“No, but the last we truly spoke was on the ship. Your beloved father is near death, perhaps, but you are wiser than to think your depressed mood will bring him healing.”
“Am I? For I have entertained that very thought twice since the sun went home.”
“Still, you have rejected it. Why are you silent?”
“Do not pretend ignorance, for it does not suit a king so well as it does a humble man. I fear God will not find me worthy. We have come to retrieve his blood as a healing for my father, and as his daughter it is by my merits that the blessing will be given or withheld. If my desires are pure, my father will be saved; but if they are sinful,” she turned her head and was silent.
Willard touched her shoulder to comfort her. “If any is worthy, it is you.”
“You know my action, but not my heart. I have fallen, shown my weakness for the things of man. How can I ask God to give himself to me when I will not give myself in return? I cannot give my heart to any man, since it is not my own to give.”
“Without love, even faith is meaningless. For love is not a sin but a requirement.”
“Yet I am called for another purpose, and for me the love of man is sin, because it overpowers the love of God.”
“And what of he who loves you, is it sin for him as well?”
Ivona turned her face. “I am set apart, not to be sought after by men.”
“How can you utter such blasphemies? Does your God rejoice in the suffering you inflict on yourself? Does he rejoice in the flagellations of body, as well as of spirit? If that is your God, forsake him; for his punishment and his promise are the same. As for me, I have lived apart from men all the days of my life; and apart from men, there is no God.”
“But still you are here. Have you come only for me, to aid me in my weakness, as you think it?”
“I have, as well as to pursue Montague and solicit the French.”
“Then you have not come for God, but for hegemony: in politics and in my heart. And yet you know that though I want to love you, I cannot. I will do only as God wills and he has redeemed me for chastity.”
“And if you suffer for God, he will heal your father?”
“You are a fool! I do not suffer forGod, but for you. I choose to follow him because I desire him more than I desire you. You are an arrogant fool, if you think I suffer because I do not chase after you. You are not my God.”
Willard opened his mouth but was interrupted by Patrick, who whispered, “Look! There are lights shining through the darkness and muffled voices with them,” and he pointed into the darkness.
There, barely visible to them, were six dim spots of light.
“Put out the lanterns,” Willard said, and rushed forward to douse the one nearest him. They were themselves doused in darkness. “The other lights have faded,” Willard said after a moment, “And we have been seen.”
They armed themselves and prepared to be attacked. In the distance a low growling could be heard, as well as hissing and gnashing of teeth. The rebels drew near together, swords bared and pointed at the darkness that bound them.
“Ready yourselves,” Willard whispered faintly. “There are footsteps approaching!”
Chapter 68
“Onward, cowards!” Nicholas Montague called back through the stone doorway to his men, who were not following him. “He escapes us!”
To an ordinary man, those words would not have been disappointing. But they were soldiers and, when their initial surprise was thrown away, their impermeable consciences returned. So they drew their swords and ran after Montague. Before them the passage was narrowing as it curved. They went single file. Each stood guard against his own fears, though in the passion of the chase their fear canceled out their cowardice. To live, one must fight; and to fight, one must not fear. So they did not.
Montague drove them forward at a wicked pace and several minutes later the hall opened into a spacious chamber. In the darkness it was not possible to see its dimensions, but a wind echoed past and the chill of night could be felt. Their lanterns had illuminated the walls, while in the hallway; but in the chamber there was nothing by which to judge distance or direction. After traveling haphazardly for a moment, Montague stopped abruptly.
“It is foolish to continue in this fashion,” he said. “For now, we will go our separate ways, since we search for separate ends.”
“As you wish, sir,” the soldiers bowed, though they feared wandering alone amidst the chamber.
Montague did not answer, but was gone before he heard their reply. To find the Holy Graal, he needed the company of soldiers; but what he sought was far from holy and the only blood it held was perhaps his own. He charged into the darkness without a lantern, his path lit only by his passion to destroy what had caused him to fear.
“I was weak,” he growled to himself, “But now I will overcome this thing and earn reprieve for my faltering spirit. Blood will cleanse me, whether his or my own!”
The darkness parted in front of him and in the mysterious light a figure could be seen, standing motionless before him. Its tree-limb legs were gnarled and scaled, identical to those seen before. Yet its body was a man’s, though misshapen and deformed. Its head was giant and plastered with plates of skin, its mouth with fangs, its neck wrapped in serpents. Its chest, open to the air, was gilled and crimped.
“You have come,” it said, its voice a falling tree, though spoken in the tongues of man.
The two creatures circled each other for a moment, their eyes fixed and unmoving. The one was human in form, the other was not. Neither were human in heart.
“Sin is a lonely bedfellow,” Montague paused, “Or should I make hate to you as you have done to so many of my comrades?”
“Have I, indeed? You flatter me. Still, you have a spirit to be admired, and even I do not know many with your piety. I will rejoice when you are adopted into my hellish harem. There are many who pursue my works, yet none who pursue my person. You prove the exception; so I ask, knowing the answer: why have you come?”
“Is it wrong for a man to know his father?”
The creature laughed. “Nothing is wrong, for some; and for others, nothing is right.”
“But what father – when his son asks for a fish – would give him a snake?” Montague asked.
“I would give him only an apple from my tree.”
“Would he be the apple of your eye?”
“Do I love myself? Then neither can I love you. That is not my way, for I am the contrast,” the creature hissed.
“I know one who patterns you – weak and foolish, lorded over by feudal fate. You are the rebel of the heavens. But if you do not besiege the tyrant, others will replace you. If you do not overthrow him , Gylain will raise a tower as well as a siege. Contrast! What folly is this?”
“Folly? It is us!” the thing cried.
“Speak, wyvern-tongue.”
“He cannot exist without us, nor would he be righteous if we were not evil.”
“Then defeat him!” Montague cried in a passion, “Remove the oppression which declares him righteous because of his all-consuming power. You failed before, perhaps, but the mortals will join your side. All creation will arise and overturn the one who corrupts.”
The creature turned its head and showed its teeth in desperation. “Would you know? Can a mortal have knowledge of the immortal, or the finite of the infinite? Proportion and contrast! Without darkness, light cannot be known; without black, white cannot be understood. If you would destroy him, you must first remove the contrast through which he presents himself. You cannot destroy the good but by destroying the evil that defines it.”
“To hell with contrast; to hell with you, suckling!”