Corbenic

Chapter Sixteen

She greeted Arthur and all his household save Peredur.

And to Peredur she spoke wrathful, ugly words.

Peredur

He slept all day.

At six o’clock, bleary and rigidly careful, he dressed in crisp clean jeans, a pale shirt, a warm pullover, his dark jacket. He ate some cold meat and pickles that were in the fridge, washed up, tidied every object in every room, hoovered, rearranged Trevor’s Christmas cards in fanatical order of height and left a note for him on the dustless windowsill.

Hawk and Shadow were meeting him at seven. But first, he had to make that call. It took him five minutes to summon the strength to pick up the phone. Then, cold with fear, he grabbed it and rang his mother. “I can’t get there,” he said quickly, hurriedly. As if saying it fast would help, would make it easier for her. “The trains were all running late, and I got as far as Newport, but then the next two were canceled. Christmas, I suppose. Too many people.”

She was silent.

He said, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” It was very small, barely there.

“I’ll come after Christmas. I promise I will.” As he said it he believed it, and his heart went light and happy. Why not? He’d be part of the Company, it would be done, and he could go. Just for a few days. “And I’ll stay till New Year. You can show me all the things you’ve done. We can go out for a meal . . . it’ll be great.”

Another silence. Then she said, “All right, Cal.”

It wasn’t enough. He needed more. He needed anything, even screaming. He was suddenly, breathlessly terrified. “Will you go to Sally’s? They’d love to have you for Christmas dinner. Or Rhian?”

“Rhian’s got her family,” she said. Her voice was distant, as if the line was failing. “I’ll be fine, Cal.”

“I’ll ring you. First thing. Wish you happy Christmas. I’ve got a present to give you from Trevor too.”

There was a small breath and a crackle. Did she believe him? What was she thinking?

“I love you, Cal.” She whispered it like she always did. Then she put the phone down.

He sat there, cold and still, hearing the purr at the other end, listening to it for long moments, before he put the receiver on his lap and rubbed his face with his hands, hard, up into his wet hair. He hated himself. For a terrible instant he thought the guilt would be too much for him, too heavy. And then he told himself it would be all right. Just a day. One day.

He went for a drink of water, downed it in one go, came back and pressed the button and redialed.

“Chepstow Police,” a man said.

Cal swallowed. “The girl on the posters,” he said quickly, in a clipped, hard voice. “Sophie Lewis, the one that’s missing. She’s living in a van parked up most nights in the Dell, by the castle. Tonight she’ll be at the pageant, at Caerleon. She’s dyed her hair black, and there’s a tattoo on her face.”

“Can I have your name . . . ?” The voice was quick but he cut it off, and on a sudden impulse of disgust flung the phone away from him onto the sofa so it bounced and the receiver fell off.

He walked rapidly to the door. But before he’d got three steps he had to come back and tidy the place up.

The night was frosty; all the stars brilliant.

In Caerleon strings of lightbulbs swung over the dark streets; as the van rattled past the museum and down the lane onto the barracks field, Cal saw that all the vans of the Company were parked there, and as Shadow opened the door and jumped out the smell of woodsmoke and trampled grass made Hawk grin.

“Give us a hand,” he said, dragging out swords and helmets and shields. Shadow ran around to help him, laughing.

Her laugh made Cal feel sick at what he’d done. But it was for the best. One day she’d thank him.

He found his own sword, and took it out of the case. It shone in the blue light.

The event for the public was fun, but short. Bonfires burned on the field; among them in the cold wind the Company staged a mock tournament and then a melee, with everyone fighting with swords and axes, pretending to be cut down, the audience clapping and drinking and balancing hot sausages and burgers.

Lying curled on the grass, breathless, Cal grinned to himself. For a second he forgot the whole world with the pleasure of being here, being part of something, the easy jokes, the friendly banter.

Until Kai came around and kicked his leg and said, “Get up, hero. It’s all over.”

He struggled up, and found he was cold. And sore. And muddy. At least he was wearing a costume, a grubby chain mail. As he thought it, he saw the crowd was thinning, the people traipsing to their cars, going home to warm Christmas Eves in decorated houses, the children put to bed early, too excited to sleep. In churches there would be singing, and masses, and small models of the crib. Tomorrow the whole Company would attend. Arthur insisted on it.

It was the children he envied. Brushing himself down, gathering up the sword, he let himself think of his own past Christmases, saw himself small in bed, hoping each year things would be different, things would be like the families in books, on TV advertisements, that there would be presents and a good, hot dinner and that the house would be magically warm and comfortable and that his mother would be a different person. It made him sick now, and angry.

“It does not do,” Merlin said next to him, “to be too sorry for oneself.”

Cal turned, sword in hand.

“Stop creeping up on me! Where the hell did you come from?”

The Hermit’s patchwork coat was thick with mud. He reached out and touched the sword, deliberately stroking its sharp edge, his hand thin and filthy, with bitten nails. Cal jerked away. “Be careful!” Behind him, the dog whimpered.

“I brought you to the Company,” Merlin whispered. “The dark knights that once attacked you were conjured by me.”

“Conjured?”

“Spirits at my command. I guide the Company; I move its fortunes as I moved the great stones once.” He nodded, then put his lean hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Look for me when things are darkest. You and I, knight, will journey together. We will sleep alone in the woods of Celyddon, shield on shoulders, sword on thigh. When all but shame deserts you, look for me.”

Cal stared at him, sick, shaking. But the man was already walking away, and Cal saw how he turned and yelled in fury at the dog, and how it followed, patient, unmoved.

