Dragonetz gave Sadeek his head, galloping alone across the open moorland, chased by a storm that was already rolling black clouds over his head and dense fog over the terrain. Galloping was dangerous but his heart was black as the storm. As far as he knew, his friends were all dead, either from chasing the Grail or from the enemies they met during the pursuit. Why should he continue? Because of an oath to a king? What would be left of the kingdom when all the knights were dead, chasing dreams?
He was weary, his legs ached and he had no wish to be caught in the storm. Ahead, he could see a domed shelter, a stone shepherd’s bourrie appearing and disappearing amidst the thick swirls of fog. That would have to do, as he had no idea where there was anything other than Godforsaken wasteland. Just as he had no need to spur Sadeek, so the destrier knew to slow down as they approached the place Dragonetz thought the bourrie must be.
He was not wrong but as the bourrie appeared once more, so did something else. A wild-eyed giant in body armour stood between Dragonetz and the bourrie, swirling a mace in one hand and an axe in the other. Battle-trained as he was, Sadeek reared in fright, as a flash of lightning silhouetted the nightmare being in front of them. Then the horse steadied, brave enough even for this last fight. For Dragonetz had no doubts that this would be the last.
The heavens opened in a cacophony of thunder and a light-show that turned the torrential downpour into pink spears, churning the grass to mud. Dragonetz charged at the giant, lance in hand, hoping to find a weak spot in the armour, between neck and helm. There was no chance of felling this monster by force; he must have been twenty feet tall and seemed to grow as Dragonetz neared. It was not his imagination. Not only did the giant grow as Dragonetz approached, so did the reach of his mace, which swiped both Dragonetz’ legs. The ache turned into stabbing pain, so intense Dragonetz screamed.
Voices in the fog spoke like the thunder itself, rolling sounds into his head where they resonated before finally turning into words.
‘His legs hurt.’
‘Try the hash.’
‘He’s already had as much as I dare give.’
‘It’s not strong enough.’
‘Nothing’s strong enough’
The voices flickered through his head and flashed across the sky. They were right about one thing. Nothing and no-one was strong enough but he would die fighting. He asked the impossible of Sadeek once more and charged against the giant but this time he kept riding, till he was inside the reach of the lethal chain and using his sword to find just one chink in the mail, stabbing and stabbing, his legs giving way underneath him. It was almost a relief when arms like tree trunks wrapped around him so he was crushed against metal, smelling the blood-scent of iron, rubbed raw even through his own armour, unable to breathe. Then the arms released him. A giant hand picked him up and hurled him screaming into the eye of the storm.
‘He’s worse,’ the thunder said
‘It must run its course,’ said the lightning and he was not dead yet, but carried through the skies on the storm, riding the black cloud. ‘Sadeek,’ he murmured to the cloud, which whinnied and descended to a landing giddy as a camel kneeling. He dismounted, his legs still hurting.
He was standing in the family graveyard at Ruffec, one cypress planted inside it, dark green in mourning. The iron gate was shut behind him, and he couldn’t see over the high wall enclosing twelve graves, eleven with headstones, and one open, ready for a burial.
There should be nine graves, not eleven. He knew the names and inscriptions off by heart, of his father’s parents, and his grandfather’s siblings, just as he knew the coppice beyond the wall, where he’d hidden to avoid church-going when he was a naughty seven-year-old.
He peered at the inscriptions on the two new graves; his father and his mother. He didn’t remember them dying. The pains in his legs intensified and his head throbbed again.
‘You are not alone.’ It wasn’t the thunder but a woman he thought he knew, gliding towards him. She looked like a rose, all beautiful layers in full bloom. Her name popped into his head and he rolled it on his tongue. It wasn’t a bit like thunder. Estela.
‘We’re here, with you.’ Al-Hisba was with Estela, his dark face and robes a contrast to the rose pink. Dragonetz wondered why they looked so worried.
‘It is time,’ he said and let himself fall backwards into the open grave. He felt a momentary pang of guilt that his would be the last grave in the family. No-one would tend his grave and the cemetery would become overgrown with ivy, the stones cracked and blackened. He had not done his duty, not married, not sired an heir - though God knew his parents had nagged him often enough. He let such thoughts slip away, with all other pains. It was too late. ‘Stay with us.’ Estela’s voice. He shut his eyes and let go of the real world, floating away.
Floating far from his body in the grave, Dragonetz drifted over the fields to a river so broad he could not see the other side. The water flowed dark and slow, each drop irrelevant in the illusion called river. He dipped his hand into river and it came out covered in drops of water. He was just a drop of water and the river would carry on flowing.
