The problem, Piers thought as he paced the floor in his room at Belrepeire, was that it had all happened too fast. It was almost three months since he and Parsifal had first come to Belrepeire, and fully two months after Parsifal and Queen Conduiramour had been married, and Piers still had the feeling that something had gone wrong.
He pushed out his lips in what his mother used to call a moue. It wasn't that he disapproved of Queen Conduiramour. She was, as far as he could tell, the perfect lady. She was wise and graceful, beautiful and witty, quick with both her laughter and her sympathy, beloved by all her subjects, and very clearly in love with Parsifal. It was just that—Piers frowned and tried to put it into words—it was just that she had appeared on the scene too early. In his mother's stories, the beautiful maiden who marries the hero had always appeared at the end of the story, after years of trials and many great victories. But in this case, Parsifal had had six months of training under Sir Gurnemains and Jean le Forestier, and then, within weeks, had saved the lady and married her and become King of Belrepeire. How could you become a king before you've even become a knight? There just wasn't anything like it in the stories.
Forcing himself to be honest, Piers admitted that a part of his dissatisfaction was that he was bored. He had dreamed of being the page of a great king, and so he was, he supposed, but it was not at all what he had expected. He had imagined a life of glamour and great banquets and balls every night and had pictured himself carrying private messages from knights to their secret loves and being a part of castle intrigues. Compared to that image, life at Belrepeire was sadly flat. Parsifal and the queen ate the same simple meals as their servants, and neither showed much interest in ceremony. They often went out to the farms of their tenants to visit their subjects. Parsifal still went hunting often, and he had even gone out with some of the castle servants to cut wood when their supply got low. A king who would take an axe out with his woodcutters was not the type who required much service from a page. Parsifal ran his own errands, sent no secret love letters, and even chose his own clothes. Once again, it didn't fit the stories, and Piers simply couldn't account for it.
Once or twice, when Piers was alone with Parsifal, he had delicately suggested that perhaps he and the queen would like to make a state visit to Camelot to see King Arthur, or one of the lesser kings in England, like King Mark of Cornwall. Even that would be interesting, Piers thought, because although King Mark was reputed to be a surly fellow, the famous Sir Tristram was in Cornwall. Piers would dearly love to meet some of the knights he had heard of in the stories.
Piers sighed and closed his window. It was only about five o'clock, but Parsifal and the queen ate their dinner unfashionably early, and one of the few jobs that Piers actually had was to serve their meal. He walked down to the kitchens, where the cook was dishing up a plain mutton stew with bread. Piers shook his head as he lifted the tray. To see such a common meal set before royalty would have broken Sir Gurnemains's heart.
Parsifal and his queen were sitting in the small dining room where they usually took their meals when Piers arrived. They were silent, which struck Piers as odd, because usually they were talking and laughing together when he arrived. Beyond a quiet, "Thank you, Pierre," neither spoke to him. Piers withdrew to his usual place at the wall, and watched with growing consternation as the two ate almost their entire meal in silence. At last, as he pushed away his empty bowl, Parsifal spoke.
"Look, Connie, I am happy here."
Queen Conduiramour's voice was soft. "I had always thought so."
"And I will come back," Parsifal said firmly. Piers stared, suddenly intent on his master.
"But you won't say when?"
"I can't, Connie. I don't know when. It may take me a while to convince my mother to leave her home and join us here."
"And what if she won't? What if she wants you to stay? What will you do?"
"I will come back to you, Connie. I love you."
The queen looked at her half-finished meal for a moment, and when she looked back up, her eyes were bright with tears but she smiled. "I know, Parsifal. But I can't help feeling that there's some other reason that you want to leave."
This time it was Parsifal who hesitated before answering. "Maybe there is." He stood and walked to the window, looking down on the fields below, just as Piers had been doing twenty minutes before. "It is only that ... I left my mother and my home because I wanted to be a knight. I wanted to have adventures and do great deeds. I have done nothing."
"You saved me and the castle," Queen Conduiramour exclaimed.
