Grail

TEN

The search for a suitable fording place took us far out of our way. By the time we accomplished our crossing, twilight had come to that forsaken land – no wholesome twilight, mind, but a murky dusk of rising mist that made the air dank and heavy.

Our clothes were still damp and repugnant to us, but we found no clean water in which to wash and so were forced to wear them whether we would or no. And though we gathered enough twigs and brush to make a fire, the fickle flame did little to dry us. The stench of the mud took away our appetites, so we did not bother trying to cook or eat anything, contenting ourselves with a few mouthfuls from the waterskin Tallaght carried behind his saddle.

Downhearted, dejected, and tired from our ordeal, no one felt like talking, so we rolled ourselves in our cloaks and tried to sleep. Even sleep did not come easily. No sooner had we closed our eyes than the moon rose, bulging full and yellow like a great baleful eye in the heavens. The light it cast seemed filthy, mean, and pestilential – a plague moon, Peredur called it, and we agreed.

Thus we passed a wretched night and rose ill-rested to begin a day which nevertheless held the promise of coming good; after our wasted night we welcomed the clear blue sky and fine bright sun. Both sky and sun swiftly faded, however, to a dull, bleached-bone white which hurt the eyes and brought an ache to the head.

We worked our way back down along the tidal estuary in search of the trail we had followed the previous day, still feeling fairly certain that Llenlleawg, and possibly two others, had passed this way. As I had no horse, we took it in turn to ride and walk, and sometimes Peredur and Tallaght shared a mount. The bank was rough and rocky, and made for slow going – whether on horse or afoot, we could move no faster. And then, when we finally reached the place where we had tried crossing the day before, we could not raise the trail again.

For all Peredur's exemplary skill and keen eye, we found neither track nor trace of whoever it was we had been following. 'The bog took them, I suppose,' suggested Peredur gloomily, 'the same as it took the grey.' Indicating the empty stretch of slowly undulating muck, he said, 'The horse is gone, and the tide is hungry still.'

He need not have mentioned the calamity; carcass or no, I was only too aware of the poor beast's demise. Losing a good horse is as bad as losing an arm or a leg. And that is the end of it.

After a time, we gave up searching among the rubble rock shingle and decided to continue in the direction the tracks had been leading when they encountered the quagmire. I freely confess the plan made little sense; there was no good reason to suppose that whoever made the trail had crossed the bog when we could not – unless they knew how and where to ford, and if so, that fording was not to be found by us. Indeed, we discussed this very thing, and the two young warriors were of the opinion that it would be best to range farther downstream, since our quarry might easily have gone the other way.

But something in me urged for pressing on. As it happens, I am not a man given to whims or obscure proddings, and in any event, I seldom receive them. Yet I was seized by such a powerfully insistent urging that I threw aside all reason and followed it. Perhaps because I am unaccustomed to receiving these ethereal promptings, my own inexperience made me gullible. Then again, perhaps something beyond human ken was hard at work, but I was too blind to read the signs.

The three of us proceeded to a nearby hilltop for a better view of our position. We paused to scan our surroundings and found that we had come up out of a valley and onto a wide, hill-crowded barrens. In happier times those same stark hills might have appeared green-clothed and agreeable, a welcoming sight for man and beast alike. After a season or two of drought, however, the sight of numberless bald crests rising one after another into the distance – like so many withered, wind-grizzled heads – failed to lift a heart already labouring under the unrelenting bleakness of that desolate place.

What few trees existed were stunted, twisted things, tortured into strange shapes by the coastal wind. For, yes, I now determined that we were journeying into Llyonesse – a long, ever-narrowing spine of land thrown up by contentious seas to separate and quell their warring natures: the Irish Sea on the right hand, and Muir Nicht on the left. Long deemed an inhospitable land, it is a queer place, a realm more fitting for outcast souls and wild beasts than upright men. Ah, and I remember: it is also the unholy battleground where Myrddin fought the wicked Morgian for his life.

See, now: the disappearance of Pelleas, the Emrys' friend and servant, was but one of the misfortunes issuing from that desperate battle; another was the leaving of my twin and brother, Gwalcmai. Deeply do I miss him, for until that dreadful day my brother and I had rarely been out of sight of one another so much as a single day but that we were together again by nightfall.

While Arthur and the Cymbrogi crossed swords with the Saecsen in the north, Myrddin, warned by signs and portents, had gone alone to confront the Queen of Air and Darkness. When Myrddin did not return, Gwalcmai rode with Bedwyr to discover what had become of him. The two of them found the Wise Emrys bloodied and blind in Llyonesse. Alas! Pelleas, who had taken up the search before them, has never been seen again, and Gwalcmai, overcome with remorse and shame, undertook exile. Or, as Myrddin says, True man that he is, Gwalcmai could no longer abide his tainted lineage and went in search of redemption.'

