Grail

EIGHT

We did not linger in the north a moment longer than necessary. The great warband was assembled for the last time so that the Pendragon could pay tribute to their stalwart devotion and reward their sacrifice with high words – and good gold, which he shared out from the wealth of his war chest. He then dismissed them and, having seen Mercia placed on a solid footing with his neighbours, struck camp and headed south. The warriors departed in knots and clumps, so that the journey became one long leave-taking as we said farewell to our swordbrothers, sending them back to hearth and kin. I do believe Arthur embraced each one and sped him homeward with a word of gratitude and praise.

Accordingly, we reached the southlands far fewer in number than when we rode out; only the Dragon Flight and a scant handful of the younger Cymbrogi remained to serve the High King as we came within sight of our destination, Ynys Avallach, the Isle of Avallach, a place of peace and a haven of rest.

The great Tor rises from the surrounding marshland like a mountain rising above the clouds. Atop this mountain sits the Fisher King's palace, a huge, wall-bounded, many-chambered edifice made of honey-coloured stone; it boasts a high-vaulted great hall, large stables, and two high towers either side of its wide timber gate. A causeway connects the Tor with the nearby hill on which the abbey is built; the fields of the monks lie to the east, and to the north is the first of a multitude of low, shapely hills.

In the evening light, the palace glows like sunstruck gold and its image is reflected in the fine lake at the foot of the Tor. Owing to his fondness for plying the waters of that lake in his small boat, Avallach is known as the Fisher King. A king he is, to be sure, but unlike any I have ever known: he is the last monarch of the Fair Folk, the last of that graceful, elegant race. He is also Myrddin's grandfather, and his daughter Charis is Myrddin's mother. To see them is to know where the Wise Emrys received his stature and regal bearing.

Not so many days had passed since we last saw the soft southern hills, and yet the region seemed vastly changed, for what the dry, hot wind did not steal, the plague destroyed. Indeed, as we drew nearer our destination we more often passed abandoned holdings – several of which had been occupied when we first rode north. Each day of the drought drove more people off the land: some fled into the forests, where they might hunt and forage; others abandoned Britain for foreign shores.

Even Arthur, despite his hopeful vision, looked upon the forsaken settlements with a mournful eye. He spoke little, but the gloomy expression on his face declared his mind well enough. The king held it a calamity. Bedwyr, his closest friend, tried to comfort him. 'They will come back, Bear,' he said. 'When the drought ends and the plague has run its course, they will all come back.'

But Arthur only nodded glumly, and said, 'I pray you are right.'

Even the sight of Ynys Avallach with the splendid Tor soaring above the placid lake failed to lift the Pendragon's spirits. Where always before it had been a pleasant, if not joyful, sight, this time it appeared to us a lonely place, steeped in dolorous airs and failing light. Though Myrddin said he was behaving like a child to take on so, Arthur paused, leaned in the saddle, and looked long upon the solitary Tor and its crowning palace.

Finally, Myrddin grew disgusted and rode alone to alert the monks and Fair Folk of our arrival. The welcome, when we received it, more than made up for the sorrowful end to a journey begun in high spirits. Mind, I have seen the Fair Folk before, and more than most, but I am always astounded by them: it is as if the mind cannot long hold to such splendour and gradually lets the memory slip away. I know no other way to account for it. Even so, to say that each time I renew my friendship with Avallach and his folk I fall afresh under a spell of charm and grace, is to speak but half a truth. Because of Avallach and Charis, a spirit of peace abides in that place the like of which is rare in our war-rent world, God well knows.

Then again, perhaps it is myself who, possessing a cold and wayward heart, cannot easily conceive that places such as Ynys Avallach exist. Alas, I fear I have seen too much of blood and strife, and it has corroded my soul. And yet, bright hope! In coming to the Tor, I am welcomed as a brother, and reminded of the beauty I have forgotten, and I am recalled to the pursuit of higher things.

There is Avallach, most worthy lord, he of dark and imposing mien, a man whose nobility is proclaimed not in word and deed alone, but in every limb and sinew. He is a king whose realm, as they say, is not of this world. Arthur is a big and handsome man, but next to Avallach, even our beloved Pendragon seems but a lanky stripling of a youth, green and ungainly. The Fisher King is tall and his voice is like soft thunder falling on the ear from a friendlier clime; when he smiles it is as if the sun itself has come from behind a cloud to light the drear shadow-crowded way with dazzling warmth. Myrddin has said that Lord Avallach is the last of his kind, and I believe him; but while he endures, our wave-encompassed isle is a better place by far.

