Fic: (Arthurian) This Heap Is A Witness
EXTENDED EPIGRAPH
So Lancelot and his cousins took their leave, keeping company till they reached Camelot at the hour of terce, and found the king gone to hear mass in the minster with a great retinue of noble lords. As soon as the three cousins arrived they dismounted in the courtyard and made their way to the upper hall. There they began to talk of the youth that Lancelot had knighted. Bors thought he had never seen anyone so like in looks to Lancelot.
"Indeed," he added, "I will never hold anything true again if this is not Galahad, who was born of the Fisher King's beautiful daughter, for he bears an uncommon likeness both to that lineage and to ours."
"Upon my faith," said Lionel, "I think it must be he, his resemblence to my lord Lancelot is truly striking."
They continued awhile in this vein in the hope of eliciting some word from Lancelot, but to all their hints he vouchsafed at that time no reply.
~ The Quest of the Holy Grail
This heap is a witness.
Galahad, a young nobleman bequeathed in his infancy to the nunnery, was staring at the wall when Merofled knocked. Merofled was a young noblewoman sent by her uncle to the nunnery to prevent her from a sizable inheritance; she was good-natured but given to sloth, slipping into sickly quiet melancholy for days at a time.
"Galahad?" she called.
"Come in," said Galahad. He was sitting fully-dressed on the edge of his bed.
The thick wooden door tipped inward, and Merofled's head peaked around-- followed by her hand and then a steaming silver plate. She shut the door behind her with a heel and brought the dish over to Galahad, setting it on the floor in front of him so that her face passed near Galahad's clasped hands.
"I thought you might be ill," she said. "I brought you dinner."
"I have permission from the abbess to pray in solitude today."
"Will you eat?"
"I will," said Galahad. "Thank you."
"And will you rejoin us for vespers?"
"I will join you for lauds."
Merofled smiled. Her face was wry and affectionate, with pale skin and blue eyes, with a line of dusky brown hair just visible beneath the hem of her wimple. "I'll bring you more food later, and some water."
"Thank you," Galahad said again.
Merofled nodded and withdrew, smiling her secretive smile, shutting the thick door behind her, and like a metal lock clicking into place, Galahad was lost again in reverie. He thought about the torment of Christ and about the story of Samson, the holy savage who wrestled with lions, who pushed with inhuman strength at the pillars of the Philistines, full of glory, until his body was at last battered by falling chunks of marble. Galahad sat unmoving on the edge of his bed, hands knotted together. In the silver dish at his feet: a crust of bread, a dark sauce of caramelized onions and red wine vinegar, the white-grey flank of a haddock.
*
On a chilly Tuesday morning in March of 484, a knight fell off of his horse and onto the wide, metalled road that passed by the abbey. The horse startled at the loud sound of the heavy body inside armor colliding with stone; several of the nuns working at the corn mill heard it, too. They came running out and dragged the man, a woman at each limb, toward the castle so that his metal body made sparks against the road and then a grassy ditch across the lawn.
The prioress came running out of the main gate, holding her mantle away from her feet. "Is he dead? Take off his armor-- there's no use dragging him to the infirmary if he's already dead."
Settling the knight on the ground, one nun carefully pulled the helm away from his bevor, leaving his pale, dark-haired head naked on the grass. White slits showed between his eyelids where he struggled unconsciously with some foe, and he was breathing.
"Here, get him out of the rest of this," said the prioress. The nuns rid him of his gauntlets, his belt and sword, the heavy leather shoes, the sabaton, the bevor and spaulders; everything but his breastplate and haulberk, the tunic beneath and his sweat-damp woolen chausses. Then they heaved him up between them and carried him unconscious to the infirmary; there, they stripped him of his remaining garments and saw that his skin was soaked with fever and covered with strange mottling, like olive-toned bruises. Morgan, the nun who presided over the infirmary, said he'd been poisoned. She sent one of the nuns to fetch a pail of water. She poured two liquids into a cup and then crushed an herb into the drink, her dark eyes lowered solemnly.
At Morgan's command, the nuns held the knight's body so that he kneeled on the ground before a trough; Morgan fisted her hand in the knight's hair and poured the medicine down his throat. No sooner was the potion swallowed than the knight's unconscious body convulsed, emptying the contents of his stomach into the trough, over and over, until bile alone trickled from the throat. Somewhere in the throes, the knight came awake. He didn't have the strength to pull away from the women holding him up, but he bent his head low, gasping for air, a string of saliva dangling from his open mouth to the wooden lip of the trough.
"Witch," he gasped.
Morgan smirked. "You've been poisoned, Lancelot du Lac. But not by me." She gestured to the nuns to let the knight lie back; his neck rolled in its socket. Morgan took hold of his hair again and said, "This is water--" and poured it from a cup into his mouth. He coughed and then recovered, then swallowed. When he'd finished the cup of water, Morgan refilled it from the pail.
Lancelot coughed and asked weakly, "Where are my clothes?"
"You're always having that problem," said Morgan, but before he could answer she was holding the cup to his mouth again.
*
Merofled found Galahad in the cellarium with three sacks of flour resting across his broad shoulders. She paused, watching him, and leaned against one of the painted columns that branched into the curved ceiling like the limbs of a grey tree. Galahad stooped and rolled the flour from his shoulder into a crate, then he glanced at the girl.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
It was late morning, and Merofled worked in the convent's scriptorium. Before the hour of none, she was typically to be found propped against her desk, hands dusty with white ash from the parchment, mouth a thin line of concentration.