Tainted lineage! Truly, Morgian is no kin of mine. To speak plainly, the affair sits no more comfortably with me now than it did when I first heard of it. Allowing Gwalcmai to go away like that, however noble the purpose, has always seemed ill-advised to me. Had I been there, you can well believe I would have had a word or two to say about it. Well, I was not there, and nothing can be done about it now – save pray we are reunited one day, which I do, and so look forward to that happy reunion.

These things, then, were in my mind as we made our slow way into the empty hills. I scanned the bleak horizon, alternating this unproductive activity with picking mud-clots off my tunic and trews. After riding a fair while, we came to a small, briar-choked burn snaking along the bottom of a narrow gully. Though much shrunken from the stream it had been, the water was still good, and so we stopped to refresh the horses and replenish the waterskins. Then we washed ourselves and our clothes as best we could and sat down to rest and eat a bite of hard bread. When our clothes had mostly dried, we then journeyed on until the desultory sunlight faded and night stole in around us once more.

At the failing of the sun, a murky, tepid dusk drew over the land. Discouraged by the long and futile day, we halted and made camp in a hollow. While Tallaght busied himself with the horses, Peredur fussed at making a fire; the wood was rotten and unaccountably damp, and produced more smoke than heat. As they were about these chores, I walked a little to the overlooking hilltop to see what might be learned of the night sky.

The haze which had obscured the day yet persisted, thickening as daylight dwindled so as to keep out the light of any stars. A mournful wind from the southwest moaned over the barren hills and set the bare branches of the dwarfed trees chattering like naked teeth. Storms often attend such nights, but there was not the slightest hint of rain in the air, and the wind tasted of sea salt.

Nor was I better encouraged when Peredur called out to advise me that he had found the source of the damp: a small spring of water seeping from the hillside. I left off my scrutiny and went down to attend this new discovery, hopeful that we might get some fresh water at last. I should have guessed my hope, like all else in that dismal realm, would die forlorn. Though Peredur delved with his hands into the hillside and removed several stones, the spring remained little more than a soggy weepage soaking up from the earth.

I dismissed the spring, saying, 'Were it ten times the trickle, it still would not serve the horses.'

Peredur persisted, however, and collected enough in a bowl to give us all a drink. As he had discovered the spring, we granted him first draught – which also became the last: the water tasted of spoiled eggs.

'Gab.!' He spat, wiping his tongue on his sleeve to get the taste out of his mouth.

Tallaght laughed at the pinched expression on Peredur's face, which caused the stricken warrior to rail angrily at his kinsman. Tallaght responded with harsh words, whereupon Peredur took offense at this abuse. If I had not been standing over them, I have no doubt the thing would have come to blows.

'Enough!' I told them sternly. 'It is nothing. Put it behind you.'

They glared at each other and backed away to nurse imagined resentments the rest of the evening. I was only too thankful to let the night smooth our ragged tempers, but this was not to be.

The fretful wind waxed stronger with the setting sun, gusting out of the east, blowing dust from the hilltops, and swirling it around the hollow. At first I hoped merely to ignore it, but the dry thunder mumbling in the distance chased away any thought of sleep. I lay wrapped in my cloak, listening to the storm, and thought I heard the sound of a bell – such as monks often employ to call their brothers to prayer.

It came to me that the sound, tolling regular and slow, was gradually growing louder. I rose and climbed the slope to have a look around, and in the darkness at the summit stumbled over Peredur, who had roused himself with the same notion. He whirled on me with a start and struck me with his fist before I succeeded in convincing him that he was not under attack.

'Peace, lad. It is myself, Gwalchavad.'

'Forgive me, lord,' he said, much relieved. 'I did not know you were awake.'

'The bell woke me,' I replied. The young warrior appeared so confused by this simple declaration, I added, 'The monkish bell – that,' as it tolled again, 'just there.'

'God's truth,' he said, shaking his head, 'it was the singing that woke me. I heard nothing of the bell.'

I stared at him, trying to define his face in the windy darkness. 'Singing?'

Strange to say, but even as I spoke the word, I heard the sound of voices lifted in slow, sonorous chant. Perhaps I had been too taken with the bell to have noticed, but I had not heard the sound before that instant. Nevertheless, Peredur maintained that the chanting had wakened him, and now that he had said it, I heard it, too.

As we stood in the wind-tossed night, discussing this, the moon broke free of the low-flying clouds and cast a thin, watery light over the barren hillscape. The bell tolled and the chanting grew louder, and I turned in the direction of the sound, but saw nothing and so directed my gaze elsewhere.

'There they are,' breathed Peredur, putting his head close to mine. 'Eight of them, I make it.'

'Where?' I searched the moon-shot darkness for a glimpse of what he saw, but found nothing.