And then… Charis: to speak of her is to demean with words what is best expressed in song; a wordless melody of the kind oft stroked on the harp in Myrddin's hand is the best description, I do believe, for when the harp strings sing and the heart sheds its weariness and rises to the eternal dance, that is what it is like to behold the Lady of the Lake. The name was Taliesin's bestowal, and it speaks to the shimmering mystery of her. She is womanly grace and all things female made rounded flesh and blessed of the fairest form. Elegance finds its meaning in her movements, and to hear her speak is to know how heaven's bright citizens address their immortal kind.

A man of crude weapons and rough ways, I know my praise shames the object it would exalt, so I will say no more, save this: imagine the thing which holds for you a blessing of gentleness and comfort, that incites to virtue without reproof even while it soothes with beauty, and you begin to glimpse the wonder that is Charis. I am not alone in this appraisal, mind. I have it on solid authority that the first of our race to behold Charis went down on their knees in worshipful reverence to the vision they believed heaven-sent. I am not convinced they were entirely wrong.

There are other Fair Folk, too, and I will speak of them as opportunity allows, but I would establish here how I felt upon seeing their beguiling race once again. As I say, mere moments in their welcoming presence and melancholy fell away, sorrow vanished, and the nagging anxiety that dogged our steps fled back to its dank abode.

Our meal in the Fisher King's hall that night, though simple fare, was a feast. We went to our rest with hearts healed and whole once more. The next days were bliss to one and all, the trials and travails of the Vandal invasion were swept away, and our spirits restored in that peaceful, gentle place.

See, now: I have said nothing in all this of Llenlleawg and the strange young woman. The omission was apurpose to set the piece in its proper place, so to speak. Rest assured, the mute young woman was with us every step of the way, though quiet, as might be expected. Curiously, her unnatural silence contrived to draw even the slightest of attentions. I observed her effect on others whenever she was near: the eye forever stole in her direction; untethered thoughts drifted her way. Though making no demand of any kind, she yet exerted an uncanny influence and her presence loomed in our midst like a great standing stone on a silent moor.

For her part, she seemed happy to journey with us, eating, sleeping, riding, acquiescing to her lot with grace and forbearance, as it seemed. Nor did anyone suspect Llenlleawg might be anything but happy with this arrangement. The tall Irishman was never given to complaining, true; he once fought an entire battle with a broken spearpoint in his thigh and no one knew of it until two days later, when he fainted while trying to remove the shard himself.

He is like that – a true son of Eriu through and through, and no one who knows him at all can ever claim to know what he will do or say next. In battle, a whirlwind is more temperate and a storm-gale more serene than is our Llenlleawg. Moody and restive as the ever-shifting waves that surround his soggy homeland he may be, but I will thump the man who speaks an ill word of Llenlleawg.

I tell this so you may know how it came about that no one spared a thought for the Irishman or his flaxen-haired companion all that long way south; Llenlleawg made no complaint, and the strange maid remained complacent the while. Nothing in the way either of them behaved aroused the slightest suspicion. Not even Myrddin, who is ever alert to the subtlest of signs and indications, found reason to express the slightest concern.

Consequently, it was not until coming in sight of the Tor that any of us had occasion to suspect that all was not well. Llenlleawg, who might have spoken sooner, let it slip that he thought the woman bewitched. He was answering Gwenhwyvar's mild inquiry, I think, and said, 'So long as she remains in sight of me, and I of her, she is meekness itself. Yet if I leave her side but a moment, she grows so distraught that it seems a wicked cruelty.'

'I am sorry,' replied the queen thoughtfully, turning her eyes to regard the stranger where she primly sat her horse a few paces away. 'In truth, it had escaped my notice.' As if sensing Gwenhwyvar's mild attention, the strange girl shifted in the saddle and turned her face towards us; the queen shivered and dropped her gaze.

'How do you sleep?' wondered Bedwyr, overhearing their talk.

'No matter where I lay my head,' Llenlleawg replied, 'she will not rest until she has put herself beside me.'

'You mean you sleep with her?' Bedwyr said, his voice rising in surprise.

'No more than you sleep with your saddle,' the Irish champion answered, glaring at Bedwyr for raising the question.

'Has she spoken to you?' the queen asked.

Llenlleawg shook his head. 'Neither word nor sound has she uttered.'