Merofled nodded. "I just wanted to tell you that there's a man in the infirmary, a knight who was on his way to Camelot when he fell sick on the road." She paused. Galahad was illuminated by the row of small, high windows in the wall; he had dark hair, a hooked nose, a well-made body and solemn, dark brown eyes. He never talked about his father. "He looks like you."
Galahad's eyebrows drew together. "What's his name?"
"I haven't spoken to him, but the nuns say he is Lancelot of the Lake, the great knight of the Round Table and King Arthur's baron."
"I know the name but not the man. How does he fare?"
"He's weak but not dying-- he was poisoned."
"By whom?"
Merofled shook her head. "He might know, but the sisters haven't spoken of it."
There was a long moment of silence, and Merofled's fingers moved restlessly on the column against which she leaned, tracing the cold seams of stone without looking.
"Will you speak to him?" Galahad asked.
Merofled hesitated, then said, "My work does not take me to the infirmary."
Galahad nodded.
He was a boy of quiet thought, and he drew silence in toward him, like water running to the low places in the land. When he was younger, he spoke often of his mother and his grandfather, their piety and love, their plans for him, the reasons why it was important for him to be away from them for his entire life-- but as he moved into manhood, he grew still. He continued to talk and laugh and even, on rare occasions, to give voice to the conversations inside him, but everything in his baring spoke of resolve. He no longer liked to talk about private matters.
"Nor does mine," said Galahad.
*
The second week of Lancelot's stay in the convent, he was able to stand and walk to the table where Morgan sat crushing herbs, surrounded by wooden bowls. Morgan pointed out that this was but a mediocre accomplishment for the finest knight in the land. The smells of dirt and mint permeated the air.
"Ay, I am the finest," said Lancelot grimly. His knees folded, and he collapsed onto a stool with a weak puff of breath. "With the most treasonous legs."
"Your gluttony for superlatives has done you in at last. Will you eat?"
"I will if I am offered real food. Not potions and swamp water."
"You're wicked to complain," said Morgan mildly, scraping a bluish residue off of her pestle with a long fingernail.
Lancelot leaned his face into his palm, propped up against his elbow on the table. His face was drawn and paler than normal, but still not pale; he had deep circles under his eyes.
"You're wicked to enjoy it."
Morgan smiled and pulled toward herself a bowl of snail shells. "When supper is called, I'll send someone with food and a Bible to read to you while you eat. All I have handy now is swamp water."
Lancelot's eyes narrowed at a second bowl, which was filled with shell-less snails. There was a third bowl filled with the limbs of crayfish. "Can I help you do something?"
"I make it look fun, don't I?" Morgan rolled her pestle in the bowl with a sickly crackling sound. "But no." She crushed the shells into a powder, grinding the pestle with quick half-turns, her other hand wrapped around the flank of the bowl. It was moderately unladylike. Lancelot watched her face.
"So tell me about yourself," he said.
"No."
A corner of Lancelot's mouth curled. "I know a joke about a nun--"
"No."
Lancelot laughed.
He looked around the modest infirmary, but there was nothing of interest except one slender window near the ceiling and a polished wooden crucifix attached to the wall over the four small infirmary beds. He looked back at the array of bowls and tilted one to see inside: it held a pile of hearts, small, like those of a squirrel. Lancelot wrinkled his nose. "What exactly do you do for the abbey?"
Morgan pushed away from the table and went to another table that was piled high with baskets. She fetched a large roll and threw it to Lancelot, who caught it, however winded he was from his brush with death. The bread was dark brown, but its skin gave with a crackle when Lancelot pushed his thumbs against it.
"Eat that," said Morgan. "I'll be back."
*
"Boy," said Morgan. Galahad was in the cloister, helping to unload empty kegs from a wagon that had come from Camelot, and he looked up at Morgan's voice. The nuns continued to move around him, bumping and whirring the wooden kegs across the wooden floor of the cart.
"Go to the scriptorium and fetch a writing desk," she said, "and bring it to the infirmary with scripting materials. Tell Sister Claire I said busy work."
The two looked at each other for a moment.
They had both lived at the nunnery for most of Galahad's life, and they had many things in common aside from that-- both attentive and reflective, both dark in their way, both filled with molten steel-- but they were at opposite poles. Galahad the solemn, Morgan the loud; Morgan the pragmatist, Galahad the ecstatic; Galahad passive, as yet, the object of objects, and Morgan, currently at rest but agent of agents. To Galahad, there was something terrifically unwholesome and dangerous about Morgan. To Morgan, there was something unutterably gruesome about Galahad.
"Do you understand?" said Morgan.
"Yes, Sister," said Galahad. "Thank you."
Merofled looked up from her desk when Galahad entered the scriptorium, eyes following him as he spoke to Sister Claire. His face was smooth as a river stone. He was wearing a dark blue bliaut with gold brocade at the neck, the girdle and the hem of the sleeves. The nun dropped several utensils and jars into a sack, which she gave to him, and then pointed at an old writing desk in the corner. Merofled lifted her face as Galahad walked past her station, but he didn't meet her eyes, just caught the writing desk, handle of the sack wrapped around his girdle, gaze on the furniture of the room with gentle blankness.
