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  Beauchamp had asked Malory to accompany him to see the petite lass in her dank cell in the tower of Bouvreuil. She was shivering, a little mouse in irons, but proud and defiant beyond belief. Another English noble was there that night too, Humphrey Stafford, an arrogant young man who would become the earl of Buckingham. It was then that Malory and the future Buckingham became sworn enemies.

  In French, Beauchamp asked the prisoner, “How are you being treated, Mademoiselle?”

  Joan was mute with anger.

  Beauchamp repeated the question, this time emphasizing his concern for her health.

  She answered. “Your guards are pigs! They put their filthy hands on my body. Did you know that?”

  Her impudence enraged Stafford, who swore at her in the foulest language, called her a liar and drew his dagger as he approached. Malory could scarcely believe what he saw and heard. Under any circumstances to do violence upon a shackled prisoner was beyond the pale but to do so to a woman was inconceivable. He rushed forward to place himself between Joan and the charging Englishman and when Stafford tried to push him aside Malory seized his wrist and gave him a sharp, backhanded blow to the cheek.

  On Beauchamp’s orders the guards separated the men and Stafford withdrew in a fury. As the French girl looked on gratefully Beauchamp said, “You did the right and honorable thing, Thomas, but know this: you’ve acquired a powerful enemy on this day—and no ordinary one.”

  “How so?” Malory asked, breathing hard.

  “It’s said he dabbles in dark arts.”

  “What sort of dark arts?”

  “Alchemy.”

  As they approached the outskirts of Maleoré, Malory’s page asked apprehensively, “Will they fight?”

  “Most of these villages have sent their men into the field against us. I don’t expect we shall encounter any but women, children, and the aged. But soon we shall see. Be at your ready.”

  “Will we burn them?”

  “If they treat us fairly we shall treat them fairly. There is little profit in destroying a place such as this. Our task is to reach Calais as quickly as we are able.”

  They entered the town at dusk. The rutted street was deserted save for a boy standing at the door of a cottage glaring at Malory’s motley column. Malory rode at the front, followed by a small contingent of soldiers on horseback, then the walking wounded and the litter-bearers. An arm quickly snatched the boy inside and the door was slammed.

  “Be at your guard,” Malory commanded the soldiers. As a precaution he had his page give him his shield that was emblazoned with his crest, a red chevron over an array of brown ermine tails.

  To their right, every hundred paces or so, were narrow lanes that led down to the dark river. Fetid smells wafted up the lanes and they could hear the gentle sound of flowing water.

  “Where shall we stop?” his querulous page asked.

  “Not here,” Malory said. “These meager cottages will do us little good. We seek substantial shelter. There will be a manoir.”

  Soon enough, on a hillock overlooking the town, Malory spotted a stone manoir, a generous structure commanding a good view of the surrounding countryside and river. There was still enough daylight to find the path up the hill and Malory brought the column to a halt on the flat grassy piece of ground that led to the manoir’s massive oak door. Like most of the great houses in this region the structure was built for defense, with sparse narrow windows and archer slits. Malory searched for signs of life but no livestock were about and the house appeared dark. He scanned the ramparts against the blackening sky but they were empty. It began to rain.

  “Will you dismount, my lord?” his page asked.

  “I will.”

  The page unstrapped a mounting box from the packhorse and took Malory’s reins as the knight swung his leg over the saddle.

  A sound.

  Malory heard it and held his breath: the unmistakable whisper of airborne death.

  The arrow caught his page in the tender space between eye and nose and buried itself deeply enough to kill instantly.

  Before Malory could utter his first command he heard a wail from within the manoir, a man crying out, “Non!”

  “Fall back!” Malory shouted, flipping his visor down. “Out of the archer’s range. Be quick. Set a line, well-spaced.”

  There was shouting from the manoir, then a bloodcurdling scream. Malory’s archers nocked their arrows. Then the huge door slowly opened.

  “Await my command!” Malory shouted to his men.

  The body of a young man, no older than the page, fell from behind the door and lay crumpled at the threshold.

  A man called out in French through the opening. “I have slain the wretch. I bade him not to shoot. I am coming out to reveal myself.”

  “Men, let not your arrows fly!” Malory yelled, turning to make sure his archers understood.

  An old man emerged, holding a torch that illumined his emaciated face. He was dressed finely in a loose gown. There was no sword in his hand, nor one on his belt.

  “Englishmen,” the old man announced. “I am the Baron Maleoré. This servant did not obey me and now he is dead. Did his arrow find its mark?”

  “My page is dead!” Malory roared back in French.

  “A thousand apologies!” the baron cried. “Though we are enemies, I am grievously dishonored by this act.”

  “We did not come to your village to do you harm but as punishment for the murder of this lad I will have my revenge,” Malory bellowed.

  “I beg of you, dear knight,” the baron implored. “Let me feed you and your men this evening and provide you with shelter. Let us drink together and talk as men. In the morning you may do what you will do.”