"But it was too easy! The first knight fought poorly, and King Glamide did not fight at all. I won your victory without even trying. Should I not face some difficult tests before I settle into life with you?"
The queen looked sadder than ever, but she nodded. "I was afraid it might be that. You are king of this land, but I have noticed that you do not like to be called king."
"This is your kingdom, Connie. I want to earn my own titles."
"Then you must go," the queen said softly. "And I will miss you every day."
"And I will miss you," Parsifal said, taking her hand. He glanced over his shoulder at Piers.
"You coming with me, Pierre?"
"Yes, sir!" Piers said, delighted. Then, remembering that Parsifal's departure was a cause of sorrow to the queen, he quickly moderated his glee and, searching his memory for something suitable to say, added, "Your highness?" Queen Conduiramour looked at him. "Forgive me, your highness, but it is a noble thing that you do. He could not love you, queen, so much, loved he not honor more."
Queen Conduiramour and Parsifal looked at each other in silence for a moment, then dissolved in helpless laughter. Piers flushed and stood rigid until they had regained control of themselves. "Forgive us, Pierre," the queen said, "we meant no disrespect, but really, have you any notion how stupid that sounded?"
Not wanting to prolong their goodbyes, Piers and Parsifal left the next morning, heading east. "How long will it take us to get to your mother's home?" Piers asked.
"I don't know," Parsifal answered. "I don't even know which direction to take. You see, when I came here to look for King Arthur, I came from the Other World."
"What do you mean?"
"Where my mother lives, there are many doors to the Other World—the World of Faeries—and I often traveled there. It was in that world that I saw my first knight."
"There are knights in the Other World?"
"Not usually," Parsifal explained. "But this was a knight of King Arthur's court who was on a quest. I wrestled with him and then gave him directions."
"What knight of Arthur's court?" Piers asked, interested.
"I never asked his name. Anyway," Parsifal continued. "I went home to my mother to tell her that I wanted to be a knight. She did not want me to, but at last she consented, and I went back to the Other World to look for this knight I had met. I didn't find him, but instead, I found a new doorway to the World of Men. It took me right to Arthur's camp, where we met."
Piers licked his lips. He had ridden up almost alongside Parsifal in his eagerness to hear more about the Other World, and he felt that he ought to return to his subservient position, but he had one more question to ask, one that he had not dared to ask in anyone else's presence. "Parsifal, in all your travels in the Other World, did you ever meet a faery named Ariel?"
Parsifal considered the question. "Male or female?"
"Female. About my age, I think."
Parsifal looked at Piers sharply. "You think? Do you mean that you've seen this faery?"
Piers nodded. "Unless it was a dream," he added.
"It hardly matters if it was," Parsifal replied. He smiled broadly. "I would not have thought it of you. You seem so much a part of this world that I should never have expected you to see one of the Others. No, Pierre, I know of no girl named Ariel in that world. Perhaps you can introduce me to her someday."
"If I see her again," Piers said glumly.
"I shouldn't worry about that," replied Parsifal. They rode over a small hill and from the summit looked down on a pond that was fed by a small stream. In the pond were two men, fishing from a little ketch. One of the men, reclining in the stern, was wearing the most splendid purple clothing that Piers had ever beheld, more magnificent than anything at Arthur's court or at Sir Gurnemains's castle. Parsifal led the way to the edge of the pond.
"How do you do, sir," Parsifal said. "I hope you are well today."
"I hope so, too," the man in purple said, very softly "Have you come far?"
"Not so very far," Parsifal said. "I am looking for great deeds to do."
The man in the boat grimaced slightly, as if having a spasm of pain, and the other man in the boat said, "Dip your wrists in the water, Nuncle. It always gives you relief."
The man in purple did so and seemed to rest easier. He turned to Parsifal and said, "I do not know what you consider a great deed, but you may ask at the castle that is behind that hill there."
"Thank you, sir, I will," Parsifal said politely "Behind that hill."
