Read Online The Grail War by Richard Monaco - Free Book Online

man.”
    “The boy means whoremasters,” Broaditch put in from his corner.
    “I know not,” Rova exclaimed, “for every man who owns a wine shop falls sick with the drink.”
    “And all bankers are fat,” declared Luark, “and who would not like it so?”
    “That’s wisdom,” Rova said.
    “Aye,” said the wife, “wisdom. From him, that’s eggs from a goat and milk from a chicken.”
    “It were the blow to his head,” Valit assented, as if he’d been asked.
    “Shut up,” Handler advised.
    “Well,” Rova bantered, “it’s not me inflamed by the devil’s lusts.”
    “You told me,” Valit protested, and Broaditch couldn’t tell if it was slyly, “you said you even put horns on the head of Christ.”
    “What words are these?” the woman cried out, crossing herself.
    “Well,” Rova said and smiled, “not every bride is true to flesh, much less an invisible husband.”
    “You’re the devil’s carrier, Rova,” she said, crossing herself again.
    “Well, stay off my cart, then,” was the retort.
    “Leading men and boys to the whores,” she said, getting angry. “No wonder God drowns the world with such as you in it.”
    “What does this mean?” Handler demanded, wobbling on his stool. “What is he saying?”
    “That vows are not the soul of purity,” Broaditch put in quite seriously. These questions mattered to him more and more and were not to be put aside with easy cynicism or dull belief. Were the acts of the clergy of any importance to God at all? Did the reasonings of scholars affect the heart for good?
    “Or their seal, either,” Rova said.
    “You say,” Handler demanded, cocking his head to the side, “you say you have lain with nuns?”
    “I lay with none who was chaste.”
    Broaditch smiled.
    “That covers all cases,” he said.
    Rova laughed.
    “Speak no more unholy things,” the woman said, “or leave this house.”
    Handler was searching Rova’s face with narrowed eyes. He kept licking his lower lip. He was agitated.
    “Well,” he insisted on knowing, “do you say truth or lie?”
    “What?” Rova wondered.
    “Nuns. Have you truly lain with nuns?”
    She stood up.
    “No more of this talk,” she said. “Is naught still holy?”
    “I heard such tales,” Handler went on, “but — ”
    “Enough!” she cried.
    “Silence your wife, brother,” Valit said maliciously.
    She raised an earthen crock.
    “I’ll silence somebody,” she announced grimly.
    Handler swayed on his stool.
    “When I was young,” he declared, “things were not the same …” He shook his head. “Let me tell you this … you worked your lord’s land … you fought … no one but Jews and Italy-men would live in a town … things were different …”
     
    “ … so the priest creeps close to the crack in the door,” Rova was saying as Broaditch, Handler, and Valit reeled up a narrow, mucky alley together behind him, “and sees the lord’s prong standing up straight as a club. So he next — ”
    “Where be the damned place?” Handler demanded. “Must we wander in darkness forever?”
    “No surprise in that,” Broaditch commented.
    “Peace, brothers,” Rova declared, “salvation is at hand.”
    Broaditch felt his drunkenness clamping firm and velvety around him. Well, why not? he kept asking himself. Why not steep himself in nonsense for a night? He’d grown so serious over the years. Why not act the fool on purpose for a change? So the saints didn’t do it, it seemed they didn’t want to, to begin with … Maybe the only sin is caring too much one way or the other …
    “What is this place?” Valit asked.
    “Why, you’ll soon see,” Rova replied, “for if you know not the art of it already, then tonight’s your night to be a man.”
    Handler found this amusing. They’d reached a narrow door in the back alley. A shrewish voice was rending someone around a bend; elsewhere there was singing … They went through a second door into hot, wet air, with a smell of