  The great hall was largely barren. There were padded chairs by the hearth, a few rugs on the floor, and a few sideboards and cabinets against the stone walls. Lying near the hearth was a pile of broken-up furniture. Malory understood. War had taken its toll. With few able-bodied men about, their store of seasoned wood had dwindled and the baron was reduced to burning household possessions.

  Malory’s men found places on the stone floor of the hall. Some groaned in pain, others muttered their thanks for being out of the rain that night.

  “Do you have any honey for their wounds?” Malory asked the baron.

  “Some, perhaps. I’ll give you what we have.”

  “And clean linen to bind them?”

  “My daughters and nieces will cut our bedsheets and tend to the men as best they can. Come by the fire, if you please.” He called for his manservant to bring wine.

  Malory automatically looked for his page to help him remove his armor, remembering that at that very moment he was being placed into the ground by a burial party.

  The baron’s servant assisted Malory with the task. Unburdened by the weight of the plates, the knight sat down and drank from his goblet.

  “What was the name of your page?” the baron asked.

  “It was John. He was the son of a dear friend who lives not far from my estate.”

  “The Lord works in strange ways.” The old man sighed. “My young archer was called Jean. A Jean for a John. Will you tell me your name, Monsieur?”

  “I am Sir Thomas Malory.”

  The old man’s eyes widened and he set his wine down. He repeated the name slowly, mimicking the English pronunciation. Then he said, “Maleoré,” the French way.

  Malory nodded his head. “I come from Norman stock, Baron. It is within the traditions of my family that our kind may have come from this region, perhaps even this village. In past campaigns on Norman soil I had not the occasion to stop here. Now I have.”

  The baron’s face was stiff. “Before we go any further, I must ask you a question. Do you possess the Maleoré rib?”

  Malory smiled and tapped his side over his liver. “Would you like to feel it?”

  The baron rose briefly, as if confused or excited; Malory could not tell which. He sat again. “My God! A miracle! We a
re kin and yet …” he began.

  “… We are enemies,” Malory finished.

  Behind them the women of the household were tending to the wounded, and the baron’s stone-faced servants were laying out trays of bread and wheels of cheese for the hungry soldiers.

  The baron turned his head at the scream of a man whose caked bandage was being removed by a young, homely woman. “My daughter, Marie, is the most skilled in my family. When my middle son, Phillipe, came back from Paris with a festering wound after an English cannonball took his leg it was Marie who nursed him for the time before he died.”

  “I am sorry,” Malory said. “What of your other sons?”

  The baron sighed. “I do not know. Perhaps they are dead. Perhaps they are prisoners. Perhaps they fight on. Tell me, Thomas Malory, what will you do with us tomorrow?”

  Malory gazed into the fire. “I do not know.”

  The baron leaned forward. “If I show you something astonishing which concerns the Maleorés and therefore concerns you, will you spare me and my village?”

  Malory chortled. “It depends how astonishing, Baron.”

  “It is about the Grail of our Christ.”

  Malory resisted the urge to speak his mind. Grail fables abounded. If he had a coin for every tale, his purse would be too heavy to carry. “If I am sufficiently impressed, then perhaps it will temper my anger and alter my intentions.”

  “In the morning then. It will take time to retrieve a scroll from its hiding place. In the meanwhile my servant has prepared a bed for you, the only one on which linens remain.”

  Malory felt a tinge of guilt lying in a comfortable bed while wounded men slept on the stone floor. His last thought before sleep was of his page lying dead in the grass but it would not be his only glimpse of death that night. An old dream returned to haunt him. He was back in the market square of Rouen on a sun-drenched morning. It was May, 1430. He was in the crowd of catcalling Englishmen as the toothless executioner, Leparmentier, adjusted the ropes that bound Joan of Arc to her stake. That day Malory had been anonymous but in the dream she always looked straight and unflinchingly into his eyes as the flames leaped to the height of her breast. There was no anger in those eyes, no fear, no suffering. It was said that at the moment of her death a white dove emerged from the flames and took to wing. In truth he had seen no such thing but in his dream the dove was there and it circled overhead three times before it soared heavenward.

  In the morning, the baron’s own manservant attended Malory and helped him dress. His men seemed content and well fed. Only one had succumbed from his wounds during the night. The baron was waiting for Malory by the fire, dressed in a finer, more formal costume than the previous day.

  He pointed to a tray. “Come, have some food, some drink.”

  “Show me this scroll of yours. I have a decision to make and I must resume my march.”

  “To Calais?” the baron asked.

  “I will not say.”

  “Ah, a secret. I understand. Yet, some of your men told their nurses of your defeat at Formigny and your withdrawal. I cannot say I am unhappy that our land is finally being returned to our king; so much more the pity that you should instigate a final act of violence against our poor village. I pray this scroll will help change your mind.”

  He handed Malory an ancient piece of vellum that had been rolled up for so long it did not require a ribbon or seal to hold its shape. It was burnt orange with age. Once he unrolled it he had to hold each end firmly to prevent it curling back on itself.

  Malory moved to the hearth for better light. Within a few moments he erupted in frustration. “I cannot make anything of this! What language is written here?”

