The Black Chalice Page 3

  Paul himself had painted the shield. He thought it a strange device, that winter tree, rather stark and gloomy for so splendid a lord, for a man who always outfitted himself like a prince. Even now, on this rough journey, Karelian wore a surcoat of embroidered blue samite, a dark velvet cloak lined and trimmed with ermine, and the finest boots which could be made. And all the trappings of his horse were of satin and silver.

  So Paul had asked him, back in Stavoren: What is this crest, my lord, and why have you chosen it?

  It was, Karelian said, the winter tree of Dorn. There was a legend around it, a very old legend from pagan times. Once a magical tree had grown in the valley. It flowered in the wintertime and bore fruit in the snow. No one hungered then; the rains were soft; everyone laughed and life was long and good.

  Then evil men rose up and tried to steal the tree, and so it was carried away and hidden; no one knew where. But one day, the legend said, it would be restored, and Dorn would be a paradise again.

  And Paul was content. For surely this was the story of Eden lost by sin, and of the cross which restored men to everlasting life. If the story was so old, and found among a pagan people, well, it only proved how God’s truth was present everywhere in the world.

  Or so he had believed in Stavoren….

  * * *

  He drew rein briefly, flexed his feet in their icy stirrups and wiped the snow from his face. It was full day now, the highlands murderous with storm. And as sane and sensible a man as he believed himself to be, he knew the storm had not happened by chance. It was not natural. Nothing here was natural, or Christian, or safe. Even Karelian’s wind-flung banners looked different to him now. The winter tree which he had painted so lovingly on his master’s shield was not a symbol of the cross at all. It was something from the wood of Helmardin.

  He should have been glad when they left the highlands and began to move again into deep forest, where the road was shielded by close and thickly wooded hills. Yet, perversely, he felt still more afraid. A dozen times he thought he saw shapes moving in the snow-blind forest. Whether they were manshapes or beasts he was not sure, but every time he saw them they were closer.

  So they travelled for many hours, and as the last light began to fail Karelian ordered lanterns to be carried all along the convoy, so no one might be lost. But he did not order a halt, and Paul was glad. He wanted nothing now, neither rest nor food nor shelter; he wanted only to be gone from here forever.

  Once, for a while, when the storm seemed to have lessened for a time, some of the men began to sing. It was beautiful and strange, at once an act of defiance against the forest, and an offering to appease its anger. But the night was fiercely cold, and growing colder. Paul was afraid they soon might have to camp because it would become impossible to ride. The songs fell away, and the storm closed utterly on Helmardin.

  He came alert with a start. He had not dozed, merely lost himself a little in his thoughts, and in the easy rhythm of the horse’s gait. He looked up abruptly as the animal stopped. Karelian and his advance guard were clustered in front of him, blocking the road. Beyond, lovely as paradise, rose a shimmering, snow-coiled haze of lights.

  Marenfeld! he thought, and for one blind and beautiful second he believed it. His body believed it, flooding with a sweat of relief, even while his mind was recoiling with bewilderment, with the terrible realization that it was not Marenfeld, it could not possibly be Marenfeld. They had passed no farms, no open fields; they were still deep in the forest. And no small, huddled peasant village showed lights like these in the depths of a wilderness, neither Marenfeld nor any other human place…!

  He wiped his arm across his face, and forced his eyes to focus against the swirling snow. The lights outlined a fortress— a small fortress, with a single tower, with bright windows and flaming torches at its gates.

  Karelian seemed as dumbfounded as the rest of them, but he recovered faster, and spoke grimly to the seneschal:

  “What’s the meaning of this, Reinhard?”

  “As God is my witness, my lord, I don’t know. I did nothing except follow the road.”

  Karelian did not answer. He stared at the fortress, and turned once or twice in his saddle, looking at the empty night around them as though there might be some explanation there. When the lantern’s shimmer caught his face, Paul saw bits of snow clinging to his eyebrows, and ridges of it matting on the hair left uncovered by his helmet.

