Percival's Angel (20 page)

“Father, what makes the spring on Holy Isle holy?”

Lili would say it was holy because it comes out of Mother Earth, Father Fisher will say something else entirely.

The father rowed slowly. “A druid told me the spring is the Goddess's footprint.”

“What do you say, Father?”

“When my ancestor, blessed Joseph of Arimathea came here, he drove his staff into the earth at that spot. Maybe the spring rose up then. Maybe the spring was already here. But his staff sanctified it. My ancestor Joseph sanctified this place.”

“He built your hall on the shore?”

“Nay. The hall is no more than a hundred years old. But Joseph's blood has lived here since the time of Our Lord.”

“How has your family shrunk so small, Father?”

Sigh. “Daughters wed far away. Sons killed in battle. Children dead. Diseases, mischance. Blessed Joseph has sons enough, but in far places.”

“Now at this lake you have Good Folk, instead of relations.”

Percival meant this remark to encourage and cheer; but Father Fisher paled, and dropped an oar
splash!
into the lake.

Percival reached after it. Instant pain brought him up short. The hermit fished it back with the other oar. He shipped both oars in the boat, crossed himself broadly and rested. Holy Island swam slowly away behind them.

“Have no fear, son. This place is far too holy for…those you mentioned.”

“This morning before Mass I stepped outside. A small, dark girl was bathing downshore. She vanished clean away while I blinked.” (Percival had signed to her, as Lili had taught him. Yet she chose to vanish.)

The Father wiped sweat from his brow with the hem of his robe. “Your young strength returns, with all its wants. These wants appear to you as a bathing girl.”

“I have few such wants, Father.”

“Is that so?”

“They say I am made of ice. But you know, the Good Folk are much cleaner than us Humans. They do love to bathe. And I did see her!”

The Father gurgled politely—not disagreeing, not yielding.

“That is not all. The other day I spied a small brown face under a small brown cap. It watched from under a willow branch as we rowed past. Then it vanished. Now why would I daydream such as that?”

“Believe me, son; we have no such folk here.”

“You might be wise to leave bread and milk for them on the doorstone. Or they may rob you.”

Father Fisher ground his teeth. “Such would never dare come so near my altar, and that which sanctifies it!”

Calm him! Be ashamed that you have disturbed him!
“You must be right about that, Father. For they have not robbed you.”

“Why are you so interested in…them?”

Percival hesitated.
Never have I told this to any, even to my friends.

But I can trust the father. If not, where in the world can I trust?

“I grew up in a Fey forest, among them. They should have been my folk. But they rejected me.”

The hermit crossed himself. He leaned forward. Slowly, he drew the whole story from Percival while they drifted, their nets dragging heavy behind the boat.

At last the father decided, “You need spiritual counsel more than healing! That must be why God brought you here to me.”

Percival heaved a sigh like a sob.

“Son.” The hermit laid a hand on Percival's knee. “What ails you?”

“Nothing ails me now, Father. Thanks to you.”

“I speak not of your wound, which I know. I speak of your sorrow. A steady, lasting sorrow, too much for so young a man.”

I have told him so much already!

Percival looked at evening light fading from the lake; at a new moon poised over the hall, where Cedric had just lit a small fire to guide them in.
I love this place.

I love this man.

He took a deep breath and confessed. “Father, all my life I have looked at the sky. But never once has the sky looked back at me.”

With all his age and wisdom, can he understand that?

Father Fisher's troubled face cleared. He leaned back away, took up his oars, and bent to row.

“For that, I have a cure.”

I knew he would!

“What cure, Father?”

“Midnight tonight. New moon. Pentecost season. We'll do it.”

“Do what?”

“The holiest, most sacred healing. The highest act possible to Humankind. Pull the nets closed, Percival. Not even trying, we've caught enough.”

***

Midnight.

Sleepy Cedric and eager Percival waited at the table. Father Fisher brought a white cloth from a chest and spread it on the table. On this he placed a small stoppered bottle and the covered dish from the altar. He left the cover aside, revealing sacred, consecrated bread crumbs within.

What is this, a Midnight Mass?

Back at the altar, Father Fisher hesitated. He bowed deeply, then stretched a hand toward the horn-cup grail.

We've never used that at Mass.

Father Fisher drew back his hand. He stood contemplating the horn grail. He bowed to it again, and took it up, two-handed.

