PERCEVAL AT THE GRAIL CASTLE

By Mark Adderley

     The girl rode swiftly away at once.  Perceval called after her, but she would not return.
     What was it she had said?  She had been very beautiful--Perceval had an eye for such things.  Not that he would think for one moment of betraying Blancheflor; that was as far from his heart as Constantinople was from . . . some place that was a long way away from Constantinople.  In all truth, Perceval didn’t know where Constantinople was, though he had heard people talking of it.  He reckoned it must be very far away.  He didn’t know much about geography.  His upbringing in the forest, separated from all the advantages of a courtly education, had not allowed for such refinements.
     He had met huntsmen, pursuing a boar.  Ah, but before that--yes, he had been riding along a road that went through a forest.  He had come to a crossroads.  At the point where the roads met, someone had erected a stone cross, and Perceval had dismounted to pray, as his mother had taught him.  Then he had noticed that there was a wooden hand nailed to the centre of the cross.  It pointed down the middle road.  Perceval had ridden down the middle road, and had heard the hunting horn.  Now that he thought about it, it was strange, that someone should nail a wooden hand to a cross.
     He had met huntsmen, pursuing a boar.  They had paused in their sport to tell him that they were from the Fisher King’s castle.  That had grabbed Perceval’s attention.  He had been searching for the Fisher King’s castle for many years--fifteen years, in fact, though he couldn’t remember much of the middle bit.  The beginning was clear, and the last two or three years, but the middle was kind of hazy.  But all that time, he knew, he’d been searching for the Fisher King’s castle, ever since he had first seen the lance that bled from its tip, and the Grail . . . whatever a grail was.  A dish of some kind, he thought, but it also seemed to mean gradually, or by stages.  Why would that be?  Perceval pressed his knuckles into his eyes.  It was all so difficult to sort out.
     So, these huntsmen had said they were from the Fisher King’s castle, and Perceval had been there before, and wanted to get back, so he could ask the question.
     Ask the question.  Not answer it.  The whole point of his quest was to ask a question.  That was very frustrating.  He had spoken to Gawain, and to Yvain, and to Lancelot, and they had been on many, many quests.  They had had to answer all sorts of questions.  He had only been on one quest--a very long one, admittedly, but really only one--and he had had to ask a question.  It hardly seemed fair, and it was not really surprising that he had failed to do so.  Who would have thought of that?
     The huntsmen had directed him over a hill.  And as he had crested it, he had seen riding towards him a girl of fine, pure beauty, wearing a wimple but no mantle.  Perceval had noted that: her shift had clung to her body, the wind had tugged it gently against the smooth outline of her breast . . .
     No more of that, now.  There was only one girl for Perceval, and that was Blancheflor.
     Whom he hadn’t seen in five years.  The Grail quest absorbed one’s attention so!
     So this girl rode up to him at an easy pace, and he had greeted her in the name of God, ever truthful.  He had been told to do such by his mother, though once, he had forgotten to go to Mass for five years straight.  He still wasn’t sure exactly who God was, or why being truthful was particularly special, since he had never really considered the alternative.  Once, when he had beheld that ugly Grail Maiden at Caerleon, he had thought of saying, “Madam, of a certainty, thou art an offence to mine eyes; get thee gone.”  It would have been truthful, but Gawain had stopped him, and explained to him that it was not enough to speak the truth.  To speak it at the right moment was also vitally important.
     Perhaps that was the point of the question.  That was worth thinking about . . . if he thought about anything.  Thinking was usually too much effort.
     So, the girl had greeted him in return.  She was richly dressed in samite of a deep purple colour, almost black, with silver flowers over it.  She had asked him where he had spent the previous night, and he had said, “Truly, friend, I spent the night in the forest.  And I have seen things that have perplexed me sorely ever since.  I saw a tree, with a child in it, and I asked where I could find the Grail, but he berated me as a sinner and told me I’d never find it.  And then he started climbing through the branches, and just vanished.  And I saw another tree with a thousand candles in it, only they went out before I could get to it.  And there was a chapel, and a slain knight inside, and a candle.  And when I went inside, a great, hairy black hand reached in through a window and snuffed the candle out.  I have had an alarming time, I can tell you.”
