Percival's Angel (17 page)

“
What?
” Astonishment froze Percival, eager arms thrown out, at half jump. “What?”

“You think I'll help you find the grail so you can wed Lord Gahart's daughter.”

“Aye! And inherit his lands!”

“Nothing in that for me.”

“Ah? Oh! Aha! Lili, you are Fey! This wedding game is not for you!”

“No, it's not for me. And neither are you, Sir Percival. From now on.”

Lili rolled off the bed entirely, pulled off the top coverlet and spread it on the floor.

Women! A good thing we men don't have to understand them.

But this was certainly disappointing. Now that at last his body had learned ecstasy!

Lili blew out the feeble lamp. He heard nothing more but her sigh of happy contentment as she lay down on the floor.

He relaxed against the pillows. But his eyes would not shut. The darkness showed him sunny-bright pictures of himself grooming the red charger, trapping and dressing hares, starting fires with flint and tinder. Doing all the boring, dull tasks that Lili did.

After a while he asked into darkness, “Where will you go, yourself? Now, in dead winter?”

“Me, I'm going home.”

“Home?”

“To the forest. Where else? I'm dead tired of traipsing about this Kingdom as your servant boy. This life is too rough for me. I'm going home.”

“But…It's too far, Lili.”
Especially in winter.

“A four-day ride, if you know the way.”

“You don't know the way. And you can't travel alone! Even with all your talents—”

“I'll go with the mages. In a few days.”

“The mages…Niviene and Merlin? Ah. Well.”
Not much danger there. Those two can freeze bandits or Saxons in their tracks, turn aside snowstorms, call hares to their cookfire.

Still. Funny, cold feeling in the stomach.
“Goddamn! I don't like this, Lili.”

Down on the floor, Lili chuckled. “Will you miss me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will your heart hurt for me?”

“No!”
Fool talk!

Slyly. “But you will miss my talents, Percival.”

To be honest
…“Maybe.”

“You'll miss my hunting, cooking, spying. Who will keep the women off you now?”

“Women?”

“You know not how I have served you! They'll eat you up.”

Is this a frightening thought? Or is it cheering?

“And my spells. Gods, how you'll miss my spells!”

“Spells?”
What does the girl mean now?

“Surely you don't think you won all those fights by yourself?”

“
What?
”

Percival leaped bolt upright.

“Think, Percy! How could you, a fool beggar straight out of a Fey Forest, kill the Red Knight?”

“You saw how! With my Bee Sting—”

“Which I prepared for you. And worked a spell on the spot.”

“That may be. But I myself—”

“How could you, who never held a cudgel, beat Lord Gahart's best cudgel man?”

“Why—”

“You who had barely learned to handle a lance, how could you unhorse Sir Cai all by yourself? And I mention not Sir Lancelot, Arthur's Best Knight?”

Percival ground his teeth. The cold hollow that had opened in his stomach was swallowed up in hot rage. “Don't you try to steal my glory, girl! You, who were not even there! You were cooking, back in camp—”

“So you thought. In truth, I was out hunting what to cook. I saw those Knights approach; and I sent you all the strength in the Lady's Victory ring.”

“Ring? Victory ring? You mean, this ring? I work no magic! I win by main strength and spirit! I'll have your ring off!”—

Tear it off. Twist it, rub it, rip it off.

“Better hold on to that ring, Sir Percival. This morning she defeated Sir Agrain.”

“Goddamn! Saint George! I myself, me, Sir Percival, I defeated Sir Agrain!”

“With Victory on your finger. Remember?”

Off with the damned thing!
“Take back your damned ring!”

“Percival, I gave you that ring in friendship. Would you throw away my friendship?”

There, it's off.
“Fey Witch! Succubus! Here's your ring back, and your evil friendship!” And Percival hurled Victory out into the dark.

***

I've been here before.

This mist I've seen before, rolling around even the nearest trees.

This lumpy, rough ground…I've swung over it before. I've felt Bee Sting thump thigh; I've felt the jar in knees and ankles as I stride forward…always forward…in haste to go there…

I know what comes next.