There!' answered Peredur; placing his hand on my shoulder, he turned me in the direction he was looking – the same direction I had searched. Now I saw the flickering gleam of eight separate lights aglow on the hilltop. On my honour, I swear the lights had not been there a mere moment before. Yet there they were, bobbing gently along the crest of the hill: torches, held aloft by unseen hands, wafting gently nearer to the sound of chanting and the slow ringing of a bell.

'A poor night, I think, for travelling hereabouts,' I remarked.

'Who can they be?' wondered Peredur, and then suggested we take up our weapons and see.

'No,' I counselled, 'their course will bring them near enough. We will await them here.'

We stood our ground and shortly perceived the phantom glimmer of faces beneath the guttering torches. On they came, passing out of sight briefly as they descended one of the intervening valleys – only to reappear much closer than before. Now they were near enough for us to see that there were nine of them: eight torchbearers led by one who carried the bell -monks, as I had supposed, dressed in priestly robes that billowed in the wind. They were chanting in Latin and ringing their bell so intently that they did not appear to heed us at all; had I been in their place, I doubt if I should have expected to encounter fellow wanderers on such a night.

On they came, their voices low, their steps shuffling slowly, their shapes shifting in the wind-whipped torchlight as their robes blew this way and that. Dust churned up by the gusting wind cast a filthy pall over all, so that they seemed to float along on dirty clouds. When I judged they had come near enough, I stepped forth out of the darkness, my hands upraised to show I carried no weapons.

'Peace to you, good brothers,' I said, speaking boldly to be heard over the whine of the wind.

It was not my intent to frighten them, but an unexpected stranger looming out of the darkness of a storm-blown night might be assumed to set the heart racing. Curiously, the column simply halted, ceasing its chanting at the same instant, so that it seemed the monks had anticipated my sudden appearance.

'I give you good greeting,' I called, stepping nearer. They turned towards me and it was then I saw that their faces were swathed in strips of cloth dressings like those that bind the wounded.

None of them spoke a word. The hiss and flutter of the torches, and the sighing moan of the wind, were the only sounds to be heard in all the world. We all stood looking at one another in silence – Peredur and I on our side, the nine shrouded monks on theirs.

'What do you here on such a foul night?' I asked at last.

The foremost monk carrying the bell deigned to reply. 'We go to worship our lord,' he intoned. 'The time of our release approaches.'

'We have ridden far this day, but we have seen neither church nor chapel hereabouts,' I told him. 'Where is your abbey?'

'Our temple lies beneath the hollow hills,' he said in a voice cracking like the dull, distant thunder.

'We are Christian men, too,' I said, 'and camped nearby. You are welcome to share our fire.'

'Christ!' spat the monk, his anger sharp and quick. 'We know him not.'

Mystified by his denial, I asked, 'Then who do you worship?'

'Mithras!' he proclaimed triumphantly, and the remaining monks murmured the name in approval.

If this arrow was loosed to wound me, I confess it fell a good way short of the mark. For the monk's revelation so surprised me, I merely gaped at him. 'Mithras!' I cried in amazement. 'That old bull-killer departed Britain with the Romans,' I replied – which was what men like Bishop Tudno, Iltyd, and Elfodd taught, holy men and learned, every one.

'Mithras lives!' declared the man with the bell.

So saying, he lifted his hand to his shrouded face and drew aside the wrappings as if they had been a veil.

I beheld a visage ravaged by disease; the wretch's cheeks and nose had been eaten away, his chin was raw, his lips were cankered black, and on his forehead pale bone glinted beneath scab-crusted skin. There was not a thumb's-breadth of healthy flesh on him anywhere, for that which was not rotted away was as dry and cracked as the drought-blighted earth beneath our feet.

Peredur gasped. 'Lepers!'

Ignoring the young man's bad manners, I swallowed my dread and forced what I meant to be a smile of welcome. 'I have extended the hospitality of our hearth, such as it is,' I told them. 'I do not withdraw it now.'

'Fool!' said the leper, his voice a croaking whisper. 'You stand on ground sacred to Mithras.'

The wind tore aside his cloak and in the flickery light I saw the dull glint of an ancient lorica on his chest; a bronze-handled spatha hung from his hip, and a brooch at his shoulder was engraved with the image of a she-wolf and the words 'Legio XXII Augustus.'

'Hail, Mithras!' the leper hissed. 'Bow down!'

These words so alarmed me, I sained myself with the sign of the cross – something the good brothers do in times of trial when seeking comfort of the Heavenly Presence – an instinctive impulse, nothing more, yet the result was staggering.

Instantly, the sky was rent by dry lightning. A searing white flash set the heavens ablaze. Thunder rolled. I threw a hand over my eyes. When I dared look around once more, Peredur and I stood on the hilltop, the wind whipping at our cloaks, curling them about our trembling legs. We were alone. The nine lepers had vanished, leaving nothing behind but the burning stink of brimstone.