Corbenic

Chapter Three

Alas, that he asked no Question then! Even now I am cast down on his account.

Parzival

There were far more people in the place than he’d thought. They came out of the rooms, thronging down the staircase, chattering and laughing. One or two eyed him curiously. They all seemed to know each other, and they were dressed like something out of a James Bond film. The women wore long gowns, sparkling with bits of feathers and fur and the glitter of diamonds. Money. You could almost smell it. He thought of all the designer names he’d heard of—these people probably bought their stuff in places like that, in London, those big, brightly-lit shops he’d seen in magazines. And the men wore dress suits or uniforms, and talked loudly. He had never felt so out of place.

The stairway was broad and curving; the carpet deep and soft, a vivid scarlet. As the crowd pushed down around him he wondered for a bewildered second how they’d all got here; thought of the dark, tree-covered lane, the overgrown garden. But then, he must have come in the back way. There must be a car park at the front. A reception desk. This was some dinner dance for the local nobs.

He almost turned around then and went back up, but it would have been too hard to push through all those people, so he let them sweep him down and in through the double doors on the left, trailing behind a group of tall men, feeling lost and uneasy. Two boys with trays of drinks flanked the entrance; Cal took a glass and sipped it defiantly, not catching the boy’s eye in case he was smirking. The pale liquid tasted of some delicate spice. It was definitely alcohol. He had a rule about not touching the stuff, because of what it did to his mother, but he could hardly pour it away here.

None of this was how he’d expected it. He’d stayed once in a bed-and-breakfast on a school trip, and then it had been small round tables in a dining room smelling of bacon and furniture polish, the landlady’s tacky Spanish souvenirs on the walls. This was more like something from a film. Great swags of autumn fruits hung around the tables; the cloths were of gold and bronze damask, layered one on another, the whole chamber brilliant with candles. The smell of perfumes and the tantalizing sizzle of roasting meat made him swallow; he was almost dizzy with hunger.

People were sitting down. He had no idea where to go, so he stood awkwardly by a great bouquet of flowers, sipping nervously at the pale liquor. Should he just sit anywhere? But they all knew one another. The impulse to slip out and race upstairs was so strong he took a step back, straight into someone who gripped his elbow. “Excuse me, sir.” It was one of the waiters. A boy taller than him, not much older, with a smooth face and shining blond hair. Cal disliked him on sight.

“What?” he said, pulling back.

“If you’d like to come this way.”

Hot, Cal glared around. “Where?”

“The Fisher King sends his respects. He wants you to sit at his right this evening, sir. As his most honored guest.”

Cal narrowed his eyes. “Are you winding me up?”

The boy didn’t flicker. “I assure you, sire . . .”

“Don’t mess with me or I’ll deck you, party or not.” Cal banged the glass down on a table; it toppled and spilled, the wine soaking the cloth. He scrubbed at it anxiously. A few people glanced around.

The tall boy looked pained, but from behind Cal a deep voice said, “Leave it, lad. I’ll sort this.”

Cal turned fast. The bouncer was hefty, and his beard was red. He was grinning. “I reckon you’re more my sort than these lords and ladies,” he said, his voice sly.

Cal shrugged. It was true but it annoyed him even more. “You were in the boat,” he said.

“Right. And the lad was telling the truth. The King wants you.” Putting a great hand on Cal’s shoulder he turned him firmly, and Cal saw a long table at the top of the room, and the man called Bron sitting at its center, watching them between the arriving guests. Next to him was an empty chair.

“Do I have to?” Cal asked.

“Shy, are we?” The red-haired giant laughed, a bark of amusement. “Wouldn’t have thought it, myself.”

Cal stalked away from him icily.

Bron watched him come. “Is everything all right?”

Cal gripped the back of the empty chair. “Fine.”

“You find my establishment a little strange.”

“I feel bloody weird in it.” Cal turned abruptly. “I’m sorry, but it’s not the sort of place I’m used to. Maybe I should go and eat upstairs.”

Bron’s look was dark and hard. Then he said, “I would be glad, Cal, if you sat with me. It’s very important to me. Please, do sit down.”

Cal sighed, and pulled out the chair. Then he saw for the first time how ornate it was. Like a throne of some black, delicate stone. Strange letters were carved down its arms and across the back, and it was old too, because the red upholstery looked faded and yet unworn, as if no one ever sat there. On its back an osprey perched, a real one that blinked at him, unmoving. He hesitated. And maybe it was his imagination but the talk in the room faltered and seemed quieter, and some of the guests had turned to him and were watching. Bron looked away, his fingers pleating a fold of the tablecloth. For a moment Cal had the oddest reluctance to sit in the chair; he almost felt as if he would be committing himself to something. But the big guy stood behind Bron and smirked, and so he sat abruptly.