     “Truly,” answered the girl, “these things have all a meaning.  The world is a book, wherein you may read great wonders, and as all things in a book have a meaning, so do all things in the world.  May He who ensures the happy ending of all stories bring you to the castle of the Fisher King, where he can tell you what they mean.  There, you will learn the truth of the lance that bleeds and the Holy Grail.”
     “Holy Grail?”
     “Yes, Holy Grail.”
     “How long has it been holy?”
     “As long as I have been part of its story.”
     “In truth, lady, I’ve been seeking it for fifteen years, and have never set eyes on you till now--believe me, I would have remembered one of such beauty.”
     “When was the last time you saw the Holy Grail?”
     “The Grail?  Why, fifteen years ago.”
     The girl nodded.  “Things have changed since then,” she said.  “May the Author of All grant you clarity of vision!”
     And she rode swiftly away at once.  Perceval called after her, but she would not return.

* * *

     It wasn’t even as if he had chosen this quest.  Gareth had chosen his, Gawain’s little brother.  Nobody had known who Gareth had been when he first arrived, and he had worked as a scullion in the kitchens for a year, incognito.  Actually, Gawain had known all about it, and Lancelot too, but they had said nothing about it.  They thought Gareth must have had something to prove by it.  A girl had turned up at Camelot, and explained how her sister had been besieged by the Red Knight of the Red Lands.  Gareth had asked the king for the quest, and since Arthur had given his word ahead of time (and they said Perceval was a fool!) he could not say no.  The girl had been severely put out to have a scullion boy take up her quest, but nobody had had any choice, except Gareth, who had chosen his quest.  But Perceval had not chosen his quest.
     He had just been riding along, minding his own business, through a land that was kind of empty--no trees or grass, and no people--when a castle had suddenly appeared before him.  At least, he hadn’t noticed it before.  Kay said it had always been there, but hidden by a turn in the valley or something of that sort.  But Perceval didn’t believe Kay, because he didn’t like Kay.  There was a long standing feud between them regarding a laughing maiden, a dwarf, and a suit of red armour.  He didn’t want to think about it now.
     Anyway, he had been riding through this waste land, thinking about various things like the shadow under a red rock, and his shadow in the evening and his shadow in the morning, when this castle had appeared before him.  It was the Fisher King who had directed his attention to it.  There he was, on his little boat in the middle of a river, and he pointed and said, “Go down that way, and you can stay the night at my castle.”  Perceval had seen no place to stay, but then, after he had ridden a short distance, there it was: the Fisher King’s castle.
     In he had gone, and boys had taken his horse, and given him comfortable clothes to wear, and he had sat down with the Fisher King and eaten a fine meal.  A very fine meal indeed.  The Fisher King, it turned out, was lame.  That was why he went fishing--it was all he could do to amuse himself.  No more riding to hunt, no more fighting mighty battles.  And while they were talking of one thing and another, a boy came into the hall holding a spear.  The spear had a drop of blood running down from its point, right down to the boy’s hand.  He was followed by two other boys bearing candlesticks, then by a girl, of surpassing beauty, with hair like gold, and eyes like sapphires, and a lithe and comely body that . . .
     Now then, now then, thought Perceval.  Remember Blancheflor: skin as fair as snow, lips as red as blood.
     The maiden was bearing a grail.  The Grail.  All of them marched out of the hall through a door at the far end.