'I wish you had told me sooner,' Gwenhwyvar chided gently. 'But seeing we are so close to Ynys Avallach, I ask you abide but a little longer until we can seek the advice of Charts and the blessed Bishop Elfodd. I would trust them to know what is best to do.'

Llenlleawg said no more, and no doubt the thing would have proceeded in the way Gwenhwyvar had suggested, if not for the girl's odd behaviour. For as we drew nearer the Glass Isle and the abbey, the young woman fell further and further back in our ranks. When we at last reached the causeway leading to the Tor and Avallach's palace, she was nowhere to be seen. Though the queen asked after her, and many of the Cymbrogi remembered seeing her, no one knew where she had gone. A quick search of the ranks turned up neither clue nor hint of her passing. Apparently, the strange young woman had disappeared in full sight of all – and yet, no one had seen her go. It was as if she had simply faded away, leaving not the slightest trace behind.

Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the duty, Llenlleawg was abashed that he had failed in the simple task of looking after his charge. I suspect he was so relieved when she finally left his side, he simply turned a blind eye to her disappearance. We were in sight of our destination, mind. Who could imagine anyone straying away with the end of the journey so near?

Llenlleawg rode directly to find the missing woman, and even then no one doubted that we would soon see them both before the sun had so much as quartered the sky. Thus, we dismissed the matter from our minds, and were soon caught up in the gladness of our welcome. We had come to Ynys Avallach, after all, where all unhappy thoughts are banished like gloomy shadows from the trail when daylight strikes through the clouds at the end of day.

I confess, I never gave the matter a second thought until Myrddin remarked on Llenlleawg's absence the next day. I was admiring Avallach's horses in the stables. The Fair Folk's love of horses almost matches that of the Irish, and they breed a steed even our Eireann cousins could envy. I speak as a man who has spent more days on horseback than on my own two feet, so take it for a truth from one who knows whereof he speaks.

See, now: I stood stroking the long sleek neck of a handsome grey mare, when I heard the soft tread of a step behind me. I turned and Myrddin was beside me. 'They are a joy to behold,' he proclaimed, speaking to my thoughts. 'I am certain Avallach would be happy to let you ride one if you wished.' He paused, looking sideways at me in the way he has – as if looking through a body into the soul beyond – then he said, 'Perhaps you might like to take this one and go in search of Llenlleawg. He should have returned by now, and I cannot think he has lost his way.'

'No,' I granted, 'never that. But has it ever occurred to you that he may have decided to spend a night with a young woman? – beyond the gaze of prying eyes, so to speak.'

Myrddin flatly rejected my insinuation. 'Do you really believe he would defy his lord and queen to frolic in the forest with a maiden he has been charged to protect?'

'Well, I -'

'Something has happened to him,' he declared, 'or he would have returned by now.'

'I will take leave of Arthur at once,' I told him and started off. He caught me by the arm and stayed me.

'Take someone with you. Those who rode with you when you found the girl – who were they?'

Teredur and Tallaght,' I answered. 'They are with us still. I will fetch them.'

'Allow me,' Myrddin suggested. 'I will send for them. You can see to the horses.' He turned on his heel and strode from the stable, pausing at the door long enough to add, 'Swiftly, my friend; the trail is already cold.'

With the help of Avallach's stablemen, I soon had three handsome horses saddled and ready to ride. Peredur and Tallaght joined me as I was tightening the cinch on the grey I had chosen for myself. I hailed the two young warriors and said, 'It seems we are to be companions once more. Did the Emrys tell you what we are about?'

'No, lord,' answered Peredur. 'We were told to hasten to the stables to find you and bring these,' he said, indicating the bag of provisions they each carried.

'Well and good,' I replied. 'This is the way of it: the maiden we found in the forest went missing before we reached Ynys Avallach, and Llenlleawg was sent to bring her back. He should have returned by now. Myrddin has asked us to find them… or Llenlleawg, at least.'

'Are we to try the Fair Folk mounts?' wondered Tallaght, eyeing the animals appreciatively.

'Aye, lad,' I told him. 'If you can bear to sit such a beast.'

'We are your men, Lord Gwalchavad,' Peredur said happily. 'Lead us where you will.'

With that we were away, clattering through the yard and down the winding path to the marshland below. It was morning yet, and we passed a few monks toiling in the fields beyond the abbey. They sent us on our way with 'God speed you!' and 'Blessings of the day!'