  “It is Celtic. I thought Englishmen could read your own ancient tongues.”

  “Well, I am sorry to say I cannot, Baron. You will have to tell me what it says.”

  The baron looked alarmed. “I know what it concerns, as it has been passed down within my family by an oral retelling, but I cannot read it myself.”

  Malory let the scroll curl. “Then I am done here. Your oral tale will hold no weight with me. Your hospitality has been admirable but I do not think you have moved me from my need for justice. I will spare your castle but I will burn the village.”

  “Wait! Please!” the baron cried desperately. He turned to the soldiers spread out in the great hall and called to them in his best English, “Pray, men of arms, is there one among you who can read the ancient Celtic writing?”

  A silence fell over the hall.

  Then a thin voice could be heard from the rear. “I can.”

  “Stand up!” Malory commanded.

  “I cannot.”

  Malory and the baron sought out the man and found him lying on a litter, the new linen bandages swaddling his belly already stained through with fresh blood. He wore the clothes of a lancer.

  “What is your name?” Malory asked, standing over him.

  “Godfrey, my lord.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “I am Cornish,” the man answered weakly. “I am from Penryn.”

  “How were you wounded?”

  “A French sword. I think I am killed, my lord.”

  “You do not know that. Only God knows.”

  “I will not quarrel with a knight but I am certain I will never see Penryn again.”

  “We shall see,” Malory said. “How do you come to read the Celtic writing?”

  “Before I took to soldiering I was a monk novice at Saint Michael’s Mount at Bodmin. I learned Latin … and the old Celtic prayers. I can try to read what needs to be read if it pleases my lord.”

  “Tell me, Godfrey of Penryn, why did you leave the monastery?”

  “I was … cast out for excessive fornication, my lord.”

  Malory fought a smile and held out the scroll. The baron called for a candlestick to aid the man’s sight.

  Godfrey unrolled the scroll and studied it. “Maybe not all the words but the most of them. I can read it, my lord.”

  “Proceed,” Malory said. “Make a translation as you go—but keep your voice low so none other may overhear.”

  Godfrey began, haltingly and softly but clearly enough. “I Gwydre son of Arthwyr who doth rule the Britons as their King thusly offer unto God my true and complete testament. I have been grievously wounded. I will surely die before I can return to my home and I desire to be buried at Castle Maleoré where my father was born. My bones will be witness to my noble birth. Those who examine them will find my royal ribs which number two more than mere men and the same number as King Arthwyr. I did as my father commanded and rode off to foreign lands as the knight Gwalchavad had done before me. He was not able to bring home the Gral of the Christ and owing to treachery alas neither was I. Yet I did see the Gral with mine own eyes and thus know that the words which have been carved upon the sword of my father are true. I will not live to see the King again and he may not live to see the Gral for himself. I pray my brother Cyngen will find it. If he does not I leave this parchment for the heirs of Arthwyr. May it be found if it pleases the Lord. To find the Graal first find the sword of Arthwyr hidden at the castle of Tintagel which was the castle of Uther Pendragon father of Arthwyr. Arthwyr did bury it deep within the great sea cave near the sign of the cross. May a worthy and noble man of royal blood find the sword and thus find the Graal. May God make it come to pass.”

  As Godfrey read from the scroll, the baron nodded vigorously as if remembering the tale he had been told as a child. For his part Malory stood like a marble beside the wounded soldier.

  When Godfrey was done Malory took the scroll from him and said, “You must never speak of this. Do you understand?”

  In response Godfrey sounded a dolorous note. “Like this Gwydre, I too am dying, my lord. I will not live to see Penryn nor even the crossing. My tongue will be silent soon enough.”

  Malory nodded and touched the man’s hand in gratitude. Then he and the baron withdrew to the hearth where Malory sh
ocked the old man by tossing the scroll into the flames.

  “But why?” the baron asked.

  “No one else needs to see it. The man whom Gwydre sought has arrived. I am that man. My veins and yours course with the blood of kings and no ordinary king. To think! Arthur, the greatest king of all! You knew of this?”

  The baron nodded solemnly.

  Malory quickly added, “Tell me, Baron, did any of your ancestors ever attempt to journey to find the sword?”

  “None that I know. If it exists, it is within the strange and faraway land of our enemies. If any Maleorés had tried, I think they surely would have failed.”

  “It is my land,” Malory said. “To me it is neither strange nor faraway. I will not fail. I pray I may be able to find the sword and with it, the Grail. It will be my quest, like the ancient knights who came before me.” He took the old man’s hand and said, “We will go now, Baron. I will spare both you and your village. Let us hope your sons return to you soon. I leave in peace.”

  The old man’s eyes welled up. “Fate brought us together, sir knight, and I pray with every fiber in my body that you will succeed in your quest, for the greatness of the Maleorés and the greatness of God.”

  11

  Arthur returned from Warwickshire and pulled into his drive as dusk was descending. He was about to get out to remove Elizabeth’s old chest from the back of his Land Rover when he noticed someone seated on his front steps, a young woman with feathery auburn hair, perhaps in her early thirties.