Grail Prince

  You will seek love;

  You will find honor.

  Glory shall be your reward

  And the sins of the flesh your undoing.

  He had never understood how a man as strong and disciplined as Lancelot could succumb to weakness for a woman. He had imagined that women must possess devilish powers and enchantments to so enslave a man. But since that night in the chapel of Camelot on the eve of war, he had known that he, too, suffered from Lancelot’s curse. It was a weakness in the fiber of his being, in his body and in his thought, a thinning of the blood, perhaps, a taint of spirit. Were his dreams not proof of that?

  It was not an inheritance he wanted, but what could he do to fight against it? He had already vowed, before Bishop Landrum and before God, that he would never marry, would never lie with a woman. Yet the oath had not banished this shrinking fear that melted his innards and dissolved his powers of speech. If anything, it had grown with passing time. He had been powerless before Queen Guinevere. He did not want to be powerless before any woman ever again.

  Suddenly he remembered a courier who had arrived in the middle of King Hoel’s feast, and the dire news he had brought. Perhaps this was his chance. If he could do something courageous, if he could put a woman in his debt, make her bow, make her scrape, make her recognize him and acknowledge his superiority, then perhaps he could break Lancelot’s curse and be free of this fear forever.

  With controlled deliberation he pulled on his boots, rose, and belted on his sword. By the dim light of dying torches he found the tent he sought. He poked his head inside the skins.

  “Ssssst! Percival!” Fifteen boys lay sleeping, bedrolls crowded together, indistinguishable in the darkness. “Percival!”

  Nearby a sleeper moved, waked. Percival sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Galahad?”

  “Come with me. Can you?”

  “Of course, cousin,” Percival replied in alarm, coming fully awake and pulling on his boots.

  Galahad drew back into the shadows as Percival crawled from the tent.

  “I’ve news, cousin. I need your help.”

  “What’s going on? Did something happen at the feast last night? Did Gawaine challenge Lancelot? Did—”

  “No, no. This has nothing to do with Lancelot and Gawaine. They were civil enough, at opposite ends of the table.” Galahad led Percival into an open field where they could not be overheard. “While we were at dinner, a courier arrived for King Hoel and gave him a message that put him in a fury—”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Hoel’s niece has been kidnapped. She was on her way home to her father on the far side of the Perilous Forest after a long visit in Kerrec. Hoel sent her and her nurse with gifts and cattle, and a company of soldiers for protection. The courier was from her father—she never arrived.”

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “A week. It’s but a two-day journey.”

  “Then she is dead. Else someone would have heard from her by now.”

  “So he fears. He was in a terrible rage. But he cannot ignore the chance she may yet live. And in any event, he wants to know what happened. He must tell her father something. King Arthur volunteered to find out.”

  “That’s no surprise. Who goes with him?”

  “Lancelot and Bedwyr, my uncle Galyn and our cousin Bors of Ganys, Prince Mordred and Sir Gereint.”

  “And not Gawaine, because Lancelot is going.” Percival grinned. “That will rub some salt into the wound.”

  “I need your help, Percival. I want to go with them. Can you pack a week’s rations into my bedroll unobserved while I get Rouk ready?”

  “Of course I can. But you’ll not go without the King’s leave?”

  “I’ll meet them on the outskirts of the forest; by that time, it will be too late to send me back unescorted. Arthur will take me. I know he will.”

  “When do they leave?”

  “An hour past dawn.”

  “Then we’ve plenty of time.” Around them the night was black, but the gentle dimming of the eastern stars heralded change. “I’m glad you’ll be riding with Lancelot. You’ve avoided him all week and he’s noticed it.”

  Galahad sighed wearily. “Why can’t you accept that I despise my father?”

  “Because I don’t understand it. He’s the most honorable of men.”

  “He is not. You don’t know him. My mother did, and hated him. Every minute of every waking day.”

  “Hate is a strong word.”

  “But a true one. He ought never to have married her.”

  Percival looked at him curiously. “But he had to.”

