be, but I’ve never seen a faster blade than Sir Galahad’s. Make them welcome, Grainne.”

  The woman curtsied clumsily. “Welcome, young lords. The fire’s only peat but there’s a skin of wine by it. Help yourselves while I dress this hand.”

  “They’ll be wanting beds,” Garfalon added, “seeing as we kept them from their sleep.”

  The woman grunted. “There’s straw in the shed. I can make up pallets as soon as I’ve tended my brother. Will that do?”

  “If it’s clean straw,” Galahad replied, “thank you, yes.”

  The woman stared at him a moment. “Sir Lancelot’s son, are you? We’ll see about that. My father went to Caer Camel in his younger days to make swords for Arthur’s troops. He knew Lancelot. Didn’t you, Da?”

  The boys turned and saw an old man in the corner, sitting upright on a stool with a stout staff in his hand. His eyes were the cloudy eyes of a blind man and his beard had gone gray, but his face lit at the mention of Arthur’s name. “Aye, daughter, I did indeed.”

  “Were you a smith, then, sir?” Percival ventured.

  “I was.”

  The boys moved their stools closer to the old man and Grainne, nodding to herself, led Garfalon into the back room to bind his wound.

  “Tell us about Camelot,” Percival begged, “and the weapons you made. They say the finest swords in all the world were forged in Camelot.”

  The old smith smiled. “Aye, that’s true enough. Smiths from all over Britain left their forges and traveled to the High King’s fortress to try their hands at making weapons worthy of Arthur. We all had skill, but only a few of us had the Blessing.”

  Percival looked blank. “What blessing? The High King’s blessing?”

  “Ah, no, lad. This be a Blessing older than any king.” The old smith’s face took on an expression of reverence and his sightless eyes looked far away. “Without the Blessing a smith is only a man who wields hammer and tongs at a forge. Horseshoes, such a man can make, and plowshares, hooks, and hoops. But weapons?” He smiled knowingly. “Such men as yourselves don’t want weapons forged by such a man. A sword forged without the Blessing will fail at the moment of its testing and betray the man who wields it.” He shook his head slowly, as if aware of the wide eyes that watched him. “No, no, young lords. You want a strong and supple weapon that will defend you in your hour of need. You want a sword with life in the blade. Mark my words: Best find a smith who has the Blessing.”

  “But what Blessing?” Percival wondered. “Christ’s blessing? Or do you speak of other gods? We are Christians.”

  The old smith chuckled. “And so be we, lad, good Christians all these thirty years and more. Yet the truth of the land is age old, older than the nailed God from the east, older than the three-faced Goddess from the west, older than Mithra, older than Yahweh, as old as the earth herself. This is a truth other gods cannot destroy.” He paused. “Have you ever walked into an oak wood and felt eyes on your back? Or looked up at a high place with reverence? Or witnessed a dawning with awe? Some things bear a holiness from time’s beginning. The ways of going, the places where roads and waters meet have been sacred time out of mind. And that’s where you’ll find us smiths, son, near a ford, a crossroads, or a watersmeet.” He laid a bony finger next to his long nose and stared at them with cloudy eyes. “A good smith, a born one, knows where to build his forge. The land tells him. He hears her voice and obeys her and she blesses the work he does.”

  Percival coughed uncertainly.

  “Take me lightly if you dare,” the smith growled, “but I speak no more than truth. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll tell you boys the secret of the Blessing, which is not a secret many know outside the forge.” He grunted appreciatively as their attention sharpened. “When a smith has the Blessing, the iron takes shape in his hands almost without his willing. He hears a voice no one else can hear—the shape of the thing-to-come calls to him from the fire.” He nodded solemnly. “A smith knows if he has the Blessing. He hears the voice. And you will know it by the weapon he makes.”

  “In Camelot,” Percival whispered, “did you make swords for the King himself?”

  The old man shook his head sadly. “Not I. I made them for his soldiers and for two of his
Companions. There was only one among us who made swords for the High King. The greatest smith I ever knew. Elludyn of Lothian. Named for a god. He was a master.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Galahad said. “I’ve heard it took him a month to fashion a sword.”