Cedric yawned aloud and shrugged at his iron collar. Almost, he stretched; but a sharp poke from Percival startled him back awake.

The hermit sat down with them and set the grail in their midst. Raising prayerful hands and eyes he intoned, “Brethren, behold the grail of Christ's Last Supper.”

The grail of Christ's Last Supper…What did Gawain say?

Shiver.

“This grail stood at Our Lord's right hand when He said, ‘This is my blood—'”

Trembling, Percival gulped lumpy spit.

“…This grail carried the wine that first became His blood—”

Percival could no longer silence himself. “You say this is the Holy Grail itself?”

Pausing in his recital, Father Fisher turned an annoyed face toward Percival. “No, I did not. I said, ‘Brethren, behold the grail—'”

“Of the Last Supper! This is the grail for which the Round Table quests! The grail for which
I
quest!”

Father Fisher lowered his hands. They nested protectively around the grail. “Listen, son. My ancestor, blessed Joseph of Arimathea, brought this grail here and handed it down, a sacred trust, to his descendants in this place—of whom I am the last. For I have no son, and Joseph's children are scattered.”

“Father!” Percival stammered, “Give this Holy Grail to me for King Arthur, the greatest king in the world! In his hands it will be safe and venerated.”

The hermit sighed. Slowly, loudly, he insisted, “This is not the Holy Grail for which you quest.”

“You said, the Last Supper—”

“Holy as it is, this is yet a material, earthly grail, made of humble horn.”

“As to that, Arthur will not mind that it is not gold! How could it be gold, if Christ Himself—” Percival had wondered that, before. Certainly, this ancient horn vessel, nearly transparent from wear, totally unadorned, looked nothing like the Holy Grail he had expected.

But then, what did? As Lili had pointed out, a “grail” could be a cup, or a dish, or a platter, or a wide bowl. And if Christ had used it on His penniless wanderings, it could hardly be crusted with jewels. Come to think, it would much more likely look—

Firmly, Father Fisher shook his head. His fingers tightened defensively on the base of the grail. “The Holy Grail for which Knights quest will never be found.”

“Goddamn! It sits right here on this table—”

“Sir Percival!”

The mild hermit's voice flashed a steel edge. Percival drew back, marveling at himself. Even Cedric jerked awake from his doze and sat up almost straight under his collar.

“We three are gathered here to perform the highest healing service under Heaven, purely for the good of your immortal soul.”

Abashed, Percival bowed his head.

More gently, “This grail of the Last Supper is a holy, sacred healing tool, the most powerful in the world. It belongs to Joseph's kin. Sir Percival, look you not upon it with greed, avarice, or ambition!”

Percival's trembling hands still twitched uncontrollably toward the grail. He clasped them hard under the table.

“Now. Where was I? I must begin again. Interrupt me not again.”

Percival nodded acquiescence.

“And you, Cedric, stay awake. We need your prayers, the prayers of a child. ‘Suffer the little children…'”

Cedric bobbed on his bench to stay awake.

Father Fisher drew the grail closer to himself, away from Percival. Again he raised prayerful hands and eyes to Heaven. “Brethren, behold the grail of Christ's Last Supper…”

Recitation finished, the Pater Noster said, a long poem intoned in Latin (which Percival was beginning to understand), the hermit poured ale from the stoppered bottle into the grail.

Cedric made a face, then clapped his hands over his mouth.

Well. This is the first ale I've seen here. Cedric isn't used to it…

The father took a pinch of consecrated bread crumbs from the dish, then passed it to Cedric. Cedric took his pinch, and passed the holy vessel to Percival. Reverently, he consumed the last crumbs and replaced the dish in the center.

The father picked up the grail in both hands and drank. He wiped a slightly soured expression from his mouth with his sleeve, and leaned to present the grail to Cedric's lips…and then across to Percival. Firmly held by the hermit's two hands, the Holy Grail approached Percival's lips.
Aaaagfh!
The worst ale Percival had ever smelled or tasted slid down his throat. He nearly made a Cedric-face, himself.

The Holy Grail returned to the table, closer than before to the father's elbow. Father Fisher bowed his head, finished a silent prayer, and smiled around the table. “There.”

“Are we done, Father?”

“For now.”

“But…we do this every morning!”

“Now, my son, it is your turn to work holy magic.”