     Now, Perceval had burned with questions: what was the origin of the spear that bled?  Was it the talisman of some pagan god, destined to slay thousands of enemies of good, or was it the spear of Longinus, that had pierced the side of Christ at the Crucifixion?  What was it doing here?  What was the purpose of the Grail?  Whom did it serve?  What was a grail anyway?  And why the candlesticks?  But his mother had told him that polite young gentlemen did not ask too many inquisitive questions, and so he had held his peace.  They had all gone to their rest, and when Perceval awoke the next morning, everyone in the castle had vanished.  His armour and horse were ready for him, but he had had to arm himself.  He had led the horse about everywhere, looking for anyone who could answer his questions, but the place was completely deserted.  He had decided to leave.  Then, when he was just crossing the drawbridge, it began to rise before him.  He had spurred his horse, taken a leap, and landed with a thump on the bank.  Angrily, he yelled at whoever had raised the drawbridge--that could have been dangerous.  But there was no reply.
     Soon after that, he had met his cousin.  Or was it his sister?  He had never met her before, anyway.  She knew his name, though, so she must have been telling the truth.  It was all his fault, she said.  He could have healed the Fisher King, he could have brought back leaf and flower to the waste land, if only he’d asked the questions that had been on his mind.
     Asked the questions.  Not fair at all.
     She also mentioned something about his mother.  She had been grieving when he left home, he knew, but this cousin or sister of his said that his thoughtlessness had caused her to die of grief.  That was a hard blow.  Perceval had been torn: go home and try to set things right, or try to find the Grail again?
     After that, he’d sort of forgotten to go to Mass for five years, and was finally reminded of it by some knights and ladies who wondered why he was riding about in full armour on Good Friday.  They’d advised him to visit a nearby hermit, who turned out to be his uncle.  No shit.  Small world.  His uncle told him that was why he hadn’t been able to find the castle of the Fisher King: because he hadn’t gone to Mass in so long.  So, Perceval went to Mass, and had expected to find the Grail soon after.
     That had been ten years ago.  And in the meantime he’d had an extraordinary set of adventures.  He had fought the Lord of the Horn, visited Blancheflor again, returned home and listened to another sermon from his uncle.  He had met a girl in the forest (she had a nice butt, he remembered) who had lent him a white mule.  The mule, she said, would lead him to the castle of the Fisher King.  But it didn’t.  He had met a knight called Briol, who told him about a tournament, and he’d gone to the tournament, and he’d carried away the prize.
     There had been a very beautiful young lady at the tournament, too.  But he had thought of Blancheflor, and had fought his best, and he had won.
     Then he had heard about a magical pillar on top of Mount Dolorous.  Only the best knight in the world could tie his horse to it.  He set out in search for it.  Well, he couldn’t turn down a challenge like that, could he?  He reasoned that only the best knight in the world could find the Grail, so this was a sort of pre-test.
     On the way to Mount Dolorous, he had met the girl with the nice butt again, who demanded her mule back.  He said he needed it to find the castle of the Fisher King, but she said something about the mule not being any good if the rider didn’t keep his mind on the job.  Perceval had not understood that, but he understood enough to know that one shouldn’t argue with mule-owning maidens one met in the forest.  He had given her the mule back.
     Mount Dolorous was difficult to find, of course, and he encountered many adventures on the way.  Those were the ones that were kind of vague.  But he found his way there at last, and he tethered his horse to it!  That was it--it meant he was the best knight in the world!
     So why had he not been able to find the Grail?
     That had been last week, and now he was on the verge of finding it again.
     And there it was before him: the castle of the Fisher King, just as he remembered it.

* * *

     When Perceval rode through the gate, boys stepped forward to take his horse, and maidens--very beautiful maidens indeed--led him away to bathe him and anoint him with oils and comb his hair.
     Think of Blancheflor, he thought, think of Blancheflor.
     The maidens dressed him in costly robes and led him to the hall, where the Fisher King was waiting for him.
     “Excuse my not rising to greet you, my dear Perceval, but as you will remember, I have been struck through the thighs by a spear,” said the Fisher King.  Perceval remembered he was crippled, of course; he didn’t need to be reminded; he wondered for whose benefit the Fisher King was saying such things.  “Where did you lodge last night?”
     Perceval told him about the tree with the child, and the tree with the candles in it, and the chapel and the black hand.  “And, sir,” he asked, “can you tell me the meaning of all these signs?”