  “Do you know this place, then?” he asked.

  “There is no castle on the road to Marenfeld, my lord,” the seneschal said. He kept his voice carefully even, quieting his own fear. “There never has been, save for those the stories tell of. Those which are… unnatural.”

  “We’ve been abroad for seven years,” Karelian said.

  “Aye, my lord. But I don’t think we are looking at something new.”

  Silence closed over them, broken only by the wind and the weary shiftings of their horses. Karelian looked again towards the lighted castle. Something drew him towards it, Paul saw, something quite small perhaps, something as small as curiosity, the willingness he had always had to see another kingdom or turn another card in the deck. How have we been lured here, and why, and how will I ever know unless I go inside?

  Reinhard saw it, too, and reached quickly to seize the bridle of Karelian’s horse.

  “My lord, I beg you, let’s turn back! Whatever this place is, it’s a place of evil! It can be nothing else! Let’s go back!”

  “You can’t even tell me where we are,” Karelian replied grimly. “To what shall we go back? It’s hardly a night to be wandering about like lost children in the woods.”

  “My lord, I beg you—”

  “Enough! Ride on, seneschal, before we are all frozen in our saddles.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Reinhard said, and led the way.

  The castle appeared to be built into the base of a hill, as though the builders cared more for shelter from the wind than safety from their enemies. The gates were open, but a small group of armed men stood guard in front of them. One of these stepped forward as the convoy approached, and bowed very deeply.

  “Welcome, my lords!” he said. He gestured broadly, generously, towards the courtyard within. “It’s my lady’s pleasure to offer you shelter on so bitter a night.”

  “What place is this?” Karelian asked.

  “It’s the castle of Car-Iduna, my lord. A small fortress, as you can see, but well appointed. We lack for very little.”

  “I regret I’ve never heard the name,” Karelian said.

  The man made a small, appeasing gesture. “It doesn’t matter. You are welcome just the same.”

  “I thank you for your offer,” the count said. “But we’re bound for Marenfeld, and should be on our way. Where is the road which leads from hence?”

  “You have travelled it, my lord.”

  For a moment even Karelian could find no suitable reply. He wiped his face with his arm, a brief gesture of frustration.

  “We set out on the forest road from the south,” he said, “and we didn’t turn from it. And for the past hundred years or so, that road has led through Helmardin and come out on the other side. At Marenfeld.”

  “And so it still does, my lord. But you are no longer on that road.”

  “Then,” Karelian said wearily, “will you tell us how we might return to it?”

  “No one will pass through Helmardin tonight, my lord.” The man gestured again towards the courtyard. “Come within, and take shelter. When the storm clears, we will guide you wherever you wish to go.”

  “As you guided me here?” Karelian said darkly.

  The man said nothing, but simply waited, his manner as unyielding as it was polite.

  For a moment, the count of Lys still hesitated, glancing back at the tense cluster of his men. He was spent and hungry; they all were; and the cold was growing steadily more unbearable. He seemed almost to shrug, as if saying to himself: Well, what of it? Tonight even hell mi
ght be a nicer place than this empty road….

  He nodded, and urged his horse through the open gates. Paul followed numbly, his body icy with dread, unable to find words to protest or strength to pray. Inside the courtyard, servants flocked around them, taking their horses. One of them flung open the castle doors, and stood aside as they entered.

  A stairway lay within, curving upwards in a graceful sweep. From the chambers above Paul could hear music. He felt the rush of warm air, pressing his icy clothing against his body. He heard steps, and stood immobile, rooted to the stone.

  Approaching them was a woman, the most exquisitely beautiful woman Paul had ever seen. She was tall and black-haired, and she wore a gown which seemed to change color with every shift of motion, shimmering blue and green and amber in the torchlight. Later, as the night wore on, he would notice a thousand tiny details: how long her nails were, and how dark her eyes. The gold belt she wore was studded with small black stones— stones which were not even pretty, and so must have been magical. She wore a bracelet carved with runes, and seven rings, each with a different jewel. Those things, and many others, he noticed later. Now he was aware only of the woman herself, the female, moving smoothly as a panther down the dark steps, torchlight glinting on her hair, her gown liquid against her body, her breasts bared to take a saint’s breath away— all her beauty offered like a gift, and in the same instant demanding worship, like the smile she flashed at Karelian, like the pale ringed hand she held out for him to kiss.

