Grail

ELEVEN

Thunder cracked over our heads as if the sky itself would fall in shattered chunks upon the ground. I felt Peredur crowding close beside me. 'Devilry walks among us,' I said, steadying my voice. 'Come, we will hold vigil until morning.'

Returning to our pitiful fire, we heaped up the small supply of brush we had put by and renewed the flame, then sat huddled close to the fire and waited out the long, storm-worried night. Tallaght slept on undisturbed.

When murky daylight finally broke over the barrens, I rose and retraced my steps to the hilltop to look for signs of what had passed in the night, but the wind had done its work too well, and there were no tracks to be seen. I did, however, see the faint smudge of smoke rising from a fire some distance away to the south. Upon rousing Tallaght, we saddled the horses and began making our way to our destination as quickly as possible.

It took longer than I imagined to reach the place, and we arrived to find the camp deserted; only the smouldering ash of a fire remained. Once again Peredur proved his skill. Forbidding us to dismount, he stalked around the camp, eyes down, squatting low now and then, searching this way and that for marks that only he could see.

'There were four of them,' he announced abruptly. 'They are travelling on horseback, and – '

'Which way did they go?' Tallaght asked.

'On leaving here,' Peredur replied, 'they rode south. But -'

‘Four, you say?' interrupted Tallaght. 'Where did they keep the horses? I see no – '

'Tallaght!' I said sharply. 'Let the man speak.' To Peredur, I said, 'What else would you say?'

'Llenlleawg is with them,' he answered. 'Only one of the horses is wearing barred iron.'

Tallaght, gazing around the deserted camp, complained, 'For so many people, they left little sign of their passing. I am looking, but I see no such marks.'

'You are not meant to see them,' Peredur replied haughtily. 'They took pains to rub them out.'

'Oh, now you behold the invisible,' Tallaght sneered, 'and say whatever comes into your head.'

Offended by Tallaght's slur on his abilities, Peredur snapped, 'Perhaps if you were not so blinded by your own high opinion of yourself, you might – '

'Stop it!' I cried, exasperated and a little disturbed by their vexatious behaviour. 'What has come over you, Tallaght? And you, Peredur, this is not like you at all.'

'He started it,' sniffed Peredur.

Tallaght retorted hotly. 'Liar! I only said that -'

'Enough!' I roared. Both glared at me in sullen silence, overgrown children rebuked by a disapproving elder. 'Listen to you – fighting like snotty-nosed bairns, the pair of you! I will not have it.' I gave them each a frown of firm rebuke, and then, addressing myself to Peredur, said, 'Now, lead on. We will take it in turn with the horses as before.'

'I would rather go afoot,' Peredur muttered under his breath.

'Good,' I replied, 'then you can have the first stretch. Get on with you, now.'

Tallaght allowed himself a smirk at Peredur's expense, so I rounded on him. 'And you, my friend, can sift the ashes and tell us how long ago they were here.'

The young warrior opened his mouth to object, then closed it again when he saw the set of my jaw. Dismounting, he stumped to the firebed and began prodding the ashes. With a sigh, he stooped and took some into his hands, felt them, tossed them aside, and put his hand flat on the still-warm ashes. 'I say they left at dawn,' he concluded. Rising to wipe his hands on his breecs, he added defiantly: 'Unless anyone wishes to contradict me.'

'No one contradicts you, Tallaght,' I said, growing weary of the sour attitude. I gave a nod to Peredur, and we started off once more.

I wondered at the change that had come over the two young warriors. Previously they had shown themselves to be fast friends, quick to praise and slow to anger. Now, however, they seemed as quarrelsome as cats edging for dominion of the dung heap. I put the change to anxiety and the rigours of the journey, and let it go at that. Anyone as ill-fed and tired as we were might also be fretful. Even so, until they came to their former good spirits once more, I thought it best to keep them separated.

The path led us south and ever south. The sun waxed full, but carried itself shrouded in a white heat haze as on the previous day. We forced a rapid march all morning, stopping only to change riders. Just after midday, Peredur led us to a small, silt-choked pool a little way off the trail. We could not bring ourselves to drink the stuff, but the horses were thirsty enough not to mind. It was while we were waiting for them to get their fill that we noticed the smoke.

As it happened, I had been smelling it for some little time before Peredur brought it to my attention, but because my night's vigil over the campfire had left me with a cloak that stank of stale smoke, I had paid little heed to more of the same. 'We all reek of the hearth,' I replied.

