Percival's Angel (12 page)

“I thought you knew.”
Why wouldn't you know?

“I don't know all the things you know.” Percival sighs, and sleeps.

No. You don't. If I held the Bird of Knowledge in my hands, you would hold one tail feather in yours.

Percival! What would you ever do without me?

***

I sit by his feet on the pallet, listening to the night. Owls hoot, patrolling the garden outside. Rats scurry, tiny nails clicking on wood or stone floors. Men snore down below in the hall. Gahart snores next door like thunder. Up on the roof, men walk and talk in low voices. Sentries. If you live in a visible, unmovable place like a hall, you have to guard it from enemies all night, every night.

About to blow out the lamp, curl down by Percival and draw my cloak over me, I pause.

Another night sound.

I've heard it before, other nights.

A creak; the
whsssh!
of a gown. Footsteps so soft, I'll bet the owl sailing past the arrow-slit windows doesn't hear them.

Little Ranna walks at night.

I call her “little” for her little, squashed soul. I see more of that than of her blooming body. She is taller than me, maybe older. And if you like curling, sunny hair (like Percival's!) and blue eyes, she is goddamn good-looking. But her aura is the width of a silk ribbon, all green and orange, and all twined around her pelvis. She hasn't a thought behind those blue eyes, or a Human Heart in her breast. It hasn't grown yet. Maybe, it never will. I am beginning to suspect that not all Humans grow Hearts.

Other nights she has passed our door and gone on, softer than a mouse. I've been asleep before she ever returned.

But this night she stops outside our door.

And suddenly I know what she does at night.

That pelvic ribbon of aura should have told me that. I'm ashamed to be surprised.

And I know what's happened here. Little Ranna watched Percival break that dolt's jaw tonight, just as I did. (But from where? She must have a secret window into the hall. She's never seen in the hall with the men.)

And she thought the same thing I did. Except, because of my quest, I can't do it. And Percival's not ready for it, anyhow.

Little Ranna has no quest. And of course, she does not know that Percival is made of ice. No one would guess that.

In a flash I'm at the door. As it glides very carefully open, I'm in the doorway.

So is Ranna.

Each of us gives a little mousy jump at sight of the other. Ranna expected an empty doorway. I expected Ranna in her white, linen sleeping gown.

Robed in red-embroidered blue, fair hair curling over and down her shoulders, Ranna reminds me of a Human-story fairy. A wonderful scent of rose and lavender floats around her. Maybe this vision could even break Percival's ice!

“Lil!” She whispers.

I raise my hands to finger-talk. Then I remember, for all her beauty, poor Ranna is but Human. Doesn't understand finger-talk.

I whisper, “Outside.”

With no demur at all, she turns and leads me into the dark passage. By the stair she draws back an ancient tapestry, so worn it has no color even by daylight, and reveals her secret window onto the hall below. A great wind of snores and body heat rises through the window, and utter darkness. Not even my Fey eyes can see down there now.

I wonder how Ranna, with only Human eyes, can wander here without a candle. She must know every half step of this hall by heart.

Beside the window, a second stairway leads away down. Ranna reaches back and takes my hand to guide me down through blackness.

Stair by stair she leads me carefully, not guessing that the very brightness of her unbound hair lights my way.

She does not notice the ghost that hovers before her, sinking stair by stair as she descends. I've seen this ghost before, always near Ranna—a young woman gowned like a servant. Her pale braid swings hip-length. She holds out strong-muscled arms as if to catch Ranna, should she stumble on the stair. At the bottom, she disappears.

Ranna pushes open a little, low door seemingly made for Fey. She crawls out through it. I follow, crouching. Here is the walled kitchen garden within the courtyard, spiderwebbed in silver dew. A low half-moon shines.

Ranna draws me into bushes against the wall. We kneel down. The guards on the roof won't see us here, even if they glance down. Ranna does everything easily, in a practiced way, as though many times before. With the same practiced ease she draws off her blue red-embroidered gown, I suppose to save it from the dewy grass. Rose-lavender scent bursts around her like dandelion seed. Bare-naked, moon-white, slender, she turns to me. And opens her arms.