*
Morgan had been gone for nearly an hour when a boy came into the infirmary carrying a desk easily by one of its legs. The boy paused in the arched doorway and gazed at Lancelot's face; he looked no older than fourteen or fifteen, handsome, clean, eyebrows drawn in a small frown.
"Thanks be to Our Lord," said Lancelot, grinning with relief. "I'm not the only male in this place."
The boy lowered his eyes and carried the desk into the room "Nay, sir," he said, setting the desk against the wall. He untied a pouch from his girdle and fumbled inside it, pulling out a candlestick, a red jar and a white jar, a quill pen, a ruler and a quire of parchment. He set them all on the desk and then took a moment arranging them.
"The good sister has made busy work for me so that I'll rely less on my own prattle to keep my wits."
"Sister Claire asks that you rule these parchments in red," said the boy, shifting the candlestick so that the silver handle faced toward the front of the desk.
Lancelot stood on shaky legs and picked up the stool on which he'd sat. The boy's lowered face turned, and he watched Lancelot move carefully away from the table. "I am glad to do that and other chores," said Lancelot, smiling tiredly, "but you'll need to show me how it's done." He dropped the stool next to the desk and sat.
The boy nodded. He unfolded the quire, smoothing out the corners of goatskin against the inclined desktop, then unstoppered the white jar. "First, you..." He dipped his fingers into the chalk and dusted it over the parchment, tapping his fingertips together to shed the excess. "The chalk gives tooth to the parchment for your quill, and it soaks up the oil from the hide." He opened the jar of red ink and then picked up the ruler, leaning awkwardly to press it against the parchment without blocking Lancelot's view.
He dipped the quill into the red and then scratched a line across the page. He lowered the ruler a half-inch and did the same again. He lowered the ruler another half-inch and then paused before handing the quill to Lancelot-- Lancelot took the quill and replaced the boy's hand on the ruler with his own. He drew a long, red line from one end of the parchment to the other, then looked up at the boy, whose expression was oddly tight.
"Good," said the boy. "Uh-- if you make a mistake--" he reached for the ruler and turned it, using the corner to scratch away the ink at the edge of Lancelot's line.
Lancelot smiled. "I think I can manage without too many mistakes." He took the ruler back and made another line across the page. "In fact, I might try my hand at some illuminations," he said, watching his hand moving across the beige expanse.
"Ink and chalk are expensive," said the boy, and Lancelot laughed shortly. He glanced up, and the boy's face flushed to the roots of his dark hair.
"I'm kidding, young teacher," said Lancelot. "And the abbey will know honor and wealth from me for its hospitality."
"Of course," said the boy. Lancelot drew another line across the parchment.
"Will you stay? I have had no man for company since I came here."
He dipped his quill into the russet-colored ink, and when no answer came, he looked back up at the boy. He pressed his fingers against the ruler to steady it; Lancelot always found it funny, or heartening, that the art of war was the same as the art of anything else, the same gestures and skills recycled again and again. The boy turned away abruptly, murmuring, "Pardon me," and left.
*
Galahad walked along the nave of the sanctuary with his eyes lowered, mind heavy with the list of deadly sins. Light from the stained glass windows painted his whole right side blue and red.
Three years ago, Galahad had passed five months in a visit to his grandfather's castle and read there the Psychomachia of Prudentius; he remembered an illumination of Anger, with her sword drawn, feet bare, short strings of hair standing on end, face twisted in an ugly grimace-- while Patience faced her with a smooth, serene face, palms held up and facing outward. In his mind, he saw the figures of Anger and Patience overlap, like two objects in soft focus, either set of eyes staring out of the back of the skull of the other.
Galahad turned left into the north transept and dropped to his knees in front of the Sacrament Chapel. The top of the rood screen was level with his chin. He said lowly, "Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam." And I will go to the altar of god, to God, the joy of my youth.
The altar was spread with a blue linen cloth, a silver cruet and a silver paten covered by a white linen cloth, six long red candles and a Bible on a missal stand. The Bible was open to the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke and along the margins were illuminations of the Annunciation: angels, doves, rays of light. Above the altar hung a silver thurible of charcoal, dangling from an outcropping, and a richly painted crucifix set into the wall. The shiny wooden Christ watched over the altar with closed eyes and a closed mouth, absent, fingers of his outstretched hands curled inward.
Galahad closed his own eyes.
He tilted forward until his head rested against the corner of the rood screen and murmured the paternoster, fingers threading together on his knees. When he came to the end of the prayer, he began another, this one in French, a prayer of confession for the sin of wrath. Behind him, he heard the heavy steps of the abbess walking up to the mouth of the transept, watching him, mooning idiotically at his piety.
He let out a long breath and pushed his forehead harder into the wood of the screen.
The sleeping Jesus above the altar disappeared, and in Galahad's mind a living, animated Jesus rose up to replace him. The protruding ribs sank back into healthy flesh, and the wooden coils of hair spooled out into dark locks. His eyes were present and alive, suddenly, the Most Holy Son moving backwards on the thread of his life: away from death and salvation, back past the Jesus kneeling at the Stone of Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, past the Jesus distributing loaves of flesh at the dinner table; past the calming of the stormy waters to Christ at the temple. The Savior on the steps of the synagogue, swathed in red cloth, turning, eyes flashing-- Galahad’s own black garb slipping away, his knees buckling, head snapping backwards as the Sweet Lord’s curled fist connected with his face.
