Read Online Kingdom of the Grail by Judith Tarr - Free Book Online Page A

lords and fighting men, knew that same surety.
    A stab of alarm brought him up short. Was this a plot against them all? Was it meant to divide them, to set man against man and man against king, and so leave them ripe for treachery?
    The sword’s gleam offered no answer. Roland’s eyes, questing among the gathered faces, searched that of the emir. There was guile there in plenty, but of betrayal he saw nothing. He looked past that lean dark face, scanning the faces of the emir’s retinue. Nothing.
    Ganelon, he thought. As if the thought had conjured him, he was there among the flock of priests, with his dour monks at his back, and close by him—disturbingly so—the king’s eldest son, the hunchback. They were all watching the sword, but not as if they had anything to do with it. Pepin was rapt. His face, so like his father’s atop the twisted body, was as full of naked yearning as any other.
    This was not Ganelon’s doing. Roland did not know if he was glad. Nor, he admitted, did he know that the sword was an ill thing. It did not feel so. It felt clean and rather cold, not a thing of heaven maybe, but not of hell, either. It was made of the elements of the middle realm, of earth and water, air and fire.
    Roland would have to stop soon and consider what it meant that Pepin stood so close to the old enemy. Roland had been so preoccupied with guarding the king that he had not been paying proper attention to the king’s children. Pepin was not the heir: his mother had not married the king in the eyes of the Church. But he was the king’s eldest son. If Ganelon had got at him rather than at the stronger, wiser, far less vulnerable and far more strictly guarded Charles—
    Later he would ponder the uses of diversion and distraction. For this moment, all that mattered was the sword.
    The assembly hardly waited to be dismissed. They did not, just then, care exactly what they had decided to doabout the war. They were all in a fever to prepare for the contest, which would begin after the sun passed noon; then when that was done, the emir would summon them to his feast.
    The Companions prepared together as they would for battle, gathered in the tent Roland shared with Olivier, which was the largest. Their servants ran back and forth, fetching clothing, weapons, armor. Only the twins Gerin and Gerer were not there: they stood guard over the king.
    â€œHe’ll fight for it, too,” said Olivier as his servant shaved him—putting that poor man in great danger of cutting his master’s throat, but he was used to it. Olivier was seldom silent even when he slept.
    â€œSo do we let him win it?” Milun was the youngest of the Companions, younger than Roland, and inclined to fret over matters of precedence. It was his mother’s fault, his cousin Thibaut was wont to say. That lady had made a high art of fretting, and she had taught it to her son.
    But Milun was a good fighting man and fair teller of tales by the fire of an evening. The rest of them forbore to knock him down and teach him sense. Turpin said, kindly enough, “Of course we don’t let him win it. He’d have our necks if we tried. This will be a fair fight. If the king wins, he’ll win by his strong right arm, and nothing else.”
    â€œBut he’s the king,” said Milun.
    Thibaut cuffed him not quite hard enough to fell him. “Stop it, puppy. You’ll fight as we’ll all fight, for the honor of your name. Maybe you’ll win. Stranger things have happened in this world.”
    Milun growled but subsided. In any case he would not have been able to say much more: two of the servants had brought him his mail-coat. They climbed up on stools on either side of him and hefted the heavy thing above his head. He lifted his arms. They lowered the mail-coat, grunting a little with the weight, working his arms into it and settling it on his shoulders.
    Roland, whose own coat was already on,