Perceptibly, the chatter in the room rose. Women laughed. People seemed relieved. Maybe Bron was too, because he nodded sharply up to the red-haired giant, who clapped his hands and, as if it was a signal, the waiters brought the food in.

It was a banquet. A feast. The courses were more elaborate than anything Cal had ever dreamed of, and they kept coming. Fish first, curls and delicately sauced bite-sized pieces of it, and though he disliked fish Cal was amazed at the variety of tastes. Tureens of hot, spicy meats were placed in front of him, and tiny exotic vegetables, and dips and dressings he didn’t even know the names of. Between courses there were intricate little nothings of melt-in-the-mouth cheese and seafood and savory pastries, and a rich pâté dressed with peacock feathers, which he hoped wasn’t peacock but might have been. Steamy puddings followed, creamy with honey, and cool confections of chocolate and coffee, and mounds of tangy citrus fruits too small to be oranges. Under his fingers the bread rolls broke open, white and soft: the piled cherries shone in the massed candlelight.

Cal ate everything. He was ravenous, and though he tried to be cool about such abundance, the flavors were so amazing that he attacked everything steadily, until his belt felt tight and he was hot and slightly woozy with the pale white wine Bron poured for him.

The dark man spoke little, and ate less. He pushed the small portions around his plate, listening restlessly to the musicians in the gallery somewhere above playing dreamy melodies of flute and harp. Behind him his giant servant stood, arms folded, attentive. Once when Bron coughed and reached for water the big man had it there instantly, his cheery face clouded. Bron sipped it, and sat back. “Thank you, Leo,” he murmured. He looked pale with fever.

Cal put his spoon down in the empty syllabub dish and Bron almost smiled. “You enjoyed it.”

“It was fantastic!” He picked up the heavy crystal glass, turning it so the rainbow facets glinted. “All of it. If you knew what sort of place I live in . . .” He stopped abruptly. Never talk about home. Never. It was one of his rules.

Carefully, as if some moment had come, Bron laid his own fork down and looked out at the crowded tables. “We all have our hidden pain, Cal. We’ve all been wounded.”

“Not me,” he said recklessly. “I’ve walked away.”

“You’re lucky.” Bron gave him a strange glance. “I could have said that once but not now. I can never walk anywhere again.” His face was drawn, his skin clammy. In that brilliant room the dark clothes he wore seemed out of place, even though they were rich velvets and glinted here and there with discreet emeralds. He leaned forward for a moment and held the table’s edge with an indrawn breath that was unmistakably pain. The osprey screeched, pecking at its harness. Cal looked around hastily, but the big man had gone. “Are you all right? Can I get someone?”

“I am as well as I can be.” Bron tried to pour water but the jug shook in his long frail fingers, so Cal took it and poured. The man sipped, his eyes, a deep green to match the jewels on his coat, closed and hidden. Then he rubbed his forehead with one palm, pushing up his dark hair. “Cal, listen to me. I wasn’t born like this. Do you know how it is to have a wound that will not heal, a torment of pain? To want to die and not be able to? I think you might know something of that, or you would not be here.”

“Not me,” Cal interrupted quickly. He felt embarrassed. He hated illness in any form and the wine was making him feel bold and harsh; he looked away and said, “Can’t the doctors do anything?”

Bron stopped. He seemed tense. He said, in a quieter voice, “There may be one cure.”

“Then go for it. You’ve got money. Go private. Money can get you anything.”

“Can it?” The King’s green eyes were watching him. “You believe that?”

“I’d like the chance to find out. Yes, I do. Why not?”

Bron frowned wryly. “Maybe I thought that once.” He held out a coiled piece of fish; the osprey snatched it greedily. “I cannot walk, Cal, or ride or hunt, and because of that I amuse myself by fishing. Leo carries me down to the boat, and we row out onto the lake, under the moon. How cool it is there, and the waves lap so calmly. And we fish. All the silver, teeming life of the lake comes into our nets, big and small, good and evil. Many we throw back. Some we bring here, to the Castle. And Leo jokes that one night we might catch a real treasure, a great fish with a ring in its belly as in the old stories.” He glanced at Cal, sidelong. “Maybe tonight we did.”

Cal drank. The wine was blurring his eyesight; he felt dizzy and awkward. He wasn’t sure what all this was getting at. Maybe now he’d eaten he could make some excuse and get to bed.

“Where were you going,” Bron asked quietly, “on the train?”

“To live with my uncle.”

“For good?”

“Too right.”

“Your mother will miss you.”

“She’ll get by.”

“And your father?”

It was against his rules to answer but something made him say, “My father walked out when I was two.” He shrugged, watching the candles, how they put themselves out, one by one. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this anyway. She doesn’t care. Not really. She drinks. Says she hears voices. Now she can get on without me.”

“And will she?”