*
Sir Lancelot of the Round Table spent the day ruling the parchment until his eyes were sore and watered when he pressed them closed and his head throbbed. Morgan never came back. Nobody came or went, but Lancelot was too weak yet to wander down the stone halls of the nunnery and too wise to attempt it. He listened to the bells call the hour of none and was sitting upright in his cot, back against the cold wall, hands folded on his stomach, when the nervous boy from the scriptorium returned. This time he carried a dish of pottage and a Bible. He set the dish on the table and bowed to Lancelot, who inclined his head. "Welcome, friend."
"Sir," said the boy.
Lancelot stood slowly and carefully; the boy pulled a stool away from the table to make ready for him to sit, then he took his own seat at the table and opened the large leather limbs of the Bible. Lancelot sat and ate, ignoring the bowl of dead naked snails.
The boy read to him in Latin, and his voice was clear and melodic as rain water, vacillating in tone and timbre, and while he read his face was animated with real emotion. Lancelot's Latin was moderate at best, so he didn't follow the story, but he knew enough words to recognize the story of the woman of sin anointing the Lord's feet with her hair. As he swallowed the last bite of his pottage, the boy closed his Bible and stood.
"You read well," said Lancelot, smiling. "You should stay and finish the book. For my edification."
"I will come again," said the boy demurely. He picked up Lancelot's dish and spoon.
"I've done my work for the day." Lancelot pointed at the quire of parchments, neatly rolled and returned to the sack that brought them there, while the scripting utensils remained scattered over the writing desk. "So I can bear more, although I might have graduated by my suffering to something not tedious and horrible."
"I don't know if that's how suffering works," said the boy. He shifted to tuck the large tome under his arm and wrapped the handle of the sack around his thumb so that he could hold the bowl with one hand and open doors with the other.
Lancelot laughed and asked, "Who is your father?"
The boy looked over his shoulder at Lancelot. The Bible fell out of the cinch of his arm, and the boy scrambled to pick it up.
"You look like a startled deer," said Lancelot, grinning. "I ask because Sister Morgan tells me that nobles lodge here, and your looks and baring speak of the highest nobility. If you wish it unknown--"
The boy stood and replaced the Bible under his arm. "Sir, I don't know my father."
Lancelot closed his mouth. Of course-- a woman in sin fleeing home to give birth at a convent where Morgan would sneer but minister to her and her infant.
"That's no matter," Lancelot said gently, after a moment. "Many do not, and some who do wish they didn't. Who is your mother?"
"She's not a sister," said the boy. He scowled, suddenly, and some strength seemed to go out of him. He set the bowl and spoon on the writing desk, then sat down on the stool. He put the large Bible across his knees, fingers closing tightly around its edges.
"Well-- no," said Lancelot.
"I mean Morgan. She does work for the abbey, but she is not a servant of God."
"Not entirely surprising, I'll admit."
Lancelot frowned, watching the boy's averted face. The boy was handsome, pious, well-educated and evasive. He was too graceful and refined to be nervous all the time in ways that weren't specific to Lancelot.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Galahad," said the boy at last. He unwrapped his hands from the Bible and laid his open palms against it. "My mother is Elaine of Corbenic, daughter to King Pelles." He watched Lancelot's face, then murmured, "Now you look like a startled deer."
Lancelot was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I have been to Corbenic."
Galahad looked past Lancelot at the wall, at nothing, and Lancelot's eyes moved over Galahad's face, the line of his shoulder, at his fifteen-year-old hands spread desperately over the Bible. "I know."
*
The last strains of Psalm 117 cooled in the throats of the worshippers, and they exited the sanctuary without speaking. In the hall outside the sanctuary doors, nuns and postulants and other attendants broke into murmured conversations, and Galahad felt a set of timid fingertips against his arm.
"I heard that you read for the wounded knight," said Merofled.
Galahad nodded without looking at her. They walked together down the south cloister-walk toward the dormitory, pulling their cloaks around them.
"Did you speak with him?"
"In brief."
Merofled followed behind Galahad as they entered the dorter. Galahad looked blankly at the flagstones of the floor.
"Is he well?" Merofled asked.
"He will soon be well enough to travel the rest of the distance to Camelot." They passed doorway after doorway, and Galahad could hear the soft tap of the girl's footsteps. "You should not be following me to my cell at this hour. It's shameful."
"Forgive me," said Merofled without real concern. "Will you read to him again tomorrow?"
"I will."
"Will you leave with him when he goes?"
Galahad's steps halted, and Merofled drew up short behind him, arm brushing Galahad's back, face touching his shoulder. They walked the rest of the distance to Galahad's cell in silence. They stood without speaking for a moment before Galahad said, "It's late."
"Galahad," Merofled said softly. She laid a pale hand, strong from writing, flat against the door of his cell. "Let us talk within."
Galahad's eyebrows drew together. He looked down at the floor. "Lady--" he said. "Never."
*
Past vespers, Morgan came back to the infirmary holding a candle and sat down at her bowl of hearts as though uninterrupted. Lancelot looked up from the Bible he was reading by candlelight, serious expression made more severe by the shadows and dancing streaks of yellow.
"How was your visit with the Hot Prince?" asked Morgan.
"You could have told me my son was lodged here," Lancelot said.
Morgan's expression was also distorted by candlelight, but she might have been tired or amused, or irritated, or resigned. She said, "I could tell you plenty."