  “My lord of Lys, you are truly welcome here!”

  Paul was staring like a witless boy, but no one paid him any heed, least of all Karelian. He bowed deeply over the glittering hand, and drank in the image before him as though it were wine.

  “You have the advantage, my lady.”

  “I always do, if I can manage it,” she said wryly.

  “So be it. But will you tell me, perhaps, why you’ve led me and my company astray?”

  “It’s a cruel night, as you have seen. Even the bravest woodland creatures are huddling in their dens, and some of them will die. Have I led you astray, my lord, or to shelter?”

  “Both, I suspect,” Karelian said. He bowed again, smiling faintly. “And for the latter, at least, I thank you.”

  She gave a soft laugh, and met his eyes. Paul was not worldly in the ways of men and women, but even he could read the frank sexual speculation in that look, the coolly hinted possibility. I think I’m going to like you, and if I do….

  Then the woman turned to Paul, greeting him by name, and Reinhard as well, offering welcome to them all. A dark-eyed dwarf of a man had padded quietly down the steps behind her, unnoticed by anyone until she placed her guests into his care.

  His name was Marius. It was the only name in Car-Iduna which Paul would ever learn, and he never forgot it.

  THREE

  The Lady of the Mountain

  Such a slaughter of pagans no one has ever seen or heard of;

  the pyres they made were like pyramids.

  Gesta Francorum — Anonymous Chronicle of the First Crusade

  * * *

  What words are there to tell of Car-Iduna? It was full of witchcraft. I do not know what the others saw at first, when we followed the lady and her servants into the great hall. I think Karelian saw nothing but the black silk of her hair, and her splendid body swaying in the torchlight.

  I saw a world which was not God’s.

  All my life, from my earliest childhood, I lived surrounded by a consciousness of God. Churches dotted the countryside, monastery bells rang the hours, windows were painted with saints, and walls were hung with crucifixes. A man did not eat, or lay down to sleep, or greet his neighbors, without mentioning God’s name. On the road to Jerusalem, we carried the image of our faith upraised in our hands, and stitched on our clothing, and painted on our shields; we were a sea of crosses sweeping across the land.

  Never, until I stood inside the walls of Car-Iduna, had I felt myself to be out of God’s presence. Out of his favor, yes, but never out of his presence. But now I did. Nothing in my understanding could recognize this place, or name it. My throat was dust, and my belly knotted like a rag wrung out to dry. I had been among the Saracens, and I knew them well— better, indeed, than I ever wanted to. And I knew a Saracen would tremble walking into Car-Iduna, just as I did, and for the same reasons. This place was older than Mahomet their prophet, older than Jesus of Nazareth, older than Moses and the law, older even than Satan whom we imagined was the oldest of God’s enemies….

  It took all the strength Paul had to put the quill down, to link his hands and press his face against their hardness and close his eyes. To say five Pater Nosters and open them again, and read what he had written.

  It was as he feared. The words were quite clear and, in a certain sense, quite true. Those had been his thoughts, or something very near to his thoughts, his instinctive reaction to the castle in Helmardin. But they were not thoughts he meant to write. He hid the parchment carefully away and went for a walk in the fields.

  It was April, the easter month, the month when a man’s soul rejoiced in the resurrection of the Lord, and when his body kept drawing him to hell. Especially now, since he had begun to write, everything seemed to remind him of his flesh, and of its terrible possibilities.