Across the river towards him, gliding over the surface, came the barque he was expecting. Three fées in black veils and gowns stood tall and slim in the prow, whispering his name in a summons that would have found him wherever he was. Behind them, in the stern, glowed the Grail light and Dragonetz knew that he had only to touch each fée and name her, and he could leave the river bank behind, embark for the land of the Grail.
As the barque neared, Dragonetz heard once more the Grail music, its multiple harmonies and vast scope dampened by the river mist but unforgettable. All Dragonetz’ bitterness evaporated at the rightness of the sound. One of the figures on the barque stretched out towards him as the barque touched the bank. Dragonetz leaned out himself and touched the cold, white hand, saying ‘Morgan.’ She inhaled deeply as if breathing him in and she moved aside to let her sisters come in front of her.
Then Dragonetz was pulled rudely back from the barque, the moment spoilt, his way blocked so that he could not reach the fées who awaited him. Nor could they step out of the barque and come to him. The music and the fées called him but he would have to get past a black knight and a small boy. This knight, however, was no giant but a slighter man than Dragonetz when he took his armour off, as he did, piling it into a heap on the grass.
‘Will you fight me again, my friend?’ asked Arnaut, the other-worldly blueness crackling around his eyes. ‘It is not your time. Go back. You don’t have the right to let go. You owe me a life - your life. You must live it.’
Unable to move, caught up in the spell of the music but unsettled by Arnaut’s words and presence, Dragonetz waited for the other person to speak.
Muganni hopped on one foot, his eyes as changed as Arnaut’s. ‘It is not your time,’ he said, changing foot. ‘Go back. You don’t have the right to let go. You owe me a life - your life. You must live it.’
Still Dragonetz did not move. As the music grew quieter, he realised that it was the barque that had moved, floating ever further away from him, as the mists covered them all up. Then he wept for all he had lost and closed his eyes to find sleep.
‘Can you find me something to write with?’ Dragonetz asked.
Estela looked at Malik, afraid to hope, but he nodded. The crisis had passed.
‘What for?’ she asked, curious.
A shadow of irritation passed across his face as if it should have been obvious to her. ‘To write the music down,’ he said. ‘I think seven voices would make something like, don’t you? You were both there. You heard it.’ He was obviously frustrated at how slow they were.
‘We were both there,’ confirmed Estela slowly.
‘We heard the music,’ agreed Malik, ‘If you write it down, we might be able to help shape it.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ sighed Dragonetz with relief, while Estela went to fetch her pen and her precious paper book, leaving the door unlocked, announcing to everyone she passed that the master would be joining them for evening meal.
It was one of those crazy winter afternoons when the sunshine was almost too warm for sitting outside. The stone walls glowed golden and Dragonetz imagined his roses growing there, or in some other walled garden, wherever it should be. He must get down to the city and see his rose-grower, and his swordsmith. There were business matters to clarify. But for now, it was enough just to be here, to be himself.
The dreams still lingered in his waking mind. He hummed phrases and changed the composition every day but his score was taking shape. He’d never written anything spiritual before but he thought he knew the very person to turn the work into performance. He remembered a monk at the Templar stronghold at Douzens, someone al-Hisba had worked with before joining Dragonetz. The monk was a man who would understand, who would find the singers and the setting for the chorale. But it all could wait.
What could not wait was what he must say to Estela. He had turned his dreams over and over, seeking meaning, denying meaning, until he thought his head would explode. He had dark moods, moments when he felt that part of himself had left this world when he’d touched Morgan le Fay, and then he would shake off such superstitious thoughts, knowing that it was the poppy that had touched him, and left its traces. But the dreams lingered in his imagination and it troubled him that Muganni had appeared in such a guise, with Arnaut. In the same way he felt the rightness of the Grail music, he couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness about the dream-Muganni. He needed to know that Muganni was fine, that he’d reached the mountains safely. If only a pigeon could wing its way between them!
His throat tightened as he remembered their meeting in Nur ad-Din’s tent, the boy’s vulnerability underneath the veneer of training, his inability to hide his feelings. Dragonetz had seen every emotion pass through those luminous round eyes, from loathing and fear to joyous fulfilment. Recalling Muganni’s beautiful voice in the Arabic dawn song, accompanying Estela, still brought shivers of appreciation. No-one who’d been in court that evening would forget the boy, or his talent. And yet he’d thanked Dragonetz daily, when thanks were due the other way round. A strip of a boy, who’d saved his master’s life with his knowledge and nursing. Who’d saved it yet again in the dream-world that led out of this one. Wherever Muganni was now, the child would be singing like an angel.