     “Yes I can, I can indeed, my dear friend,” replied the Fisher King.  “But first, let us eat, and when we take our ease afterwards, I shall answer all your questions.”
     Aha! thought Perceval.  I know what he means!  And with a wink, he took his place at the table.
     No sooner had they begun eating than the door to the hall opened, and in came a girl, fairer than a flower in April.  Soft blue were her eyes, narrow her hips, plump and rounded her . . .
     Steady on, Perceval: think of Blancheflor, Lady of Beaurepaire, whom you last saw five years ago!
     The girl was holding the Holy Grail.
     Yes, it was holy now.  Perceval wondered why he had not noticed that before.
     Next came another beautiful girl, bearing a lance that dripped blood all the way from the tip to her hand.
     Perceval wondered what had happened to the boy who had been carrying it before.
     Ah--here he was.  Or perhaps it was a different boy.  Now that he thought about it, the boy would hardly be a boy any more.  That had been fifteen years ago.  Perceval stared at him.  He was carrying a broken sword.  They all disappeared through a door in the far end of the hall.
     “Eat, eat!” urged the Fisher King.
     “Sire,” replied Perceval, “I should very much like to know about the lance that bleeds and the Grail . . . the Holy Grail, that is.”
     “Yes,” said the Fisher King with a knowing look.  “I wager you would.”
     At that point, they all came back: the girl with the Grail (what a beauty! thought Perceval--almost as beautiful as . . . he had temporarily forgotten her name.  Blancheflor!  That was it!) and the girl with the lance, and the boy with the broken sword.
     The Fisher King beckoned to the group, and they all stood before the table.  His Majesty reached out and took the two halves of the sword and offered them to Perceval.
     “Can you mend this sword, my friend?” he asked.
     “Certainly not!” exploded Perceval.  “I am no blacksmith--I am a knight of King Arthur’s court.”
     “Sure you are,” answered the Fisher King.  And he winked.  “Try it, my dear friend.  And then I shall tell you all about the child in the tree, and the tree with the candles, and the knight in the chapel, and the black hand, and the lance that bleeds, and the Holy Grail.”
     Perceval took the two halves of the sword.  They fit very snugly together, but of course, without a forge, there was nothing that could be done.
     Perceval gasped.  The two halves had joined!  He held the sword up so that the light flashed along the blade.  Then, standing, he swung left and right with it, as if cutting down the foes of Christendom.
     “Well done, my friend!” cried the Fisher King.  “You have joined what none else could join!  Is it a perfect fit?”
     “Why, yes!” cried Perceval joyously.
     But the Fisher King looked closely at the blade.  “No, no, it won’t do.  It won’t do at all.”
     “What?”  Perceval lowered the sword and peered at the blade.  Halfway along, where the two parts had joined, was the tiniest notch.
     The Fisher King spread his hands.  He was looking accusingly at Perceval.  “Now I can tell you nothing!” he said.
     “But I was told that if I came here and asked the questions, I would be told everything!” protested Perceval.
     “Who told you that?”
     “My cousin,” replied Perceval, “or my sister.  I’m not sure which.”
     “When?”
     “Just after my first visit, fifteen years ago,” said Perceval.
     “Ah,” said the Fisher King, “things have changed since then.  There’s a new test, now--the test of the broken sword.”
     “I didn’t even know, all this time, I was looking for a broken sword,” muttered Perceval darkly.  “It isn’t fair.”
     “Fair!” retorted the Fisher King.  “Why should things be fair?”
     “I don’t know,” replied Perceval sullenly.  “But it’s an awfully long time to be looking for the Grail, or the Holy Grail, or whatever it is.  Fifteen years.  And now there’s something else I’ve got to do.  Another fifteen years, perhaps?”
     “Well, it hasn’t been so wonderful for me either,” replied the Fisher King.  “I’ve had to sit here eating fish, and I can’t even piss straight, my thighs hurt so much.  To be honest, I’m a bit annoyed you couldn’t do any better with the sword.”
     “Well, just who do you think you are anyway,” demanded Perceval, “coming up with a new test like that, out of the blue?”