So Lancelot and his cousins took their leave, keeping company till they reached Camelot at the hour of terce, and found the king gone to hear mass in the minster with a great retinue of noble lords. As soon as the three cousins arrived they dismounted in the courtyard and made their way to the upper hall. There they began to talk of the youth that Lancelot had knighted. Bors thought he had never seen anyone so like in looks to Lancelot.
"Indeed," he added, "I will never hold anything true again if this is not Galahad, who was born of the Fisher King's beautiful daughter, for he bears an uncommon likeness both to that lineage and to ours."
"Upon my faith," said Lionel, "I think it must be he, his resemblence to my lord Lancelot is truly striking."
They continued awhile in this vein in the hope of eliciting some word from Lancelot, but to all their hints he vouchsafed at that time no reply.
~ The Quest of the Holy Grail
This heap is a witness.
Galahad, a young nobleman bequeathed in his infancy to the nunnery, was staring at the wall when Merofled knocked. Merofled was a young noblewoman sent by her uncle to the nunnery to prevent her from a sizable inheritance; she was good-natured but given to sloth, slipping into sickly quiet melancholy for days at a time.
"Galahad?" she called.
"Come in," said Galahad. He was sitting fully-dressed on the edge of his bed.
The thick wooden door tipped inward, and Merofled's head peaked around-- followed by her hand and then a steaming silver plate. She shut the door behind her with a heel and brought the dish over to Galahad, setting it on the floor in front of him so that her face passed near Galahad's clasped hands.
"I thought you might be ill," she said. "I brought you dinner."
"I have permission from the abbess to pray in solitude today."
"Will you eat?"
"I will," said Galahad. "Thank you."
"And will you rejoin us for vespers?"
"I will join you for lauds."
Merofled smiled. Her face was wry and affectionate, with pale skin and blue eyes, with a line of dusky brown hair just visible beneath the hem of her wimple. "I'll bring you more food later, and some water."
"Thank you," Galahad said again.
Merofled nodded and withdrew, smiling her secretive smile, shutting the thick door behind her, and like a metal lock clicking into place, Galahad was lost again in reverie. He thought about the torment of Christ and about the story of Samson, the holy savage who wrestled with lions, who pushed with inhuman strength at the pillars of the Philistines, full of glory, until his body was at last battered by falling chunks of marble. Galahad sat unmoving on the edge of his bed, hands knotted together. In the silver dish at his feet: a crust of bread, a dark sauce of caramelized onions and red wine vinegar, the white-grey flank of a haddock.
*
On a chilly Tuesday morning in March of 484, a knight fell off of his horse and onto the wide, metalled road that passed by the abbey. The horse startled at the loud sound of the heavy body inside armor colliding with stone; several of the nuns working at the corn mill heard it, too. They came running out and dragged the man, a woman at each limb, toward the castle so that his metal body made sparks against the road and then a grassy ditch across the lawn.
The prioress came running out of the main gate, holding her mantle away from her feet. "Is he dead? Take off his armor-- there's no use dragging him to the infirmary if he's already dead."
Settling the knight on the ground, one nun carefully pulled the helm away from his bevor, leaving his pale, dark-haired head naked on the grass. White slits showed between his eyelids where he struggled unconsciously with some foe, and he was breathing.
"Here, get him out of the rest of this," said the prioress. The nuns rid him of his gauntlets, his belt and sword, the heavy leather shoes, the sabaton, the bevor and spaulders; everything but his breastplate and haulberk, the tunic beneath and his sweat-damp woolen chausses. Then they heaved him up between them and carried him unconscious to the infirmary; there, they stripped him of his remaining garments and saw that his skin was soaked with fever and covered with strange mottling, like olive-toned bruises. Morgan, the nun who presided over the infirmary, said he'd been poisoned. She sent one of the nuns to fetch a pail of water. She poured two liquids into a cup and then crushed an herb into the drink, her dark eyes lowered solemnly.
At Morgan's command, the nuns held the knight's body so that he kneeled on the ground before a trough; Morgan fisted her hand in the knight's hair and poured the medicine down his throat. No sooner was the potion swallowed than the knight's unconscious body convulsed, emptying the contents of his stomach into the trough, over and over, until bile alone trickled from the throat. Somewhere in the throes, the knight came awake. He didn't have the strength to pull away from the women holding him up, but he bent his head low, gasping for air, a string of saliva dangling from his open mouth to the wooden lip of the trough.
"Witch," he gasped.
Morgan smirked. "You've been poisoned, Lancelot du Lac. But not by me." She gestured to the nuns to let the knight lie back; his neck rolled in its socket. Morgan took hold of his hair again and said, "This is water--" and poured it from a cup into his mouth. He coughed and then recovered, then swallowed. When he'd finished the cup of water, Morgan refilled it from the pail.
Lancelot coughed and asked weakly, "Where are my clothes?"
"You're always having that problem," said Morgan, but before he could answer she was holding the cup to his mouth again.
*
Merofled found Galahad in the cellarium with three sacks of flour resting across his broad shoulders. She paused, watching him, and leaned against one of the painted columns that branched into the curved ceiling like the limbs of a grey tree. Galahad stooped and rolled the flour from his shoulder into a crate, then he glanced at the girl.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
It was late morning, and Merofled worked in the convent's scriptorium. Before the hour of none, she was typically to be found propped against her desk, hands dusty with white ash from the parchment, mouth a thin line of concentration.