'No,' he said adamantly, 'this is different.' Lifting his head, he turned slowly around in a circle, then, stretching out his hand, pointed in the direction we had been travelling. 'It is coming from that way,' he said.

We continued on, following the scent of the smoke, which grew stronger with every step. Soon we came to a ridge, whereupon I ordered my companions to dismount and we crept cautiously to the crest to observe the land below. Far off to the right, I could see the grey-green glint of the sea, flat and glimmering like an anvil under the white-hot hammer of the sun. To the left, the ridge descended in steep, rocky ledges to a rough, rubble-filled valley. And there, straight ahead, rising in a thick, black column, a pillar of smoke ascended to the heights to be carried away on the wind.

The fire itself remained out of sight behind a low hill. Signalling the others to follow me, I went down for a closer look, my companions leading the horses. Upon reaching the valley floor, we discovered the bed of a dry stream bearing the hoofprints of four horses – one with barred iron, the other three unshod – in the soft, fine dirt. It did not need Peredur's eye to see that the riders had crossed the dry stream, climbed the hill, and were now encamped beyond.

Rather than walk into a strange camp unawares, I thought it best to see what manner of men we had been following all this time. 'Stay with the horses,' I told Tallaght and, commanding Peredur to attend me, turned and made my way swiftly to the top of the hill, where, lying on my stomach, I peered over the crest and down the slope to the valley below. What I saw astonished me.

The entire valley floor had been heaped into a mound surrounded by ditches, and atop the mound stood a great fortress of stone. The Romans sometimes built in stone; however, the stronghold before me was unlike any the Legions ever raised, save in one respect only: this fortress, too, was a ruin. Its huge stones lay in tumbled heaps, the remains of high walls filling the ditches. The cracked shell of what once must have been a magnificent tower rose over the central gateway, a tree growing up through its empty middle. The rubble of a hundred dwellings lay overturned and scattered within the walls; and although the great hall itself was roofless now, several enormous beams arched over empty space, and two of its graceful walls stood untouched.

Hard by the mound to the south stood the blighted remains of a great wood; rank upon rank, trees of untold age stood leafless and dead, their black trunks and twisted limbs testifying to their tortured demise, while many more were heaped one atop the other like stout warriors fallen in battle.

At first I thought the smoke must issue from this bleak wood, but a closer look revealed that it ascended instead from the huge hearth in the centre of the ruined hall.

'Truly,' declared Peredur in an awed voice, 'giants must have built this place.'

'Perhaps,' I allowed. 'And did giants also start that fire?'

Peredur glanced at me to see if I was jesting with him, swallowed, and said, 'I see no one.'

'Then let us go down,' I replied, and instructed him to tell Tallaght to leave the horses, and for both of them to follow me and guard my back.

Warily, alert to any sight or sound, I crawled down the hillside, working slowly towards the ruined gateway yawning open like a toothless mouth in the centre of the collapsed wall. There I paused and waited until I saw that Tallaght and Peredur were behind me, and then picked my way through the opening. Upon entering the inner yard, I scrambled over the rubble and almost slid into a standing well; I looked in and saw my own self looking back, for though the well wall had fallen, there was yet water below.

It was the first clear water I had seen in many days, and my first thought was to drink – before caution convinced me that it might be better to wait until we could test it properly. 'There is water here,' I told my two shadows, and then advised, 'but I would not drink it yet.'

Moving on, I continued towards the hall. Here and there among the tumbled stones I caught the glint of sunlight shining up at me from the ground as I passed. Shoving aside the debris, I found bits of broken glass in the soil. Real glass, mind. The more I looked, the more I found. It was everywhere underfoot! Even the Romans who used the precious stuff with abandon were not so profligate as that.

The wrecked hall stood before me, thick, black smoke rising above its two intact walls. I saw no one, nor any sign that anyone had set foot, much less set fire, in the place for hundreds of years. Cautiously, carefully, I crept to the hall, then worked along the wall until I came to the end. Standing against the good wall, I peered around the corner into what had been the great hall's hearth. And there I saw a curious sight: a huge iron cage, round and with a peaked roof, like a house of an earlier age.

All around this iron house, brush and branches had been piled up and set alight. As there was far more smoke than the flames themselves allowed, I supposed oil of some kind had been used to help ignite the brush. Whoever had set the fire had gone; there was no one to be seen anywhere. I signalled my two companions to join me, and was about to call out to them that once again we had lost our quarry, when I heard a groan.

