The Black Chalice

Thirty-Seven

They reached the manor an hour before dawn.

Early morning dew weighed down the tips of the grass. Together with the moonlight it looked as though thousands of gemstones had been scattered across the lawn. Marchante cantered out of the trees, trailing branches pulling at them, and the priest stirred.

"The house is awake," Alymere said, seeing the lamps burning in the upstairs windows.

They rode to the door.

Two servants were there to meet them before they could dismount. The grief was fierce in both of them. No-one spoke; one of the servants took Marchante's reins and led the warhorse around to the stables to see him fed and watered, while the other offered the priest his hand and guided him up the short steps to the house. Horse and priest alike visibly steamed in the pre-dawn chill. He tugged at his vestments uncomfortably, trying to adjust them after the long ride before giving up and following the servant inside.

Alymere raced up the steps behind him and through the door.

He tried to read the house, to prepare himself. Sir Lowick had drummed the necessity of thought into him. Logic and reasoning were the greatest gifts of God, according to the old knight. He believed it was possible to know far more about what you were walking into if only you used your eyes and your mind together. So that was what Alymere did now.

There was an air of mourning about the house. It was obvious despite the lamps in the upstairs windows. Much of the ground floor was draped in shadow.

Bors came down the stairs wearily. The wooden boards sighed beneath his weight. Each step appeared to lessen him until by the time he reached the bottom he was no longer the invincible giant Alymere had met outside of Camelot, but a normal man stretched to the point of breaking. He had never loved the big knight more. There was no doubting the toll the long night had taken on him, both mentally and physically. He looked as though he had not slept for days — which, Alymere realised, was probably the case; he had almost certainly ridden through the one night to bring Sir Lowick home to die, and had then sat his bedside vigil through another — but the worst of it was in his eyes. Alymere recognised the spectre that haunted them for what it was: the ghost of his own mortality.

Bors was a man whose strength defined him; strength of body, strength of mind, of faith, conviction, character. It gave him courage, and in a curious way, cloaked him in immortality; the kind of immortality every knight needed to charge recklessly into battle time and again with only his sword and shield between him and death.

And now his friend was dying an ugly death, robbed of his own strength, and it had hit him hard. Not only that he was dying, but the manner with which death had claimed him. No amount of martial skill, no thickness of armour or swiftness of sword could have saved him from a poisoned cup.

It was no surprise that it would haunt a man like Sir Bors de Ganis. He could just as easily have been the one to drink from the parlay chalice.

"He is still with us," Bors said, seeing the dread in Alymere's face. "But we are talking minutes rather than hours, lad."

They climbed the stairs side-by-side, silently.

Draughts caused the flames to flicker erratically and the shadows to stretch and twist on the walls. The doorway at the far end of the passage was closed, and for the time it took for Alymere to reach it he wished it could stay that way forever. He had no wish to open it and watch someone he loved die, not when, like Bors, he was helpless to change things.

He closed his eyes and opened the door.

His uncle lay on the tangled sheets, fever sweats ringing his weakened body. He looked ten times worse that he had just a few hours before; his breathing came shallow and erratic, each new breath successively more difficult to take. Alymere stood in the doorway, unwilling to enter the death room. The priest rushed to Sir Lowick's bedside and dropped to his knees, then shrugged the sack off his shoulder and began to remove the few things he had brought from the church: first the cross, then the vial of blessed water and finally the Bible. He offered a short prayer from the book. Alymere understood only a little of the Latin, but knew the passage well: the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, speaking of the timeliness of the seasons of a man's life, whether in birth or death, in silence or speech, in peace or in war.

The knight stirred, opening his eyes. He reached out with an emaciated hand, resting it upon the priest's cross. There was no strength to be gained there. He coughed; it came out like a death rattle. There was no recognition in his eyes when he saw Alymere in the doorway and said quietly, "You can leave us now, my son." Alymere didn't correct his uncle. He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, affording Sir Lowick a few minutes alone with his God to unburden his soul.

He paced the passage outside the door, walking back and forth, back and forth. He couldn't sit or stand still for more than a few seconds before he needed to be off again, pacing. Bors left him alone to work his way through the conflicting emotions that ate away at him. His body was tired — beyond tired — but his mind was wide awake, and his mind always won out of the two.

Eventually the door opened and the ashen-faced priest emerged.

He looked at Alymere, but couldn't look him in the eye.

"He would see you now. He is very weak, and his mind is gone, I fear; little of what he says makes sense outside his own mind. The poison is robbing him of his clarity, but there are things he needs to tell you, if you are willing to hear them. It is not my place, my lord, but I think it is important you hear what he has to say. For yourself if not for him. I am sorry for your loss."

"He's not dead yet, priest," Alymere said, more harshly than he intended.

He left the holy man stumbling over an apology and closed the door behind him. He settled into the room's only chair and, steeling himself, said, "I am here, uncle."