Having seen Llenlleawg leave our company, I knew where to begin searching. Though the lake was low from the drought, the earth was still soft enough to take a fair impression, and indeed, we had no difficulty recognizing the distinctive crescent and bar of a war-horse's hoof. Arthur had long ago adopted the old Roman custom of affixing an extra crosspiece of iron to the horseshoe, which, though costly, greatly improved the usefulness of our mounts, especially on the battlefield. There was no mistaking one of the Pendragon's horses.

Taking our lead from the tracks, we rode east. Our horses, wonderful creatures, carried us over the nearer hills as lightly as thistledown borne aloft on the wind's breath, and we were soon far from sight of the Tor. I was so enjoying my ride that I soon forgot all about Llenlleawg and his lady. Peredur's sharp whistle brought me up short. I halted and turned to see him pointing away south.

'Forgive me, lord,' he said, 'but I think he has left the trail just here.'

Looking to the place he indicated, I saw the tracks of two shod horses leading south. I commended his sharp eye and confessed that I had been too much given to the ride to notice the turning. 'You have saved us the chore of retracing our steps,' I allowed, and granted him the privilege of leading the search. 'Now on with you! Tallaght and I will follow.'

Thus I took my place behind the other two, and we resumed our journey. The trail, as Peredur had rightly espied, departed its eastward course and struck off towards the south. Once beyond the salt-marsh lowlands, we encountered drought-dry hills and dusty valleys, passing abandoned holdings where but recently we might have expected a drink.

Day's end found us far to the south and searching for a stream or brook where we might make camp for the night. The first stars were already alight when we finally came upon a shrunken rill where a little water yet trickled. Though I would have preferred a more private place among the trees, I did not like to wander far from the trail, for it seemed likely that if Llenlleawg had passed this way, he might have camped hereabouts, too.

We gathered the few bits of dry brush to make our fire, and pulled provisions from the bags behind our saddles to make a quiet meal – after which we rolled ourselves in our cloaks to contemplate the bright-spangled heavens and wait for sleep to overtake us. I had just closed my eyes, or so it seemed, when a strange wailing sound roused me. I awoke and stood, stone-still and holding my breath, to listen for a moment. The sound, similar in some ways to that of a wolf crying down the moon, reached me from some distance farther south.

I walked a little apart from the red embers of our exhausted fire, and looked to the low southern hills, where I saw the faintly flickering glow of a beacon flame. I watched for a while, and scanned the land round about for an answering fire, but saw none. Neither did I hear the wailing sound again. The beacon, if beacon it was, died away as quickly as a spark, and the darkness closed around the place. I waited, but the flame was not renewed, and so I returned to my rest.

The next morning, after leaving a pile of rocks to mark the trail, we turned aside to find the place where the beacon had been lit, for I hoped to discover some sign of who had made it and why. As it happened, the ride led us farther south than I anticipated, but we found the site: an immense bed of still-warm ashes surrounded by a ring of earth erected to keep the dry hillside from taking light. Here and there we saw a few footprints – though very few – and those were scuffed and featureless.

They have taken care to leave nothing behind,' Peredur observed.

'Who could have made it?' wondered Tallaght. 'Llenlleawg and the girl?'

'Better to ask who was meant to see it,' I replied, and then considered that the wailing began only after the beacon had all but spent itself. 'Maybe they feared we would miss the signal, so they roused us another way,' I suggested lightly to my companions, but neither of them deemed it likely.

'Probably it was only a wolf,' suggested Tallaght. 'No doubt the smell of smoke disturbed the beast.'

Now, I have heard wolves howling in the night more times than either of my young friends have swung rump to saddle, and I know it was never any wolf I heard. Still, I held my tongue and let the thing go. As there was nothing more to see, I went to my horse, gathered up the reins, and regained my mount, ready to resume the trail. 'The day flies before us,' I called, urging them away.

'A moment, lord,' cried Peredur. I looked around and saw him inside the fire-ring, squatting on his haunches, prodding the ashes with a length of branch unburned at one end. So saying, he lifted something from the smouldering ash pile and brought it to me. 'What think you of this?' he asked, extending the stick towards me.

I saw that he had found a scrap of cloth – fine stuff, tightly woven – which had been all but consumed in the flames. Taking the scrap between my fingers, I looked again, more closely, and to my dismay recognized it at once.

'God help him,' I moaned, my voice a low croak. 'It is a piece of Llenlleawg's cloak.'