The Quest for Carbonek Read online

  The Quest for Carbonek

  Pendragon’s Heir, Book Two

  Suzannah Rowntree

  Amica mitis, hic liber multos patronos habuit.

  Sed, Schuyler, tu maximum fecisti.

  Want to sample my writing for free? Click here and I'll send you a free book!

  Copyright © 2019 Suzannah Rowntree

  Cover design by Wynter Designs

  Map copyright © 2015 Isaac Botkin

  Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, English translation copyright © Barbara Reynolds 1977.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses provided by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  suzannahrowntree.site

  1

  Impious war in Heaven and battle proud,

  With vain attempt.

  Milton

  IN A RUSH OF COLD AIR Blanche saw huddled bodies on the ground, saw the glimmer of dawning light off broken spears and discarded shields, and felt Florence rise beneath her and fly smoothly over the heaped ruin of a dead horse. Before she could turn her head away, or close her eyes to block out that horrible sight, the forest swallowed them and flowed away to the south.

  They were galloping much too fast for her comfort. Her burned foot throbbed in the stirrup. Blanche let the reins fall slack in her hands and curled white-knuckled fingers around her saddle-horn. Next to her, riding bareback with the wind in her hair, Nerys somehow sat straight and smiling. To her, this was a homecoming. To Blanche, it felt more like going into exile.

  After half a mile Sir Ector, in the lead on the flying Malaventure, slackened the horses into a rolling canter which lasted until the sun rose above the treetops, flooding the forest with wintry light.

  In a sheltered glade at the head of a valley where a little dark spring welled from the ground and rushed down the hill, Sir Ector pulled Malaventure to a standstill, craning in his saddle to look back the way they had come, lifting a hand for silence. They listened to the dawn.

  No pursuit came to their ears.

  Sir Ector nodded and dismounted. “We are safe here for a moment. Let us take counsel.”

  Blanche glanced around at her companions. Nimue urged forward to speak to Sir Ector. Nerys smiled at Blanche, as sunny as the morning itself, then winced as she slid to the ground. She had transferred her saddle to Florence for Blanche’s use, and the long bareback canter had taken its toll. Perceval climbed stiffly off Rufus and fell to his knees by the water’s edge, hesitating a moment before plunging his whole head into the icy stream.

  Blanche slid her injured foot out of the stirrup and dismounted gingerly, trying not to put weight on the burn. She limped toward Nerys. “Where are we going?”

  A rare delight flickered in the fay’s eyes. “To Carbonek.”

  Blanche glanced at Sir Ector and Lady Nimue as they exchanged hurried words with frosty puffs of breath. Then Sir Ector called to the others:

  “Here we part: the damsel Blanchefleur is called to Carbonek.”

  Perceval reared up, flinging drops of water from his head. “Carbonek! There is no place I had rather see.”

  “Nor I,” said Sir Ector. “But only the damsel Blanchefleur is called there, and only the called will find it.”

  Perceval said, “She will need an escort. Protection.”

  “Only the called.” A smile flickered in his eyes. “Were I the Knight of Wales, I would go in quest of a herbalist and a warm bed.”

  Perceval grimaced. The Lady of the Lake said: “Nerys will go with the Grail Maiden. We others have our own tasks to accomplish. The Queen of Gore’s rift must be mended again. And one must take word to Camelot that the damsel Blanchefleur is in Logres.”

  “There is your work, if you will have it,” said Sir Ector. “But first we will rest and eat.” And he led Malaventure to the water.

  The food was plain and tough—hard bannocks, a battered cheese, and strips of dried venison washed down with water. They ate without fire or warmth, sitting on the bare stones by the spring. Then, as Nerys filled the water-bottles and divided their remaining food between the two parties, Blanche moved over to Perceval.

  “Well, I suppose this is goodbye,” she said, making a shield of her light and careless voice. “Thanks again for everything, Percy.”