  The smith grinned, showing gaps between his teeth. “Oh, aye, a month sometimes, for a blade without blemish. I remember a sword he made, it seems a lifetime ago, now. I was younger then, with the strength still in my back and my arms. I took a turn at the bellows for him just to watch him work. He fashioned the blade from the finest steel and chilled it with water melted from ice brought all the way from Snowdon and packed in straw in the cellars.” His voice sank to a whisper and the boys leaned closer. “Every single time before he put the iron into the fire, he shut his eyes and listened. Some took it for praying, or casting spells, but it never was. Elludyn appreciated silence. He listened. For the voice of the sword-to-be. He always heard it. He was the best.”

  “And what became of the sword you helped him make?” Percival asked. “Did King Arthur use it in battle?”

  “No,” the smith replied, “he gave it as a gift. Elludyn fashioned a cross of rubies in the hilt, and Arthur gave it to his dearest friend, the Breton Lancelot.”

  Galahad gasped aloud. “But that sword is mine now! I have it here!”

  The old smith turned his head toward Galahad. He went very still. “Where?”

  Galahad rose, drew the sword from its scabbard, and placed it in the smith’s hands. The gnarled fingers moved over the sword with consummate skill, testing its edge, its springiness, its heft and balance, caressing the jeweled hilt and the grip worn smooth with use. Tears sprang to his unseeing eyes and slid down his weathered cheeks.

  “Aye,” he whispered, “this is the one. The very one. Feel how it sings of glory, how it breathes with the joy of battle. A weapon made for a king! I honor you, my lord. A base man could not wield it.”

  “It was my father’s,” Galahad acknowledged. “He made me knight with it.”

  “Knighted by a sword of Elludyn’s! What a future awaits you, young prince! You’ve honored me just by letting me hold it. It is a great gift. I am ashamed I have nothing to offer you in return.”

  Galahad took back the sword and sheathed it. “There might be a way you could help us. We are looking for the Grail and Spear that once belonged to Magnus Maximus, Emperor of Britain. Have you ever heard tales of such things here in Rheged? Songs, perhaps? Or of a man called the Fisher King?”

  The old smith went very still. His lips worked silently for a moment before the words came out. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Galahad.”

  “Galahad,” the old man repeated in a whisper.

  Percival and Galahad exchanged quick glances. The smith put out a trembling hand and touched Galahad’s hair. “You are—you might be—the one who is awaited. The Grail Seeker.”

  Galahad drew a sharp breath. “I seek the Grail, certainly.”

  Now the old man’s head bobbed up and down. “Your coming has been foretold.” His thin lips split into a toothless grin and his weathered face shone with excitement. “I knew you would come to a smith someday, but I never dreamed it would be to me.”

  “Old man,” Galahad said sharply, “what have you heard? Or are you wandering?”

  The smith cackled. “You are the wanderer, lord, not I. I stay where the land calls me.” He leaned forward, as if willing his dulled eyes to see. “The legend of the Blessed Gifts has come down, smith to smith, since the Treasures went into the ground. A hag foretold that the man who would find them would come to a smith, asking directions, and that he would be known by the sword he carried.” The smith’s fingers twitched in his lap, where the sword had so recently lain.

  “What hag?” Percival wondered.

  “Honored smith,” Galahad whispered, “will you tell us what you know of these Treasures?” He filled a clay cup with warm wine from the skin and placed it in the smith’s trembling hand. The old man sipped it gratefully.

  “Aye. For my bones tell me that you are the one. The Spear was made by a blacksmith along with the Sword, and they were fashioned here in Rheged. A silversmith made the Grail. They say Maximus—we call him Macsen Wledig in these parts—searched the isle of Britain for the best smiths in the land, and that he put them to death afterward, for he wanted no one to have treasures as beautiful as his.” He paused, and the cloudy eyes blinked before a vision only he could see. “That might be truth, that might be a tale, but this much I know for certain: Once he got the Treasures, an ancient hag came down out of the hills to warn him of his doom. She warned him that if he took them out of Britain he would lose them.”

  “And so he did,” Percival supplied. “Macsen died fighting the King of Rome, but the Grail, Spear, and Sword came home to Britain. Elen of Gwynedd, his wife, hid them for safekeeping.”