"Yes. Just follow the water," the man said, sinking slowly back into the stern of the boat.
Parsifal rode alongside the small stream toward the hill. When they were past the two anglers, he looked back at Piers. "Do you think that man was ill?"
"I wondered, too," Piers said, "but I'm glad that you didn't ask. Some people are very sensitive about their ailments. He could have been offended."
"Oh, I haven't forgotten everything that you and Sir Gurnemains taught me," Parsifal said lightly.
The hill toward which the fisherman had pointed was not very large around, but was quite tall—a sharp plug of rock jutting up from the ground. When Piers and Parsifal came round it, Piers saw to his surprise that the hill must be larger than it appeared, for behind it was a castle more magnificent than anything he had ever imagined. The two travelers stared. "Surely there are great deeds to do in such a place as that," Parsifal said eagerly.
They clopped over a tiny bridge and entered the castle gate. Three ladies stood in the entrance hall. "Welcome, sir," one said. "We have been waiting for you. I am bid to bring you to your rooms and thence to the feast."
"Feast?" Parsifal said. He leaned forward as if to ask more, but at the last second caught himself. He glanced at Piers and grinned ruefully. "You are very kind," he said to the lady.
The ladies led them to a large bedchamber and left them, promising to send someone for them soon. Piers helped Parsifal remove his armor. "This is mysterious, isn't it, Pierre?"
"Very," Piers assented.
"I think they have some secret here," Parsifal said firmly. "I can feel the magic of it." He pondered this for a moment, then added, "But I imagine that they'll tell us what it is when they're ready." Piers nodded his approval and surveyed his master. Even coming straight from a long ride, Parsifal looked fresh and elegant. Piers was proud of him.
A slight tapping came from the door, and then an impish face peeked in. Piers recognized the man who had been in the boat with the magnificent fisherman. "Yes?" Parsifal asked.
"Oo, ye're not up to much, are ye?" the man said, wrinkling his face. He stepped into the room, and Piers saw that he was wearing the motley multi-colored garb of a royal fool. "I was thinking ye'd be so grand, but here ye be, a mere sprat of a boy." He reached across and patted Piers's head. "Ye looked bigger in yere armor, son.
Piers stepped back distastefully, and Parsifal said, "I was the one in the armor, fellow."
"Ah, that's better, think on. But even so—" The man turned his scrutiny to Parsifal. "Ye don't look like so much yereself. Can ye do this?" With a sudden leap, the man flipped himself over into a handstand and began walking around the room on his arms, clucking like a chicken.
Piers and Parsifal stared at the man with consternation, but they said nothing. At last the man righted himself, looked back at the two and said, "Nay, ye're neither one worth a dram. 'Twere better if ye'd never come. Ye haven't even asked my name or my business."
Parsifal replied with dignity. "I assume that your business is to lead us to the feast. As for your name, I care not what to call such a frippery fellow."
Piers felt himself swell with pride, and he wished Sir Gurnemains had been present to hear his pupil reply so masterfully to this impertinent jester. The man stuck his tongue out and made the rude gesture called a "fig" at Parsifal, but then he turned on his heel and led the way out the door. Piers and Parsifal followed, and in a few minutes were led into a grand banquet hall filled with people in gorgeous raiment.
"I've brought them in, Nuncle," the man shouted. "For all the bleeding good they'll be. 'Twill all be for nought, I fear me."
Piers followed the man's eyes and saw at the head of a long table, propped up by pillows on a dais, the fisherman who had directed them to the castle. The fisherman wore a gold circlet on his forehead, a crown. With a slight wave, the fisherman king beckoned to Parsifal and waved him into a seat beside the dais. Parsifal took his seat, and Piers assumed his position behind Parsifal's chair.
"I am glad that you've come," the fisherman king said. His voice was grainy and weak. Ladies and courtiers who were gathered all around looked at him anxiously. One lady, who had an air of authority, waved an arm toward the great open door at the other end of the hall, and then began the strangest procession Piers had ever seen.