Ranna thinks I am a boy.

Whisper. “Gods! You're quick, Ranna!”

“Why not?”

“You do this every night?”

Shrug. “Only thing that's fun in life, you know?”

“I suppose weaving and spinning…”

Ranna spits, like her father, to the side. “I live for this. Worth the danger.”

“Danger?” My ears perk up.

“Well, you know. If my father found out…”

“He doesn't know?”
How can he not?

“God's balls, Lil!
Of course
he doesn't know! Why, if he knew…”

“What would he do?” This looks to be the most interesting night of our whole quest so far!

I repeat. “What would he do?”

Goddess! Poor little Ranna weeps. Tears flood her moonlit eyes and spill down her white-rose cheeks.

“Why under sky? What's it to him?”

“Lil, you're as strange as your master!”

Master? Oh. Percival.
“Yes, well, we're foreigners here. Where we come from things are different.”

“Where's that? Where is anything different?” I sense desperation in the question. Ranna wipes her eyes dry with leaves off our bush.

“We come from a forest far from here.” Percival has already let that much out to Gahart. “Look, we haven't much time. Tell me why your father would care that you—”

“Why, how could he bear the insult!”

“Insult?”

“Or the loss! I would be no good to him!”

No good to him.

All at once, a mystery solves itself for me.

I see that Humans are all good for something to each other. Master and servant, husband and wife, peasants and lord, are all useful, each to each, one way or another. Their use binds them together. And this binding/bonding is their Survival Trick. Such bumbling, helpless creatures could no more survive alone than bees or ants could. Like this, each one learns a trick or two—how to fight, or how to spin, or how to grow peas—and they exchange their gifts and skills, and so they live.

Of what use to each other are father and daughter?

“What good are you?”

Ranna opens her mouth wide, baring little, shell-like teeth. She throws back her hand and gasps in a huge breath, and I know she means to laugh.

I leap and clap both hands over her mouth. The sound that escapes, a rat might make. No sentry will look down the wall for that noise.

Laughing, Ranna falls backward under the bushes. I crawl on top of her, holding the sound down. Here, I learn something I never knew before, that laughter can catch you like sickness. Before Ranna sobers I am half-laughing, myself.

We lie still entwined, like lovers. I whisper, “But surely, Ranna, the men must talk among themselves about…”

“Wouldn't dare! Never dare! They'd be hanged…used for arrow practice…fed to the hounds.”

Holy blessed Gods!
A good thing I warned Percival to stay clear of this girl! I noticed the men did, so it seemed the wise course to follow. But I never guessed the matter was so serious!

“Will this happen to me if…”

“Be assured! But Lil, I thought you knew that. I would not have led you here…”

Goddamn! Seems a high price for a bit of fun! But…But…if it's such a secret…
“What will you do if the Goddess blesses you, Ranna?”

“What?”

“How will you explain a newborn babe to your father?”

“Oh. No. Nurse is a midwife.” Whatever that is. “And a witch.”

Truly?
I have seen no sign of that in the sleepy old woman's aura.

“She knows how to get rid of it. We did that once already.”

What?
“You did what?”

“Got rid of it. The babe. No one guessed anything.”

I stare into Ranna's soft, wet eyes. I untangle and withdraw from her, put wet grassy earth between us. “You destroyed the Goddess's gift?” Which might have grown into a perfect child with no fingernail missing? And maybe as lovely as Ranna herself!

But then look again, with Human eyes. This child would have been no good at all to Ranna. I'm learning to think Human!
Oh, how wise I feel!

“I got rid of it. Lil, stop talking! Or are you too scared now?”

Ranna reaches for me.

I scoot farther back away.

Ranna smiles wide-mouthed. “I know! It's your first time, isn't it! You don't know—”

“Ranna—”

“I'll show you how, Lil.” Lovely white arms open wide. “I'll show you so you'll never forget! Or be satisfied with anyone else!”

“Ranna, I only came to tell you something.”
And thank all Gods, you told me something!

“What? You came here to
talk?
”

“Aye. To tell you about my…my master. Percival.”