  Why were men so weak? he wondered. So pathetically, disgustingly weak that the smallest, most innocent thing could turn their minds to sin, and make their loins flood with shame? A dog licking his hand. The smell of sweat on a beggar woman reaching out for a gift of bread. A word in a book. The warmth of the sun pressing through his habit. The color of a stranger’s tunic. The sight of a peach. Even pain, finally. Even those penances whose very objective was to silence the flesh, could awaken it instead. A man took his foul body everywhere he went; he could not escape it in prayer, or even in sleep. Dear God, what had Jesus lowered himself to, taking on a vile existence such as this?

  But Jesus incarnate was not like us; he did not sin, or ever wish to sin; his body was pure, and our bodies must become like his….

  It had never been easy for him to control his desires, but he had, in these last years, grown a little calmer, a little less vulnerable. Age helped, as did the routine of monastery life, the endless repetition of the same labors, the same prayers, the same passing of the hours and the seasons. It made life orderly; it kept the mind occupied and the body too exhausted for lust.

  Now this… this unbearable going back into time, to his youth and to a history filled with evil. It would have been difficult for him even if he had been in control of it, but he was not. By determining which memories he would record, that accursed quill was actually determining which memories he would remember.

  Like Karelian’s splendid looks: they were something he had quite forgotten over the years. What did it matter if a man’s body was beautiful, if his soul was corrupt? Now, one by one, images kept tumbling out of the silent places of Paul’s mind, nudged free, like desire itself, by the smallest passing thing. Knights would ride along the valley road to Karn, too far away to recognize, nothing but a bit of dust and shimmer in the distance, and he would remember the first time he saw Karelian in Acre, a proud, glittering centaur of a man, reaching over a wall to snatch an orange as he rode. A young pilgrim would stop at the monastery, or a local lord would bring his son to have him schooled, and Paul would remember: Karelian’s hair was the same tawny color, and it hung to his shoulders exactly so, glinting in the torchlight….

  He walked for a very long time, until his feet were sodden with spring mud and numb with cold. It was Sunday, and across the river which bounded the monastery’s property he could see serfs enjoying their few hours of freedom, chasing a ball around, yelling at each other, urged on by laughing women who did not hesitate to join in the game themselves now and then, simply so everyone might end in a tangle in the grass. The people, he thought sadly, never changed. They listened to the priests. They bowed their heads and made their penances. And then a g
lass of rough beer, or the sound of a fife, or an hour in the summer sun, and it was as though the priests had never spoken. The Church struggled and fought and sacrificed and prayed, and the great body of men just went on living as though it weren’t there.

  And the evils of Car-Iduna were still unbound, still stalking the Reinmark from the wood of Helmardin. So much had been destroyed, so many good men brought to ruin, and Car Iduna was still there. She was still there, her sorcery coiled in the forests and in his cell, waiting to entangle him again. He reached the brook and halted, turning back the way he came. Woods blocked even the spire of the monastery from view. He felt utterly alone, and more afraid than he had been for many years.

  It was bad enough to face his personal memories. But what of the other thing, the thing he dared not write about, not in this chronicle or any other, not even for the pope? What if she compelled those words upon his quill? What if she forced him to betray his secret, a secret he was never meant to know? He would have to quit writing, that was all. Somehow he would have to quit.

  * * *

  The hall of Car-Iduna shimmered with light. There were torches everywhere, and voices. Many people were gathered there, yet I have not even a vague recollection of their number; and although we remained for more than a day, I can call to mind only a handful of faces. So powerful was the sorcery of the place that it could steal a man’s soul, and yet elude his reason like a dream.

  I understand such things now, after years of reflection. But at the time, walking pale with terror at my lord’s back, I was thinking only of how we might escape unharmed.

  “We must neither sleep here,” Reinhard warned us, “nor touch any food or drink.” But Karelian did not heed his wisdom, nor did Reinhard himself, nor did any of our company except me. As soon as we were inside Car-Iduna’s high-domed hall, servants came and plied us with cups of heated wine and offerings of food. The men were hungry and cold, and the Lady of the Mountain very gracious. There was nothing menacing which they could see, no trolls or dragons or headless men, and so they imagined they were safe.