First, through the door walked a page, about Piers's age, carrying a long lance. As they drew close, Piers saw with horror that the point of the lance was streaming with blood, as if the blood were welling out of the lance itself. The fisherman king closed his eyes and looked away, then nodded. The page gently pointed the lance at the fisherman king's upper thigh. Looking hard, Piers thought he could see blood on the fisherman king's clothing there. Then, with a firm thrust, the page pushed the point of the lance into the king's leg. Fresh blood welled up from a wound, the king grimaced with pain, and Parsifal started to rise from his chair in alarm, but then the king relaxed. The page withdrew, and the king seemed to breathe more easily.
Before Piers had time to wonder about what he had just witnessed, two young girls came whirling wildly into the room. They seemed to be dressed entirely in flowers, and flower petals flew from their fingertips as they danced. A sweet perfume filled the hall. The girls left a shower of petals on the fisherman king and then disappeared behind him. Following on their heels, but walking much more sedately, came four regal ladies in matching white robes, each carrying a lit candelabrum.
Parsifal, who had reluctantly settled himself back in his chair leaned toward Piers. Piers inclined his head. "Do you think they'll explain all this later?" Parsifal whispered.
"I don't know," Piers replied. He was urgently curious himself. He wanted desperately to ask for an explanation.
Parsifal took a deep breath, then whispered, "If they don't tell us tonight, then tomorrow I will have to ask." Piers nodded vigorously. It was a good compromise, he decided, between good manners and good sense.
The ladies with the candelabra stood on the dais with the fisherman king, and two more ladies appeared, these in gowns that shone like silver, and they each bore a long, glittering knife. Piers could not look away from the two knives. At a glance he knew that they were perfectly balanced and from the glint on the edge he decided that they were sharp enough to slice a man's finger to the bone before he'd even felt the cut. They shone more brightly than any steel he'd ever seen at his father's forge, and he realized with a start that these knives must be made of silver. The hafts of the knives, or at least the part that showed beneath the ladies' hands, were curiously wrought with delicate metalwork that Piers longed to examine more closely. Had Parsifal not decided to ask for explanations in the morning, Piers would have been unable to restrain his need to know more about these brilliant blades.
Finally, one last lady entered, bearing something on an earthen tray. Piers stared, but he could not tell exactly what it was: the woman carried it on a tray as if it were a vessel of some sort, but it seemed to Piers more like a simple stone, roughly and irregularly cut, of the sort that anyone might find tossed aside by workmen at a quarry. The lady laid the stone on the table before the fisherman king, who sighed, looked once at the object, then lay back on his pillow and went to sleep.
Parsifal and Piers looked once more into each other's eyes, though neither spoke. The rest of the assembled company began to cry, sobbing softly. There was now food on the table, which had simply appeared when the stone was placed there. Parsifal hesitated, but no one made any movement to eat, and so, after waiting another moment, he took some food and quietly ate while everyone else wept.
Perhaps there was magic in the food, or else in the perfume from the scattered flowers, but Piers could barely hold his eyes open after the feast was finished. Neither he nor Parsifal attempted to discuss the strange sights they had witnessed, but instead both fell heavily into their beds, and when Piers opened his eyes, the sun had already risen.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. There was no sound but a faint whistling of wind through chinks in the castle wall. Piers stretched and threw back his covers. The fire that had warmed the room when he had gone to sleep was nothing but cold, gray ashes, and Piers dressed hurriedly and threw his warm traveling cloak around himself to ward off the chill.
"Is it already day?" Parsifal asked, sitting up.
"Yes," Piers said. "And no one has come in to build the fire in the room this morning. Strange notion of hospitality they have in this castle."
"Strange customs all around," Parsifal said, swinging his feet to the cold stone floor. "Let's get dressed and go find someone to ask about last night."
"Yes, let's," Piers said. Parsifal pulled on his warm clothes and then, because they didn't know if they would be coming back to the room, Piers helped him put on his armor and belt on his sword. They left the room together.