  “Nonsense. Who forced his hand?”

  “You never heard the story, then? He got her with child. By mistake. He was drunk, and she had disguised herself as Guinevere for the purpose.”

  “That’s a lie!” Galahad reeled. “That’s a foul lie!”

  Percival flushed. “It isn’t, but I meant no insult. Where’s the harm in it, anyway? He married her.”

  “Harm!” Galahad’s voice shook. “You accuse my mother of whoring and deception, my father of drunkenness and fornication, and you ask me where is the harm? Are you a half-wit? If the tale is true, I’m bastard bred!”

  “Oh!” Percival gulped. “I didn’t think of it’s being you. Perhaps she miscarried the ill-begotten child. But it doesn’t matter now—”

  “Ill-begotten!”

  Percival hurried on. “What matters is that he married her, after all.”

  “Why would my mother deliberately seduce a man she never liked in order to betroth him?”

  Percival reddened. Galahad grabbed his tunic. “What is it? For God’s sake, tell me, if you know!”

  “She seduced him . . . as revenge upon the Queen. To make her weep.”

  Galahad stared at him. “That’s ridiculous! To throw away her future for a moment’s spite?”

  “She didn’t throw away her future. She became Queen of Lanascol.”

  Galahad let go of his tunic. “She hated Lanascol. It can’t be true. She wasn’t a fool. She— Don’t you dare breathe a word of this to anyone else, do you hear?”

  “But, Galahad, if the tale has reached our corner of Wales you can be sure it’s already known all over Britain. We’re always the last to hear the news.”

  “I’ve lived nine years in Camelot and never heard it! Perhaps your mother made it up!”

  “All right, cousin,” Percival said quickly. “Perhaps she did. Anyway, it’s a long time ago and it doesn’t matter. And look, Lancelot continues to honor her by not taking another wife. There are women all over Britain who’d stop at nothing to catch his eye.”

  “That has nothing to do with honoring my mother and you know it perfectly well. He’ll never remarry unless he can have Guinevere. That should be obvious to anyone with eyes.”

  “Listen, Galahad,” Percival said softly. “I know this bruise is sore to the touch, but try to see it sensibly. All the world knows Lancelot loves the Queen. There is no dishonor in it. He’s not waiting for her.”

  “Don’t be a half-wit. There is nothing but dishonor in it.”

  Percival drew a long, uncertain breath. Around them night dissolved into steel-gray dawn. Grasses heavy with dew trembled in the cold half-light. “What are you saying?” he whispered. “Are you accusing your father of treason?”

  “Yes,” Galahad snapped.

  “No. No. I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t, then. It is all the same to me.”

  “The High King is not a fool. He’s not blind.”

  “Indeed he is not. Both his eyes are open.”

  “Well, then. You are exaggerating.”

  There was a long silence. Percival shivered and folded his arms tight across his chest. Galahad stood as still as stone.

  “The High King sees clearly into my father’s heart. Yet he forgives him. For the Queen’s sake. But I do not.”

  “Galahad, he cannot have betrayed Arthur’s bed—Arthu
r would not keep him near and value him so if that were true!”

  In the growing light Galahad’s eyes looked black. “It is a mortal sin to covet your neighbor’s wife. And in his heart he has lain with Guinevere a thousand times.”

  “In his heart?” Percival gasped in relief. “In his heart—but not in his flesh.”

  “Even if that were so, it would not excuse him.”

  “Of course it excuses him, if he did not do it!”

  Galahad shook his head, the bitter memory of his own dreams lending acid to his tongue. “ ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’ There is no difference in God’s eyes between the intent and the deed. A man who lusts after a woman the way my father does is as guilty as if he lay with her. How else should covetousness be a sin? Actions are nothing without thoughts. It hardly matters if he has lain with her, or caressed her, or kissed her, or only spoken softly to her under the summer moon. In his heart she is his wife, and no other woman ever has been.”

  “Hush,” Percival whispered, “or someone will hear you!”