Magic?

“It is for you now to sleep, here at this table.”

Sleep?

“You will find it easy. The ale was not consecrated; I added an herb to it.”

Aaaah. That explains
…Percival laid arms on table, heavy head on arms. He blinked, and noticed Cedric head to head with him, already asleep.

“Right,” said Father Fisher, softly. “Just so. Sleep now. And dream.”

Wine-sweet, God's own blood filled

A golden grail.

Passed hand to hand, no blood-drop spilled

From that gold grail.

Passed age to age, this mystic wine

Within the grail

Turns each of us a holier shrine

Than golden grail.

Then let us each drink God's own blood

From God's own grail

Though never find, by land nor flood,

The Holy Grail.

Knight of the Grail

Mist hung heavy over Holy Isle. Percival and Cedric sat side by side on the sandy beach of Holy Isle, where never had they set foot before. No footprints led to them through sand. Some huge eagle might have dropped them here, out of the mist. Mist-hid lake waves lapped slowly on nearby shingle.

In a deep voice not his own (which might be his own in a few years), young Cedric commanded, “Behold.”

Golden light flickered and flared through mist. It wobbled, swayed, advanced. Percival made out a tall, burning candle in a tall, golden candlestick. A tall, gold-haired maiden upheld the candlestick. She came close up and stood, gazing down at Percival.

After her a dark-haired maiden bore a lance, heavy on her slender shoulder. Thick red blood dripped from its point. Standing by the candle-bearer, she gazed down at Percival.

Out of the mist, then, stepped the third maiden, whose long hair hung red as flame. She bore a great golden grail that caught the lance-dripped blood. Three abreast, lovely as good fairies, rich-robed as queens, they looked down at Percival; and he noted with some surprise that their three calm faces were the same.

Again, young Cedric's adult voice commanded, “Behold.”

At the maidens' feet a stretcher appeared on the sand; and on the stretcher a naked man wrapped in fish nets, and wounded between the thighs. Wound and mouth gaped sadly.

I have seen this before. This is the Fisher King. And lo, I am dreaming.

Percival leaned down to the stretcher. He asked the King, “Sir, what ails you?”

Lost in pain, the King could not answer.

An embroidered hem swept forward. Percival looked up. The flame-haired maiden leaned to him, across the Fisher King. She stretched out both delicate hands, bearing the great golden grail between them. Her silent lips formed the word,
Drink!

Percival took the grail from her.
Heavy!
And looked within.

Blood. The great, golden grail brimmed with lance-dripped blood.

The silent word,
Drink!
echoed in his misty head.

Drink blood?

Revulsed, he held the grail away.
Goddamn! I am no wild beast Fey or Saxon, to drink blood! No Knight of the Round Table drinks blood!

Below the extended grail the Fisher King clasped prayerful hands. Above the grail, the flame-haired maiden formed again the silent word,
Drink!
And she pointed down at the Fisher King.

So. This is how to help the King? Drink blood?

Upon your way you hear a cry?

Answer it! Help, save, or die!

If I can drink milk, I can drink blood. God's eyes! They could ask more than that! They could ask me to kill a dragon to save him, and I would do it.

Percival clenched and ground his teeth. Roused courage to kill a dragon. And sipped blood.

Heady sweetness rolled on his tongue.
Grace of God! Blood? This is finer ale than Lord Gahart's! Better than what Mage Niviene serves at King's Hall!

Percival closed happy eyes and drained the Grail.

The heart in his breast opened like a flower. Like a huge red, pulsing flower it burst through bones, flesh, and skin. It contained beach and Holy Isle, lake and sky. On his closed eyelids Percival felt hot sunlight.
What happened to the mist?

Intensely happy, Percival sucked up the last drops of blood and opened his eyes.

Sunshine flooded the beach. Light winked on water, and through the three fast-fading maidens.

The Fisher King smiled up at Percival. His ghastly wound had closed, healed, gone.

Percival looked out at the lake.
I am the lake.

Looked into the sky.
I am the sky.

The sky looked back at him.

Calm and grave, the disappearing, flame-haired maiden reached and took back the great golden grail. Maidens and grail vanished like wisps of mist. The Fisher King sat up on his stretcher.

But once again young Cedric commanded, “Behold.”

On the lake edge a dark cloud formed and rose high.