Her eyes light up like the moon.

“He's no good, Ranna. He's made of ice.”

“Not that man!”

“Ah, yes. That man. He thinks of nothing but Knighthood. Chivalry.”

Ranna shudders. “Uuuugh. Then he…he might tell my father!”

A good thought!
“Indeed, he might! Think well on that, Ranna.”

I roll away out of the thicket. I find my feet and vanish into the little Fey doorway before Ranna can blink, before a sentinel looking down from the roof can know what he saw, or if he saw anything.

Let little Ranna wonder too!

Whisking up the black-dark stairs I wonder—
why did I warn Ranna off Percival?

I'm glad I did. I've learned more tonight than on our whole quest so far.

***

White under first snow, meadows stretched to low, encircling hills. Surprised by snow, migrating ducks talked and dabbled in a narrow streambed hidden among reeds.

A hunting harrier dropped out of sunny air to skim above the reeds.

Percival paced his red charger along the reeds.

The red was sleek, now, well fed and furnished. Lili had learned well the care of him from Lord Gahart's stable men. And Gahart had taught Percival to handle him.

This Percival was new, armed in helmet and cuirass, lance at hand, unblazoned shield hooked to his saddle. Lord Gahart had armed and sent him forth to search for King Arthur, who was rumored to be traveling this way. For the new, proud, prepared Percival was still unknighted.

He noticed the harrier swoop on wide-stretched wings over the reeds.
Goddamn! Might maybe pick up a bite here!

Back behind the western hill, Lili tended their campfire. She might have found them something to cook, by now; or she might not. Percival's stomach shrank and complained beneath its armor. At this hungry moment more scavenging Fey than proud Knight, Percival turned the red after the harrier.

Which dropped into reeds.

Ducks squawked, screamed, and flapped up in thunderous flocks.

The harrier rose slowly, clutching a heavy brown teal in its talons.

Percival slapped gloved hand to where Bee Sting should lie against his hip.
Holy Hubert, I forgot! Knights don't carry Bee Stings!

But all the same, the teal dropped in his path. The harrier dived right after it into the snow, grabbed it in a firmer grip, and flapped away, showering snow.

Hungry Percival was left with a snow hole framed in teal feathers.

He reined in and looked down into the hole.

Pure, new snow formed a perfect grail; like the empty, golden one he had handed to the Queen in Arthur's Dun. But this grail brimmed with blood.

Percival dismounted. He stood looking into the snow grail. Vaguely he knew that the ducks had settled back into the reeds, that the sun had gone behind a cloud and then returned. He saw these things from the corner of his mental eye, while his true vision concentrated itself in the bloody snow grail at his feet.

Percival was little Percy, back in the Fey forest.

He stood with smaller Lili before the statue of Mary. Snow fell upon them, and through Mary's lattice roof, and upon Mary. Mary and Christ were mantled in snow, softer than ermine fur.

Alanna had given Percy a reed brush and sent him to clean off the statue.

As he raised the brush, Lili vanished from beside him. Ever, she was fearful of Mary…

The red charger nickered at Percival's shoulder.

Vaguely, he heard sounds of a horse approaching, the
clink!
of metal and
creak!
of harness. He gathered his wits and looked up.

There came a heavyset Knight toward him on a gray charger, armed as he was, lance at rest. Twenty feet away he stopped the gray and lifted his shield to show its identifying device—a red griffin couchant on a blue field. Loudly, formally, he said, “Sir Knight! Know you that King Arthur camps over yonder hill?” And pointed north.

Equally formal, Percival said, “Truly, Sir, I knew that not. As for me, I am camped over yonder hill.” And he pointed west. With difficulty he held his attention on this, his first knightly encounter with an armed stranger. His mind yearned back to the snow grail.

The stranger said, “The King commands your presence at his hunting camp. He has sent me, Sir Cai, his foster brother, to escort you there. You have heard of me.”

Sir Cai. Yes, Percival had heard of him. Now he looked him up and down.
Big. Mostly fat. Stern. But lazy. Look at those brown cow's eyes! This is not the man who can take me from my meditation.