  “She is the passion of his life. In his heart they are one, man and wife, and it is his own friend, the High King Arthur, who betrays him.”

  “Oh, hush! Stop! Guard your tongue! This is treason!”

  “Yes,” Galahad said miserably. “And my father knows it. Even Arthur knows it. But they bear it. For her.”

  Percival’s mouth was dry. “This cannot be.”

  Galahad wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “What’s worse, this is not a sin he will repent of. He holds it close and cherishes it, though it is his damnation. ‘No whoremonger nor covetous man hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ.’ ”

  “Do you hear what you are saying?”

  “If he’d been faithful to my mother it would all have been so different! But he does not even regret his transgressions. To repent of sin you must give up the benefit it gains you. And this he will not do.”

  “What benefit?” Percival demanded. “That awful night gained him nothing and cost him much!”

  “I’m not talking just of the night he killed Gareth. But even so, you are wrong. It gained him a great deal. It gained him the undying devotion of the Queen and, because he saved her life, the complete forgiveness of the High King.”

  “Complete forgiveness? Arthur banished him. What more do you want Lancelot to endure?”

  “Arthur banished him to send him where Gawaine could not easily come at him. It was done for my father’s sake. As for saving the Queen, if he hadn’t been in her chamber in the first place, they’d never have attacked him. And now he sits on the throne of Lanascol, revered by all the nobles in Less Britain. What punishment is that? He ought to publicly renounce the Queen forever; he ought to get down on his knees before Arthur and beg his pardon. But he never will.”

  Behind them the sun rose, sending long shafts of light across the dewy grasses, steaming away night’s tears.

  Percival plucked at Galahad’s tunic. “Come. Come away. I’ll go pack your bedroll. You’d best get something to eat.”

  They turned together toward the line of tents, visible now as dark humps in the summer meadow. Percival slid his arm through Galahad’s and led his reluctant cousin back toward camp and the company of men.

  32

  THE SEARCH

  They rode in single file along a narrow track, dark and overgrown, through the heart of the Wild Forest. Gereint led, being most skilled at tracking, with Bedwyr following and behind him Arthur, Lancelot, and Mordred. Galahad was made to ride behind Mordred, while Bors and Galyn brought up the rear. They went silently now, for they were nearing the end of their quest and the outlaws they tracked might be lying in ambush anywhere along the tangled verge.

  Galahad was glad of the need for silence; at least he would not have to talk to Mordred. Earlier in the day the Prince of Britain had forced him into conversation as they road abreast, forced him to polite address and thereby to recognition of Mordred himself, of who he was, of what he would someday be. This was a torture that took all Galahad’s concentration to endure. He suspected that Mordred did it to annoy him. Certainly the man took joy in his discomfort; more than once Galahad saw amusement light his black and secret eyes.

  It had not been so bad the first day out. Although the men had not welcomed his company, they were polite to him once Arthur agreed that he could come. He had wanted to ride beside the High King, but Arthur rode with Lancelot and they talked all day about armies, battle dispositions, alliances, and plans for the future. So he rode instead with Bors and Galyn. He had to apologize to Bors, of course, for frightening Cordovic, but Bors forgave him readily enough, calling it a boyhood squabble and complimenting his swordsmanship.

  They followed the tracks of the Princess Elen’s convoy—wagons, mules, horses, and cattle—well into the forest. It was easy to find the place of ambush. The soldiers who had formed the guard lay lightly buried and rotting in the damp soil not ten feet from the track; by the buzzing of the flies they found their bodies. They had been stripped of clothes and weapons and robbed of jewelry. Death had at least been swift. All of them had been beheaded.

  Arthur’s men took time to give them a proper Christian burial and say prayers for the salvation of their souls. Galahad watched out of the corner of his eye while the High King spoke the benediction. Only Mordred and Bedwyr did not make the sign of the cross. Bedwyr, who worshiped Mithra, made a sign of blessing. But Mordred made no sign at all.

