"It was a rhetorical question," Kundry replied. "You"re not the least bit what I expected, you know."
"Aren"t I?"
"No." Kundry drank some coffee and dropped the cup. A tiny roach darted up, caught the handle of the cup in its mouth and disappeared with a flick of its tail, while a perch retrieved the saucer. "A moment ago you asked me where you were."
"That"s right," Boamund said.
"Well," Kundry continued, "this is the registered office of Lyonesse (UK) plc, and we"re in the exact geographical centre of Albion. You"re sitting on it, in fact."
Boamund shifted rather uncomfortably.
"Here," Kundry went on, "you"re exactly half way between Atlantis and the North Pole. Does that mean anything to you?"
"Well, no, not really."
"Doesn"t it? Well, never mind. I expect you want to know where the Holy Grail is."
"I would rather, yes."
Kundry smiled. "In that case," she said, "I think I"d better begin at the beginning. It all started a very long time ago . . ."
In the narrow street outside, a Roman legionary was leaning on his shield, looking out over the city of Jerusalem and doing his best to ignore the smells of cooking coming from the upper room of the house behind him.
He could smell garlic. He could smell lamb, basting in its own juices. He could smell coriander, and freshly baked bread, and thyme, and sea-ba.s.s being steamed with dill and fenugreek. It was sheer torture.
In the kitchen above his head, Bartholomew"s girlfriend was stirring the sauce for the roast peac.o.c.k with one hand, and turning the pages of a cookery book with the other.
"Cream the yeast with a little of the milk," she said aloud, "and leave until frothy."
She hadn"t tried the recipe before, but it sounded wonderful - spicy buns with cinnamon and currants! Yum.
Bartholomew"s girlfriend liked cooking, and so when someone had suggested that they have a slap-up meal to celebrate Simon Peter"s birthday, she had volunteered like a shot. And when they"d told her that the Master would be coming - well, she"d been in a right tizzy for days. Just imagine it, her cooking for the Master!
After a lot of soul-searching and internal debate, she"d decided on the lamb. You couldn"t go wrong with lamb, not at this time of year; and anyway, the marinade would cover a mult.i.tude of sins. Then Simon Peter had caught those really nice ba.s.s - say what you like about Si, his fish was always properly fresh, which was more than you could say for some and Philip had been given a peac.o.c.k by the nice Roman lady whose garden he did twice a week, so that had been all right. The little cinnamon cakes had been her own idea, though.
"Turn on a floured surface," she read, and "knead for eight minutes until smooth and elastic."
It would have been nice, she reflected, if once, just once, one of them had the good manners to say thank you; but that was men for you. She smiled indulgently, thinking of the time when they"d brought all those people back, and nothing in the house except a couple of loaves and a few oddly little mackerel.
Bartholomew was nice, she said to herself; a nice, steady young man, not likely to go dashing off and joining the army or disappearing for months on end with a caravan. She didn"t mind waiting while he went through this religious phase of his -- long engagements were a good thing, really, you got to know each other"s little ways, so it didn"t come as a great big shock when you finally did get married. Besides, it gave her plenty of time to make her dress.
As she made the glaze for the buns, she turned over in her mind the rather peculiar rumours that she"d heard in the Market that morning. Not that there could possibly be anything wrong with the Master; he was a holy man, they said, one of these prophets or something like that. But it was true that the Romans didn"t really hold with prophets, and really, no good ever came out of antagonising the Romans. She"d have to be firm, she decided. Once they were married, she"d have to trailblazers stop Bartholomew going to all these prayer meetings and things. If he was really serious about having his own little sandal-maker"s shop one of these days, there wouldn"t be time for hobbies, anyway.
"There," she said, and closed the oven door. She wiped her floury hands on a towel, nodded with satisfaction, and started to arrange the flowers on the table. Thirteen to supper would have panicked a lot of girls her age, but she"d managed.
The first to arrive was James the son of Alphaeus. A shy boy, always knocking over ornaments. He helped her lay the table, but didn"t say a word. Preoccupied, she thought.
Andrew, James and John all came at once.
"John," she said bitterly, "I do wish you"d learn to wipe your feet. Just look at my nice clean floor." She scurried away for the mop; but as soon as she"d cleaned up, in came Simon Peter and Thomas, in their work-clothes too, and she had to do the whole thing again. n.o.body noticed the flowers, although it had taken her half an hour to get them just right.
Matthew and Simon the Zealot left their muddy cloaks on the worktop and Judas the brother of James picked the decoration off one of the buns. She was quite rude to him.