  He laughed and groaned. “Call me anything, but not that. …So I cannot follow you to Carbonek.”

  “Believe me, you’re welcome to go in my stead.”

  “Oh, I would make but a poor Grail Maiden, damsel. Well, I will get myself to a sickbed, where if you come running to me for help I shall turn over and go back to sleep. So keep clear of trouble.”

  “I’ll try.” She wove her fingers together and wondered how she would survive in this place without him. “I don’t like to get into trouble, you know. Or to be any inconvenience to anyone.”

  He laughed at her. “I tease! Lady, you carried yourself tonight like the true heir of Logres. Any king might be proud to call you his daughter. Any prince might be glad to win you for his wife. A plain knight may serve you for the moment, and consider himself raised by the honour.”

  She said, “Tonight? It was nothing. I could not have acted differently.” She loosed her fingers and took a deep breath. “Perceval, you know I’m very grateful to you, but—that’s all.”

  He grinned back, unabashed.

  “True. I have no right to your undivided regard.” The words sank into the dewy morning world before he added: “Yet.”

  Sir Ector moved to Blanche’s side; she sagged a little with relief. Perceval glanced up at him and smiled, then turned again to Blanche.

  “Godspeed, lady. We will meet in Carbonek, before the Grail.”

  “There is a monastery in the next valley,” Sir Ector told him. “Go there and stay until your harms are healed, sir knight. Then there will be time to think of Carbonek and the Grail.”

  He drew Blanche away and smiled at her with mingled affection and sadness. “Ah, Blanche! When I see you again, you will be another man’s daughter.”

  But whose? For the first time it struck Blanche how entirely her whole future hung on that question. How much more dangerous would Logres be if even the protection of the Pendragon’s name was taken from her?

  “You will always be my dear guardian,” she said, trying to sound playful. “Even if the rest of the world disowned me.” And she found herself looking at Perceval as he wrapped up his burned hand with some ointment from the saddlebags.

  Sir Ector followed her look. “He works quickly, this young knight,” he said thoughtfully.

  “A little too quickly for me.”

  “Then say the word and I will see to it that he holds his tongue.”

  “No, no,” said Blanche, horrified. “There’s no hurry. He must find me in Carbonek before he can speak to me again. Maybe he will change his mind when he knows me better.” When all of Logres knew the truth about her birth. “In the meantime, it pleases him to serve me. Please don’t tell him to stop.”

  Sir Ector nodded, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “He will do great deeds for you, Blanche. Courtesy in accepting them is fitting.”

  Nerys came toward them, leading Florence and her own horse. “All is ready to leave when you will,” she said to Blanche.

  “Then lose no time. Go now,” Sir Ector told them.

  BLANCHE AND NERYS RODE ALMOST AT random, aiming more or less north-west into Wales but allowing valleys and hills to divert them. They met few others, friend or foe. That night they awoke in great fear to see a fire blazing on a nearby hill, with gigantic figures looming around it. The following day they met a knight-errant named Sir Lamorak, who shared his store of food with them, and bent his journey toward the monsters. Then there were the howls of wolves one evening, and that night they sheltered in a cave with a barricade of fire at the mouth, watching by turns.

  To Blanche, it was a nightmare, and the thought of Carbonek at the end of the journey was hardly more comforting than the weary present. She remembered what Simon Corbin had said of Logres, how he had implored her not to waste herself on a barbaric land. At the time her head had been full of grand visions of duty and rigour, of an endless war between light and darkness, and it had been easy to brush off his concern. Now she envisioned a pointless death among wolves in the wilderness, or being carried off by some paltry ailment in Carbonek.

  In a few days, the men and beasts faded away, and they rode through lifeless hills.

  “Tell me about Camelot, Nerys,” she said one morning, for it had begun to take form in her mind as a place of ease and warmth.

  “I was only there for the council,” Nerys said. “But it is a beautiful city, standing on a hill, full of trees and gardens.”