Quickly it took on near-solid form. Huge, bare feet rooted in the shallows. Darkly ragged, tall as ancient oak, a stern, heroic giantess looked grimly down upon Percival. In one rough, great hand she held a Bee Sting, still his favorite weapon. It held poisoned darts as long as jousting lances.

Breathless Percival heard his heart beat louder than Flowering Moon drum. Every hair on head and body stood rigid.

After all you've come through, don't be killed sitting down!

Percival scrambled up and faced the giantess. Wildly his hands sought for weapons in his clothes—Bee Sting, sword, dagger, knife—and found none.

His tongue swelled down into his throat.

Goddamn! God's teeth! This is fear.

I never felt it before.

***

“The Fisher King was yourself.”

“Nay, Father, he was yourself!”

“He took my face. Maybe to lead you to me. But his wound was your own.”

“Father, I have suffered no wound in my life but what Lord Gahart gave me. And I naked!” (Percival could not put that astonishment behind him.)

“You told me once you were made of ice. You are no longer ice. You have drunk Christ-blood.”

“The sky looked back at me…”

“So long as the sky sees its own reflection, it will look back at you.”

“Father! How shall I hold that reflection?”

“The dark giantess…you must deal with her. You know her, what or who she is?”

Shudder.

“You know her face.”

Gently, teeth chatter.

“There lies your final quest. To be free you must find and confront her.”

Deep sigh.

“What ails you now?”

“Father, I have sinned!”

“Before you go, I will hear your full confession.”

“But I had no choice. It was sin or die.”

“Before you go. Which may be soon. Your wound looks much better than yesterday.”

“But how shall I go, Father? I have nothing in the world, save Rudy.”
Not even a Bee Sting.

“Hah! You will wear my layman's clothes from long ago, and carry my sword and shield.”

“Father! You have such?”

“I was not always a hermit. When you have confronted the giantess, come back home.”

“Home!”

“I have found a son.”

“And I a father! But before I go from here I will file off Cedric's iron collar, no matter what time it takes.”

“Amen!”

***

Three of us spin and card in Lady Villa's sunny courtyard.

Around Lady Villa the apple trees of Avalon hang low, bowed beneath harvests of small, wizened apples. This moment, I would love to walk beneath their branches! Pick one apple here, one there. Eat one, toss one!

Around Apple Island the Fey lake ripples away to far, forested shores. I could wade in and watch the traveling ducks thunder past. Maybe draw one to me with a spell.

Fishing coracles drift well out, beyond the reach of island magic, or so the fishers hope!

I sense that one of these is just setting out from the western shore, poling vigorously toward us. I could wander out there and look…

But nay. This scratchy wool must be carded, now.

All three of us have changed. Small and slender as ever, perched gracefully on the fountain rim, Lady Nimway has taken on a wealth of wrinkles; and her newly knobbly fingers strain at the spindle. But Victory glints in the sun, swung against her green gown; and I feel her aura (invisible in strong light), wider than the villa.

Alanna has gained weight and calm. Marriage and acceptance of loss have restored the dignity she must have owned in the Human world. (Wandering out there, I saw Alanna-like ladies. Now I know what she must have been, long before Percival was ever born.) Now, like a serene Goddess she balances beside Nimway, spinning with Human ease.

Heavily pregnant, I sit on the ground a little away, pretending to card wool. Bits of wool fly into eyes and nose, and dust my tunic. After this, I will swim!

The Lady asks me again, “Lili? You are sure my son Lugh gave you no sign? No message to bring back to me?”

Inwardly, I sigh. I have told the Lady, and I have told her…On this subject she is as blind, deaf, and wishful as any foolish Human!

“Lady, I thought Lancelot's squire Mell was your son Lugh.”

Sniff!

“I never looked at Sir Lancelot! If he gave a sign, I did not see it.”

Sadly, she smiled down at her spindle.

“And I never dreamed he could be Fey!”

“He is not.”

Now, here is something new! “Your son Lugh is Human?”

“Born Human, Lili. Human blood. They say it always tells in the end. But now, Lili, try to remember. Did you ever hear Lancelot say, ‘When I was a boy on Apple Island'?”

“Never that I heard.”

“Maybe once he said, ‘When I go home'…?”

“Never, Lady.”

We have been through this before. Annoyed, I glance up at Nimway. And I see beyond her sad face. I see into her torn, wounded heart, that thrashes like a slowly dying animal.