Just when she was starting to fret about the meat spoiling, Philip, the other Judas and Bartholomew came in; but she couldn"t scold them for being late because they had the Master with them, and Bartholomew got so upset and difficult if she said anything to him in front of the Master. Judas wiped his hands on one of her lovely Damascus napkins, and Philip"s dog knocked over the hat-stand, but she didn"t say anything. Her mother had always said that she had the patience of a saint.
She hadn"t enjoyed the meal. Although the lamb had turned out just right, the peac.o.c.k was delicious and the sea-ba.s.s just the way it should have been, n.o.body seemed to be hungry. They just sat there, picking at it; and the Master ate nothing but a few pieces of bread all evening. The conversation had been very gloomy and depressing, all about theology, and she"d got the impression that they were all rather on edge. Mind you, what with bringing in the food and clearing away the dishes and n.o.body raised a finger to help, of course, although she should have expected that- she hadn"t been in her seat for more than a couple of minutes together. And, of course, Judas Iscariot had to go and upset the gravy-boat, all over her mother"s best tablecloth. Finally, to put the tin lid on it, n.o.body had so much as tasted the clever little cinnamon buns with the pretty decoration on them. For some reason, she got the impression that everybody thought they were in rather poor taste, but she couldn"t for the life of her think why.
Eventually, Simon Peter looked at the water-clock and said something about it being time they were going, and they all stood up to leave. That was rather more than Bartholomew"s girlfriend could take.
"Excuse me," she said, "but aren"t you forgetting something?"
Andrew and Thomas gave her a filthy look but she ignored them. She"d had enough; and if Bartholomew cared for her even a little bit then he"d say something, surely.
"The washing-up," she said. "You aren"t just going to walk out of here and leave it, are you?"
There was an embarra.s.sed silence; then Simon Peter mumbled something about them having to dash or they"d be late.
"It won"t take a moment," said Bartholomew"s girlfriend. "Not if six of you wash and the rest of you dry." And she went and stood in front of the door with her arms folded.
"Oh for Chri - for crying out loud," said Matthew. "Get out of the way, woman, we"re in a hurry."
"You"re not leaving this room until you"ve done the washingup," said Bartholomew"s girlfriend. "I"m fed up with you lot trooping in and out at all hours of the day and night in your muddy shoes, expecting to be fed and cleaned up after and have your silly cloaks darned, and knocking things over, and bringing your horrid dogs and nets full of fish, and leaving saws and drills and things all over the place. It"s too bad, it really is."
And then she"d burst into floods of tears.
"Look," said James, "we"ll make it up to you later, right? Only, really, it is kind of important that we split now, okay?"He"d tried to edge past her to the door but she stuck out an elbow. There was a highly embarra.s.sing silence.
The Master, who hadn"t said a word, then looked at her and beckoned. She stayed where she was.
"And as for you. . ."she started to say. But he wasn"t listening. Instead, he turned on his heel, marched over to the sink and grabbed the little mop. When Simon Peter tried to take it from him, he gave him a very fierce look.
"Whetherisgreater," he said in thatvoice of his, "he thatsitteth at meat or he that serveth?" And he gave the drying-up cloth to Judas the brother of James. "Is it not he that sitteth at meat?" he went on, scrubbing vigorously at one of the roasting dishes. "But 1 am among you as he that serveth."
Judas the brother of James dropped a dish, which broke, It was typical, of course; the rest of them just stood there, gawping and putting the dried-up things away in the wrong places, while Philip"s dog jumped up on the table and started to lick the gravy off the plates. It was, all in all, one of those evenings you"d like to forget.
When they"d finished, she stood aside from the door and they all trooped through, thoroughly sullen and bad-tempered. Bartholomew didn"t even speak to her, which was just as well, because she was d.a.m.ned if she was ever going to speak to him ever again.
"I just hope you"re satisfied, that"s all," Simon Peter said. "Honestly! Women!"
When they"d all gone, she went to the sink and put the things away properly. It was then that she noticed that the old brown terracotta washing-up bowl was different. Something had happened to it. Instead of being brown and heavy it was light and a sort of pale blue colour. In her amazement, she dropped it; but instead of breaking, it bounced, spun round on its side for a moment and rolled behind the vegetable rack.
It was a miracle. Another one, just like that dreadful scene at cousin Judith"s wedding at Cana, when everyone had got completely drunk and she"d had to call the watch out to them. As if she didn"t have enough to put up with.
Kundry was silent for a moment, her face suddenly old.
"And?" Boamund asked. "What happened then?"