     “Who do I think I am?” raged the Fisher King.  He stabbed a stubby forefinger out at Perceval.  “And who do you think you are, eh?”
     “Who am I?” said Perceval.  “I am Sir Perceval of Wales, Knight of the Round Table!”
     “Pshaw!” replied the Fisher King, with admirable good sense.  “There’s no such thing.”
     “I assure you, good sir,” said Perceval, with some irony now, “there is.  I have been there.  I have sat at it.  I have eaten chicken and roast beef at it--the best I have ever eaten.  I have beheld Guinevere, the fairest lady in the world--well, perhaps not quite as fair as Blancheflor, and the Grail Maiden here, or that maiden carrying the spear, or the lady I met on the hill just now who wore the very revealing indigo dress.”
     “Yes, yes, I know you think you’ve been there, Perceval.  But it still doesn’t exist, because you don’t exist.  You’re just a fictional character, Perceval.  We all are.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “What I mean,” said the Fisher King, “is that we’re all characters in a story, written by an author in a study somewhere in northern France.”
     “Oh!” exclaimed Perceval, suddenly understanding.  “You mean we are all God’s creatures--yes, the Bible was His second book, the world was His first!  Of course!”
     “No,” said the Fisher King flatly.  “I mean that we were all created by a clerk in France called Chrétien de Troyes.  You, me, this delightful young lady (who happens to be my daughter, though we won’t find that out for another ten thousand lines or so), all of us.”
     Perceval was dumbfounded.
     The Fisher King drew in a deep breath.  “At least,” he said, “Chrétien de Troyes started all this hullabaloo, some yars ago.  He died round about the time you were talking to your hermit uncle--the first time, that is.”
     Perceval decided to play along for the moment.  He cleared his throat and said, “So, er, somebody else finished it off?  Is that what you’re saying?”
     “Precisely.  Well, not precisely.  Precisely, four other people have finished off the story.  The first was a fellow called Raoul.  You won’t have found out much about him--he liked Gawain far more than you.  The chap who took over from Raoul was Eugène, and he’s been writing your adventures ever since leaving your hermit uncle.  But he’s dead too, poor fellow, and now there’s a new chap, Gerbert, who’s terribly interested in this broken sword, you see.”
     “So, every time I come back here, I’m going to have to do something different, depending on the whim of whoever’s writing my story today?”  Perceval felt strangely as if he were suddenly sober, after a night of serious carousing.
     The Fisher King nodded.  “I’m sorry that this sounds all so strange to you, Perceval.  After all, I don’t have to do much but sit here and be maimed all the time.  You’re the one riding off on quest, after dragons and giants and demons and so forth.  Sorry.”
     “Who is he writing the story for?  I mean, who enjoys all this stuff?”
     “Well, quite a lot of people at the moment,” replied the Fisher King.  “It’s the beginning of the thirteenth century, and Grail stories are all the rage.  There’s a fellow in Germany called Wolfram who’s writing quite a masterpiece, and a whole monastery full of Cistercian monks are collaborating over a very long version of . . . ”
     “Will I have to be in any of those?”
     The Fisher King shrugged.  “I hear they’ve invented a new hero, a chap called Galahad.  He’s the son of Lancelot.”
     “Oh,” said Perceval, “good for Lancelot.  That must be nice for him.  So Guinevere isn’t barren?”
     “Well, she is, as a matter of fact--Galahad’s mother is a girl called Elaine, who seduced Lancelot.”
     “Seduced Lancelot?”  Perceval frowned.  “Wait a minute, you mean these monks just invented this Galahad?  Aren’t I good enough for the Grail any more?”
     “Holy Grail,” corrected the Fisher King gently.  “Well, it’s a tricky sort of thing, Perceval, but this Galahad fellow is . . . how can one put it? . . . pure.  Doesn’t even think about the shape of women’s breasts, the largeness of their thighs, and so forth.  And he never kills anyone.”
     “Not even if they attack him?”
     The Fisher King spread his hands.  “Well, not unless they’re demons, of course, but they don’t really count.”