Instinct whispers,
Run! Get clear of this grief before it catches you.

My new Human Heart yearns to share it, to lift a good, sour portion of it from Nimway's bowed shoulders to my own.

Oh, to skip out away from here!

“Lili!” Alanna scolds me lightly. “Do you imagine you are carding wool?”

“
Achoo!
” (Wool in nose.) “Nay, Alanna. I but play a game, here.”

“Whose babe is this wool for, after all? Your own hands should work it! If only a little.”

“I am not Human. Work bores me.”

“Hah! I'll tell you a secret!” (Which she has told me before.) “Work bores us all. That's how we die in the end, from that boredom. But how else will you wrap your little one?” As if her own work could not wrap all the little ones in the Forest!

“Why, in spiderwebs, Alanna! In cocoon silk!”

My Spirit walks under the apple trees of Avalon. My Spirit wades into the lake and beckons a passing duck. If I were on my feet right now—and free of this gently moving mound in my belly—I would vanish away while the ladies watched their threads!

Alanna glances up at the misty, mellow sky. “My dear husband must be poling across to bring me home by now.” So that is the coracle I sensed earlier, making for us. “Dear husband!” That word that so startled Percival is Sir Edik's joy and glory!

Alanna wraps up her work. “Lili, will you look to see if he is coming?”

Very gladly I rise, tumbling my work in a heap. Delighted, I glide away through the dark entrance into open, unwalled sunlight.

Stretching, dancing slowly about on tiptoe, I look out over the lake. Here swim the ducks, geese, and swans I sensed from inside the villa walls. There drift the fishing coracles, turning and dipping, dragging full nets. And here comes the one I knew was aiming for the island. Dear Husband, coming to collect Dear Wife.

I step back into the dark entry and signal to Alanna.

Turning, I inspect the approaching coracle again. Maybe it's not Sir Edik after all. Two heads bob in it—one white, one…sunny gold.

Sunny gold? On the Fey lake?

Gasp.

My babe within folds up his tiny knees. He gathers all his little force and
kicks
me, square and rough, in the side.
Aaagh!

When I was young I went questing. That which I sought, I found. Now with new Power I can start fire with bare hands. I can see the secret thoughts of others, and their fates, bright and dark threads woven through their auras. But every day I pay again the high price for this Power. Daily I carry my Human Heart within, heavier than Percival's babe.

This heavy Human Heart expands now in my throat, so I can hardly breathe.

Steadily the coracle draws near. Is it material? Or is it a vision of the future?

Or is it maybe a deceptive, false daydream born of desire? The Gods know there is enough desire loose here on Apple Island to engender such false seeing!

Alanna comes to stand beside me, bundle on shoulder. She shades her eyes, and gasps.

If she sees the coming coracle, the two heads, they are materially there. Alanna sees only material fact.

She draws in one great breath.

“Hush!” I seize her hand just in time to forestall one of her famous screams. This scream of joy would rend lake and sky, send birds up in rolling wing-thunder, and maybe break the good spell that draws the miraculous coracle close and closer.

Alanna lets out her great breath. She dumps her bundle, catches up her gown, and
runs
, heavy, stumbling, down to the shore.

Close in the coracle swings around as Sir Edik digs in his pole.

Silent, Alanna wades in.

Silent, Percival heaves himself out into knee-deep water.

Silent, Percy and Alanna wade together and fall,
splash!
to their knees.

Each meant to kneel to the other and beg forgiveness, in the Human way. But falling together, they simply embrace. Fumbling, clutching, straining together, they embrace in silence; forgiven and forgiving.

***

On his knees in the Fey lake, Percival clasped his giantess. Rough, white hair prickled his face. Strong arms trapped his neck. Breath sobbed warmth into his ear, while the rest of him sopped up lake-chill.

The cold Fey lake washed through Percival. It washed out his empty stomach, stinging wound, swollen heart. It washed out pride, yearning, confusion, the last shreds of anger and never-acknowledged fear.

Cleansed, he strove to rise. But Alanna hung on him, drenched and limp. He had to raise her with him. On the second try he heaved them both halfway up, only to splash back down. His third effort brought them to their feet, dripping and clinging.

Hopefully, he looked over Alanna's shoulder to the only happy landscape of his childhood—Apple Island.