Merofled nodded. "I just wanted to tell you that there's a man in the infirmary, a knight who was on his way to Camelot when he fell sick on the road." She paused. Galahad was illuminated by the row of small, high windows in the wall; he had dark hair, a hooked nose, a well-made body and solemn, dark brown eyes. He never talked about his father. "He looks like you."
Galahad's eyebrows drew together. "What's his name?"
"I haven't spoken to him, but the nuns say he is Lancelot of the Lake, the great knight of the Round Table and King Arthur's baron."
"I know the name but not the man. How does he fare?"
"He's weak but not dying-- he was poisoned."
"By whom?"
Merofled shook her head. "He might know, but the sisters haven't spoken of it."
There was a long moment of silence, and Merofled's fingers moved restlessly on the column against which she leaned, tracing the cold seams of stone without looking.
"Will you speak to him?" Galahad asked.
Merofled hesitated, then said, "My work does not take me to the infirmary."
Galahad nodded.
He was a boy of quiet thought, and he drew silence in toward him, like water running to the low places in the land. When he was younger, he spoke often of his mother and his grandfather, their piety and love, their plans for him, the reasons why it was important for him to be away from them for his entire life-- but as he moved into manhood, he grew still. He continued to talk and laugh and even, on rare occasions, to give voice to the conversations inside him, but everything in his baring spoke of resolve. He no longer liked to talk about private matters.
"Nor does mine," said Galahad.
*
The second week of Lancelot's stay in the convent, he was able to stand and walk to the table where Morgan sat crushing herbs, surrounded by wooden bowls. Morgan pointed out that this was but a mediocre accomplishment for the finest knight in the land. The smells of dirt and mint permeated the air.
"Ay, I am the finest," said Lancelot grimly. His knees folded, and he collapsed onto a stool with a weak puff of breath. "With the most treasonous legs."
"Your gluttony for superlatives has done you in at last. Will you eat?"
"I will if I am offered real food. Not potions and swamp water."
"You're wicked to complain," said Morgan mildly, scraping a bluish residue off of her pestle with a long fingernail.
Lancelot leaned his face into his palm, propped up against his elbow on the table. His face was drawn and paler than normal, but still not pale; he had deep circles under his eyes.
"You're wicked to enjoy it."
Morgan smiled and pulled toward herself a bowl of snail shells. "When supper is called, I'll send someone with food and a Bible to read to you while you eat. All I have handy now is swamp water."
Lancelot's eyes narrowed at a second bowl, which was filled with shell-less snails. There was a third bowl filled with the limbs of crayfish. "Can I help you do something?"
"I make it look fun, don't I?" Morgan rolled her pestle in the bowl with a sickly crackling sound. "But no." She crushed the shells into a powder, grinding the pestle with quick half-turns, her other hand wrapped around the flank of the bowl. It was moderately unladylike. Lancelot watched her face.
"So tell me about yourself," he said.
"No."
A corner of Lancelot's mouth curled. "I know a joke about a nun--"
"No."
Lancelot laughed.
He looked around the modest infirmary, but there was nothing of interest except one slender window near the ceiling and a polished wooden crucifix attached to the wall over the four small infirmary beds. He looked back at the array of bowls and tilted one to see inside: it held a pile of hearts, small, like those of a squirrel. Lancelot wrinkled his nose. "What exactly do you do for the abbey?"
Morgan pushed away from the table and went to another table that was piled high with baskets. She fetched a large roll and threw it to Lancelot, who caught it, however winded he was from his brush with death. The bread was dark brown, but its skin gave with a crackle when Lancelot pushed his thumbs against it.
"Eat that," said Morgan. "I'll be back."
*
"Boy," said Morgan. Galahad was in the cloister, helping to unload empty kegs from a wagon that had come from Camelot, and he looked up at Morgan's voice. The nuns continued to move around him, bumping and whirring the wooden kegs across the wooden floor of the cart.
"Go to the scriptorium and fetch a writing desk," she said, "and bring it to the infirmary with scripting materials. Tell Sister Claire I said busy work."
The two looked at each other for a moment.
They had both lived at the nunnery for most of Galahad's life, and they had many things in common aside from that-- both attentive and reflective, both dark in their way, both filled with molten steel-- but they were at opposite poles. Galahad the solemn, Morgan the loud; Morgan the pragmatist, Galahad the ecstatic; Galahad passive, as yet, the object of objects, and Morgan, currently at rest but agent of agents. To Galahad, there was something terrifically unwholesome and dangerous about Morgan. To Morgan, there was something unutterably gruesome about Galahad.
"Do you understand?" said Morgan.
"Yes, Sister," said Galahad. "Thank you."
Merofled looked up from her desk when Galahad entered the scriptorium, eyes following him as he spoke to Sister Claire. His face was smooth as a river stone. He was wearing a dark blue bliaut with gold brocade at the neck, the girdle and the hem of the sleeves. The nun dropped several utensils and jars into a sack, which she gave to him, and then pointed at an old writing desk in the corner. Merofled lifted her face as Galahad walked past her station, but he didn't meet her eyes, just caught the writing desk, handle of the sack wrapped around his girdle, gaze on the furniture of the room with gentle blankness.