"Hello!" Parsifal called. There was no answer. He called again, and still got no reply. The castle was as still as a crypt. "Is no one awake yet?" Parsifal asked. They found their way to the courtyard, which was empty, and from there found the stables. There were their own horses, but no others. The castle was completely deserted.
"Maybe everyone's out hunting or ... or something outside the walls," Piers suggested tentatively. They saddled their horses and led them out of the stables, their ears straining for any sound that they did not make themselves. They heard none.
"Let's go see," Parsifal said, and they rode out the castle gates. Immediately the portcullis slammed shut behind them, and the great oaken doors closed. Piers and Parsifal turned in their saddles and watched, amazed and uncomprehending.
"I told them ye'd be worth naught!" shouted a voice. It was the man in motley who had taken them to the banquet room. He stood on the wall over the gate, looking at them from the battlements. "Why couldn't ye ask, ye blithering gapeseeds? Why wouldn't ye say the words, even? Ye had it in yere hands to bring it all back to rights, but ye said nothing! Ye said nothing when ye saw the lance—tell me, ye wise fools, when ye've ever seen sich a lance as that? Ye wouldn't ask about the knives of Trebuchet, and then—ah, asses that ye are!—ye wouldn't ask even when ye saw the Grail itself!"
"The Grail?" Parsifal shouted back. "What is that?"
"Shut up!" the man screamed, dancing with rage. "Do ye think I've time for yere questions now? Why couldn't ye ask when it was time? Why couldn't ye even ask about King Anfortas? Ah, but ye never even knew his name did ye, the noblest king ever born, and do you know why ye didn't know his name? Because ye didn't ask!"
"I did not think it polite to be forever asking questions," Parsifal said. "Of course I wanted to know."
"Nay! 'Tis a lie! Had ye wanted to know, ye would have asked! The one who asks no questions only wants others to think him clever! Fools! Blocks! Fatheaded dolts!" At that, the man disappeared behind the wall.
With a low moan, Parsifal spurred his horse and began to gallop along the stream, around the hill, back toward the pond where they had first seen the fisherman king. Piers followed, but no one was there. "No!" Parsifal shouted. He wheeled his horse and raced back toward the castle. But when they came back around the hill, the castle was gone. Only a field of thin, early spring grass was in the place where the castle had been.
Parsifal was silent and brooding, and in truth Piers was glad of it. He was in no mood to talk either. A huge weight had descended on him, and everything he looked at seemed edged in a dark outline that he had never noticed before. He sensed, in a way that he had never sensed anything before, that a great opportunity had just presented itself, and he had let it go. His mother had always made the life of a page sound so splendid, but it was not splendid to fail. And though he could not say exactly how he had done it, he knew he had failed.
Ahead of him, Parsifal stopped suddenly, cocked his head as if to listen, then walked his horse forward. Piers heard nothing at first, but then made out the sound of a woman crying. They rounded a bend on the forest path, and came upon a woman with long, tangled hair, mounted on a staggering, spavined old mare. The woman's clothes were little more than rags, and huge holes gaped on every side, revealing red, chapped flesh. When Parsifal rounded the bend, though, the woman sat up straight and tried vainly to pull her torn garment around her to cover herself. She must have known how futile was this pathetic effort at modesty, but she tried all the same.
Parsifal slowly approached the woman, reaching behind him to his saddlebag as he rode. "My lady," he said. His voice was gentle. "Permit me to give you this cloak. I am afraid you will be cold."
The woman shook her head abruptly. "No!" she whispered. "Please go away! If he sees you, he'll kill you."
"I don't know who you mean," Parsifal said. "But it little matters. Here, take the cloak."
"I cannot! If he sees that I've taken a cloak from someone, from another man, then—"
The woman broke off as a knight in ill-kept armor galloped madly out of the forest. "Aha!" the knight shouted. "I've caught you again! Consorting with another of your paramours!"
"No, no," the woman gasped, sobbing.
"Do you know this woman?" Parsifal asked the furious knight.