Aye. There it shows. Dark on the ground.

As before, the stretcher laid before him breaks Percival's stride.

On the stretcher lies a big blond man, naked within his fishing-net wraps. Perfectly still he lies on his back, gripping a fishing spear in helpless hands. He looks up at Percival calmly, though anguish darkens his gaze.

Between his thighs he bears a grievous, bloody wound.

The Fisher King. Won't look!

But Percival has to look at the dreadful wound. He shudders through his whole body. And looks away.

Good for me, it's not my hurt!

But when it is…if ever…I'll bear it as he does.

Now, I'm going. There. With all good speed.

Percival moves to step over the impassive Fisher King.

Nay. This way.

He steps around the head of the stretcher.

And strides on through mist, over rough ground.

***

Niviene says, “Lili can start the fire.”

Merlin shrugs. “Lili needs not prove herself to me.”

But Niviene sits back on her heels by the little tent of sticks we have circled with stones and glints up at me. “Fire-starting was one of the first magics I learned. Let me see you do it.”

Despite many tries, I have never yet made fire.

Niviene will not be denied. I kneel down by the sticks and rub my hands smartly, palm to palm.

We will rest in this cold thicket overnight. Gods be thanked there is no snow. Earth sleeps bare, brown and hard. Night comes on.

A few paces away, across a patch of bracken, a small camp spreads along a river ford. Makeshift cabins and tents house the raggedest, saddest Humans I have yet seen. Everyone lurching among the tents limps, or taps his way with a long cane, or bends double as though loaded like a donkey.

I did not want to stop near these folk; their diseases, vermin, and griefs may catch us here.

“They are but beggars,” Merlin told me, firmly unloading our hobbled ponies, “And some sick. This place is called Swineford, where swine are driven through the ford to market. These folk beg from the drivers, or rob them.”

Niviene said, “We've camped here before. The bracken hides us. The beggars don't bother us, for we have nothing.”

I nodded toward the ponies.

“Those harnesses bear the King's stamp. They don't touch those ponies.”

“But their illnesses may come and catch us.”

“Not through the Power Circle I have laid down,” Merlin assured me.

Very well. I trust Merlin.

Now let me try this difficult art once more.

I lay my warmed-up hands to the tinder under the sticks and murmur the fire spell.

My hands feel hot. I've never come this far before.

Heat hurts my hands. This time, could I succeed?

Fervently, I repeat and repeat the spell.

Smoke puffs between my fingers! I lift my hands, and sparks fly up. Sparks. Fly. Up!

A brisk wind blowing to us from the camp carries away my sparks.

Merlin, standing over Niviene and me, spreads his cloak between wind and tinder.

Niviene remarks, “It needs more Power, Lili. More Power.” I glance across at her. Through deep dusk, my Fey eyes catch hers twinkling.

Over at the camp, someone shrieks.

“There,” says Niviene, “it's caught.” Our little fire licks up like a new-hatched serpent standing on his tail. “Oh you of little faith! You didn't even believe you could do it.”

I? I did this?

Unbelieving, I stare down at my little, rising flame.

From the dark, a pony shrills.

Over at the camp, a great voice booms.

Humans cry, scream, and babble.

Merlin turns around to look. “Fire,” he says, simply.

Niviene and I stand up and look out over the brown bracken.

The tumbledown cabin nearest us has burst into flame.

This fire must have started by magic. In one moment it has engulfed the whole tiny cabin. Already, streams of fire lick along the wind toward our bracken.

Over the fire-roar and the Human cries, we hear soul-shrinking screams from inside the burning cabin.

I look to Niviene. “Stop the fire!”

“Too strong for me.”

“But it's coming right for us! Stop it coming!”

“Oh, aye,” Merlin assures me. “We can turn those little flames.”

He and Niviene raise their arms to the dark sky and chant spells. I know those spells. But my arms refuse to rise, my throat constricts. Something pounds in my chest as our three panicked ponies hobble away, neighing.