  “I should like to see it one day.”

  “By favour you will. After the Quest.”

  Blanche sighed. “I am willing to do what I must, Nerys. But Carbonek, how dreary!”

  “The King thought it best,” Nerys said. “Though he knows of the hardships. What better wa
y for you to prove the prophecy as your birthright, than by guarding the Grail?”

  “Is this a test, then? For his peace of mind?”

  Nerys shook her head. “Of course not. It is not to him that you must prove yourself. It is to Logres.”

  “To the old wives and tittle-tattles?”

  Nerys said: “If only it were so easy. Logres doesn’t only have enemies outside, Blanchefleur. There are also enemies within. Pride, ambition, and schism. Can you imagine what trouble there might be if not everyone received you as the true heir?”

  Blanche had not thought of this, but all the history she had ever learned, from Jane Grey in the Tower to the revolutions of the last century, rose up to rebuke her for overlooking something so obvious. “Trouble! Do you mean war? In Logres?”

  “Why not? Did you not know that the first dozen years of the reign of Arthur Pendragon were filled with ceaseless war? Not only with the barbarians. King Lot of Orkney was Arthur’s own brother-in-law, but he died disputing Arthur’s throne. Uriens, King of Gore, the husband of Morgan, was another.”

  “His own kin opposed him?”

  “Yes. And then there were those who stood with him. Gawain the son of Lot. Ywain the son of Uriens.”

  Blanche frowned. “Perceval’s father is named Sir Gawain.”

  “Yes. Gawain was Arthur’s man, even then, when they were both boys. He fought for the King against his own father. His own father, Blanchefleur.”

  “And you think that it could happen again. With me.”

  “Of course.” Silence fell before Nerys spoke again with aching regret in her voice. “There has even been war in Heaven, Blanchefleur.”

  That reminded her of something she had heard before, and despond gripped her. “The greatest threat to heaven comes from the angels themselves. Mr Corbin said that.” She rubbed her aching forehead. “Oh, Nerys. Please.”

  The fay kneed her horse closer. “What is it?”

  “If everything goes wrong… Nerys, I’m here to do what I can, I promise. But if everything were to go badly wrong, so badly that there was no more hope at all—would you send me home again?”

  Nerys wrinkled her brow. “To Gloucestershire? Perhaps. If there was no hope at all.” Then she reached out and touched Blanche’s hand where it lay on her horse’s withers, and the light in her eyes broke across her whole face. “But take courage! There is always hope for those who walk in darkness.”

  LATE THAT AFTERNOON, KNIFED BY THE cold wind, the two of them crested a snowy hill and stood looking down dull grey screes to the winter ocean.

  “We must have missed it.” Blanche sagged in the saddle.

  “Wait.” The fay put her hand up to her eyes and scanned the shore. “Look down there.”

  Blanche followed Nerys’s pointing arm. Down on a rocky outcrop above the sea, hardly visible against the tumbled stones of the shore and the white-crest waves, a ramshackle castle stood. Blanche said:

  “Carbonek? Here?”

  “They call it the Wandering Castle,” said Nerys with a laugh. “It is never to be found in the same place twice. Come!”

  This time as they neared the castle, Blanche saw that the keep stood intact, the battlements were cleared of nests, and—strangest of all—tiny human figures went to and fro on the rocks outside, or sat with a fishing-line kicking their heels above the waves.

  “There are people.”

  “There always were,” Nerys reminded her. “Only, like the castle, they are not always found.”

  A thin wailing shout went up from a child as they approached, and then more folk came swarming out of the castle. All the way up the road to the gate, and through the shattered courtyard, Blanche stared into hopeful, hungry eyes. All the people of Carbonek were thin and threadbare, from the youngest children in garments so patched that they had almost lost their original shape and colour, to the hollow-cheeked knights whose battered chainmail hung off their wasted frames like the sloughed skin of bigger men.