"Know her? She is my wife!" the knight screamed. Through his open visor, Piers could see froth on the man's lips.
"If so, you should take better care of her," Parsifal said grimly. "She is cold, and she has little to wear."
"I make no doubt you've gazed your fill at her, along with every other man who meets her. It is no more than she wants! She is a trollope, a wanton! She is friend to every man but her own husband!"
"No, I swear it is not true," the woman said pitifully. "It was all innocent!"
"You gave your lover my ring, didn't you?" the knight shouted. "The ring I had myself given you just two days before!"
"I swear I did not, my love," the woman cried. "He took it from my finger! He was a youth, ill-mannered and too foolish to know what he was doing!"
Parsifal was forgotten as the knight raged at his wife. "But you admit that he kissed you! Do you not?"
"Yes, my lord, he did. But he was too fast for me. I could not stop him!"
"Ha!" the knight snapped. He turned back to Parsifal. "Have you ever heard such a story? She claims that while she was awaiting me in a grand pavilion, set with a feast for my dinner, a strange knight came upon her, ate of my feast, kissed her, and took my ring from her finger. And in all this she was innocent! Doxy!"
The heaviness that had pressed on him all morning became almost unbearable to Piers as he looked more carefully at the ragged woman and, with difficulty, recognized the lady that Parsifal had encountered on their second day after leaving King Arthur. Parsifal reached into his saddlebags and drew out the ring that he had taken from the woman that day. "This ring?" he asked.
The knight screamed with inhuman fury and threw himself at Parsifal, drawing his long sword as he spurred his horse. Parsifal did not move until the knight was almost on him; then he caught the man's sword arm in one hand and grasped the man's armor with the other and threw him from his saddle. Then Parsifal dismounted deliberately and drew his own sword. "The woman speaks the truth," he said slowly. "I was young and did not understand about women. I meant her no harm, and I did nothing more than what she has said."
The knight scrambled to his feet, and his sword flashed toward Parsifal, but Parsifal parried it and stepped away. "The woman has been true to you, I say. I was a fool and made a mistake."
The knight attacked again and was turned aside again. He said fiercely, "And for that mistake you shall die."
"Maybe. Or perhaps you shall die for your mistake. I am in no mood to endure one such as you." Parsifal began to level his own attack. Everywhere the knight moved, Parsifal was there with a flashing sword or a heavy fist. Within five minutes he had knocked the strange knight down a dozen times. "Have you treated your wife this way ever since that day?" The knight did not answer, but Parsifal continued as if he had said yes. "That has been nine months, friend. I would kill a man for treating a dog in such a manner for so long. Have you any final words?"
The knight flailed weakly at Parsifal, who knocked his blade aside with a careless wave of his free hand and then struck a crashing blow on the knight's helm that sent him stumbling to the path.
"Madam, do you want me to kill this cur?" Parsifal said, raising his sword over his head.
"No! Please, no!"
"Why not?" Parsifal asked, his voice cold.
"I love him!"
Parsifal lowered his arm and looked at the woman. "Then you are a fool, madam. But for your sake, I will spare him." He looked back at the kneeling knight. "What is your name, you pig vomit?"
"I am Duke Orilus, and this is my wife, Lady Jeschute."
"Well, Duke Orilus, you are a vicious beast, and now you are a vicious beast who has been beaten. Know now that your wife was faithful to you and that you still breathe only because of her love. Get up." Orilus staggered to his feet, and Parsifal threw him roughly back into his saddle.
"Go to King Arthur's court, to the lady whom Sir Kai struck, and do honor to her. Then tell your story to the king, and tell it true, or I will hear, and I will hunt you down and kill you with my hunting spears, like the mad swine that you are. Go!"
Duke Orilus and Lady Jeschute began to ride slowly away, and Parsifal looked over his shoulder at Piers. "Go with them, Pierre. I want no more to do with pages." And then Parsifal leaped on his horse and rode away, and Piers was left without a master, without a position, without a dream, and a sorrow like none he had ever known settled on his shoulders and he wept.