"You can imagine how I felt the next day," Kundry said, "when I heard He"d been arrested, I mean. It was awful, really. I mean, none of our family had ever been in any sort of trouble with the police. I was just thankful my mother wasn"t alive to hear about it. She"d have been horrified."
"But . . ." Boamund stammered, "you stupid woman, don"t you know who that was?"
Kundry frowned at him. "Of course I know," she snapped. "I found that out soon enough. An angel told me. I was livid."
"Livid?"
"Absolutely furious," Kundry said, tight-lipped. "The unfairness of it all. Do you know what they did to me? They cursed me, that"s what. They said that until the Son of Man should come again, and I was permitted-permitted, would you believe - to wash up for Him and all His fine friends as I should have done then, until then I was doomed to wander the earth for ever, lugging that horrid little plastic bowl around with me. Well, I told them-"
"That bowl," Boamund interrupted, "that"s it, isn"t it? The Holy Grail, I mean."
"Of course it is," replied Kundry, and the knuckles of her hands were white with fury. "What did you think it was, you silly? 1 told them. I said that hanging around waiting was one thing, I was used to that, but lugging a cheap plastic bowl about with me was something else. Oh yes, I put my foot down there all right.
Boamund stared at her. It was, he was saying to himself, rather a lot to take in, all in one go. After a moment, Kundry seemed to recover her composure, for she smiled and accepted an After Eight mint from a pa.s.sing gudgeon.
"It wasn"t long after that," she said, "that I met Klaus. He was still at the University in Damascus finishing his thesis, though he"d completely lost interest in it by then, and as soon as we discovered what we"d both suffered at the hands of that. . . that Person, we felt that we really had something in common, and so we got married. It was a mistake, of course, but neither of us was prepared to admit it. Instead, we just did our best to put up with each other."
"That"s Klaus von Weinacht, is it?" Boamund asked. "I think some friends of mine . . ."
"Yes," Kundry said, with a hint of distaste, "that was Klaus von Weinacht. Anyway, where was I? We"d been married about a year or so when Klaus decided he was going to leave the University and go back to Atlantis, where he"d originally come from. I went with him- I wasn"t going to give up that easily, not without a proper settlement, at least - and so we both went to Atlantis. He told me all about the magic gold and the moon and the rotation of the earth and so on, and I realised that there was a simply marvellous opportunity there for someone with a good head for business. I took charge of that side of it- I didn"t tell Klaus what I was doing till much later, and he didn"t find out, what with having to deliver all those presents and everything- and it wasn"t long before the whole operation was well and truly under way. I expect you know all about that."
"That"s all this insurance stuff, isn"t it?" Boamund said. "I don"t think I"ve quite got the hang of how insurance actually works yet, but never mind. You carry on with what you were saying."
"It was about twenty years later," Kundry said, "that my Uncle Joe came to see me, all the way from Arimathea. He"d brought the washing-up bowl with him, and I was a bit taken aback when I saw it again, as you can imagine. But then he explained about all the marvellous things it could do, about tax and so forth-basic rate tax was three deniers in the sol tournois in those days, we didn"t know we were born - and so I put it to good use right away. Uncle Joe stayed on and we gave him a seat on the board, and everything was fine for quite some time. Well, not fine, exactly; I mean, Klaus and I only spoke to each other during board meetings, and even then we quarrelled a lot. I had an idea that he was up to something, you see. There were a lot of rumours going around about him wanting to have me thrown off the board so that he and Uncle Joe could take the whole thing over between them. Of course, I wasn"t having that. The very idea!
"I found out what they were up to, eventually. They"d worked out that this place - Albion, I mean - had been built by the ancient Atlanteans to separate the two magnetic fields, years before my time, and that they could use it for a sort of tax fiddle. By the time I found out, actually, the whole thing was rather too far advanced for me to be able to nip it in the bud, but I got there in the end and plugged the loophole. They were sick as parrots about my spoiling their little plan, but there wasn"t much they could do about it. The tiresome thing was that Uncle Joe had managed to get hold of the Grail - we might as well call it that, although personally I think it"s a silly name for it, don"t you? and smuggled it out to Albion and hidden it. He knew where it was, and so did Klaus, and there was a monk or somebody like that in Glas...o...b..ry who was in on the secret too, but that was all. They couldn"t use the Grail without me knowing, of course, but I couldn"t use it either. It was a great shame and very silly, but that"s men for you. Spiteful.