  The old smith shook his head. “Not for safekeeping. She could have given them to her sons, but she wished to propitiate the power which protected them at the price of her husband’s life, so she buried them in the ground to return them to their source.”

  “Do you know where they are?” Galahad could not help the question.

  The blind eyes turned toward him. “No, lord. I know the signs, they’ve been handed down, but not where they lead.”

  Signs! Galahad hardly dared breathe.

  The smith held up one hand, displaying three bony fingers. “You must find three tokens—all hidden—and pass three tests.” With his other hand he touched his fingers one by one as he spoke in a singsong voice:

  One is empty, one is crossed,

  One’s full of laughter and desire.

  One for feasting, one for fighting

  One forged in a smithy’s fire.

  Three tokens there be,

  And find them must he

  Who seeks the treasure of kings.

  In shadow, in light,

  In darkness bright,

  Three tokens to hidden things.

  The smith fell silent and Galahad looked at him blankly. “What does it mean?”

  The smith shook his head.

  “What are the three tests?” Percival asked eagerly. “Is there a rhyme for those, too? Are they difficult?”

  The smith grunted. “No rhyme. But difficult enough for any man. You must set free what ignorance has imprisoned. You must polish what fire has tarnished. You must kneel before the virtue of a woman.”

  Galahad drew back, startled. “Kneel before a woman? Are you jesting?”

  The smith laughed heartily. Grainne’s voice from the other room warned him to pipe down. “So you don’t like women much, do you?” the old man cried. “I can’t blame you there. But you’ll have your fill of them before you’re through, like it or not. You must kneel of your own will before the virtue of a woman—not because you wish to pass the test, but because you honor her goodness. And what’s been imprisoned by ignorance is female, as well. And so is what’s been tarnished by fire. Three women will set you tests that you must pass. And you must pass them all unknowing.”

  “How do we find them?” Percival asked quickly, seeing Galahad’s face.

  The smith chuckled. “Not by looking, lad. You must put yourself into the way of going and follow the signs you see. I don’t know how long it will take or where you will go. You may travel together to find the tokens, but he must pass the tests alone, the Grail Seeker.”

  “How will he know if he’s found the right tokens and passed the right tests?” Percival pressed. “They could be almost anything.”

  “After he finds the tokens, he’ll see a sign. Don’t worry; it will be impossible to miss. The three tests follow shortly after. When the tests are passed, he’ll be led to the Grail and Spear. By an innocent.” He held up the back of his hand before Percival could draw breath for another question. “That’s all I know. Won’t do no good to ask more.”

  “I have only one more question,” Galahad said slowly. “You sa
id the Sword and Spear were made in Rheged. Do you know where?”

  The smith nodded. “They were forged in a tributary of the Eden River, where the water runs fast and cold from the mountains. My grandfather told me it was Weland Smith himself who made the sword, but I don’t know if that’s fact or bragging. Plenty of kingdoms beyond Rheged lay claim to Weland’s forge. But it’s well known that Arthur drew Excalibur from the great stone under Lludyn’s Hill on an island of the Eden. That might be where the forge once was.”

  “Thank you,” Galahad said gravely. “I believe we must see this island.”

  A door slammed behind them, shattering the silence. “Your beds is made,” Grainne announced belligerently. “That hand of Garf’s is cut deep, but I wager it might heal.” Galahad met her level stare and she dropped her eyes. “Has Da talked your ears off yet? He’s a great one for runnin’ on and it’s perishin’ rare he gets strangers to badger.”

  “On the contrary,” Percival responded. “He’s told us something of great value.”

  Galahad prodded him sharply in the ribs. Grainne regarded them both darkly. “He don’t know anything of value. He just likes to remember the days when he was a man who counted in the world. It makes him feel young again.”

  The smith struck his staff sharply upon the floor. “Enough of your twaddle, Ygraine. Go to bed and leave us be.”

  Color spread in a vivid blush across the woman’s blunt features and her expression hardened. “You’ll have your little joke, won’t you, Da, at my expense? But your glory days is over. You’ll never serve Arthur again, more’s the pity, and that’s that.” She turned as she went out the door. “Yer beds is out back, upstairs of the kitchen. Garf told me he wronged you, so tonight I won’t charge you nothing. But tomorrow’s another matter.” She slammed the door behind her as she went out.