Foreboding chilled Dragonetz once more, but there was nothing he could do about that feeling at present so he shook it off again. There was something he could do about the other realisation that had come to him. Seeing the family graveyard, seeing his own grave, he had believed for the first time in his own mortality. He was no longer a young man, as his parents had told him often enough. His parents who, thank God! were still alive as far as he knew.
‘Dragonetz, there’s something important I must tell you. I’ve left it too long and it’s not getting any easier.’ Estela was watching the babies as they rolled on the grass, pulled an occasional handful, which their nursemaid patiently retrieved from their mouths. Bemused at having such a household at all, Dragonetz had not asked for an explanation of the children who’d suddenly appeared. Some by-blows of Raoulf, he assumed, observing the way his man treated Prima. They wouldn’t be the first, although usually Raoulf moved on to the next pretty serving-girl, leaving what he saw as ample compensation for a broken heart and a baby. Dragonetz wondered idly how many little Raoulfs were scattered around the Holy Land. Some soldiers were like that. Which reminded him of what he must say to Estela.
He interrupted her. ‘There’s something I have to say something to you first.’ The babies chuckled and babbled as they explored a world where every clod of earth and each leaf was a novelty. ‘I owe you my life. No amount of thanks could suffice.’ The words sounded cold and formal to his ears after all they had been through together.
She shook her head. ‘No, it was Muganni who saved your life. If he had not prepared me for what it would be like, what we must do, Malik and I would never have managed.’
Maybe that was what lay beneath his dream, Dragonetz wondered. He did owe his life to Muganni. There was no reason to worry about the boy, who would be among the Hashashin at this very minute. He tried again to tell Estela what he must. ‘You are my life. I can’t imagine a life without you in it. But...’ Her face was as stone. ‘But I also have a duty to Ruffec. I must take a wife and get heirs. I will not live forever. Estela,’ he didn’t dare touch her, ‘do you understand? It needn’t spoil what we have now.’ He cursed the plea in his voice.
‘I understand,’ she said, looking straight ahead, a statue.
‘What was it you wanted to say?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. A robin hopped near one of the babies, sending the infant into an ecstasy of gurgling as he crawled surprisingly quickly across the grass after the bobbing bird, towards the stone steps. He stretched out his hand to make the grab, the robin took flight and Dragonetz saw the danger just as Prima yelled ‘Txamusca!’ as if calling a baby’s name would prevent an accident.
In a few, quick strides, Dragonetz had scooped up the little man just before he started the inevitable head-over-heels tumble. A signet ring on a chain swung free of the baby’s clothing as he was righted. Dragonetz kept the child in his arms, not needing a closer look at the ring. A baby called Txamusca, fire born of the dragon.
‘It’s all right, Prima,’ Estela soothed the distressed nurse, who offered to take Musca from Dragonetz. He shook his head and turned to Estela, clutching his precious burden.
‘My love,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How could I?’ she said, turning those expressive eyes full on him. ‘How could I add to your troubles before you were safe? How can I now complicate your plans for Ruffec? I will not hold you hostage. I want you to be free.’ Then he understood everything. And he knew why she had worried about her body disappointing him. Some questions had easy answers. Tucking Musca under one arm, he leaned over and kissed Estela on the mouth, not a polite kiss but a lingering promise of more, answered in kind.
‘Later,’ he murmured, breaking off with reluctance. ‘This thing wriggles.’ He sat down on the stone bench beside her, dandling his son on his lap, at peace in the walled garden.
‘A walled garden is the Muslim symbol for paradise,’ she informed him.
‘I believe so,’ he replied gravely, ‘but the poet did not say anything whatsoever about a wounded dog.’
‘Oh!’ she blushed. ‘Did you overhear? No... you couldn’t have.’ There was no need to say where Dragonetz had been at the time.
‘Malik told me,’ he grinned at her.
‘You mean he didn’t believe me?!’ She was indignant. ‘I thought I was very convincing!’
‘You were very convincing,’ Dragonetz assured her. ‘Malik has warned me that a nest of scorpions is less dangerous than you when you have your mind set on something.’
‘Presumably that’s a compliment?’
‘I believe so,’ he said, evoking a radiant beam from Musca by tickling the palm of his tiny hand. The robin landed again, gave its one-eyed check for danger before engaging in a tug-of-war with a doomed worm. The cobbled paths round the garden drew the eye in soothing patterns, loops and diamonds, interweaving to return always as a circle. A walled garden could be a symbol of paradise.