See, now: I have often enough stood on the battlefield after a bloodletting to have heard the sounds wounded men make, and there was no doubt in my mind that this is what I heard – clear and unmistakable, the sound of a broken man moaning over his wounds.

'Here!' I cried. 'Someone is hurt!' Darting forward, I ran to the iron house and looked inside.

Llenlleawg lay on his side, curled in a tight ball. His head was a bloody mass, and his eyes were closed. I called to him, but could not rouse him.

'It is Llenlleawg!' I shouted to the others. 'Hurry!'

Desperately wishing for some way to carry water from the well, I threw myself upon the nearest of the fallen rooftrees instead. Tallaght and Peredur flew to my side as I lifted the ancient timber in my arms. It was good oak, strong still, and though broken in the middle, long enough to serve. Dragging the wooden beam to the cage, I began using it to push the burning brush away.

Peredur was first to reach me and added his strength to mine. Within a dozen heartbeats we had cleared a path to the cagework house.

'Get another beam!' I shouted to Tallaght, who returned carrying the other half of the timber I had found. Peredur saw what I intended, and before I could give the order, he ran to a nearby stone, gathered it up in his arms, and carried it to the firebreak we had cleared. There he threw down the stone and we drove in with our timbers – wedging them between the lowest bars of the cage and, using the stone, levering the ironwork off the ground.

Alas, the metal cage was heavy and the stone was not high enough to raise it much. But as Tallaght and I together applied our full strength to the timbers, Peredur leapt to the gap, digging with his hands, scraping away the dirt until he had succeeded in scooping out a hollow just big enough for a man.

Squirming on his back, his face a hairbreadth from the hot metal, Peredur wormed under the bar and into the cage. Rolling onto his feet, he leapt to Llenlleawg's side and tried to revive him. Failing that, he seized the stricken Irishman by the arms and began dragging him to the gap.

'Hurry!' growled Tallaght through clenched teeth. 'I am losing my grip!'

Smoke stung our eyes and burned our nostrils, but we clung tight to the timbers as Peredur tugged the unconscious Llenlleawg to the shallow hole he had dug. Then, diving under the hot iron, he positioned himself flat on his stomach and reached back for Llenlleawg.

'For God's sake,' groaned Tallaght, the cords in his neck bulging. 'Hurry! I cannot hold it!'

'Stand firm, lad,' I told him sternly. 'It is almost finished.'

'Agh!' Tallaght gasped, red-faced, his eyes shut against the strain. His shoulders were shaking.

'Steady now,' I told him. 'Just a little longer.'

Peredur, meanwhile, had succeeded in pulling the Irish champion halfway through. The body was now stuck, however, and the young warrior could not budge it. 'He is wedged in,' Peredur cried. 'Raise the cage higher!'

'Christ -' cried Tallaght,' – mercy!'

'On your feet!' I told Peredur. 'Take him under the arms.'

Scrambling up, the young warrior grabbed Llenlleawg under the arms and pulled with all his might. The unconscious body moved a fraction and then stopped. Tallaght groaned.

'Quickly!' I grunted, my own strength beginning to fail.

Seeing there was nothing for it, Peredur raised his foot and placed it against the hot iron. Straining, every sinew taut, he threw back his head and gave a mighty heave, lifting Llenlleawg and pulling him through the gap. In the same instant, Tallaght's strength gave out and he fainted. The sudden weight sent the timbers flying, and I was hurled onto my side as the iron cagework house slammed to the ground.

Llenlleawg was free. Peredur lay half atop him, panting with his exertion. I ran to them both. 'Well done!' I cried. 'Here, help me get him away from the flames.'

Together we hauled the unconscious champion clear of his would-be grave. We found a place by one of the standing walls, and I left the two of them there while I returned for Tallaght.

I dragged him away from the fire, and marked that the flames were already burning themselves out. The young warrior awoke as I tried to lift him, and with my aid was able to stagger to the wall, where he collapsed once more and lay groaning gently to himself. I knew how he felt; both head and heart were pounding, my breath came in ragged gasps, my hands were raw, and my side ached where the beam had caught me as it tore from my grasp.

'Rest easy,' I told them, gulping air. 'It is over. We are safe now. All is well.'

Brave words, as it turned out.