     “So if I want to find the Grail, I’ve got to convince this fellow who’s writing the story . . . ”
     “Gerbert.”
     “Yes, Gerbert.  Are you sure of that?  Are you sure it isn’t Herbert?”
     “No, it’s Gerbert, all right.  He’s from Montreuil.”
     “I don’t care where he’s from.  It’s a very strange name he’s got.  I’ve got to convince him that I’m holier than this Galahad if I’m to have a chance at getting the Grail?”
     The Fisher King smiled apologetically.  “I don’t know how you’re going to do it,” he said.
     “There must be a way,” said Perceval.  “I’ve heard minstrels say how, sometimes, when they’re composing stories, the characters just take over, assume lives of their own.  Haven’t you heard that?”
     “Well, technically, all I’ve heard is what Chrétien and Raoul and Eugène have wanted me to hear.”
     “Look if they wrote it, they think it’s true, right?”  The Fisher King conceded the point with a nod.  “Well, then I’ve got to have the force of personality to take over like that.”
     There was silence for a moment.  Then, the Fisher King said, “Frankly, my dear friend, I don’t see how you can do it.  I don’t wish to be offensive, but I’m afraid the way Chrétien wrote you was as . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it . . . well, as a moron.  I’m afraid you’ve been dealt a pretty bad hand.”
     “I don’t know what you mean, we don’t play cards in King Arthur’s Britain.”
     “Sorry.”
     “Well, I think I can do it.  I don’t have to be as stupid as I’m written.”
     “Then all I can say is, good luck, old chap,” said the Fisher King.
     But Perceval was still fuming.  “I’m going to wake up on a barren hillside, aren’t I?  I mean, that’s what happened to Gawain twice, and this . . . ”
     “Gerbert.”
     “ . . . hasn’t the imagination to do anything different.”  He ran his fingers through his hair.  “I have to be holier than Galahad, do I?”  He looked at the Grail Maiden.  She smiled apologetically.  He wondered for a moment if he could convince Gerbert to write her with larger breasts.  Or bare breasts.  No!  No!  That’s the problem! he cried inwardly.  I have to stop playing ball.  I have to stop doing what’s expected.  Blancheflor.  That’s it--I’ll get married, but I won’t do anything with her.  I won’t screw her at all.  Then those Cistercians will have no choice but to write me into their story about the Grail.
     “Have you decided what you’re going to do?” asked the Fisher King.
     “I’m going back to Beaurepaire.”
     “Good chap.  That’s what I was going to suggest.  After all, you promised that lovely girl twenty thousand lines ago that you’d marry her.  You don’t want to turn her into a spinster, do you?”
     “If I know these writers,” said Perceval, “she’ll still be twenty years old and gorgeous when I go back to her.  But, yet, you’ve got a point.  I’ll go and marry Blancheflor.”
     “Good for you.”

* * *

     They went to bed shortly after that.  Perceval flirted with the idea of trying to communicate with Gerbert, to get him to make the Grail Maiden come naked to his bed that night.  He was still angry over the whole business.  But then he realized that he was only thinking that because he’d been written that way.
     How much freedom do I actually have to act? he wondered, as the author of the story caused the stars to wheel past outside his window.
     The following morning, Perceval woke up on a barren hillside, with his armour in a neat pile beside him and his horse cropping the grass five yards away.  He got to his feet and looked around.
     “Exactly what you’d expect from someone with a name like Gerbert,” he said, rather more loudly than was necessary.
     He armed himself, mounted, and rode off the way he had come.  It was not long before he came back to the crossroads.
     He looked up at the cross for a long time.  The hand was still pointing down the middle road.  Perceval contemplated it for a long time, then dismounted.  He climbed up the steps that led up to the cross, and pulled at the hand.  It was firmly fixed, but came off in the end.  He looked at it a moment, and then hurled it into the forest.
     A cheap trick, he thought to himself.  Very much a deus ex machina sort of thing to do.  Well, things are going to be different from now on.
     And Perceval rode off towards Beaurepaire.