  Did Carbonek take its desolation wherever it went?

  She dismounted in the courtyard, all of a sudden fiercely glad that over her sooty nightgown she was still wearing the embroidered wool cloak Naciens had given her on her last visit to this castle. It was the one thing she had saved from the fire. She had admired the garment, but its real value had not even crossed her mind.

  Now it did.

  These shivering and threadbare people had tended the sheep. Shorn the wool. Washed, carded, spun, dyed, woven, cut, sewn, and embroidered it, all by hand. And at the end of it all, they had given it to her, who had more than she could ever desire. How could she have faced them, knowing she had thoughtlessly lost their gift?

  There was a hot smoulder in her stomach. Maybe it was shame. Maybe it was anger at her own conceit. Whatever it was, it stiffened her spine.

  Someone came forward to take Florence’s bridle. Nerys smiled at her and gestured for her to take the lead. Blanche took a deep breath and marched up the steps into the hall, followed and surrounded by a breathless crowd. Inside, she found the hall full of noise and light. A fire glowed in the big hearth and two squires were playing at the chessboard. Torches lit the tables, and servants hurried up from the kitchen bearing plates heaped with fish and bread.

  A hound rose from where it lay under the high table and came toward them, tail wagging politely. Every bone stood out on its snake-like head, and the fur on its lean sides was dull. It wrapped its tongue around Blanche’s chilly fingers.

  How much she had missed before!

  The table on the dais was already full of people. There was Naciens the Hermit, rising up from his seat. And there on a couch in the midst of the table lay an old, old king, propped up with pillows and looking frail enough to be slain with a feather.

  Beside the ancient king, Naciens did not smile, but his eyes beamed welcome. Blanche went forward to meet him between two tables running the length of the hall. A hush fell over the company. One of the squires at the chessboard shouted “Checkmate!” before he realised that his voice had fallen upon silence. He turned scarlet and sank back to watch.

  The voice of Naciens filled the whole silent hall. “Name your name, wanderer through the Waste.”

  In the hush, with every eye fixed upon her, she paused, keenly aware how unfit she was to take up the high duty being offered to her.

  And yet it was being offered to her. And since nothing else would repay them for their gift, she would do them this service.

  She squared her shoulders and said:

  “Blanchefleur, of the realm of Logres.”

  2

  And after many days she came

  To that high mountain, where are built

  The towers of Sarras, carved and gilt

  And fashioned like thin spires of flame.

  Gosse

  THE AGED KING STIRRED ON HIS couch and spoke in a gentle, creaking voice like the closing of a badly oiled door.

  “Be welcome to Carbonek, damsel,” he said.

  Naciens spoke again. “Name your errand, Blanchefleur of Logres.”

  Blanchefleur said, “I have been sent to guard the Holy Grail.”

  “And do you accept this task?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you are twice welcome,” the King said. “Naciens.”

  The hermit lifted his voice. “Nerys the Fay. Branwen, daughter of Culhwch.”

  Behind her, Blanchefleur heard rather than saw the quick gesture of surprise Nerys made before she stepped forward. With the second name there came a long silence. In the hush she clearly heard a breathless whisper— “Me? Oh!” and then a rush of footsteps as the owner of the whisper darted to her side—a girl perhaps a little younger than herself, all flaxen hair and nervous energy.

  Naciens said: “The number of the Signs is three, and the number of the keepers is three. Do you, attendants of the Grail, bind yourselves to faith and obedience; to give eternal knowledge freely to any who seeks it, and to guard the Signs with your lives, as grace shall be given you?”

  “We do,” said Blanchefleur, and felt the voices of the others echoing in and around her own. Naciens lifted his hand and blessed them with a smile, and then there was clapping and cheering from the castle folk, a sound like the fall of waters. Seats were found for them at the high table and someone passed them each a rusk of bread topped with stew. Then the talk rushed on around them.