  Close examination of the damp earth told them some of what had happened. Five men—only five!—had attacked the party, slain the guard, captured the princess and the cattle, and led them all away. One of the men was a giant with a footprint so large it looked barely human. Gravely, they remounted and pressed on as fast as they dared. Every man rode with a drawn sword. The deeper they went into the forest, the darker it became. At last, it seemed, they could smell the sea. They had to be near the end of their quest, Galahad thought, unless these men were pirates. But they had cattle with them. They could not be far away.

  At dusk they rode up to the edge of a tidal pool, a large, open lake with an island in the middle. The shore was muddied with the tracks of men and beasts and in the dim light Gereint could not determine which way to go. It was Mordred who spotted the boat, pulled up well past the tide line.

  “My lord,” he cried, “here is their means of escape!”

  Arthur stood on the shingle and gazed out at the little island, hands on hips. “Can you row us, Mordred?”

  “Certainly, my lord, if I can find the oars. Here they are, in the underbrush. A poor attempt to hide them—they must have been in a hurry.”

  “It is my hope they know they are pursued,” Arthur said quietly.

  “If they are not on the island,” Galahad wondered aloud, “then why do we go there? Shouldn’t we try to follow their tracks?”

  Lancelot turned swiftly with a rebuke on his lips, but Arthur put out a hand and stopped him.

  “If they are not there now,” he said patiently, “they have been there, and I wish to know what they have left behind. We will not lose much by stopping here tonight. They are slowed by the cattle and the wagons. And now that we are close, we must defend against attack ourselves. I’d prefer to camp on the island where we will have notice of their coming, especially if we have taken the boat.”

  Galahad flushed. “Yes, my lord. I see. I’m sorry.”

  “No need,” the King said kindly. “You are here to learn. That’s why I let you come. Gereint, Galyn, Bedwyr, will you swim the horses? I doubt this boat will take more than six.”

  Mordred, who had been raised on the Orkney seas, rowed the rest of them across. A heavy silence fell upon the company as the island drew nearer.

  Bors shifted his weight uncomfortably. “A likely place for a rape, by the look of it.”

  Lancelot drew in his breath sharply, and Arthur, his face grim, turned away.

/>   “By the grace of Almighty God,” Lancelot whispered, “it is not unknown.”

  Stunned, Galahad stared at them. Camelot abounded with stories about the Queen’s abduction by an ambitious king, years ago, early in her marriage. She had been taken, they said, across water to an island. Lancelot had rescued her but not, the rumors whispered, in time to save her from King Melwas. Galahad had never given these tales the smallest credence. Had it been so, surely Arthur would have put her away!

  “In that case,” he said aloud, “she were better dead.”

  Mordred looked up, aghast. Lancelot turned to him a stricken face. “Silence!”

  Arthur stirred and said in a low voice, “Whatever her state, I pray we find the poor child alive.”

  Galahad opened his mouth to protest, but Mordred leaned forward over the oars and hissed, “Say another word and I’ll toss you overboard. You can swim ashore or drown.”

  Galahad sat still and stared at all of them, dumbfounded. The grief on all their faces could mean only one thing. How could they honor her still? How could they? How could the High King ever have taken her back? How could Lancelot love her after such disgrace? Were they mad?

  The island proved to be no more than rocks and sand and scrub. A hundred feet from shore they found the ashes of a campfire only recently put out, and a cave with bones of cattle and clear signs of recent habitation. In the rocks above the cave they found a spring.

  “It’s a good hiding place,” Lancelot remarked. “Not a bad spot for head-quarters. These must be the bandits Hoel told us about, who have terrorized the forest these four years past. But now we have found them, we will free the land of this scourge.” He paused, lifting his chin like a hound who scents his quarry. “They are not far. And they are afraid. Let them await us.”

  “This is where they slept,” Gereint called, bending down to examine the cave floor. “There is blood here, Arthur.”

  “Cow’s blood?”

  “I doubt it. Look!” He lifted in his hand of strip of cloth, dirty and crumpled but finely woven stuff with pale embroidery worked upon it.