It was late now; nearly midnight. In the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, all around the high green banks, the Company waited, as if they had gathered from all over Britain for this night, this moment. As he walked with Shadow onto the dim, flame-lit circle of trodden arena, Cal picked out faces he knew: Hawk, Kai, Gwrhyr, Owein, and others that were strange to him, men and women of all ages and sizes, dressed in bizarre mixtures of clothes, half-glimpsed, beyond the ring of crackling, shockingly scarlet flames that flattened and leaped and roared in the wind.

Before him, seated on a simple bench, Arthur waited, though instead of his usual tweed he wore armor now, a strange, semi-Roman breastplate, dinted and battered from old blows, and a white cloak that seemed ghostly under the eerie light, because the moon had risen, a thin crescent over Wentwood, and it glimmered on the cold edge of the sword.

Arthur stood, and said quietly, “Welcome to the Round Table, Cal.”

Cal shook his head. “I thought . . .”

“Yes. Well, no piece of furniture would be big enough.” Arthur turned to Shadow. “And you. Are you ready to join us?”

“Yes.” Her voice was low; Cal saw her hands were clasped tight together, black fingers with small silver rings over the gloves, and a faint silver thread embroidered there. She glanced quickly at him; the cobweb a dark mask over one eye.

If he was lying, he thought, if he was betraying them, then so was she.

Arthur raised his voice. “Friends! Does the Company of the Island of the Mighty accept these two among us?”

There was a murmur of consent, and a yell from Hawk that made Shadow giggle.

Arthur held out his hands for the sword; Cal laid it across his palms. “Now, both of you, put your hands on it.”

Shadow’s fingers lay on the blade; Cal put his fingers beside hers, feeling ridiculous and grave and afraid all at once.

“You must swear loyalty to me,” Arthur said. “But first tell me that you have no dishonor in your hearts.”

That shook Cal. His fingers went icy on the pale steel. And how could Shadow say, “None,” like she did, so calm, so quiet?

Arthur looked at him. For an instant Cal thought of his mother, sitting on the sofa in the cold house. Of the new Christmas tree. It would be lopsided. She’d never have been able to make a good job of it on her own.

“None,” he whispered.

The flames crackled and spat. The wind roared.

Arthur said, “Then take your sword, Cal.” He stepped back, leaving them both holding it between them, heavy, wickedly sharp, gleaming.

And it snapped. With a crack that rang in the broken walls and tunnels and hollows of the amphitheater, the sword broke itself in two, vindictively, spitefully, and Cal staggered with the sudden shock of it, Shadow’s stifled scream, the words that hissed out of the dark. “It will serve you as you have served me.”

For a moment of terror he knew these were the voices; then he turned, and saw her standing there, the girl who had carried the Grail. She was wearing the same long dress, her hair braided up, but her face had changed; it was old now, so ugly, wrinkled, and heavily lidded that he would hardly have known her.

Horrified, he staggered back; Arthur caught his arm and said, “Who are you?”

The old woman’s smile was sour. “Hear me, King.” She turned, raising her voice. “Hear me, you, Arthur’s men.”

Kai was shouting orders; Hawk leaped down into the arena.

“Don’t listen,” Cal hissed desperately. “I don’t know her.”

Her finger stabbed at him. “Here is one who has betrayed you! Here is one who saw the holy things, and could not ask about them, not what the cup contains or who drinks from it! Who didn’t care why the lance bleeds! Here is one who denied they ever existed!” She turned around and glared at him, and to his terror her face flickered in the flame light, young and old, ugly and beautiful, as if the red glimmer of the light and the wind redefined it, and he knew it, and then it was strange, it changed as his mother changed, minute by minute.

Arthur made a swift downward jab with his hand; the men running toward him slowed, wary. “We know about this. But the boy is young; he . . .”

“You do not know the reason for his failure.” She was speaking to Cal now. “He cannot make a new life on the ruins of the old. There is a thing he has left undone. Unsaid. A weight on his soul. A woman he has abandoned. Until he goes to her and heals himself he will never find the Grail. And the Waste Land will remain waste, and the Fisher King will suffer his endless pain.” She spat at him; he jumped back. “He is a fool,” she hissed. “He has failed.”

The wind roared; a police siren echoed far off in the village. From the church, suddenly, joyously, the bells began to ring, a clashing, jangling frostiness of sound. It was midnight. It was Christmas.

“Who does she mean? Who is this?” Arthur was asking.

Cal swallowed. It was impossible to say the words but in sheer despair he said them. “My mother,” he whispered.

Shadow said, “Thérèse?”

He turned to her. “Not Thérèse.” The siren was loud now, the car racing up to the amphitheater, stopping with a squeal of brakes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, to her, to all of them.

“What?” Wary, Shadow glanced around, backed off. “Have you told the police about me? What have you done, Cal?”

The woman was going, turning and walking into the dark, and in her hands he saw she held a shape of darkness, veiled and hidden. From the entrance tunnel voices rang, angry, until Arthur roared, “Let them through!” his breath smoking in the frosty air.

Two figures. Running. A man and a woman.

“Don’t blame me,” Cal said miserably, clutching the sword. “I thought it was for the best. I did it for you. I’m sorry, Shadow.”

“You stupid, stupid fool!” she hissed.

The bells stopped instantly. And suddenly in the terrible silence, across the frosty field he saw that the man was Trevor, and the woman, breathless, one high-heeled shoe slipping off, was Thérèse.

Trevor grabbed him. “Cal! Thank God!”

“What? What is it?” He was icy with fear. Shivering, sweating with fear.

Trevor glanced at Arthur, then back. His face was aged and stricken in the red flames. “It’s your mother.”

“What!” In agony Cal flung the broken sword down. “What? For God’s sake tell me! Tell me!”

But it was Thérèse who came up and put her arms around him. It was Thérèse who told him that his mother was dead.