“I’m past caring.” Grimly, Cal filled his glass and drank again. It was the music that was doing it. The music had turned into a fog; it was winding down from the gallery and was snuffing all the candles out with deft gray fingers. Even the great fire that had roared in the hearth behind them was sinking, clouding over. The clatter of knives and forks, the chatter of the guests, was fading under the weight of it, an obscurity in the room, a gathering mist. Someone was turning down the world’s volume.

Cal tugged at his collar. “It’s hot in here.”

Bron’s fingers were white on the wineglass. “Cal, I need you to help. You must . . .” He stopped abruptly, then turned and said with sudden desperation, “This agony runs through all my realm. The kingdom is laid waste. You can heal it. If you went back . . .”

“Back?” In front of Cal three candles winked out; he stared at them in bewilderment. “Back where?”

“Home.”

He stared at the man in amazement, his narrow, oddly familiar face. Then he stood up. “No chance!”

Bron swiveled his wheeled chair with his bony hands. He seemed consumed with a secret torment. “Please. The Grail is coming. Only see it. Look at it. Do what you can to help us.”

And the music stopped. It stopped instantly, like a CD switched off in midnote. The room was black. All the people had gone. Cal swallowed; for a second he knew he was somewhere lost, a palace nowhere in the world, deep in darkness, and then the doors opened, and a boy came in. He was one of the tall, fair-haired ones from the door, and he carried what looked to be a long rod, upright in both hands. He walked across the room quickly, without looking at Cal, and Cal stared, stunned at what the wine had done to his eyes. Because this was no rod, but a spear. And the spear was bleeding. Slowly, horribly, a great globule of blood welled from its tip; it ran down, trickling stickily over the boy’s fingers, down the rough shaft, dripping in dark splashes on the wooden floor.

Cal felt sick. “This is crazy,” he whispered.

Behind the boy came two more, each carrying a branched golden candlestick, and the candles that burned in them seemed to have such light that it made Cal bring his hands together and clench them on the table. Beside him, he sensed Bron’s rigid pain.

The doorway was empty. But something else was coming. Something so inexplicable, so terrible that it made the very air shiver, a sudden breath of icy purity, so that Cal stepped right back without knowing it, shocked into fear. Sweat chilled on his spine, the very darkness in the doorway seeming to crackle and swell as if the room breathed in, all the curtains flapping, the casements gusting open with terrifying cracks. He caught the edge of the table.

She had times like these. She’d see things, she’d scream, clutch her ears. How many times had he phoned the hospital, got a taxi, got her to Casualty. As if her head was bursting with visions, she’d say. Visions and angels. As if they were all in there with her.

A girl came in. She was taller than the boys, and her hair was fair and her dress green. She carried a cup. She carried it carefully, as if it was precious, and he could see how ancient it was, how dented and scarred, and that it was gold, and there were jewels in its rim. For a moment he could see, but it shone, it shone so fiercely it almost burned and quivered in her hands, and he wondered how she could bear it, how he could bear to see it. Because it burned him too, in his eyes until he closed them and then like a heat and glow against his body, and yet none of it was real, none of it existed, he had to remember that.

Bron’s fingers were tight on his arm.

There was another room. There had been no door before, but there was now, and the boys with the spear and the candlesticks walked in there, and the girl did too, and as she passed she raised her face from the glory of the Grail and gave Cal one look, quick and rapt. And he was seared with the sudden joy of it, the nameless, unbelievable joy, but the door swung shut and the light was gone and the music was back. As if it had never stopped.

Knives and forks clattered. Glasses tinkled. All the candles glimmered. Cal rubbed his hand weakly down his face. He felt shaky, his whole body was wet with sweat. He collapsed into the chair.

“Cal?”

He turned. Bron was watching him, eyes bright, and behind him the red-bearded man waited, and the osprey stared, hawk-sharp.

“Did you see?”

“See?”

“You must ask me about it, Cal.” Bron’s grip was so tight it hurt. “You must ask me. That’s all you need to do. Ask me about what you saw.”

Cal shook him off, shivering. “Leave me alone. I’ve got to get out.”

“But you saw! You must have seen.”

Dully, Cal licked his lips, obstinate. He wasn’t drunk. He wouldn’t be like her. Never. He’d sworn long ago he’d never be like her. “I didn’t see a thing,” he whispered.

Bron looked as though someone had struck him. For a moment his disappointment was so terrible Cal felt worse, chilled with terror. “Could I have some water?” he croaked. The big man poured it and pushed it over with a look of disgust. The coldness was wonderful in his seared throat. Putting the glass down he breathed out and said clearly and bitterly, “Either you or I are drunk, your majesty.”

Leo had both his hands on Bron’s shoulders. When the dark man looked up he seemed haunted, more haggard, as if an eternity of pain had fallen on him. There was a grim despair in his face. “I should have known,” he whispered.