*
Morgan had been gone for nearly an hour when a boy came into the infirmary carrying a desk easily by one of its legs. The boy paused in the arched doorway and gazed at Lancelot's face; he looked no older than fourteen or fifteen, handsome, clean, eyebrows drawn in a small frown.
"Thanks be to Our Lord," said Lancelot, grinning with relief. "I'm not the only male in this place."
The boy lowered his eyes and carried the desk into the room "Nay, sir," he said, setting the desk against the wall. He untied a pouch from his girdle and fumbled inside it, pulling out a candlestick, a red jar and a white jar, a quill pen, a ruler and a quire of parchment. He set them all on the desk and then took a moment arranging them.
"The good sister has made busy work for me so that I'll rely less on my own prattle to keep my wits."
"Sister Claire asks that you rule these parchments in red," said the boy, shifting the candlestick so that the silver handle faced toward the front of the desk.
Lancelot stood on shaky legs and picked up the stool on which he'd sat. The boy's lowered face turned, and he watched Lancelot move carefully away from the table. "I am glad to do that and other chores," said Lancelot, smiling tiredly, "but you'll need to show me how it's done." He dropped the stool next to the desk and sat.
The boy nodded. He unfolded the quire, smoothing out the corners of goatskin against the inclined desktop, then unstoppered the white jar. "First, you..." He dipped his fingers into the chalk and dusted it over the parchment, tapping his fingertips together to shed the excess. "The chalk gives tooth to the parchment for your quill, and it soaks up the oil from the hide." He opened the jar of red ink and then picked up the ruler, leaning awkwardly to press it against the parchment without blocking Lancelot's view.
He dipped the quill into the red and then scratched a line across the page. He lowered the ruler a half-inch and did the same again. He lowered the ruler another half-inch and then paused before handing the quill to Lancelot-- Lancelot took the quill and replaced the boy's hand on the ruler with his own. He drew a long, red line from one end of the parchment to the other, then looked up at the boy, whose expression was oddly tight.
"Good," said the boy. "Uh-- if you make a mistake--" he reached for the ruler and turned it, using the corner to scratch away the ink at the edge of Lancelot's line.
Lancelot smiled. "I think I can manage without too many mistakes." He took the ruler back and made another line across the page. "In fact, I might try my hand at some illuminations," he said, watching his hand moving across the beige expanse.
"Ink and chalk are expensive," said the boy, and Lancelot laughed shortly. He glanced up, and the boy's face flushed to the roots of his dark hair.
"I'm kidding, young teacher," said Lancelot. "And the abbey will know honor and wealth from me for its hospitality."
"Of course," said the boy. Lancelot drew another line across the parchment.
"Will you stay? I have had no man for company since I came here."
He dipped his quill into the russet-colored ink, and when no answer came, he looked back up at the boy. He pressed his fingers against the ruler to steady it; Lancelot always found it funny, or heartening, that the art of war was the same as the art of anything else, the same gestures and skills recycled again and again. The boy turned away abruptly, murmuring, "Pardon me," and left.
*
Galahad walked along the nave of the sanctuary with his eyes lowered, mind heavy with the list of deadly sins. Light from the stained glass windows painted his whole right side blue and red.
Three years ago, Galahad had passed five months in a visit to his grandfather's castle and read there the Psychomachia of Prudentius; he remembered an illumination of Anger, with her sword drawn, feet bare, short strings of hair standing on end, face twisted in an ugly grimace-- while Patience faced her with a smooth, serene face, palms held up and facing outward. In his mind, he saw the figures of Anger and Patience overlap, like two objects in soft focus, either set of eyes staring out of the back of the skull of the other.
Galahad turned left into the north transept and dropped to his knees in front of the Sacrament Chapel. The top of the rood screen was level with his chin. He said lowly, "Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam." And I will go to the altar of god, to God, the joy of my youth.
The altar was spread with a blue linen cloth, a silver cruet and a silver paten covered by a white linen cloth, six long red candles and a Bible on a missal stand. The Bible was open to the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke and along the margins were illuminations of the Annunciation: angels, doves, rays of light. Above the altar hung a silver thurible of charcoal, dangling from an outcropping, and a richly painted crucifix set into the wall. The shiny wooden Christ watched over the altar with closed eyes and a closed mouth, absent, fingers of his outstretched hands curled inward.
Galahad closed his own eyes.
He tilted forward until his head rested against the corner of the rood screen and murmured the paternoster, fingers threading together on his knees. When he came to the end of the prayer, he began another, this one in French, a prayer of confession for the sin of wrath. Behind him, he heard the heavy steps of the abbess walking up to the mouth of the transept, watching him, mooning idiotically at his piety.
He let out a long breath and pushed his forehead harder into the wood of the screen.
The sleeping Jesus above the altar disappeared, and in Galahad's mind a living, animated Jesus rose up to replace him. The protruding ribs sank back into healthy flesh, and the wooden coils of hair spooled out into dark locks. His eyes were present and alive, suddenly, the Most Holy Son moving backwards on the thread of his life: away from death and salvation, back past the Jesus kneeling at the Stone of Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, past the Jesus distributing loaves of flesh at the dinner table; past the calming of the stormy waters to Christ at the temple. The Savior on the steps of the synagogue, swathed in red cloth, turning, eyes flashing-- Galahad’s own black garb slipping away, his knees buckling, head snapping backwards as the Sweet Lord’s curled fist connected with his face.