"Anyway, things came to a head and I divorced Klaus. He got custody of our daughter and took her away to the North Pole, where he built a whopping great big castle right on top of the magnetic iron ore deposit. I think he had some idea about using that to upset the balance between the two magnetic fields, purely and simply to get back at me, but he"s never actually got around to doing anything about it yet. I think he"s always too busy getting ready to do his delivery round. The population explosion in the last two hundred years has affected him very badly, you know. Serves him right.
"Uncle Joe just packed his bags and left, too. The last I heard of him was in this Glas...o...b..ry place; apparently, he just sort of vanished in a puff of blue smoke, if you can believe that. I heard rumours some time later that he"d taken a job teaching at a boy"s school somewhere, but I don"t know if it"s true or not. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, he took the Grail with him, and that"s all I know about it. So I can"t help you any more. Sorry."
Boamund sat for a while, his eyes as round as the full moon.
"Thank you," he said. "You"ve been most helpful. I think I know what"s going on now."
Kundry raised both eyebrows. "Do you?" she said. "I don"t. Something"s going on, I know that, or else why did Klaus suddenly turn up the other day chasing your friends? I hadn"t seen him for years. Good job, too."
"I think I know why," Boamund said. "He knew that Mr- that your Uncle Joe was helping us to find the Grail, and he wanted to find out what we knew."
"Uncle Joe?" Kundry stared at him. "What"s Uncle Joe got to do with it? Like I said, I haven"t seen or heard anything of him for simply ages. In fact, I rather thought he was dead or something."
Boamund shook his head. "No," he said, "not as such."
"Have you seen him?" Kundry asked eagerly. "Do you know where he is?"
"Yes," Boamund said slowly. "I know where he is. But I don"t know where to find him. If you see what I mean."
Kundry sighed. "Not really," she said. "Oh, by the way, your friends took something of mine the other day. Would you be very sweet and let me have it back when you"ve finished with it?"
Boamund nodded. "Thanks again," he said, and added, "I think it was a swizzle, too. About the washing-up and everything. But, well, sometimes you"ve got to put up with people important people, if you know what I mean. It"s like knights and dwarves, really. I mean, knights aren"t particularly clever and dwarves help them out a lot with the thinking. And dwarves do all the housework and the cleaning and tidying up, and we do sometimes forget to say thank you. But that"s because that"s the way things are. They understand, and we do, too. Sort of."
Kundry frowned at him. "That"s men for you," she said. "Typical."
Boamund stood up. "I"d better be getting back," he said. "Um, how do I get out of here?"
"I"ll see to that," Kundry replied. "Give my regards to your friend Bedevere. I quite liked him."
"Thanks."
"Goodbye then," Kundry said. "Your Majesty."
Toenail was sitting in the boat when Boamund finally surfaced. He held out a boathook and Boamund pulled himself aboard.
"Lucky I brought a change of clothes and some towels," said the dwarf. "When I heard we were going to a lake, I said to myself, someone"s bound to fall in, so I"d better . . ."
Boamund wiped the water out of his eyes. "I didn"t say we were going to a lake," he said.
"You didn"t, no," Toenail replied. "You wouldn"t have known, would you?"
Boamund shrugged and towelled his hair for a moment. The dwarf picked up the oars and started to row for the sh.o.r.e.
"Toenail," said Boamund suddenly, "whose side are you on?"
"Yours, of course," said the dwarf. "Why d"you ask?"
"Nothing," Boamund replied. "I was just puzzled, that"s all."
The dwarf veered the boat towards the jetty with the lefthand oar. "We"ve always been dwarves in our family," he said, "it"s a tradition. I told you, remember?, "Did you?" Boamund noticed that he"d lost Excalibur; that"s if it really had been Excalibur. "Sorry," he said. "I probably wasn"t listening."
"Don"t suppose you were," said the dwarf. "You"ve found out, then."
Boamund looked up. "Found out?" he repeated.
"About the Grail, and Mr Simon," Toenail replied. "Or didn"t she tell you%, "You mean you knew all along?" Boamund said.
"Sort of," Toenail replied. "It"s called race-memory, you see. Like, all dwarves can remember everything that"s ever happened to all the other dwarves who"ve ever lived. Just not all at once. Bits of it come back to you, when it"s necessary."
"Right," Boamund said. "I think I follow. Yes, she told me. Came as a bit of a surprise, actually."
"Everything comes as a surprise to me, sir," replied the dwarf. "I prefer it that way. Here we are."
The boat nudged gently against the jetty, and Boamund jumped off.
"Can you manage?" he asked.
"Course l can," Toenail replied cheerfully. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason," Boamund replied thoughtfully. "Now then..."
"This way," Toenail said.