The wind, which blew fire toward us, shifts away northward.

Holy Goddess! What are those beggar folk doing?

Fast as they can, hobbling like our ponies, they run toward the burning cabin. Toward it. Not away.

Women beat at creeping flames with brooms. Men rush to the ford with pails. A line forms, handing full pails of water toward the fire. Too small. And much too late.

I ask the mages, “What are they doing?” But they only chant louder, waving magic gestures at the sky.

By all Gods!
A man, surprisingly big and strong, charges into the fire.

“Lady Goddess, he's crazed!”

A small, crippled man follows him into the fire.

Is that what a Human Heart will do?

I snatch Victory up out of my tunic on her thong, and point her toward the fire. My stopped throat croaks out fire-dousing spells.

The big man staggers out of the fire. A small child lies over his shoulders, lamb snatched from wolf. He dumps the child and rushes back into the fire.

I see only fire, hear only fire-roar. Victory points, trembling in my hands. Voice chants. The fire seems…the fire seems to stand still.

Out reels the strong man again. With one hand he hauls a woman, hair, and tunic on fire. With the other hand he drags the lame man, who drags another child.

I wave. I chant.

The first pail of water arrives up the line, hand to hand, and is hurled over the burning woman.

The fire shrinks. Lowers its voice. But riverlets of fire still burn toward other cabins and tents.

More pails arrive.

With a stupendous crash the hut falls in like a tent of sticks.

(At the same moment, the little tent of tinder at our feet falls in.)

The fire rears up once more, then dies away down. Its roar sinks to rumble and crackle.

The crowd murmurs.

“Hush,” says Merlin to me. “Shut it up! You've done it.” I didn't know I was still chanting spells.

He grabs me around the waist and drags me backward into dark woods.

I'm on the ground. Merlin kneels beside me, holds me in his arms.

Niviene comes to us silent, with no rustle or footfall. She kneels with us. “No one noticed,” she murmurs. “They were all looking the other way.”

“Good,” Merlin says shortly.

I'm looking up through darkness into their two, solemn faces. I sense other faces behind theirs, up there in the cold dark. I seem to drift, invisible, among these other invisible faces, looking down on us three.

Niviene says, “You doused our little fire too, Lili. We'll leave it dark. No need to attract attention.”

Merlin chuckles. “Did those folk out there know what you'd done, they might rebuild the fire and throw you in!”

Gods.
“Why?”

“They fear magic.”

“Even good magic…”

Slowly, I sink back down into the exhausted body in Merlin's arms.

Niviene leans close. “Lili, how did you douse that fire?”

“Don't know.”

“Why did you douse that fire? It no longer threatened us. Merlin and I had turned it away.”

“Don't know.”

I strain to sit up. Merlin lifts me, cushions my head on his sharp old shoulder. Back hurts. Head hurts. Arms hang down all helpless. An awful thirst grips my throat.

Merlin says, “I suspect you started both fires, Lili.”

“But I never…never before…”

“Your power has gone beyond you. Out of control.”

One thing I know. “Don't want more Power. No more Power! Don't want Human Heart.” That wild, crazifying thing sent men charging into fire!

Niviene laughs softly. “Too late, Lili. Your Human Heart has caught you. Like plague.”

***

The small hoofprints I have followed hungrily through new snow, under evergreens, across clearings, glow fresh in late light.

I pause in my tracks, fingers on Bee Sting. My prey must be very close.

To my right, West River gurgles around ice.

Slowly, step by step, I followed the glowing tracks into a trodden snow trail, and up away from the river. Ahead, I smell panting heat!

Up a steep trodden track I scramble, almost too fast, almost too eager.

Near the top I lie down and inch my eyes up over the rim.

And look straight into golden eyes.

Breath puffs between us.

At first I see only eyes. Then the prey moves, twitches an ear, turns her smooth head, and I see her plain—a small, white fallow doe, invisible in white snow. She stands in the track, head high, looking back at me. She flicks her tail and takes a step away.