*
Sir Lancelot of the Round Table spent the day ruling the parchment until his eyes were sore and watered when he pressed them closed and his head throbbed. Morgan never came back. Nobody came or went, but Lancelot was too weak yet to wander down the stone halls of the nunnery and too wise to attempt it. He listened to the bells call the hour of none and was sitting upright in his cot, back against the cold wall, hands folded on his stomach, when the nervous boy from the scriptorium returned. This time he carried a dish of pottage and a Bible. He set the dish on the table and bowed to Lancelot, who inclined his head. "Welcome, friend."
"Sir," said the boy.
Lancelot stood slowly and carefully; the boy pulled a stool away from the table to make ready for him to sit, then he took his own seat at the table and opened the large leather limbs of the Bible. Lancelot sat and ate, ignoring the bowl of dead naked snails.
The boy read to him in Latin, and his voice was clear and melodic as rain water, vacillating in tone and timbre, and while he read his face was animated with real emotion. Lancelot's Latin was moderate at best, so he didn't follow the story, but he knew enough words to recognize the story of the woman of sin anointing the Lord's feet with her hair. As he swallowed the last bite of his pottage, the boy closed his Bible and stood.
"You read well," said Lancelot, smiling. "You should stay and finish the book. For my edification."
"I will come again," said the boy demurely. He picked up Lancelot's dish and spoon.
"I've done my work for the day." Lancelot pointed at the quire of parchments, neatly rolled and returned to the sack that brought them there, while the scripting utensils remained scattered over the writing desk. "So I can bear more, although I might have graduated by my suffering to something not tedious and horrible."
"I don't know if that's how suffering works," said the boy. He shifted to tuck the large tome under his arm and wrapped the handle of the sack around his thumb so that he could hold the bowl with one hand and open doors with the other.
Lancelot laughed and asked, "Who is your father?"
The boy looked over his shoulder at Lancelot. The Bible fell out of the cinch of his arm, and the boy scrambled to pick it up.
"You look like a startled deer," said Lancelot, grinning. "I ask because Sister Morgan tells me that nobles lodge here, and your looks and baring speak of the highest nobility. If you wish it unknown--"
The boy stood and replaced the Bible under his arm. "Sir, I don't know my father."
Lancelot closed his mouth. Of course-- a woman in sin fleeing home to give birth at a convent where Morgan would sneer but minister to her and her infant.
"That's no matter," Lancelot said gently, after a moment. "Many do not, and some who do wish they didn't. Who is your mother?"
"She's not a sister," said the boy. He scowled, suddenly, and some strength seemed to go out of him. He set the bowl and spoon on the writing desk, then sat down on the stool. He put the large Bible across his knees, fingers closing tightly around its edges.
"Well-- no," said Lancelot.
"I mean Morgan. She does work for the abbey, but she is not a servant of God."
"Not entirely surprising, I'll admit."
Lancelot frowned, watching the boy's averted face. The boy was handsome, pious, well-educated and evasive. He was too graceful and refined to be nervous all the time in ways that weren't specific to Lancelot.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Galahad," said the boy at last. He unwrapped his hands from the Bible and laid his open palms against it. "My mother is Elaine of Corbenic, daughter to King Pelles." He watched Lancelot's face, then murmured, "Now you look like a startled deer."
Lancelot was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I have been to Corbenic."
Galahad looked past Lancelot at the wall, at nothing, and Lancelot's eyes moved over Galahad's face, the line of his shoulder, at his fifteen-year-old hands spread desperately over the Bible. "I know."
*
The last strains of Psalm 117 cooled in the throats of the worshippers, and they exited the sanctuary without speaking. In the hall outside the sanctuary doors, nuns and postulants and other attendants broke into murmured conversations, and Galahad felt a set of timid fingertips against his arm.
"I heard that you read for the wounded knight," said Merofled.
Galahad nodded without looking at her. They walked together down the south cloister-walk toward the dormitory, pulling their cloaks around them.
"Did you speak with him?"
"In brief."
Merofled followed behind Galahad as they entered the dorter. Galahad looked blankly at the flagstones of the floor.
"Is he well?" Merofled asked.
"He will soon be well enough to travel the rest of the distance to Camelot." They passed doorway after doorway, and Galahad could hear the soft tap of the girl's footsteps. "You should not be following me to my cell at this hour. It's shameful."
"Forgive me," said Merofled without real concern. "Will you read to him again tomorrow?"
"I will."
"Will you leave with him when he goes?"
Galahad's steps halted, and Merofled drew up short behind him, arm brushing Galahad's back, face touching his shoulder. They walked the rest of the distance to Galahad's cell in silence. They stood without speaking for a moment before Galahad said, "It's late."
"Galahad," Merofled said softly. She laid a pale hand, strong from writing, flat against the door of his cell. "Let us talk within."
Galahad's eyebrows drew together. He looked down at the floor. "Lady--" he said. "Never."
*
Past vespers, Morgan came back to the infirmary holding a candle and sat down at her bowl of hearts as though uninterrupted. Lancelot looked up from the Bible he was reading by candlelight, serious expression made more severe by the shadows and dancing streaks of yellow.
"How was your visit with the Hot Prince?" asked Morgan.
"You could have told me my son was lodged here," Lancelot said.
Morgan's expression was also distorted by candlelight, but she might have been tired or amused, or irritated, or resigned. She said, "I could tell you plenty."