FOR TWO DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS NOW WE’VE BEEN lurching and walloping south, and around us the waves have bristled. Short seas are what Piero calls them.
Most of us have been sick. I have a dozen times, and I can’t even go down the hatchway without smelling vomit and feeling sick again, so I’m living on the deck, wearing two pairs of hose and two shirts, wrapped in my sheepskin.
I’m glad Winnie can’t see me looking like this.
As if the smell below were not bad enough, Bertie had to pump the stinking water out of the bilge-well because he was discourteous to Milon yesterday. He was pretending to be a mad sheep, and to begin with, Milon was quite amused, but then he went too far and baahed in Milon’s face and bit his right arm.
Bertie scowled at me. “Tell me other things that stink,” he said.
“Shit.”
“Worse than that.”
“Rotten fish. So rotten they glow in the dark.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. Vomit. Yes, vomit! And fear.”
“Fear doesn’t smell.”
“It certainly does.”
“What else?”
“Bad eggs. Sir William’s breath. Stink-horn. A bitch in heat. Wild garlic.”
“Farts,” said Bertie.
“And goats,” I said. “And a skin that hasn’t been cured properly.”
“And a corpse!” declared Bertie enthusiastically. “Add all those together and that’s what bilge-water smells like.”
When we sailed out of Venice, with all that chanting and cheering, I supposed we’d reach Zara in four or five days. I didn’t realize that the Doge planned to disembark at Pirano and Trieste, and have all their city councillors swear new oaths. He likes to keep people waiting so they can see how powerful he is, and anyhow he’s ancient, and never does anything quickly.
The day we left Saint Nicholas was the hundredth after we left Holt, and twenty-nine more days have passed since then. Last night Milon came up for air and sat with me. He told me it’s too late in the year now to sail south from Zara. The winds and water are too unchristian; we’ll have to winter there and sail in the spring.
For the Holy Land? Or Egypt? At this rate, we’ll never get to Jerusalem at all.
I told Gatty once I would try to send her a message when I reached Jerusalem. How did I think I was going to do that?
Last night I unwrapped my seeing stone.
It looked like sea waves when they glow in the dark. Then I could see King Arthur standing beside his throne, speaking to his queen and ladies and knights.
“Sir Lancelot proved the queen was innocent when he defeated Sir Mador, and Nimue has confirmed it. She did not poison the apple. She did not cause the death of Sir Patrise.”
“Nimue, Merlin’s apprentice, most loyal to me, says she can tell by her magic the apples were poisoned by Sir Pinel le Savage. Sir Pinel. He wanted to kill you, Gawain, because you killed his cousin.”
“I did,” says Sir Gawain.
“But now Sir Pinel has fled,” the king says.
While Arthur-in-the-stone is speaking, the far door swings open, and in walk two ladies, one the age of Lady Alice, the other twice as old, followed by two pages carrying a litter. A knight is lying on it.
“Come forward!” King Arthur calls out.
“I live close to Trieste,” the older lady tells Arthur. “My name is Agatha. This is my daughter, Fyleloly.”
Fyleloly curtsies to the king. She has black hair and high cheekbones, and her skin’s sallow.
“And this is my son,” says Lady Agatha. “Urry. Sir Urry of the Mount. He fought in a tournament and killed Sir Alphegus. But Sir Alphegus wounded him seven times. Three head wounds, three on his body, and one on his left hand.”
“Lady,” says Arthur-in-the-stone, “my people are courtiers, not surgeons or healers.”
“Sire,” the lady replies, “Alphegus’s mother was a sorceress. She cast a spell on Urry. His wounds can never heal until the greatest knight in the world touches them. Fyleloly and I have traveled through every Christian country searching for him.”
“Lucky the man with so loving a mother,” King Arthur says.
“And sister,” the lady adds.
“So loyal,” says the king. “So persistent.”
“For seven years we’ve searched,” Lady Agatha continues.
“If any man can heal your son, it will be a knight of the Round Table,” King Arthur says. “I wish only that they were all here, but forty of them are questing for the Holy Grail. I will try myself, not because I think I’ll succeed, but if the king leads, others follow. Meet me in the castle meadow in the morning.”
How easily my stone slips through time.
Sir Urry is kneeling on a gold cushion in the meadow, surrounded by all the kings and queens and dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses, all the knights and ladies and squires and pages at King Arthur’s court.
Sir Urry doesn’t look like the men I saw in Trieste and Pirano. He has no moustache, his hair is neatly cut, and he’s as slight as a slender girl. His wounds are eating at him, and he’s wasting away.
“May I lay my hands on your wounds?” asks the king.
“I am yours to command,” Sir Urry whispers.
Gently the king lays his left hand over the ugly gash on Sir Urry’s neck and cheek, and his right hand over Sir Urry’s wrist.
At once both wounds open. They weep blood.
Seeing this, one man after another steps forward. King Uriens of Gore. Duke Galahaut. Earl Aristause. Sir Kay. Sir Melion of the Mountain and Sir Dodinas le Savage. The Knight of the Black Anvil, and the copper-colored knight and the spade-faced knight. Sir Grummor Grummorson. Sir Arrok, Sir Marrok, whose wife turned him into a werewolf for seven years, Sir Griflet, Sir Piflet, little Sir Gumret.
But they all fail. Brave men and bullies, loyal men, liars, they’re no more able to cure Sir Urry’s wounds than any knight could pull the sword out of the stone.
Sir Tor steps forward now. I like him. He’s the son of a knight and a poor woman—the cowherd’s wife. That’s what I am too.
Sir Tor bends over, and carefully places both his big, flat hands on Sir Urry’s back.
Sir Urry moans. Blood kicks out of his wound and drenches his linen shirt.
“Where’s Sir Lancelot?” the king asks. “Why is he never here when we need him?”
“Look!” cries Queen Guinevere.
Sir Lancelot gallops into the meadow and dismounts.
“And how does he always know when he is needed?” asks the king.
“My heart,” Fyleloly whispers to her brother, “my heart tells me this is the man.”
“Do as we’ve all done,” King Arthur instructs Sir Lancelot. “Lay your hands on Sir Urry’s wounds.”
“If you cannot heal him,” Sir Lancelot replies, “I cannot.”
“Try,” says the king.
“I cannot disobey you,” Sir Lancelot replies, “but I’ve no wish to try to do what other knights cannot.”
“You misunderstand me,” the king says. “The knights of the Round Table are equals. We are one fellowship.”
If only that were true. When the Holy Grail floated into Camelot and circled the Round Table, and so many knights swore to quest for it, King Arthur knew his ring of honor was breached.
“On earth everything changes,” that’s what the king said then. “But knowing you must die on your quests, many of you, is it wrong to grieve?”
Sir Urry looks up at Sir Lancelot. “Honor me, Sir Lancelot,” he says.
Most of the knights get down onto their knees. Not all of them, though. Some are too old. Some are eaten by jealousy.
Sir Lancelot kneels beside Sir Urry. He raises his eyes. He mouths a prayer.
Now gently and firmly, he presses his fingers into Sir Urry’s three head wounds, the three wounds on his body, the wound on his left wrist.
The open wounds close. Seven scars seal Sir Urry’s torn flesh. The spell is broken.
Sir Urry gets to his feet and stretches. “I’ve never felt such joy,” he exclaims. “I’ve never felt this strong.”
“Strong enough to joust?” the king asks. “Strong enough to quest?”
“Tomorrow!” shouts Sir Urry. “And tomorrow!”
But Sir Lancelot? He sobs. Like a weeping wound.