King of the Middle March Read Online Free Page A

holes. And there’s a mass of tiny threads, silver and shining, like gossamer on a misty autumn morning. It makes me think how everything in the world turns out to be connected, even if we don’t realize it is at first.
    King Arthur stares, and then he gives a sudden start, and looks around. He can hear a voice, but he doesn’t know where it’s coming from.
    â€œWhere are your knights, Arthur? Where are they all?”
    A man’s voice, dark with pain.
    â€œArthur! Your fair fellowship. Gone with the four winds. Is there no knight worthy to see the Holy Grail?”
    I knew who it was the moment I heard him. King Pellam, Guardian of the Holy Grail, who was wounded by Sir Balin, pierced with the same lance that pierced Jesus through the ribs.
    â€œNot one knight of the Round Table?” the voice demands, sorrowful and angry. “Can no man ride from here to Corbenic through this wailing world, and redeem the sin of Judas? Can no one ask the right question?”
    King Arthur clenches both his fists. “What question?” he growls.
    â€œThe words that will heal me and save me from this agony,” the voice replies. “The words that will heal the suffering wasteland, and allow it to grow green again.”
    Then King Pellam fell silent; my stone went blind.
    I waited. I wrapped both hands around it. I stared so deeply into it that nothing else in the world existed.
    The wasteland…All at once, I thought of Haket, Lord Stephen’s priest. He told me all Christendom is a wasteland, a wilderness of the spirit. He said people are taking the law into their own hands and behaving not as Christians but animals.
    â€œUntil we’re Christian not only in word but in deed,” he said, “how can we ever enter Jerusalem?”
    But how can humans be perfect? We can’t, however hard we try. So it can’t be only through our own efforts that we will reach the Holy City, but also through God’s grace, because He wants us to chase all the Saracens out.

9
NOTHING IS EASY
    D O YOU REALLY THINK I WANT TO BE COOPED UP IN this stuffy tent, teaching you the ten categories?” I demanded. “I could be galloping Bonamy, or collecting clams, or oiling my armor and talking to Turold. I have to brush Lord Stephen’s clothes. I could be writing.”
    â€œI’m not stopping you,” said Bertie.
    I shook my head. “You know perfectly well what Milon and Lord Stephen have told us. Four classes each week. Two for my French. Two for your learning.”
    â€œWhat’s the point? Milon doesn’t know about quantities and qualities and all that.”
    â€œThe more you learn, the more you understand. I like learning French. I like the sound of it. One moment throaty, the next like bright birdsong.”
    â€œYou can’t learn prowess,” Bertie said, bright-eyed. “Let’s go outside.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “You won’t work outside.”
    Bertie grinned. He’s got a gap between his two upper teeth. “I don’t need to understand how you say something to know what it means,” he said.
    â€œWhich category stands on its own?” I asked.
    â€œThe substance,” said Bertie, screwing up his face as if he’d tasted something awful.
    â€œTell me a substance.”
    â€œA sword.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œI don’t know. A horse. A finger.”
    â€œGood,” I said. “What about two?”
    â€œTwo what?”
    â€œTwo fingers.”
    Bertie looked at me as if I were trying to trick him. “That’s a substance and a quantity,” he said cautiously.
    â€œAt last!” I exclaimed. “So what are the other categories? All the ones that can never exist on their own but must always belong to a substance.”
    â€œI can’t remember,” said Bertie. “This is so boring!”
    â€œThen let’s get it over with. Come on! Times.